How Stupid Can Democrats Get? (That’s a Question, Not a Challenge)

posted by Derek Hunter at Townhall 

Any discussion of Stephen Colbert destroying the “Late Night” institution that David Letterman started decades ago can’t happen without acknowledging a few facts. First, Colbert is not funny. Second, CBS kept the show on life support for longer than it would have any other show. Third, the leftist media knows these things. And finally, it couldn’t happen to a more deserving guy (unless it happens to Jimmy Kimmel).

It was a great week to be a conservative, with the funding of National Public Radio and the Public Broadcasting Service being zeroed out after having been promised that very thing by various Republicans for my entire life.

The same day the Senate passed the rescission package killing a liberal sacred cow (it’s not actually dead, they can operate quite nicely on the money they get from donors, corporations and rich liberals, and they can always sell more tote bags or learn to code to make up the difference), news came down that CBS was canceling "Late Night with Stephen Colbert." While most people didn’t know it was still on – it had lost a third of its viewers in the last couple of years and was already a ratings shell compared to Carson, Letterman, and Leno – when they heard about the cancellation, they…didn’t care.

But liberals did. The leftist progressive group-thinkers who demand absolute conformity of thought and obedience to the Democrat Party reacted like they’d lost a parent. Hell, they probably had a falling out with their parents long ago, likely after referring to them as their “birthing people” and mom and dad getting sick of it, that they were more upset over losing Colbert. You don’t see “think” pieces in major publications wondering, “Is it time to stop snubbing your right-wing comedians?” the way they wondered about “right-wing family.”

No, don’t stop snubbing us in any area of life. We’re happier without you because conditional friendship isn’t true friendship, and you’re not doing us any favors by bringing your fraudulent “friendship” into our lives. If you grow the hell up, maybe, but that is unlikely, as a good person wouldn’t have in them what you people did in the first place.

So, marinate in your misery over Colbert being canceled. We love it. Because, like so many other leftists who have destroyed themselves, all he had to do was his job, and he would have been fine. All he had to do was make people laugh regularly, make fun of everyone, and attract an audience, but he couldn’t do it. 

Colbert could have been as left-wing as he is and still have been successful if he had just been funny. But he took a genre – comedy – that is and always has been about a “set up and punchline” and turned it into a grievance and applause line. That’s what politicians do, not comedians.

The audience didn’t laugh at what Stephen Colbert said; they agreed with it. They clapped in agreement more often than they laughed uncontrollably. That’s not comedy, it’s what you get at a political convention.

Reports show that the show is losing $40 million a year, and Colbert was making between $15 and $20 million. That means even if he did it for free, and the salary for the host is always the biggest expense, they still would have been hemorrhaging money. The only way out of that hole would have been to attract a larger audience.

But Stephen Colbert refused to set aside his rabid and radical politics to try to draw in more people. He had a steady string of guests that voters and audiences rejected repeatedly – Bernie Sanders was on almost two dozen times, Stacey Abrams was on more times than she lost elections, everyone on CNN and MSNBC was welcomed as though they had an audience, and that audience was desperate to see more of them. Unpopular guests on an unpopular show do not magically make ratings gold.

As you hear sad tales of the hundreds (I’d imagine) of people who work on the show who will lose their good jobs in an attempt to shame CBS, remember it was Stephen Colbert who refused to do a show that a large number of people wanted to watch. The person who could have saved the show was the guy with his name on it, but he would not change because he, like so many on the left, is “politics uber alles.”

Progressives are progressives first; anything else they are a distant second, even if it means destroying themselves.

As idiots like Brian Stelter and Chris Hayes wonder aloud things like “Not really an overstatement to say that the test of a free society is whether or not comedians can make fun of the country's leader on TV without repurcussions (sic),” it’s important to remember were it not for his politics, Colbert would have been fired long ago. In fact, he would not have been hired in the first place.

Colbert will be missed…by someone…probably. They didn’t watch him, but they’ll profess an important loss without him. Then they’ll go back to not watching Kimmel, Seth Meyers, and all the other boring, unfunny sameness that is the progressive equivalent of televangelism and keep wondering why they aren’t winning elections. They couldn’t get any more clueless if they were dared to.

