Category: Domestic Affairs,

Ignore Our Crazy President, U.S. Tells North Korea

On By peanutgallerynhIn Domestic Affairs,Leave a comment

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Defense Secretary James Mattis have issued more normal-sounding statements intended to supersede the president’s improvised one. (Mattis’s statement redraws the red line, threatening reprisal in return for North Korean actions, rather than threats.) The message of this cleanup is that Trump’s statements do not necessarily represent the position of the U.S. government – a reality most American political elites in both parties already recognize, but which needs to be made clear to other countries that are unaccustomed to treating their head of state like a random Twitter troll.

It is humiliating for the world’s greatest superpower to disregard its president as a weird old man who wanders in front of microphones spouting off unpredictably and without consequence. But at this point, respect for Trump’s capabilities is a horse that’s already fled the barn. New chief of staff John Kelly has supposedly instilled military-style order and message discipline into the administration, but Trump is unteachable. Minimizing the havoc means getting everybody to pretend Trump isn’t really president.

Ignore Our Crazy President, U.S. Tells North Korea

sigh….

New Orleans flooded as pumps failed, worrying residents about what will happen when the next hurricane hits 

On By peanutgallerynhIn Gulf Coast Region,, Money, Class, and Poverty,Leave a comment

Residents worry the city’s infrastructure is poised to fail: “If we get hit by another Katrina, the city will be gone.”

… thunderstorm dropped as much as nine inches of rain in just four hours. The ensuing flood overwhelmed the city’s pump system and covered much of central New Orleans in several feet of water, taking 14 hours to drain and prompting 200 “life-threatening” emergency calls, according to city records.

…Unlike during Hurricane Katrina, the problem over the weekend wasn’t the 133 miles of levees and flood walls that protect New Orleans from the tidal surges of the Gulf of Mexico or Lake Pontchartrain, which hangs over the northern and eastern edge of the city. Instead, parts of New Orleans were underwater because the city’s hundreds of miles of drains and pumps couldn’t bail rainwater fast enough.

Though the water finally receded this week, the aftermath has thrown the New Orleans government and its municipal water and sewage authority into turmoil, reviving long-standing concerns that natural disasters here have been made worse by inconsistent leadership.

…the Sewerage & Water Board of New Orleans promised that all 121 drainage pumps were working properly during the storm. They said the flooding was simply caused by too much rain for the system to handle.

By Tuesday, as community skepticism deepened, the board acknowledged that eight pumps were either broken or out of service for maintenance when the rain began. Power shortages also hampered pump operations in some neighborhoods.

As a result, pumps in some hard-hit areas were operating at half of capacity, according to Joseph Becker, the water board’s superintendent.

…In an uptown neighborhood, some of the flooding might also have been exacerbated by a Corps of Engineers project designed to limit future flooding. Contractors digging new drainage culverts left three 70-foot holes in metal panels that lead to the Peoples Avenue Canal, allowing water to back up into the neighborhood, said Col. Michael N. Clancy, commander of the corps’ New Orleans district.

…Residents say many storm drains and canals are too clogged with debris to be effective. At Tuesday’s council meeting, public works officials said the city has only enough money to clear 68 of the 1,300 miles of canals this year.

New Orleans flooded as pumps failed, worrying residents about what will happen when the next hurricane hits – The Washington Post

The tone of some of the officials and experts in this story is obnoxiously counter-productive. Make the systems in place work properly already.

US won’t declare opioid emergency, Price says 

On By peanutgallerynhIn Domestic Affairs,, Drugs & Drink,Leave a comment

Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price announced Tuesday that President Donald Trump has no immediate plans to declare the nation’s opioid epidemic a public health emergency, a decision that flies in the face of the key recommendation by the President’s bipartisan opioid commission.

US won’t declare opioid emergency, Price says – CNN

The Cheeto ignores the input of people who know more than he does? Shocking!
errrr, um, not.

Fewer Passengers Bumped by U.S. Airlines After Dragging Case 

On By peanutgallerynhIn Infrastructure and Transportation,, Money, Class, and Poverty,Leave a comment

A raft of airline policy changes prompted by the high-profile case of a man who was injured while being dragged off a plane in Chicago earlier this year have had a dramatic result: airlines reported the lowest level of involuntary passenger bumpings in history.

