Wednesday’s Forum
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FILED UNDER: Open Forum
OTB relies on its readers to support it. Please consider helping by becoming a monthly contributor through Patreon or making a one-time contribution via PayPal. Thanks for your consideration.
A “Striking” Trend: After Texas Banned Abortion, More Women Nearly Bled to Death During Miscarriage
My wife had 2 miscarriages between our 2nd and 3rd children.
Trump solicits bribe. Receives it. Another addition to the corruption of our country by Trump.
Paramount to pay $16 million in settlement with Trump over ’60 Minutes’ interview
What Pandora’s box will this open?
Trump now routinely appears in a suit and the ridiculous red trucker cap; and ICE Barbie, at the opening of Dixie Dachau, wore the white version of the Trump campaign hat. The political campaign never ends, nor does the selling of MAGA merch. I know, “elect a clown, expect a circus,” but the complete whoring out of the presidency still grates on the nerves.
There’s bending and then there is caving:
The University of Pennsylvania will retroactively strip transgender swimmer Lia Thomas of her records and titles as part of a deal with the Education Department to abide by bans on transgender athletes in women’s sports.
I truly thought this was a joke when I first heard of it. They are removing records someone set who competed under existing rules because they changed the rules at a later date? The U Penn Board that okayed this travesty should be run out of town on a rail, or tarred and feathered.
And there is also this:
“In addition, in providing to female student-athletes intimate facilities such as locker rooms and bathrooms in connection with Penn Athletics, such facilities shall be strictly separated on the basis of sex and comparably provided to each sex.”
So if there is a transgender person competing in intramural athletics will they have someone checking locker rooms to determine their biological sex?
I have to agree with the person who said they skipped caving, and went straight to fellating Trump (although they used a slightly more vulgar term).
@Lucysfootball:
Damnatio memoriae. Not the first time the felon has attempted to erase the past.
Some background first: I grew up in I guess a pretty typical Sixties environment. Lost my dad early, and was a crazy kid, jumping 120 feet hills on cross-country skis, hopping down ice-slides at school (losing footing, remembering a classmate looking down at me, saying “he’s dead” quite calmly, before i woke in the surgery), fighting in the schoolyard, breaking my bike driving “between a tree”, bombing from 35-feet diving platforms and on and on. My mom, the Chair of the local Conservative Womens Club (would have been a rock-ribbed Republican in the US) in the end packed away her trusted wooden clotheshanger and said “You’re obviously hellbent on killing yourself and neither talkings-to, house arrest or spanking helps one bit. So I’m giving up.”
I obviously survived and thought I was a really tough guy.
But then the world intervened.
Because at 15 I read Solzhenitsyns GuLAG Archipelago, and about the Chinese Cultural Revolution, the “Re-education” and the Tuol Sleng prison and execution site in Cambodia and I realized that life was much more, and more perilous than steering your sled into the ditch, getting stitches in the ER or a maternal spanking. It was a life or death experience, literally – going on all over the globe.
Well.
Who kept the World from being taken over by those horrible people? Y’all know where this is heading, but here goes:
My stepfather flew Spitfires during the war. He got a stipend to Harvard Business School in 1947, and always held the US in the highest regard. He said: “You can always trust the Americans. They’ll be there for you, they’ll have your back.”
I’m simply asking: What the hell happened, America? Yeah, there’s 60 years since my “Scandinavian answer to Norman Rockwell”-childhood, but you’re on the side of Russia and North Korea and China now??
It’s unfathomable.
BTW: I saw JFKs Rice Speech the other day and almost broke down. Where’s my America? Greetings from Norway.
@ScandiLib: Lots of things went off the rails wrong recently because many things were actually going right for a bit.
“I believe that we probably have lost the culture war. That doesn’t mean the war is not going to continue, and that it isn’t going to be fought on other fronts. But in terms of society in general, we have lost. This is why, even when we win in politics, our victories fail to translate into the kind of policies we believe are important.
