Emergencies declared across Midwest amid ‘historic’ flooding, via @markberman https://t.co/D0JH3A2jlb
— Capital Weather Gang (@capitalweather) March 16, 2019
And if anyone has more concrete suggestions about helping, please leave a comment!
Commentor Jay Noble, last night:
Haven’t seen it mentioned here but Nebraska took a beating from Mother Nature this week. From Central NE to the Missouri river has become an archipelago due to failed dams, levees and washed out bridges and roads. Over 60,000 people evacuated, 53 of 93 counties declared disaster areas, 2 fatalities so far. Right now, many are venting that MSM is ignoring them because “fly over country” and “Trump deplorables”.
This does need a some more coverage because it’s all headed down stream both literally and figuratively. Literally all that stuff – inculding at least one fair-sized sewage treatment plant – will go into the Missouri River and thus into the Mississippi. If the Keystone Pipeline had been built . . . Figuratively, it will be hitting pocket books at the supermarket. Most of that area is corn and soybeans. While planting season is still a little ways off, whole farms worth of tractors and trucks and tools got swept away. And this is calving season with calves at theirs most vunerable…
Pretty surreal flying into Omaha. Highways fully submerged. pic.twitter.com/UPUY9fHyXN
— Christopher Heady (@heady_chris) March 16, 2019
Sadly, Nebraska’s better know Senator doesn’t look like he’s gonna be much use to them:
when one’s house *is* an island… pic.twitter.com/XnWIkt2E8u
— Ben Sasse (@BenSasse) March 16, 2019
Beautiful! This photo looks like what a single, honorable man looks like when he holds true to his principles about executive overreach and adheres to the separation of powers in the U.S. Constitution.
You should remove it from your feed, @BenSasse. It doesn't become you.— Eric Owens (@ericowensdc) March 16, 2019
How can you guys manage to pay for flood insurance living on a flood plain? What insurance company would write you a policy?
Oh. Right. All us tax payers who live on high ground, we pay for it..
Remind me, who are the “socialists” again?
— Christopher Anderson (@cander509) March 16, 2019
Comrade Ben,
Imagine for a moment what $5.7 billion dollars could do for flood protection along the Missouri/Mississippi watersheds. I am sure some of your voting constituents will over the next few weeks.— MaterialMattersLLC (@MM2LLC) March 16, 2019
Senator Sasse, Wikipedia says you’re a Presbyterian, raised in the Lutheran church. There’s a well-known story from your Christian Bible expositing that your God uses catastrophic flooding to indicate His displeasure with His misbehaving believers. Perhaps you should contemplate that story, and the possibility that God is giving you an ‘out’ with your anti-environmental constituents sending you a message?
Kathleen
Holy crap! I was born in Omaha, my mother and grandmother were from Fremont. My dad started his radio career there when he was 14 and graduated from Creighton after a stint with the Army. This literally hits home.
ETA: Oh, and good morning everyone. My synapses are not firing too well these days.
Major Major Major Major
Yikes. I don’t think I have any family left there, which is fortunate (for us), but yikes! Sasse can go fuck himself, apropos of nothing.
JPL
As soon as trump finishes his morning round of spewing hate on twitter, he’ll issue a statement about Nebraska.
Kathleen
@Major Major Major Major: That goes without saying. Childhood memories include my father flinging the Omaha World Herald across the living room because of its staunch Republican coverage/editorials. He was the only Democrat on the radio station staff, so of course he was tapped to interview then Vice President Richard Nixon.
Tenar Arha
It’s really hard at times not to react really badly to the transparent bad faith of men such as Ben Sasse.
Baud
People can tweet back at Sasse all they want. Nebraska’s entire Congressional delegation is Republican and that’s unlikely to change.
Vhh
Climate is a bitch. Not a lot of sympathy for people who think that nature can be fooled. Wonder if Trump will blame Nebrask like he blamed California for the fires
dnfree
Speaking of socialism in Nebraska:
https://dnr.nebraska.gov/floodplain/faqs
mvr
@Baud: Actually it changed for a bit four and a bit years ago in Omaha. And it could again in the Omaha House district in 2020, depending on how much further things swing against Trump.
OzarkHillbilly
God doesn’t care. He created the world in 6 days and on the 7th he said, “It’s your problem now.”
For more than a few, planting season will be years off. Don’t know exactly how serious the flooding is but the flood of ’93 took a long long time to recover from and some farms never did. Flood insurance for the most productive farming land in the country and those who need to live there makes sense. For towns and villages situated in flood plains because “history”, not so much.
Flooding is a problem in need of a comprehensive solution. “Build a higher levee.” is not a comprehensive solution. Especially in a time when *500 year* floods seem to be happening every 2 or 3 years.
**the 500/250/100 year floods nomenclature is really bad as we have drastically changed how water flows over the land, not to mention climate change.
Starfish
During the government shutdown, some Democratic organizations in our community were sending supplies to Pine Ridge reservation in South Dakota. Now that same community is getting hit again by this storm.
dr. bloor
Sadly, he is all too likely to fall back on some dumbass biblical explanation and explain it all as some divine retribution for offending the Original Framers. His constituents will stick with him until they figuratively drown in their own righteous ignorance and literally drown in an event brought on by New Climate.
donnah
I have good friends in Omaha and Valley, and I know this is devastating. Melting snow and heavy rains have made this flooding out of control. I especially feel for friends who have livestock as they try to get them to safety.
I’m hoping for relief and better weather for this important part of the country.
Major Major Major Major
@Vhh:
Ok, but what about the other 40% of the state, asshole?
Neldob
I guess it’s too late for infrastructure week. I feel badly for them. Terrifying all that destruction.
WaterGirl
@JPL: Well, it’s a red state, so there’s a chance he will actually give a shit.
Matt McIrvin
@Baud: The Nebraska 2nd (Omaha) is a swing district. Subject to gerrymandering, of course, but it’s not a foregone Republican seat.
SFAW
I vaguely recall Falwell (or junior?) or Robertson or perhaps another of those psycho grifters talking about how Hurricane X was a sign of God’s wrath about treating gays as if they’re actually human.
I kind of doubt they’d make the same claim regarding the Only Real Americans.
And screw Ben “Talks the Talk, Then Walks … Away” Sasse.
ETA: That being said: no one should have to suffer from that devastation. Hoping for quick recovery for them all.
marklar
True sympathy for the people who haven’t contributed to current federal policies, and are simply trying to make ends meet by providing us with our food. Thoughts and Prayers (but not a single cent) to all those farmers who voted for Trump.
As for the cause, God said that she wouldn’t send another flood….Saturday Night Live must have really pissed her off.
mvr
Oddly enough, it is the snow followed by rain and then better weather that caused all of this. It will be sunny and in the 50s today. But we got a bunch of late snow over the past couple of weeks, and when things warmed up on Wednesday it all started to melt off the fields and yards and places where plowed snow was piled. But many rivers and streams retained a bunch of ice and that made it harder for the resulting water to run off.
It isn’t in fact just in the ordinary flood plains that there is flooding. This is also about what (what I hope will continue to be) an unusual weather pattern. There are entire cities surrounded by water and highways and I suspect that hasn’t happened in a long long time. Bridges that have been there long enough to be “historic” are now washed away. At the same time, many places such as Lincoln, where I live, are pretty well untouched. Salt Creek got a surge but is now running pretty normally again. I live in the highest part of town and am foolish enough to pay for flood insurance but I don’t expect ever to need it.
tobie
I don’t mean to be obtuse but I have no idea what point Sasse is trying to make in his stupid tweet. Why the quotes around “is”? One thing is clear–he’s a heartless bastard who doesn’t seem to care one bit that his constituents are suffering.
WaterGirl
It looks like today could be another slow day on BJ, so in case anyone is interested in learning more about Pete Buttigieg:
Stephen Colbert (7 minutes)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u7SHQSGesyM
Axios Interview: 2020 Vision (15 minutes)
https://www.axios.com/podcast-pete-buttigieg-1552364264-1465dd8a-6116-453d-80f6-1d5fcea42918.html?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=organic
CNN Town Hall (48 minutes)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1994&v=LKTlVH2EKIg
Pod Save America Interview (1 hour)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gsrjkQt60vI
Stay Tuned with Preet (1 hour, starts at 14:00)
https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/wnyc/stay-tuned-with-preet/e/59269733
WaterGirl
Two more: (only 5 links allowed in a single comment)
C-SPAN: Meeting Iowa Voters (1 hour + shaking hands with voters afterwards)
https://www.c-span.org/video/?457645-1/south-bend-mayor-pete-buttigieg-meets-iowa-voters
Author Interview: Shortest Way Home (1 hour)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nldx3r7h3Cg
Plato
Sasse being as useless as ever.
dr. bloor
@mvr:
Stay safe, and don’t let the policy lapse.
StringOnAStick
Rising sea levels gets a lot of press (not enough though) but disasters like this are what might finally get some attention by ordinary citizens, especially R ones.
Back when I had a newly minted MS in hydrogeology I worked for an engineering firm that produced those FEMA flood maps based on computer simulations and tons of detailed surveying data. One of the senior engineers told me that these need constant review and adjustment due to land surface changes, New construction, etc. I mentioned climate change and he let out a long, nearly defeated sigh. Then all the funding to do these studies dried up and the company went out of business. The reality is that this is another area of government sponsored science that has been starved of funds for at least 30 years now.
JMG
One of the unhappiest trends in our society is the tendency of folks to believe their important news story is being ignored by the media simply because it doesn’t lead the news. I know about these floods and I live in Massachusetts, so somebody told me about them.
Kathleen
@mvr: I’ve read where Omaha has morphed into a pretty cool city. I’ve not been there in over 30 years.
WaterGirl
If anyone has good links for their preferred candidates, I am willing to be a collector of links as a resource for BJ.
OzarkHillbilly
@donnah: As somebody pointed out in another article: “Just wait until April.”
WaterGirl
@Kathleen: I was there once overnight in 1972.
debbie
@JMG:
Agreed. Also, I remember hearing plenty about them back when I was living in NYC in the 90s.
OzarkHillbilly
@mvr: A friend of mine lived on a hill above the Des Peres river in south STL during the flood of 93. It jumped it’s banks big time and he was 40+ feet above the water but it was still classified as flood plane and he had to carry it for the loan,
debbie
@mvr:
Just heard it will take 10 days for all of the water to recede. I hope for the best, but can’t believe anyplace anywhere can get 10 straight days of good weather.
germy
@WaterGirl:
Thank you for these links.
debbie
@WaterGirl:
He’s too busy Pimping for Pirro, thank you very much.
Mai Naem mobile
Sasse was one of the ones who didnt want to send money to Puerto Rico because it wasn’t an emergency and it would add to the federal debt. Hope hes consistent about that with Nebraska. Also a big FU to Gov Ricketts and his whole asshole racist family.
danielx
For a bit of good news, especially for any (well, some anyway) jackals with cardiac issues:
Tens of Thousands of Heart Patients May Not Need Open-Heart Surgery
Doctor quoted above is a high school classmate of mine (yay for Jesuit education!). Off the scale smart – wicked smaht as they say in Bahston, full professor at Harvard Medical School. (Sidebar: one of the privileges of that period of my life was getting to associate with a lot of truly smart guys – another is a full professor at MIT, this out of a graduating class of 98.) This is very cool, but Br’er Popma has just made himself REALLY unpopular with a lot of cardiac surgeons. Not that this bothers me, in my experience all surgeons are sociopathic in varying degree.
WaterGirl
@debbie: I have no idea what you are referring to.
tobie
@JMG: @debbie: It’s the new grievance culture and more specifically white grievance culture. Sarah Palin and Donald Trump indulge in it all the time. Rural whites are convinced that they’re the salt of the earth and built this country but get no credit for it. Nietzsche would have a field day with this mindset. It’s the perfect illustration of his theory of ressentiment.
donnah
@OzarkHillbilly:
Yep. I live in SW Ohio and we’re the tail end of Tornado Alley. Serious weather events will continue as we head into spring and the midwest and midAtlantic states will undoubtedly feel it.
Starfish
@JMG: I think that is the point though. On the coast, you have healthy newspapers that would cover local weather as a front-page event. Here in Landlockia, we have papers being eaten by venture capitalists. The stories, like Sasse’s photo, are views from airplanes with no on-the-ground reporting. Where are all those reporters who were doing stories about every single Trump voter in the Midwest now? Are the accounts you are seeing personal?
On Facebook, we are seeing videos of ranchers digging their cows out of feet of snow.
germy
@WaterGirl:
StringOnAStick
@JMG: Yep. Colorado got huge amounts of media coverage for avalanches from that same storm, probably because someone took some cell phone video of one reaching I-70 and engulfing the cars ahead of him. Then an avalanche on a previously not recognized path shoved 3 cars around, so lots of scary video of that too. One major scenic highway isn’t likely to be passable again for months, but no video so not nearly as much attention paid. The prior two examples have the “benefit” of being in the ” OMG, that could happen to me while I’m driving! ” category, while the flooding in Nebraska isn’t as relatable or verging on horror movie exciting so less media interest. Our media truly sucks when the importance attached to the story depends on how exciting the available video is.
Major Major Major Major
@tobie: plenty of folks of all stripes will tell you the media’s ignoring their pet story (plus a corresponding theory of bias), even when it’s on the top screen of the New York Times website.
tobie
@Starfish: I’m really sorry about what people in Nebraska are going through and having your home and livelihood washed away in a flood is beyond horrible. I didn’t mean to disparage anyone in particular in my previous comment. There are people with a big bully pulpit who could be calling attention to what’s happening in Nebraska. The President and Vice President come to mind. The media would follow them if they went. And Sasse generated tons of attention nationwide with his mendacious crap that Democrats support killing babies who survive abortion. Maybe he could use some of his rightwing star power to highlight real rather than imaginary loss?
Starfish
@StringOnAStick: Weren’t a number of those avalanches before this storm hit?
Baud
@germy: That’s some stupid fake Spartacus shit right there.
Mike R
The only thing Ben Sasse cares about is Ben Sasse, as one of his constituents I have no use for the man. Hope Pete Ricketts runs against him in the primary and ousts him. Ricketts would suck maybe more, but maybe Sasse will just go away. Wonder if Chuck Todd thinks Ben is presidential material yet.
WaterGirl
@germy: Thank you! I had just posted the links to Pete Buttigieg videos and I thought the comment was in response to that — I had forgotten that I had posted about the dumpster possibly giving a shit about Nebraska so I didn’t even think to go back and see what that was in response to. thanks again
SiubhanDuinne
@WaterGirl:
Fox apparently suspended Jeannine Pirro and Trump is simply FURIOUS about it!
Baud
OT. I don’t usually recommend Daily Kos posts but this is great.
WaterGirl
@germy: You are very welcome! I find that I am preferring video/audio these days over written articles — I think it’s because so many journalists have their own ax to grind, and at this point I’m not interested in seeing any of the candidates through someone else’s eyes. With video, I find I can get a much better feel for who the candidate is and how they view the world.
germy
OzarkHillbilly
@SiubhanDuinne: FREE SPEECH! isn’t free on cable TV. Somebody has to pay for it. I guess FOX wants advertisers to pay for it, and if advertisers won’t, FOX sees no reason to.
Starfish
@tobie: This storm did not just come for Nebraska. It hit a number of states and is affecting other states on the rivers that are taking on all the water. Numerous people have died. In Colorado, a Trooper helping someone out was struck by someone else. In Iowa, someone got swept away by floodwaters. In Nebraska, someone died helping someone else stuck in flood waters. This storm hit Wisconsin and the Dakotas. People further down the Mississippi River in Mississippi and Louisiana are experiencing flooding.
It is hitting the ranchers at a bad time because it is calving season. The farmers further down the Mississippi river are saying that by the time they dry out, it will be too late to plant corn.
mvr
@Kathleen: It has its charm in spots and often good music. I don’t get around Omaha all that much except for specific events since I live in Lincoln. But I like the older buildings and many of the shops in the Old Market, as well as some other pockets of town.
I did go there to canvas the second district in 2008 and they sent me to the suburbs to do that – not as nice.
JPL
After his tweets this morning, trump decided to visit a church, or so says twitter.
WaterGirl
@SiubhanDuinne: Poor Trump, every day (apparently) wishing he could go full-out like Putin or Erdogan.
mvr
@OzarkHillbilly: Lincoln is pretty landlocked – a few creeks, one of which has caused me trouble where my storage locker is at but not this time. My house is near the very highest point, so that I worry more about tornadoes. I do have friends in other cities where the floods have been a problem, and a couple of conservation areas I’m worried about.
2liberal
Hurricane sandy nebraska rethug vote
Maybe point out this to the rethug whiners and tell them to go fuck themselves
tobie
@germy: His letter to the Muslim community in South Bend was a thing of beauty–heartfelt and profound. He and Beto have this capacity to define issues in ways that reach beyond policy minutiae to a broad statement of common values.
WaterGirl
@germy: Quote 1: that’s how I see him, too. Quote 2: Pete is a data guy, so I see him more as a nerd. Elizabeth Warren and Barack Obama felt more like teachers, which makes sense since they both were teachers. Though Barack does have his nerdy side, also.
mvr
@debbie: It will in many spots, I suppose, especially where levees failed. In other areas it will be quicker but the surge will continue downstream into Iowa and Missouri. A lot depends on where one is in the watershed, but it didn’t help that the soil was already pretty saturated (as well as frozen) from a snowy winter.
WaterGirl
@Starfish: It’s not just the coast that is screwed by climate change – we are starting to see this everywhere with floods and fires. Time is running out, and Republicans in congress and the administration are jerking off to tax cuts, packing the judiciary, hurting black and brown people, and putting children in cages, caring about little else. I truly hope they get what they deserve.
Baud
@germy:
Pete’s impressive, but you could give the same compliment to Cole’s dogs and not be wrong.
germy
@WaterGirl:
I agree with you there.
swiftfox
@Starfish: I saw that on Weather Channel, under the caption of “The Loving Side of Farming”. The number was left unspecified but if those bulls were high-end breeders, there could be tens of thousands of dollars at stake for each ranch. I’ll refer to the 1984 Tina Turner song for context. Also, Weather Channel has been on this all weekend, as would be expected. But they don’t count as MSM.
Raoul
I am sympathetic to the plight. We’re going to have our own flooding here in MN. And I’ve always enjoyed my drives along the Platte River on I-80 across Nebraska (will be making the drive again in less than a month).
But it is getting coverage. Not wall to wall, but we have the NZ massacre, the MAX debacle, and daily Tump derangement. I’m sorry it’s an endless heavy news day, Nebraskans. Maybe don’t elect a moron for President next time.
tobie
@WaterGirl: The Dem field is so big right now that it’s hard to compare what’s happening this year with anything that happened in the past but if I were to put Warren and Buttigieg next to each other the political pair that they come closest to is HRC and Obama in 2008. The differences between Warren/Buttigieg and HRC/Obama are roughy the same and boil down to prose vs poetry.
Steeplejack
@tobie:
Not quotation marks but asterisks, which are used for emphasis when italics aren’t available.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@SiubhanDuinne: She’s furious about everything.
Villago Delenda Est
Gosh, that global climate change/warming has a very nasty way of biting you on the ass, doesn’t it climate-denying dumbasses?
jimmiraybob
@OzarkHillbilly:
I was one of the sandbag volunteers for this one. This stretch of the river is not far from its confluence with the Mississippi and as the big river goes so goes the smaller tributaries. Flooding is inevitable and lot of people do and will continue to use the “it won’t happen to me” or “I’ll just let it happen and go from there” thinking and when it happens flooding becomes catastrophic and often tragic. And then there’s the thinking that because an area had a 50-year flood a few years ago then it’s safe for he next 40 or so years.
And, as a geologist echoing what a hydrogeologist said above, things are constantly changing so the need for constant evaluation and education is paramount. Unfortunately that does take funding and, unfortunately, the financial institutions, from insurance to lending, get entrenched in old think and old data too.
And there’s nothing more predictable that the occurrence of annual floods. The one rule of thumb that will always work is to assume that every year will be the big one and prepare for the worst. And then rain down unrelenting hell on government officials and politicians to get something done to alleviate the potential for disaster. Oh wait, there is one more soundly predictable thing, when the floods recede people will just get on with their lives and the few people that will be yelling about preparing for the future will be branded the dirty hippie socialists.
Villago Delenda Est
@Baud: My nym. Again and again. The MSM cannot be fixed without a cleansing fire.
Wipe them out, all of them.
