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Hurricane Could Make a Mess of Republican Convention
Hugh Pickens writes "ABC News reports that Hurricane Isaac, currently a tropical storm brewing southeast of Puerto Rico, is on track to hit Florida the same day that Mitt Romney and 50,000 Republican delegates, journalists, protestors and guests descend on Tampa for the Republican National Convention but whether it will skim the east coast near Miami or crash head-on into Tampa, is still up in the air. The worst possible scenario is that Hurricane Isaac stays on the western track, skating over the Caribbean Sea south of Haiti, crossing the primarily flat landscape of western Cuba into the Gulf of Mexico then curving east and hitting Tampa dead-on. 'Tampa is just as vulnerable as New Orleans was in the sense that the water will funnel into the bay area and from the storm surge which will flood completely the whole entire city of Tampa,' says meteorologist Max Golembo. 'It would be a disaster in the Tampa area.' If a hurricane or tropical storm is bearing down on Tampa, the priority of law enforcement is to evacuate residents, leaving GOP officials to make the decision of when to evacuate delegates says Hillsborough County Emergency Management spokeswoman Holly Wade. 'We have to look at a lot of factors, like timing and landfall,' says Wade. 'We provide the weather information, then we take that to the host committee, which decides if the event goes on or if the event gets altered.' A Category 2 hurricane could disrupt convention activities because the Tampa Bay Times Forum, site of the festivities, is within a mandatory evacuation zone for storms of that magnitude."
Good.
Absolutely nothing of value was lost.
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
just like the right wingers said there was
This is just an excuse to forgo the brokered convention Paul's delegates will force... They have broke every rule in every state to stop the Paul revolution, and now it looks like they have paid off Isaac to make an appearance to silence Paul's voice.
And if some people's/group's twisted logic is applied this must surely mean that God hates Republicans.
Me? I feel bad for everyone in Florida and hope the convention errr I mean hurricane passes quickly.
If there is a disaster, just watch as the Florida Republicans all demand federal aid.
Mother Nature seems pissed at the Republicans. Might wanta rethink that anti global warming stance. Apparently all the droughts and tornadoes wasn't making the point obviously enough so she decided to take aim at the deniers and try to take out as many as possible in one shot. If I was Exxon and Monsanto I'd be updating your life insurance policies.
People only get killed in cases of "legitimate" hurricanes!
Cold air, meet hot air.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
This could be a blessing in disguise (for the GOP), if it happens, as it will drive that other storm that originated in Missouri out of the front pages.
I wonder what Pat Robinson would blame this one on? God punishing the Republicans for nominating a Mormon?
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Ah. But what if it were called Hurricane Ditka?
Hoist Number One and Number Six.
It's only a Republican convention so only half the rats, alas.
http://mediamatters.org/research/2005/09/13/religious-conservatives-claim-katrina-was-gods/133804
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/laplaza/2010/01/us-televangelist-pat-robertson-links-haiti-earthquake-to-pact-with-devil.html
""Did God have anything to do with Katrina?," people ask. My answer is, he allowed it and perhaps he allowed it to get our attention so that we don't delude ourselves into thinking that all we have to do is put things back the way they were and life will be normal again."
With the first link, the chain is forged.
Oh, you mean like how that side decided to go to war in Iraq without raising taxes to pay for it? How that side cut taxes for the rich while raising spending within the government (particularly in defense spending) with no way to pay for it? And then complain when we have a deficit? Frankly, both sides of the political spectrum are unable to plan ahead in the slightest, but the GOP position is untenable -- they are the epitome of short-sighted.
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
It gives the left a chance to show how noble, tolerant, and mature they can be.
And the reason nothing passed was the Democrats were attempting to be bi-partisan. You can see how well that worked out for them.
GOP, the party of NO!
Don't know something? Look it up. Still don't know? Then ask.
It's only a Republican convention so only half the rats, alas.
A better rationale for combining the RNC and DNC conventions into a single event, I have yet to see.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
It just has "a wide stance".
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
Or it's just amusing to laugh at a bunch of idiots who poorly planned their convention. You don't need to be a leftist to do that. Do these morons not realize they planned this during a period that is usually the peak of hurricane season?
