August 25, 2017 By: Juanita Jean Herownself Category: Uncategorized
This is going to break your damn heart. A mess of people who are undocumented workers in the coastal bend are refusing to go to shelters or get on the bus to higher ground because they fear it is an ICE ruse. Oh dear God. People are going to die. And Trump pardons Joe Arpaio.
They are keeping open the in-land checkpoints at Sarita and Falfurrias. What kind of monsters have we become?
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My name is Susan DuQuesnay Bankston. I live in Richmond, Texas, in the heart of Tom DeLay's old district. It's nuttier than squirrel poop here.
I am honored and privileged to know Miss Juanita Jean Herownself, hairdresser extraordinary and political maven. Since she does not have time to fiddle with this internet stuff, I type her website for her and you can read it if you want to. If you don't, she truly does not give a big bear's butt.
A lot of what I post here has to do with local politics, but you probably have the same folks in your local government.
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The sickest thing is that if Donnie John Douchebag had thought of it, he probably would have had immigration agents waiting for those poor folks when they got off the busses.
1May God have mercy on his soul; or what passes for his soul.
I hope those poor souls are able to stay above the floods.
2Trump pardons Arpaio, a convicted criminal on a Friday, traditionally news dump day in D.C., but with the addition of a Cat 4 hurricane approaching landfall. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain now leaving on another vacation.
Talk about an exploitive opportunist.
3Based on FEMA’s concept of “Whole Community” these poor people should have been included in the plan and this fear would have been identified and resolved before an event. Other communities include undocumented people in their plans. This is beyond inexcusable and is right there with Flynt as pure discrimination.
4My heart goes out to all of you lovely people in Tejas.
Isn’t a category 3 hurricane unusual for Texas and Corpus Christi?
I knew that Houston had some mean rainstorms and flooding. I have had occasion to look under a shed and see the evidence. I knew that it usually has been associated with the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, better known as El Niño. Well, we had a mild El Niño in Southern California in 2016, but oddly enough, most of the rain came in 2017. I think it was the rainiest year since 1979. It started out the summer of 2016 with a beautiful storm in July. Unheard of before in my lifetime.
But 2017 was the rainy year for us. I hope you are able to hold the line and take care of your people. It looks like the worst hurricane in one hundred years.
It is ironic that the demon Trump is using this as a mechanism for deportation. Texas, like its sisters, Arizona and New Mexico were originally part of Mexico. People who still speak Spanish today, whether of Spanish or Mestizo descent were there long before the European settlers.
It is heartening to know that there are still vast numbers of good people in Texas. I visited Denton in 2008. Lovely college town.
5Republicans, that’s what we’ve become. Don’t you remember the map with all those little red counties? And today there was an article wondering whether we’ve become a single party state, like Russia. Faugh! We might as well be, for all my vote counts. And that smug asshole Abbott whining for federal aid aid already? Where’s his Texas Tea partying spirit gone? I thought Texas was gonna secede, we don’t need no Feds nosing around here, right? Oh yeah, I forgot, now we got us a white Republican president, right color, right party, so it’s all good again! FAUGH!!
6I don’t know how to link to it, but Jim Wright has some very angry words about this. By threatening these people with ICE checkpoints– and they are– they’re putting those lives at risk, and also the emergency personnel, the agents, the other evacuees being held up at the checkpoints…..
https://www.facebook.com/Stonekettle (scroll down to earlier today)
7On the other hands, since Arpaio can defy court orders and a “militia” can take over federal property in Oregon with impunity, why can’t these immigrants also say “F*** you!” to the US government? I’m tempted to start doing it myself.
8JJ, Based on your sketchy details, this is total crap and you should correct it or rewrite it.
The Sarita and Falfurrias border patrol (now ICE) checkpoints filter traffic coming North from the Rio Grande Valley (there are other checkpoints in the area, and also mobile roving ones). I personally have passed through Sarita and Falfurrias checkpoints thousands of times.
Any one in the Valley and worried about Harvey is fretting about almost nothing, Harvey has had, and will not have, ANY significant effects on the Valley.
Someone, including illegal aliens, who thinks they need to flee the Valley, by traveling North through Sarita or Falfurrias, is a fool; and traveling INTO the danger area!
Harvey is hitting the Coastal Bend area, Rockport, Corpus Christi, etc., at this moment with Category 4 force.
The Coastal Bend is North of the Valley about 125 miles (and of the checkpoints by ~50 miles).
Harvey is going to hang around just inland from Rockport to Beeville for several days, doing tremendous damage. Then it may go back out over the Gulf and head for Galveston-Houston.
Why the hell would anyone drive from a safe area, the Valley, into that?
FYI:
9I left Rockport, TX at 430 AM this morning*. There are NO CHECKPOINTS traveling N.E.W, or S from the Coastal Bend, never have been, the area being devastated right now (Sar and Fal only inspect northbound traffic, not that going South to the Valley).
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* I have been in Rockport securing the boat as best I could, it is probably toast as I write this, with 150mph wind gusts raking it, such winds are tough on something with a fifty foot+ mast sticking up, let alone the water/storm surge (and everything else from Port Aransas to Port Lavaca). I stripped off all the expensive stuff, including most of a very extensive suite of very expensive sails, made the boat as secure as I could, and said goodbye to it (I’m a cynical fatalist and realist).
I then drove around Rockport, TX a little, pretty well buttoned up and quiet (not the weather), saw some incoming TV vehicles being escorted by the RPD. Had snapped a bunch of pics day before, probably all be a pile of rubble next trip, a Cat 4 is what totally destroyed Galveston in 1900…
Sandridge,
10Best of luck with your boat, but I’m glad you made it out before the storm hit. I rode out just under a Cat 1 storm a few years ago in my house. I questioned my decision a few times as the night wore on. I can’t imagine what damage winds twice that speed will do. I suppose we’ll all find out on the morning news when dawn breaks tomorrow, as best we can recognize through the driving rain that’s predicted to continue.
Sandridge: Good luck. JJ and any other patrons who might be affected: Stay safe. I’m in the Beaumont area, so out of the path. For now. No telling where this thing’s gonna go. If it bounces back into the gulf it’s a crapshoot. Rita and Ike were no fun. Anyway, if anyone’s staying up and needs something to take their minds off current events, I highly recommend a piece on Daily Kos. A Dark and Stormy Night in the Kiddie Pool. It’s the results of a literary contest where contestants submit the opening sentence of a nonexistent worst novel ever. It’s fantastic. Some of them are pretty groan worthy, but some will make you laugh like you did when you were a kid and your cousin at the kiddie table made you blow milk out of your nose. If it’s not still up on The website, it’ll come up on Google by entering the title above.
11JJ, stay safe. Harvey now Cat4. And it’s slow moving so will dump more rain. Too bad we can’t dump the bulk of the rain on traitor trump and sink Mar a Lago and every one of his damn golf courses. He can ruin everything his tiny stubby fingers touch but can’t appoint a FEMA director. And both heinous hypocrites of senators voted against previous hurricane relief aid but are now whining their heads off. Too bad good people will be hurt/killed by Harvey. It should only the slut politicians who are affected.
12@Tilphousia
We do have a FEMA director. Brock Long was confirmed by Senate (95 – 4) in June. He is a professional with years of experience in the field
13Rick, Thanks, the Rockport trip was planned and went as expected. Rockport pre-storm on Friday was hunkered down, most everything shutdown, all the businesses closed, anybody staying inside at home. I was constantly watching the NOAA and Navy websites for near realtime info. I watched the radar and readings, and stayed until the last moment (Friday 0430hr) when I thought the effects on my trip home could get dicey, there is a lot of two lane rural road that floods. I took a lot of pics while Harvey’s effects were still mild (it was ~120mi away). I finished what I could while the wind and rain were ramping up; and then headed for home. Now Harvey has kind of followed me home and is only about 40 miles away, wind and rain picking up pretty good here.
Rockport and the area around it is now in ruins and a lot under water.
In the marina were my boat is there were several nice guys who intended to stay aboard their boats, I strongly advised them to leave, what I told them about the actual potential of the storm (as a weathernut with the best sources) was much worse than what they were getting from “the media”. I hope they made it through. I’ve been in such conditions multiple times before, it is incredible what Mama Nature can throw at you, the screaming winds and feet of rain.
P.P., Thanks, I made the trip to Rockport staying until Harvey got close (enough), then returned home; where Harvey has nearly followed me and is pretty close and getting closer still. The latest WX models show Harvey almost hitting my place and then returning to the Gulf over the next ~3-4 days. Harvey may then regain some strength and go over to Houston by Friday-Saturday…
14I had been advising people that Harvey was going to be a very ‘weird’ hurricane and possibly a Cat 4 or 5 when most thought it would be a Cat 1-2 at peak. Most hurricanes just blow on through wherever and leave, Harvey is going to be hammering the same area for 4-5 days as it wanders around in loop de loops (and it maintains it’s source of strength from the nearby Gulf).
The hurricane name “Harvey” will probably be one of those listed names that gets retired, like Katrina or Camille, because it was such a badass.