Hurricanes Past, Hurricanes to Come: Today's News for September 5th

Fox News:

Hill GOP conservatives not backing Trump plan to tie Harvey money to debt ceiling vote

Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin’s weekend call for Congress to tie its upcoming vote on increasing the federal debt limit to approving billions for Hurricane Harvey relief is getting support from congressional Democrats but apparent little backing from Republicans.

"The president and I believe the (debt ceiling) should be tied to the Harvey funding,” Mnuchin told “Fox News Sunday.” “With Harvey, it's moved the situation up earlier. ... And without raising the debt limit, I'm not comfortable that we would get the money that we need this month to Texas to rebuild." 

Any bets on Texas being rebuilt this month, let alone by the end of the year?

Continuing:

On Monday, Rep. Mark Walker, leader of the Republican Study Committee, a roughly 170-member conservative House group, expressed opposition to the plan.

“What happened in Texas is a tragedy and it needs an urgent Congressional response,” the North Carolina Republican said in a statement. “Congress is united behind this effort, but I worry about jeopardizing an agreement with such legislative games.

"As we have stated for months, the debt ceiling should be paired with significant fiscal and structural reforms. The alarming trajectory of our debt imperils all supplemental appropriations for dealing with disasters like Harvey in the future.” 

Too often, Congress tries to tie unrelated items together, and makes a franken-bill mess. If you want to understand how we got a leviathan government that nobody can control or even understand, look no further than hare-brained ideas like tying Harvey relief to the national debt ceiling.

This is important, because the next hurricane is already lining up:

AccuWeather:

Hurricane Irma to track toward US; Residents of East and Gulf coasts urged to prepare now  

As Major Hurricane Irma churns across the northern Caribbean and towards the United States, residents along the Gulf and East coasts of the U.S. need to be on alert.

Irma will blast the northern Caribbean with flooding rain, damaging winds and rough surf this week, bringing life-threatening conditions to the islands.

A similar scenario could play out somewhere along the Gulf or East coasts this weekend or next week, depending on where Irma tracks. Residents are urged to prepare now.

Tell us again why people in Kansas need to pay for this with their hard-earned taxes, or risk being thrown in jail?

Let us call relief-funding what it is: This isn't charity. It is natural disaster-induced theft, especially considering all the warning everyone has.

As James Whitcomb Riley once wrote:

When I see a bird that walks like a duck and swims like a duck and quacks like a duck, I call that bird a duck.

In other news...

BBC News:

More than half in UK are non-religious, suggests survey

For the first time, more than half of people in the UK do not identify as religious, a survey suggests.

Last year 53% of people described themselves as having "no religion", in a survey of 2,942 adults by the National Centre for Social Research.

Among those aged between 18 and 25, the proportion was higher at 71%.

The Bishop of Liverpool said God and the Church "remains relevant" and that saying "no religion was not the same as considered atheism".

True, it could be called agnosticism, or even deism.

Continuing:

When the national centre's British Social Attitudes survey began in 1983, 31% of respondents said they had no religion. 

Think about that: Within 34 years, 1 out of every 5 people in the UK suddenly rejected organized religion.

On a related note, whatever happened to the story about the Muslims taking over the UK? If this story is true, some of those Muslims have rejected their religion.