;)
The Commentariat -- August 28, 2017
** Carol Leonnig, et al., of the Washington Post: "While Donald Trump was running for president in late 2015 and early 2016, his company was pursuing a plan to develop a massive Trump Tower in Moscow, according to several people familiar with the proposal and new records reviewed by Trump Organization lawyers. As part of the discussions, a Russian-born real estate developer [Felix Sater] urged Trump to come to Moscow to tout the proposal and suggested he could get President Vladimir Putin to say 'great things' about Trump, according to several people who have been briefed on his correspondence.... Trump never went to Moscow as Sater proposed. And although investors and Trump's company signed a letter of intent, they lacked the land and permits to proceed and the project was abandoned at the end of January 2016, just before the presidential primaries began, several people familiar with the proposal said. Nevertheless, the details of the deal, which have not previously been disclosed, provide evidence that Trump's business was actively pursuing significant commercial interests in Russia at the same time he was campaigning to be president -- and in a position to determine U.S.-Russia relations. The new details from the emails, which are scheduled to be turned over to congressional investigators soon, also point to the likelihood of additional contacts between Russia-connected individuals and Trump associates during his presidential bid.... Trump has repeatedly tried to distance himself from Sater.... When asked about Sater in 2013 court deposition, Trump said: 'If he were sitting in the room right now, I really wouldn't know what he looked like.'" ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: Months ago Josh Marshall of TPM predicted that examining Trump's connection to Felix Sater would prove fruitful.
The Presidunce Thinks Hurricanes Are Fun, Encourages More
Showboater Prez* May Need Boat for This Show. Mark Landler of the New York Times: "President Trump on Sunday announced plans to travel to Texas on Tuesday, as millions of people there continued to battle catastrophic flooding and torrential rain that was expected to last for several more days. The timing of a presidential visit, as the disaster was still unfolding, could put Mr. Trump in an awkward position of adding to the logistical headaches for state officials, though he may avoid the storm-ravaged parts of Texas. The White House emphasized that the president's plans were tentative.... But his Twitter feed and the photos and statements released by the White House indicated that Hurricane Harvey and its aftermath had energized Mr. Trump, giving him the first major external crisis of a presidency hat has manufactured most of its own upheavals. On Friday, as the storm began lashing the Gulf Coast, Mr. Trump posted several updates on the status of the storm and lavished praise on the government's response. He held two teleconferences over the weekend with members of his cabinet and signed a federal disaster proclamation for Texas." Mrs. McC: Only Trump would think hurricanes are fun opportunities for self-aggrandizement. ...
... ** Harriet Sinclair of Newsweek: "Donald Trump signed away Obama-era flood standards just weeks before Hurricane Harvey hit Texas in a bid to get infrastructure projects approved more quickly. The rule signed by former president Barack Obama in 2015 had not yet come into effect but aimed to make infrastructure more resilient to the effects of climate change, such as rising sea levels and flooding. Those who backed Obama's rules believed they would make people safer by putting roads, bridges and other infrastructure on safer ground, NPR reported, but Trump rescinded the rule several weeks ago in an attempt to speed up the time it takes for infrastructure projects to be approved." ...
... Ryan Cooper of the Week: "This destruction [by Hurricane Harvey] is a window into the future of climate change. This is what happens when humanity fails to either meaningfully restrict greenhouse gas emissions or prepare for the damage that is certainly coming. Now, before the inevitable pedant brigade pounces in, that doesn't mean Harvey was definitely caused by climate change. Global temperatures have only markedly increased for a few decades, and extreme weather events are rare and random by definition. It will take many more years for enough data to be collected to be able to establish causality. But what we can say is that climate science predicts with high confidence that increased temperatures will increase the likelihood of extreme weather. It will make hurricanes that do form stronger. It may also increase the number of hurricanes, though that's harder to predict with certainty. It's also besides the point. A storm doesn't need to qualify as a hurricane to pose many of the same dangers. Simple big storms can still have high winds, tornadoes, and especially flooding, which is the major danger along the Gulf Coast.... [The Obama rules which Trump just rescinded] would require buildings receiving federal funding to consider climate change and build above extreme flood levels. Since there is a big federal program to provide flood insurance to many such buildings (that is incidentally nearly bankrupt due to massive claims of late), this amounts to a government subsidy to build in flood-prone areas." ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: Have we mentioned that the Idiot-in-Chief pulled the U.S. out of the Paris Climate Agreement? ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: It's not as if Harvey's devastation of Texas, & particularly of the Houston area, is a huge surprise. In a multiple-awards-winning series published in March 2016, ProPublica & the Texas Tribune reported, "Houston is the fourth-largest city in the country. It's home to the nation's largest refining and petrochemical complex, where billions of gallons of oil and dangerous chemicals are stored. And it's a sitting duck for the next big hurricane.... Texas isn't ready." To read the graphics-heavy stories, you can start here.
