21 thoughts on “How’s that Trump-y, Change-y Thing workin’ out for ya?

  1. Rogers is the business manager for the local chapter of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers. He represents about 250 workers at Colstrip's power plant. And he too wants to see a plan in place to help those workers when parts of the plant start to close down.

    The irony is that there was a plan: President Barack Obama's Clean Power Plan.

    I laughed so fucking hard at this on the way to work this morning because:

    a.____ I'm a bad person.
    b.____ We warned you.
    c.____ You were all so thrilled to see the hammer come down on those Greenie Coastal Elites that you weren't watching it swing for you.
    d.____ I'm all out of fucks to give.
    e.____ I'm a bad person.

  2. Funny how when it's blue collar white communities, we're all supposed to feel sorry for them and we're apparently under some sort of obligation to help them, as if we owe them something. Yet these are the very same people who will gleefully shit all over others who are also down on their luck or in dire circumstances and these people vote for politicians who will make those other people's lives even worse. Why exactly am I supposed to feel sorry them, but mock and ridicule others in different bad situations, such as fast food or retail like Walmart? Isn't this the part where we scold those coal workers for making bad choices in life? It seems to me that continuing to stay in a dying industry where the handwriting has been on the wall for decades is just as bad a choice as any that the people they ridicule have made. Isn't this the point where we condescendingly tell them that no one is forcing them to work there? Just get a different job! What's that? No good jobs there? Just move! No one is forcing you to live there! Bootstraps! Go back to school! Sure, it'll be tough trying to both work and take training classes and pay your bills and pay for school- but you all had no problem parroting those glib, useless answers to others. Good thing the social safety net is there to help- oh wait, you people voted to gut it, because "those people" were being freeloaders and moochers when they needed it to get back on their feet.

    Sorry folks, but from my vantage point I don't see any intrinsic difference between the person in need in Seattle vs you in Montana. I don't see how the person who needs help in South Central is a lesser person than the rust belt resident and therefore undeserving of help. In fact, the main difference I see between them and you is that they aren't mocking your bad luck and they didn't vote to pull the rug out from under you right before sticking their hand out for help from me. Just like the way the opioid crisis went from being a matter of law enforcement and an example of moral failure when it was primarily a problem in communities of color to now being a medical crisis now that white people are getting addicted- along with the newfound rush to fix the problem- what I see now is a whole bunch of people about to reap what they've been sowing since the Reagan revolution, a bunch of people demanding the very empathy and help that they steadfastly refused to others for decades.

  3. 1359 Eastern.

    Station Summary
    Outside Temp 91.7 F
    Outside Humidity 55%
    Heat Index 102.0 F High 104.0 F at 1234
    Wind Chill 92.0 F
    Dew Point 73.0 F

    Barometer 1013.6 mb
    Bar Trend Falling Slowly

    Wind Speed Calm 4 Mph
    Wind Gust Speed 2.0 Mph
    Wind Direction W 279°
    .

    1. So your wind gusts are actually lower in velocity than the prevailing wind? I can feel my ears popping already!

      1. Edit FAIL. Copy/pasting data from the Davis home summary site comes with all kinds of extraneous text & formatting which needs deleting. 4 mph was the daily high wind speed, 2 was latest gust speed.

  4. They feel like they don't have a say. And they fear they'll be left behind.

    Now they know how POCs/women/LGBTQ people feel.

    Sorry, I'd be more sympathetic but:

    A lawsuit filed by two environmental groups alleged that the Colstrip Generating Station hadn't updated its technology to meet air quality requirements.

    Dafuq were they waiting for?

  5. I need to reread Ben Hamper's 'Rivethead'. If I remember a number of second or third generation Detroit car workers didn't like their jobs but were convinced that could always find another job on a different assembly line, should they need to. If your identity is tied to your job, losing that job and the hope of finding another can be terrifying. I saw something similar in another former coal mining area in South Wales where a predominantly make workforce in the mines had been replaced by a predominantly female workforce in the Hitachi television factory. There was a lot of hopelessness and helplessness in that community.

  6. What about those out of work crack dealers? Sure crack is bad for society and devastating for communities. But selling crack is all they know and now they're all unemployed. Won't someone think of them?

  7. speaking of a zombie dew point…

    TUCSON, AZ
    as of 6:11 pm MST
    102°
    SUNNY
    feels like 102°
    H — L 67°
    UV Index 0 of 10
    Severe Threat: What We're Watching
    Severe Threat: What We're Watching

    RIGHT NOW
    Wind
    NW 11 mph
    Humidity
    2%
    Dew Point
    -2°
    Pressure
    29.74 in
    Visibility
    10.0 mi

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