On the Fringe and Badlands Media- July 20

 

Rough U.S. Politics Viewed As Proof of America's Inferiority by Supercilious European Elites

posted Stephen Helgesen at American Thinker 

For those intrepid watchers of American politics, it comes as no surprise that the game of politics has become dirtier and meaner over time.

The "take no prisoners" and "never let a good crisis go to waste" strategies are now the two most commonplace ones being employed by average, politically-engaged Americans.

We need only look at the often aggressive interaction of family members on holidays or watch angry participants in town halls for proof.

Americans take a position, choose a side and then defend their positions, sometimes to the death. There is no room for facts-based discussions, honest contemplation or civility. It's gone, replaced by political zombie-like kamikazis ready to fall on their swords instead of sheathing them.  

To those who've just awakened from the deep slumber reserved for the unaware or unconcerned, this is not only confusing but frightening, especially when we look back to bygone days when politics was not mortal combat.

To those outside our borders like the oh-so-proper Europeans (where I am), Americans' political battlefield tactics have finally proven what they have long believed about us, literally for generations, that we are boorish, reactionary, and primitive beings born with unredeemable DNA, living within a flawed system, populated by greedy powerful men.

They ignore, of course, the recent viciousness of their own politics, jailing and disqualifying dissidents and opponents, as seen in France, the U.K. the Netherlands, and Germany, not to mention, Russia.

They and many progressives and liberals in the U.S. imagine they are above such things, but decry Americans' ambitions to pursue personal wealth and success and characterize it as ignorance of our collective obligations to society at large.

The same critics use the metaphor of cream (wealth) rising to the top of standing milk (a fair society) to accuse rich people of not being responsible for their own success like former U.S. President Obama did in 2012 when he said, "If you’ve got a business — you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen."

In the eyes of many, we are considered selfish, egotistical and traitors to the collective good, and it is precisely this individual versus collective difference that is the principal reason for non-Americans' dislike and confusion about us and our culture. The secondary one is, of course, our style and rhetoric.

We are also partially to blame for this lack of understanding because we have not cared enough about what others think of us. That space has been filled by scandals and other cultural problems.

Here at home, during the last 20-30 years, cracks have appeared in the American self-image and consciousness.

One of the biggest is the deep-seated wealth envy and generational amnesia that relates to capitalism. Both have served to pit normal everyday Americans against each other and has become the cause célèbre of the Left in America (read: the rich 1% are the cause of America's poverty).

Back in my early days, we applauded those who were able to make their fortunes through hard work and innovation. We admired them and wanted to be like them. We didn't chase them through the streets with tiki torches and vilify them. We said "bravo" and "teach me your secrets." 

Our presidents did their best to walk the political and ideological tightropes and not rock the ship of state too much. A little tweaking to the economy here and a nip and tuck there. Not too much, not too little, just enough to satisfy their bases and to get re-elected and maintain the equilibrium.

We, the electorate, got it.

As long as the powers that be observed the established political rules of the game and didn't give away the store of our markets to our competitors and allow too many unlawful immigrants into the country to steal American jobs or start wars.

In short, we let them do what their predecessors did.

Times changed since the recession of the 80s and the stock market meltdown of the early 2000s and the 12 destructive years of the Obama and Biden administrations.

Everyday Americans became weary of the relentless bombardment of scapegoat messaging about the evils of all of America's millionaires.

Now, since many millions of Americans are millionaires due to increased home values, the focus has shifted to America's billionaires whom the Left maintains have a death grip on the throats of the proletariat and are singularly responsible for all of our country's ills. 

That belief is now an obsession and has empowered a whole generation and many different voter/citizen segments to revolt against American politicians who still strive to maintain the rights of the individual to succeed and then use their wealth or position to influence others.

They see this as somehow antithetical to our traditional values and are now using all their power and wiles to unseat the current incumbent of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and all his supporters in Congress and the Senate by any lawful (and sometimes unlawful) means. Contrary to the belief of many Republicans or conservatives, the Democrat/Progressive/Socialist movement is not dead.

It may be searching for a raison d'être, but it is definitely not lying motionless on a cold slab in the political morgue.

The movement is busy sharpening its swords and training its troops and recruiting new true believers for the mid-term elections of 2026 and for new social/cultural confrontations that are sure to happen on America's streets.