Trump Arms His Professional Militia. Kevin Johnson of USA Today: "The Trump administration is preparing to lift a controversial ban on the transfer of some surplus military equipment to police departments whose battlefield-style response to rioting in a St. Louis suburb three years ago prompted a halt to the program. The new plan, outlined in documents obtained by USA Today, would roll back an Obama administration executive order that blocked armored vehicles, large-caliber weapons, ammunition and other heavy equipment from being re-purposed from foreign battlefields to America's streets. On Monday, Attorney General Jeff Sessions is scheduled to address the annual meeting of the Fraternal Order of Police, the nation's largest police union, and he may outline the program changes there." Congress could fix this. ...
... Maggie Haberman of the New York Times: "President Trump spent 18 months as the ultimate law-and-order candidate, promising to rescue an American way of life he said was threatened by terrorists, illegal immigrants and inner-city criminals. But during seven months as president, many critics and legal scholars say, Mr. Trump has shown a flexible view on the issue, one that favors the police and his own allies over strict application of the rule of law. Over the past two years, in ways big and small, the critics say, Mr. Trump has signaled that taking the law into one's own hands is permissible, within the executive branch or in local police departments, or even against a heckler at one of his rallies.... The [Arpaio] case, and the pardon that ended it, involved an assumption that minorities were more likely to commit crimes, a belief in the use of force to keep people in check, and what some of the president's advisers privately describe as at best a lack of interest in becoming fluent in the legal process.... Michael Waldman, the president of the Brennan Center for Justice ... drew a line from the pardon to Mr. Trump's statements last month to police officers on Long Island in which he appeared to encourage local law enforcement officials to give suspects rougher treatment. The president made those comments despite years of wrenching debate over a string of cases of police shootings of unarmed black men." ...
... ** Jane Chong of the New Yorker: "... since Watergate and the release, in 1976, of the Church Committee report, which detailed wider executive-branch abuses, this vast federal bureaucracy has increasingly accreted an intricate array of wheels and pulleys designed to insure that the President and his people not only enforce legal authorities but also abide by them. The Arpaio pardon is a perfect conflagration of all of the ways that Trump has systematically undermined these authorities over the course of his first seven months in office. It is nothing less than a multipronged attack on the executive branch's own commitment to the rule of law.... from start to finish, the President's conduct makes a mockery of the wall carefully maintained by every administration since President Jimmy Carter's Attorney General, Griffin Bell, first described, in his watershed 1978 speech, the need 'for the President to allow the Attorney General freedom from undue influence' in order 'to inspire public confidence in the faithful execution of the laws.'" Read it all. ...
... Garrett Epps of the Atlantic: "... increasingly, the question for the court -- as for Congress, and for the country -- is whether the republic survives not against external threat but against an unprecedented unremitting internal assault. A sense of proportion is necessary in crisis and calm; and even in the midst of shocking official misbehavior, the Arpaio pardon crosses a line. Trump has made it clear that the limits of the law, and the powers of the courts, hold no weight in his decision-making, and indeed will be brushed aside at his convenience." ...
... Washington Examiner Editors: "President Trump described himself as 'the law and order candidate' on the campaign trail, but he has consistently shown he really meant 'the candidate of busting heads.'... 'Law and order,' if the words have any meaning, has to apply to government actors as well. Lawless sheriffs promote disorder, and that's what Arpaio did to get himself convicted.... In this case, it's clear Trump has abused [the pardon] power for a friend and political ally.... Trump promised to drain the swamp if elected. But America hates the swamp because politicians and bureaucrats give special, undeserved favors to their friends and the well-connected." Mrs. McC: The Washington Examiner is an ultra-conservative newspaper. ...
