1). “ ‘Those Are Losers’: Texas Governor Greg Abbott Disgraces Himself, Attacks Political Enemies In Press Conference About Tragic Texas Floods”, Jul 9, 2025, Greg Abbot, Slingshot News, duration of complete video 9:08, pertinent football analogy comments run from about 3:05 – 4:15, at < https://www.msn.com/en-us/
2). “Rep. Doggett fires back at Gov. Abbott's comments about Texas flood: Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-TX) pushed back against a football analogy made by Gov. Greg Abbott yesterday, saying the catastrophic flooding in the state and the region’s response to the disaster is 'not a game.' ”, n.d., Lloyd Doggett speaks with CNN host, CNN, duration of video 2:06, at < https://www.cnn.com/2025/07/
3). “White House says Democrats are trying to turn tragic Texas floods into a political game”, Jul 7, 2025, WH Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, WJAC TV 6, duration of video 2:46 at < https://www.youtube.com/watch?
4). “Far-right conspiracy theories spread online in aftermath of the Texas floods: Some social media users falsely claimed that the extreme weather was being controlled by the US government”, Jul 9, 2025, Ben Makuch, The Guardian, at < https://www.theguardian.com/
~~ recommended by dmorista ~~
Introduction by dmorista: The chaotic and dysfunctional state of the U.S. Empire, even in its home base, was highlighted by the Texas Floods of the past few days. After years of not making basic improvements in and around Kerrville the area was hit with a major storm, not unprecedented or a once every 200 years event like Trump has said, but a major event nonetheless. The storm hit about 3 months after: “Paul Yura, the warning coordination meteorologist at the National Weather Service Austin/San Antonio office, has announced he has taken the early retirement offer as part of NOAA’s recent cuts to personnel and budget. (Emphasis added)
“Yura has over 32 years experience, spending more than half of his career at the NWS Austin/San Antonio office. In the process, he gained tremendous experience understanding local weather patterns while ensuring timely warnings get disseminated to the public in a multitude of ways.” (Emphasis added) (See, “Head of local weather warnings takes early retirement as NOAA cuts continue”, Apr 21, 2025, Nick Bannin, KXAN.com, at < https://www.kxan.com/weather/
Yura's expertise was specifically in getting out effective warning and notices that motivate people to act, for example to move to higher ground in the case of the Guadalupe River flooding. In addition there were 5 other senior meteorologists who were fired or encouraged to leave the NWS in the San Angelo and Austin / San Antonio NWS offices.
In Item 1)., “ ‘Those Are Losers’: ….”, Texas Republican Governor spent about a minute comparing Texas tradition of football and disparaging people who had criticized his handling of this latest crisis. People who saw his maudlin performance in Uvalde after the massacre of 21 elementary school students and 2 teachers and his defense of owning assault rifles can note his desire to hide his incompetence and subservience to various far-right political and socioeconomic movements. Texas Democratic U.S. Representative Lloyd Doggett replied in Item 2)., “Rep. Doggett fires back ….”, criticizing Abbott's use of football analogies while people were mourning the loss of family members.
Texas Flood Images
Various Republican politicians are using the events in Texas to try to enhance their political positions issuing a variety of statements and disinformation such as Karoline Leavitt's strident attack in Item 3)., “White House says Democrats are ….”. Even more aggressive are the social media posts about cloud seeding and the like reported in Item 4)., “Far-right conspiracy theories spread ….”, by The Guardian. What is the most vicious aspect of all is that the Special Session of the Texas State Legislature, that will look at the poor response to the floods will also work on even more severely Gerrymandering Texas U.S. House Districts to try to increase the size of the Republican membership in the Texas House Delegation by from 4 to as many as 8 members. This would use attacks on the existence of Minority districts challenging it up to the Supreme Court, always reliable for a toady far-right decision. All this done during the supposedly sacred period of mourning and while bodies are still being found in the flood zones.
Trump will visit the Texas Hill Country disaster zone today. His agenda has been to defund and end FEMA (that is imperfect but better than pushing the responsibilities for disaster back on the states) and to privatize the NWS and turn it over to some of his cronies as a profit center that sells the data, currently provided for free by the NWS, on a subscription basis. Texas is the largest state beneficiary of FEMA largesse, benefits Trump wants to continue to lavish on Texas while cutting California and other Blue States off totally.
