Like Maria Said Paz

Wednesday, July 09, 2025

The disgusting Sean Duffy

Sean Duffy is 53 years of stupid. He's the idiot who was on a 'reality' TV show and tried to become a celebrity but didn't have enough charism even for that minor role. A celebrity is famous just for being famous. They're not a star, they're not an actor. They just do stuff to be talked about. That was beyond his highly limited skills. Because he manages to stay awake while driving his car and farting, Chump thought Duffy was qualified to be Secretary of Transportation. As we all know, no one in his cabinet is qualified for their job. He was briefly in Congress but then his wife gave birth to a child with Downs Syndrome and he insisted (2019) that he had to resign his seat to focus on his family.

NBC NEWS

Aug. 26, 2019, 4:45 PM UTC

By Adam Edelman

Rep. Sean Duffy, R-Wis., announced his resignation from Congress on Monday after finding out that his child is expected to be born with health issues.

In making the announcement, Duffy, a conservative Republican who represents a northern Wisconsin district, becomes at least the eighth GOP congressman to announce a departure from the chamber in recent weeks.

In a Facebook post Monday morning, Duffy said he was stepping down Sept. 23 so he could focus his time and attention on his family. Duffy and his wife are expecting their ninth child in October, and he said in his post that the baby was expected to be born with complications.

“Recently, we’ve learned that our baby, due in late October, will need even more love, time and attention due to complications, including a heart condition,” Duffy said. “With much prayer, I have decided that this is the right time for me to take a break from public service in order to be the support my wife, baby and family need right now.”

I guess his family no longer needs focus. Despite the fact that they still have a children with Downs Syndrome, despite the fact that his wife still works full time for FOX "NEWS" and despite the fact that they have eight other children. (His wife is butt ugly, by the way. That's her outsides and especially her insides. She's a nasty piece of trash.)

I'm writing about the cheap garbage because he's in the news. David Badash reports the ass went on FOX "NEWS" and trashed NYC and declared, "It's just stupid liberals with stupid policies."

This is how the Transportation Secretary speaks about American citizens?

I'm so tired of their vulgar and gauche ways. These people are garbage. They were raised with no manners and it shows. They have no empathy, they have no desire to pull together. But they do love to lie and to insult and to lie and I'm sure they'll have plenty of time to think about their actions when they spend eternity in hell. Then they'll all the time they need to reflect on how We The Taxpayers paid their salaries and they 'thanked' us by insulting Americans.

"The Snapshot" (THE COMMON ILLS):

Tuesday, July 8, 2025. Chump can't make it to Texas but he can spend days golfing and, last night, dining at the White House with Netanyahu, the economy worsens, everything Chump touches fails.

Let's start with this from THE 11TH HOUR WITH STEPHANIE RUHLE om MSNBC last night.

That's about Chump and Musk. Over thirty e-mails to the public account are not pleased that yesterday's snapshot didn't focus on Musk.

I don't usually focus on Musk. Early on, I did. On immigration or South Africa, I'll weigh in here. But this is one site in this community and Ann long ago took over the Musk beat. Over the weekend, I most likely to cover Musk because Ann usually wraps up on Friday or early Saturday unless she's doing a group post. If it's DeSantis, you're usually going to find it covered by Mike, if it's the Supreme Court, you're usually going to find it covered by Betty . . . So here are Ann's four most recent posts and the titles alone make clear she's addressing Musk:

Chump and Musk -- the drama never ends for the 2 d...

Will Musk let Chump punk him again?

Musk has no empathy in his racist heart

Musk & Chump Round Two: The catfight continues

Texas suffered tragedy over the long holiday weekend starting with Friday the Fourth's floods and the aftermath. This morning, Jeanine Santucci (USA TODAY) reports the death toll has risen:

Search and rescue operations in central Texas entered their fifth day on Tuesday after heavy rainfall overwhelmed the Guadalupe River, sending floodwaters through homes and summer camps and killing over 100 people.

The death toll stood at at least 104, including at least 27 children and counselors from the beloved Camp Mystic, a storied Christian girls camp in Kerr County, where flooding hit the hardest beginning on July 4. In Kerr County, at least 56 adults and 28 children were killed. Ten Mystic campers and one counselor remain unaccounted for.

The flooding came in the early morning hours, with rainfall causing the nearby Guadalupe River to surge over 26 feet in less than an hour, according to Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick. The rain didn't let up, with the flood risk ongoing and impacting many communities in the central part of the state over the next few days.

From yesterday's ALL THINGS CONSIDERED (NPR):

JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:

And I'm Juana Summers in central Texas, where today saw more efforts to recover victims of last week's flooding. Scores of people are known to have died. Officials say they don't know how many are still missing. Many hundreds of emergency workers and volunteers are combing through mud, downed trees and debris along more than 60 miles of the Guadalupe River. NPR's Greg Allen reports it is a painstaking process that may take weeks.

GREG ALLEN, BYLINE: Loyd Thornton has been involved in many other search and recovery efforts in the past, but few as challenging as this one.

LOYD THORNTON: There is debris fields up to 35 feet in the air trapped on huge cypress trees. And there are places to where campgrounds were totally wiped out, washed downstream and totally destroyed.

ALLEN: Thornton, a volunteer with Texas EquuSearch, has had a crew out searching debris piles along the river using an airboat.

THORNTON: We're climbing over small islands and debris fields, so we're able to go where a regular boat really has a hard time going.

ALLEN: Thornton has three other EquuSearch volunteers along in his boat. He says that gives him four sets of eyes scan the river and the piles of debris.

THORNTON: The boat and search - we're doing a lot of visual searching now, low speed, searching high up in the trees. Remember the water we saw in places was at least 35 feet high.

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: All right, we ready? Let's do it.

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: Yup.

(SOUNDBITE OF ENGINE STARTING)

ALLEN: Not far away, in the town of Hunt, Brad Phillip (ph) today was beginning the hard work of gutting his house. It's high up on the banks of the river but was still flooded out. He says the first thing he did after the flood was search the riverbanks for survivors or victims. One was recovered on an island just a few hundred yards from his house.

