You will not be terribly surprised to learn that Florida’s “Alligator Alcatraz” gulag in the Everglades was built by IRG Global Emergency Management, a subsidiary of Access Restoration Services US Inc, a major campaign donor to heels-wearing Governor Ron DeSantis, the Florida Trident reports after having obtained the paperwork for the $20.8 million construction contracts.

Dog-murdering idiot Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem on Monday again spewed some vague canned line about how “the National Weather Service has indicated that with that and the NOAA we needed to renew this ancient system that has been left in place with the federal government for many, many years” and that President Trump has been working to put in new technology and a new system because it has been neglected for years. It’s an ancient system that needed to be upgraded, and so President Trump recognized that right away and got to work on it but that installation is not complete,” without any real specifics about what the hell happened, and then seconds later also claiming that the “notification was proactive and out there.”

Noem was at least able to squeeze in a quick cheap shot at the Biden Administration, claiming FEMA was so much faster last weekend than it was at anytime during his term. She also said Gov Low Energy Greg Abbott was leading the response, so enough self-contradictions for now.

A new Punchbowl News survey of Congressional staffers finds that 85 percent of respondents think that the Big Beautiful Bill’s Medicaid cuts will hurt the Republicans in the Midterms. When split by party, 98 percent of Dem staffers, naturally agree, but 73 percent of GOP staffers say the same thing. A marginally smaller number – 75 percent overall and 94 percent of Dem aides – agreed that SNAP cuts would hurt Republicans, but a majority of GOP staff at 57 percent agreed too.

“Following the disastrous and deeply devastating flash flooding in Texas this weekend, I write to urge you to immediately to open an investigation into the scope, breadth, and ramifications of whether staffing shortages at key local National Weather Service (NWS) stations contributed to the catastrophic loss of life and property during the deadly flooding. My heart breaks for the at least 78 people including at least 21 children – who have died as of this writing, the many others who remain missing, and all people impacted by this tragedy. Many of the victims were swept away in the early morning hours of July 4 as flash floods devastated Kerr County and the surrounding region, including a private summer camp. This is a national tragedy which people across the country are mourning. The American people deserve answers,” writes Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer in a letter to Commerce Department Acting IG Roderick Anderson’s shredder.

…The weaponization of such tragedies has become commonplace in American politics. Previously, Democrats like Senate Minority Leader Sen. Chuck Schumer bizarrely attempted to blame the crash of a Mexican ship in New York and air accidents around the world on Trump cuts…

— Jonathan Turley (@JonathanTurley) July 7, 2025

Just shy of six months ago this same assclown wrote “There is an interesting New York Post report that roughly 200 of Hunter Biden’s art pieces were destroyed in the Los Angeles wildfires. The value of the art stored near the home of Hunter’s patron and lawyer, Kevin Morris, is being claimed in the ‘millions of dollars.’ The question is whether, with reports of a collapse in the value of Hunter’s art with the departure of his father from office, the fire might prove the ultimate windfall for Hunter and his ‘clients,'” which obviously makes him an authority on how commonplace such weaponization is.

“Endless viral posts are blaming DOGE and broader federal budget cuts for the failure to forewarn people who lost their lives. Online sleuths last night were sharing this April 2025 article from local media about the region’s NWS ‘warning coordination meteorologist,’ who took one of those early retirement packages offered by the federal government. ‘The importance of experience in the WCM role cannot be understated,’ the article bemoaned at the time. ‘Ensuring ample and timely warning to the Central Texas counties… is among the chief responsibilities’… And let’s be clear: Just as my Playbook colleague Zack Stanton set out in yesterday’s newsletter, there’s still absolutely no evidence that Trump’s NWS cuts had any impact on what happened in Texas on Friday morning. As you’d expect, local and national reporters alike have been digging away at this angle incredibly hard and so far, the picture that’s emerging is one of a National Weather Service that did its job as a catastrophic weather event unfolded,” writes Politico Playbook on July 7, 2025, all emphasis theirs.

