Friday night rain dump, news dump

Harvey became a Cat 4 hurricane just before it made landfall. Luckily, it missed Corpus Christi, sparing the city the worst of the wind damage. But every river or stream from Corpus Christi to Houston is projected to crest at all-time record high levels.

Category 4 landfalls in the United States:

2017 – Harvey
2004 – Charley
1989 – Hugo
1961 – Carla
1960 – Donna
1957 – Audrey
1954 – Hazel

Just before Hurricane Harvey made landfall northeast of Corpus Christi, there was news that 1. President Trump pardoned criminally convicted Sheriff Joe Arpaio, and that 2. Nazi sympathizer and White House staff member/ deputy assistant Sebastian Gorka finally resigned. (Yay). 3. There were new subpoenas issued in the on-going Trump-connections-with-Russia investigations.

Here is Bloomberg’s Noah Feldman explaining why the pardon is so exceptional, and so bad. Others speculate that Trump is flexing his powers-of-the-pardon muscle, and sending a message to the collusion-with-Russia investigators that he can pardon others, as well. (The power to pardon is based on the honor system, and we have a decidedly dishonorable President. Not good).  Pardons can be issued preemptively; President Ford pardoned Nixon even before he was officially charged with a crime.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *