SWEPT AWAY: At least 80 people are dead and some unaccounted for following the flash flooding that ravaged Kerr County, Texas overnight Friday into Saturday. Forty-one people are missing.

  Homes, mobile homes, cars, enormous trees … and people … were washed away. 

  Among the missing are 10 campers and one counselor from Camp Mystic, an historic  girls’ summer camp in the Texas Hill country along the Guadalupe River ravaged by the floods. Originally 27 of the campers were reported missing and many bodies have yet to be identified. 

  The camp confirmed that 27 campers and counsellors are dead. The flooding roared through a cluster of cabins that housed the youngest campers. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said, “We won’t stop until we find every girl who was in those cabins,” although the hope for finding them alive is slim.

  Many stories are surfacing of survival and death. One woman was found alive clinging to a tree. Five members of a Texas family camping along the Guadalupe River are among the missing. A sixth survived after being swept downriver for more than 15 miles.

  Heavy rains are expected again today with a continued flood watch. Hundreds of people have been engaged in the search for the living and dead. One responder said you’re looking for something you don’t want to find.

  The NY Times reports that vacancies in crucial positions with the National Weather Service in the area may have hampered emergency preparation and response. The Times reported that Erica Grow Cei, a spokeswoman for the weather service, did not answer questions about whether those vacancies had contributed to the delayed warning and damage caused by the flooding. “The National Weather Service is heartbroken by the tragic loss of life,” she said in a statement, adding that the agency “remains committed to our mission to serve the American public through our forecasts and decision support services.”

THE DOLLAR DEMOCRACY: Tesla billionaire Elon Musk, the world’s richest person who departed his White House cost-cutting post in a spat with President Trump, announced over the weekend that he will be forming a new political party to be called the “America Party.”

  “When it comes to bankrupting our country with waste & graft, we live in a one-party system, not a democracy,” Musk wrote on his Twitter/X, “Today, the America Party is formed to give you back your freedom.” He had not yet filed any paperwork to create his party.

  Musk is the country’s biggest political donor, and yet he posted, “No donors. No puppets. No strings. Just a party built on common sense, not consultants. The ‘America Party.’”

  President Trump posted on his Truth Social that, “I am saddened to watch Elon Musk go completely ‘off the rails,’ essentially becoming a TRAIN WRECK over the past five weeks.” He said, “The one thing Third Parties are good for is the creation of Complete and Total DISRUPTION & CHAOS, and we have enough of that with the Radical Left Democrats.”

  Musk responded with a post to Trump’s long, rambling message, “I ain’t reading all that.”

CHEMTRAILS IN CONGRESS. Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who once claimed the existence of “Jewish space lasers,” announced that she’s going to propose a law forbidding weather modification. “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 Twitter/X. “It will be a felony offense.” 

  Following Hurricane Helene last year, Greene made headlines suggesting that Democrats were able to “control the weather.” 

  Florida Democrat Jared Moskowitz posted that, “I’m introducing a bill that prohibits the injection, release or dispersion of stupidity into Congress.”

THE WAR ROOM: A senior Hamas officer told the BBC in a series of voice messages that the militant group has lost control of about 80% of the Gaza Strip and that there is “barely anything left” of its military structure. 

  “Most of the leadership, about 95%, are now dead, the man said. “The active figures have all been killed.” He went on: “Hamas’s control is zero. There’s no leadership, no command, no communication. Salaries are delayed, and when they do arrive, they’re barely usable. Some die just trying to collect them. It’s total collapse.”

THE SPIN RACK: President Trump said he will be announcing new trade tariff rates on August 1^st. Trump said the US will impose an additional 10% tariff on any countries aligning themselves with the “Anti-American policies” of the BRICS group of developing nations. The BRICS group includes Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, Egypt, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Iran, and the United Arab Emirates.  — Edward Kelley, a Tennessee man pardoned by President Trump for his part in the January 6^th insurrection, has been sentenced to life in prison for plotting to assassinate law enforcement officers who investigated his activity in the riot. Kelley is a former Marine who had been deployed to both Iraq and Afghanistan. —  An Australian woman has been found guilty of murder and attempted murder for feeding her in-laws Beef Wellington with poisonous “death cap” mushrooms. Three of Erin Patterson’s four guests died. She was separated from her husband and was having a dispute with him about child support payments. — On Saturday about 1500 runners went on a 15-mile protest run through Los Angeles neighborhoods hit by ICE immigration raids.

BELOW THE FOLD:  Officials at Wimbledon have apologized for a bad line call yesterday that cost a match for Russian tennis player Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova. Automatic systems have replaced umpires and the system was off at the time of an errant shot by Britain’s Sonay Kartal.

  The system was re-booted, the point replayed, and Pavlyuchenkova lost it. 

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