|
|
Post by aj2hall on Jul 9, 2025 12:24:48 GMT
With the recent Supreme Court decision paving the way for mass firings of government employees, I worry about all of the consequences, seen and unforeseen. The tragedy unfolding in Texas is one of the saddest. www.nytimes.com/2025/07/09/opinion/texas-floods-nws.htmlthe Weather Service employee whose job it was to make sure those warnings got traction — Paul Yura, the long-serving meteorologist in charge of “warning coordination” — had recently taken an unplanned early retirement amid cuts pushed by the so-called Department of Government Efficiency. He was not replaced.
instead of a targeted, smart and strategic intervention, DOGE brought a chain saw to vital government services, pushing large, indiscriminate cuts with little consideration for the expertise that longtime employees offered or the importance of the functions they performed.
Disaster preparedness is among the trickiest public services. Natural disasters happen regularly and everywhere, but they don’t happen predictably, which means being ready for them requires extra precautions: It requires a lot of people on duty even when nothing is going wrong, to ensure they will be able to act when something inevitably does. It requires expensive infrastructure that does fairly little during normal times. That makes it a very good indicator of state capacity and wisdom. Will leaders have the foresight to prepare for outcomes that may not be top of voters’ minds? Or will preparedness fall victim to the political theater of cutting anything that can be portrayed as extravagant or redundant?
Redundancy isn’t always the same as waste. That’s a lesson that Sahil Lavingia, a young digital creator, learned during his work with DOGE. He expected that as the government cleared out deadwood employees, he’d write the software to do their jobs more efficiently. To his surprise, Lavingia found himself surrounded by people who “love their jobs” and were motivated by a sense of mission.
“I think we have a bias as people coming from the tech industry where we worked at companies, you know, such as Google, Facebook — these companies that have plenty of money, are funded by investors and have lots of people kind of sitting around doing nothing,” he told National Public Radio. “And so I think, generally, I personally was pretty surprised, actually, at how efficient the government was.” (After speaking with a reporter, he was promptly fired — another government employee heading back to the private sector, I guess.)
The problem is that complex systems are only as strong as their weakest point. The N.W.S. was still managing to put out good forecasts. But forecasts don’t move people. Credible, timely warnings that they hear and believe do.
Resilience in critical infrastructure necessarily requires planning as well as painfully, slowly acquired knowledge, all of which can easily be made to look like waste and extravagance during regular times. |
|
dawnnikol
Prolific Pea
'A life without books is a life not lived.' Jay Kristoff
Posts: 9,460
Sept 21, 2015 18:39:25 GMT
|
Post by dawnnikol on Jul 9, 2025 12:28:45 GMT
Similar to what happened with USAID: Which Lives Are Worth Saving? You can just click "Read without Subscribing" underneath the box to enter your email address. |
|
|
|
Post by aj2hall on Jul 9, 2025 12:34:49 GMT
Another area where cuts are already having deadly consequences is USAID. www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/06/22/us/politics/usaid-foreign-aid-trump.html?searchResultPosition=1
The shell of U.S.A.I.D that is left today is the result of this chorus of pleas and negotiations, and of hasty decisions made by political leaders, many of whom had little experience in foreign aid.
The overhaul was a far cry from the comprehensive review to evaluate aid programs and realign them with U.S. foreign policy that Mr. Trump promised on his first day in office
The remaining awards are designed to address acute disease, hunger and other emergencies, and not areas like education, governance or jobs that are supposed to help countries avoid crises in the first place. Aid workers and experts said this is a short-sighted way to handle foreign aid that reflects a deep misunderstanding of the agency’s work and will have long-term consequences for Americans.
“You know what is not efficient? Putting out fires,” said Laura Meissner, a former U.S.A.I.D. contractor, whose work to manage humanitarian aid in multiple countries was terminated. “It’s way cheaper to stabilize people so they can weather the storm than to wait until they are destitute and their kids are malnourished
The idea was to destroy everything, said a global health security expert at U.S.A.I.D., who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation, as did most aid workers and other officials interviewed for this article. If someone complained, they would bring it back
Not about fraud, inefficiency or cost
Despite its claims that “waste and abuse run deep” at U.S.A.I.D., the administration did not prioritize keeping programs that work to reduce fraud.
Instead, officials canceled contracts designed to prevent abuse, including awards for inspectors to watch over aid delivery in high-risk locations in more than a dozen countries.
Cost savings was not a significant factor in the administration’s decision making, either. In March, Mr. Rubio announced that officials had cut about 83 percent of the programs at U.S.A.I.D., but, in dollar terms, they cut programs that were worth less than half of the agency’s obligations
“You have Secretary Rubio getting kind of made a fool of by DOGE because he has repeatedly said that they are going to protect these kinds of lifesaving programs. And then you have DOGE go out and basically countermand him,” said Jeremy Konyndyk, president of Refugees International and a former U.S.A.I.D. adviser to the Biden and Obama administrations. “It’s really unclear who is steering the bus.”
Andrew Natsios, a former U.S.A.I.D. administrator under President George W. Bush, said that DOGE made a mess that has left gaps for China and Russia to fill.
“Our economy, our security and our way of life is dependent on our connection to the developing world and not just the rich world,” he said “And we have just lost our influence in the developing world.”
|
|
|
|
Post by aj2hall on Jul 9, 2025 12:45:30 GMT
So many frustrating parts of this
1. It was never about waste or fraud, it was about the whims of 2 men. Musk and Trump targeted departments they didn’t like, ones that would benefit them financially and ones that were investigating Musk’s businesses.
2. It wasn’t done in a smart calculated way, Musk just indiscriminately took a chainsaw to departments.
3. Despite what MAGA thinks, federal employees serve critically important roles and are vital to the functioning of out government
4. The harm done in terms of knowledge and expertise lost will take decades to fix.
5. All of this was laid out in Project 2025. The writing was on the wall, this was predictable and foreseen.
6. Trump doesn’t have the power or authority to make these cuts. Congress voted on and approved funding for all of these departments.
7. No one elected Musk. We should not have an unelected billionaire making these critical decisions.
8. Instead of eliminating waste and fraud, Trump and Musk made it worse. Like millions of dollars of medications sitting unused that will likely expire.
9. Their choices and decisions are having real world, deadly consequences that could have been prevented.
10. Many of the cuts like USAID are deliberately cruel.
|
|
|
|
Post by aj2hall on Jul 9, 2025 12:58:19 GMT
More about USAID www.nytimes.com/2025/06/21/opinion/waste-musk-trump.html?unlocked_article_code=1.VE8.TSkF.PQIekTOR0XPj&smid=url-share
On the edge of a lush jungle here in West Africa, the heavy metal doors of a warehouse creak open. Inside are boxes piled high with millions of doses of medicines donated by Merck and other pharmaceutical companies for a United States aid program. Yet the medications are gathering dust, and some are approaching their expiration dates and may have to be destroyed, at immense expense
After Elon Musk boasted about feeding U.S.A.I.D. “into the wood chipper” over a weekend, he claimed that no one had died as a result. Secretary of State Marco Rubio repeated that claim just last month.
So I challenge them both: Come with me on a trip to the villages where your aid cuts are killing children. Open your eyes. And if you dare to confront actual waste and abuse — the kind that squanders lives as well as money — join me in the village of Kayata, Liberia, where in April a pregnant mother of two, Yamah Freeman, 21, went into labor.
Freeman, a lively woman known for her friendliness to all, soon hemorrhaged and began bleeding heavily, so villagers frantically called the county hospital to summon an ambulance. U.S.A.I.D. previously supplied ambulances to reduce maternal mortality, but this year the U.S. stopped providing fuel, leaving the ambulances idle. Ambulance crew members said they’d be happy to rescue Freeman, if someone would only come and buy them gas.
It’s more than 10 miles through the jungle on a red mud path from Kayata to the hospital, but villagers were determined to try to save Freeman’s life. The strongest young men in the village bundled her in a hammock and then raced down the path, shouting encouragement to her as she lay unconscious and bleeding. They didn’t make it: She died on the way, along with an unborn son.