Barbara
I hope everyone including any creature with four legs stays safe. I don’t qualify that sentiment however much I disagree with someone politically, but the idea that we should be especially or disproportionately worried about Nebraskans while they seem disinclined to be worried about themselves in the long run — no. This is what the future looks like and it is as much their responsibility to do something about it as it is mine to help them deal with the fallout.
Villago Delenda Est
@jimmiraybob:
But that will eat into the CEO’s bonus! We can’t have THAT.
Barbara
@jimmiraybob: Indeed, the flood plain maps for Houston were out of date almost as soon as they were published because of the extent of development in the area.
WaterGirl
@tobie: Interesting. I’m not sure I agree; I will have to ponder that. I was all Obama in 2007/2008, so if you’re right in what you have posited, it would be consistent that I would choose Buttigieg over Warren.
tobie
@Baud: Thanks for the link. It was another reminder of just how awful Ruth Marcus is. I seriously think something is wrong with Marcus. She hated Obama in 2008 and complained about sexism but then went on to attack HRC again and again in 2016. And I will never forgive her for devoting an entire column in the Washington Post to criticize a 16-year-old girl who had been rude to then Gov Brownback.
Baud
@WaterGirl: Perhaps you’re just drawn to dudes with non-traditional last names.
dnfree
@mvr: You are exactly right about unusual (even freakish) weather patterns in the midwest. We live in northern Illinois, and the creek and river we live near used to flood once every 4-5 years. Recently it is flooding 2-3 times a year. Last year we had a massive thunderstorm (rain) in February, on top of a lot of snow and frozen ground, and that caused flooding. This year we had, as you said, an excess of snow coming late, and then melting while the ground is still frozen. We get all the melting snow from north of us (Wisconsin) as well.
We don’t get much national attention paid to our weather disasters. It’s not affecting the east coast where most of the media are located.
schrodingers_cat
Fridge update, from the last thread:
I put some water in the freezer and it froze into ice. So the fridge seems to be working fine.
tobie
@WaterGirl: It’s just a thought experiment. Sometimes I find it helps to zoom out and look for parallels to our present circumstances and sometimes it helps to zoom in.
Betty Cracker
My aunt and uncle have a farm on the Platte in Nebraska (yes, Trumpsters). Uncle says the damage is severe and it’ll take at least a year to recover, probably longer.
@Baud: Excellent article. Thanks!
PPCLI
Since this is an open thread, I suppose it’s OK if I post this. Maybe this is familiar, but amazingly, I had never seen this before. Something to show first to anyone who wants to claim, against all evidence of course, that Trump doesn’t enthusiastically encourage violent hostility toward Muslims.
dnfree
@tobie: I live in northern Illinois (as I said), and we can have a snowstorm coming (and be seeing on TV about how it might affect the east coast), and then be sitting in the middle of it with the power out and still be hearing how it’s going to hit the east coast, and then be recovering from it and seeing how OMIGOD, it’s hit the east coast, look at all the reporters standing in the middle of it! I’m not saying no one hears about it at all, but it sure doesn’t get the focus that a weather event on the east coast gets unless it’s a true disaster, which Nebraska currently is.
WaterGirl
@Baud: That may be true, as long as we factor in that they also have be honorable, and way smarter than me, with a compelling message and a vision that inspires me. But then how do we explain that I also like Beto? And Harris? Their last names aren’t all that unusual. But my last name is!
jimmiraybob
@Barbara:
My recommendation, aside from taking intro geology courses, is to include at least one geologist or hydro engineer in the friends group. I can’t speak for all of them but the best can be had for beer and cheeseburgers…..maybe a good scotch from time to time.
When I was a teaching geology grad student i found a way to get almost everyone to care about flooding by asking them where they lived. Almost every student lived in areas that risked flooding or other water damage. It was an eye opener. I can only hope that they went on to be the community leaders that made a local difference. Or at least the dirty hippie socialists yelling loudly.
Amir Khalid
@JPL:
This is how I imagine Trump visiting a church: As the presidential limo pulls up, sunny skies suddenly darken. Lightning flashes, accompanied by ominous rolls of thunder. The earth shakes mightily. When the shaking stops, there is a huge split in the ground too wide for a man to step across. Trump is left frustrated and shaking his fist at the minister and congregants.
smintheus
@JMG: The people who complain about this are telling you that they are idiots. Zuckerberg’s machine is full of seven-year-old news reports posted by morons complaining that the media is not reporting the story.
Baud
@WaterGirl:
I’m sorry to lose your support.
JPL
@Amir Khalid: IMO Someone took his phone and promised to return it if he went to church. The poll numbers must be bad.
Suzanne
Good Lord. Are they being ignored by the mainstream media? There’s literally stories about it on the front page of NBC News, CNN, and WaPo. I just checked.
What to do with this baseless sense of grievance?
mvr
@dnfree: Grew up in Rockford which may be near where you are at. Snows there when I was a kid used to be deeper than they usually get here. And here it has gotten less snowy over the 27 years I’ve lived here, until this year anyway.
stinger
Water is POWERFUL. It may look like it’s just sitting there, in photos like Sasse’s, but that’s only the case along the edges of flooded areas. Most of that water is a hugely enlarged river, rushing along with greater speed and force than usual. When it finally recedes, it will leave behind wet soil, but also a ton of unexpected damage. Where the roadways and intersections are under water, huge chunks of concrete will have been ripped out of the road surface. Bridges that weren’t washed away will have uprooted trees slammed into their piers and abutments. Banks supporting elevated stretches of road will be undercut. Electric poles will have fallen. Submerged waste treatment systems will release raw waste into the river. These types of local, state, and federal tax-funded systems will need immediate repair, and that’s not even taking into consideration residential and commercial damage.
Luckily, it’s infrastructure week.
jimmiraybob
@Barbara:
In the era of costly map construction and paper reproduction I can almost see a point about expense. But in an era of near miraculous (secular use) computing- and information transmission-ability the weak link seems to be the constant republican-libertarian need to eliminate means to do anything people, agencies and funding. And I see the fundamentalist Christians and their politicians as lead characters in eliminating programs and education. It’s constantly an uphill battle and the hill is getting steeper all the time.
germy
@Amir Khalid: Your comment, illustrated:
tobie
@dnfree: I agree that the presence of major media on the east coast means that weather catastrophes on the east coast get a lot more coverage than they do in the midwest. The presence of the nation’s capital in DC and finance hub in NY and the relative compactness of the stretch between DC and Boston also make a difference. I don’t know how one could have sufficient media presence in regions where everything is so spread out. Someone in this thread mentioned that this is where local newspapers become super important and the decimation of small media outfits is really hurting us. I agree with that take.
pat
@germy:
He actually tweeted that? How much worse can he get?
Yutsano
@schrodingers_cat: Could just be a short in the wiring. Although after ten years a new fridge isn’t a bad idea.
And since open thread: I get out of hospital today around 1400 PDT.
Bill Arnold
@danielx:
Good to see. From the article (and your point):
(At least one larger study needed, and time will be needed to tell whether the TAVR valves will last, and money is involved either way, and etc.)
