Lazy Caturday Reads: Trump’s War on Americans
Posted: July 5, 2025 Filed under: cat art, caturday, Donald Trump, ICE Immigration and Customs Enforcement, immigration | Tags: Camp Mystic, climate modeling, concentration camps, fascist takeover, FEMA, ICE, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, National Weather Service, NOAA, NWS, police state, slave labor, Texas floods, weather emergencies 12 CommentsGood Morning!!
Patrice Preveirault, Le Pastel
It’s just the beginning of the storm season, and we are beginning to see the damage from Trump/DOGE cuts to the National Weather Service (NWS) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). There’s a terrible tragedy playing out in the Texas hill country right now.
The Texas Tribune: Death toll from Hill Country flash floods rises to 24 as rescue efforts continue.
State officials said Friday night that at least 24 people have died in the catastrophic flood that swept through Kerr County early Friday morning, and 23 girls from Camp Mystic, a private Christian girls’ camp, are still unaccounted for.
In a news conference in Kerrville, Gov. Greg Abbott signed an emergency disaster declaration, which allows numerous counties affected by the floods to get the state resources needed to help with ongoing search-and-rescue efforts.
Kerr County Sheriff Larry Leitha said one other person was found dead in nearby Kendall County but it’s unclear if that person was a flood victim.
Nim Kidd, the chief of the Texas Division of Emergency Management, said local officials were caught off guard by the volume of rain, adding that the National Weather Service advisory issued Thursday “did not predict the amount of rain that we saw.”
Gen. Thomas Suelzer, the head of the Texas Military Department, said 237 people have been rescued and evacuated so far. Officials said they couldn’t provide the number of people who are unaccounted for, but they include the 23 girls from Camp Mystic.
In an earlier press conference Friday, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick said the dead include adults and children, and some were found in cars “that were washed out upstream.” He said officials aren’t sure whether any of the bodies were children from Camp Mystic, and stressed that the campers are only considered missing at this point….
As much as 10 inches of heavy rain fell in just a few hours overnight in central Kerr County, causing flash flooding of the Guadalupe River. Patrick said the river, which winds through Kerr County in Central Texas, rose 26 feet in 45 minutes during torrential rains overnight.
Were there warnings this was coming?
A flood watch issued Thursday afternoon estimated isolated amounts up to 7 inches of rising water. That shifted to a flood warning for at least 30,000 people overnight.
According to the National Weather Service website, the flash flood watch, which included Kerr County, was issued at 1:18 p.m. Thursday. Nearly 12 hours later, a “life threatening” flash flood warning was issued at 1:14 a.m., according to the website.
When asked about the suddenness of the flash flooding overnight, Kelly said “we do not have a warning system” and that “we didn’t know this flood was coming,” even as local reporters pointed to the warnings and pushed him for answers about why more precautions weren’t taken.
“Rest assured, no one knew this kind of flood was coming,” he said. “We have floods all the time. This is the most dangerous river valley in the United States.”
There’s much more at the link.
The New York Times has live updates on the tragedy: Death Toll in Texas Flood Rises to at Least 24, With as Many as 25 Missing.
Here’s the latest:
Search and rescue teams were working throughout the night in Central Texas after flooding that began early Friday swept through a summer camp and homes, killing at least 24 people and leaving as many as 25 girls missing from the camp.
The girls were at Camp Mystic along the Guadalupe River in Hunt, in Kerr County, according to the county sheriff. Desperate parents posted photos of their children online, seeking any information, and others went to reunification centers to try to find missing loved ones. An unknown number of other people were also missing, Kerr County said in an update on Friday night, citing the sheriff, Larry Leitha.
By Katya Vigovskaya
The deadly flooding surprised many, including Texas officials, who said that some National Weather Service alerts had underestimated the risks. The most urgent alerts came in overnight, in the early hours of Friday.
Hundreds of emergency personnel were searching for stranded people. The Texas National Guard made 237 rescues and evacuations using helicopters and rescue swimmers, Maj. Gen. Thomas M. Suelzer, the guard’s commander, said at a news conference Friday evening.
Gov. Greg Abbott signed an emergency disaster declaration encompassing 15 counties in Central Texas. The declaration will expedite state funding for the areas that experienced significant damage.
Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick said earlier in the day that Camp Mystic was contacting the parents of campers who remained unaccounted for. He said that parents with children who had not heard from camp officials should assume their children were safe. The camp has some 750 campers, he said.
Ron Filipkowski at Meidas: Texas Officials Blame Agency Gutted by Trump for Results of Deadly Storm.
As the best and the brightest were being fired at the National Weather Service and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration by senseless and draconian ‘DOGE’ cuts earlier this year under Trump, with no reason given except for the need to cut a paltry amount of the government’s budget, experts warned repeatedly that the cuts would have deadly consequences during the storm season. And they have.
Dozens and dozens of stories have been written in the media citing hundreds of experts which said that weather forecasting was never going to be the same, and that inaccurate forecasts were going to lead to fewer evacuations, impaired preparedness of first responders, and deadly consequences. I quoted many of them in my daily Bulletins and wrote about this issue nearly 20 different times.
And the chickens have come home to roost. Hundreds of people have already been killed across the US in a variety of storms including deadly tornadoes – many of which were inaccurately forecasted. And we are just entering peak hurricane season. Meteorologist Chris Vagasky posted earlier this spring on social media: “The world’s example for weather services is being destroyed.”
Now, after severe flooding in non-evacuated areas in Texas has left at least 24 dead with dozens more missing, including several young girls at a summer camp, Texas officials are blaming their failure to act on a faulty forecast by Donald Trump’s new National Weather Service gutted by cuts to their operating budget and most experienced personnel.
Forewarnings:
Reuters published a story just a few days ago, one of many warning about this problem: “In May, every living former director of the NWS signed on to an open letter with a warning that, if continued, Trump’s cuts to federal weather forecasting would create ‘needless loss of life’. Despite bipartisan congressional pushback for a restoration in staffing and funding to the NWS, sharp budget cuts remain on pace in projections for the 2026 budget for the NOAA, the parent organization of the NWS.”
But Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, whose agency oversees NOAA, testified before Congress on June 5 that the cuts wouldn’t be a problem because “we are transforming how we track storms and forecast weather with cutting-edge technology. Under no circumstances am I going to let public safety or public forecasting be touched.” Apparently the “cutting edge technology” hasn’t arrived yet.
And now presumably FEMA will be called upon to help pick up the pieces of shattered lives in Texas – an agency that Trump said repeatedly that he wants to abolish. In fact, Trump’s first FEMA director Cameron Hamilton was fired one day after he testified before Congress that FEMA should not be abolished.
Filipkowski notes that so far the “president” has had nothing to say about the tragedy in Texas.
In April, Abraham Lutgarten of ProPublica warned about the danger of gutting U.S. weather services: White House Proposal Could Gut Climate Modeling the World Depends On.
Over the past two months, the Trump administration has taken steps to eliminate regulations addressing climate change, pull back funding for climate programs and cancel methods used to evaluate how climate change is affecting American society and its economy. Now it is directly undermining the science and research of climate change itself, in ways that some of the nation’s most distinguished scientists say will have dangerous consequences.
Proposed cuts to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the agency whose weather and climate research touches almost every facet of American life, are targeting a 57-year-old partnership between Princeton University and the U.S. government that produces what many consider the world’s most advanced climate modeling and forecasting systems. NOAA’s work extends deep into the heart of the American economy — businesses use it to navigate risk and find opportunity — and it undergirds both American defense and geopolitical planning. The possible elimination of the lab, called the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory, in concert with potential cuts to other NOAA operations, threatens irreparable harm not only to global understanding of climate change and long-range scenarios for the planet but to the country’s safety, competitiveness and national security.
The gutting of NOAA was outlined earlier this month in a leaked memo from the Office of Management and Budget that detailed steep reductions at the Department of Commerce, which houses the science agency. The memo, which was viewed by ProPublica, has been previously reported. But the full implications of those cuts for the nation’s ability to accurately interpret dynamic changes in the planet’s weather and to predict long-term warming scenarios through its modeling arm in Princeton have not.
According to the document, NOAA’s overall funding would be slashed by 27%, eliminating “functions of the Department that are misaligned with the President’s agenda and the expressed will of the American people” including almost all of those related to the study of climate change. The proposal would break up and significantly defund the agency across programs, curtailing everything from ocean research to coastal management while shifting one of NOAA’s robust satellite programs out of the agency and putting another up for commercial bidding. But its most significant target is the office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research ⎯ a nerve center of global climate science, data collection and modeling, including the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory ⎯ which would be cut by 74%. “At this funding level, OAR is eliminated as a line office,” the memo stated.
A bit more:
peej
Carissa
ecocatwoman
mablue2
peggysue22
quixote
skydancingguestblogger
Mona (aka Wonk the Vote)
Sky Dancing 
The Wall Street Journal: Congo Braces for HIV Surge After U.S. Funding Stops.
The mineral-rich provinces of South and North Kivu along the eastern flank of the Democratic Republic of Congo should be among its most productive.
They are home to a fifth of the vast country’s population and are the site of some of its most valuable mines, where men flock to extract coltan and other critical minerals used to produce smartphones, laptops and electric vehicles. Women run roadside restaurants and bars. Millions of people live in camps, displaced by roaming militias, near the borders with Rwanda and Uganda.
Rape is rife. So is HIV.
For years, Congolese women relied on U.S.-supplied antiretrovirals such as post-exposure prophylaxis kits, to prevent infection after an assault. But the funds for those programs dried up after President Trump and his then-right-hand man, Elon Musk, cut funding for most of America’s foreign-assistance programs, including many anti-HIV initiatives.
Now, nearly six months on, the region is threatened by a destabilizing cycle of infection and death, puncturing whatever economic gains might be possible in such a volatile corner of Africa.
Health workers say they have had to start turning away sexual-assault victims looking for post-rape treatment kits. “Most of the women call me crying,” said Noella Ndoole, a protection officer for CARE International, a global charity, who receives several calls a day from distressed women. “They are very worried, but we have no drugs to give them.”
This is just awful! Trump just announced some kind’ve peace agreement to get at their minerals. It’s just a declaration of principles but sheesh, if they increase mining that would be more deaths.
https://www.cnn.com/2025/06/27/africa/trump-drc-rwanda-peace-deal-intl
what a post!
There’s an alternative story in the Houston Chronicle and local Texas papers about the flood warning. The story is that the counties can watch the floods coming up and warn the people and failed to do so. It’s evidently an on-going issue.
https://www.houstonchronicle.com/opinion/outlook/article/What-Houston-misses-when-it-comes-to-flooding-13276844.php
Damn it’s behind a pay wall. Let me see if I can find the one friend from Texas sent me. It appears the local warning system is really flawed and they’re trying to blame it on NOAH.
Kerr County Judge Rob Kelly, the county’s chief elected official, said: “We do not have a warning system.” When pushed on why more precautions weren’t taken, Kelly said no one knew this kind of flood was coming.
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/death-toll-in-texas-floods-rises-to-at-least-27-as-search-continues-for-many-missing-officials-say#:~:text=Kerr%20County%20Judge%20Rob%20Kelly,kind%20of%20flood%20was%20coming.
One of my friends told me they have people sitting at a particular part of the Guadalupe river and their job is to watch the river levels. They weren’t doing their jobs that night because no one thought such a flood was possible. It was in her local paper and the Houston Chronicle.
If that’s the case, Abbott and his toads need to cook in the sun.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/marshallshepherd/2025/07/05/catastrophic-flooding-in-texaswere-there-warnings/
Catastrophic flooding has devastated a region that is no stranger to these types of events. Media reports are confirming multiple fatalities. Many people are still missing including 20 girls at a summer camp along the Guadalupe River. Many people were asking if this “came out of nowhere” and whether there were warnings. Here’s my perspective as a meteorologist.
Meteorologist James Spann posted on his Facebook page, “Many have asked about warnings for the floods in Central Texas responsible for the deaths of over two dozen people late Friday night into Saturday morning…. Warnings were issued by NWS Austin, and they seemed timely and proper.” I want to further explore this, but it is critical for readers to understand that a full review will be conducted at a later date. My analysis here is simply a “first look” given all the rumors, accusations, and “social mediarologists out there.
The National Weather Service Austin/San Antonio issued a Flash Flood Warning at 1:14 am CDT for Bandera and Kerr Counties, respectively. They made statements like, “Life threatening flash flooding of creeks and streams, urban areas, highways, streets, and underpasses.” That warning also specifically identifed regions like Kerrville, Ingram, Hunt, Waltonia, Kerr Wildlife Management Area, and Lost Maples State Natural Area.
At 5:34 am Friday morning, the NWS issued a Flood Emergency for much of the region. The warning stated, “Automated rain gauges indicate a large and deadly flood wave is moving down the Guadalupe River.” The NWS communication urged people to seek higher ground.
And the fucking FARTUS is out golfing today with all this going on!
Don’t you wish we could just wake up one day and not have to read or write about something completely preventable?
Wing Flap Fell Off Airplane Midflight, Landed On Family’s Driveway
https://wbznewsradio.iheart.com/content/2025-07-03-wing-flap-fell-off-airplane-midflight-landed-on-familys-driveway/
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is investigating an incident where a part of a Delta Air Lines wing was found on a driveway in Raleigh, North Carolina. The part, identified as a flap from a Boeing 737-900, was discovered on Wednesday (July 2) morning, blocking a driveway on Banbury Road. The flap is a crucial component of the wing, used to increase lift during takeoff and landing.
The Delta flight in question, Flight 3247, safely landed at Raleigh-Durham International Airport on Tuesday (July 1) night after departing from Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport. Upon inspection, the airline found that a portion of the left wing’s trailing edge flap was missing. Delta Air Lines confirmed the missing part and is fully cooperating with the FAA’s investigation, emphasizing that safety is their top priority.
Susan Reed, who works near the area where the part landed, expressed relief that no injuries or property damage occurred.
“We really dodged a bullet on this one. Let’s just hope it doesn’t happen again,” she told WRAL.
The FAA’s investigation aims to determine how the part detached and assess any potential safety implications. Delta Air Lines is supporting retrieval efforts and ensuring that all safety protocols are followed.
What Trump—And the U.S.—Can’t Understand About Air Strikes
American leaders refuse to learn from allies and overestimate the benefits of showy tactical attacks. By Phillips Payson O’Brien
When Donald Trump ordered air strikes on key Iranian nuclear-enrichment sites last month and immediately declared that the targets had been “completely and totally obliterated,” he was counting on a single display of overwhelming air power to accomplish a major strategic goal. Though initially hesitant to join Israel’s 10-day-old bombing campaign against Iran, the president came to believe that the United States could finish off Tehran’s nuclear ambitions all at once. After what he called a “very successful attack,” Trump demanded that Israel and Iran stop fighting, declaring, “NOW IS THE TIME FOR PEACE!”
In reality, the U.S. attack may have only delayed the Iranian program by months. Trump ended up short-circuiting both his own efforts at diplomacy with Iran and an extraordinary Israeli campaign that required years of elaborate preparation, rendered Iran’s air-defense network inoperable, and allowed Israeli forces to methodically work through a long list of target sites across the country over the course of a week and a half. Destroying a military target from the air usually requires multiple raids on the site—not one night and a victory declaration on Truth Social. Israeli military planners had clearly hoped to enlist American help in attacking Iran but may not have anticipated that it would be for one night only.