Come also to the village of Vonzua in western Liberia, where a woman named Bendu Kiadu is mourning her child Gbessey, who was just 1 year old.
Gbessey caught malaria in March. In normal times, a community health worker would have administered simple medicines for malaria, and the United States noted just last year that it provided “vital” and “critical” support to fight malaria in Liberia. But the closing of U.S.A.I.D. led to the collapse of some supply chains, so health workers had no malaria medicine to offer Gbessey.
Kiadu rushed the child to a clinic, but it, too, had run out of malaria medicine. The next day, Gbessey died.
Now Kiadu’s youngest child, Osman, is also seriously ill with malaria, and the community health workers and the clinic still have no malaria medicine. She worries that she will lose two of her children within months
“Our children are dying because of a lack of medicine,” Kiadu told me.
How often does this happen? The Trump administration is also dismantling data collection, making it difficult to count the deaths it is causing. By one American economist’s online dashboard, about 350,000 people worldwide have died so far because of cuts in American aid. My guess is that the figure isn’t so high, partly because it takes time for children to weaken and die, but that the rate of deaths will accelerate.
We can’t save every child in the world, I realize, and it’s fair to note that not every U.S.A.I.D. program was brilliant and lifesaving. The agency could have used reforms. Yet it’s also true that at a cost of only 0.24 percent of gross national income, we provided humanitarian aid that saved about six lives every minute around the clock, based on rough estimates from the Center for Global Development. That is what we have undone.
So aid cuts are at a level where they undermine our national interest as well as corrode our souls. They are a braid of recklessness, incompetence and indifference — and “indifference” is generous, for the disregard is so deliberate that it bleeds into cruelty |
|
|
|
Post by aj2hall on Jul 9, 2025 13:13:31 GMT
www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(25)01186-9/fulltextwww.npr.org/sections/goats-and-soda/2025/07/01/nx-s1-5452513/trump-usaid-foreign-aid-deaths
The Trump administration's abrupt and steep cuts to foreign aid have halted most of USAID's programs. To estimate how many lives could be affected by the dismantling of the agency going forward, the researchers used what they'd learned in the retrospective analysis to estimate how many preventable deaths might occur if the current USAID cuts become permanent. If that happens, they estimate that somewhere between 8 and 19 million people could die, including 4.5 million children, by 2030time.com/7298994/usaid-deaths-studies-estimates-foreign-aid-hiv-aids-malaria-sudan/
USAID has invested $9 billion to help tackle malaria, the mosquito-borne illness that is preventable and curable but causes millions of deaths in Africa every year, since the inception of the President’s Malaria Initiative (PMI) in 2005.
An impact tracker by Boston University infectious disease mathematical modeller and health economist Dr. Brooke Nichols and Amsterdam-based product manager Eric Moakley forecast almost 10 million additional cases of malaria globally—of which an estimated 7 million would affect children—in just one year due to USAID funding cutswww.washingtonpost.com/world/2025/06/29/sudan-usaid-funding-cuts-trump-musk/
In Sudan, where children clung to life, doctors say USAID cuts have been fatal
The Trump administration’s cuts to USAID had an immediate and deadly impact in war-ravaged Sudan, according to civilians, doctors and aid officials
The World Health Organization says an estimated 5 million Sudanese people may lose access to lifesaving health services as a result of the U.S. cuts
The World Health Organization said that its partner organizations are missing 60 percent of their medical supplies and that tracking and containing the outbreak have become all but impossible.
