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In the meantime, the horrific government response to the tragedy caused by Hurricane Helene, a traditional stronghold of Republicans, is so bad that absent some effort I’ve not yet seen, thousands of people in Georgia and North Carolina will be unable to cast their ballots.
Under this Administration, FEMA, designed to aid citizens in emergency situations like hurricanes, has as its priority aiding millions of illegal immigrants. Three months ago, DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas assured us that FEMA was well-funded to see us through the hurricane season. This week he said they were broke. Broke because over the last two years they stripped out of their funds almost $2 billion for illegal immigrant aid and left Florida, the Carolinas, and Georgia without the disaster relief taxpayers funded for it. Reports from the field are shocking – not only is the government not making relief crews and funds available, but they have been blocking relief by individuals and religious groups, confiscating private donations, blocking private helicopters (including Operation Airdrop with volunteers from Texas to Maine) from rescuing stranded citizens and dropping relief supplies including foods and medicine. They’ve interfered with the distribution of Skylinks donated by Elon Musk and other private donors to communities stranded by flood waters and washed-out roads. (Interesting, isn’t it, that because Musk opposed Biden-Harris the feds are engaged in extensive lawfare against him, this after they had to rely on Musk’s Space X to bring home the astronauts stuck in space because of Boeing’s failures, and denied him a Skylink contract on which he was the winning bidder to hook up rural communities to the internet, a contract still unfilled, but he donated them to the hurricane victims anyway.) One rescuer came upon a church where 200 people who had not eaten in six days were being sheltered. (You won’t get the full story in the legacy media. You have to go to X where people on the ground are reporting in, often with on-site videos.)
Individuals brought in supplies by foot, mule train, and helicopter. Samaritans Purse has been managing to get in supplies. (Do not contribute to the Red Cross. That’s like throwing your money into the floodwaters.) Ranchers offered feed and pastures and stable space. Dolly Parton immediately contributed one million dollars and Dollywood another one million. In a pinch you know who can, who can’t, and who never would. Florida’s governor Ron DeSantis sent relief crews to Appalachia who worked efficiently and quickly to restore roads and services.
Electricity will be hard to provide in the area for months. Among other reasons. there are insufficient supplies of needed replacement transformers, which the Administration shipped to Ukraine.
So bad was the arrogance and interference of FEMA, that reportedly one director in North Carolina who was denying aid was beaten by locals frustrated by his conduct. In some other communities, local sheriffs threatened to arrest FEMA workers if they hindered rescue and aid work. Harris magnanimously offered victims who have lost so much $750 per household. At almost the very time the Administration announced awarding $157 million to displaced Lebanese. (Remember the people displaced there are Hezb'allah who started the war, not the Christians, Druze, and Sunni Moslems whose communities Israel did not target and who remain safely in place.)
Agency whistleblowers are beginning to come forward: “alleging that the agency misappropriated funds in the wake of Helene, withheld pre-disaster aid, and that first responders and service members have been waiting in hotels without deployment orders.”
Bill Shipley explains the difference in this disaster relief and other relief programs for illegal immigrants: