Who’s on vacation for a whole week next week? IT ME! See bottom of post if you want to come hang out with us in Seattle or Anacortes, HEART EYES!
The “six hours” in the lede to this story appears to be poor editing — Kerr County officials waited 90 minutes after a local firefighter asked them at 4 in the morning to please please send out flood warnings, while some of the texts didn’t arrive till 10 a.m. Regardless, once a local firefighter says “The Guadalupe Schumacher sign is underwater on State Highway 39. Is there any way we can send a CodeRED out to our Hunt residents, asking them to find higher ground or stay home?” I would think the answer would be “let’s fucking drive out there to the children’s campgrounds in our sheriff cars and start honking our horns,” not “Stand by, we have to get that approved with our supervisor” and then waiting 90 fucking minutes. What is this Uvalde-ass shit. (ABC News)
And fuck Greg Abbott in particular.
Abbott has spent enough money for 11,000 early warning systems on a border security Potemkin village to win reelection and help President Donald Trump return to the White House. He doesn’t want us to think about that, or how Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick’s Texas Senate killed funding to install emergency alert systems in disaster-prone areas where local governments have little cash.
(Chris Tomlinson at Houston Chronicle)
Marisa Kabas would like to know where the head of FEMA has been, besides letting staff know he’s prepping for a trip “to Peru”? As far as I can tell, she’s the first outlet to note he was missing, though some are finally starting to follow up. (The Handbasket) CNN points out that under DHS secretary Kristi Noem, FEMA is working at a snail’s pace since she insisted she sign off on any order over $100,000. It took 72 hours before they even sent any search and rescue. And that’s not the only thing that took days. The list is staggering. (CNN) How is Noem personally okaying every contract over $100k when she oversees 22 agencies of which FEMA is only one? Well, not well. (Politico E&E)
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick is going to profit off privatizing the National Weather Service because obviously. (The New Republic)
Damn, that was nicely done:
Donald Trump and the African leaders. So that was humiliating! (Jeff Tiedrich)
Justice Amy Coney Barrett said federal judges can’t do nationwide injunctions, they have to do class actions (which are much harder) instead. So this New Hampshire judge just certified all US-born babies as members of the class for the suit “Little Babies Who Are Born Here And Also The Constitution vs. Stephen Miller’s Un-American Hard-On Against Birthright Citizenship.” Let’s see what the Supreme Court does next! (Seattle Times)
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson has been using her dissents to explain to the public why and how her colleagues on the Supreme Court are full of shit. (Balls and Strikes)
I’m so old I remember when San Diego was conservative. Anyway, wanna watch them boo the vice president? (Times of San Diego)
Throwing out all the immigrants will cost us about six million jobs. (EPI)
Axios is keeping a list of US citizens detained by ICE. (Axios)
This is a good post about empty and weird LA is becoming as everyone hides from ICE. (David Bernstein)
And this is an incredibly well-done entire history of the homelessness crisis in Los Angeles, which goes back to the city’s very beginning. (LA Times / archive link)
GOD DAMN THEM TO HELL. They are banning immigrant children from fucking Head Start. (HHS)
Angela Paxton, who sucks, is divorcing Texas AG Ken Paxton, who sucks worse, because “Bible.” I hope he is sad! (Texas Tribune)
A good explainer on just how fucked RFK Jr.’s autism “science” is, jesus. (The Atlantic)
Oh fun, crypto slumlords in Detroit! Seems like maybe the city should do something about that. (Outlier Media)
Sheldon Whitehouse has given his 300th climate speech in the Senate; he started when Obama was president. He says we’re being TOO FUCKING POLITE. (The Guardian)
First T, now B. It’s like Back to the Future when Michael J. Fox starts disappearing from the family pix. (Erin in the Morning)
EVAN POPS IN! At my Friday place this morning, back on our normal schedule with If MAGA Is So Upset About Epstein, They Should Hear About Baptists! Y’all better come by and read and subscribe if you haven’t yet, HOW HAVE YOU NOT? [The Moral High Ground]
EVAN BACK OUT:
I am not going to evolve into a crab. Instead I am going to the San Juans next week where I am going to catch them and eat them! (Aeon)
Coming WONKMEETS!
Join me, Shy, and the kids in ANACORTES, WASHINGTON, Sunday, July 13, 4-6 p.m. at Washington Park! We’ll buy some fried chicken and beer, come and hang out! We’ll be near the playground near Sunset Beach.
Join me, Shy, the kids, and Dok in SEATTLE, Sunday, July 20, 3-6 p.m. at Lincoln Park near the North Play Area! We’ll be coming off a weeklong trip to Shy’s family cabin (built by his dad and his grandpa with their hands in the 1960s!) in the San Juans, so help us out and come potluck!
Join Thalia and Menotsure in ATLANTA, Saturday, July 26, 5-8 p.m. at Reformation Brewery for a lovely evening of brewing up good trouble! Reformation Brewery has both indoor and outdoor seating, has food available, and is both pet- and kid-friendly. Please email Thalia at realistic.caregiving@gmail.com to RSVP.
Do YOU want to host a Wonkmeet in your neck of the woods? Seize the means of Wonkmeet production, and email me at rebecca at wonkette dot com with the deets!
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Who's interested in a Cleveland Wonkmeet? Looking to do one some time around the beginning of August. ETA: Aug. 16, 1pm at The Boss Dog Brewing Company in Cleveland Heights. Let me know if you are coming. Come join me, Rebecca and the fam, plus many of your fellow Wonkers for a great time in the city that rocks!