“Supplies for cholera response were largely funded by USAID,” said Loza Mesfin Tesfaye, a WHO spokeswoman, adding that “the cuts have reduced the number of disease surveillance teams [and] reduced our ability to distribute water-purifying supplies
|
|
|
|
Post by Merge on Jul 9, 2025 14:35:36 GMT
With regard to the cuts at NWS and how they may have affected the outcome in Texas, Greg Abbott yesterday used a clumsy football analogy and said that “only losers” point fingers after something like this. Of course, Abbott also commented that Uvalde “could have been worse.” The state also has culpability, as Kerr County apparently asked the state of Texas for money to improve warning systems several years ago, and was denied. Seems to me that the losers are the ones who fail to acknowledge the consequences of their actions. And the football analogy was frankly insulting. No one dies as a result of poor coaching decisions. One of the things I was always evaluated on as a teacher was my ability to be reflective and learn from both successes and mistakes, and also to put the safety and needs of the kids at the forefront of my planning. It’s unfortunate that so many of our elected leaders can’t do the same. For that matter, even the voters can’t. When it’s clear that the people you voted for aren’t up to the job and can’t take responsibility for their actions, a wise person would vote for someone else next time. |
|
Tearisci
Pearl Clutcher
Posts: 4,964
Nov 6, 2018 16:34:30 GMT
|
Post by Tearisci on Jul 9, 2025 14:43:26 GMT
With regard to the cuts at NWS and how they may have affected the outcome in Texas, Greg Abbott yesterday used a clumsy football analogy and said that “only losers” point fingers after something like this. Of course, Abbott also commented that Uvalde “could have been worse.” The state also has culpability, as Kerr County apparently asked the state of Texas for money to improve warning systems several years ago, and were denied. Seems to me that the losers are the ones who fail to acknowledge the consequences of their actions. And the football analogy was frankly insulting. No one dies as a result of poor coaching decisions. One of the things I was always evaluated on as a teacher was my ability to be reflective and learn from both successes and mistakes. It’s unfortunate that so many of our elected leaders can’t do the same. For that matter, even the voters can’t. When it’s clear that the people you voted for aren’t up to the job and can’t take responsibility for their actions, a wise person would vote for someone else next time. I was watching the local news this morning and was like WTF at the football analogy. If we are 'losers' from learning from our mistakes, and seeing what happened because of it, then put me on the loser bench. |
|
|
|
Post by Merge on Jul 9, 2025 15:30:07 GMT
Also of note: for all Trump promised Texas "whatever it needs," there are apparently fewer than 100 FEMA employees on the ground in that area, where normally after a disaster there would be several hundred. That will significantly slow people getting help - and TBH, it wasn't a fast process to begin with. Another consequence of Elon and his chainsaw.
|
|
|
|
Post by aj2hall on Jul 9, 2025 17:54:37 GMT
Also of note: for all Trump promised Texas "whatever it needs," there are apparently fewer than 100 FEMA employees on the ground in that area, where normally after a disaster there would be several hundred. That will significantly slow people getting help - and TBH, it wasn't a fast process to begin with. Another consequence of Elon and his chainsaw. Exactly. Trump criticized Biden for his response to Helene, but he and Noem are poorly managing the floods. The current head of FEMA has no experience with disasters and the department lost 1/4 of the staff. Also, Trump wants to completely eliminate FEMA and turn over responsibilities to states. I’m wondering if part of the problem is that Noem spent all of the money on deportations. I know they were over budget. Wouldn’t it be ironic if Trump falsely accused Biden of using disaster relief money for immigrants then he used FEMA money for deportations? www.nytimes.com/2025/07/08/climate/texas-flood-fema-trump.html
But FEMA has been slow to activate certain teams that coordinate response and search-and-rescue efforts, according to half a dozen current and former FEMA officials and disaster experts, most of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment publicly.
In an internal update on Tuesday morning, FEMA said it had sent about 70 search-and-rescue workers to Kerr County and had dispatched to Austin around a dozen others who could help manage responses. Another unit of about 40 personnel was on standby, able to be in place on short notice.
Under Mr. Trump, FEMA faces an uncertain future. The president has said he wants to eliminate the agency by the end of November and to shift more responsibility for emergency management as well as more of the cost to the states.
Since its creation in 1979, FEMA has grown more complex and expensive, as climate change has made extreme weather events more frequent and severe. The agency’s budget for the last fiscal year was roughly $35 billion. Mr. Trump has established a council to decide FEMA’s fate; the panel is set to meet on Wednesday
Two former FEMA officials expressed surprise that the agency had not dispatched a larger team to Texas to coordinate efforts with state and local emergency management agencies.
