Days after tragic Texas floods, Trump's NOAA demands public TV stations remove weather alerting equipment from towers [View all]

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Ed Markey @SenMarkey
Unbelievable. Just days after the tragic flooding in Texas, NOAA is demanding that public TV stations remove equipment from towers that is critical for these stations to send weather alerts. Trump’s ideological crusade against public broadcasting will cost lives.



...DOGE bot jumped into the twitter thread to claim that 'security' issues necessitated the removal of these critical systems, but pulling them out at the start of hurricane season without ANY replacement ready to go is a criminal grifting sham that will COST LIVES.

However, Trump's focus and concern is on getting cronies billion dollar govt contracts on the lie that these systems aren't sufficient.

Downsizing is part of an effort to privatize the work of such agencies. In several instances, the companies poised to step into the void have deep ties to people tapped by Trump to run weather-related agencies.

Commerce secretary Howard Lutnick oversees the govt’s efforts to monitor and predict the weather. The billionaire also ran a financial firm, which he left in control of his adult sons, that stands to benefit from privatizing government weather forecasting.

Lutnick also played a pivotal role in cultivating Satellogic. He helped raise the capital to take the company public and held a seat on its board until Trump nominated him and holds roughly 13% stake in Satellogic, now billing itself as an emerging weather forcasting contractor.

Trump’s pick to lead the NOAA, Neil Jacobs, was affiliated with Panasonic Weather Solutions and has been a vocal proponent of privatization. The president’s nominee for another top NOAA post, Taylor Jordan, is a lobbyist with a roster of weather-related clients.

Elon Musk, whose SpaceX stands to gain through a new generation of private and federally funded weather satellites that would be carried into orbit on its rockets, directed the cutting of 1/3 of the staff of NOAA’s Office of Space Commerce.

source: https://apnews.com/article/trump-lutnick-weather-service-privatization-conflicts-9892de853c283468e6fb970cfd898d96

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