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Please click on the link below to view the video:
1). “ ‘Those Are Losers’: Texas Governor Greg Abbott Disgraces Himself, Attacks Political Enemies In Press Conference About Tragic Texas Floods”, Jul 9, 2025, Greg Abbot, Slingshot News, duration of complete video 9:08, pertinent football analogy comments run from about 3:05 – 4:15, at < https://www.msn.com/en-us/
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Please click on the link below to view the video
2). “Rep. Doggett fires back at Gov. Abbott's comments about Texas flood: Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-TX) pushed back against a football analogy made by Gov. Greg Abbott yesterday, saying the catastrophic flooding in the state and the region’s response to the disaster is 'not a game.' ”, n.d., Lloyd Doggett speaks with CNN host, CNN, duration of video 2:06, at < https://www.cnn.com/2025/07/
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3). “White House says Democrats are trying to turn tragic Texas floods into a political game”, Jul 7, 2025, WH Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, WJAC TV 6, duration of video 2:46 at < https://www.youtube.com/watch?
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Far-right conspiracy theories spread online in aftermath of the Texas floods
Some social media users falsely claimed that the extreme weather was being controlled by the US government
Disasters and tragedies have long been the source of American conspiracy theories, old and new. So when devastating flash floods hit Texas over the Fourth of July weekend, and as the death toll continues to rise, far-right conspiracists online saw their opportunity to come out in full force, blurring the lines of what’s true and untrue.
Some people, emerging from the same vectors associated with the longstanding QAnon conspiracy theory, which essentially holds that a shadowy “deep state” is acting against Donald Trump, spread on X that the devastating weather was being controlled by the government.
“I NEED SOMEONE TO LOOK INTO WHO WAS RESPONSIBLE FOR THIS,” posted Pete Chambers, a former special forces commander and frequent fixture on the far right who once organized an armed convoy to the Texas border, along with documents he claimed to show government weather operations. “WHEN WAS THE LAST CLOUD SEEDING?”
The same chain of posts on the social media platform X singled out a California-based “precipitation enhancement” company as a potential culprit.
It didn’t take long for one of the most integral figures in the QAnon movement to repost Chambers, which received millions of views on the Elon Musk-owned app.
“Anyone able to answer this?” wrote retired general Mike Flynn, a former national security adviser in the Trump administration and who helped legitimize QAnon after pledging allegiance to the movement in 2020, reposting Chambers.
Conspiracists and grifters on other platforms joined in. One YouTuber with hundreds of thousands of subscribers posted breathless coverage of what he called “The TRUTH of WEATHER MANIPULATION” in a segment which earned him close to 200,000 views alone.
The halls of Congress echoed the sentiment, as Georgia congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene – a vaccine skeptic and GOP hardliner who has espoused Jeffrey Epstein conspiracies – didn’t waste the moment to say she was introducing a bill of her own after the floods.
“I am introducing a bill that prohibits the injection, release, or dispersion of chemicals or substances into the atmosphere for the express purpose of altering weather, temperature, climate, or sunlight intensity,” she wrote on X as the aftermath of the floods continued. “It will be a felony offense.”
There were also amplifications of a false story that rescuers found two girls alive near Comfort, Texas – something CNN’s Brian Stelter pieced together. Laura Loomer, another far-right propagandist and one of Maga’s biggest stars, retweeted a story that stemmed from a volunteer rescuer who had heard the rumor. Eventually, the tale was disproven.
Of course, there has been much debate online about who is to blame for the deadly floods, with many not just turning to outlandish weather manipulation allegations, but pointing the finger at the Trump administration’s recent budget cuts in favor of things such as the massive funding of Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
In a viral post on Instagram, the Austin Firefighters Association blamed its chief for delaying the flood response in hard-hit Kerr County, because he was more interested in saving money rather than the lives of potential flood victims.
“Why would Fire Chief Joel G. Baker do this, you may ask?” the post read. “It was a misguided attempt to save money.”
The National Weather Service has also faced scrutiny in the wake of the disaster after underestimating the amount of rainfall that was dumped upon central Texas. Late-night alerts about the dangerous floods were issued by the service but the timeliness of the response and coordination with local emergency services will be reviewed by officials.
Ted Cruz, the Texas senator who was again on vacation overseas during a natural disaster in his state that claimed the lives of his constituents, helped push the so-called “big, beautiful bill” last week, which among other major cuts ensured weather forecasting funding was slashed significantly nationwide.
Posts on the Telegram app, in the neo-Nazi and far-right circles that characteristically find racist inspirations behind every news event – yet still mostly supports the Trump administration – were highly critical of the flood response and blamed it on the government’s stupidity.
“There is brewing resentment in Texas against their state government from both Democrats and Republicans for their lack of emergency management at the state level, and the incompetence in planning and building disaster mitigation projects,” posted one account.
Another post promoted the idea that the Trump administration had failed to protect “White girls’ lives”, in reference to the death of 27 campers at Camp Mystic, and in general “White Americans”.
Meme-makers on the left have taken the opportunity to mock the right, with one popular image spreading online using the Simpson’s character Principal Skinner shown wondering if Trump’s cuts, perhaps, are to blame for the deaths in Texas.
“No, it must have been Democrats using a weather modification machine,” the caption concludes.
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