In comparison, on the fifth day after Hurricane Helene battered several Southeastern states last fall, FEMA deployed about 160 personnel to help manage the response, with half the workers in the hardest-hit parts of North Carolina, according to the agency’s internal update that day. Mr. Trump repeatedly criticized FEMA’s handling of Helene under the Biden administration.
One factor contributing to delays is bureaucratic red tape at the Homeland Security Department, according to a government employee familiar with the matter. Secretary Noem is requiring that she review and approve all new expenses over $100,000, including the deployment of search-and-rescue teams, according to the employee and an internal memo reviewed by The New York Times.
Since Mr. Trump took office, FEMA has lost about a quarter of its staff, including some of its most experienced leaders, like the head of the agency’s disaster command center.
Cameron Hamilton, FEMA’s former acting head, was pushed out of the agency in May after he testified before Congress that he did not believe the agency should be eliminated. David Richardson, his replacement, has no background in disaster response and told employees last month that he did not realize the country had a hurricane season. It was not clear if Mr. Richardson was joking.
Mr. Trump said last month that if a state were to get hit by a hurricane or another disaster, “the governor should be able to handle it. And frankly, if they can’t handle it, the aftermath, then maybe they shouldn’t be governor.” |
|
|
|
Post by aj2hall on Jul 9, 2025 17:58:33 GMT
Government is not a business and should not be run like one. The roles of government are to provide services, provide oversight, oversee regulations, etc, not make money. Furthermore, I don’t want a guy who declared bankruptcy 7 times and was convicted of fraud running our government like he ran his business. His casinos where the house always wins went bankrupt. How terrible do you have to be at business for your casino to go bankrupt? bsky.app/profile/joycewhitevance.bsky.social/post/3ltk7ok5t422lJ oyce White Vance
@joycewhitevance.bsky.social
Bottom line: running a government of the people the same way you’d run a family owned business doesn’t work |
|
|
|
Post by Merge on Jul 9, 2025 18:06:00 GMT
Government is not a business and should not be run like one. The roles of government are to provide services, provide oversight, oversee regulations, etc, not make money. Furthermore, I don’t want a guy who declared bankruptcy 7 times and was convicted of fraud running our government like he ran his business. His casinos where the house always wins went bankrupt. How terrible do you have to be at business for your casino to go bankrupt? bsky.app/profile/joycewhitevance.bsky.social/post/3ltk7ok5t422lJ oyce White Vance
@joycewhitevance.bsky.social
Bottom line: running a government of the people the same way you’d run a family owned business doesn’t workYup! Same goes for public education. It’s not a business. It’s a public good. Stop trying to run it like a business. |
|
|
|
Post by aj2hall on Jul 9, 2025 18:14:59 GMT
There’s a short 2 minute video clip. Chris Murphy is absolutely right about making sure we are prepared for the next weather disaster. I really hate Abbitt’s football analogy, this isn’t a game, bur even winning football teams watch videos to see what they could have done better. bsky.app/profile/chrismurphyct.bsky.social/post/3ltjwb2z3g22s
Chris Murphy
@chrismurphyct.bsky.social
Let's be honest. There are some serious questions about the impact of President Trump's assault on NOAA, the National Weather Service, and FEMA, and whether it made these floods more deadly. We aren't doing our job if we aren't seeking answers to these questions. |
|
|
|
Post by aj2hall on Jul 9, 2025 18:30:31 GMT
bsky.app/profile/raskin.house.gov/post/3ltigd3pey22b
@raskin.house.gov
This ruling will give Trump’s wrecking crew more awful ideas about sacking critical federal workers, like regional meteorologists with the National Weather Service and climate scientists at NOAA. No specific plan has been approved but America needs to tell Trump to stop destroying our government
|
|
|
|
Post by aj2hall on Jul 9, 2025 18:31:39 GMT
bsky.app/profile/rbreich.bsky.social/post/3ltiev7fgin2e
Robert Reich
@rbreich.bsky.social
Our nation's federal employees are more than just numbers on a spreadsheet.
They make sure we have clean water.
They protect us from financial fraud.
They provide healthcare to our communities.
They make our government actually work for people.