JPL
@swiftfox: The weather channel also does a good job explaining climate change. You would think that ranchers and farmers would be on the fore front of climate change because they have so much to lose. Unfortunately they are not.
WaterGirl
@Baud: Sorry, but you’re still on my list. :-)
Villago Delenda Est
@danielx: I give you Stephen Strange as a fictional example of an egomaniac surgeon.
Suzanne
@Yutsano:
Woohoo!
Don’t go get all party-riffic right away. Give it a day or two.
WaterGirl
@JPL: Okay, that made me laugh. I don’t know if you meant that seriously or not, but I certainly believe that could be true. “And if you’re good and quiet the whole time, you get ice cream afterwards.”
JPL
@germy: I wish that would happen.
Villago Delenda Est
@Suzanne: They’re MAGAt morons. Fuck them.
Villago Delenda Est
@Suzanne: But…but…it’s St. Patrick’s Day!
JPL
@Yutsano: Wow! That is good news.
WaterGirl
@Yutsano: Yippee!
I thought you had said that what you had was easily treated, but then I saw a comment this week that seemed to say the diagnosis and treatment were pretty ugly. I must have misunderstood you at some point because those two things appear to be completely contradictory. Hope it’s the former, but it sounds like it might be the latter?
JGabriel
Jay Noble via Anne Laurie @ Top:
Since climate change isn’t real, maybe they’re getting ignored because it’s clearly a leftist false flag operation to push a fake global warming / extreme weather agenda.
A Ghost To Most
I spent 3.5 years in Omaha while in USAF.
Fond memories. Get well quick.
Bill Arnold
@germy:
He’s a bit confused about advertiser-financed media. The pressure on FNN advertisers appears to be working.
(I don’t know what else would significantly blunt the malignant influence of Fox News opinionators. Death of R. Murdoch might shift direction a bit but could be worse, plus the SOB appears to be healthy. Somehow.)
Amir Khalid
@WaterGirl:
“Two scoops, if you’re really good.”
Villago Delenda Est
Pray for Missouri, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Mississippi, and Louisiana, too. They’re all going to get that surplus water over the coming weeks.
Suzanne
@Villago Delenda Est: For self-sufficient hard-working bootstrapping individuals who don’t take no handouts from anybody, they sure do whine a lot.
Maybe they expect participation trophies?
Kelly
John Mcfee’s (the New Yorker writer not the loony computer security guy) “The Control of Nature” includes a fascinating account of the Corp of Engineers efforts to make the Mississippi near New Orleans behave. Most rivers do not want to stay put.
Cermet
The one truism about human induced climate change is what we are most likely seeing right now – more water vapor due to higher average temperatures. Are any reporters pointing this likely possibility out and checking when the last “historic” flood occurred and whether this current one is 1) all that different compared to the last one and 2) occurring more frequently? If so, then AGW is very likely but that would take intelligence, something few reporting from the stupidly named heart land apparently posses.
As long as the elite own the carbon still in the ground, nothing will be done until people that are suffering decide to stop being stupid and use the internet to educate themselves outside of what their perceived “betters” want them to know.
Yutsano
@Suzanne: Probably the wildest thing I’m going to do when I get to my parents house is scratch/play with the dogs. Then I’m going to sleep until dinner. Gonna do a ton of outpatient therapy for the next two weeks then get back to work. And hope I can still pull off my vacation in mid May.
Brickley Paiste
@Vhh: Nah, Nebraska voted for Trump.
He’d going to attack the deep state Army Corps of Engineers or democrats or something.
Kelly
It’s a long ways down river but still seems apropos.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=91Eb3FiebTs
CaseyL
@Yutsano: Good to hear! How are you feeling?
ola azul
@Suzanne:
from Catch-22:
Major Major’s father was a sober God-fearing man whose idea of a good joke was to lie about his age. He was a longlimbed farmer, a God-fearing, freedom-loving, law-abiding rugged individualist who held that federal aid to anyone but farmers was creeping socialism. He advocated thrift and hard work and disapproved of loose women who turned him down. His specialty was alfalfa, and he made a good thing out of not growing any. The government paid him well for every bushel of alfalfa he did not grow. The more alfalfa he did not grow, the more money the government gave him, and he spent every penny he didn’t earn on new land to increase the amount of alfalfa he did not produce. Major Major’s father worked without rest at not growing alfalfa. On long winter evenings he remained indoors and did not mend harness, and he sprang out of bed at the crack of noon every day just to make certain that the chores would not be done. He invested in land wisely and soon was not growing more alfalfa than any other man in the county. Neighbors sought him out for advice on all subjects, for he had made much money and was therefore wise. “As ye sow, so shall ye reap,” he counseled one and all, and everyone said, “Amen.”
Major Major’s father was an outspoken champion of economy in government, provided it did not interfere with the sacred duty of government to pay farmers as much as they could get for all the alfalfa they produced that no one else wanted or for not producing any alfalfa at all. He was a proud and independent man who was opposed to unemployment insurance and never hesitated to whine, whimper, wheedle and extort for as much as he could get from whomever he could.
Citizen Alan
@Amir Khalid:
Nah, it would be an evangelical church, in which case he would walk in without incident to find that the church goers had torn down all the crosses and constructed a golden calf so they could have an orgy in his honor.
Ladyraxterinok
@Kathleen: My great grandparents moved with my grandmother as toddler to western NE from IA after the Civil War to take up a land grant there. They lived in a sod house and endured a locust invasion one year. They years later moved to Grand Island where Grandma ran a boarding house and met her 2nd husband, who was from Switzerland.
My ex’s great grandparents also settled in NE, moving from westernNY to Thayer Co NE.
Nothing like meeting a boy ‘from home’ while in grad school in CA!! (Born in NE, he grew up in Utah; I was born and grew up in OK)
john fremont
@Suzanne: And then around Memorial Day weekend just about every right winger’s Facebook feed will be filled with those “guilt trip” memes that if you enjoy your Memorial day off you have forgotten our military veterans. Self congratulation and resentment are some widespread traits with modern conservatives.
Suzanne
@john fremont: Those memes always annoy me. I come from a five-generation military family (none are currently serving) who all enjoy a nice Memorial Day off, and who also readily admit that a sizable chunk of their colleagues were just there because they couldn’t hold down a civilian job and they only wanted to play with guns. Warrior-class worship has got to stop. Valor is earned.
Suzanne
@ola azul:
See also: the free-marketeers who are resentful that I make more money than they do.
Mike in NC
@JGabriel:
It’s a darn good thing we got that fantastic Trump infrastructure program in place to address this!
Ladyraxterinok
@marklar: Isn’t the rainbow a sign of that promise? No wonder evangelicals are so angry that LGBT has co-opted the rainbow.
Supposedly the next major destruction will be by fire. I remember my SBC churches in the 50s saying that meant nuclear war.
