In his weekly newsletter, Elie Mystal lambastes the Republicans’ shameful priorities—and their deadly consequences.
The death toll from the flooding in Texas has climbed to at least 120 people as of this writing. That number includes at least 36 children who had been campers at Camp Mystic, in Kerr County, Texas, which we now know was built on a dangerous flood plain. We also know that local officials were well aware of the dangers, and did nothing. Reports indicate that an early-warning system for floods would have cost Kerr County around $1 million—and when it didn’t get a grant for that money, the effort stalled. Meanwhile, the Texas Legislature didn’t pass a bill this spring that would have supported grants for local disaster-warning systems.
Texas has spent $11 billion on “border security” since 2021 as part of “Operation Lonestar” (I’ve written about that unconstitutional stupidity here). But it wouldn’t direct funds to the town to help keep children safe.
If Kerr County had asked for $1,000,000 to booby-trap the river with alligators and other sadistic death traps to drown immigrants who tried to swim across it, Governor Greg Abbott would have found the money. But keeping children safe from preventable disasters is not Abbott’s priority.
Or America’s.
The Bad and The Ugly
- Crisis actor and Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem has criticized the “slow” response of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to the flooding. She’s using the disaster to renew her calls to eliminate the agency. But that slow response is a direct result of a FEMA policy instituted by Noem herself. Any FEMA contract costing over $100,000 now requires Noem’s personal, written approval. If FEMA is slow, it’s because Noem is too busy picking out her next dog for target practice to do her actual job.
- Speaking of things that are a direct threat to children that this country does nothing to stop, a new report tells us that the leading source of stolen guns is… parked cars. These guns then go on to be used disproportionately in crimes. So not only is the proverbial “good guy with a gun” actually useless in preventing crime; it turns out that the good guy probably left his gun in his car, which was then stolen by the bad guy.
- The trial over Trump’s attacks on foreign students at Harvard got underway this week. I will be ignoring this for a while. Eventually there will be a verdict, which Trump will lose; then that verdict will be appealed, and the Supreme Court will find some way to make Trump win. I’ll pay attention again then.
- I’m not being flip about what’s going to happen in the Harvard trial. This is what happens all the time now. A new report shows that, in May and June, Trump lost in district court 94.3 percent of the time. But when cases went to the Supreme Court in this past term, Trump won 93.7 percent of the time.
- Speaking of this year’s Supreme Court term, Adam Feldman has written up a year-end statistical analysis of all the court’s cases on Empirical SCOTUS. He finds that what’s emerged is a “structural majority” where the six Republicans consistently outvote the three liberals on critical partisan issues, even though this year the liberals happened to win more than usual. There’s no more “swing” vote on the bench. I didn’t need to pull out my calculator to tell you that, but if you like numbers, Adam’s can be compelling.
Inspired Takes
- David Dickson and Mark Hertsgaard explain in The Nation that the children in Texas did not have to die.
- Paramount proves yet again that corporate profits are more important for media conglomerates than democracy. In The Nation, Victor Pickard explains that we need to wean our media off corporate ownership.
Worst Argument of the Week
North Carolina Senator Thom Tillis is retiring. Apparently, that means now, and only now, he’s able to locate a spine. Tillis voted against Trump’s s
