Thursday Reads: Texas Flood Disaster and MAGA Rage Over Epstein Files

Good Afternoon!!

As usual lately, here’s a massive amount of news today, and I can’t possibly address everything. So I’ve decided to focus on the Texas flooding story, and then I’ll turn to a crazy story about Trump and his MAGA cult.

The catastrophic floods in Texas are still a huge story, and we’re beginning to see the recriminations on how badly the disaster was handled, by local, state, and federal officials. As of now, the death toll is 111, and there 173 missing. 116 of the missing are from Kerr County.

Here’s the latest from The New York Times live updates:

No survivors have been found since Friday in Kerr County, where the worst flooding occurred. The statewide death toll rose to 111, with at least 173 unaccounted for statewide….

At least 173 people remained missing on the fifth day after devastating floods swept through the Texas Hill Country, Gov. Greg Abbott said on Tuesday. Those unaccounted for include 161 in Kerr County, where the worst of the flooding occurred and where local officials said no one has been rescued since Friday.

The number of missing cited by the governor — the first time an official had identified the scale of the recovery operation still ahead — suggested the death toll of 111 could more than double as rescue teams sift through debris in search of bodies….

Search and rescue teams from across Texas, other states and even Mexico are pouring into flood-ravaged Central Texas to aid the strained crews that have been hunting for victims along the Guadalupe River.

Volunteer fire departments from across Texas have sent teams to the hardest-hit areas, as have fire departments from out of state, including those from Shreveport, La., and Memphis….

What about FEMA? I’m reminded of George W. Bush’s handling of Katrina. Remember “Heck of a job, Brownie”?

Marisa Kabas at The Handbasket: Have you seen this man? In the wake of deadly floods in Texas, FEMA Acting Administrator David Richardson is nowhere to be found.

Search and recovery crews use a large excavator to remove debris from the bank of the Guadalupe River in Center Point, Texas, on Wednesday. Jim Vondruska Getty Images

As I wrote on Monday, FEMA staffers are alarmed by what they say is the agency’s impossibly slow and deficient response to the death and destruction wrought by the Texas floods. Figures shared with The Handbasket showed just 86 people deployed as of Monday evening. Per Tuesday’s FEMA evening briefing, an additional 204 people had been deployed—just 19 from FEMA, and 185 from other agencies. Few—if any—federal staff are on the ground to help survivors register for assistance.

More  details at CNN.

The New York Times: As Texas Flood Raged, Camp Mystic Was Left to Fend for Itself.

In the first three hours after the National Weather Service sent out an alert at 1:14 a.m. on July 4, warning of “life-threatening flash flooding” near Kerrville, Texas, the Guadalupe River would rise 20 feet. Yet local leaders would remain largely unheard from, raising questions about both local preparedness and whether the state of Texas should be doing more to notify flood-prone rural counties when they are in danger.

Camp Mystic, a girls’ camp along the river where at least 27 people lost their lives, experienced severe flooding sometime between 2 and 3 a.m., according to accounts from parents whose children were at the camp. Counselors in one cabin had to force open windows to help young girls get out. “The girls were saying it was a rushing river,” said Lisa Miller, whose 9-year-old daughter, Birdie, had to climb onto a counselor’s back to escape.

At the nearby Presbyterian Mo-Ranch Assembly camp, a facilities manager was awake around 1 a.m. when he saw the rising waters and alerted his boss, which prompted a quick effort to move people to higher ground, camp officials said. No lives were lost.

Yet even as these dramas were unfolding, many of the key local leaders in Kerr County were still asleep or had not been alerted to the danger. The survival of people in local camps and low-lying areas in many cases depended not on official evacuations, but on whether they were paying attention, on their own, to weather alerts in the middle of the night.

After the flood alert shortly after 1 a.m., the National Weather Service went on to put out a series of warnings of mounting intensity, with one at 4:03 a.m. warning of “catastrophic” flooding.

“This came at night when people were asleep, in bed,” Kerrville’s mayor, Joe Herring Jr., said at a news conference. He later told CNN that he had not received the weather alert and was not awakened until 5:30 a.m.

Sheriff Larry Leitha of Kerr County said he had first been notified around 4 or 5 a.m., when “one of my sergeants was in dispatch when the first calls started coming in.”

It’s been reported that campers and counselors at Camp Mystic weren’t allowed to have cell phone with them. Apparently cell phone coverage is poor in the area anyway.

CNN: Officials have yet to explain who did what during critical early hours as deadly floods hit Texas.

Nearly a week after floodwaters swept away more than a hundred lives, Texas officials are facing heated questions over how much was – or was not – done in the early morning hours of Friday as a wall of water raced down the Guadalupe River.

Several officials in the past few days have deflected or become defensive when asked clarifying questions about the county’s actions before and during the disaster.

“We’re in the process of trying to put together a timeline. That’s going to take a little bit of time,” Kerr County Sheriff Larry Leitha said Tuesday, adding his priority was recovering victims, identifying bodies and notifying families.

Authorities were pressed again Wednesday when they shared little information about the early hours of the emergency, instead calling attention to their swift response later in the day on July 4.

“I know that this tragedy, as horrific as it is, could have been so much worse,” Kerrville Police Department Sgt. Jonathan Lamb said.

As search and rescue efforts continue for a seventh straight day, frustration grows over lingering questions about what officials did during those crucial early hours, if existing warning systems worked and whether any loss could have been prevented.

I suppose any even could be worse, but that is hardly the point. See the post for a timeline CNN has created.

NPR: Kerr County struggled to fund flood warnings. Under Trump, it’s getting even harder.

Years before the flooding took more than 90 lives in Kerr County, Texas, local officials knew residents faced threats from rapidly rising water. They started planning a flood warning system, one that could alert residents when a flash flood was imminent.

Still, like many other communities around the country, Kerr County struggled to find a way to pay for it. They turned to the largest source available for most localities: funding from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).

For years, Kerr County officials debated how to fund a flood warning system. Under Trump administration changes, disaster funding opportunities are getting more limited for communities. Denise Rios WaPo

FEMA has granted billions over the last five years to help communities prepare for disasters. The idea is one that has been proven on the ground: When communities invest in infrastructure and preparation before a disaster, it can dramatically lessen the damage when a disaster hits, as well as save lives.

Kerr County’s funding application was turned down by Texas officials in charge of administering the federal funds. As with most of FEMA’s programs, there was more demand for money than was available. Kerr County looked into a Texas state grant program for flood projects, but gave up when they learned it would cover only a small portion of the cost. In Texas alone, more than $54 billion in flood projects are waiting to be built, and state legislators have only dedicated a small fraction of that funding so far.

Now, funding prospects for communities at risk are getting even more limited. The Trump administration has frozen or canceled billions of dollars dedicated to help communities prepare for disasters. Trump signed an executive order saying states should be responsible for funding disaster preparedness, instead of the federal government.

I know I’ve spent a lot of time on this story, but it seems to me that we will see more disasters like this with hurricane and tornado seasons coming up.

Now I want to address a crazy story about Trump and his MAGA cult. This story grew out of Pam Bondi’s announcement that the Jeffrey Epstein files would not be released, as she previously promised.

Axios on July 5: Exclusive: DOJ, FBI conclude Epstein had no “client list,” died by suicide.

President Trump‘s Justice Department and FBI have concluded they have no evidence that convicted sex offender and disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein blackmailed powerful figures, kept a “client list” or was murdered, according to a memo detailing the findings obtained by Axios.

— The administration is releasing a video — in both raw and “enhanced” versions — that it says indicates no one entered the area of the Manhattan prison where Epstein was held the night he died in 2019.

— The video supports a medical examiner’s finding that Epstein died by suicide, the two-page memo claims.

Why it matters: The findings represent the first time Trump’s administration has officially contradicted conspiracy theories about Epstein’s activities and his death — theories that had been pushed by the FBI’s top two officials before Trump appointed them to the bureau.

– As social media influencers and activists, Kash Patel (now the FBI’s director) and Dan Bongino (now deputy director) were among those in MAGA world who questioned the official version of how Epstein died.

– Patel and Bongino have since said Epstein killed himself. But it has become an article of faith online, especially on the right, that Epstein’s crimes also implicated government officials, celebrities and business leaders — and that someone killed him to conceal them.

– The memo says no one else involved in the Epstein case will be charged. (Epstein’s associate Ghislaine Maxwell is serving a 20-year sentence for child sex trafficking and related offenses.)

You can read more at the link. The problem is that Bodi promised a big reveal and a client list and now she’s changed her mind–probably because Trump is all over the Epstein files. But MAGA is enraged. They don’t get that she’s probably protecting Trump. They think Democrats and the “deep state” are involved.

Yesterday, MAGA expert Ron Filipkowski wrote about the firestorm at Meidas: Trump Made His Epstein Problem Much Worse. And how this could hurt Republicans in the midterms.

Years have gone by since Jeffrey Epstein was tried, convicted, sent to prison, and committed suicide (allegedly). Trump made it through his first election and term with the Epstein case not affecting him negatively with his MAGA base despite his obvious personal connections with him, which were pretty extensive. His MAGA cult accepted his explanations that none of his contacts with Epstein involved girls and he cut ties with him as soon as he learned about the allegations against him.

In February, MAGA influencers showed off their copies of the so-called Epstein files.

Four years went by with Trump out of office and the Epstein story largely fell out of the public consciousness as these things do with so much other news happening. But not with Trump’s MAGA base. The various conspiracies surrounding the case continued to build online on social media and in right-wing podcasts. The conspiracies garnered huge numbers of clicks and views for the grifter class, so they were more than happy to feed the beast.

There were many different conspiracies involving Epstein, but most who are obsessed with the case generally fall into either one of two camps. The first believes that there is a “Deep State” cabal that secretly controls all aspects of government and society run by elites from both parties, and that many of them were caught up in what Epstein was doing so there is ample incentive for leaders of both political parties to cover everything up to try and get the public to move on. The second group believes that Epstein was a Mossad agent used to gather blackmail videos of powerful elected officials so Israel would be able gain control of the US government through extortion.

When Trump won the 2024 election, many of the influencers with huge followings believed that all the information would finally be released by his new FBI Director and Attorney General. They believed that former AG Bill Barr was very much part of the Deep State and covered everything up in term one. They were primarily interested in 3 things: 1. The names of everyone who Epstein brought into his orbit to rape girls; 2. Evidence that his death was not a suicide and who killed him; 3. Who were Epstein’s co-conspirators?

Filipkowski notes that Trump appointed heavy-duty MAGA conspiracy theorists to high level law enforcement posts.

…which only poured gasoline on the fire for MAGA anxiously awaiting the big reveal. Kash Patel, Dan Bongino, and Pam Bondi may have been chosen for their loyalty to Trump over qualifications and competence, but they also carried with them a lot of baggage on Epstein. Their mouths had written a lot of checks to MAGA on this issue, and they expected to be cashing them right about now.

But it was not to be. Patel and Bongino told Maria Baritromo on Fox last month that they had reviewed the files and were convinced that Epstein killed himself, which infuriated MAGA. But still they were assuaged by the fact that Bondi gave two separate interviews to Fox where she said there were hundreds of victims and thousands of videos that were “on her desk” that she was reviewing. She said some of the materials had to be “redacted,” but everything would be released shortly. Then DOJ posted a memo on their website this week that nothing would be released and the case was closed. No formal announcement, no press conference, no Fox interview. Just an unsigned memo posted on a website.

So now the crazies are outraged. Click the link to read the rest of Filpkowski’s post.

Axios: Trump faces MAGA trust crisis over Epstein debacle.

Top MAGA influencers warn the Trump administration is bleeding trust over its handling of the Jeffrey Epstein case, and that the president is drifting out of step with the movement he built.

Why it matters: The MAGA base was blindsided by the Justice Department’s conclusion that the notorious sex trafficker died by suicide in 2019 and had no “client list.” Days after the initial shock, Trump’s insistence on moving on is fueling a deeper sense of betrayal.

• “Are you still talking about Jeffrey Epstein?” Trump asked incredulously during Tuesday’s Cabinet meeting after a reporter pressed Attorney General Pam Bondi on the findings.
• “I can’t believe you’re asking a question about Epstein at a time like this,” he added, calling it a “waste” of time and a “desecration.”

Driving the news: The chorus of MAGA outrage has only intensified since the Justice Department and FBI released a memo on Sunday finding no evidence that Epstein was murdered, had a “client list” or had blackmailed powerful figures.

• Tucker Carlson, Elon Musk and Steve Bannon — influential Trump allies who have feuded with the president at times — are among those who have accused the administration of a cover-up.
• But even MAGA’s most loyal foot soldiers are struggling to explain how top Trump officials could close the Epstein case after promising — for years — that it would expose shadowy global elites.

The Independent: MTG says Americans are ‘not going to accept’ there is no Epstein client list.

Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia said Americans are “not going to accept” that convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein had no client list.

A memo released by the Justice Department and the FBI on Monday stating there was never any client list caused waves among President Donald Trump’s Make America Great Again base.

Greene, a prominent MAGA figure, told Real America’s Voice network on Wednesday, “I think the Department of Justice and the FBI has more explaining to do — this is Jeffrey Epstein,” The Hill reports.

“This is the most famous pedophile in modern-day history, and people are absolutely not going to accept just a memo that was written that says there is no client list,” she said.

Both Republican and Democratic lawmakers had pressured Attorney General Pam Bondi to release what was suspected to be a record of high-profile names associated with Epstein, a wealthy financier who died in jail ahead of his trial on sex trafficking charges in 2019.

You’d think it might dawn on these morons that Bondi and the rest are protecting Trump, who was pals with Epstein for at least 15 years, but they are too brainwashed, I guess.

The Daily Beast: Pam Bondi Hanging on by Her Fingertips Amid MAGA Firestorm.