Now maybe massive fires from climate change like in CA??
debbie
@WaterGirl:
Doubtless you know by now, but he had a two-part tweet this morning, pleading with Fox to bring back Judge Jeanne Pirro.
satby
@Yutsano: good to hear! Take it easy when you get home.
debbie
@germy:
Oh, I really, really love that one!
ETA: I hope its creator posts it to Trump’s feed.
Mike in NC
Read an article today on the 28-year-old NZ shooter, where he’s described as a loner and “incel” who was uncomfortable around women. Had he been born here he could have turned out to be another Stephen Miller, with a bright future in wingnut welfare.
debbie
@Yutsano:
Congratulations!
Yutsano
@CaseyL: Surprisingly pretty good. Whatever they gave me for thd fhabdo also seems to have given my body a reset. I definitely have more energy than I have in a long time. I also wonder if that means this had been slow rolling for a while but then cascaded into a catastrophic head because I overworked myself trying to maneuver in the snow. It’s hard to say. I know this much: statins are terrible. There needs to be alternatives found for them and fast.
EDIT: also, too, thanks everyone. I’m glad it wasn’t the worst case scenario and the thing that caused my spine to decay way back in 2005 didn’t reoccur. I’ll also be back at work in a couple weeks soon as I’m strong enough to be able to do things like lift chairs off the ground while keeping my balance and such.
Ladyraxterinok
@OzarkHillbilly: In the 80s Iowa State got state permission to build some major buildings in a low place between the university and the original part of Ames. Then there was major flooding in the early 90s and recriminations and screaming all around!!
debbie
@Yutsano:
All the more reason to take things slowly for a while.
cliosfanboy
@marklar: no more floods……it’s the fire next time
:(
satby
@cliosfanboy: been thinking of you friend. Hope you and your wife and Spud are all coping in the wake of your loss.
Ohio Mom
@danielx: Ohio Dad wanted to be in that study very, very badly but could not get our health insurance company to agree.
He ended up having a variation of open heart, where only a relatively small slit is made horizontally, between two ribs, rather than the usual huge vertical cut down the middle of the chest. It’s a method that is more challenging for the surgeon but has a shorter recovery time for the patient. Though not as short as the trans catheter procedure.
What Have The Romans Ever Done for Us?
I get so sick of these folks in flyover country complaining that nobody listens to them…and I say that as someone who grew up in flyover country and has some sympathy for flyover country. The fact of the matter is far more federal funding goes from the major metro areas to rural areas in flyover country – they’re net takers from the common pot. On top of that they get disproportionate political representation in the Federal Government and in most State governments. Then every election cycle the media focuses on them as though they are the real salt of the earth Americans while the rest of us are treated as some kind of pretenders. They get plenty of attention and more of our common federal resources than any other part of the country. And yet none of it is ever enough to satisfy their need for attention or their sense of grievance against “liberal elites” in the cities or the brown people who they’re all convinced are the real consumers of all the federal money.
Well, maybe if you hadn’t voted for people for decades whose prime directive was to give the ultra rich ever more tax cuts at the expense of everything else, those levees and dams wouldn’t have failed, because we would have spent some money shoring them up. Maybe we’d have far more resources to help you out in your time of need. Maybe had you voted for a POTUS with a modicum of competence you’d already have people on the ground helping you at this very moment. So maybe think about your voting pattern and what it’s doing to you in your time of need. It is screwing you royally. Instead you’ll just complain that, despite getting on average $1.20 back for every $1 you contribute in federal taxes, nobody listens to MEEEEE! Well, I’m sorry for the flooding, and I’m willing to help you out, but stop complaining that having been lavished with resources, nobody pays attention to you.
Kelly
@Cermet: Earlier this week I was thinking about this year’s Oregon Cascade snowpack. I started skiing in the 1960’s. From then until around 2000 the snow would start to pile up in November 6″ to 12″ a week. A relatively steady accumulation. We expected to start skiing around Thanksgiving. Once back in the 1980’s I went XC skiing Halloween weekend. This year we have an average snowpack, but it arrived in two massive storms. One just in time for Christmas break and the other a few weeks ago. If an atmospheric river collides with an arctic vortex we’ve got our instant snowpack. About half the time it doesn’t, the woods dry out a month or two early and they burn.
Aleta
Does this look like a 500 year flood?
The Keystone Pipeline would have had breaks or battering all over the place, at the approaches to all those rivers they wanted to cross. As in photos * where the bridge looks intact but the approach is destroyed — I’m guessing the Pipeline engineers used bridge heights (for one thing) in calculating how and where they would dig down.
(The Dakota Pipeline is operating now, environmentalists still fighting in Iowa. It would be good if the Keystone plans could be compared to actual damage now at the sites Keystone wanted. And apply that to how the Dakota’s river crossings have been calculated.)
* Thephotos are at Ben Sasse’s twitter feed. (He voted against relief to PR.) Many good photos being posted there though.
Re: MSM coverage, Sasses himself didn’t mention (on twitter) the flood conditions in Nebraska until March 16. It is after all a way to get the MSM’s attention, but he didn’t bother until yesterday.
Aleta
I wonder if this will affect the veto votes for the emergency dec. T wanted to take funding fromi believe emergency management. And he’s taking $ and people from the military incl people from the National Guard.
john fremont
@What Have The Romans Ever Done for Us?: This! Then OTOH, when things are going well the theme is we just want to be left alone, keep your big government, liberal media , big city stuff out of here.
Aleta
I wonder if this will affect the veto votes for the emergency dec. T had ideas to take funding from emergency management. And he’s taking $ and people from the military incl I believe people from the National Guard. This should be a clear example of why congress should keep their constitutional control over funding. States rights ffs.
NobodySpecial
@mvr: This year has been snow light as well here in Rockford. Only two big freezes, one being the polar vortex. A lot of other places have it much worse, except for our bumper crop of potholes this spring.
The Pale Scot
@Amir Khalid:
Got the Film, Bartleby attacks
Cheryl from Maryland
@mvr: I’m sad for those who are flooded, but happy to hear about Lincoln, where I have friends in the UofN Paleontology Department. Did you know that there were rhinocerosi roaming the plains of Nebraska? I got to see all the fossils once.
Anotherlurker
My heart goes out to all those effected by the Nebraska flooding. Many are on the verge of experiencing PTSD.
However, the “recovery” process is where the real emotional damage will occur. The National Flood Insurance Program is paid for by our tax dollars. The program itself is run by the insurance companies. NFIP’s reason for living is to protect the insurance companies. They have no concern for the policy holders, so low-balling claims, denial of coverage is standard procedure.
The same holds true for FEMA. FEMA is good at handing out water or sandwiches, but they suck at real help for disaster victims. Look up NY Rising Sandy recovery program to see just how bad things can get.
I’m a Sandy survivor who was so damaged by the process that I lost everything I had, solely as a result of the “recovery”.
Those effected in Nebraska are only seeing the beginning of their confusion and their pain. Some, like me will lose everything.
Thanks for listening.
I’ll stop now.
WhatsMyNym
A very good explanation on youtube by Practical Engineering The 100 Year Flood Is Not What You Think It Is (Maybe)
Suzanne
@Mike in NC:
I’m shocked to hear this news.