... Of Fascists & Collaborators. Paul Krugman: "[Joe] Arpaio is, of course, a white supremacist. But he's more than that. There's a word for political regimes that round up members of minority groups and send them to concentration camps, while rejecting the rule of law: What Arpaio brought to Maricopa, and what the president of the United States has just endorsed, was fascism, American style.... What makes it possible for someone like Trump to attain power and hold it is the acquiescence of people, both voters and politicians, who aren't white supremacists, who sort-of kind-of believe in the rule of law, but are willing to go along with racists and lawbreakers if it seems to serve their interests.... There's also a word for people who, out of cowardice or self-interest, go along with such abuses: collaborators." Mrs. McC: We should all congratulate Krugman for speaking truth to power, including to the Grey Lady's censors. It must have been difficult to get "The POTUS* is a fascist" past them. If anyone has missed the import of Krugman's message, hear it now. ...
... Vice President Joe Biden in the Atlantic: "... when it comes to race in America, hope doesn't travel alone. It's shadowed by a long trail of violence and hate. In Charlottesville, that long trail emerged once again into plain view not only for America, but for the whole world to see. The crazed, angry faces illuminated by torches. The chants echoing the same anti-Semitic bile heard across Europe in the 1930s. The neo-Nazis, Klansmen, and white supremacists emerging from dark rooms and remote fields and the anonymity of the web into the bright light of day on the streets of a historically significant American city. If it wasn't clear before, it's clear now: We are living through a battle for the soul of this nation. The giant forward steps we have taken in recent years on civil liberties and civil rights and human rights are being met by a ferocious pushback from the oldest and darkest forces in America.... A week after Charlottesville, in Boston, we saw the truth of America: Those with the courage to oppose hate far outnumber those who promote it. Then a week after Boston, we saw the truth of this president: He won't stop. His contempt for the U.S. Constitution and willingness to divide this nation knows no bounds."
David Sanger & William Broad of the New York Times: "Last week, the Air Force announced major new contracts for an overhaul of the American nuclear force: $1.8 billion for initial development of a highly stealthy nuclear cruise missile, and nearly $700 million to begin replacing the 40-year-old Minuteman missiles in silos across the United States. While both programs were developed during the Obama years, the Trump administration has seized on them, with only passing nods to the debate about whether either is necessary or wise. They are the first steps in a broader remaking of the nuclear arsenal -- and the bombers, submarines and missiles that deliver the weapons -- that the government estimated during Mr. Obama's tenure would ultimately cost $1 trillion or more.... Mr. Obama argued that by making nuclear weapons safer and more reliable, their numbers could be reduced, setting the world on a path to one day eliminating them.... Mr. Trump has not spoken of any such reduction, in the number of weapons or the scope of the overhaul, and his warning to North Korea a few weeks ago that he would meet any challenge with 'fire and fury' suggested that he may not subscribe to the view of most past presidents that the United States would never use such weapons in a first strike."
Richard Paddock of the New York Times: "The remains of all 10 United States Navy sailors who died aboard the destroyer John S. McCain in a collision near Singapore a week ago have been recovered, the Navy announced on Monday. Ships and aircraft from five nations had launched a huge search at sea after the McCain's pre-dawn collision with an oil tanker east of Singapore on Aug. 21. But the bodies of the 10 men were recovered in the destroyer's crushed and flooded compartments. The interior of the destroyer was so heavily damaged that it took days to locate the bodies." ...
... Dave Philipps & Eric Schmitt of the New York Times: "Two deadly collisions between high-tech destroyers and easy-to-spot, slow-moving cargo ships in a little over two months have stunned many in the Navy.... But shipboard veterans had long seen signs of trouble. Factor in a shrinking Navy performing the same duties as a larger fleet did a decade ago, constant deployments that leave little time to train and relentless duties that require sailors driving 9,000-ton vessels to endure sleepless stretches that would be illegal for bus drivers, and avoidable accidents can happen, current and former officers said.... While there could be some surprising findings, officers said the accidents -- and two nonlethal mishaps earlier this year -- were almost certainly influenced by systemic problems that persist despite repeated alarms from congressional watchdogs and the Navy's own experts. In interviews, more than a dozen current and former ship commanders who served in the western Pacific said the strain on the Navy's fleet there had caused maintenance gaps and training shortfalls that had not been remedied or had received only cursory attention as leaders focused on immediate missions. Compounding the stress, the officers and crew said, the Navy allows ships to rely on grueling watch schedules that leave captains and crews exhausted, even though the service ordered submarines to abandon similar schedules two years ago."
Condemnation by Obfuscation & Deflection. Noah Weiland of the New York Times: "Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson, addressing President Trump's blaming of 'both sides' in the racially charged violence in Charlottesville, Va., declined to say on Sunday whether Mr. Trump's response represented 'American values.' 'The president speaks for himself,' Mr. Tillerson said on 'Fox News Sunday.'... Mr. Tillerson responded to the national backlash to Mr. Trump's comments in a talk to State Department interns and young staff members [on August 18]. 'We do not honor, nor do we promote or accept, hate speech in any form,' Mr. Tillerson said at the event. 'Those who embrace it poison our public discourse, and they damage the very country that they claim to love.'"
Beyond the Beltway
The Deplorable Left. Kyle Swenson of the Washington Post: "Their faces hidden behind black bandannas and hoodies, about a 100 anarchists and antifa -- 'anti-fascist' -- barreled into a protest Sunday afternoon in Berkeley's Martin Luther King Jr. Civic Center Park. Jumping over plastic and concrete barriers, the group melted into a larger crowd of around 2,000 that had marched peacefully throughout the sunny afternoon for a 'Rally Against Hate' gathering. Shortly after, violence began to flare. A pepper-spray wielding Trump supporter was smacked to the ground with homemade shields. Another was attacked by five black-clad antifas, each windmilling kicks and punches into a man desperately trying to protect himself. A conservative group leader retreated for safety behind a line of riot police as marchers chucked water bottles, shot off pepper spray and screamed 'fascist go home!' All told, the Associated Press reported at least five individuals were attacked.... Berkeley Police's Lt. Joe Okies told The Washington Post the rally resulted in '13 arrests on a range of charges including assault with a deadly weapon, obstructing a police officer, and various Berkeley municipal code violations.'" Mrs. McC: Thanks, antifas, for assisting Trump.
News Ledes
New York Times: "The rains from Tropical Storm Harvey kept pounding the Houston region on Monday, stranding thousands of residents -- many on their rooftops -- who frantically waited to be rescued from waters that are expected to keep rising for days. Many residents turned to social media to get help.... Officials scrambled to reach those residents, urging private boat owners to pitch in with an enormous and frantic rescue. And with nearly two feet of rain still expected, the authorities worried the worst was yet to come." ...
... Weather Channel: "Tropical Storm Harvey will drift slowly near the upper Texas coast the next few days, bringing more extreme rainfall to the flooded Houston metro area, piling onto record-breaking, catastrophic flooding. Localized storm total rain amounts of up to 50 inches are not out of the question once Harvey's rain is finished later this week. This may end up being one of the worst flood disasters in U.S. history. As of early Monday morning, flash flood emergencies remained in effect for 11 southeast Texas counties, according to the National Weather Service in Houston." ...
... Houston Chronicle: "The [National Weather S]ervice noted that 'epic and catastrophic flooding' that had occurred in and around the Houston and Galveston areas and surrounding communities could get worse as additional life-threatening rainfall totals of 15 to 25 inches with isolated higher amount were possible over the next several days.... The first of several voluntary evacuations came Sunday afternoon when the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers expressed concerns over the amount of water Addicks and Barker reservoirs were absorbing from Fort Bend and northern Harris County rivers and stream." ...
... Because of the hurricane, the Washington Post has dropped its paywall & the New York Times has dropped its paywall for hurricane-related stories.
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Reader Comments (17)
The Philipps and Schmitt article on the Navy collisions is good but late. My local paper ran a letter to the editor last week where the writer suggested that these collisions are the result of terrorists using container ships and oil tankers as attack weapons. I just about spat out my coffee reading it, thinking of the complete lack of understanding of the maneuverability of those massive ships versus the Navy destroyers.
We saw an ocean-going freighter on the way to dropping my wife off at Boston Logan on Saturday. All I said was "Nimble attack vehicle." She chuckled all the way to the terminal.
Trump to Texas: Question? Can Trump swim?