Therefore, what seems to me a legitimate strategy for us to follow is to look at ways to separate ourselves from the institutions that have been captured by the ideology of Political Correctness, or by other enemies of our traditional culture. I would point out to you that the word “holy” means “set apart,” and that it is not against our tradition to be, in fact, “set apart.” You can look in the Old Testament, you can look at Christian history. You will see that there were times when those who had our beliefs were definitely in the minority and it was a band of hardy monks who preserved the culture while the surrounding society disintegrated.
What I mean by separation is, for example, what the homeschoolers have done. Faced with public school systems that no longer educate but instead “condition” students with the attitudes demanded by Political Correctness, they have seceded. They have separated themselves from public schools and have created new institutions, new schools, in their homes.”
That’s Paul Weyrich, co-founder of the Heritage Foundation and Goldwater protege, speaking to a Christian group in 1980.
@Charley in Cleveland:
Watching that stupid, slump-shouldered oaf lumbering around in an ill-fitting suit and that cap is looking at an image of everything that’s wrong.
Cloudflare launches a marketplace that lets websites charge AI bots for scraping
Now if they can use micro-paymets for bots scraping websites, why can’t they be used for visitors to a website, interested in a single article, but faced with a paywall that only offers subscriptions?
@ScandiLib: You’re grossly mischaracterizing US policy. I can’t tell if you’re doing it for effect or you really think the US is on the side of Russia, NK, and China.
@becca:
This is what happened: People believe that how things are is how they have always been and how they will always be.
The post WW-II boom for the USA created such wealth that life for most has been beond wonderful.
The majority of Americans have never struggled, never suffered loss. Bad things happen, but they happen to other people and 24-hour entertainment news though all the various media sources numb people to horrors. 30 dead by a mass shooting have the same impact as the local weather report. Wars are fought by other people, by remote control. Empathy and unity have been replaced by tots and pears.
This will change for the majority of Americans after the spending bill passes. People will say: Who could have known! No one could have predicted this! I didn’t vote for this! How could they do this? Why didn’t anyone warn us???
And still, it will change nothing. It will not be enough because the big money will continue to support whatever the Trump administration machine has become.
Watch what happens about the stories about deaths due to conditions in the Florida concentration camp (Alligator Alcatraz) occurs…. No one could have known that putting people in the middle of a swamp in 100+ degree heat with 100% humidity would kill people…
Dead people that used to be your neighbors… that helped you at Home Depot… that delivered your groceries… that built your home or drove you to the airport.
And their deaths will be forgotten the next day.
We have become the Germans that lived next to Auschwitz said that they did not know what was happening.
I don’t know if there is a way back from this.
——————
Edit: @Fortune – wake the fuck up. We may not be on Russia’s side, but we are definitely on Putin’s side.
And as long as Trump can make money in China, they will get what they want as well… as they pass us by technologically.
Autocrats love them some Autocrats.
@Liberal Capitalist: Did you know that people live in Florida?
The nazi in chief could totally take over the US government, all three branches of it, if he could only get Chinese citizens to vote in US elections.
Sean “Diddy” Combs has been acquitted of all charges but for 2 violations of the Mann Act.
@Fortune: You mean all of the people with AC, or the freedom to leave their homes to go to cooling centers/malls/libraries that do have AC? Those people?
@Fortune:
Trump is quite clearly on the Russian side. It’s absurd to pretend otherwise. He is ‘pausing’ weapons deliveries to Ukraine despite making noise about Putin. Supporting Russia is defending China and North Korea.
There is a very long body of evidence, starting even before his first term – not that evidence will matter to you, little cultie. But macho man Trump is Putin’s bottom.
@Jen: Do you think the facility doesn’t have AC?
@Fortune: How efficient do you think AC will be in tents? Hopefully this whole mess will be borne by the taxpayers of Florida and not the rest of us.
Honestly, the entire thing is proving the adage that the cruelty is the point. It’s clearly modeled on Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s tent nonsense in AZ.
@Jen: You’re kidding, or you haven’t read anything about it.
@Fortune:
I live in Florida, dickweed.
And the AC is on. And the car is cooled before I go out
And i have running water and indoor toilets as well.
@Jen:
I think he means cookies have no brains.
@Liberal Capitalist: and you don’t burst into flames? You should explain it to Jen.
@Jen:
Prisons without AC. Tell me it isn’t so?=
Google is your friend.
@Bill Jempty:
Nope. DeSantis has already said that it will be paid by the federal government at an estimated $450 Million per year.
Imagine his glee.
The Florida GOP has turned a concentration camp for immigrants into a merchandising opportunity.
https://www.fox13news.com/news/florida-republicans-selling-alligator-alcatraz-merchandise
@Kingdaddy:
Will Trump get a cut of the proceeds?
I think what Murkowski means is: It’s My First Day
TL;DR: “…she’s hoping the bill will be changed further before Congress sends it to the president’s desk.”
It seems like I kicked a hornet’s nest with Fortune here. Just to recap: After a rough’n’tumble childhood I thought I was ready for life – then I discovered Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot and the horrors of that kind of world. But the mightiest nation in the world had our backs, from I am a Berliner to Tear down this wall. My simple question was “Is the United States still that backstop?” I see that Fortune was offended, but I think there are reasons to ask that question. And I also mentioned my stepdad who flew over Normandy 6.6.44 saying: You can trust the Americans, they’ll never let you down. Is that still true?
@Bill Jempty: I already know this, I lived in Arizona when Arpaio had his tent city facility, and most of the incarceration facilities in New Hampshire lack AC. Please direct the pedantic comments like “Google is your friend” to Fortune.
The facility being built in Florida will have AC, according to several articles. That does not mean that it will work efficiently, or be cost-effective. It will cost a f*cking fortune to properly cool that facility, which IMHO means that it won’t be.
@Liberal Capitalist:
LC- I didn’t write this, Jen did. I just had it quoted in my post to her.
@ScandiLib: I think it’s too broad a question. The Americans “let Europe down” from 1914-1917, and from 1939-1941. If you lived near the Soviet Union, you could say the Americans let you down at Yalta. I’m not offended, I just don’t think it’s meaningful to say the US is on Russia’s side, and definitely not on North Korea’s or China’s.
@ScandiLib:
Probably not, but you won’t know till it is tested and going forward it will vary depending on the philosophy of the administration in power and who needs backing up.
@ScandiLib:
You should assume that Trump will ignore Article 5. He is incapable of standing up to Putin. Never has, never will. Europe is on its own.
One must also assume that Trump will refuse to defend Taiwan. Trump only does what profits him or feeds his ego. He has no other motivation, aside from enjoying cruelty.
@Fortune:
If you aid Iran you are also aiding its allies, correct? If you aid Cuba you are also aiding its allies, correct? If you assist any sanctioned nation you are inevitably aiding its allies.
Now, what countries are allied with the Russians? Here’s the list: China, North Korea, Belarus and a scattering of other minor authoritarians. If Trump aids Russia he is aiding Russia’s allies. And he is clearly aiding Russia.
@Sleeping Dog:
The US was a reliable backstop under every post-war president except Trump. Trump is weakening US power dramatically. Our allies don’t trust us and our enemies don’t fear us.
Qui bono? Vladimir Putin, Chairman Xi and little Kim.
@Michael Reynolds:
I always thought Putin bought Trump’s love and loyalty eternally back in 2015 or 2016 when he described Trump as “smart.” Trump was thrilled that such a big, tough, powerful guy thought he was intelligent.
A very clever move on Putin’s part. He had Trump in his pocket forever after.
@Michael Reynolds:
Yes, the American century is over.
@Liberal Capitalist: That was from my comment and clearly I should have added a sarcasm tag, LOL.
@CSK: I disagree. “Everything that’s wrong” is that over half of the voters rejected the alternative. Despising Trump fixes nothing. A majority of Americans rejected a sane choice for an insane one. Because bird flu raised the price of eggs. And elected the party that believes that laissez faire economic models solve problems. If you guys think Trump is the problem, you’re all nuts. And are in want of mirrors.