Seems like dudes who can’t get laid represent a disproportionately large percentage of our violent criminals. Maybe police need to track them.
JPL
@ola azul: True. I do feel bad about the flooding, but I don’t expect the farmers and ranchers views on government policy to change.
debbie
@Suzanne:
Let’s not leave out the fact that in the not-so-distant past, his family were immigrants.
rikyrah
I look at the pictures and????
Water is fierce and powerful
JPL
@Suzanne: Just another mentally ill white dude. No white supremacy at all. Just misunderstood.
satby
@Anotherlurker: so sorry you went through all that only to lose everything anyway. So wrong that happens, but I know it does.
sukabi
@JPL: no he won’t. Mostly because he’s not done being pissed off about SNL reruns–that he’s seen and bitched about when they first aired, but doesn’t remember. And flogging John McCain’s corpse.
Aleta
@Anotherlurker: Thank you for this.
debbie
Well, church has let out:
JPL
@sukabi: I guess they gave his phone back. From now on they just need to let him go to Mar-a-Lago
JPL
@debbie: It’s the dems fault. Wait until he watches the Sunday news shows.
StringOnAStick
@Starfish: Good eye, you were paying attention! It had been snowing exceptionally hard in the mountains before the so called ‘bomb cyclone ” hit. The former is what caused the avalanches, the latter caused the blizzard that went from the eastern edge of the mountains and out to the plains, eventually hitting Nebraska, Kansas, etc. The avalanches seemed to mostly be getting local coverage but as soon as the term “bomb cyclone” started getting tossed around then the media catnip was out of the bag.
Jeffro
@debbie: I hope David Green just tweets back “F U” to the jackass-in-chief.
I’m so sick of Toddler Don. And the media just makes it worse, the Post couldn’t even write a travel article this week without making him the focus. This from a guy who can’t even fulfill the most basic functions of the office, a guy who wouldn’t even be able to hold down a shift at McDs for more than an hour before getting canned.
joel hanes
@Starfish:
People further down the Mississippi River in Mississippi and Louisiana are experiencing flooding.
It’ll be interesting to see what happens when these waters reach the Old River control structure.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_River_Control_Structure
One of these days, will we or nil we, the Mississippi will change course and exit through the Atchafalaya basin, leaving NOLA on a bayou.
Jeffro
@germy: Hey GOP, does “be weak and die!” Sound even remotely normal to you? Or maybe more like a Fred Trumpov rant in front of child Donnie circa 1949?
Amir Khalid
@debbie:
From Australia, the nearest white-majority country and one where many Kiwis have family ties. I’m not sure how much of an outsider that makes him.
JPL
Now the orange tweeter is listing FOX reporters that should move to CNN. Chris Wallace isn’t on the list.
joel hanes
@Ladyraxterinok:
Iowa State got state permission to build some major buildings in a low place
Let us not mince words.
It was a flood plain, and a fucking obvious flood plain, and the reason that it was never built upon until the 1970s was that it kept flooding in the springtime and everyone with a lick of sense knew that it would flood again, because flood plains are produced by floods.
ISU should have closed the civil engineering school out of shame.
(I’m an ISU grad, ’81)
joel hanes
@What Have The Romans Ever Done for Us?:
none of it is ever enough to satisfy their need for attention
A number of midwestern Republicans have told me, at various times, that their sense if resentment is founded partly on the sense that they’re looked down upon by people who aren’t “square”. And, frankly, there’s some truth to that. I’ve never heard one of them consider whether that judgement was earned.
joel hanes
@Aleta:
Does this look like a 500 year flood?
This will be at least the third 500-year flood in east central Iowa within 30 years … maybe the fourth.
But climate change is a myth
Dorothy A. Winsor
@JPL: I thought he was at church or something.
joel hanes
@Anotherlurker:
FEMA
From 2000 onward, when W was President and his brother Jeb! was governor of Florida, the federal government poured infrastructure monies into Florida, and FEMA did its best work ever on recovery from the pre-election hurricane of 2004.
With Republicans in charge, it’s always about cui bono and retaining power.
JPL
@Dorothy A. Winsor: It didn’t help him be best.
Plato
Scuffletuffle
@Baud: Have I told you lately that I love you?
Baud
@joel hanes:
I don’t purposefully hurt the country simply because there are asshole conservatives. Their excuse is bullshit.
debbie
@Jeffro:
I’d be happy to see Green tweet back and demand names:
dnfree
@mvr: Yep, near where I’m at–Freeport. The snows here in the past several years are rivaling the snows of my childhood and youth. We’re supposed to have either a lot of snow or sub-zero temperatures, not both, as we had this year.
debbie
@Amir Khalid:
I believe the shooter is an Australian, not a Kiwi. If I’m wrong, then he would be a double immigrant.
debbie
@joel hanes:
That’s just it. The latte-sipping, arugula-chomping coasters aren’t looking down at them; it’s the rich pricks like Trump who are not only looking down at them, but actively scheming to fleece them out of everything they own and hold dear.
Amir Khalid
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
What fellow churchgoer is going to say to the President, “Please put your phone away. You’re in a meeting with God.” (Context: at least one mosque here puts up signs in the prayer hall saying exactly that.)
debbie
@joel hanes:
I think it was after the 1993 floods that the federal government offered to build a levee (or whatever they are) along the banks of an Iowan town, but the mayor refused to let them because it would hurt tourism. I wonder if he’s still around?
sukabi
@JPL: maybe they’re hoping he’ll tweet himself into a stupor and he won’t notice when he’s hauled off in cuffs or a straitjacket.
sukabi
‘It was a lost cause’: Air Force gives up fight to stop water at Offutt;
Villago Delenda Est
@debbie: “Amity means friendship.”
rikyrah
Has anyone tried Imperfect Produce?
Did you like it?
Was the cost reasonable?
Was the produce fresh?
Ruckus
@Major Major Major Major:
I’d say the majority of people don’t look for stories. They see what is placed in front of them. If their local paper/TV stations are conservative, that’s all the stories they see/hear. They trust the local news reporting because it’s always been there in their lives and everyone they know always has. I’d also bet that if we dug deep enough we find out that if a lot of those people heard anything like the truth in reporting, relatively large segments of the population would change politically. Not drastically but a shift. Most of the people aren’t raving loons but they do get accustomed to the world around them and as long as it works will support that world as proper. Look at how many young people have changed their outlooks on POC and not straight conventional sex. They are in total, much more open to people of differing shades and proclivities. And it’s exposure that does that, integration of schools, cell phones…
Amir Khalid
@debbie:
Per this CNN story, the shooter is Australian and has been living in New Zealand for some time.
James E Powell
@JMG:
Related: the belief that if only the press/media reported on their situation, somebody would do something about it.
JPL
@sukabi: https://twitter.com/mkraju
By 3pET Sunday, Trump this weekend has attacked
– Fox News weekend anchors
– McCain twice
– Mueller report
– GM
– Local UAW leader
– Google
– HRC
– SNL
– Christopher Steele
– Dems
– Paris climate deal
– And retweeted attacks on Mueller, McCabe, HRC
Amir Khalid
@Villago Delenda Est:
I thought Amity meant a place where fish eat you.
Suzanne
@joel hanes:
And they look down on those people, too. I agree wholeheartedly with Tyler Cowen that politics is, at its core, about elevating relative social status of some groups over others. The lack of self-reflection just kills me, though, Those people hate me and my family (multi- and bi-racial, LGBTQ, immigrants, mostly college-educated, mostly not religious)…..and yet they feel entitled to this bullshit sense that they are entitled to more “respect” than they receive, even though they do to others exactly what they complain about.
Suzanne
HOLY SHIT. The RNC tweeted about Beto O’Rourke’s drunk-driving arrest ***on St. Patrick’s Day*** implying that Irish people are drunks.
Dude. These people just can’t help themselves, can they?
JPL
@Suzanne: If they support trump, they should not only be looked down upon, they should be mocked for the hypocrites that they are.
f..kem
scav
Sudden thought while weeding. Aren’t many of us celebrating today a former (extremely) cheap foreign laborer returning / immigrating to the land of his erstwhile ”employers” and converting them to an eastern religion?
Suzanne
@JPL: Agreed. I just hate the whining about being looked down upon by others when they…..also look down upon others.
debbie
@Suzanne:
Saw that. I could be falling-down drunk and still do a better Photoshop of O’Rourke than the RNC has.
JPL
@scav: See Suzanne’s link at 197… The RNC think that they are a bunch of drunks.
sukabi
@JPL: yep. That looks like his minders have said “fuck it, and fuck him.”
Sister Golden Bear
@Raoul: How much coverage did the Nebraska media give to the California fires. //
Actually, I suspect they did, since it’s another chance to gloat that God is smiting California because we think LGBT people, and especially trans people like me,are actually people, and should be treated that way. (I’m not bitter, really)
chris
Feeling pissy because the weather isn’t covered the way you would like? How about ~150 dead?
https://www.wunderground.com/news/news/news/2019-03-13-tropical-cyclone-idai-impacts-mozambique-malawi-0
scav
@JPL: Yeah, but that’s the theoretically native Europeans that are the reputed drunks, not Johnny foreigner with his dangerous non-native religion.
(we can also capture a brief glimpse of how far back their nativism has rolled if the Irish are subversive aliens to be kept from the holy shores.)
Bill Arnold
@Suzanne:
In RNC-land, getting caught committing a sin is a far greater sin than the sin. Also, the Projection Is Strong in those ones.
matt
@Suzanne: Yeah essentially where other people have a sense of humor they have bigotry.
Kent
Wait…what?
We are doing “thoughts and prayers” now?
Jay Noble
@What Have The Romans Ever Done for Us?: I was waiting for this – Nebraska happens to be one of the Payers of Taxes.
https://www.moneytips.com/is-your-state-a-net-payer-or-a-net-taker/356
mvr
@Cheryl from Maryland: Actually I saw a some (pre) Rhino skeletons iirc (mammoths for sure) in the museum on campus and recently read something as well.
Suzanne
@matt: I have often said that one of the most disappointing things about the right wing is that they aren’t funny.
Dan B
@Cermet: The fingerprints of climate change are quite clear on this storm. The Jet Stream has been wild for weeks. At the moment it is south of Phoenix and directly over Chicago. The Arctic is warming faster than any other region. With reduced temperature difference between the Arctic and the mid latitudes the Jet Stream swings wildly allowing frigid air to escape the Arctic and wrm moist air from the Gulf to collide. Farming is going to be dicey in the breadbasket and it won’t just move north to Canada because the extreme weather there will be similar.
Uncle Cosmo
@Plato: Considering that for the Thugs accusation is confession, Emperor Tang seems to have hit the trifucta today! (Or maybe, since baseball season impends, hit for the psychole…)
JPL
@Bill Arnold: IOKIYR because remember when W had his DUI.
Kent
@Jay Noble:
Those comparative rankings are a little deceptive because they include spending on Federal institutions and Federal wages so states like Alaska or New Mexico with massive Federal landholdings and Federal empoyees in agencies like the Forest Service, Bureau of Lands Management, Parks Service, Bureau of Indian Affairs, etc. are going to have higher per-capita Federal spending than states like Nebraska that have little of that.
Uncle Cosmo
@James E Powell: “If only
the TsarCheetoh Benito knew!”Jay Noble
@sukabi: O good grief, this is one I forgot to watch! There’s an awful lot of Offut that is underground! Remember this is where they took W after 9/11.
sukabi
@Jay Noble: not to dispute that link so much, but I don’t think you can tell much from that article, except that in 2016 that was an overview of money flow from feds to states…does that include emergency disaster funds / relief? I suspect it does. WA had a very bad fire season, thus more aid than typical. WA has been consistently paying more to fed than is returned for years and years, that map doesn’t reflect that at all.
Anyway with that said, slagging on states that get a higher return on their $ from the feds is counter productive, as we’re all in this together.
NotMax
Jared will fix it. //
mvr
@Sister Golden Bear: Well, I heard a whole bunch and most of it was just “how awful for those who have to live through this,” along with for at least some of us a general worry that things are getting worse weather wise and we’ll be seeing more of this.
tobie
@Kent:
Those rankings are more than a “little deceptive.” My state, Maryland, is ranked as the 7th largest recipient of federal dollars because of the number of federal institutions based here (NSA, Social Security, Aberdeen Proving Ground, and countless other federal agencies). In terms of how much we take per capita in federal $$$ for healthcare, education, welfare, unemployment, we’re probably one of the lowest.
Kent
@sukabi:
Exactly. Because I can assure you that there are a whole lot of rich Republicans in red states who perfectly happy to say “we can cut medicare and medicaid spending in our state in exchange for tax cuts for us. The people doing the receiving are not necessarily the same who are doing the giving.
Zanamu
@Mike R: I temporarily changed parties when Sasse first ran, just for the pleasure of voting against him. I would actually have a fairly difficult time doing the same when Ricketts challenges him. They are equally awful and self serving, but don’t forget that Sasse is the “thoughtful” “bipartisan” “mavericky” one, while Ricketts is fully in touch with his evil core, and is absolutely honest about it. Gotta give Ricketts a little bit of credit for that.
joel hanes
@Suzanne:
No argument from me. I was attempting to explain the mental machinations of midwestern conservative resentment; I don’t think I made any attempt to justify it, but I may not have made that distinction clear.
Mathguy
@Zanamu: I can’t think of one of our current Nebraska GOP reps that isn’t an evil POS. I thought Eastman had a shot of getting rid of that useless meat sack known as Bacon, but she fell short (thanks, Nebraska GOP, for gerrymandering in those dipshits of Sarpy County into the district).
Raoul
@Plato: Not much of a fan of the Krassensteins. But this is actually a pretty sharp take.