BRAD PHILLIP: Someone got over there and flagged me down. I flagged a sheriff down. And within minutes, there was a Black Hawk and drones and people over there, and they were able to get a body out.

ALLEN: Today more victims were recovered near the town of Ingram. One of the crews involved in the recovery effort there is from Mexico. It's a nonprofit group that works with several Texas fire departments, Fundacion 911. Jorge Fuentes is with the group.

JORGE FUENTES: Today they went to the river to do some groundwork on the river, and they did find a body just, like, 30 minutes ago.

ALLEN: Fuentes says it was one of two victims recovered from the side, an extremely large debris field.

FUENTES: This area seems to be, like, on a bend. So lots of debris, lots of trash and some of the mobile homes that got that swept down the river got stuck in this area.

ALLEN: Fuentes' group is working with local fire departments. His members' expertise, especially in water searches, is proving invaluable to the search effort. Kerrville City Manager Dalton Rice says the operation is still in what he calls the primary phase of the search mission. There are more than 60 miles of river to search, he says, and even with large crews, checking a single mile can take several hours.

On THE NEWSHOUR (PBS) last night, they also covered rescue and recover efforts:

Amna Nawaz:

So, I just can't say enough how much our thoughts are with you and with everyone in the community.

I understand you actually knew personally some of the leaders at Camp Mystic and others who were tragically lost in these floods. We're so sorry for your loss. Is there anything that you want to share with us about them and what they meant to this community?

Austin Dickson:

Thank you.

Yes, that is my experience. And my experience is emblematic of so many people in our community. Kerrville is a town of about 25,000 people in a county of Kerr County of 50,000 people. Everybody knows everybody. And so in a tragic event like this, we're all connected to people who have been lost.

I was personal friends with three people who were swept away and have been identified as deceased at this time. And I'm also family friends with someone who lost one of their granddaughters who was a camper at Camp Mystic.

My contacts who were swept away that I knew, one was our high school soccer coach. He and his wife and two children were swept away. I also worked very closely on many projects with a pillar of our community, Dick Eastland, who was an owner and director of Camp Mystic, who died during the flood saving campers on his property.

And I also knew Jane Ragsdale, who was the director and owner of Heart O' the Hills Cam, another summer camp in the Hunt area. These folks are just a few of the names of people who have died, pillars of the community, have given their all to our area and to Texas, and ultimately lost their lives in this flood.

Amna Nawaz:

Austin, we're so very sorry for your loss and for everyone else's there. And we should share that your home, thankfully, your family are safe amid all of this. But we have seen from the pictures how deep and how devastating the damage is.

We heard Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick earlier saying this is the toughest disaster he has ever been a part of in the state of Texas. Do you agree with that? What is it like on the ground right now?

Austin Dickson:

Words are hard to find to describe what it is that we're seeing. And so I — the lieutenant governor has a broader sense of what he has seen in our state certainly that I have. I know that I crossed the Guadalupe River multiple times a day between work and home.

I know that I kayak on the river. And like many people, I woke up on the Fourth of July with in-laws in town visiting, with plans for a barbecue and board games and a fun day. We were thinking about actually maybe going down to the river because it was mild temperatures. And everything changed.

And now the devastation is something that, I mean, it looks like something from a movie. We have got over 20 miles of downed trees throughout the river, floodplain. A lot of these trees are called bald cypress trees. Some are 200 years old, very, very thick and beautiful. And they have been snapped like twigs. We have got refrigerators and washing machines, cars, boats, all sorts of stuff that is stuck up in the trees because the water rose so high.

The cleanup is going to be massive once the authorities in place at the federal, state and local level finish the search-and-rescue operations looking for anybody who is alive in the rubble.

The flooding was a natural disaster but the response -- including lack of -- was manmade and it is an injustice. This morning, Rachel Frazin (THE HILL) observes, "The deadly Texas floods are drawing renewed scrutiny to Trump administration cuts at the nation’s weather and climate research agencies." She explains:

The incident spurred questions about the preparedness of federal agencies such as the National Weather Service (NWS) and others like it as they face the administration’s crosshairs.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), which houses NWS, lost hundreds of staffers to Trump administration cuts, and positions within the Weather Service were among them.

The Austin/San Antonio Weather Service office’s warning coordination meteorologist, who organizes alerting the outside world about agency forecasts, took a Trump administration buyout in April. The office’s Science Operations Officer, who implements new technology and data, also retired around the same time.

At WSWS, Patrick Martin writes:

At the federal level, the Trump administration has sought to conceal its own culpability for the disaster, claiming that the cuts to the National Weather Service imposed by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency did not hinder the agency from issuing timely warnings in the hours before the flash flood struck.

There is no doubt that National Weather Service personnel recognized the danger and did everything they could to sound the alarm. Trump is now hiding behind the dedication and self-sacrifice of the very workers he and Musk were denouncing as parasites and bureaucrats only months ago.

But the efforts of workers were severely hampered by budget cuts, which had forced the early retirement of the warning coordination meteorologist in the San Antonio office—whose primary role was to liaise with local disaster management agencies. At the time of the flood, the San Antonio office had six vacancies out of 26 positions, and the San Angelo office had four unfilled roles out of 23.

Trump has already forced out 20 percent of career employees at FEMA and announced plans to disband the agency after the 2025 hurricane season, turning its functions over to the states. He has denounced climate change as a Chinese-inspired “hoax” and waged war on virtually every federal agency tasked with addressing science, environmental degradation and public health.

US President Donald Chump was too busy golfing in New Jersey all weekend to visit the site and offer comfort. He's still too busy. He's got to rest after golfing. But he thinks he might be able to drag his fat ass to Texas on Friday. In the meantime, Reanna Smith (US MIRROR) noted yesterday:

Donald Trump has been accused of putting "Israel first" as he's set to have dinner with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu while rescuers continue their desperate search for victims of catastrophic flooding in Texas that has killed more than 80 people.

During his first inauguration speech in 2017, Trump warned the world that ''from this day forward, it's going to be only America first, America first." It's a pledge that he vowed to continue to deliver on during his second term.

But critics have accused Trump's "America First" policy of going out the window as he works to support Israel in their war against Iran. On Monday, Trump is set to sign executive orders at the White House before greeting Netanyahu and hosting him for a dinner in the blue room.

No, making time to dine with Netanyahu does not translate as "America first."

Please note that the Gaza Freaks of the feckless CODEPINK did not stage a protest last night. They will do one today, protesting Congress. But they're too scared to protest at the White House or to protest Chump. They had no such reluctance when it came to Joe Biden, you may remember. Feckless.

Last night, Rachel Maddow addressed the cutbacks and firings that left so many vulnerable to a natural disaster.

Chump's failures never end. Tomorrow is July 9th. And the US will not see 90 deals in 90 days. Stephanie Ruhle addressed this last night.

The tariffs are fees the American consumer will pay. Chump continues to lie or just doesn't understand basic math. He's lying again. The markets do not like his TACO-ing. Small business are being hit hard as they try to plan for this economy that Chump appears not to grasp and not to care about.

Confidence is slipping as a result.

This is all on him. Just like that budget bill that robs from the average American to make the rich richer doesn't help anyone.

The budget bill -- now law -- was addressed on ABC THIS WEEK Sunday.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Selina Wang, thanks very much.

Want to get more on this now from former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers. Also the former president of Harvard University.

Larry, thank you for joining us this morning.

In "The New York Times" this week, you and Robert Rubin, who also served as president -- as Treasury secretary, called this bill dangerous, said it “posed a huge risk to the economy.”

What are those risks?

FORMER TREASURY SECRETARY LARRY SUMMERS: George, just to start with, what your people have been describing is the biggest cut in the American safety net in history. The Yale Budget Lab estimates that it will kill, over 10 years, 100,000 people. That is 2,000 days of death like we've seen in Texas this weekend. In my 70 years, I’ve never been as embarrassed for my country on July 4th.

These higher interest rates, these cutbacks in subsidies to electricity, these reductions in the availability of housing, the fact that hospitals are going to have to take care of these people and pass on the costs to everybody else, and that's going to mean more inflation, more risk that the Fed has to raise interest rates and run the risk of recession, more stagflation, that's the risk facing every middle-class family in our country because of this bill.

And for what? A million dollars over 10 years to the top tenth of a percent of our population. Is that the highest priority use of federal money right now? I don't think so. This is a shameful act by our Congress and by our president that is going to set our country back.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Part of the president's argument is that economic growth sparked by the bill will alleviate the dangers that you talk about here. The chair of the Council of Economic Advisers is up next, and his council issued a report this week projecting $11 trillion in deficit reduction from growth, higher tax revenue and savings on debt payments.

How do you respond to that?

SUMMERS: It is respectfully nonsense. None of us can forecast what's going to happen to economic growth. What we can forecast is that when people have to hold government debt instead of being able to invest it in new capital goods, new machinery, new buildings, that makes the economy less productive.

What we can forecast is that when we're investing less in research and development, investing less in our schools, that there is a negative impact on economic growth. There is no economist anywhere, without a strong political agenda, who is saying that this bill is a positive for the economy. And the overwhelming view is that it is probably going to make the economy worse.

Think about it this way. How long can the world's greatest debtor remain the world's greatest power? And this is piling more debt onto the economy than any piece of tax legislation in dollar terms that we have ever had.

STEPHANOPOULOS: But, Larry, as you know, experts in the past have raised alarm bells about the deficits, and the economy seems pretty resilient in the face of that.

SUMMERS: George, the best period we have had in the economy was the economy that -- was the period that Secretary Rubin and I wrote about when we served President Clinton and by acting responsibly on the deficit by listening to the CBO rather than expressing contempt for it, we reduced the deficit, set off a virtual -- virtues circle of increased investment, more growth, lower deficits, lower interest rates, and then around the cycle again.

Experts warn about risks. And I can't tell you whether the financial crisis is going to come this year or whether the financial crisis is going to come five years from now. And I'm not going to do cry wolf rhetoric. By the way, I was the one who was saying for a decade after 2010 that deficit reduction didn't need to be a national priority.

But anybody who looks at the numbers sees that we've never had deficits remotely like this or the prospect of debts remotely like this at a moment when the economy was strong and we were at peace anytime in our history. This is a risk that we don't need to run, and for what? To give $1 million a year to the top-tenth of a percent while, in effect, sentencing 100,000 poor Americans to death over the next 10 years because they can't get access to necessary medical procedures, because they can't get driven to a hospital, because their family members can't get supported? This is just wrong.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Finally --

SUMMERS: Look, there are lots of things, George, that you argue about, and Democrats, Republicans have different perspectives. This is that very rare instance where everybody outside of a mainstream sees something very dangerous happen.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Finally, the president's team argued that tariff revenue is going to help make up some of the shortfall. What's your response?

SUMMERS: Yeah, it probably will collect some revenue at the cost of higher inflation for American consumers, less competitiveness for American producers. 60 times as many people use -- work in industries that use steel as work in the steel industry, and every one of them is less competitive because of the president's tariffs. So, higher prices, less competitiveness, and not really that much revenue relative to what's being given to the very wealthy in this bill.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Larry Summers, thanks very much.

The economy is not sound and cracks are emerging that people should be noting. Daniel Johnson (BLACK ENTERPRISE) reports:

The general unemployment rate has been steady during the past year for every group of workers, every group of workers that is, except for Black women, which some economic experts warn is a sign of bad things for the overall economy after the latest jobs report was released on July 3.

According to The 19th News, over the last three months, the unemployment rate for Black women has been somewhere around six percent—that figure is twice the unemployment rate of white workers–and this points to potential problems for the overall economic outlook.