No Head of State or Prime Minister of a country speaks only for him/herself. The confused dope in the WH tweets gobbledygook but, sadly, the world considers that he speaks on behalf of the nation. What a dumb thing for Tillerson to say. Truly, this WH is a bottomless pit of stupid. On the other hand, we have real VP Biden expressing coherent ideas in an op-ed, a rather more appropriate forum for a leader to engage.
Regarding the possibility, planned under the last real POTUS, of making our nuclear arsenal more efficient, and therefore smaller, forget it. The king will not tolerate such attacks on his royal prerogatives. Besides, there'll probably be a whole lotta countries (like Africa, f'rinstance) that need nuking before the Reign of Trumpy has run out of plutonium isotopes. The idea that we would reduce the number of bombs just when the king finally gets his tiny fingers on the trigger is preposterous. Remember, this is the moron who once suggested that if we have 'em, might as well use 'em.
These Antifa goons are giving Fox and Trump and their brown shirts and collaborators just what they need. Someone needs to remind these morons that the ratio of Attacks from the right and attacks from the left is about 100 to 1. In other words, a single incident like the one in Berkeley, is worth one hundred such attacks from the right. This Antifa attack will be held up as proof positive of Trump's declaration that the left is just as bad, if not worse, than white supremacists marching with semi-automatic weapons, firing pistols into a crowd, and running people down with cars. This Berkeley thing will be held up for years, perhaps decades as an example of how the vicious, violent left tries to attack poor, peaceful, well meaning real Americans on the right.
@Marvin: He doesn't have to know how to swim. With that
balsa wood brain, he can float all over Houston.
This ranks as one of the most specious articles I've ever read. So Trump Makes Spelling Errors. In the Twitter Age, Whoo Doesn’t? writes Farhad Manjoo in a NYTimes piece: "“Criticizing spelling is elitist."
Manjoo added "... When I first floated the idea that politicians’ misspelling was a forgivable sin, I was dragged over the coals for it on Twitter. My wife got so upset that she quit talking to me for most of a day. When I emailed my editor to say I wanted to defend Mr. Trump’s misspelling, she wrote back, “You should listen to your wife.”.
Texters especially drive me up a wall as I try to translate what the hell they were trying to say to me, much of it appearing as gibberish.
Do I make spelling errors? Yes? Do many people I know make spelling errors? Yes. But, most of us would not
glibblyglibly excuse ourselves, hahahaha! One makes an effort to correct, to improve. Excusing careless writing is disgusting. I hope his wife stops talking to him for a week this time.@MAG: As you know, I never make speling airers, but then again I don't hold high public office. It's one thing for a writer to make grammatical & spelling mistakes in dashing off a comment or a tweet -- doesn't bother me in the slightest -- but statements coming from officials should be error-free.
President Obama eventually got a Twitter account, & he (or somebody) sent out tweets on it. I'll bet every one of those tweets went thru an editor, & many thru relevant officials.
Obama didn't wake up early one morning, tune into Morning Joe & suddenly share a good idea he hadn't discussed with the Secretary of Defense & the Pentagon: "Dont care what sex you are or were last week, Uncle Sam needs you! B straight or B gay, sign up today USA!!!" Rather, appropriate officials worked out a new policy regarding transgender military personnel.
Trump's stupid tweets were not good, but not verboten, during his campaign, but they are inexcusable coming from the POTUS*. Covfefe.
@Forrest Morris: "Balsa wood brain"! Excellent.
Also, fat helps. Back when I married Mr. McCrabbie, I was a wisp of a girl, and I could not stay afloat with my head above water. I'll have to admit I've put on a pound or two since our wedding day, & now I'm proper flotsam. So I'd say you're right: President Balsa Brain von Blimpo won't need that boat after all.
Oh, for Pete's sake, we now have to excuse spelling errors from the King and his minions? Really??? what's next? permission to run the government like a failing casino? Black jacks, cracker jacks and lots of them chips that fall where they may.
Marie mentioned something the other day that one has to keep in mind during these difficult times: Trump is/was obsessed with Obama and is now doing everything he can do to eradicate any trace of what Obama had put in place. Janet Yellen will be the next to go after her four year term has ended. Trump knows Obama would have wanted to keep her on. On so many other issues it's clear the destruction of anything that smacks of Barry is fodder for this fucker.
A Tale of Two Countries
Why There Won't Be a German Trump
"Seven decades after World War II, a leader like President Donald Trump would have almost no chance of political success in Berlin. But why? The answer lies in the unique historical, political, social and cultural stories of the United States and Germany -- and the tumultuous path they have taken over the last century."
--An Essay by Dirk Kurbjuweit, Der Speigel
This Presidunce is indeed trying his best to erase all and everything
having to do with his predecessor. He's replacing compassion,
intelligence, empathy, grace, etc., etc., etc., with deceit, spite,
gobbledygook, chauvinism, divisiveness, etc., etc., etc.
Hold on a sec, I've got my "How to be an Authoritarian (with a side of Fascism)" checklist right here. Lemme see how many boxes King Trumpy has checked off:
*Get tough on crime perpetrated by mongrel races.
*Take care of your friends. No jail time.
*Undermine the courts. Empower judges friendly to your agenda. *Ignore rulings that don't go along.
*Isolate your country. Instill paranoia. Build on hatred, especially race hatred.
*More money for the military.
*Militarize the police. Give them free rein.
*Create straw men to knock down.
*Intimidate enemies with violence.
*Constantly attack free press.
*Remember, no lie is too outrageous if it helps your goals.
*Twist (or invent) history to support your agenda.
He's doing pretty well, I'd say. At this point he's working on his brown belt in martial fascism. That black belt beckons. Meanwhile, collaborators and abettors all sit on the sideline and cheer as one after another hard won institutions of democracy are put to the torch.
Reminds me of the story of a man who fell off a twenty story building. As he passed each floor, people inside could hear him say "So far, so good."
How to make a natural disaster worse: Elect a moron.
The king has deigned to go on national TV this afternoon to demonstrate his kingliness in dealing with his filthy, wet subjects in Texas in order to accept their love and gratitude for allowing them to live.
Very likely his initial idea was to hop in Trumpy One and fly at 30,000 ft. over east Texas to emulate the gods he believes he resembles. Someone must have informed his travesty that that didn't work so good when the Decider tried it some years ago. Thus, he must interrupt his pardoning of racist pals, sticking it to transgender types, turning local police forces into armed militias with the latest in combat technology, undermining the rule of law, and perfecting his PGA level golf game, in order to appear to know what's going on.
So far, his responses to a major natural disaster have all been on Twitter and most run along the lines of a fourth grader watching a Discovery Channel special on storms: "Wow", "Really big!", "Worst Evah!", "Going to a meeting now", "Meeting was great! Best Evah!", "No prob! Everything going GREAT! Just like America, under ME!"
He will, no doubt, put on the usual show of Trump Style Greatness (Ignorance and indifference masquerading as competence and compassion), but the challenge of Trump Style Greatness will become much more apparent after the waters recede. As Charlie Pierce reminds us, the government agencies typically charged with helping such efforts, FEMA, the EPA, and HUD, have been drastically reduced under King Trumpy who doesn't see any monetary or political value to him personally to allow these agencies to function at full capacity in helping Americans in need.
"The real test is going to come in the next few months, when the shambles he's made of the various federal agencies becomes tragically obvious. If they're not underfunded and understaffed, they're peopled at the top with, at best, inexperienced hacks and, at worst, with saboteurs like Pruitt, or outright loons."
Emergency response in the Age of Trump. Making it worse, one day at a time.
Here's a very good question I have not seen raised anywhere else in the wake of President* KKK's attempt to normalize white supremacy and give the wink, wink nod to racial hatred.
According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, there are over 1,500 monuments to the Confederacy in southern states. This includes statues as well as over 100 public schools named for confederate heroes.
According to the Equal Justice Institute, over 4,000 Americans were beaten, kidnapped, set on fire, and lynched from Reconstruction to the 1950's.
So now here's the question.
Where are their monuments?
So far there appear to be around six markers commemorating the illegal torture and murder of Americans in the name of the white supremacy now supported by the president*.
But hey, 1,500 to 6 sounds about the right ratio in the Age of Trump.
I'm not holding my breath waiting for President* YouCan'tRentMyApartmentsBlackie to show up at the unveiling of a commemoration to a lynching victim.
His base wouldn't like it. And neither would he.
I would prefer that SCROTUS had balsa feet and a lead head. That way he'd be breathing water.
Here's how you can help the victims of the Hurricane:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/how-to-help-hurricane-storm-harvey_us_59a166dde4b0821444c37515?ncid=inblnkushpmg00000009