Boddhisatva @ Boddhisatva @lemmy.world

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2 yr. ago

That office’s warning coordination meteorologist left on April 30, after taking the early retirement package the Trump administration used to reduce the number of federal employees, according to a person with knowledge of his departure.

Some of the openings may predate the current Trump administration. But at both offices, the vacancy rate is roughly double what it was when Mr. Trump returned to the White House in January, according to Mr. Fahy.

Expect a lot more of this all over the country. NOAA and NWS have been gutted by this administration. Studies have been cancelled, staffing is still being cut, satellite data historically gathered by the DoD and provided to NOAA has been cut off making it harder to forecast hurricanes, this admin has even dramatically cut weather balloon launches making it harder to forecast the weather.

The warnings that went out in advance of this particular disaster, the flood warning the day before and the flood emergency alert that night, were possible because of the few weather balloon launches, including a single balloon launched in Texas that showed how saturated the atmosphere was.

Anyone attacking the weather services in the aftermath of this disaster needs to have their ass kicked. This disaster could have been at least partially averted if Trump hadn't gutted NOAA and the National Weather Service. It would have also been a lot better if the idiots in Texas had a method to alert people of flash floods besides posting alerts on Facebook and Twitter hours after the fact. This was not a failing on the part of the weather service. This was a political failing due to federal budget cuts, staff firings, and incompetent emergency management practices in the affected counties.

And mark my words, Trump and the GOP's climate change denialism, and their determination to destroy or hide all evidence of climate change is going to cost a lot of lives in the coming years.

Yep. Readers might think you're joking, but that's pretty much right there in the article.

In an interview, Rob Kelly, the Kerr County judge and its most senior elected official, said the county did not have a warning system because such systems are expensive, and local residents are resistant to new spending.

“Taxpayers won’t pay for it,” Mr. Kelly said. Asked if people might reconsider in light of the catastrophe, he said, “I don’t know.”

The Venn diagram of the two groups is likely to be a circle.

It is honestly all of the immigration judges. Those judges work directly for the Executive branch and have been instructed by the Trump admin to quickly dismiss every case when requested.

In the memo, the Justice Department instructs immigration judges, who report to the executive branch and are not part of the independent judiciary, to allow Department of Homeland Security lawyers to make motions to dismiss orally and then move quickly to grant those dismissals, rather than allow immigrants the 10-day response time that had been typical.

Article updated to 24 known dead. Not sure if any of them are the girls missing from the camp. I cannot imagine how those parents must feel right now and they are being told things like this:

He added that if parents haven't been personally contacted by the camp, they can assume their daughters have been accounted for.

So, yeah, no news is good news. If we haven't called you, your child is probably not dead. They must feel so reassured.

According to the National Weather Service website, the flash flood watch, which included Kerr County, was issued at 1:18 p.m. Thursday. Nearly 12 hours later, a "life threatening" flash flood warning was issued at 1:14 a.m., according to the website.

When asked about the suddenness of the flash flooding overnight, Kelly said “we do not have a warning system” and that “we didn’t know this flood was coming,” even as local reporters pointed to the warnings and pushed him for answers about why more precautions weren’t taken.

“Rest assured, no one knew this kind of flood was coming,” he said. “We have floods all the time. This is the most dangerous river valley in the United States.”

They didn't know there was a flood was coming even after the NWS issued a flood warning? Worse still, he claims it's the most dangerous river valley in the nation, but they don't have any way to warn people when a flash flood is coming? Wait, it's Texas, yeah that tracks.

It is a high school next to an elementary school with a playground for preschoolers. The video shows the men walking up to the containers and apparently urinating, but you cannot specifically see that that is what they are doing. The staff at the school however did see that they were urinating.

And if you're lucky they'll deport you to your home country. If you're not lucky, they may drop you in a gulag or a war zone.

Oligarchs run both governments, so yeah, their interests align.

With too many jesters including the one on the throne.

Yes. Keep escalating until there is violent resistance, then escalate more by declaring martial law and violently suppressing that resistance. He will then keep martial law in place declaring that it is not safe nor secure to hold public elections. That will be the final nail in the coffin of American democracy.

after all they have the duty to protect people

No. SCOTUS has ruled that police have no duty to protect anyone except for special relationships like a prisoner in their care. The police (in the US at least) are not there to protect you. They are there to protect the interests of the state.

I have concerns on that front as well.

From another article about this that quotes a bit of the ruling.

In his decision, Moss ruled that neither the Immigration and Nationality Act nor the Constitution give the president and administration officials "the sweeping authority" asserted in his proclamation and subsequent guidance implementing the directive.

"The court recognizes that the executive branch faces enormous challenges in preventing and deterring unlawful entry into the United States and in adjudicating the overwhelming backlog of asylum claims of those who have entered the country," he wrote. "But the INA, by its terms, provides the sole and exclusive means for removing people already present in the country."

Moss said that a pair of provisions of federal immigration law do not provide "the president with the unilateral authority to limit the rights of aliens present in the United States to apply for asylum."

He further found that the Constitution does not give the president the authority to "adopt an alternative immigration system, which supplants the statutes that Congress has enacted and the regulations that the responsible agencies have promulgated."

Oh that's gonna get under his skin. There will be catsup on all the walls today.

Not quite as loony as McConnell filibustering his own bill, but it's close.

Bush knew that Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11 and invaded anyway because he wanted to finish what daddy started. How many innocents suffered and died because of that decision? He authorized kidnapping people off the street in foreign nations and throwing them in black sites to be tortured without any evidence that they were actually enemies or criminals. He's responsible for enough death and suffering that Trump actually still has some catching up to do, though I concede he is well on his way.

Also, the GOP in the Bush ere was not the rubber stamp it is now. They still pretended to care about what was right and wrong. That is no longer the case.

Stop white-washing Bush and acting like he was a well-meaning, doddering, buffoon. He wasn't.

Hard disagree. Bush was as corrupt and evil, he just wasn't as competent and lacked the full support of the GOP which was somewhat more sane in those day.

“If Americans want large spending — they don't want to touch Social Security. They don't want to touch Medicaid. They don't want to touch Medicare. They want all the tax credits for this green energy and this child tax credit and this and that — then they should pay more taxes,” de Rugy said.

What a fucking crock. They could pay for it all by cutting military spending by a fraction of a percent.

I have learned to be sneaky, but unless she's asleep or bribed with treats, they're mostly like this where she looks vaguely annoyed or disappointed with me.

My phone when I turn on the camera to take her picture or video.

They've released a name now. Wess Roley, 20 years old. Some news sites are reporting that it was the anniversary of the burning of an Aryan Nations camp in 2001. May not be any connection though since it happened years before this guy was born.