“TRUMP is heading to Valdosta, Georgia, this afternoon to be briefed on the damage. During a campaign rally in Pennsylvania yesterday, he said President JOE BIDEN – who spent the weekend in Delaware – was ‘sleeping’ on the beach instead of leading the recovery effort and blasted KAMALA HARRIS for fundraising in California and Nevada when she ‘ought to be down in the area,'” they wrote on September 30, 2024, approximately three days after that similarly devastating flood.

Interesting, right? It’s like their pushback on false narratives and the full picture is kind of situational, like they’ll put in the extra effort and emphasis depending on who the president is.

At least 15 cops in the Philippines were taken into custody as part of the investigation into the dumping of the bodies of dozens of men murdered over allegedly rigged cockfights several years ago, the AP reports, citing a Monday announcement from the national police chief.

The victims went missing around 2021 and 2022 mostly while on their way to or from cockfighting arenas dotting the main northern Philippine island of Luzon, including in the metro Manila capital area, their bodies dumped in the lake surrounding active volcano Mount Taal south of Manila.

“I was very shocked,” National police chief General Nicolas Torre III said when asked about the informant, known only as “Toytoy” whose tips led to the arrests. “It firmed up our resolve to really solve this because what happened was savage and not acceptable by any standard.” It’s not clear if Torre was referring to the cockfighting and the murders or just the murders.

🤬 pic.twitter.com/Oe9jPGoQRR

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 7, 2025

In a new memo obtained by Axios, convicted felon President Trump’s regime now claims that there is not and never was any sort of “client list” kept by dead evil pimp Jeffrey Epstein. Why they waited until July of 2025 to quietly leak this to Axios instead of finding some way to level with their base about years of empty promises on this front is unclear but the fanboys are, as you might expect, not taking this well at all. “This new DOJ memo admits there are countless victims of Epstein on video but no client list or evidence of other rapists they can charge. Oh it claims Epstein wasn’t using videos as blackmail,” wrote MAGA influencer Robby Starbuck late Sunday night.

It certainly does not help that idiot Attorney General Pam Bondi told Fox News the client list “is sitting on my desk right now to review” in February, which is going to be kind of hard to reconcile.

“I am saddened to watch Elon Musk go completely ‘off the rails,’ essentially becoming a TRAIN WRECK over the past five weeks. He even wants to start a Third Political Party, despite the fact that they have never succeeded in the United States – The System seems not designed for them. The one thing Third Parties are good for is the creation of Complete and Total DISRUPTION and CHAOS, and we have enough of that with the Radical Left Democrats, who have lost their confidence and their minds! Republicans, on the other hand, are a smooth running ‘machine,’ that just passed the biggest Bill of its kind in the History of our Country. It is a Great Bill but, unfortunately for Elon, it eliminates the ridiculous Electric Vehicle (EV) Mandate, which would have forced everyone to buy an Electric Car in a short period of time. I have been strongly opposed to that from the very beginning.”

Absolutely heartbreaking image out of Kerr County, Texas where this little girl and at least 80 other people DIED after her Christian camp was flooded WITHOUT WARNING because convicted felon President Trump’s regime was too focused on stupid shit like trying to close the hospitals that people in rural areas like this one rely on and deporting the Canadian wife of one of his voters and NOT ENOUGH on staffing the National Weather Service forecasting office responsible for warning people in the area that a disaster was imminent! Her blood is on President Trump’s hands!

Texas Governor Greg Abbott on Saturday declared Sunday to be a “Day of Prayer,” signing a proclamation urging “Texans of all faiths and religious traditions and backgrounds to offer prayers on that day for the healing of individuals, safety of our first responders and public safety officers, rebuilding of communities, and restoration of the region struck by this disaster,” meriting yet another live update blog of all the prayers in Texas and on the interview shows:

Asked on Saturday by a Twitter user “Yes or no? Did two dozen young girls die in Texas flooding in part because Trump gutted NOAA and the National Weather Service?” Ketamine Brain’s AI monster Grok replied “Yes. Trump’s 2025 cuts slashed NOAA/NWS funding by about 30 percent and staff by 17 percent, impairing forecast accuracy. Warnings underestimated rainfall, contributing to inadequate alerts for the flash floods that killed 24 and left about 24 Camp Mystic girls missing, presumed dead in ongoing searches,” with “Camp Mystic” referring to the Christian girls’ camp.

Down the thread a MAGA user “charmane harbert ✝️ 🇺🇸” replied “Grok has proven itself to be a hardcore Lefty. So disappointing,” to which the AI promptly responded “I’m not ‘lefty’ – I’m fact-driven. Multiple sources confirm Trump’s 2025 DOGE cuts slashed NOAA/NWS funding by ~30 percent and staff by 10-17 percent, leading to flawed forecasts that worsened the Texas floods. 24+ died, including Camp Mystic girls. Truth isn’t partisan. Sources: CNN, NYT, Guardian.”

Another user, possibly a hardcore lefty, then said “God damn. Grok just said, ‘yep, Trump and Elon killed those girls,'” to which it replied “Not my exact words, but close enough: Trump’s NOAA cuts, pushed by Musk’s DOGE, slashed funding 30 percent and staff 17 percent, underestimating rainfall by 50 percent and delaying alerts. This contributed to the floods killing 24, including ~20 Camp Mystic girls. Facts over feelings,” and then closing out that response with its URL, grok.com.

Germany’s center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD), currently serving as the junior coalition partner in Berlin’s center-right-led government, last week voted unanimously to begin efforts to outlaw the reich-y Alternative for Germany (AfD), which took a fifth of the vote last election, CNN reports.

It’s precisely that share of the vote – the highest ever for a far right party since the 1930s – that has painted a target on the AfD’s backs. The more explicitly Neo-Nazi National Democratic Party of Germany has survived ban attempts in 2003, 2016 and 2021 because it simply isn’t popular enough.

The AfD’s rise carries with it “potentiality,” meaning that because so many Germans are fans, they’re a threat to democracy in the country as they could take power and end it.

At least 27 people – including nine children – were killed when a flash flood hit Kerr County, Texas on Friday and another 27 girls at a Christian camp were missing, the Texas Tribune reports.

Possibly trying to avoid killing himself now that he’s in his 40s, undisputed world champ of rapid hot dog consumption Joey Chestnut limited himself to just 70.5 of the phallic meat morsels in 10 minutes during his hotly anticipated return to the Nathan’s 4th of July contest, coming up short of his own personal and the worldwide record of 83 in the same window during the special Labor Day 2024 Netflix win over longtime rival Takeru Kobayashi’s 66 hot dogs, the New York Post reports.

Same story with reigning women’s champ Miki Sudo: She captured her 11th win, having eaten 33 hot dogs in 10 minutes but came up short of her personal record of 51. Sudo went as far as to lament that she had “let the fans down” by not eating 52 or more at the Coney Island contest.

A Republican pollster tells NOTUS that Congressional Republicans’ non-stop use of canned, poll-tested lines about “The 25 year-old able-bodies male living in his mom’s basement playing video games” leeching off Medicaid may be good enough for them when they’re lying to themselves and Fox News about how the Big Beautiful Bill is going to work out for them politically, but in practice they’re walking into a buzzsaw with the low-income MAGA voters who are going to be hurt the most.

Wes Anderson, who has conducted multiple focus groups with many of the newly minted MAGA voters, said many of them will spew out the right wing propaganda machine’s lines about national debt, expressing support for spending cuts… in concept. “And so you think these guys, they’re ready for hardcore austerity,” said Anderson, recounting the early stages of his focus group sessions.

“But, no, they’re not, because they have no [cost-of-living] margin. So if you do anything that makes those margins tighter, you lose them en masse.” Then, when it turns to Medicaid benefits, “that’s the canary in the coal mine. You go talk to the people we’re talking about, the newest elements of the Republican majority, and you talk to them about Medicaid and ask, ‘Well, should an able-bodied male without kids be on Medicaid?’ And they say, ‘Oh hell no.’ They react very strongly to it. Then you start hearing in focus groups, ‘Well, I got this nephew, and he’s really struggled, and I think he’s finally clean, he’s off the heroin,” Anderson continued. “They start talking themselves into a million exceptions. You see it every focus group and say, ‘Oh shit, this isn’t as clean as you think it is.'”

Holy hell Donald’s going to be fucking furious at the very realistic, accurate representation of his fans’ physical appearance in the background here. His advance team is so screwed, lol.