Greets and saluts from the Resistance in the NYC metro area. In addition to the ongoing drought and wildfires across the Western US, there’s Irma barreling through the Caribbean with expected landfalls in Florida and the SE US, Katia waiting to make landfall in Mexico, and Jose is about to take a repeat tour of the same areas Irma wiped out just days ago.

Then there’s a major earthquake in Mexico, and they’ve reported casualties.

All across the Caribbean, there are reports of catastrophic damage and casualties. Having warning in advance of the storms has reduced the death toll, but it’s still significant when you’ve got storms that have damaged pretty much every structure on these island nations.

The GOP still refuses to address climate change and global warming, and they’re trying to get out of the disaster response business. They continue voting against storm assistance and funding disaster relief in Congress - not enough to block aid, but a reminder that these craven fuckers don’t care about anyone but themselves and their single minded devotion to making tax cuts for millionaires happen.

Every time these fuckers (yeah, I’m in a foul mood) talk about how there isn’t money to pay for disaster relief or that they need offsets from discretionary funding, they refuse to address the 800 pound gorilla that is that the GOP is intent on cutting taxes and revenues that the government needs to function to do stuff like disaster relief and rebuilding infrastructure to accommodating rising sea levels.

We started seeing some of this during the Katrina rebuilding discussion - where the levees were rebuilt to a slightly higher level, but one that is not necessarily taking into account rising sea levels, which means that the safety people think that they’ve got is a mirage.

So why do so many people fall for this? Well, you’ve got college dropouts like Rush Limbaugh telling people that these storms are a hoax - that Trump and his conspiracy theory echo chamber think global warming is a hoax. They can afford to bug out to higher/safer ground because they’ve fleeced their know-nothing supporters, while those who take their advice are the ones who are gambling with their lives by sticking around, or they simply can’t afford to get out.