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founding

.y property was destroyed by an F5 tornado in 2011. The first on the scene were the area fire departments, 200+ miles away. My county hosts a week long religious experience every year with an attendance around 100K, so the law enforcement officers are accustomed to working together.

These are the agencies I saw come in in order of appearance.

1. Fire departments and law enforcement (within an hour)

2. Utility company. The gas company turned off the main switch to the entire town, sorry generac clients. Water company spent the first 12 hours turning off water meters.

3. Local friends, families and churches.

4. Army core of engineers.

5. Dept of health, friend worked for them and started on relief within two hours.

6. FEMA was on site within 4 hours. It still took them 2 days to set up a site and start taking applications.

7. Insurance companies with mobile offices and agents.

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founding

Husband's first comment was "I don't have to paint the house."

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Tim and Sam - great piece of writing. The vanishing spine of elected Republicans never seems to fail to disappoint.

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I think the saying is something like "if you want something done, ask a woman..."

I didn't pay much attention to the Mike Lawler/MJackson thing and thought it was inconsequential, but flying out to his trial as a high school senior...that's weird.

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Is it cowardice? Maybe Trump is what they want? Those "cowards" in the Republican party want this, want Trump

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I suspect your right.

For example, it doesn't take any courage to vote against Trump, and many are not willing to do that. He is what they want.

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I felt privileged to watch Cheney introduce Harris yesterday afternoon.

I wonder what we'll see after the fog of bullshit clears. What tropes will be lying dead at our virtual Gettysburg? Whose careers will be exploded? And will those who are left standing be grouped quite as we expect?

This war is won when civil, honest, passionate debate is restored, as we rally around a mutual love of this country and what all of us can build here.

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Tim, excellent piece and an extra hurrah for your fine use of "shan't"!

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More Bull Scht from the Bulwark. Liz Cheney is a warmongering whore and has been kicked decididly to the curb when 74% of voters voted her out of office. Trump rejected Romney’s plea for a cabinet appointment and Mittens has been whining about it ever since. The failed Biden/Harris presidency has lavished $1billion in FEMA funds on the illegal aliens they’ve enticed into the country hoping to stack the voter rolls and Helene victims are denied aid. Government helicopters remained grounded and people drowned.

The good news is the America first movement has taken over the Republican party and its obvious that President Trump it the best president we’ve had in our lifetime. Like me, the MAGA voters I know now appreciate Trump’s boorish personality a feature rather than a bug because he pisses off all the people we want to be pissed off. We’re going to re-elect him again and this time we’ll make it too big to steal.

Get ready for MAGA 2.0!

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Wow, you sound nice.

Not really. MAGA supporters are either stupid and/or jackasses. I can at least forgive the stupid, but you are in the other category.

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Your jealousy is obvious. I'm sorry that youi aren't intelligent enough to understand MAGA supporters.

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Ouch! HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA

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Does your mommy know that you are playing with the computer?

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founding

So pissing people off is all you MAGA types have to live for?

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You aren't intelligent enough to understand what I live for.

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founding

You made my point for me.

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Username checks out.

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"You just keep thinkin', Butch. That's what you're good at."

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Sorry that this is just all too complicted for you to understand.

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best piece you've ever written. bravo, tim.

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Tim, absolutely beautiful - thanks

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While all the discussion goes on about “real” masculinity, the question should be about “real” humanity. Two women gave us a good example yesterday in Wisconsin.

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I never ever in my life thought I'd be sitting here admiring and praising either of the Cheneys....and yet here I am. She sacrificed everything to stand for integrity and honesty. I will remember and honour her for that forever.

And yeah, the irony of this all happening in Ripon.......

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One more data point on disaster relief again from NC this time in 2017 with Roy Cooper a newly elected Democratic governor.

"North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper told reporters this week his state would only receive $6.1 million of the $929 million in federal aid requested for Hurricane Matthew recovery, a decision that has upset both Cooper and his constituents.

"I am deeply disappointed that Washington isn’t making North Carolina’s urgent need a top priority," Cooper told reporters. "Matthew did an estimated $4.8 billion in damages to 50 counties in North Carolina."

I do not live in one of the most heavily impacted counties but I was born and raised there and own property there. I am seeing people on facebook trying everyway they can to belittle FEMA and the state but others who are there quickly shutting them down with the truth.

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News From Florida:

Governor Ron DeSantis has dispatched state guard troops (his personal SS troops) to provide security against any violence that the woke union dock workers and their Democrat allies might visit upon all the ports in Florida.

Sadly (for Ronnie) the strike was settled before the troops could get to the ports.

This "necessary deployment" also precluded joining the President of the United States as Joe Biden visited the recovery efforts after Hurricane Helene. He characterized the President's visit as a campaign stunt but will definitely be on hand when Trumps visit gets organized.

It ain't the heat--- it's the stupidity.

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If Kamala wins I think it will be due to the women voting for her, because it won't be because the bar stool bros and macho men all of sudden got religion and saw that Trump is in fact a jackass. America is one of the few remaining countries on the planet never to have a woman leader, and it's time we do. There's a Lincoln Project ad that ends with "Be a man and vote for a woman." Never better said than at this perilous time in history.

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"As long as I live I will never fully comprehend it." It's easy, Bill. Trump's supporters today are their own unique combination of stupid, ignorant, and evil.

What the heck do you expect when you short-change your nation's educational system for decades? Combine that with your country's history of messianic worship? Fascism.

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"But their cowardice, their venality, their shameful abdication of responsibility only served to make this moment in Ripon more powerful."

I know I am guilty of shallow self-interest over principle some times, too. But the failure of Republican leadership to denounce Trump - indeed, their eagerness to embrace his lies, his racism, his cheating at EVERYTHING, says all you need to know about not just what the Republican Party IS, but what it had become a long time before.

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