The first seven, hectic, action-filled months of the Trump administration have shocked many on the left and even some on the right.

It is as if Donald Trump has dumped all manner of traditional conservative complaints, campaign promises and many personal grievances into the political cement mixer and has left it to rotate unattended while he searches for new items to be cast into the mix, knowing that it will be extremely difficult to separate them from the aggregate once the process has begun.

A clear example of this strategy is the recent passage of his "Big Beautiful Bill" which contains, as he himself has said, "something for everyone." 

What he didn't mention was that much of what was in the 900-page bill were many things that reversed left America's plans, programs and fundamental desires for shaping their America, which is why they are livid.

So the fight is on, but instead of being just a one-on-one ideological or political battle between two competing American ideological groups, it has become an international brawl due to Trump's big beautiful tariff and trade war which has touched the shores of even the U.S.' most steadfast trading partners.

An August 1 deadline is looming for the implementation of double-digit tariff percentages on the E.U., for example.

A former Danish diplomat and now member of a well-known Danish think tank recently told me that we Americans shouldn't be so greedy, that many accommodations have been made through agreements with the WTO (World Trade Organisation) that have codified the current status of tariffs with the U.S.

He said that he and many other European economists and experts in international trade would probably accept a 10% tariff across the board increase on E.U. exports to the U.S., provided that the E.U. could levy a similar across the board 10% tariff on all American exports to Europe.

I was stunned to hear that from a man with considerable world diplomatic experience and a deep knowledge of international trade who, apparently, knows precious little about Americans and even less about our current president and his dedication to "Making America Great Again" by putting America first.

That Trump would accept such a zero sum game is at the very least, extremely naive.

It should not have surprised me, though, considering the epidemic of Trump hatred among many Europeans which has caused a kind of mass tunnel vision or myopia that obstructs the truth about today's Americans and especially those who believe that America's strength is not dependent on the weakness of its allies.

There are those here in Europe that believe that compromise will out and that Americans and Donald Trump will come to their senses. In that regard, America's friends must understand that the U.S. was not built on compromise and the country doesn't exist as the primary world bodyguard by compromising on real threats or selling out its principles.

James Russell Lowell (former U.S. Ambassador to Spain and the U.K. in the 19th century) may have said it best: "Compromise makes a good umbrella, but a poor roof."

And on the subject of fighting mean and dirty, Sean Connery may have said it best in the movie the Untouchables when he referred to an assassin who was sent to kill him and was later dispatched by Connery's sawed-off shotgun: "Isn't that just like a wop (Italian immigrant), brings a knife to a gunfight."

Democrat Power Depends upon Open Borders

The historical party of slavery is at it again.

posted by J.B. Shurk at American Thinker 

The Democrat party’s caterwauling over illegal alien roundups becomes only more shrill by the day.  Last week, California politicians were very upset that federal agents had the temerity to disrupt the workings of a marijuana farm exploiting children for its labor.  

It’s always a bit jarring to see what card-carrying members of the Democrats’ premier virtue-signaling club will find worthy of their righteous indignation.  Many rational observers couldn’t have guessed that Democrats would pull out all the stops to shill for “child slavery.”  Of course, there was also a time when rational observers could never have guessed that Democrats would embrace “drag shows” and “sex changes” for kindergarteners.  Child slavery is kin to prepubescent body mutilation and minor grooming.  Once children are seen as disposable “things” for adults to abuse, there are no limits to the kinds of degradation that can be excused. 

Democrats’ ability to defend immoral behavior as the height of moral virtue is stunning.  Many of the most vocal proponents of illegal alien labor in the U.S. are upper-class Americans who employ off-the-books foreigners as gardeners, maids, nannies, and other domestic servants.  By hiring people who are here illegally, American bosses have much more coercive authority over their employees.  Minimum wage laws, workplace safety regulations, payroll tax obligations, and insurance requirements can all be ignored.  Illegal aliens are in no position to defend their rights as workers because those who employ them hold the threat of deportation over their heads.

While Beverly Hills AWFLs (affluent, white, female liberals) encourage violence against ICE agents, they complain that no one’s around to mow their lawns, watch their children, or deliver their groceries.  When not too busy with yoga, taking selfies, chugging wine, complaining to the manager, or smoking (slightly more expensive) marijuana, they call President Trump “evil” for disrupting the tranquility of their plantation lifestyle and modern-day system of slavery. 

To be sure, there are very real costs to an economic system that runs on illegal alien labor.  The most serious costs, though, are passed directly to poor and middle-class Americans.  Because it is cheaper to hire illegal aliens than American citizens, American workers miss out on jobs.  At the same time, when millions of foreign nationals are pipelined into regions of the U.S., demand for local housing goes way up.  What is the result?  It becomes more expensive to buy a home, and average monthly rent rises.  While wealthier families might send their children to private schools, poor and middle-class families that depend upon public schools see an influx of foreign children and increased class size.  And while wealthier families might have Cadillac health insurance plans that provide for their families’ medical needs, poor and middle-class families that rely on basic care clinics and emergency room services find those places overcrowded with illegal alien families.  

When municipal governments, such as Los Angeles, work with so-called “non-governmental organizations” and “charities” to transport foreign workers into the United States, they often provide illegal aliens with financial incentives.  Many foreign nationals receive government assistance in the forms of “free” cell phones, public housing, food, clothing, and medical care.  These are benefits not provided to American citizens.  

By subsidizing foreign laborers, Democrat-run governments and taxpayer-funded “non-profits” disincentivize businesses from hiring poor Americans.  Meanwhile, poor Americans are forced to share parks, hospitals, schools, and other public spaces with people who have illegally entered the United States.  The financial upsides of an illegal alien workforce go to wealthy Americans, while the downsides fall on Americans struggling just to get by.  

California governor Newsom, L.A. mayor Bass, and their taxpayer-supported army of Antifa street thugs pretend to fight avaricious billionaires on behalf of the underprivileged.  In reality, they keep wealthy Americans flush with slave labor and kick poor Americans in the teeth.

It is appalling that Democrat elites work harder for foreigners than they do for Americans.  When politicians advance the interests of Mexico, Venezuela, China, India, and elsewhere at the expense of American citizens, they prove that they have no business holding public office in the United States.

But don’t get me wrong.  The illegal activity that Democrats aid and abet is big business.  Not only does illegal alien slave labor drive up profits for corporations that depend upon Democrat party collusion to evade employment regulations, but also, this steady migration of foreign nationals benefits the financial bottom line of government bureaucrats.  

There is an ever-growing number of city, state, and federal programs responsible for doling out public welfare in the United States.  What does a growing government workforce specializing in welfare assistance require to justify continued taxpayer support?  That’s right!  Those government bureaucrats require a growing supply of welfare recipients demanding their services.  If Americans ever reached a point when they were actually self-sufficient — egad, the horror! — the bloated bureaucracy of wealth redistributionists would be out of a job.  For the government Leviathan to grow, a steady supply of indigent migrants must continue to flow into the United States.  A permanent underclass is the only way to ensure a permanent bureaucratic overclass!

The ripple effects of open borders on government budgets occur everywhere.  When California imports illegal aliens into its workforce, Democrat politicians benefit by gaining new congressional districts and Electoral College representation.  State agencies and municipal departments also benefit by expanding their jurisdiction and obligations.  Requests for federal funds rise as city populations rise.  When a metropolitan police force is responsible for more residents, it requires more officers and resources.  When a school district is responsible for more students, it requires more money and teachers.  Population influx drives both taxpayer dollars and new government employees into an area, and, consequently, government executives become more powerful.

A principal reason why limited government is always preferable to entrenched bureaucracy is that the latter rewards failure.  

President Trump is the first president to prioritize border security and the deportation of illegal aliens.  To be sure, hundreds of billions of dollars have been allocated to these fundamental government responsibilities over the decades.  Until now, however, all those funds have had virtually no effect.  Why?  Because successful government programs eliminate the need for their existence, whereas failing government programs constantly need more money.

If city, state, and federal governments use taxpayer funds to secure the U.S. border, unnecessary bureaucrats throughout the system stand to lose.  Illegal immigration increases crime.  Crime increases public calls for security and surveillance. The national security surveillance State, therefore, benefits greatly by keeping American citizens unsafe!

When government agencies only pretend to protect the border, lawmakers find it much easier to expand their power over ordinary Americans.  If foreign drug cartels shoot up a neighborhood, then Democrats have a prefabricated excuse to call for gun control.  If violent crime rates rise, then law enforcement agencies require bigger budgets.  If illegal alien children can’t speak English, then new taxes must be imposed to provide for the educations of foreign students.  The whole bureaucratic system depends upon a never-ending supply of failure!

It should be no surprise, then, that Democrat politicians will continue to cry fake tears every time President Trump’s immigration agents disrupt exploitative child labor operations in California’s marijuana fields.  Just as it should be no surprise when wealthy AWFLs throw hissy fits because the president insists on deporting all their slaves.  Their loss is Americans’ gain.

Corruption, after all, is the natural manure of Big Government.  Decades of open borders have given us only more manure and bigger Big Government.  Democrats have advanced their careers by burying the American people in foul-smelling mountains of dung.  Cleaning up their mess is the first step to fresh air.

🎭 𝐖𝟑𝐏 𝓓𝓐𝓘𝓛𝓨 𝓗𝓾𝓶𝓸𝓻, 𝓜𝓾𝓼𝓲𝓬, 𝓐𝓻𝓽, 𝓞𝓟𝓔𝓝 𝓣𝓗𝓡𝓔𝓐𝓓

 

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'Buffoon': Tom Homan Lights Up Jerry Nadler Over Gaslighting on Attacks Against ICE

RedState 

As we've often documented, Democrats have turned gaslighting into an art form, with some of the more notorious examples being Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass denying that any anti-ICE rioting took place in her city, and Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY) periodically denying the existence of the radical far-leftist group Antifa.

Of all the Democrats who engage in this insulting tactic, Nadler is perhaps the gaslightiest of all of them, proclaiming during a 2024 House hearing on men invading women's sports, for instance, that "men do not compete in women's sports."

The latest example comes as violent attacks on immigration enforcement agents have increased by over 800 percent, according to DHS, with two of the more disturbing ones coming out of Texas, where in one incident a responding police officer was shot in the neck in what allegedly was part of a larger plot to ambush agents at the ICE detention center in Alvarado. 

In the other incident, which took place at the city of McAllen's Border Patrol sector annex, a man who opened fire was taken down by local law enforcement and Border Patrol agents. Two McAllen police officers and an employee with the Border Patrol sustained injuries that required a visit to the hospital.

This week, Nadler was walking down a Congressional hallway when a Fox News reporter asked him his thoughts on the attacks against ICE.  Nadler's response was not to condemn the attacks but to pretend they hadn't happened:

As one might imagine, this did not go over well at all with Trump administration officials including Border Czar Tom Homan, who lit into Nadler in a post on X:

This buffoon knows exactly what attacks — his party is the one encouraging them.  

ICE agents are facing an 830% increase in assaults because of smears from the left. Their words have consequences. We won’t let them pretend they don’t.

Nadler himself has at times joined in on the type of anti-ICE rhetoric that is undoubtedly fueling the attacks:

Whether it's a denial that attacks are even happening, or a refusal to condemn them when you know they are happening, as Sen. Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) did when he was asked back in April about the Tesla dealership firebombings, it has become clearer and clearer that the party that accuses their opposition, without evidence, of "Gestapo tactics" might wanna take a long, hard look in the mirror next time.

Watch: Police Response to Anti-ICE Protest on Kentucky Bridge Delivered Unhappy Moments for Activists

RedState 

We've seen some police in blue cities sometimes take a restrained/very hands off approach to the anti-ICE activists. Often, they don't suffer any consequences for actions in which they might be involved. 

In liberal areas, it's not always clear that even if people are arrested, they will face real charges.  And the cities don't always act to check such actions.  In Portland, for example, things got so out of control that a resident sued the city to enforce the noise ordinances, so residents could sleep. She just wanted the city to do something so she could have some peace.

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Portland Anti-ICE Mob 'Finds Out' After 'Vigilante' Visit and Lawsuit Against the City

Pure Gold: Portland Anti-ICE Characters Get Trolled by 'Trump' Big Time

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But on Thursday, the police in Covington, Kentucky didn't hold back in responding to anti-ICE folks as they moved from Ohio into their town and state on a bridge. 

The Covington Police Department responded to the protest on the Roebling Suspension Bridge, which they said “obstructed traffic and created safety concerns for both demonstrators and the public.” To avoid traffic disruptions, protesters were asked by the police to leave the bridge and move to the sidewalk, but according to police, officers were met with “open hostility and threatening behavior.”

That's when things deteriorated, and the activists had some major unhappy moments on the bridge. 

Warning for graphic language:

You can hear protesters screaming their heads off as a man and a woman are taken to the ground by the police. The man was hit multiple times. 

They got questions about the action from the media. Covington Police Chief Brian Valenti defended the use of force, alleging that the man had hit an officer's pepper ball gun and was holding onto the bridge railing. You also see video of what they said was an SUV being blocked on the bridge. He said they were told, several times, to get off the road. 

He said the situation on the bridge was dangerous and they would be reviewing more video on the matter.  

The people arrested faced a variety of charges. 

At least 13 protesters were arrested during a Thursday night anti-ICE protest that resulted in a march on the Ohio River bridge connecting Covington and Cincinnati. The Covington Police Department charged protesters with rioting, unlawful assembly, disorderly conduct and other misdemeanor charges. [....]

Rioting charges for protesters are considered a felony, with typical sentences of up to five years in prison.

It's likely to be a little different in the pursuit of the case than it would be in Portland.

How Systemic Gaps Left Texans Exposed in Deadly Flood, and What Happens Next

 State lawmakers are expected to consider a variety of improvements this week.

Two weeks after flash floods tore through Texas Hill Country,  a sobering set of questions lingers: What went wrong — and how can it be prevented from happening again? As the community grieves, scrutiny deepens and shifts from nature’s fury to human responsibility. 

Governor Greg Abbott has called a special legislative session, set to begin Monday, to address shortcomings in Texas’s emergency response and flood mitigation systems. Topics expected on the table include public alert infrastructure, preemptive evacuation standards, and community-based response coordination. 

At the federal level, FEMA — which is under scrutiny for failing to return thousands of calls from those affected by the flooding due to staff cuts — is still assessing long-term damage and recovery needs. The scale of the disaster, however, may reopen Congressional debate about proactive versus reactive disaster funding.

A spokesperson for the National Weather Service tells the New York Sun that their current focus is on “recovery efforts,” and that “conversations about steps forward will happen in the coming weeks.”

President Trump surveyed the area last week and acknowledged the unprecedented nature of the event, saying, “A thing like this has never happened,” and promised that state authorities would “figure something out.” Mr. Abbott added that officials are working to “devise a response” tailored to the community and are considering improvements to the alert system.

As recovery continues, residents and officials are left grappling with what might have been prevented — and what must change. Because in a region defined by its rivers, it’s no longer a question of if the next flood will come, but whether the warnings will arrive in time.

Dean’s Professor of Resilience and Director of the Resilience Studies Program at Northeastern University, Daniel Aldrich, tells the Sun that long-term reforms should include “updating outdated federal flood maps that misrepresented risk, installing automated river gauge systems with sirens, and establishing mandatory evacuation protocols for high-risk zones.”

He also emphasizes the need for better regional coordination between camps, RV parks, and emergency services, as well as rebuilding trust between residents and officials — trust that has been eroded by widespread misinformation about federal agencies.

President and co-owner of hazard and disaster management firm Early Alert, William Wagner, also emphasized the importance of state and local emergency management agencies implementing “robust public awareness campaigns to educate residents about all-hazard preparedness.”

“Partnering with local organizations, tribal authorities, and community leaders is essential to ensure alerts and preparedness information are shared through trusted, accessible channels,” Mr. Wagner tells the Sun. “Regular joint drills and tabletop simulations that mimic real flash flood scenarios can help reinforce a faster, more coordinated response when every second counts.”

Getting to the Bottom 

Almost immediately after the flood, speculation turned to federal responsibility. Some critics pointed to long-term staffing shortages at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), including a vacancy in the warning coordination role at the New Braunfels office — an official responsible for liaising with local emergency managers. 

Meteorologists, however, counter that despite that gap, the office increased staffing to five forecasters — more than double the usual amount.

The United Cajun Navy, one of the leading volunteer relief groups on the ground, stressed that budget cuts to NOAA did not impact the situation in Texas. 

Mr. Trump, who has proposed slashing the NOAA’s budget by 27 percent in 2026, denied any connection between budget issues and the flood. 

