Katie Cooper

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Screenshot of part of a recent story in The Arizona Republic about the Dragon Bravo fire and how the number of visitors to the Grand Canyon had already plummeted before the fire broke out in July.

The Arizona Republic reported that tourism to the Grand Canyon has nose-dived, and it’s not just because of the Dragon Bravo fire—which is miles from the South Rim. European reservations plummeted after Trump and Vance’s shouting match
with Zelensky in the Oval Office in February.

Since Trump sounds like he has plans for DC, it’s worth noting that today marks a month since the Interior Department, under Mr Beautification’s watch, lost control of its ‘containment’ plan for the Grand Canyon fire. It’s still burning, and at 140k+ acres, is the largest wildfire in the country.

Raids continue in the L.A. area.

Steve Moore shows Trump a chart of "medium income"

Philip Seymour Hoffman in Twister. That is all.

That amounts to an abandonment or forfeiture of an elected state office. When the Governor calls a Special Session, our Constitution provides that the “Legislature shall meet.” TEX. CONST. art. III, § 5 (emphasis added). It’s not optional. It’s a duty. The absconded Democrat House members were elected to meet and vote on legislation—not to prevent votes that may not go their way. Every session, legislators on both sides of the aisle find themselves on the losing side of a legislative vote. And every session, most of those legislators find a way to disagree agreeably and behave like adults, rather than going AWOL. This truancy ends now. The derelict Democrat House members must return to Texas and be in attendance when the House reconvenes at 3:00 PM on Monday, August 4, 2025. For any member who fails to do so, I will invoke Texas Attorney General Opinion No. KP-0382 to remove the missing Democrats from membership in the Texas House. In that Opinion, the Attorney General considered “whether Texas law allows for a determination that a legislator has vacated office” if they intentionally break quorum. The Attorney General concluded that “whether a specific legislator abandoned his or her office such that a vacancy occurred will be a fact question for a court.” He further concluded that “through a quo warranto action, a district court may determine that a legislator has forfeited his or her office due to abandonment and can remove the legislator from office, thereby creating a vacancy.” That empowers me to swiftly fill vacancies under Article III, Section 13 of the Texas Constitution. In addition to abandoning their offices, these legislators may also have committed felonies. Many absentee Democrats are soliciting funds to evade the fines they will incur under House rules. Any Democrat who “solicits, accepts, or agrees to accept” such funds to assist in the violation of legislative duties or for purposes of skipping a vote may have violated bribery laws. See TEX. PENAL…

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has issued a statement saying he will seek to expel Dems who've left the state from office, adding that he would have the power to fill any vacancies that result.

He's also warning that Dems could face criminal prosecution under TX bribery laws. gov.texas.gov/news/post/go...

@bsky.app

Bluesky has a number of very high-profile folks basically telling Jews to pack their bags and swarms of people are high-fiving it all. Congrats, Bluesky: you’re the left version of Twitter.

Actually heartbreaking, the list of colleagues that have run the show behind the scenes for so many years who are saying their pre-emptive goodbyes and taking literally thousands of years of amassed knowledge and expertise with them.

Not to mention camaraderie and community.

Morale is ... bleak.

Note how Sean Duffy isn’t making promises about safe air travel.
We had a burning plane and aborted takeoff in Denver on Saturday, and a Southwest flight out of Burbank abruptly descending to avoid a midair collision on Friday.

Southwest flight from Burbank drops hundreds of feet to avoid possible collision A Southwest flight out of Burbank Airport experienced a steep drop that injured two flight attendants Friday. The pilot told passengers he was avoiding a collision.

How close was catastrophe? My analysis says ~20 seconds www.latimes.com/california/s...

"White House Warns The View Could Be Canceled" is a hell of a chyron.

Columbia may as well change its name to Vichy University, and its president Claire Shipman should just change her surname to Pétain. No one involved in this decision should ever be able to hold anyone’s respect ever again.

From a Bloomberg story, LA Times owner Soon-Shiong explained to Jon Stewart that in planning to take the paper public, he wants to ‘democratize’ it and allow the public to own it.