@just nutha:
I think you may be reading more into my observation about Trump’s loathsomeness than I intended. He’s a symbol.
And…I didn’t vote for him. How am I responsible for his presidency.
Laura Loomer, “influencer” with some influence over the current occupant, is calling for the deportation of 65 million people. Huh, that’s the estimated number of Hispanics in the US in 2023. I’m sure that’s just a coincidence.
@Kingdaddy:
Did she say how she expected this to be accomplished? Does she include the current Secretary of State in the number of those to be deported?
Found on twitter:
ICE officers stopped by our farm yesterday.
“We need to inspect your property for illegal aliens,” one of them said. I replied, “Alright, but whatever you do, don’t go into that field over there.”
The officer in charge exploded.“Mister, I have the authority of the federal government behind me!” he barked, reaching into his back pocket. He yanked out a badge and shoved it in my face.“See this fucking badge? This badge means I can go wherever I want on ANY land. No questions asked, no answers given. Am I clear? Do you understand?”
I nodded politely and said, “Be my guest.”Then I went back to my chores.About ten minutes later, I heard screaming. I looked up and saw six ICE agents running for their lives, being chased by my big, mean, old bull. And with every step, that bull was closing in. Fast.It looked like they were about to get gored for sure.So I dropped my tools, ran over to the fence, and shouted at the top of my lungs:
“YOUR BADGE! SHOW HIM YOUR FUCKING BADGE!”
@ScandiLib: Put Fortune out of your mind. He’s going to be scandalized about whatever you write. The commentariat enjoys the fighting enough that it doesn’t much mind feeding the trolls for opportunity. It’s kind of a symbiotic relationship.
ETA: And no, under the current government, I do not see the US functioning as that backstop. Nor do lots of its allies, apparently.
@Bill Jempty: You should learn punctuation/use of the “blockquote” button, then. English syntax has lots of markers available to add clarity to our communication.
Sometime after a normal successful log in to OTB yesterday morning (Tue. July 1, 2025) on my iPhone SE a subsequent OTB log in attempt just minutes later conjured up this message:
This message only appears on my iPhone and only when I attempt to log in to OTB.
Log in to OTB on my MacBook Air using Chrome or Safari is error free.
This Bad Request message persisted all day yesterday and again today.
I know that I have seen this message before and after a matter of time, (hours? days? I don’t recall.) and no intervention on my part, OTB log in returned to normal. When I was at the laundromat this morning attempting to log in and getting the Error message suddenly there was the OTB page! Apparently it was just the squirrels playing games as not two minutes later OTB dropped of and there was the Error message again. The only remedy that I have tried is to reboot the phone but that doesn’t change anything.
Since I can still log in on my MacBook Air this is an annoyance that I could do without.
@CSK: I’ll agree with you on Trump being a symbol of how fucked up the voters are. A few of you are sane. Many of you would vote for a spotted tick with a “D” after it’s name. (Or an “R” as the case may be.)
Joseph de Maistre is credited with saying “Every nation gets the government it deserves.”. America had the chance to have control of how it granted suffrage and wasted it promoting bigotry and a pseudo aristocracy. Loathing Trump (or anyone else for that matter) is a waste of emotion, but if it makes you feel like you’re accomplishing something, peace be with you.
@ScandiLib:
America no longer has its own back, much less anyone else’s.
I think the root causes are trickle down “economics”, share value supremacy, and the collapse of the USSR.
The first two eroded the middle class. The third removed the possibility of an existential threat to the US, and to a lesser extent to Europe. In turn, this led to the perception that alliances like NATO were no longer very valuable, or lacked value at all.
Back in the 90s there were lots of editorials and commentary wondering what good NATO was any longer, that it persisted out of inertia, there were better things on which to spend money now used for defense, etc.
Then 9/11 happened, and the questions and comments died down. NATO invoked Article 5 for the very first time, about ten years after it was declared an obsolete Cold War relic.
But then Iraq happened and many NATO and other allies refused to go along. And even Afghanistan became a 20 year quagmire, followed by an ignominious withdrawal (as negotiated by El Taco himself).
The war in Ukraine complicates things, but I don’t think the typical American worries much about what Russia might do next. they may not even be wrong, How would Russia fare against Western Europe, even without US troops involved?
And, for now, all the issues facing the middle class can be blamed on immigrants. But not on the billionaires that moved manufacturing to China and Asia and Mexico. So it’s fascism and the most stupid implementation of mercantilism yet.
@just nutha:
Actually, loathing Trump gives me no satisfaction–nor feeling of accomplishment–whatsoever. It’s a visceral reaction I’ve had to him since the 1980s. I knew what he was long before a lot of others. If you lived within the northeast U.S., you couldn’t not know about him if you were even semi-conscious.
It does, however, confound me that his worshipers can’t see him exactly for what he is: a cruel, stupid churl who desperately needs the adulation of the mobs he holds in utter and barely disguised contempt.
@ScandiLib:
Ah, first off that happy delusion that “America ALWAYS had our backs.” Does not square real well with history. All nations follow their own interests, for the most part, and even in the Cold War some were left by the wayside. It’s a happy thought, not much more.
To the main point, I would say a profound shallowness overcame the American people. STEM has become the holy font of all “important” education. The books that enlightened you and expanded your thoughts are “liberal arts” now and somewhat discouraged. I will give you $100 for every 18 to 40 year old person who has read any Solzhenitsyn if you will give me a penny for every one that hasn’t. $50 to a penny on every one that has ever heard of him. Few read books, few really think unless it’s something related to their work or sports/entertainment.
The news? Infotainment that for the most part is tuned out or ignored unless some major event happens. I do not blame them much, as even I find the cable /TV news unwatchable. Even CNN spends most of its time manufacturing arguments for “interesting discussions” between paid pundits and not scholars, as facts end “discussions”. Tedious and ultimately uninformative. The mission is arguing with each other to cater to a small percentage of the addicted, not informing the public. Nobody is telling them to knock that crap off.
We got soft and mentally lazy. Self centered.
@CSK: “Does she include the current Secretary of State in the number of those to be deported?”
I can’t speak for Loomer, but I certainly do. In fact, I’m willing to let the other 63 million stay here if we can just send him to El Salvador or South Sudan.
@wr:
“I can’t speak for Loomer…”
Well, thank God for that. 😀
Thanks OTB-ers for your answers and comments. I guess Fortune is not writing in totally good faith, but so what, I’m an old hell raiser and rock’n’roller and at 65 I can tolerate much worse. Viking Spirit will shine through, I hope. However, Andy points out correctly that we’re only 5,5 million people – and we share a border with Russia. And we have enormous and surely tempting resources, gas, oil, seafood worth trillions just outside the Russian reach. So without Article 5 of the NATO treaty, it could be a horrible debacle and a lot of our sons (mine is 32 and would be called up, we have conscription until 44) would go to Valhalla (Scandinavian speaking) in the process. Here’s hoping the United States regains its sense of responsibility and stands by Europe, God only knows what will happen if not. Again, thank you, and greetings from Norway.
@CSK: Stupidity in individuals rarely confounds me. Stupidity of group think even less.
@just nutha:
Sure, but it is so blatantly obvious what Trump is. Even morons should be able to see that.
I think this is a bit of a pointless argument, if argument is what it is.
@ScandiLib:
This is where you and I differ. I would substitute “not totally” with “not at all.” He’s not disingenuous or anything. I think he realizes that his opinions are indefensible and adapts his “message” to the conditions. But there are very few points he will admit to as simple beliefs because he seems unwilling to accept that other people will disagree and possess equal volition.
@ScandiLib: I’m commenting sincerely. Most Outside the Beltway commenters just assume anyone who disagrees with them can’t be arguing in good faith. There’s a lot of bad-faith or ignorant commentary out there, and a whole lot on this site as well. If you ask a question here, most people here are going to formulate a reply about how Trump is a fascist before they even finish reading your question. This is a great place to learn what a narrow set of the American population thinks about an issue.
Trump is obsessed with his image. He takes everything personally. If Trump says he wants peace in the Middle East or Ukraine and people keep fighting, he takes it as an insult. He doesn’t engage in normal reasoning. But it doesn’t mean Trump would abandon Europe. Remember, the only recent administration during which Russia didn’t invade neighbors was Trump 1. I think Putin understands Trump is to be flattered, not to be crossed. So I don’t see why you’re assuming he’d abandon Europe.
@just nutha: That’s always been the stupidest criticism of me. Maybe I spend more time criticizing bad opinions but I certainly give mine.
Yet another search for Amelia Earhart is under way.
Ok. the Earth’s surface, oceans included, is finite. The area in the Pacific she was at more so. But everyone knows she’s in the Delta Quadrant.
@Fortune:
‘ … on the side of Russia’ would hardly be a gross mischaraterization. You may have noticed that Trump recently halted very important military assistance to Ukraine, so it may very well be that he’s now ready to sell out Ukraine.
@Fortune:
No, you do not state your own opinions because you’re scared to have to defend them. You snipe and look for some irrelevancy to attack. Literally no one here believes you’re arguing in good faith. No one takes you seriously. You’re just a whipping boy we spank when we’re bored and @Connor isn’t around for us to laugh at.
If no one thinks you’re for real you’re either remarkably bad at expressing yourself, or you’re just full of shit. Shall we take a vote?
US Private Payrolls Fall for First Time in Two Years in ADP Data (Bloomberg)
The private sector lost 33,000 jobs in June, badly missing expectations for a 100,000 increase, ADP says (CNBC)
Yikes.
Fox’s Maria Bartiromo Hypes Good Job Numbers About to Come In And Skips Right By Them As News Turns Negative (Mediaite)
Lol oops.
The headline at Breitbart is “Jobs Crash?”
At the Washington Times it’s “Stocks wobble after disappointing private-sector payroll report.”
Guess blind-to-any-good Trump Derangement Syndrome is spreading to MAGA media, too, now. They must’ve missed the memo about all time highs and just-fine employment and whatnot.
@Michael Reynolds: I guess you don’t notice how often I correct the conversation. Look at the Alligator Alcatraz discussion above. I got people to think about their talking points, even only a little bit. It’s not trolling, it’s providing feedback. So don’t take me seriously, what do I care, think about your positions though.
@al Ameda:
Strange liberals focus so much of their Biden critiques on silly stuff like his necessary anti-fascist pardons and his nonexistent debilitating cognitive decline, when his failure to…
a) give Ukraine everything it needed 2-3 years ago,
b) browbeat the free world into doing the same, and
c) exploit presidents’ now expansive war powers to arm Ukraine to the teeth postelection…
…is sitting right there.
@Fortune:
If you think Jen or anyone else hasn’t read about it, then how about counter with what you have read about it?
After all, you once claimed you were instructing the OTB community. So. . . Instruct.
@Fortune:
The “burst into flames” comment would be dumb, annoying, and disruptive if it occurred in an 8th grade classroom. You are an adult. If you cannot act like it, at least argue like someone how made it to ninth grade.
As pointed out subsequent to your posts, AC is not universal in permanent detention facilities. You think they are going to offer reprieve from life-threatening heat in a tent city? Hell, Florida banned municipalities from mandating water and rest breaks for outdoor workers such as roofers. (This from the party that claims they prefer local control.)
ETA: just noticed your reply to Michael. You didn’t provide any counter to what Jen said. You sniped without a fucking bullet. Just making a gun shot sound with your mouth does not equate to firing a gun.
@ScandiLib:
No, you kicked a gnat’s nest.
@Michael Reynolds: Thanks. Now I don’t have to decide that I would take the higher road and not reply to Cookie, I can just do it. 😀
@DK: Wait …
June is when the labor force expands with temp summer jobs for students on break, etc. Yikes, indeed!
