A cheap bust of Trump to put in the front yard for the neighbor’s dogs (and the neighbors, should they so desire) to piss on:
Man, fuck that guy.
Give Me Liberty and Give Me Death!
We’re really the dumbest fucking country:
During the early days of the pandemic, the public’s attention was fixed on various models, each showing a steep upswing, with cases steadily increasing each day, followed by the tail-end of the curve as cases fade away.
Americans saw, with increasing dread, the predicted upswing in the national numbers. Then, over the last couple of weeks, it stopped.
And yet, forecasters are projecting even more deaths on the horizon. A leaked document obtained by The New York Times projected more than 3,000 people could die each day by the end of May. Another historically conservative model, favored by the Trump administration, just doubled its projected death toll, too.
The tail-end of the national epidemic is not materializing.
“If you just look at the total number of cases, you’re going to miss what’s underneath it,” said Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota. “It’s not a leveling-off. It’s a painful handoff.”
America’s current “plateau” isn’t good news, he said. Infections from the earliest-hit metropolitan areas are now spawning outbreaks of their own across the country.
If you take NY out of the equation, which is lowering the national numbers, the entire nation is on a steady incline. Yet we have this:
Republican elected officials are rushing to express support for a Texas salon owner sentenced to a week in jail and a fine for reopening her business in violation of a stay-at-home order issued by Republican Gov. Greg Abbott. Members of the self-described party of “law and order” attacked a judge who enforced the order.
Dallas County State District Judge Eric Moyé sentenced salon owner Shelley Luther to seven days in jail and a fine of $7,000 for violating the stay-at-home order as well as Moyé’s temporary restraining order and a cease-and-desist order from Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins.
On a personal note, I had to go to the store today for produce and allergy meds, and did my usual overalls with full length sleeves, masks, gloves, and carrying lysol wipes, because I am not a fucking sociopath, and noticed that there has been a MARKED increase in the number of people out and about and a MARKED decrease in the number of people wearing masks. Apparently moving from the Governor’s “Stay at home” order to the current “safer at home” order has been interpreted by many as “fuck it, YOLO.”
Personally, I am expecting the entire nation to get hammered in about three weeks to a month, and last week I had a stern talk with my parents that NOTHING has changed, in fact things are getting worse, and they are still grounded for at least another couple months. They were fine with it, because they don’t want to die, either. I’m keeping my shit locked down and don’t intend to change anything. I am expecting at least a half million deaths.
I Am Over These Fucking People
Joining Betty in afternoon rage..
I posted this information on Facebook:
A team of experts advised Gov. https://t.co/ybXJPtgKZL
— WHO-HD Ch. 13 News (@WHOhd) April 29, 2020
Iowa tells workers to return to their jobs or lose unemployment benefits, despite warnings that reopening could lead to a second wave of infections https://t.co/ZOcnXq6CKt via @businessinsider
— Carlton Livingston (@100lbAColliweed) April 29, 2020
I have friends and family in Iowa. No provisions for someone who might be vulnerable, no provisions for someone who might live with someone who is vulnerable. Just get your lazy ass back to work.
First, someone that I do business with (as a customer no less) decided to spew Republican talking points at me about it and that people will take advantage. I was waiting for her to come at me with “strong bucks and t-bone steaks.” I let her know I wasn’t buying it about these hypothetical deadbeats and wanted to know when we were going to talk about the businesses taking advantage of workers by putting profit over their safety. Her reply was, “Oh, wow” like I’d said something drastic like “So pro-life only means in the womb, right?” She then deleted all her comments.
Then, my cousin, who is a retired minister came at me with the same BS. My response: “Who would Jesus kill for profit, amirite?”
I think I’m banned from future family reunions (not really, my godmother is a retired minister who is totally liberal…or as she likes to call it, “a follower of the teachings of Christ”). ETA: He just came back at me with “we can agree to disagree and still be family, right” I’ll think about it.
Anyway, I’ve had it with these fuckers and they all need to be called on the carpet and then crushed under my heel. You want to preach the economy over lives, then the next woman who says, “this unexpected pregnancy is going to wreak havoc on my personal economy,” better be first in line for an abortion without any protest from these frauds. Because as we know, profits are all that matter.