For $34.99/mo, I can tell you that Soon-Shiong thinks it’s important for the U.S. to have a trustworthy source of news, and he wants to allow Americans the ability to “own” it.

FEMA search and rescue chief resigns after frustration with Texas flood response | CNN Politics The head of FEMA’s Urban Search and Rescue branch, which runs a network of teams stationed across the country that can swiftly respond to natural disasters, resigned on Monday.

Head of FEMA Urban Search and Rescue branch resigns.
He told colleagues that TX delay was tipping point after months of admin efforts to dismantle the agency. DHS Sec Noem took 72 hours after TX flooding to authorize the deployment of FEMA’s search and rescue network
www.cnn.com/2025/07/21/p...

Over $200 million in taxpayer dollars have been committed to private companies in no bid contracts to build this depraved detention camp in the Everglades. Just one politically connected vendor got a $78 million contract.

Troops, plus a waving FBI agent, outside the federal building in Westwood in June.

No troops now. Rope blocking access is also gone.

And they’re gone. Twenty days ago on the left. Today on the right.

Don Jr telling Oprah in 2004 that his father is NOT an enigma.

Arizona Republic reporting on how weather fueled the Dragon Bravo fire at the Grand Canyon.

Only 61 firefighters were working the fire, which was then 120 acres. It jumped to 1,500 acres the next day. Was there no coordination with the NWS about a rapid drop in humidity—which helped cause the fire activity to pick up? Or did the Interior Dept just roll the dice, and hope for the best?

Tweet from the NWS in Phoenix issuing an extreme heat warning for Arizona.

Why was the Interior Department still using a “contain and control” strategy on the Dragon Bravo fire on July 10 when the National Weather Service issued an extreme heat warning for Arizona the same day—and did DOGE have something to do with it?

Trump on Truth Social mocking Los Angeles during the most destructive fires in the county’s history.

Trump mocked LA’s firefighting capabilities 24 hours in to the Palisades and Altadena fires.

Now, on his watch, the Grand Canyon fire has been burning out of control since Friday—he doesn’t say a peep. One of the largest natl park fires in years, it’s 0% contained, and burned dozens of structures.

Print ad for Francis Ford Coppola’s “Peggy Sue Got Married,” from 1986.

Yeah.

This? Next to the Jungle Cruise, one of the worst, most confining passageways in the park. bsky.app/profile/phot...

🚨A federal judge in Los Angeles has temporarily blocked ICE raids and other arrests in LA and surrounding areas unless there’s “reasonable suspicion” of immigration violations that aren’t based on “apparent race or ethnicity” or speaking Spanish or English with an accent.

Infographic titled “One Court, Two Standards” compares how the Supreme Court used emergency powers to rule on lower-court injunctions against the Biden and Trump administrations. Two panels show: • Biden Administration: Lower courts blocked policies in 21 cases. All 21 cases are represented by red squares, indicating that 0% of injunctions/TROs were lifted by SCOTUS. • Trump Administration: Lower courts blocked policies in 86 cases. 66 green squares and 20 red squares show that 77% of injunctions/TROs were lifted by SCOTUS. Key takeaway box below reads: “Using its ‘shadow docket,’ the Supreme Court granted emergency relief to lift 77% of lower-court injunctions against the Trump administration. It lifted 0% of those against the Biden administration.” Sources and notes below include: CourtListener data through July 7, 2025; analysis by Adam Bonica.

The Supreme Court’s “shadow docket” has cast very different shadows depending on which party holds the White House.

When lower courts blocked Trump admin policies, SCOTUS intervened on an emergency basis to lift those orders in 77% of cases.

For the Biden administration, that number was 0%.

As Floods Hit, Key Roles Were Vacant at Weather Service Offices in Texas

Launch a fake new party when you don’t want people talking about how you helped kill a bunch of people.

www.nytimes.com/2025/07/05/u...

Five days ago, Rep. David Valadao, R-Calif., threatened to vote NO on this bill due to the steeper Medicaid cuts than an earlier version. He just voted YES.

Thomas Massie just walked in and flipped his vote on the rule from yes to no. Love him or hate him, he is one of a kind.

The vote now stands at 207 Y - 217 N, with 5 Republicans opposed and 8 not voting.