@Fortune:
Oh, wow. You so overestimate your intelligence. Or perhaps you just don’t yet know the limits on the usefulness of IQ. Maybe it’s a case of sharp knife, clumsy hand.
Great, now I have to feel sympathy for you because that was me when I was a young man. I was so fucking smart, and so fucking dumb. What you don’t see is that here in this place we collectively know so much more, and in so much more depth, often about things words can’t really convey. Life has to be lived, can’t be taught.
@Kurtz:
A context in which things like “I like this” and “I don’t like that” equal “giving opinions” as if they substitute for arguments?
That tracks.
@Kurtz:
The most I have seen is DeSantis pointing to some portable AC units and saying they will be installed. They probably will. But Jen’s point about efficiency stands.
Oh, and by the way, a storm came through and flooded it already. Pics of electrical cables running through standing water—totally safe.
Again, poorly sealed structures are not good for functioning HVAC systems. Regular ACs often struggle in summer—portable ones? I’m skeptical.
Also, they claim this facility can withstand winds from a cat 2 hurricane. Notice that they are talking about winds. The most dangerous part of a hurricane for human life is storm surge and subsequent flooding. Not wind.
They also claim the structures were properly sealed after they found out that a minor storm that dumped a whole inch and a half of rain on the facility resulted in standing water.
@Steven L. Taylor:
Not according to our instructor. SMH.
@Scott: Of the women I know well enough to have heard if they’ve had a miscarriage, it sure seems like most have. My ex-wife had an ectopic pregnancy. Thank goodness we lived in a relatively sane state.
@Kurtz:
Cat 2? This is freaking FL! Cat 2 is 110 mph. It’s barely a hurricane. That part of FL normally requires resistance to something like 150.
@Kurtz:
And I’d be skeptical about the claim that it can withstand Cat 2 hurricane winds. Many of the components may have been designed to that level, but it seems very unlikely that, as installed, the shelter systems will withstand that kind of wind without a lot of damage.
For those who can take a brief clip from a cable news and comment show, Lawrence O’Donnell highlighted a Q&A from yesterday’s press conference at the Florida prison camp. The Fox reporter asked if there’s an expected timeframe that the detainees will spend here, and trump’s answer was something else. This link should start at the 12:20 mark.
Incidentally, I find it interesting that O’Donnell uses the reaction video style when he plays the clip–he’s shown on one side of the screen looking toward the video being played and providing commentary via his facial expressions.
@Eusebio:
Oh, I am skeptical of it.
The most predictable thing in Florida summers other than heat and humidity are rain storms. They are an almost daily occurrence where I am—alligator alley starts fewer than 20 miles from my house.
If they constructed it so poorly that a storm that brought 1.5 inches of rain resulted in standing water, no one should take any claim at face value wrt this thing, whether it is DeSantis or Trump admins.
@gVOR10:
I know. You and I have been through the same storms over the last several years. We have yet to be in serious danger of storm surge or flooding from the nearby river.
Even then, if a major hurricane directly hit the closest point along the coastline, I have no idea of the impacts in my neighborhood. I suspect we would be okay, but so much of that depends on a lot of variables, including the tide at landfall.
@Eusebio: But THIS GUY is competent, and Biden was not? What the actual fuck?!
A couple of good thing happened today:
Dr. Phil’s media company filed for bankruptcy, and filed suit against its distribution partner.
Sales at the Swastikar Company are still down, with 13.5% fewer deliveries in the second quarter than last year
@Fortune: “I got people to think about their talking points, even only a little bit. ”
Wow, if for once you are actually stating what you believe you may well be the most self-deluded person on the internet.
You get people thinking about what an annoying troll you are at best. Most of the time people don’t waste their time thinking about you at all.
@Fortune:
? If this is directed at me, don’t flatter yourself. I have read enough about that facility to be confident in my assertion that the AC will be largely nonexistent and ineffective at best.
I lived in Southeast Asia, I know heat and humidity. A few portable units trying to cool what amounts to a tent isn’t going to work.