Jessica Fulton, a senior fellow at the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, a think tank focused on Black Americans, indicated to the outlet that due to the presence of systemic racism and inequity in the labor market, Black workers are always the first ones affected by any underlying issues with the labor market.

"Black workers, and particularly Black women, show up as a canary in the coal mine, giving a picture of what may happen to everyone else later," Fulton said.

To her point, the overall Black unemployment rate rose to 6.8% in June, after posting a 6% rate in May, a sharp increase that was driven by the increase in Black women’s unemployment, as the unemployment rate of Black men has been consistently above 6% since February, but the overall rate of Black unemployment was somewhat tempered by Black women’s lower unemployment rate.

And Sam Sutton (POLITICO) notes:

The solid monthly job gains that the White House is touting as the “Trump effect” are in danger of fading as the president’s hardline immigration policies chip away at the supply of foreign-born workers.

That risk is rising because the GOP's “Big, Beautiful Bill” contains $150 billion to ramp up border security and deportations.

The foreign-born workforce contracted again in June, the government reported Thursday, marking the third straight month it has fallen even as employers defied expectations and added 147,000 overall jobs.

White House officials insist that the decline won't dent the economy because the megabill will encourage more Americans to enter the workforce. Many economists disagree, predicting that the immigration crackdown will hurt the labor market.

Now, as President Donald Trump's deportations start to show up in the economic data, we're about to find out who's right.

Economists believe that the labor market’s breakeven rate — the number of jobs that businesses must add to keep unemployment in check — will decline with the abrupt end of the Biden-era immigration surge. Even if the jobless rate stays near its current level of 4.1 percent, a slowdown in payroll growth would pose a hurdle for the economy, they say. Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell is among those recently warning that economic growth could diminish.

We need to wrap up so let's wind down with Lawrence O'Donnell.

The following sites updated:

Tuesday, July 08, 2025

Congress needs to do something about Marjorie Taylor Greene

Can Congress please do something about Marjorie Taylor Greene. Let's note this from a few years back.

The woman has only gotten crazier. Morgan Music (LATIN TIMES) reports:

As Texas reels from deadly flash floods, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) announced that she will introduce legislation to make it a felony to "inject, release, or disperse" chemicals into the atmosphere to modify the weather.

Greene said she has been researching "weather modification and geoengineering" for months, describing the practice as "dangerous and deadly."

"I am introducing a bill that prohibits the injection, release, or dispersion of chemicals or substances into the atmosphere for the express purpose of altering weather, temperature, climate, or sunlight intensity," Greene declared. "It will be a felony offense."

"I want clean air, clean skies, clean rainwater, clean groundwater, and sunshine just like God created it!!" she added.

It's really past time for other members of Congress to start speaking out and, in her case, it should be on the Republican side. They need to start noting that she is talking crazy, she is talking nonsense.

On the Democratic Party side? Our Congress members should be noting that if she truly wanted "clean air, clean skies, clean rainwater, clean groundwater, and sunshine just like God created it!!" then she would be pushing environmental legislation to clean up the planet.

Have to add something. I'm talking to C.I. and told her my post. She said Ted Cruz had spoken out:

Sen. Ted Cruz dismissed talk about weather modification Monday, saying there is "zero evidence" to support claims that the government is manipulating the weather.

The Texas Republican made the comments in response to a proposed bill by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, which aimed to ban atmospheric interventions—a move rooted in long-debunked "chemtrail" theories.

"The internet can be a strange place," Cruz said at a press conference this morning. "People can come up with all sorts of crazy theories."

Good for him. Other Republicans need to join him and calling the crazy out.

"The Snapshot" (THE COMMON ILLS):

Monday, July 7, 2025. Chump's cost cutting to give more money to the extremely wealthy results in flooding deaths in Texas, he will not meet his 90 deals in 90 days promise, and his assault on immigrants continues.

Let's start with Ben Meiselas and MEIDASTOUCH NEWS which posted this video about an hour ago.

Ben Meiselas: Frenzied, panicking, throughout all of last night, Donald Trump posting things like this, "I am pleased to announce that the United States tariff letters and/or deals with various countries from around the world will be delivered starting at 12 pm Eastern, Monday, July 7th, thank you for your attention to this matter." The letters and/or deals? What in the world are you talking about? You said 90 deals in 90 days. Now you're just going to send letters to countries saying what their tariffs are going to be?

What's going on? I think it's obvious what's going on -- and I'm sure Ben knows it too. It's Monday morning. Chump just realized he had an assignment due. One that he hasn't completed or really worked on and now he is in a panic.

90 days in 90 deals. That was Chump's promise. He's the one who came up with the 90 days. He's the one who gave himself that deadline.

If you're generous, you can say he has three deals. They're not deals, they are frameworks and they are more memos of understanding but whatever.

Stephanie Ruhle and her many guests explained on THE 11TH HOUR WITH STEPHANIE RUHLE (MSNBC) when he started this talk -- and repeatedly during the time since -- trade deals are huge agreements that require time and Chump was either lying or a fool when he claimed he would have 90 and 90 days. July 9th is two days away and he will not have reached his 90 deals in 90 days.

Fat and lazy Chump is not working for the American people -- as his budget bill that Republicans passed last week demonstrates.

Now if he weren't so lazy and so corrupt, he could plead for a few additional days. Were he Reagan or Obama or anyone but fat and lazy Chump, he could point to the tragedy in Texas and explain that he'd spent the weekend addressing that.

But fat man is too lazy and too fat.

He didn't spend the weekend addressing Texas or even visiting it. No, he spent the weekend in New Jersey golfing.

And it is Chump's fault. Not the downpour but the reaction and response. And I'd love to note all the YOUTUBERS who spent the last 18 hours hemming and hawwing about it but never able to actually speak because they don't have the education required. I'm not a Theda Skocpol fan. She's not really a theorist nor is she one of the greats of her field. But TPM did speak with her last week and it was one of the things that kept getting chopped from each day's snapshot due to space issues. Unlike Theda, the late Judith N. Shklar was a theorist and one of the great minds in their field.

In her classic THE FACES OF INJUSTICE, Shklar explained:

When is a disaster a misfortune and when is it an injustice? . . . If the dreadful event is caused by the external forces of nature, it's a misfortune and we must resign ourselves to our suffering. Should, however, some ill-intentioned agent, human or supernatural, have brought it about, then it is an injustice and we may express indignation and outrage.

And the flooding was an act of nature. The cuts to programs that help us with alerts for flooding and that monitor flooding (and other weather conditions)? Chump did that and that's why what happened in Texas over the weekend is an injustice, not a misfortune.

And that's why he's posting his garbage. His actions resulted in deaths. And instead of addressing it on Friday, he went golfing. Now he realizes that not only did he fail there but, oops, two days away from his 90 deals in 90 days promise. He's a failure and he's scrambling to try to distract from his failures.

At least 82 people are dead as a result of Chump's actions as well as his DOGE program. CNN's Danya Gainor covers the numbers:

At least 82 people, including 28 children, have died as floods rushed through central Texas through the July 4 weekend. The total continues to rise as local emergency officials across the state carry out search, rescue and recovery efforts.

Here’s a breakdown by county as of Sunday night:

68 deaths in Kerr County
6 deaths in Travis County
3 deaths in Burnet County
2 deaths in Kendall County
2 deaths in Williamson County
1 death in Tom Green County

Those people shouldn't be dead.

Jessica Rawnsley (BBC NEWS) explains:

Before the tragedy, there had been concerns over the Trump administration's budget cuts to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) - the government agency that operates the National Weather Service.

The Fiscal Year 2026 budget includes cuts and closures of some weather research laboratories, while the Department of Government Efficiency (Doge) has slashed hundreds of employees at NOAA and the NWS.

Meteorologists in the US and elsewhere have expressed concerns over "reduced number of weather balloons" that observe wind, relative humidity and pressure above the ground.

They claim that budget cuts have resulted in 20% fewer weather balloons being released for such observations, impacting the accuracy of weather forecasting.

The New York Times reported that critical positions of the NWS were vacant on Friday morning, with some experts questioning whether staffing shortages had impeded the agency's efforts to coordinate with local emergency managers.

However, Tom Fahy, legislative director of the NWS Employees Organization, told NBC News: "The WFOs [weather forecasting offices] had adequate staffing and resources as they issued timely forecasts and warnings leading up to the storm".

And the Associated Press quoted Jason Runyen, a meteorologist in the National Weather Service office, as saying their office that delivers forecasts for that part of central Texas had extra staff on duty at the time of the storms - five, instead of the usual two.

Gabrielle Emanuel (NPR) explains:

In the early hours of Friday, floods swept across Texas Hill Country. The Guadalupe River rose 26 feet within 45 minutes, according to state officials.

At least 67 people died in the floods, with 59 of the confirmed deaths occuring in Kerr County. Frantic search efforts continue for 11 girls from a local Christian summer camp — Camp Mystic — who remain missing, as well as other missing individuals. Officials added that more than 850 people have been rescued, including over 100 airlifted from the region.

On Friday, when asked why the summer camps in the area were not evacuated, Kerr County Judge Rob Kelly, the county's top elected official, said, "I can't answer that. I don't know."

Use the link for the NPR timeline. Dallas' WFAA also offers a timeline. NPR also has posted Robert Ivey's timelapse video of the flooding.

Camp Mystic is a girls camp in the flooded area. Jillian Frankel (PEOPLE magazine) has a photo essay of the remains of the camp. Jim Vertuno, John Seewer and Julio Cortez (AP) report some of the families of the girls were allowed into the remains of the camp today, "A woman and a teenage girl, both wearing rubber waders, briefly went inside one of the cabins, which stood next to a pile of soaked mattresses, a storage trunk and clothes. At one point, the pair doubled over, sobbing before they embraced." CNN's Sarah Dewberry reports:

Camp Mystic owner Dick Eastland died while trying to rescue campers during the catastrophic flooding in Kerr County, Texas, as shared by his grandson in an Instagram tribute on Saturday.

“If he wasn’t going to die of natural causes, this was the only other way—saving the girls that he so loved and cared for,” George Eastland wrote. “That’s the kind of man my grandfather was. He was a husband, father, grandfather, and a mentor to thousands of young women. Although he no longer walks this earth, his impact will never fade in the lives he touched.”

A Camp Mystic employee, Glenn Juenke, told CNN Eastland died “remaining a true hero until the very end.”

“Eastland tragically lost his life while courageously attempting to save several young children,” Juenke said.

Looking for accountability? From the Chump administration? The flood was Friday. Chump spent the weekend golfing. He never visited Texas. Any other president would have been on a plane immediately. Our useless and criminal Secretary of Homeland Security took herself and her Medusa extensions down to Texas on Saturday. Catherine Bouris (THE DAILY BEAST) reports:

While speaking at a press conference alongside Texas Governor Greg Abbott on Saturday, Noem was asked by a reporter about whether the fact that he and many others did not receive warnings from the National Weather Service until 7 a.m. was a “fundamental failure of the federal government’s responsibility to keep people safe.” Noem argued that the technology was “ancient” and that the Trump administration is working to upgrade it.

“When President Trump took office… he said he wanted to fix [that], and is currently upgrading the technology. And the National Weather Service has indicated that with that and NOAA, that we needed to renew this ancient system that has been left in place with the federal government for many, many years, and that is the reforms that are ongoing,” Noem explained, seemingly shifting the blame onto previous administrations who failed to upgrade the technology. Trump was previously president from 2017 to 2021.

When asked about the impact of cuts and closures made to weather research labs as part of Trump’s “One, Big, Beautiful Bill,” Noem once again defended the current administration, telling reporters that she would relay their concerns to the president.

“I do carry your concerns back to the federal government, and to President Trump, and we will do all we can to fix those kind of things that that may have felt like a failure to you and to your community members,” Noem said. “We know that everybody wants more warning time, and that’s why we’re working to upgrade the technologies that been neglected [for] far too long.”

Those words are laughable. This is the time of the year for bad weather. If Chump wanted the systems upgraded, that should have taken place in January when he was sworn in. More to the point, he was president from January 2017 to January 2021. So he should have known the state of the systems before he was sworn back in at the start of this year.

Julia Ornedo (DAILY BEAST) covers Chump's refusal of accountaiblity:

President Donald Trump was hearing reporters just fine until one of them asked him about federal cuts in the aftermath of the devastating floods in Texas.

Trump spoke to reporters in New Jersey on Sunday after flash floods wreaked havoc in central Texas over the weekend, killing at least 80 people and sending over 40 others missing. Critics were quick to blame the calamitous toll on the administration’s overhaul of the federal government, which included staff cuts at the National Weather Service.

“Democrats are blaming your federal cuts for the deaths over in Texas,” one reporter, who could be heard audibly projecting their voice, asked Trump.

Though the president leaned in to hear better, he decided to wave off the question.

“I can’t hear you,” he said, as he moved on to another reporter.

Asked later on if he had plans to look into whether the cuts at the National Weather Service and the Federal Emergency Management Agency left key positions vacant, Trump and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick shook their heads.

Yelena Mandenberg (IRISH STAR) adds, "The clip of Trump turning his back when questioned about the disaster quickly went viral, leaving some on X pointing out: 'His ears don’t hear truth.' Others accused him of 'shifting the blame' to Democrats with the act." Meanwhile, Rey Harris (TAG24 NEWS) notes that artificial intelligence GROK has outraged MAGA with a judgment call

They included a screenshot of the AI telling a user that the Trump administration made massive cuts to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and National Weather Service (NWS), which contributed to "inadequate alerts for the flash floods."

When asked why Catturd was so "triggered" by the AI's response, Grok answered, "Trump's NOAA cuts impaired flood warnings, contributing to deaths," adding, "Facts aren't woke; they're just facts."

At least 82 are dead, dozens remain missing. We spend money as taxpayers for a reason: To protect one another. Chump wanted to do it on the cheap and gutted things in place so that he'd have more money to give the incredibly rich in tax cuts. Those tax cuts were paid for by the blood of the Texas victims and by the blood of many more victims to come.

Chump says he'll visit the region on Friday. A week after the disaster. Apparently, he can dash off to golf at any second but when it comes to doing actual work he has to wait for the factory to make the heavily re-enforced Depends undergarments.

Let's move over to immigration. Saturday, The Run Against Ice took place in Los Angeles. NBC LOS ANGELES notes:

Organizers call it a “non-violent journey of resistance through Los Angeles” and said it is part of a 30-day “Summer of Resistance” campaign designed to push for an end to ICE raids and deportations they say have “tore families apart.”

Upwards of 2,000 people have registered to participate in the run, which will include a stop at downtown's Metropolitan Detention Center on Alameda Street, which has been the site of multiple clashes between people protesting immigration-related arrests and law enforcement officers.

Carly Gomez (ABC7's EYEWIT NESS NEWS) spoke to participants. Claudia Bustillos told her, "I showed up to represent those of us who, our parents came as immigrants to give us the opportunity to have a better life in the United States." Brisa Aguilar explained, "Whatever is happening right now, it feels like the Holocaust all over again, and it's not fair on justice." And event organizer Fayia Ramage notes, "I was welcomed to the city by immigrants, and also by the running community, and it felt like the way to create space just for people to really come together and, yeah, the whole promise of the event is that it's rooted in love and unity, but also a really powerful display of the fact that we won't back down when it comes to supporting the people in the city."

Leah Craig (MICHIGAN ADVANCE) reports on an action in her state Friday:

Approximately 100 demonstrators gathered Friday in West Michigan to denounce the opening of the North Lake Correctional Facility, an immigrant detention center in Baldwin.

The detention center was opened on June 16, and, with a capacity of 1,800, the facility has been called the largest detention center in the Midwest, as well as the subject of several earlier protests this year.

The Independence Day event was organized by local immigrant advocacy groups, including No Detention Centers in Michigan, Cosecha Michigan, GR Rapid Response to ICE, and Lakeshore Rapid Response to ICE.

The date was an intentional choice: July 4, the media release noted, is a day for “reflecting on freedom as an ideal and spending time with family and loved ones.” As such, advocates gathered outside the facility to highlight the apparent disconnect between Independence Day and mass incarceration.

Speakers used the event to emphasize the controversies surrounding the GEO Group— the federally contracted private company that operates the North Lake facility.

As the nation’s primary prison operator, GEO has been scrutinized for influencing immigration and criminal justice policy in ways that expand incarceration for profit.

During the 2024 election cycle, GEO and its subsidiaries donated almost $1,000,000 to political candidates, with around 90% of funds going to GOP candidates.

In particular, the GEO Group has closely aligned itself with President Donald Trump. Trump’s first term saw 237 new contracts between GEO and the federal government. Furthermore, nearly 71% of the GEO Group’s funding is sourced from ICE. The Trump Administration’s emphasis on mass detention only serves to benefit the GEO Group.

Again, targeting immigrants is big business and a lot of people are getting rich off of it. Jesús Jank Curbelo (EL PAIS) reports, "More than 20,000 migrants have been arrested in Texas by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) since Donald Trump returned to the U.S. presidency last January. This makes Texas the state with the most arrests in the last five months. The figure is double the number recorded in Florida (9,080) and triple the 5,860 registered in California, which rank second and third on the list." Liam Archacki (THE DAILY BEAST) notes Donald Chump is excited by his new budget bill which provides a lot of money to destroy lives across America and bragging about it on social media, "One of the most exciting parts of the 'ONE BIG BEAUTIFUL BILL ACT' is that it includes ALL of the funding and resources that ICE needs to carry out the Largest Mass Deportation Operation in History." Again, this is big business. Don't forget that. People are getting rich by creating this misery. How much money are we talking? Josh Kovensky (TPM) explains, "All in all, the bill directs around $170 billion through 2029 to various forms of immigration enforcement, according to an analysis by the American Immigration Council and TPM’s own read of the legislation. ICE, responsible for enforcement, detentions, and removals, will oversee much of the spending." Hoping for strong judicial pushback? Pema Levy (MOTHER JONES) notes, "On the 249 anniversary of the country’s declaration of independence from tyranny, the Trump administration was in court asking a judge to let it send eight men to South Sudan, a war-torn country where they face a significant possibility of torture or death. The government wished to subject these men, and then untold thousands more, to such a fate without the guarantee of due process promised in the Constitution. And on America’s birthday, they got their wish. A federal judge in Massachusetts declined to halt the deportations. He lay the blame at the feet of seven Supreme Court justices who had allowed the removals to move forward the previous day."

Hayes Brown (MSNBC) observes:

Shifts in policy have already stripped hundreds of thousands of immigrants of their legal protections to remain in the country. But the wide-ranging sweeps ICE has launched in churches, at farms and in Home Deport parking lots still haven’t resulted in enough arrests to satisfy White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, who has spent weeks insisting that more dedicated resources are needed to meet his goal of 3,000 arrests per day.

Republicans gave Miller the tools he wants when they passed their budget reconciliation bill Thursday. The two largest buckets of funding in the act provide $45 billion each toward building Trump’s border wall and vastly expanding America’s immigration detention capacity. By comparison, that’s more than 13 times the current annual ICE budget for detention ($3.4 billion) and more than five times the entire annual budget of the Federal Bureau of Prisons ($8.6 billion).

An estimate from the American Immigration Council determines that if the money allocated is spread out to roughly $14 billion per year, then it would be enough for ICE to maintain around 116,000 beds. At present, the agency’s budget supports it holding about 41,000 detainees. Notably, though, those capacity figures assume that every detainee is granted a bed. There are reports of inhumane conditions in existing detention centers, where there were 56,000 immigrants in custody as of June 15. In other words, we could easily see the number of detainees more than double to fill the expanded capacity in hastily built detention centers.

Once this new funding hits ICE’s accounts, it will likely be spent as quickly as possible — with little oversight for how it’s doled out. The New York Times reported in April that ICE has already asked contractors for “proposals to provide new detention facilities, transportation, security guards, medical support and other administrative services worth as much as $45 billion over the next two years.” Much of that money will go toward private companies contracted to build and run these facilities, some of which have been major political backers for Trump and the GOP.

Beyond the funding for detention, there’s more money still. An analysis from the Washington Office on Latin America notes that ICE will also be getting $15 billion devoted toward physically removing migrants from the country. (Whether that is to their country of origin or some random third state is apparently a matter for the administration to decide, according to a recent Supreme Court decision.) Another $16.2 billion will be for the Department of Homeland Security to hire new ICE, Customs and Border Protection and Border Patrol agents. About $8 billion of that will be for ICE to hire 8,500 new officers with another $860 million for paying recruitment and retention bonuses and $600 million for expanding the agency’s hiring capacity.

Local and state officers are getting in on the gold rush, with $3.5 billion dedicated toward compensating states for detaining noncitizens and $10 billion to reimburse border states for hardening their borders. Given how eagerly sheriff’s offices and police departments compete for federal funding for other programs, it’s likely that many will leap at the chance to share in this bonanza.

Again, there is very big money being made in the targeting and kidnapping of human beings. Dharna Noor (GUARDIAN) reports:

Farm worker activist Alfredo “Lelo” Juarez Zeferino, 25, was driving his partner to her job on a tulip farm north of Seattle one March morning when they were pulled over by an unmarked car. A plainclothes agent for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) emerged and shattered Juarez Zeferino’s front window before handcuffing him, his partner said.

The officer drove Juarez Zeferino to a nondescript warehouse – the same one he and other activists had years ago discovered is an unmarked Ice holding facility. After his 25 March detention, dozens gathered outside to demand his release.

Instead, he was transferred to the Northwest Ice Processing Center in Tacoma, Washington, where he has been held ever since.

Officially, Juarez Zeferino’s arrest was based on a deportation order. But the activist’s detention comes as the Trump administration has launched an aggressive crackdown against its perceived political enemies, including both immigrants and labor organizers.

“We believe, no question, that he was a target,” said Rosalinda Guillen, veteran farm worker organizer and founder of Community to Community Development, where Juarez Zeferino volunteered.

The young organizer has played an instrumental role in securing protections for Washington farm workers, including strengthened statewide heat protections for outdoor laborers mandating water breaks when temperatures top 80F, enshrined in 2023. In 2021, he and other activists also won a law guaranteeing farm workers overtime pay. And in 2019, advocacy from Juarez Zeferino and other campaigners about exploitation in the H-2A guest worker program prompted Washington to create the nation’s first-ever oversight committee for foreign workers.

KABC notes that a West Hollywood car wash was targeted by ICE on Friday an The West Hollywood Chamber of Commerce issued a statement in response:

On this day that marks the birth of our nation and its founding ideals of liberty, opportunity, and justice for all, we at the West Hollywood Chamber of Commerce are deeply troubled by the news of the ICE raid that occurred in our community at one of our businesses. These enforcement actions-carried out on the Fourth of July-have sown fear, disrupted families, and shaken the trust that is vital to a thriving local economy. We are a city built on diversity, creativity, and the contributions of immigrants from all walks of life. Our businesses depend on a workforce that reflects this diversity, and many of our members-whether small business owners or employees-have close ties to immigrant communities. Regardless of political affiliation, we believe in treating every individual with dignity, compassion, and due process under the law.

As masked thugs with ICE (or supposedly with ICE, who knows) terrorize cities in Connecticut like Danbury, the state's Attorney General William Tong released the following statement:

There's no question that there is a need for plainclothes officers in certain law enforcement scenarios, but this is not that. These authoritarian thugs in masks and unmarked vans are causing dangerous panic and confusion, and the possibility of a misunderstanding puts both officers and civilians at needless risk. There is zero need for these hyper-aggressive tactics when we're talking about unarmed mothers taking their children to school, college students walking to class, or people just trying to do the right thing by showing up to court hearings and immigration check-ins.

These raids are destroying the economy. Veronica Miracle, Norma Galeana, Harper Stephanopoulos and Rachel Clarke (CNN) report on how Los Angeles' Fashion Market region has been decimated and turned into a ghost town. Adrian Florido (NPR's ALL THINGS CONSIDERED) reports:

Emma de Paz was selling breakfast to day laborers outside a Los Angeles Home Depot on June 19 when immigration agents showed up. Some of them chased workers through the parking lot. Others rounded up the food cart vendors. De Paz was handcuffed, forced onto her knees, and driven to a federal detention center downtown.

She called her brother, Carlos Barrera, from the facility.

"They didn't ask if she had papers or not. They just grabbed her and put her into one of the vans," Barrera said, recalling his conversation with his sister, who has since been transferred to a desert detention center 90 miles away. "They had no reason to arrest her. They didn't have a warrant."

Though his sister is undocumented, Barrera said the agents could not have known that before detaining her or many of the 29 other people they rounded up that morning.

"She has dark skin. They assumed she was Hispanic, and they took her," he said. "It's the racial factor."

You have to illegally profile to meet Chump's goals and we noted that back in July and August and September and October -- long before the election. That would be the outcome if Chump was put back into the White House. Let me note this from Ava and my "Media: Are they trying to elect Donald Trump?:"

The war on Civil Rights and education doesn't matter to them, the attempt to destroy LGBTQ+ rights doesn't matter to them, the attack on Latinos doesn't bother them, the attack on women's health does not bother them, the assault on overtime pay doesn't bother them. No issue, apparently, is important but what happens in Gaza.

Grasp for a moment what Trump plans to do with Latinos. He wants to round up immigrants. That means he has to arrest them in the first place. How does that usually happen? It generally involves profiling. Oh, how we on the left especially miss Michael Ratner's strong voice today. So since our country shares a border with Mexico, Latinos will be targeted with profiling. Latinos -- American citizens and others -- will be stopped on a regular basis. It will be "let me see your I.D." over and over. And some will be deported by mistake under Donald Trump's plan and, yes, he plans to break up families again with deportation. As former US President Barack Obama explained in a speech in Nevada on Saturday, "He wants you to believe that if you elect him, he will just round up whoever he wants and ship them out and all your problems will be solved." But that doesn't seem to matter too much to in left media. For them, it's all about the Palestinians. Here's a tip for the Gaza Freaks: You haven't seen anything yet.

Put Donald back in the White House and you'll see what happens when a US president actively seeks out a genocide. And have you noticed that while Amy Goodman can't leave her status as a Gaza Freak behind, other Americans have. Because they're dismayed that our country's at risk and our lives are at risk and the Gaza Freaks are only focused on Gaza. Good luck, under a Donald Trump presidency, building up a successful movement to save the Palestinians -- especially after you've turned off the bulk of Americans with your refusal to see the needs of those of us in this country as even just a little bit important.

Patricia Caro (EL PAIS) reports:

Andrea Vélez, a 32-year-old marketing designer, was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on June 24 as she was going to work in downtown Los Angeles. On June 12, Brian Gavidia, 29, was working at a trailer yard in Montebello, California, when he was assaulted and restrained by ICE officers. Just over a week earlier, Elzon Lemus, a 23-year-old electrician, was stopped, pulled from his car, and handcuffed on his way to work in Nassau, New York. In addition to sharing the experience of being detained by immigration agents, the three have something in common that has raised the controversy over immigration raids to a new level: they are all U.S. citizens of Latino origin. ICE has no authority to detain them.

“Now that ICE is having to meet higher quotas for arbitrary arrests than ever before, we’ll see more and more cases like these,” Nareen Shah, director of Government Affairs for the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), told EL PAÍS. “The problem is that even when people claim to be U.S. citizens and can prove they are, we’ve still seen cases where they’re detained,” Shah said.

[. . .]

The law does not allow a person’s race, ethnicity, or occupation to be used as the sole basis for believing they have violated federal immigration law. Objective evidence, such as a criminal record, must be provided, but in none of the recent cases did the detainees have a criminal history.

“Because of the color of their skin, their accent, or their ethnicity, they become targets in what is reminiscent of what happened in the Third Reich,” denounced Fred Brewington, Elzon Lemus’s attorney, at a press conference in which his client denounced the treatment he received by ICE agents, despite having assured them he was a U.S. citizen. “I am a victim because of my race and ethnicity. Just because of my skin color and because I am Hispanic, they made me feel like I was a criminal,” Lemus said.

The Gaza Freaks are silent now. They certainly haven't apologized for their work sabotaging Kamala Harris' run and destroying our country in the process. It's a real shame that Latinos in this country -- citizens and immigrants -- are no longer safe. But the bigger shame is that the obsessed Gaza Freaks brought us to this point and they want to now act like they're not responsible. They told people not to vote for Kamala. By the way, where are they today? Palestinians are still being killed in Gaza. Chump didn't change that, did he? And, if you paid attention, Palestinians in Gaza knew he wouldn't. They repeatedly and regularly told outlets like ALJAZEERA just that. But over here in the US, Gaza Freaks didn't want to listen to the Palestinians. And now, as we see from their silence, Gaza Freaks don't really want to save them. Palestinians were apparently just a passing fad for a lot of pathetic people with pathetic lives to pretend their lives had some meaning which explains the death of protests on US campuses and all the high profile Gaza Freaks who were constantly on camera in the lead up to the 2024 election now becoming publicity shy.

It's as though they all just wanted to destroy their own lives and take the rest of the world down with them.

Kat's "Kat's Korner: Barbra's Secret is providing pure joy" went up Sunday, The following sites updated: