Message from MeidasTouch
By Ben Meiselas
Hello Substack Subscribers. It’s Ben Meiselas, co-founder of MeidasTouch. It’s Sunday, so let’s have a coffee—or a beverage of your choice—together and let’s chat.
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Let’s get into it.
I want to discuss something that sets the MeidasTouch Network apart. We were not afraid to immediately call out the Trump regime and Governor Abbott for their failures related to the flash floods in Kerr County, Texas.
We didn’t hesitate to call out the facts. I stand behind our coverage, and I am proud of our fearless reporting.
The facts are the following:
Trump has fired or forced out a huge number of employees at the NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration), the NWS (National Weather Service), and FEMA.
Trump and his Secretary of Homeland Security, Kristi Noem, have repeatedly called for FEMA to be eliminated.
The Trump regime fired the interim head of FEMA—an ultra-MAGA guy—because he testified before Congress that he personally did not want to see FEMA eliminated.
Kristi Noem has bragged about diverting (aka stealing) $450 million in FEMA funds to fund the Alligator Alcatraz concentration camp in Florida.
Numerous top meteorologists have said weather forecasting is now severely degraded because of the Trump and DOGE cuts.
The Trump regime is now only sending a small fraction of the weather balloons needed for accurate forecasting.
A significant amount of resources within NOAA, NWS, and FEMA have been removed, dismantled, or defunded.
In April, Paul Yura—the warning coordination meteorologist at the NWS Austin/San Antonio office, with over 32 years of experience—was forced out by DOGE and took early retirement.
These are the undisputed facts that predated the flash floods in Texas.
This isn’t spin.
These are just the facts.
Since the catastrophic storm in Kerr County, Texas, here is what we’ve also learned:
Local law enforcement officials blame the NWS for their forecast and ineffective communications.
The top government official in Kerr County said he wasn’t aware the storm would be this big and could not explain why he didn’t evacuate people earlier.
Kristi Noem held a press conference in Texas on Saturday where she blamed faulty equipment and the Biden administration for criticisms about the federal warning.
Noem said Texas was leading the operations related to the flash floods and search and rescue, and that FEMA and the feds would provide resources as needed.
As of the time I am writing this, we know of 52 deaths from the flash floods. Many of these deaths are young girls. There are over 20 young girls from Camp Mystic who are still unaccounted for.
Our hearts go out to all the families enduring this unthinkable tragedy in Texas. I am so sad and heartbroken about this horrible situation. The loss of life is so tragic.
Given the undisputed facts I listed above, I still think it’s critical we ask tough questions of the regime and call out the lack of communication between the federal and Texas state governments. What happened? I feel duty-bound to ask these questions and look into it.
I think one of the biggest issues not being discussed is that states like Texas are simply not equipped to deal with these situations alone.
In the past, the federal government would establish joint responsibilities the moment an emergency forecast was made and immediately pre-position resources.
The feds would work with state and local governments to come up with evacuation and emergency plans—and coordinate it. Together. Even with fast-developing storms, the feds would be there at all stages.
The feds would jealously guard their jurisdiction and authority and would never say they would not be leading efforts regarding catastrophic storms.
How can we ignore that local officials in Texas—from a very pro-MAGA area—are pointing fingers at the NWS and blaming them?
You have Kristi Noem seeming to blame Biden and the NWS equipment, and suggesting that the feds are only playing an ancillary or support role while Texas is taking the lead.
Throughout the Biden administration, MAGA and the media blamed Biden for every natural disaster and catastrophe—even when Biden appropriately responded and mitigated the disasters with all available resources.
Often, MAGA and the compliant media would just make things up and lie about Biden’s handling of situations with defamatory accusations that were reported as fact.
Democrats or others in the media were afraid to come to Biden’s defense for fear of being viewed as weak or an accomplice to the defamatory lies reported as truth.
In the absence of a defense and the truth getting out, the lies became what was reported.
Now, with the Trump regime in power, there seems to be a timidity in calling out the Trump regime’s handling of disasters—as though it’s taboo.
I’ve seen news outlets talk about how America “lost” its emergency forecasting capabilities as if it just disappeared.
I’ve seen people say it’s too soon to criticize Trump or that it’s politicizing the situation.
I don’t think we should ignore what local officials in Texas are saying about the forecasting. Even if the forecast was accurate, was there a robust federal and state coordination before the storm hit, as should have occurred? Why did it take almost a full day for Trump to say anything about the flood? Why was he partying and dancing to the YMCA song on Friday when he should have known what was happening?
Also, this is not the only devastating storm where the issue of resources and federal assistance has become a problem recently.
There have been multiple storms over the past 90 days that have resulted in mass casualty events where federal resourcing and assistance have been an issue.
Many of these storms—in states like Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri, Arkansas, West Virginia, and others—were simply ignored by Trump, even as they caused dozens of deaths. FEMA has denied supplemental emergency requests for both Georgia and North Carolina since Trump took office.
Our reporting must be fearless. It must also be compassionate. We must hold the regime accountable for its failures.
I ultimately know that’s why you are here at the MeidasTouch Substack and why we’ve grown the way we have.
The MeidasTouch Network needs your help today.
As I mentioned before, we don’t have investors. Yet, we still beat Fox and Joe Rogan.
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Thanks for having coffee with me.
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