To some extent, Trump’s approach is typical of American leaders, who have routinely underestimated the true complexities of military tasks and assumed that a burst of overwhelming force will secure U.S. objectives and allow Washington to impose its version of peace. Recent events—not just in the Middle East but also in Ukraine—suggest that smaller countries with fewer resources than the United States have a far more urgent understanding specifically of how to use air power and generally of how to defeat their enemies.
An unbounded faith in American military might, combined with a desire not to get bogged down in long foreign engagements, has led to excesses of optimism in the past: the constant escalation cycle in Vietnam, when it was said that more force would bring victory; the infamous mission accomplished banners after U.S. forces deposed Saddam Hussein’s regime in Iraq. In conflicts since the end of World War II, the U.S. military has prevailed in individual battles, but it has won only one clear victory in a war: Operation Desert Storm in 1991. This conundrum has led to far less introspection than it deserves.
One of the reasons might be that U.S. military power has been so extensive that the military, and policy makers, have not had to think too deeply about the process of winning wars. For 80 years, the U.S. military could be deployed to occupy territory, blow up structures, or destroy an enemy force—and was able to do it. It could inflict a frightening toll on its enemies at remarkably little cost to itself.
The risk of overestimating American capabilities may be greatest in decisions about applying air power. The U.S. has the most awesome air force the world has ever seen. (Not coincidentally, the successful Desert Storm campaign involved purposeful and relentless air attacks on enemy targets.) Such power has immense costs, however, one of which is the destructive luxury of not having to think deeply about just what it means to win a war. American policy makers feel able to lecture smaller powers about what they should and should not do. Trump pushed Israel—which had, remarkably, achieved the ability to move freely in Iranian airspace—to stand down before the U.S. could reliably ascertain whether its own air strikes had been effective.
Guy Votes for Big Budget Busting Bill then resigns ….
https://www.theleafchronicle.com/story/news/politics/2025/06/09/u-s-rep-mark-green-to-resign-from-7th-congressional-district/84122670007/
U.S. Rep. Mark Green, R-Tennessee, has announced he will resign from the 7th Congressional District to pursue an “exciting” opportunity in the private sector.
Green made the announcement June 9.
6-year-old Honduran boy with leukemia who had been seized by ICE is back in L.A.
The boy was arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement along with his mother and sister after an asylum hearing in May.
A 6-year-old Honduran boy with leukemia whose arrest sparked a public outcry after he, his mother and sister were seized by ICE agents and sent to a Texas detention center is back in Los Angeles, one of the family’s lawyers said Friday.
The family, which had been held for a month in the Dilley Immigration Processing Center in Texas, was released on Wednesday by Immigration and Customs Enforcement after a lawsuit was filed on their behalf in San Antonio federal court.
“We were in the process of putting together a reply brief explaining why the government was wrong to hold them when we learned they were being released,” Elora Mukherjee, director of the Immigrants’ Rights Clinic at Columbia Law School, told NBC News. “ICE released the family without a court order.”
The family was dispatched from the detention center to a shelter in south Texas, Mukherjee said.
“From there, they were put on a plane today and flown to LAX, where they were reunited with their family in Los Angeles,” Mukherjee said.
Mukherjee said “public pressure” over the plight of this family and the media coverage “helped free this family.”
Their release “demonstrates the power we have when we fight back against harmful, un-American policies,” attorney Kate Gibson Kumar of the Texas Civil Rights Project, which also represented the family, said on the group’s Facebook page.
“The practice of courthouse arrests is a blatant disregard for those lawfully seeking safety through the government’s own processes, and an even bigger disregard for our Constitution and the protections it provides, including Due Process,” wrote Gibson Kumar.