God! Tell me which way to vote!
j/k Jesus could come down and pee a rainbow with a name on it and I'd still make up my own mind. Actually, I'd probably vote opposite just to piss Yahweh off.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
You don't get debates from liberals because you make stuff up. Dems only had a supermajority in the senate for four months, most of which were in recess. The republicans have used the filibuster (or threatened to fillabuster) nearly every bill, basically negating the majority. http://washingtonindependent.com/74033/the-four-month-supermajority Federal spending rose at anywhere between 3.2-5%, a rate below average, and if you start measuring the rate from October 2009, spending has been the slowest in 60 years http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/20/us/politics/fact-checking-obama-and-romney.html?pagewanted=all Oil drilling and fraking has been approved at a faster rate under obama than Bush II. (fraking due to technology). http://content.usatoday.com/communities/theoval/post/2012/03/obama-oil-drilling-up-on-my-watch/1
Whether or not there is some sort of god, I'm not supposed to say/god is a word and the argument ends there-Smog
Democrats had a filibuster-proof majority in the senate for about 17 weeks, far less than the "2 years" you just made up. (The 17 weeks is from Al Franken's confirmation to Ted Kennedy's illness.)
During that time, there seemed to be a lot of internal discussion and compromise within the Democratic party - you know, the kind of give-and-take compromise that is supposed to make our government work. All of that is still alive and well within the Democratic party. It's just the big blog of "NO NO NO IT'S ALL MINE NO" coming from the extreme right that keeps the government from doing anything differently than the overall failed course it's on of late.
It doesn't hurt to be nice.
What bunch of geniuses decided to hold a national convention in Florida in the middle of hurricane season? Oh, wait...
You just listed a bunch of ways that our rulers enriched themselves and grabbed much, much more power.
I don't call that poor planning.
Can't let the lies go unanswered, sorry pal. The Democrats did have a majority in the Senate, but they did not have a fillibuster proof majority in the Senate. The Republican minority was therefore able to stop most bills from even coming to the floor of the Senate for a vote. This included not only budget items, like a bill the House passed which would reward companies that bring jobs back here with tax breaks instead of rewarding outsourcing, as well as most judicial appointments and financial accountability and re-regulation of some parts of Wall Street. This is the Republican party whose current Senate minority leader said that his NUMBER ONE goal was to make Obama a one term president. Not fix the economy, not bring jobs back, not fix unemployment, sure as hell not punish the banksters who caused all this, but his number one goal was politics.
BTW, among other things tht make them lying hypocrites is that this is the party of "Let's have a straight up or down vote" on judicial nominees in years past when the tables were reversed. Go look it up. Since facts matter little to Republican voters, they have an easy time getting away with being two faced.
Now, I'm about to do what no Republican will ever do: admit the other side has a point. Sometimes politicians do things they know won't pass to say they did them. So would the House have passed progressive legislation if they knew the other side in the Senate wouldn't be able to stop it? Admittedly unknown. The Republican leaders are batshit crazy, but the Democrats are also beholden to large corporations. But that's what if games. The House passed stuff, the MINORITY party prevented it from being voted on in the Senate a record number of times, and nothing got done, just like was planned because of politics. Meanwhile,we all pay for it.
That time it was Democratic leaders who made those decisions, while the Republican President was practically begging the Democratic governor to issue the orders that would allow the President to take action.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
And the reason nothing passed was the Democrats were attempting to be bi-partisan. You can see how well that worked out for them.
GOP, the party of NO!
GOP became the party of Filibuster in the Senate. Just because you had a majority, doesn't mean you get things all your own way, a party needs 2/3rds support to end a filibuster. Democrats didn't have that and the GOP effectively stonewalled things, particularly nominations for cabinet and other federal posts.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Mods, why was this allowed through the filters? It ain't tech, it isn't geeky in a technology sense (I will recognize there are hurricane geeks), and it is really just political trolling no matter how you look at it which I am willing to watch meaningful threads degenerate into but having it start off degenerate is a waste at every level.
Timothy, you suck for posting this.
And here we have a perfect example of what's wrong with America's election system today. The article mentions something political and most commenters run for their extreme positions, bunker down and start insulting. We're supposed do to that. We're supposed to become extreme and polarized. We're supposed to hate the "enemy". Both parties do this. Both parties are to blame. And we are to blame because we fall for it.
For almost all of the operation of the Federal government, Republicrats and Demublicans are in FULL AGREEMENT. They don't argue about most of the operation. Both parties pretty much want everything to just go along as always -- and deeper and deeper into debt.
They are in a lot of agreement, so there is not much of a reason to choose one over the other. To solve that, they all emphasize, magnify and distort their relatively minor, alleged differences -- but once elected, it's business as usual.
And here we all are, spewing hate because that's what our masters have decided we will do so that they can control us.
A pox on both their houses. No politician will ever do what's good for us, the "little people".
And I hope Obama wins not because I like him but because I want 4 more years of his policies. When he starts a war with Iran and Libya it will destroy the perception that he is a "peace prize" winner. I want Obama to leave in 2016 with the same bad reputation as Bush had in 2008. He may be democrat but he is nowhere near as good as our last democrat president Clinton.
I guess crazy is out in force tonight. So what's the idea here? To create some sort of destructive feedback where increasingly worse candidates are elected?
There is no reason to tolerate intolerance. Absolutes are for fools.
Of course, not all conservatives are assholes, but the GOP panders to these assholes, along with the stupid and selfish to form their base of support. That is fine, but it is hardly cricket to simultaneously pretend that the GOP has any credibility, either effectively or morally.
They intentionally bent over for these loons, and earned the reputation themselves.
Looks they are preparing for either a hurricane or vortex of some serious protest: http://www.abcactionnews.com//dpp/news/region_hillsborough/orient-road-jail-cleared-out-to-handle-rnc-arrests -- They have transferred inmates out of an entire facility in expectation of filling it with protesters. Odd.
Forward! -- Emperor Norton, 2012
>> Around 2003-4 the Republicans became aware that the mortgage lending market was "too hot" and they needed to act to slowdown the exuberance. But that time it was the Democrats who filibustered and stopped mortgage/banking laws from being rewritten & made tougher.
Republicans had the Presidency, the House, and the Senate from 2003 to 2007 -- a ridiculously convenient opportunity to address the mortgage lending market problems. Democrats can't filibuster for four solid years!
http://uspolitics.about.com/od/usgovernment/l/bl_party_division_2.htm
Interesting how propaganda works. It's not clear whether the original poster thought that filibuster proof is a "solid majority" or not. But three repliers did and they all characterize the first poster as either lying or making something up. That's an interesting though unhealthy uniformity of thought.
Can you name the critical Obama policy bills the GOP successfully filibustered? After successfully filibustering said bills, what attempts did Obama make to lobby moderate Republicans to vote for cloture to end the filibuster OR what changes did Obama and the Democrats make to the bills to make them palatable to all parties and bi-partisan?
Harry Reid did change the generally accepted method of introducing bills for a vote practically eliminating the ability to debate and amend the bills. This action changed the Senate from a deliberative body that could compromise to one that could only vote up or down on any particular bill. What surprising result sprang up from this? Oh, yeah, the minority party had enough votes (41) to prevent cloture and, therefore, a vote on the bill.
It takes too sides to reach a compromise. Introducing bills in a manner where debate and amendments are disallowed doesn't exactly create a playing field where compromise and bi-partisanship can occur.
For noncontroversial issues the Democrat majority didn't have any problem ramming-through TARP in two weeks.
Signed by Bush, voted for by Sen. McCain. At the time it was voted on, TARP was bipartisan.
Tell me you've really never heard of the filibuster. It's very possible for the minority to obstruct the majority.
Go crack open an American Government textbook while the adults are talking.
I am currently working with the City of Tampa, preparing for the RNC. All I really have to say is that this exact scenario has been expected for over a year now. Tampa in late August? You can almost expect a hurricane, and the emergency management involved is highly prepared for such a situation.
The real disaster will be in the outskirts of Tampa, not as much prepared as the city center. Tampa has not had a direct hit in a very long time, and our electrical infrastructure will be destroyed in some areas (think Charlie, Frances, Gene). Usually yearly storms will take out the weak trees, but our lack of a big storm in decades will cause much more damage to the Tampa area than it would to Miami or West Palm for example.
We could maybe get back to actually governing this country.
The Democrats had solid majorities in every branch of government for two full years.
During that time, not a single budget was passed. Nothing changed from when Bush was president except that spending skyrocketed and energy production in America was subdued or stopped whenever possible.
So exactly what are we all to look forward to when you get "back" to governing? Drone strikes on any Republicans that survived the storm?
Just another liberal happy to kill for the cause I suppose. There sure are a disturbing number of you around these days, unwilling to debate and only to destroy.
Osama Bin Laden was killed.
The recession is over.
General Motors and Chrysler, and the industrial heartland of the country, were saved from a catastrophe that would make the dust bowl look like nothing.
An end has come to the era of people being condemned to death by for-profit insurance companies using the excuse of "pre-existing conditions" to deny people their basic human right to health care coverage.
Colonel Gadaffi was ousted from power without a single American soldier being deployed on the ground, and without adding countless billions to the deficit.
That god-awful war in Iraq, the biggest foreign policy blunder since Napoleon invaded Russia, has ended.
Since Obama took office, oil imports have dropped by an average of 1.1 million barrels per day and in 2010 domestic crude oil production reached its highest level since 2003.
How you got an "insightful" mod I do not know.
Drill baby drill - on Mars
Good thing for Mitt that "Heck of a Job Brownie" doesn't still run FEMA. Either way Tampa will be in the eye of the hurricane. But take heart.
... the priority of law enforcement is to evacuate residents, leaving GOP officials to make the decision of when to evacuate delegates...
I'll bet that if they're own butts are on the line, they move faster than when it's only the 99.9%.
They can debate the economics of deficit spending, and perhaps, if they're 'conservative' or Republican enough, even a woman's obligation to follow a religious tenet. It's a bit harder to snow a tropical storm.
Don't get too excited now. Later projections keep moving the eye track West. And it's not even a full hurricane, so far, and won't be for quite a while if it follows current projections and gets torn up moving over the mountains of Haiti and Cuba. While having God's Wrath (so to speak) descend on the Republican Convention would be sweet irony for some, I'd actually lay better odds on it skirting Tampa, building up in the Gulf, then slamming New Orleans. Now THAT'S irony.
Good thing for Mitt that "Heck of a Job Brownie" doesn't still run FEMA.
RNC Host Committee CEO Ken Jones said, "I have full faith and confident with the state of Florida, with FEMA, the local emergency management that if there is a bad weather incident, we will get people out, we will make sure they're safe and get on their way and out of harms way."
So...wait a second? Is he saying that he's depending on the Federal Government to rescue them? I thought Republicans were all about self-sufficiency...
I'll agree with you on most points, but we would still be in Iraq to a small degree if Iraq hadn't refused to agree to a new Status of Forces agreement that would extend immunity from Iraq prosecution. Baghdad wouldn't budge, and so the complete withdrawal happened, save for some Marines at the embassy.
I'm not taking sides on this, just pointing out that things could have been different had the Obama administration had its way.
You can never go home again... but I guess you can shop there.
I'm sure the hundreds of thousands of Tampa residents and non-convention go'ers would be appalled by your lack of concern for them.
Without a filibuster-proof majority, the "majority" can't do anything. Thus the OP's claim that they had a "solid majority" implying they could have gotten work done (but didn't) was disingenuous.
It doesn't hurt to be nice.
"Do you need a filibuster-proof majority to pass a budget?"
Have you been awake for the past two years? The government hasn't been able to pass a budget for quite a while, so the answer is obviously yes.
It doesn't hurt to be nice.
GOP is the christian conservative party. Bush said that he was on a mission from god. When it comes to religion, there is no debate or compromise. Only way politics works is with compromise, so what do we get, a non working government.
Have you ever been to a turkish prison?
what you consider reasonable is what any thinking person would consider batshit crazy. Remember, while you would like to consider yourself a rational person, the grownups here know better.
the minorities and poor. Anything to deflect responsibility from the guilty parties. After all, if self centered greed and contempt for others are your main reasons for existing, they must be good.
Osama Bin Laden was killed.
Courtesy of US Military intelligence, lasting over eight years or more. Unless you can point to an image of Obama holding an M-16 in one hand and Bin Laden's severed head in the other, he (nor you) can't claim that one.