Fewer Passengers Bumped by U.S. Airlines After Dragging Case – Bloomberg

Funny how the impossible becomes possible when the alternative is losing money.

DCCC chairman tries to defend abandoning women’s rights in favor of electing white men.

On By peanutgallerynhIn Domestic Affairs,Leave a comment

DCCC chairman responds to critics on abortion litmus test | TheHill

There is no defense for this. None. Not from anyone who values equality and civil rights for all.

A bigger tent only works is empowerment is distributed equally. Inviting those into the tent that would justify ripping empowerment away from women make it smaller.

Allowing room for those under the tent to dispute the fact that living, breathing women are more important and have more rights than the idea of a future child devalues all women, especially the ones under the tent being asked to support it.

No matter what your personal ideas on abortion are, allowing room for dispute about women’s ability to access us is anti-egalitarian. If a man owns his own body but a woman does not have sole autonomy over hers, then women are not being treated a full equal citizens.

Here’s hoping the DCC withers up and dies before this disease infects any more of the Democratic Party. The DCCC chairman need to be chucked out to pasture with all of the other dinosaurs and backwards old men. And if he isn’t? Well, see my comments about the entire DCCC dying.

Anyone who supports this man or what he is saying is anti-women, period. And that include that crusty old asshole with his bro-posse from Vermont.

 

Scarborough on Jared & Ivanka: Go Back to NY and leave the White House to he Professionals

On By peanutgallerynhIn Domestic Affairs,Leave a comment

Scarborough tore into the first daughter in The Washington Post op-ed, saying her recent tweet about serving “alongside” new White House chief of staff John Kelly was an example of her “entitlement.”

…”Kelly and White House insiders know that Ivanka Trump is as ill-prepared to face the brutish realities of Washington as her father,” Scarborough continued. “And tragically, neither seems to know what they do not know.”

…Kushner, Scarborough writes, believes “he could reinvent government like Al Gore, micro manage the White House like James Baker and restructure the Middle East like Moses.”

“…I also love Joey, Andrew, Katherine and Jack Scarborough. But I wouldn’t let them run my morning show any more than Trump should let his children run roughshod over White House operations,” he wrote.

“The best thing they can do for their country is to move back to New York and let professionals run the White House.”

: Scarborough to Jared and Ivanka: Move back to New York | TheHill

From the mouths of partisan talking-heads…..

‘Roger Ailes would be appalled’: Kayleigh McEnany’s ‘Trump TV’ debut gets ruthlessly fact-checked

On By peanutgallerynhIn Domestic Affairs,Leave a comment

…echoing other commentators who called the broadcast “propaganda” and compared it to North Korean state-run TV.

…reading propaganda for Trump TV, the president’s own channel…

“And by ‘channel,’ we mean videos posted on Facebook containing the production quality of a project from a junior high AV club taught by an out-of-work snuff-film director in the mid-1990s.” 

…Trump TV has been attractive blonde women “underscored by generic and vaguely patriotic music, giving Trump credit for doing the bare minimum of his duties as president.”

He concluded, “Trump’s old friend Roger Ailes would be appalled at this level of amateurishness.”

‘Roger Ailes would be appalled’: Kayleigh McEnany’s ‘Trump TV’ debut gets ruthlessly fact-checked

State run TV? Surrounding himself with generals? Either he does not give a flying fuck about this country or he is too stupid to know and to evil to care that he is becoming a farcical version of a soviet dictator.

Rosenstein: Special counsel Mueller can investigate any crimes he uncovers in Russia probe

On By peanutgallerynhIn Domestic Affairs,Leave a comment

The deputy attorney general said the Russia investigation is continuing apace, even as Trump dismissed the probe as “a total fabrication.”

Rosenstein: Special counsel Mueller can investigate any crimes he uncovers in Russia probe – The Washington Post

No shit, sherlock? After umpteen months and gods knows how much money down the drain it’s the only valuable thing we all learned that from Ken Starr.