Do not forget this.
|
|
|
|
Post by aj2hall on Jul 9, 2025 20:29:02 GMT
heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/july-8-2025
Abbott’s defensive answer reveals the dilemma MAGA Republicans find themselves in after the cuts to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the National Weather Service that came before the Texas disaster. Scott Calvert, John West, Jim Carlton, and Joe Barrett of the Wall Street Journal reported that after a deadly flood in 1987, officials in Kerr County applied for a grant to install a flood warning system, but their application was denied. They considered installing one paid for by the county but decided against it. Then county commissioner Tom Moser told the reporters: “It was probably just, I hate to say the word, priorities. Trying not to raise taxes.”
Since 1980, Republican politicians have won voters by promising to cut taxes they claimed funded wasteful programs for women and racial and ethnic minorities. Cutting government programs would save money, they said, enabling hardworking Americans to keep more of their hard-earned money. But leaders recognized that Republican voters actually depended on government programs, so they continued to fund them even as they passed tax cuts that moved more than $50 trillion from the bottom 90% of Americans to the top 1%.
Now, in Trump’s second term, MAGA Republicans are turning Republican rhetoric into reality, forcing Americans to grapple with what those cuts really mean for their lives.
Today the Supreme Court cleared the way for the administration to fire large numbers of employees at 19 different federal agencies and to reorganize them while litigation against those firings moves forward, although it required the administration to act in ways “consistent with applicable law.” A lower court had blocked the firings during litigation. Ann E. Marimow of the Washington Post notes that this court has repeatedly sided with President Donald Trump as he slashes the federal government. The court said it is not expressing a view on the legality of the cuts at this time.
The administration's cuts were in the news today as Marisa Kabas of The Handbasket reported that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has just 86 people deployed in Texas today although Trump declared a disaster on Sunday. At a press opportunity at a cabinet meeting today, Trump said it wasn’t the right time to talk about his plans to phase out FEMA.
|
|
|
|
Post by sassyangel on Jul 9, 2025 22:34:01 GMT
We’re fucked. As far as federally funded and coordinated disaster preparedness, warnings, research and cleanup, that is. FEMA is going to be too busy dealing with (and using its funding) for the “immigration emergency”.
Leonard Leo bought himself a supreme court majority that serves the oligarchy over the US constitution, the American people and rule of law.
|
|
|
|
Post by revirdsuba99 on Jul 9, 2025 22:40:07 GMT
States need their dollars back if they must do FEMA's work.
Same with other programs also!!
|
|
|
|
Post by sassyangel on Jul 10, 2025 1:08:45 GMT
|
|
|
|
Post by aj2hall on Jul 10, 2025 2:53:20 GMT
www.livingitwitholiviatroye.com/p/no-sirens-just-darkness-and-floodsWhat happened in Texas wasn’t just a natural disaster. It was a preventable tragedy. The more I dug into the failures, at every level of government, the angrier I became. Because I want a system of governing, from local to national, that protects all of us, not just the lucky, the wealthy, or the politically aligned. I spent most of my career working inside that system, and I believe in doing everything we possibly can to keep Americans safe.
In the months leading up to the deadly floods, Texas lawmakers had an opportunity to address their broken emergency alert system. They didn’t. House Bill 13, a bipartisan proposal in the Texas Legislature, would have created a statewide emergency response council, supported first responder grants, and, most critically, helped fund outdoor warning sirens and statewide emergency alert systems. It passed the Texas House but was killed in the state Senate earlier this year, mainly over cost concerns. Lawmakers are now left second-guessing their decisions.
A Broken Federal System By Design
While Texas stalled, the federal government under Trump has taken a sledgehammer to the very systems meant to warn and protect Americans.
Since returning to office in January 2025, Trump and his allies have raced to dismantle our emergency infrastructure, following the extreme roadmap laid out in Project 2025 (p.166), which calls for ending federal disaster aid, privatizing weather alerts, eliminating resilience grants, and limiting FEMA to only the most catastrophic events.
Here’s what Trump’s second term has already put into motion:
Dismantling FEMA- Trump established a FEMA Review Council through an executive order, triggering a strategic reevaluation of the agency's core missions. He has vowed to phase out FEMA entirely after the 2025 hurricane season.