“This is a 100-year catastrophe,” he said, adding that he couldn’t blame the former president, Joe Biden, either.

Flash flooding is not new to the region, and past floods — in 1932 and 1987 — also struck summer camps. After the 1987 incident, alarms were installed in some areas, but Kerr County later declined to build a more comprehensive warning system after a $1 million federal grant application was denied. 

The Texas Division of Emergency Management reportedly refused a 2017 request from Kerr County for a warning system as it failed to meet federal requirements. A proposal the following year was also rejected due to state officials prioritizing that spending for counties affected by Hurricane Harvey. This massive storm inundated large parts of Texas in August 2017.

“In 2016, Kerr County contracted for an engineering study on their current warning system and were told it was antiquated and inadequate,” explained Mr. Aldrich. “The county filed for federal assistance via a Hazard Mitigation Grant for $976,000 but was not selected for funding. 

“Later, they had over $5 million in ARPA funds in their account, but residents opposed spending federal money from the Biden administration. That decision seems, unfortunately, to have been influenced by politics.”

He stressed that a less-than-a-million-dollar warning system must be weighed against the loss of so many llives and millions in damages. 

“Early alerts create a multiplier effect by enabling timely evacuations and reducing search and rescue costs. In the long term, improved preparedness can also lead to lower flood insurance premiums,” Mr. Aldrich continued. 

“Finally, we need to think about tourism protection: The area relies heavily on summer camps and tourism. Would you want to send children to an area that has flooded and taken lives in the past, knowing there are inadequate systems in place for their protection?”

In January, a bill that would have created a statewide emergency alert council and infrastructure grant program failed in the Texas Legislature. Lawmakers cited the estimated $500 million cost as prohibitive. 

A Communication Breakdown

While some questioned whether federal budget constraints played a role, others point to missed opportunities and delayed decisions closer to home, at the county and state level, where the consequences proved fatal. 

Experts increasingly point to breakdowns at the state and local levels — gaps in coordination, communication, and planning that may have made a deadly situation worse.

“Documents reveal that Kerr County officials took nearly six hours to heed calls to send emergency alerts, with the first CodeRED alert not going out until 90 minutes after the initial 4:22 am request, and some messages not arriving until after 10 am,” said Mr. Aldrich.

Importantly, experts point to fixing what many see as a flagrant communication problem between weather authorities and those on the ground. 

“Communities should conduct an after-action review, ensure they have warning systems in place, test them and communicate with their communities as to what to do when there is a warning,” Adjunct Professor in Emergency and Disaster Management at Georgetown University, Attila Hertelendy, tells the Sun. “And how time critical it is to take action.”

Though the National Weather Service began warning of heavy rain as early as July 1, and issued flood watches and flash flood warnings on July 3 and into the early morning of July 4, some critics say the “Slight Risk” classification may have underestimated the scale of the disaster. 

By the time a rare flash flood emergency was declared for parts of Kerr County around 4 a.m., the flooding was already underway, with local firefighters scrambling to warn nearby residents.

Communication proved problematic. Rural terrain and unreliable cell reception meant many Texans, especially those in remote areas, never received alerts. There were no sirens. No citywide alarms. For many, the first sign of trouble was water rushing through their door.

“The breakdown appears to have occurred not within the NWS itself, but in the failure of local officials to activate the Integrated Public Alert and Warning System and other alert channels quickly enough,” said Mr. Wagner. 

“In Kerr County, for example, there was a significant delay in disseminating evacuation alerts — despite NWS warnings already being in effect.”

Among the hardest hit was Camp Mystic, a historic all-girls summer camp perched beside the Guadalupe River. At least 30 of the dead were campers and young counselors. Despite having recently updated emergency protocols, staff had little time to act before cabins were submerged. 

Meanwhile, rescuers continue to move through shattered cabins and overturned vehicles. Children’s shoes lay scattered near riverbanks where the water had torn families apart overnight. The confirmed death toll in the Texas Hill Country flash floods has topped over 130, with about 100 still missing — a number expected to rise as recovery teams continue their search.

Texas officials did not respond to requests for further comment.

https://www.nysun.com/article/how-systemic-gaps-left-texans-exposed-in-deadly-flood-and-what-happens-next