If we and our Democratic leaders do not make them own each and every one of these comments from now until no one remembers what a Republican was, except to compare them to Nazis, we are fools. And worse, dishonoring all those who died because of this outrage.
And yes, having had this stupid virus, I am taking all of this personally. And I’m worried beyond words for those around me who may succumb to it.
BTW, I’m fine, thanks for asking 😊 ’cause I know you’re gonna. I’m on day 3 of feeling pretty darn good. But I will tell you the fatigue is impressive. And there were a few days/nights that were very hairy, but those passed and the rest was pretty mild.
Okay, back to my rant. I am mad as hell and really am not going to take it anymore. Come at me with bullshit and I’m going to fight back – friends, family, business, I. Do. Not. Care.
I feel better now.
/rant
I will try and have something respite-like later. No promises though, I may need a nap after this.
I’m At My Wit’s End
I am still a relatively young man, but in my time I have witnessed a large amount of stupidity (much of it my own). But I am really at the end of being able to tolerate it. This virus has been the last straw for me, and I culling a lot of people I have known forever from my life. I just can’t take any more of it.
The proximate cause of my losing it has been the “Yeah but Sweden” shit coming from my barely literate friends on facebook who have spent their entire lives setting out to prove that half an education is more dangerous than no education. “Sweden did nothing and look they are approaching her immunity.”
First off, the United States isn’t fucking Sweden. Sweden’s population density is on par with West Virginia’s, not NYC or Atlanta or virtual most of the urban and suburban areas of the United States. Second, there are far fewer at risk people in Sweden because THEY HAVE ACTUAL HEALTH CARE and are in general healthier. Third, in Sweden, if you get sick, you can stay home and not give it to everyone at fucking Ikea or whatever their equivalent of McDonalds is because they won’t get fired for staying home when sick because they are not imbeciles. Sweden also is a mature socially conscious country, and if asked or advised to maintain distancing, they don’t need fucking red x’s on the ground, and they’ll wear masks and wash their hands, and so forth.
So the United States isn’t Sweden. But even if we were, Sweden’s mortality rate has been fucking awful. WORSE THAN OURS. And there is no real reliable information about herd immunity in Sweden, and they’re not close to it, anyway. So please just fuck off with the “but Sweden” crap.
At any rate, I was at my boiling point, so called up a guildmate to chat, and we both agreed that it is the aggressive, in your face stupidity that is so maddening. Just the refusal to do little things, like wear masks, or stay home when sick, or throw marches to demand the country re-open, or mock others for doing what they think they should. It’s the deliberate, in-your-face assholishness that just drive me insane.
So we talked awhile, and I was tired of driving around checking things out, and I got home, came upstairs, loaded up the old web browser, and what do I find? As if on fucking cue, Vice President Jeebus Humper pulls this fucking stunt:
Vice President Mike Pence on Tuesday refused to wear a mask during his visit to Minnesota’s Mayo Clinic, which requires all staff, patients, and visitors to wear a face covering while at the medical center. In a since-deleted tweet, the Mayo Clinic called out the veep, saying it “had informed @VP of the masking policy prior to his arrival today.” But that apparently didn’t stop Pence from visiting with staff and even a patient in a crowded hospital room without wearing a mask. “Part of our protocol for ensuring your safety is to require all patients, visitors and staff to wear a face covering or mask while at Mayo Clinic to guard against transmission of COVID-19,” the hospital’s website reads.
I fucking hate these people and anyone who gets in the way of replacing them in November can fuck right the fuck off.
The Death of Shame
Some things just leave me speechless:
A year ago, Navy SEAL Chief Petty Officer Edward Gallagher was wearing drab prison scrubs at a brig near San Diego, facing murder charges that could have sent him to prison for the rest of his life. Now he is modeling his own lifestyle clothing brand, endorsing nutrition supplements and positioning himself as a conservative influencer with close ties to the man who helped clear him — President Trump.
It wasn’t always this way, was it? People used to have some shame, right? Like, William Calley didn’t launch a cologne brand or something and I just missed it, right?
We live in the worst timeline.
Sad Trombone Open Thread: When the Poles on the Horseshoe* Snap Together
One reason why Obama attempts to rally the base for moderates may be in his difficulty abiding a Democratic Party that even intimates that he failed to tangibly benefit the lives of the working class. https://t.co/z93AKXUzgO
— David Dayen (@ddayen) November 22, 2019
The Cosplay Socialists are determined to set up President Obama as the next ‘No True Progressive’ boogeymonster. (Hillary can’t live forever, and Liz Warren is just not ‘unlikeable’ enough for their needs.) As LBJ once said, “… it gives him a warm feeling, but nobody else much notices.”
But they will definitely work their hardest (wearing blisters on their thumbs, as they batter the social media barricades) to ensure that Preznit NObama never gets a third term…
… I’m sure Obama is confident enough in his political radar that he truly believes his path is the only viable one. It’s probably why he intervened to install Tom Perez over Keith Ellison as chair of the DNC. And he has been railing against imagined enemies like “certain left-leaning Twitter feeds” and “wokeness,” not just recently but for years. But there’s something brittle in this approach. A two-term president who engenders generally warm feelings among the population should not be so sensitive to criticism. Perhaps he reveals too much in his prickliness.
The truth is that Obama, who reiterated his comments to donors in San Francisco on Thursday, presided over a country where inequality continued to worsen, where dominant monopolies continued to consolidate, where regions continued to slip behind a handful of cities on the coasts, where all of the post-recession gains went to those at the top. Obama wasn’t the only factor in this sclerotic improvement; he was handed a deep recession by his predecessor and a right-wing Congress two years into his tenure. But those electoral losses, among the largest for a two-term president since World War II, do reflect the inadequacies of market-driven incrementalism to deliver accountability for the sins of the financial crisis and tangible relief to the millions who suffered as a consequence. If it did, the wealthy donors Obama spends time with while criticizing the left would have less in their bank accounts…
But let’s be honest about the endgame. Obama is intervening on behalf of a cramped, self-censoring politics, one that dreams big but fights small, one that comforts the well-off by assuring them their fortunes will be safe and the game will proceed to their benefit. He has said, according to the Times, that the eventual primary winner “will come back to me when they need me,” and they will. But they might not come back to his policies, and that’s apparently unacceptable…
This is pure fanfiction. (I know the genre; I wrote some of it, back in my late teens, when it was just us Trekkies & the term hadn’t entered into popular use.) It’s a little too dense and allusive for non-believers to follow, but that’s part of the appeal. We few, we happy few, who understand the Canon and cannot be led astray by arguments about ‘verisimilitude’ or ‘scientific possibility’…
Sad Trombone Open Thread: When the Poles on the Horseshoe* Snap TogetherPost + Comments (139)
Check Out the Giant Brass Balls on G. Gordon Shitty’s Daughter
Roger Stone has been breaking the law for decades, and were he a black man, he’d be serving life for the drug offenses alone. But now he has finally been convicted for a small portion of his lifetime of criminality and not even spent one fucking hour in jail, and of course his spawn is rushing to state tv at Fox to shed some white lady tears:
Fuck her, fuck him, and fuck Tucker Carlson. And Carlson’s open about how the “Russia hoax destroying lives” is priceless, coming from the fucking asshole who peddled Seth Rich conspiracy theories and was giddy about throwing Susan McDougal in jail to rot.
Fuck these people.
Check Out the Giant Brass Balls on G. Gordon Shitty’s DaughterPost + Comments (56)
Open Thread: Geaux LSU Tigers
Baby Trump balloon present at LSU vs Alabama game! pic.twitter.com/CBz3DUvYfc
— CG (@7realitycheck7) November 9, 2019
Trump is working harder to find a sporting event he’ll get cheered at than he has on any piece of legislation ever https://t.co/VqhwU6Rm43
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) November 9, 2019
Alabama hasn’t lost a home game in four years.
Donald Trump shows up: Alabama loses.
The man is a plague. #LSUvsALA
— Southpaw (@SoCalSouthpaw1) November 10, 2019
Toward the end of halftime, a group of students stood & cheered while wearing shirts that spell out IMPEACH pic.twitter.com/3s4FuZp1Zo
— Jessa Reid Bolling (@jr_bolling) November 9, 2019
This is Trump’s third sporting event in 3 weeks.
At the World Series in DC, he got loud boos & chants of “Lock him up.”
At a UFC fight in NYC, he got chants of his name, boos and middle fingers.
And at today’s Alabama football game, he got cheers, “USA” chants—and some boos.
— Rebecca Ballhaus (@rebeccaballhaus) November 9, 2019
Yes, Trump got cheers at a football game in Alabama, the state that almost elected a serial child molester as senator.
— Windsor Mann (@WindsorMann) November 10, 2019
According to the UN: Alabama has the worst poverty in the developed world. 15% of residents are illiterate. 6th worst state in healthcare. That’s @realDonaldTrump’s “real America” https://t.co/HpFIfPBlsX
— Kurt Bardella (@kurtbardella) November 10, 2019
The famous Baby Trump balloon has been stabbed and deflated in Alabama. The popular protest symbol was floating among football fans at a game, when a man stuck a knife in it and ran off. He was later arrested.
— Virgin Media News (@VirginMediaNews) November 10, 2019
He’s very STRESSED, you guys!
President Trump posted 82 tweets or retweets today and flew 1,600 miles roundtrip to Alabama for a football game in desperate search of applause. #HardlyWorking
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) November 10, 2019
Or, you know, a job ??
— firebirdNC?? (@firebird_nc) November 10, 2019
Open Thread: Mike Pompeo, “Secretary of Swagger”
POMPEO: I'm not going to get into hypotheticals about what someone else said.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Except it's not a hypothetical. The chief of staff confirmed aid was withheld for political investigations.
POMPEO: … ??? … pic.twitter.com/85MihdTa0g
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) October 20, 2019
You can almost hear the felonies in Pompeo’s pregnant pause here. https://t.co/KmVqTNte4t
— The Hoarse Whisperer (@HoarseWisperer) October 20, 2019
The hilarious thing is Pompeo thought a key position in the administration was a career booster for a senate run.
— Schooley (@Rschooley) October 20, 2019
For an administration that prides itself on its macho attitude, this is the biggest bunch of unmanly whiners and snowflakes I've ever seen. I've taught high-school kids who don't complain this much. https://t.co/qbmT08Ly9J
— Tom Nichols (@RadioFreeTom) October 19, 2019
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has become increasingly frustrated in recent weeks by the departure of top State Department officials and claims that he failed to defend the former US Ambassador to Ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch, from a smear campaign against her, according to three sources familiar with the situation.
As part of the ongoing impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump, Yovanovitch testified to Congress this week that she was unfairly removed based on false claims pushed by Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani.
One of the sources tell CNN that Pompeo was alerted to internal and external concerns about Giuliani’s effort to push out Yovanovitch, but Pompeo failed to act — he was wary of getting too deeply involved over fears of derailing US-Ukraine policy and potentially sharing the fate of his former colleague John Bolton, Trump’s national security adviser who was fired for not being aligned with the President…
Pompeo’s apparent choice not to put guardrails between State officials and Giuliani has come under scrutiny by House Democrats who are bent on learning as much as they can about what exactly Pompeo knew of Giuliani’s dealings. In recent interviews, Pompeo has declined to answer questions about Giuliani’s entanglement in the administration’s Ukraine policy.
He was however aware of it. In March, Pompeo received a packet from Giuliani containing unfounded claims about Yovanovitch, as well as former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter regarding their dealings in Ukraine…
As the State Department has stopped working with Congress due to orders from the White House, Pompeo himself continues to defend Trump. He has called the Ukraine impeachment inquiry a conspiracy theory to take down the President.
But there will be new questions about conversations regarding quid pro quo in the coming days given the pronouncement by acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney in a news conference Thursday that the US withheld military aid from Ukraine in hopes of securing a promise that the foreign government would look into the possible presence of the physical Democratic National Committee server hacked by the Russians in 2016.
Pompeo, whose department oversees a hefty amount of that assistance to Ukraine, was also asked last month if it would be a problem if there were a quid pro quo arrangement. Pompeo said it is his job to be sure that foreign assistance is “completely appropriate” and that “American taxpayer dollars are used appropriately.”
2032:
Interviewer: You have a gap here on your resume. Where were you working from 2017 through 2019?
Former Trump Official: Meth binge. Just one, big, long meth binge.
Interviewer: . . . .
FTO: [brightly] All better now!
— GetOverHat (@Popehat) October 17, 2019
IMO, “All better now!” should *definitely* be added to the rotating tags list.
Open Thread: Mike Pompeo, “Secretary of Swagger”Post + Comments (34)
Late Night Open Thread: Ben Shapiro Mode
“It was an offer she could, in fact, refuse.”
GUYS. Tulip Gazpacho is trying to convince Hillary Clinton to join the 2020 primary. pic.twitter.com/Mb9w99PpEI
— Anna Maltese (@MalteseAnna) October 19, 2019
Ben Shapiro is a professional Wingnut Wurlitzer pest who’s spent the past year whining that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez won’t pay him any attention. Of course he never actually intended to ‘debate’ her, but his donors have generously supported his ongoing public grievance.
Guess Tulsi figures that her higher media profile gives her the ‘right’ to ‘challenge’ the OG wingnut boogey-woman her own self. Let’s see how much she scams on this new dogwhistle!
Alternatively:
Hey all, @kaikahele is running in the primary against Tulsi for her congressional seat. If you’d like to support him, today is a good day to do so. And you can do so ?? https://t.co/dFtbttVUVX
— Neera Tanden (@neeratanden) October 18, 2019
Late Night Open Thread: Ben Shapiro ModePost + Comments (96)
Lock His Ass Up
Frogwalk this motherfucker:
Rudy Giuliani dared House Democrats to take him to court Tuesday, declaring he won’t comply in their “abomination” of an impeachment inquiry despite facing a subpoena over his shady campaign to find political dirt on Joe Biden in Ukraine.
Having decided to not cooperate, the ex-mayor said he has parted ways with his attorney, Jon Sale, for the time being, claiming it would be “silly to have a lawyer when I don’t need one.”
However, Giuliani said he may rehire Sale if Democrats hold him in contempt over his refusal to cooperate with the subpoena, which requests documents and testimony on his Trump-endorsed attempts to strong-arm Ukrainian officials into investigating unfounded corruption claims about Biden’s family before the 2020 election.
“If they decide to do an enforcement, I’ll need someone to go to court with and we’ll figure that out at the time,” Giuliani told the Daily News before he was set to attend a Yankees game in the Bronx. “I’m not worried. It’s not authorized what they’re doing in secret. It’s an abomination of due process. I can’t imagine a court would tolerate what they’ve done.”
The defining characteristics of modern conservatism are racism, greed, and an open contempt for democratic processes. Lock this loudmouth motherfucker up.
The Least Surprising Story Ever Told
YEAH DEF. DIDN’T SEE THIS COMING:
In 2016, Erick Erickson could not have been clearer. Donald Trump was “a racist” and “a fascist.” It was no wonder, Mr. Erickson wrote, that “so many people with swastikas in their Twitter profile pics” supported him. “I will not vote for Donald Trump. Ever,” he insisted, adding his voice to the chorus of Never Trump Republicans.
Last week, Mr. Erickson, a well-known conservative blogger, titled one of his pieces “I Support the President.” In three years, he had come completely around, a transformation that is a testament to President Trump’s remarkable consolidation of support inside the Republican Party. The effort to impeach the president, Mr. Erickson wrote, was a desperate move by people “who have never come to terms with him.”
“Never Trump” no more, conservatives have largely resigned themselves to a more accommodating state of mind: “Never mind Trump.” And their change in attitude helps to mute the much smaller group of conservative voices who remain highly critical of the president and have questioned his conduct.
Glenn Beck, the radio host who once called Mr. Trump “an immoral man who is absent decency or dignity,” now says that his defeat in 2020 would mark “the end of the country as we know it.” Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, who so bitterly feuded with the president during the 2016 primaries that Mr. Trump gave out Mr. Graham’s cellphone number on national television, declared last week that impeachment was nothing but “a political set up.”
You mean to tell me that such upstanding citizens like Erick son of Erick and Glenn Beck are grifters and frauds whose only core principles are hating Democrats and making sure they are in on the grift? I’m shocked!
Regrets, I Have a Few: Trump’s Young Black Leadership Conference
Please, please, please, someone provide a photo/video of this conference. I need to see all the young people of color at this "Young Black Leadership Summit". Because otherwise, I'm just gonna assume it's Candace and Diamond and Silk. ?
— Miss T (@TaMarasKitchen) October 4, 2019
I made a snarky response on twitter, forgetting what Trump supporters are like. Now I’m in a whirlwind of approval and equal nastiness.
But honestly? Can anyone blame me for thinking it would be another “Hispanics for Trump” and “Blacks for Trump” signs being held up by a sea of white faces?
News reports say there were 200 attendees – black, white and orange. There is a real lack of photos of the audience. Just the front two rows.
Anyway…I’m about ready to delete my tweet because I’m over the interaction. LOL, I prefer my tweets unread.
What are your thoughts on this rally?
Regrets, I Have a Few: Trump’s Young Black Leadership ConferencePost + Comments (49)
Wednesday Morning Open Thread: *Snerk*
“The President actually said to Nancy Pelosi, ‘Hey, can we do something about this whistleblower complaint, can we work something out.’ And she said ‘Yes, you can tell your people to obey the law.’ So she quickly swatted that down." – @HeidiNBC https://t.co/vtWnAww1ch
— MSNBC (@MSNBC) September 24, 2019
Democrats in array. Goodnight.
— Brian Schatz (@brianschatz) September 25, 2019
Despite his public defiance, Trump is not welcoming the impeachment fight, people say. He phoned Pelosi yesterday to discuss the whistleblower's complaint and was hoping he could de-escalate things. He later said he couldn't believe it when she made her announcement.
— Kaitlan Collins (@kaitlancollins) September 25, 2019
There’s no world in which sending your personal attorney to demand a foreign investigation into a political rival is a legitimate exercise in presidential power. https://t.co/BvJ67MMWCY
— Jonathan Chait (@jonathanchait) September 25, 2019
Dunked on by Jon Chait — oh, the humiliation! From NYMag, “Trump: I’d Like to Withdraw My Guilty Plea and Change It to ‘Not Guilty’”
… Trump today told reporters that his real motive in holding up aid to Ukraine was to force other countries to give money to Ukraine also. Trump, you see, really loves Ukraine and wants it to have all the money. Sure, he withheld the aid, he admitted this morning, after newspapers had revealed that he’d personally orchestrated the plan, “but, very importantly, Germany, France, other countries should put up money, and that’s been my complaint from the beginning,” he said.
That was not his complaint from the beginning. It was not even his complaint as of yesterday, when he said he held up the aid because “it’s very important to talk about corruption [i.e., investigating Biden]. If you don’t talk about corruption, why would you give money to a country that you think is corrupt?”…
Even ‘A Blond & Two Boobs On A Couch’ realizes this will not work!
This is an alert to their favorite viewer that he needs to change his story. https://t.co/E3g47aL7bq
— Michael Grunwald (@MikeGrunwald) September 24, 2019
So as I understand it, the emerging GOP position is that we shouldn't investigate Trump's efforts to rig next year's election because hey, there's an election next year.
— Paul Krugman (@paulkrugman) September 24, 2019
I guess someone had to be the first person to live-tweet his own impeachment. https://t.co/obxr9ismBZ
— Seth Masket (@smotus) September 24, 2019
At least the Ambulatory Cream Cheese Sculture (h/t Betty Cracker) remains loyal… for the moment:
When Trump does at last shoot that man on Fifth Avenue, Hugh will lead the investigation of all the reasons the deceased had it coming https://t.co/G4MaeikWLX
— David Frum (@davidfrum) September 24, 2019
The Impact of Fracking on Daily Lives
For the last couple of months, SWN energy has been developing a new pad about a mile away from town as the bird flies, but about 3-4 miles by road. The pad is at a high point on what is known as Marlborough spur, and basically overlooks the town of Bethany. The sound from the pad rolls down the valley and bombards the town:
The sound has been absolutely out of control, and goes on all day and all night. Here are two videos showing what it is like, but they really do not do it justice because you also get the vibrations and grinding sound. If I put my hand against the wall of my house, I can feel it. The only way I can really describe it is that when I am not able to block it out, I feel like I am living through the seen in the Lord of the Rings when the Orcs are tearing down Fangorn Forest. Here is a video at 1 am:
And here it is at 9 am in the morning:
And it goes on like this all night. Some days it stops. And then it just starts right back up again. None of us know what the sound is- whether it is drilling, sandblasting, compressors, some combination of the above. But it is soul-crushing and keeping people up all night long. You have to sometimes shout to people outside to be heard. I know one person who took her hearing aids out and was still kept up to 3 am.
Before I go on, let me state that ALL of this could be mitigated. They could spend a little bit of money and erect a sound barrier. But they won’t, because they claim they did sound studies and it was not a problem. Were they to erect a barrier, it would stop all that from rolling down the valley and blasting the town.
Yesterday morning, immediately after recording that video, I got in the family truckster and drove up to the pad. Once there, I recorded the sound from the pad. Now to understand where I was when I recorded this, I was on the OTHER side of the pad, with the pad between me and Bethany.
Here is the sound from the pad on that side:
As you can see, less of the grinding and more of a white noise.
Sidebar- Apparently on top of the noise pollution, pumping toxic chemicals into the earth, destroying the roads, and running everyone off the road, SWN also seems to run unsecure drilling operations, because I was able to just drive right on up to the pad. There was a little shack at the fork, but no gate, no one told me to stop (there was a guy there and we just waved at each other as I drove on in), and no signage or anything to tell me to not enter or hardhat area or anything. Awesome.
At any rate, after weeks of complaints, they decided they would grace us with another sound study to see if they needed to do anything. They placed sound meters in a neighbors yard, and would monitor it for 72 hours, then run the data. You all know what happens next, right?
THE MOTHERFUCKERS STOPPED WORK FOR LABOR DAY WEEKEND.
The sound meters were put in Friday afternoon, and there was not a peep all weekend. Monday night at 6, the meters came out, and by 7 pm they were drilling again. The report will come back showing no sound issues, because of course it will.
Finally, the town had enough and it was announced that SWN reps would be coming to town council last night. This was arranged at around noon yesterday. The drilling sounds I recorded yesterday morning? They stopped at noon.
So they know what they are doing, and they just don’t give a shit. I did not go to the town council meeting because I did not trust myself around them and the local tv station was there filming, and I did not want to become a viral sensation. I had already had a run-in with one of the SWN reps, this crapweasel who is doing their bidding. I’ll share that with you:
You see what he is doing there, right? It’s the equivalent of a gun humper saying “HA IT’S A MAGAZINE NOT A CLIP MY HUNTING RIFLE IS A SEMI-AUTO.” We don’t know what the actual source of the noise is at the pad. Like I said, it may be fracking, it may be sandblasting, it may be compressors and a whole bunch of other stuff. But he’s claiming that the place wasn’t shut down, which means it might have been passively collecting natural gas, and hence technically still running.
But since I swore at him, he had his out. Like everyone in the media and political establishment who thinks swearing while protesting something is worse than the actual violence you are swearing about, he tried to take his ball and go home:
And then I let him know I knew exactly what they were up to:
And then I hit him in the masculinity (all these roughneck pricks get off on thinking they are badass- they run around in large trucks with “pipeline trash” decals), calling him out for being a delicate flower:
At any rate, I did not go because I have anger issues, but my friends did, and here is the write-up in the local media:
A community is outraged with the effects they say fracking is having in Bethany, WV.
“This is absurd. This is the United States, but no, it’s still West Virginia, so we’re the lowest of the low and our voice is never heard,” said one community member.
“When’s it going to end? When is there going to be the next pad? Are you just going to destroy all the hilltops?”
While the room packed with citizens presented many concerns and questions, one reoccurring theme was the noise that the community members call unbearable to live with.
“I kept thinking to myself, ‘Is this anything close to freeway noise I had to deal with in LA?’ And, I’m here to tell you there is no comparison. This is worse than anything I’ve experienced,” said another community member.
And the impact it is having on their physical and mental health: “The first days we were doing outside activities and I couldn’t hear them because of the drill, and I am like; when are they all going to all start going crazy?”
We’ll see what happens. My guess is nothing.
Oh, and btw, SWN CEO William Way made $8 million dollars last year ruining our lives.