Canceling the BRIC Program- FEMA’s Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities (BRIC) grants, vital for community preparedness, were terminated in February. That funding could have bolstered Texas’ defenses before the flood.
Quadrupling the Disaster Threshold- Fewer communities now qualify for federal disaster aid. Small towns, like those just hit, could be on their own.
Slashing NOAA and the NWS- On July 4, Trump signed the so-called “Big Beautiful Bill,” slashing $150 million from NOAA and cutting over 800 jobs, including more than 100 forecasters from the NWS. The plan moves us toward outsourcing public weather alerts, potentially opening the door to delayed or paywalled warnings. You know that frustration when you click a news link and can’t read it without a subscription? Now imagine that same wall, but it’s between you and the alert that tells you a flash flood is heading straight for your home. The sky is black, the storm is here, and the warning you need is stuck behind a corporate login.
These cuts delay radar processing, weaken flood modeling, and reduce the lead time families have to seek safety. That’s not hypothetical. That’s exactly what just happened in Texas.
This Is Climate Change, and We’re Choosing Not to Prepare
Here’s what almost no one is saying out loud: This was a direct result of climate change. The Texas Hill Country flood wasn’t just a freak event. It was a climate-fueled disaster, made worse by rising temperatures, slower-moving storm systems, and overloaded waterways. And yet, Trump’s FY2026 budget eliminates nearly all federal weather and climate research. Entire NOAA divisions, including the National Severe Storms Laboratory, are being defunded. When you strip away scientists, silence forecasters, and eliminate early warning systems, you're not just unprepared; you're choosing to be blind.
I watched Donald Trump slow-roll aid to blue states, attack governors who challenged him, and put his image and political agenda ahead of American lives. What we’re seeing now, from Project 2025 to the “Big Beautiful Bill,” is the same playbook I witnessed firsthand, now formalized and expanded into official policy. That playbook has real consequences, especially for communities now left exposed and unprotected.
And then there is Texas U.S. Senator Ted Cruz, vacationing in Greece while Texans drowned, returning after backlash only to warn others not to “politicize” the tragedy. This, after recently inserting language into the very legislation that slashes funding for storm research and public alerts. You can’t claim moral outrage while actively enabling the very policies that left people to die.
This isn’t “efficiency.” It’s depravity. When a government starts treating emergency alerts as a “business opportunity” and disaster relief as “pork,” people die.
And yes, Project 2025 (p.186) explicitly refers to FEMA grants as "pork." In its own words:
“FEMA manages all grants for DHS, and these grants have become pork for states, localities, and special-interest groups... DHS should not be in the business of handing out federal tax dollars: These grants should be terminated.”
That includes the very programs used to train first responders, fund flood sirens, harden cyber defenses, and support shelters. The plan argues that these investments should be scrapped, and that states should “bear the costs” themselves, even after disasters they didn’t cause and can’t afford to recover from. In other words, if your town needs a flood alert system, a school evacuation plan, or shelters to keep people alive, it’s now your problem.
This isn’t leadership. It’s deliberate neglect dressed up as policy. And it’s getting people killed.
|
|
|
|
Post by aj2hall on Jul 10, 2025 3:01:14 GMT
Noem should be fired for this incompetence. Just 3 weeks ago she demanded more control over FEMA spending and that has already been disastrous and unnecessary with predictable and tragic consequences. Also, if this is the best they can do for a disaster in Texas affecting a Christian girls camp, what are they going to do if a disaster hits a blue city or state? www.cnn.com/2025/07/09/politics/fema-texas-flood-noemFEMA’s response to Texas flood slowed by Noem’s cost controlsFor example, as central Texas towns were submerged in rising waters, FEMA officials realized they couldn’t pre-position Urban Search and Rescue crews from a network of teams stationed regionally across the country.In the past, FEMA would have swiftly staged these teams, which are specifically trained for situations including catastrophic floods, closer to a disaster zone in anticipation of urgent requests, multiple agency sources told CNN.But even as Texas rescue crews raced to save lives, FEMA officials realized they needed Noem’s approval before sending those additional assets. Noem didn’t authorize FEMA’s deployment of Urban Search and Rescue teams until Monday, more than 72 hours after the flooding began, multiple sources told CNNwww.cnn.com/2025/06/18/politics/kristi-noem-fema-dhs-fundingPublished 9:37 AM EDT, Wed June 18, 2025 Noem demands more control over FEMA and Homeland Security funding, which could slow disaster response
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem is tightening her grip on her department’s purse strings, ordering that every contract and grant over $100,000 must now cross her desk for approval, according to a memo exclusively obtained by CNN.
