Cruz pushed for NOAA cuts days before Texas flooding

[BumRushDaShow]

Source: Salon

Published July 8, 2025 6:07PM (EDT)


Texas Sen. Ted Cruz slashed funding for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration mere days before his state was hit by deadly flash floods. According to a report from The Guardian, Cruz amended President Donald Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” to end a $150M fund that sought to “accelerate advances and improvements in research, observation systems, modeling, forecasting, assessments, and dissemination of information to the public.”

The ultimate goal of the federally funded program was to create better forecasts with more lead time. The funding cuts follow staffing reductions at the NOAA, prompted by the Department of Government Efficiency earlier this year. At the time, experts warned those cuts could “severely impair” NOAA’s performance. In the aftermath of the flooding in Texas, questions have been raised about whether staffing cuts played a role in the disaster’s impact, including by Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., who called for an investigation into whether understaffing led to “delays, gaps, or diminished accuracy”.

National Weather Service offices in Austin-San Antonio and San Angelo – those involved in forecasting and warning the areas around the Guadalupe River — have 10 combined vacancies. But the NWS is defending itself against any implication that its understaffing exacerbated the disaster.

Tom Fahy, legislative director for the NWS, said weather forecasting offices “had adequate staffing and resources as they issued timely forecasts and warnings leading up to the storm.” Cruz has called critiques of the NWS “partisan fingerpointing” and told CBS News now isn’t the time to place blame.

Read more: https://www.salon.com/2025/07/08/cruz-pushed-for-noaa-cuts-days-before-texas-flooding/

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His spinning blame brain goes non-stop.

[Skittles]

1. we already knew he was a piece of shit

not much to add

[Javaman]

2. and yet the idiots of my state still elect this fuckiing moron.

well, elect is a pretty strong word for a state that continues to gerrymander and suppress votes.

[AverageOldGuy]

3. Who is this "Senator Ted Cruz?"

Never heard of him.

I am familiar with a Senator Rafael Edward Cruz, born Dec 22, 1970, in Calgary, Alberta, Canada to a Cuban father and American mother. I'm not aware of anyone having checked his mother's background to ensure she was an American citizen when Rafael was born.

Besides, being a citizen because you were born abroad to at least one American citizen parent sounds to me like "birthright citizenship."

Has anyone seen Rafael's birth certificate? Or his mother's? Sounds like this needs to be investigated.

[BumRushDaShow]

5. The last time this came up as part of the rebirth of the GOP loon "birtherism" nonsense

he ended up being "forced" (after the calling out his hypocrisy) to officially renounce his Canadian citizenship.

Ted Cruz Renounces Newly Discovered Canadian Citizenship

By Nolan Feeney
June 10, 2014 7:02 PM EDT


Texas Senator (and possible 2016 presidential hopeful) Ted Cruz has formally given up his Canadian citizenship, about nine months after learning he had it.

(snip)

Cruz intended to give up his Canadian citizenship, which was not a secret, after The Dallas Morning News first brought it to his attention — to the surprise of him and his family — last August.

“Nothing against Canada, but I’m an American by birth and as a U.S. senator, I believe I should be only an American,” said Cruz, who was born in the Canadian province of Alberta, at the time.

Like U.S. law, Canadian law dictates that anyone born in Canada becomes a Canadian citizen automatically. Babies born in non-U.S. countries to at least one American parent are entitled to American citizenship as well. The U.S. Constitution requires presidents to be “natural born” citizens, which is commonly believed to include Americans born with the right to citizenship, even if they were not born on American soil specifically.

And note this from above -

The U.S. Constitution requires presidents to be “natural born” citizens, which is commonly believed to include Americans born with the right to citizenship, even if they were not born on American soil specifically.

The highlighted portion in the above came into play 6 years earlier with John McCain, who was an "Army Brat" born on a base in Panama (and even in that case, he was not actually born "on the base", which is considered "American territory" like a U.S. Embassy, but at some off-base facility). Although McCain didn't engage in the birtherism crap, the GOP voters embraced it and had to be stopped dead in their tracks with the presentation of the facts of a McCain "exception" to what they defined as "natural born citizen", while they were ridiculously attacking Obama, who was born IN the state of Hawai'i, which had officially become a state a few years before he was born, TO an American citizen mother from Kansas.

[tanyev]

4. Pushed for NOAA cuts and then popped off to Greece, huh?

I’ll bet he was ticked he got recognized there.

[bronxiteforever]

6. He is a horrible person

[liberalla]

7. That's funny!

[Bengus81]

10. LOL...should have gone with a much larger GUT hanging out

[LetMyPeopleVote]

8. The Onion made me smile

[Bengus81]

9. Then he got the hell out of town for his International vacation

What a POS that Texan's will elect over and over and over.....

[republianmushroom]

11. Cruz did blame God,

he does think of himself as a God.

[Scalded Nun]

12. Texans: "We know he is a piece of shit who has done absolutely nothing for this state or its citizens.

But wait! There's that big black guy over there running against him. We love you Ted!"

[ananda]

13. That's all we got in Texas now: worthless pieces of shit.

Grrr

[RedWhiteBlueIsRacist]

14. Camp Killer Cruz, would be a great name to hang around his neck.

[sakabatou]

15. So he cut funding, and then went on vacation.

Doesn't surprise me.