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Charlene Arseneau Reid's avatar

Wow! So much information in this Newsletter! I’m not delighted with what is happening in the US but I am VERY GLAD THAT I AM CANADIAN! I hold no illusion that what is happening there won’t affect me here but it feels safer for now! I also will not abandon the US Citizens to fend for themselves during this horrible take over of their Democracy! I would not be able to live with myself if I tried to ignore or make light of the plight of the American 🇺🇸 People - ALL OF THEM as they fight for their freedom from tyranny!! 🇨🇦💪🇺🇸👊

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elliott oberman's avatar

You cannot marketize a levee. You cannot libertarian your way through a tornado tossing a double-wide half a mile down the road or the flood waters ripping a child from your arms. The water does not care about your tax philosophy. The wind is not impressed by your rugged individualism. The fire has no love for your private-sector ingenuity.

They vote for the same people who gutted flood maps, deregulated zoning, slashed emergency response budgets, and told them FEMA was an enemy of liberty. Russell Vought and Elon Musk wanted to shred the NWS because Project 2025 thought it was a hive of climate heresy and not meteorology nerds. Cutting NWS’s minuscule $1.4 billion budget to the bone is ironic as hell after last week: more than a few billionaires will save more on their taxes due to the BBB than NWS’s entire budget.

The cost isn’t theoretical. It’s measured in caskets.

In Texas this week, the cost came due again. Water doesn’t negotiate. It doesn’t bargain or compromise. It just takes. You can be rich, you can be poor, you can believe in free markets or federal relief; when the dam breaks, the water doesn’t check your voter registration card. But it does matter what kind of government you’ve built to meet it.

You cannot marketize a levee. You cannot libertarian your way through a tornado tossing a double-wide half a mile down the road or the flood waters ripping a child from your arms. The water does not care about your tax philosophy. The wind is not impressed by your rugged individualism. The fire has no love for your private-sector ingenuity.

And we are tearing down the walls of the only shelter we have left. But the National Weather Service does. FEMA does.

And we are tearing down the walls of the only shelter we have left. The water is rising.

And without the tiny government agencies like the NWS and FEMA that MAGA loves to hate, there’s not a damn thing standing between us and the flood.

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