The Trump Administration 2017-

[Driver]

W was criticized because he appointed a FEMA head that was clearly a cronyism move, who bailed in short order. Also, his mother said people taking shelter in the stadium probably had it better than they did in their homes.

 

Worthy items to be hated on for if you ask me.

 

That said, as much as I hated W back then, now he seems like a silly grandpa president in comparison.

[Svenn]

I would assume having the President visit is actually a nightmare from a logistical standpoint, since the overbearing security requirements probably hinder the actual recovery work going on within the President's vicinity. It would make much more sense for the President to do something like a helicopter flyover, but there's no way to do that without being criticized for being detached and not talking to people on the ground.

 

Trump stayed away from intensive areas, which was probably a good thing for the ongoing recovery efforts, but also opened him to criticism for later claiming he saw the horror first hand.

 

Maybe there's no good answer from a political optics standpoint, short of going to ground zero and getting in everybody's way.

[Guest]

Also, his mother said people taking shelter in the stadium probably had it better than they did in their homes.

 

Worthy items to be hated on for if you ask me.

 

Please don't hate me because of what my mom says.

 

Also, IIRC, it was something more along the lines of it working out well for the people who wanted to relocate to Texas, since they were underprivileged. Which, honestly, isn't an unfair assessment. Being poor makes it really hard to pick up and move, so that aspect probably did work out.

[Poe Dameron]

W was criticized because he appointed a FEMA head that was clearly a cronyism move, who bailed in short order. Also, his mother said people taking shelter in the stadium probably had it better than they did in their homes.

 

Worthy items to be hated on for if you ask me.

 

That said, as much as I hated W back then, now he seems like a silly grandpa president in comparison.

Brown was really just a scapegoat in the middle of a media firestorm. For what it's worth, he seems like a rather serious, compassionate, and likable guy whenever he's called in by news organizations when one of these disasters happen. And given that he worked at FEMA for two years at a high level before becoming director of FEMA, and that he performed well for a series of hurricanes that hit Florida in 2004, statements that he wasn't qualified are more political gotcha than reality.

 

Then again, I'm dubious that the Bush Administration mishandled Katrina nearly to the degree that the prevailing conventional wisdom would indicate. There's a reason why Trump's main goal in Texas last week was controlling the media spin.

 

Anyway, with it in mind that there will likely be some self-serving views, here's Brown's side of the story.

[Cerina]

Cerina - as someone who lives in an area that has suffered a natural disaster, do you feel like having the president visit is important? I've never been in that situation, but I don't really see a need for the president to visit, as long as people who can actually do something are doing it.

Aside from "tradition", no not really. Once upon a time it might have been important for such leaders to make a trip to really get a sense of what is going on, but with the media and social media people on the other side of the world can see exactly what's going on.

 

What matters to me is having government leadership actually take a part in relief efforts, constantly disseminate important information, and keep it all as transparent as possible. Even though, I, and any other reasonable person, do actually realize that their jobs will require them to split their focus, it does actually help to have the illusion that EVERYONE is doing everything they can all the time with no distractions to help. I know that's weird, but it's true. I know so many people, myself included, who just get irrationally angry and upset seeing people in other parts of the country post on social media about their regular lives. That's one of the bad things about social media. You wouldn't call someone who just lost a loved one to brag about your own promotion, but that's often what it feels like when you're in the middle of so much destruction. (Again, I know it's irrational, and I'm able to talk myself down when I see it happening in me.)

 

But then again, perhaps having the president visit makes other people feel as though he's working for us and cares about what's happening. Nothing this particular president would do would make me believe that, but others probably do. So it's good for them to get that sense of security.

[Guest]

I hear what you mean, re: social media. My life is 300% better since I did away with Facebook. I don't know that I even could go back at this point.

[Ms. Spam]

It maybe time to restart a thread about North Korea.

[Ms. Spam]

HAHAHAHAHA! GOP! How do you like your flip floppin' president! Makin' deals to fund the relief and government!

[Lord Darth Hunter]

I think we all know the difference between a small church that might exist in a low-income neighborhood and help people in that community in some way (IE help feed or clothe the needy, helps addicts, or otherwise provides some sort of public good) on a shoestring budget, VS an evangelical megachurch.

The problem is where to draw the line. For example, I've been to plenty of small Catholic churches in low-income neighborhoods that are doing as much good as they can. But they are still Catholic churches, still part of Rome, which you can argue is one of the biggest corporations on earth.

[Svenn]

Ideally, the pastors of the megachurches are being properly taxed on their income (preachers aren't exempt from income tax), but I know there have been plenty of cases where megachurch figureheads have tried to get around that by having as many personal assets as possible owned by the church and assigned a nominal church purpose.

 

The catholic church does a fair amount of land investment, and those properties (that are for investment purposes) are subject to property taxes. At least they are in these parts. I know that's nowhere close to what taxing their income would look like, but they aren't totally off the hook either.

[Guest]

The Catholic Church is honestly more of a franchise setup than a corporation. Individual parishes are mostly on their own. Also not sure that location is a good basis: a church in a low-income area is quite capable of doing nothing to help the poor, and a church in a wealthier area is capable of doing a lot. In fact, our parish is in a fairly nice area, and does a lot to support a soup kitchen downtown, has a group that takes really nice dinners to the homeless every week, has free legal aid a couple times a month, free psychiatric aid, and so on.

 

That's pretty much exactly why I would say basing off of service is the answer.

[Ms. Spam]

Our leader is at the UN.

[Ms. Spam]

Jesus. Who wrote this speech? Do they not know history?

[Metropolis]

Im at work so I haven't heard it, but from what I'm seeing online Elton John is going to ask for royalties.

[Ms. Spam]

So... to revisit this topic:

 

Some of the tweets coming from Trump about Mueller are kind of funny. Like seriously Trump does not see the writing on the wall or understand that what his campaign did in his name is wrong. It's almost as bad as the Niger fiasco where he blamed the military but doesn't realize he's the Commander in Chief. Much like stuff done in his campaign days was done in his name for his chance to win the presidency. I keep hoping he'll resign and then we can move on to the next stomach turning head of state, Pence.

[Poe Dameron]

It's almost as bad as the Niger fiasco where he blamed the military but doesn't realize he's the Commander in Chief.

 

Yeah, Trump should have blamed and feds on some guy in California with a YouTube account. That's how it's done by respectable and accountable presidents!

 

As for the indictments. It's a lot of noise, but it's still pretty far removed from wrongdoing on Trump's part.

[Ms. Spam]

Trump's "friends" are going to go down as criminals.

[Metropolis]

That's an Obi Wan way to look at it.

[Poe Dameron]

Trump's "friends" are going to go down as criminals.

Not too surprising. They had to dig at the bottom of the barrel to find anyone who knew what they were doing to work for Trump, particularly during the primaries.

 

Don't tell Trump, but he can blame Ted Cruz for this since Manafort was brought in because he was pretty much the last person still in Republican politics even tangentially that had experienced a Convention fight for delegates and Cruz was swiping all the delegates that weren't nailed down. If not for that quirk in his resume, Manfort never gets hired.

 

I remember when it happened and it barely made a blip. Someone I knew called it inside baseball to even acknowledge it as a key hire even though Manafort would quickly become top dog behind Trump himself and then booted just as quickly.

[Metropolis]

So it's November 4th. I wonder if Antifa has the stones to live up their revolutionary talk. I swear to God if the cops aren't allowed to intervene in these protest cities, the anti Antifa people are going to feel justified in retaliating and this will get ugly quiclky.

[Ms. Spam]

I have seen some wild ANTIFA conspiracy theories though. My favorite is about the radio.

Is the Department of Defense Planning a Communications Drill to Coincide with 'Antifa' Demonstrations?

[Svenn]

Ha. I forgot about the November 4th rumors.

 

I view this less as antifa didnt follow through and more as the revolution crap was mostly being pushed by the alt-right hype machine for page views. YMMV.

[Metropolis]

I think a lot of their parents found their masks and grounded them.

[Ms. Spam]

OMG! The rumour had to be debunked that the guy who shot up a church in Sutherland Springs was a member of ANTIFA. wth?

[Guest]

Antifa is the new Boogeyman.