The sweeping directive issued last week adds an extra layer of review for billions of dollars in funding across the Department of Homeland Security, which includes agencies such as US Customs and Border Protection, the Coast Guard, Secret Service and Federal Emergency Management Agency.
Officials inside FEMA warn the new approval process could severely disrupt the distribution of emergency funds during natural disasters. With hurricane season already underway, multiple sources told CNN that Noem’s policy threatens to bog down FEMA’s rapid-response efforts – and could choke off critical aid when every second counts.
One FEMA official directly involved in disaster response called the policy “a dramatic and unprecedented overreach” and contends that Noem “is effectively preventing the department from functioning.”
“This will hurt nonprofits, states, and small towns. Massive delays feel inevitable,” said the official who asked not to be named to speak candidly.
“It’s bonkers,” said a former senior FEMA official who asked to remain anonymous for fear of reprisals. |
|
|
|
Post by aj2hall on Jul 10, 2025 3:09:07 GMT
At the start of hurricane season, this is concerning. Also concerning is the fact that the acting head of FEMA was not aware there is a hurricane season and has zero experience with disaster response. www.cnn.com/2025/07/02/politics/fema-critical-funding-disaster-response?iid=cnn_buildContentRecirc_end_recirc‘We’ve been ghosted by FEMA’: Officials across country say they can’t get answers on critical funding CNN — As hurricane season bears down, a new layer of uncertainty is spreading through the disaster response system: a wall of silence from the Federal Emergency Management Agency that’s leaving officials from across the country scrambling for answers.
“We’ve been ghosted by FEMA,” Robert Wike Graham, deputy director of Charlotte-Mecklenburg Emergency Management, told CNN, describing repeated, unanswered requests for information on vital emergency preparedness funding for his North Carolina community.
In Wyoming, where more than 90 percent of the state’s emergency management budget comes from the federal government, officials say their requests for clarity on emergency management funds also have gone unanswered.
Meanwhile, regional teams across the country have been instructed, at times, to limit sharing information with their state and local partners until granted approval from supervisors, multiple FEMA officials confirmed. They spoke to CNN on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.
These communication breakdowns risk delaying the distribution of key federal funding, according to state and local officials as well as sources inside FEMA. |
|
|
|
Post by revirdsuba99 on Jul 10, 2025 17:57:54 GMT
The feds are holding all the states monies!! Much accumulated over the years. The feds have a 'stash'
Refund it now or get things done!
There is no way for each state to be efficient with all the supplies needed. FEMA has trailers for people to live in, which can be moved anywhere in the country as needed. FEMA has resources with mass purchasing if supplies. If the East Coast has a major hurricane everything moved east to help... Tornado season is a bit different time frame as are wild fires.. supplies are not needed everywhere all at once ..
Not every one has a military base with helicopters to help evacuate or to search.. that has to be available through the feds!!
|
|
|
|
Post by jill8909 on Jul 10, 2025 18:17:43 GMT
all the damage to individuals with these rash thoughtless cuts and they accomplished nothing for the deficit.
|
|
|
|
Post by crazy4scraps on Jul 10, 2025 19:30:26 GMT
We’re fucked. As far as federally funded and coordinated disaster preparedness, warnings, research and cleanup, that is. FEMA is going to be too busy dealing with (and using its funding) for the “immigration emergency”. Leonard Leo bought himself a supreme court majority that serves the oligarchy over the US constitution, the American people and rule of law. We’re fucked with pandemic preparedness too. |
|
