Andy1

Personally, I’m not making any judgements or assumptions on all this. I’m taking the wait and see approach. Clearly, Ep and Trump were buddies. Even if his name is on a list, I still think 40% of the country will stick with him, so not much will change. It is interesting seeing the temperature rise though.

Well a Trump handshake is like a wrestling match for dominance. Other younger, stronger leaders know what to expect now and have probably been giving him the death grip.

Yea, if that’s the point, I guess I see that is a bit stupid. I just took it as Obama encouraging men to not discriminate which is legit too.

Is it wrong to have gay friends? Trumps legacy will be a statue of him describing him as being undefeated in the Trump open at his golf course.

We are going to watch him decline as we did with Biden. Father Time is undefeated and Trump can’t stop talking nonsense as he wants to always prove how “smart” he is.

I’ll just say that videos are routinely edited for all sorts of reasons, and just because a video was edited doesn’t by itself indicate any sort of coverup.

This gets to the fundamental question of “What is the purpose of government?” At its most minimal, basic level, most would say that government should help ensure public safety. That is why we have police, fire departments, departments of health, building codes, licensing for jobs that could impact public safety, car inspections, OSHA, pollution laws, waste water laws, etc, etc….. Trump continually says he needs to take extreme measures to protect public safety from all those dangerous immigrants, so he needs a gajillion dollars to do it. It all costs something to protect people. Your question suggests that people know the risk levels when they buy property. That is a dumb assumption as most are clueless, and that is why government should take a role in managing public risk from such events. Governments all over do that already with flood plain management projects to minimize flood impacts. Another issue is that flood prone areas are typically owned by the poor in society so the wealthy may not see spending government resources on those areas as a priority. In 2024 alone, extreme weather caused 568 deaths in the US. That is why, prior to Trump, the Defense Department had for many years considered climate change to be a national threat. If 568 people died from terrorists, you know the government would spend a bajillion dollars fighting the enemy. The problem in TX seems to be that their government is in the pockets of the fossil fuel industry and any proposals to address and mitigate future climate impacts are a taboo subject, lest government has to raise taxes.

It seems to me that either all the right wingers have been lying about the Epstein stuff or Trump is involved in a coverup, trying to kill the story because…..

It looks like Texas is allergic to disaster preparation. At all levels of government, the approach to preparing for future severe weather events is “hear nothing, see nothing, speak nothing”. To spend money on climate preparedness would be to admit climate change is real. They would rather do “thoughts and prayers”, and take the “we can’t believe this happened, there is nothing we could have done” approach to planning. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jul/13/texas-disaster-weather-preparations-us

Here is a good article addressing the role of government in Texas flood management. Texas is well behind other states in how they manage flood risk. https://www.texastribune.org/2025/07/09/texas-floods-growth-kerr-county-camp-mystic/

A lot of it is people not understanding the danger of building in certain areas. Or if you are going to live in these high hazard places, responsible government needs to spend extra on mitigation/safety. This applies to those people living in the fire prone hills of CA, tsunami areas, flash flood zones etc. This isn’t the 1800s or some third world country where the government is clueless. Tornados are very local and unpredictable where they will hit. Aside from building a bunker for personal safety, there is not much one can do. Dangerous flash flood areas are known based upon local climate and the geography/geology of the area. This river is known for dangerous flash floods. “Oh well… thoughts and prayers” is not a recipe to prevent future loss of life. If engineers took this approach, bridges would be collapsing all over the place.

But rain isn’t like a tornado that you can’t see. Rain takes time before it impacts areas with flooding. You can see it on radar. If you see it dumping on the hills, you know downstream areas are under threat.

A bit further left than I’d prefer but I don’t give a crap how he sits in a chair. Probably not electable to national office, but who knows? Politics in this country seems to swing wildly…with each presidential election, people choosing the opposite of the last guy.

Trump is the least masculine president of my lifetime. He wears heels, a face covered with makeup and spends hours obsessing over his fake hair each morning. MAGA thinks he is some marvel of Superman strength but he is just a fat old guy wearing diapers with a lot of money who tries to project a tough guy, macho, mob boss image.

So are the inept actions of all the officials in Kerr County who are white guys with cowboy hats also because of DEI? Just asking.