Okay, it’s about 9:00 am on Monday Friday.  We are fully prepared and staying put.  We were in Victoria yesterday and many of our friends were under mandatory evacuation.

As El Jefe told you, what were are expecting in the Houston area is rain and bucket loads of it.  The good news is that the Brazos River is low now and can handle a lot of rain.  The bad news is that rivers have limits.

If you want to follow the weather news in the Houston area, I agree with El Jefe on Space City Weather.

I live in Richmond, which is 35 miles southwest of Houston, between Rosenberg and Sugar Land.  We live in a two story home and have access to the roof.

It appears that the worse will be flooding, with rain starting Sunday for us.

I’ll update here when I can!  Thanks for your good thoughts.  We’ll be fine.

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OK, kids.  All of you along the Gulf Coast from Houston to Brownsville need to turn on your TeeVee for the latest weather.  The National Hurricane Center has now forecast landfall late Friday night NORTH of Corpus and south of Victoria.  The storm has strengthened rapidly and is forecast to reach Category 3 before coming ashore, hitting 125 MPH winds before coming inland.

That’s not the big problem, though.  The big problem is that the damn thing is forecast to stall just inland until as late as Tuesday before dissipating.  It’s going to dump a LOT of rain on the coastal areas, and Houston is going to see its share.  Back at El Jefe’s Beer & Bread Emporium, we call this kind of storm a Clear Up Shower.  Clear up to your ass.  Forecast rains for Houston could be 12″ to 18″ of rain through Sunday into Monday.

Y’all pay attention to this one, this is going to be a wet one.  We’ll be watching closely.

Thing 1:  you wake up in the morning to see that Big Jim Cantore is standing on your local beach.

Thing 2:  See Thing 1 and realize that Trump has not appointed a head of FEMA or Emergency Management, but I hear he did call Chuck Woolery to see if he had time to do it between his reverse mortgage and catheter commercials. So there’s that.

I’m sure we’ll be fine here on the banks of the Brazos River, but starting today we will be busy.  Our grocery stores have turned in zoos, there is not a battery or bottled water to be found, or a generator left within a 100 mile area.

On top of that, Bubba and I have a political event in Victoria, Texas, today that has not been cancelled. Since both Primo and El Jefe are out of the area right now, I’m turning this joint over to them at least for today.

Enjoy and I will check in when I can.  Again, we will be fine.

Yesterday, Newsweek published a story accusing Bernie voters of tipping the 2016 election to Trump.  It uses data from the 2016 Cooperative Congressional Election Survey, compiled by Political Wire, that showed that, indeed, 10% of Bernie primary voters went for Trump in the general. It then goes into a swing state analysis that showed that Trump’s winning margin was less than the Bernie’s voters who went for Trump.  The implication was clear – stubborn Bernie voters wrecked Hillary’s bid for the presidency.  How evil they were and inconsiderate of Hillary and all of her supporters.  Fair enough.

There was an interesting mention, though, of a few not insignificant details at the very end of the article…First, the 10% of Bernie voters that went for Trump paled in comparison to the TWENTY FIVE percent of Hillary voters who went for McCain in 2008 (hypocrisy, anyone?).  More important, and one that I hadn’t realized was so large, was that almost 30% of Bernie voters were actually self identified Republican or leaned Republican.  Conversely, Hillary only attracted about 6 or 7% of the same demographic.

So, was it Bernie and his evil bots who wrecked Hillary’s election, or was it actually the fact that Hillary failed to attract the same demographic that Bernie did?  Trump certainly attracted a wide demographic of support.  Bernie attracted a wide demographic of support.  Hillary simply did not.  So, should the headline of the Newsweek article have been BERNIE SANDERS VOTERS HELPED TRUMP WIN AND HERE’S PROOF,  or should it have been HILLARY CLINTON LOST BECAUSE SHE FAILED TO ATTRACT A WIDER DEMOGRAPHIC THAN TRUMP?

I know the answer, but Hillary’s supporters, and many in the party, still cling to the myth that Bernie wrecked her election.  The inconvenient truth is that the numbers are the numbers and they speak for themselves; this lesson must be learned by the Democratic party lest it have to re-learn it in 2020.

I’m not holding my breath.

Like the giant, petulant, spoiled man-baby that he is, President Dunning J. Kruger pitches a fit whenever anyone tells him the word “No.”  It doesn’t matter the scenario, it doesn’t matter the size of the ask, if you deny President MAGA GooGoo Covfefe, he will strike back as hard as he dares, consequences be damned.

Many of his manic asks are related to his deep-seated fear of l’affaire Russe.  The Russia investigations – and there are several – threaten the heart of Trump: his image.  I doubt that his diseased brain has run to the possibility that he could actually end up in prison.  Rather, he is in the mode he’s always been in – protecting the brand.  Because he was born rich, Trump measures everything by the yardstick of money.  He spent decades building up the Trump brand into the avatar of affluent luxury.  Because he lacks class, and the ability to self-assess, he is completely oblivious to the crassness associated with the brand.  That giant “T” might as well stand for “tacky.”

…Or “Toilet Twit Err”

Nevertheless, the brand is all he has.  He failed at every actual business he undertook, except in the licensing of his name, because just as Gingrich is a stupid person’s idea of what a smart person is, so too is Trump a stupid person’s idea of what a rich person is: Thurston Howell III, without the brains and heart.

My money still loves me!

Thus, for Trump, who lacks the imagination that God gave toast, the Russia problem exists as a risk to the brand, constituting an existential threat.  Russia made you President, not your talents.  Russia made you rich, not your talents.  Russia got you laid.  Russia got you advisers.  Russia got you friends.  Russia.  Russia.  Russia.

“IT’S NOT RUSSIA!  IT’S ALL TRUMP!” his actions scream.  “Comey, I need you to be loyal [i.e. protect the brand] can we drop this thing? No?!?!  You told me NO?!?!?!?  You’re fired.”

“Sessions, you must protect me.  Deal with this threat, that you helped create.  Wait, you’re RECUSING?  You told me NO?!?!?!? I shall now humiliate you.”

“Mitch!  You turtle-faced SOB!  You took Russia money. You gotta… what do you mean “NO!?!?!”

President Pantload won’t be denied!

Thus, as the FBI, the CIA, the House, the Senate, the rest of the intelligence community, foreign and domestic and, of course, Robert Swan Mueller III all dig into his finances, and his campaign, and his family, and his business dealings, and his sexual proclivities, all thanks to Russia, the brand is showing some cracks, and so is Hair Drumpf.

Therefore, like Antaeus to the soil of Mother Earth, Trump returns to the people who built the brand – the stupid, the haters, the crass and the boorish – to re-energize, as he did Wednesday night in Arizona. People who told him no, like Flake and McCain and all the Mitch McConnell turtlings who retreated into their shells when the time came to pony up to Trump, and the Democrats who thwart his very will, and dare to mock him, ALL of them are about to  get a lesson in Hard-Wall.

“Build that wall,” he roared last night. “Now the obstructionist Democrats would like us not to do it. But believe me, if we have to close down our government, we’re building that wall.”

In order to fund any part of the wall – and currently, the House budget bill has money in there for a 74-mile, token wall – Trump needs McConnell to put that money in the Senate version of the bill, too. So far, Mitch hasn’t said “yes” which feels like another “no.” To pass the Senate, the budget requires 60 votes, which means all the GOP plus 8 Democrats.  The Democrats, then, are the obstructionists in his mind; thus, McConnell, you must dread the Orange Thumbs of Twitter: “If the Republican Senate doesn’t get rid of the Filibuster Rule & go to a simple majority, which the Dems would do, they are just wasting time!”

The Republican Senate is indeed a majority of the simple, but the simpleton in the White House, master of the shart of the deal, can’t even get to “yes” with them.  So his solution is to threaten to veto the outcome of the budget process and, ostensibly, the now inter-twined debt ceiling discussion, in order to get to “yes” on a $1.6 billion vanity project.  He’s threatening to stop all government benefits, shut every office, send every worker home AND destroy the global economy, all to get a wall that wouldn’t even cover the distance from Tijuana to Mexicali.

Again, the brand is that of a can-do billionaire builder.  If Trump can’t even build a mini-wall, the brand suffers, all because of all the “no”-sayers.  But it’s not the brand, nor yet walls to keep people out, he should be worried about.  With all the daily dispatches detailing the depths of his dissolute depravity, degenerate debauchery and defaulted debts, the deep dives by Mueller et. al. point to a different kind of wall in his future.

Ever on the wrong side of history, and decency, Trump will find himself on the wrong side of the wall, too.

The Greatest President in Prison EVER, Believe Me!