Going into the right country was kind of a prerequisite for getting the guy. There was plenty of US intelligence that was ignored by Dubya's administration because it didn't fit with their neo-con objective of stealing Iraq's oil. John McCain campaigned on the basis that he would not use force on Pakistani territory without the permission of the government. Obama was proved right on this one, because if he had gotten the government's permission it's a good bet that someone would have tipped Bin Laden's handlers off and he'd still be hiding somewhere. Fact is, the President made all the right calls and has as much right to take the credit for what goes right as he has to take the blame for what goes wrong.
And contrary to the lies spewing out of Fox News who were appalled by Bin Laden's death, Obama gave plenty of credit to the intelligence community and the personnel involved. If he wanted to take all the credit he could have done something really outlandish and obnoxious, like, say... I don't know ... dressing up in some sort of flight suit and getting a Navy pilot to land him on the deck of an aircraft carrier before making a triumphant speech about it? Nah, that'd be crazy.
The recession is over.
Even the New York Times isn't letting that bit of propaganda slip by unchallenged: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/10/us/recession-officially-over-us-incomes-kept-falling.html
Educate yourself. A recession is two consecutive quarters of negative growth. We're no longer in negative growth. This is not "propaganda". This is fact. (I know that conservatives have a hard time with facts but I'll try my best to use them on you in the vain hope that they'll sink in eventually.)
General Motors and Chrysler, and the industrial heartland of the country, were saved from a catastrophe that would make the dust bowl look like nothing.
They were 'saved' by a loan that was given them when TARP was passed... in 2008. Signed into law by that guy you likely loathe to the core of your soul.
Maybe you missed the bit where Romney said he'd let Detroit go bust. He was opposed to saving the motor industry, Obama was for it. Fact.
An end has come to the era of people being condemned to death by for-profit insurance companies using the excuse of "pre-existing conditions" to deny people their basic human right to health care coverage.
So Medicare and Medicaid didn't exist before 2009 then?
Oh, so if you can't afford health insurance then you automatically qualify for Medicaid? So we do have universal health care after all?
Colonel Gadaffi was ousted from power without a single American soldier being deployed on the ground, and without adding countless billions to the deficit.
...thanks to the "Arab Spring", certainly. Same with Egypt, Tunisia, and hopefully Syria. Contrary to popular belief, the rest of the world is perfectly capable of fixing itself on occasion without a US president or military helping out.
The Libyan rebels were taking a pounding until NATO came in with air strikes to back them up. They could not have taken Gadaffi out by force without outside support. Fact.
That god-awful war in Iraq, the biggest foreign policy blunder since Napoleon invaded Russia, has ended.
...on schedule, no less. A schedule that was set years before Obama took of
Drill baby drill - on Mars
Sorry bud, the facts don't line up behind your argument. The Republicans filibustered far more during each of the last six years than the dems did each year when they were the minority from 2000-2006. In fact, if you look at this on a graph, you'll see the it stays pretty steady when dems are minority, but usually increases a great deal when reps are the minority. You can see a ton of charts that show this in different ways if you google image search "republican filibuster chart", but here's a pretty good one: http://assets.thefiscaltimes.com/TFT2_20101228/App_Data/MediaFiles/3/2/4/%7B32460E0F-8033-4BB9-AC50-4E29BEE8DBC1%7Dfilibuster%20chart.jpg?w=587&h=549&as=1
There is no one true dictionary any more than there is one true god.
How can you claim that there is only one true dictionary when humanity has not spoken a single language since the tower of Babel?!
Where are the filibusters? They're right here you dishonest prick: http://politicalirony.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/senate-gridlock1.jpg
More than double than the democrats under Bush. Let me guess, now you're going to justify it by saying it was a good thing they stopped so many bills and they were within their rights to prevent tyranny of the majority. That's you being dishonest again because you're retreating from your first position without admitting anything.
You ever wonder why it's hard to get anything positive done? It's people like you.
>>>At the time it was voted on, TARP was bipartisan.
At the time it was voted on, TARP failed to pass. The democrats loved the idea but the republicans rejected it, so it failed with only ~40% in favor. So they made a second bill (call it TARP 2) that was filled with lots of pork. That bill did eventually pass but only just barely. The majority of republicans still voted nay to it, but were outnumbered by the Democrat Congress.
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"