FEMA Workers Ordered to Ignore Trump Supporters’ Homes

The agency failed to answer nearly half of the calls asking for aid. 

By Kelli Ballard | Nov 10, 2024 @ Liberty Nation News, Tags: Articles, Opinion, Politics

  

 During Hurricanes Helene and Milton, those affected depended on the Federal Emergency Management Agency, or FEMA, to come to their aid. That’s the job, after all. Instead, agents were ordered to skip houses displaying Donald Trump campaign signs, flags, or banners.

FEMA Left Trump Supporters Out to Dry

In October, Florida was hit with rain, flooding, tornadoes, and, of course, the two hurricanes that caused all that aforementioned adverse weather. Highlands County, Florida, sits in the south-central part of the state and took considerable damage, mostly from tornadoes. It’s also a deep-red county, in which about 70% of voters chose Donald Trump for president this year. FEMA agents were called out to help, as they typically are after hurricanes, and one of the agency’s tasks was to sign up affected residents for disaster relief assistance. However, a supervisor in the agency, Marn’i Washington, had instructed workers to “avoid homes advertising Trump.” This was part of a best practices instruction guide that told workers not to go “anywhere alone,” to practice “de-escalation,” stay hydrated, and “follow the rules.” Avoiding Trump supporters was the second bullet on the list of rules.

At least 20 homes were skipped due to Washington’s edict, which she delivered verbally and in a Microsoft Teams chat that relief workers used to communicate with one another. FEMA workers left messages in the agency’s tracking system such as: “Trump sign no entry per leadership.”

“FEMA helps all survivors regardless of their political preference or affiliation and we are deeply disturbed by this employee’s actions,” an agency spokesperson told the New York Post. “The employee who issued this guidance had no authority and was given no direction to tell teams to avoid these homes, and we are reaching out to the people who may have not been reached as a result of this incident.”

“We are horrified that this took place and therefore have taken extreme actions to correct this situation and have ensured that the matter was addressed at all levels,” the representative said.

Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) was furious and said his administration would investigate FEMA. He posted on X:

“The blatant weaponization of government by partisan activists in the federal bureaucracy is yet another reason why the Biden-Harris administration is in its final days.

“At my direction, the Division of Emergency Management is launching an investigation into the federal government’s targeted discrimination of Floridians who support Donald Trump.

“New leadership is on the way in DC, and I’m optimistic that these partisan bureaucrats will be fired.”

Washington’s actions are certainly a firing offense, but there has been some confusion as to what actions FEMA has taken and when. Agency employees told the Daily Wire that she had not been punished and was instead sent to a different county in Florida. A spokesperson for FEMA told The New York Post that she is “no longer working in the state of Florida or in any FEMA operations at this moment.”

“FEMA admits this happened but doesn’t say if the bureaucrat responsible has been fired,” the House Oversight Committee wrote on X. “Democrats relentlessly defend the rules that insulate unelected bureaucrats from accountability and make it nearly impossible to fire bad employees. This is why we need President Trump’s reforms to make bureaucrats accountable.”

Ditch the Diatribe – Try This!

Rep. James Comer (R-KY), chair of the House Oversight Committee, also took to X and posted: “FEMA hasn’t fired this person. … But the IRS has been trying to force IRS whistleblower Gary Shapley out for blowing the whistle! We must hold these unelected bureaucrats accountable.”

Donald Trump Jr. went on X to defend his dad and call out the agency: “This is outrageous even for the democrats in charge and should be criminal. These people should be ousted from FEMA, Government and society! A full investigation is in order!”

Deanne Criswell, FEMA administrator, finally released a statement explaining what happened to Marn’i Washington. “We take our mission to help everyone before, during and after disasters seriously. This employee has been terminated and we have referred the matter to the Office of Special Counsel. I will continue to do everything I can to make sure this never happens again,” she explained in a statement posted on X. But here’s the kicker: That statement wasn’t published until Saturday afternoon.

So here’s the order of events, as far as can be seen in the media: Rumors spread that someone in FEMA was directing employees to skip houses advertising for Trump. FEMA admitted this happened and declared that action was taken, but didn’t clarify what that action was, sparking speculation that the agency might be trying to sweep it all under the rug. One FEMA employee told a news outlet that the person responsible had not, in fact, been fired, but was simply transferred elsewhere. Cue the backlash, including threats of investigations from Congress and Florida’s governor. Then, finally, after all this, FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell took to X to explain explicitly for the first time that Marn’i Washington had been fired. So the question must be asked: Was Washington fired immediately, or did that only come after it became clear Republicans and the public weren’t simply going to let the matter – and the agency’s suspiciously vague answers – slide?

Failure to Answer Almost Half of Calls

FEMA hasn’t been looking too good lately. A recent report shows that, during Hurricanes Helene and Milton, the agency failed to answer almost half of the calls requesting aid and assistance. Because the call centers were so overwhelmed, nearly half of the callers were never connected with a federal worker. Furthermore, of the calls that were answered, it usually took more than an hour before anyone responded.

Funding, or lack thereof, is being blamed. Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas recently said that FEMA “does not have the funds” to help Americans through the rest of the hurricane season. Some people blame the agency for earmarking $640.9 million this year to aid asylum seekers. Those funds cannot be reallocated because Congress assigned that money specifically for illegal immigrants and the migrant crisis.

Government agencies are responsible for assisting all Americans in times of crisis. Trust in these institutions depends on fairness, accountability, and reliability. This situation highlights the critical need for a truly impartial approach to disaster relief, one that rises above politics and serves the people without bias. When disaster strikes, it should remind us of our shared resilience and our duty to support others, regardless of differing opinions or affiliations.

~

Liberty Nation does not endorse candidates, campaigns, or legislation, and this presentation is no endorsement.

Read More From Kelli Ballard

FEMA Foolishness and Moral Hazard

October 20, 2024 by Dan Mitchell @ International Liberty

With hurricane season (hopefully) coming to a close, this is a good opportunity to share this video from John Stossel about the absurdity of government-subsidized insurance in flood-prone areas.

Kudos to Rand Paul for addressing this issue. It’s a textbook case of “moral hazard” when government rewards people for making imprudent choices.

 

Heck, even Crazy Bernie understands that these subsidies are misguided (though I wonder whether he would be on the right side if Vermont had lots of flood plains, just as I wonder whether Sen. Kennedy would be bad on the issue if he was from Vermont).

Public Choice in action!

The left-leaning Washington Post also understands there’s a problem. Here are some excerpts from a new editorial.

Hurricane Helene likely caused more than $30 billion worth of damage. Less than two weeks later, Hurricane Milton inflicted almost $50 billion more. …Who pays for all of this? …Because private home insurers generally find this sector of the business unprofitable, the federal National Flood Insurance Program shoulders the burden of providing homeowners inundation coverage — and it has problems. The NFIP is managed by the Federal Emergency Management Agency…

The program provides nearly $1.3 trillion in coverage to more than 5 million policyholders. It’s funded by the premiums collected from policyholders but borrows from the U.S. treasury when claims it’s obligated to pay outpace revenue, as is often the case. …

And yet Congress has made no fundamental reforms to the program since its inception nearly six decades ago. That cannot continue. …Moral hazard took hold…as developers and other real estate interests gamed the system to suppress premiums and permit building in low-lying areas and beachfronts exposed to storms. …

Heavily lobbied by the interested industries, Congress has taken little action to rectify these long-standing issues, which have been festering for decades. …The one attempt at genuine reform in recent history — the Flood Insurance Reform Act of 2012 — would have ended subsidized rates for second homes and properties that repeatedly flooded. After Hurricane Sandy, however, coastal-state representatives reversed even these modest improvements. …

It’s simply unfair to ask the entire population to provide deep subsidies for properties that, by definition, only a portion of Americans can occupy and enjoy.

I’ve only said this a handful of times, but the Washington Post is correct.

Federal flood insurance is a way for some rich people to shift costs on to the rest of us. And it’s a way for insurance companies to shift their risks on to taxpayers.

The entire programs should be eliminated. Though, like Rand Paul, I’m willing to start by getting rid of the subsidies for rich people’s vacation homes.

P.S. The government also subsidizes insurance in areas susceptible to volcano damage.

Kamala Harris; Failure on the March

By Robin Itzler 

Editor's Note:  This is one of the commentaries selected from Robin's weekly newsletter Patriot Neighbors. Any cartoons appearing will have been added by me.  If you wish to get the full edition, E-mail her at PatriotNeighbors@yahoo.com to get on her list, it's free. RK 

What we have witnessed following Hurricane Helene is that the federal government under Kamala Harris and Joe Biden have failed the American people. From East Palestine, Ohio to Maui, Hawaii to numerous cities in several states devastated by Hurricane Helene, the American people are not a top priority to the Harris-Biden administration. It seems that the only way hurricane victims can get government help is by having their city annex by Ukraine.

Fellow Americans—individuals, groups, private organizations—are on the ground helping Americans! Where is the federal government? FEMA is out of money because they spent $1.4 Billion on Illegal aliens!

FEMA Out of Money!

Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas announced last week that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) doesn’t have enough funding to get through the hurricane season. What about places that might experience tornadoes or earthquakes? Out of luck!

Where did all this money go? To illegal alien invaders! More than $1.4 billion BILLION was spent on illegal alien invaders!  The conservative non-profit America First Legal reports: 

“Over the last 4 years the Biden-Harris admin has steadily transformed FEMA — the agency responsible for responding to natural disasters like Hurricane Helene — into an illegal alien resettlement agency that emphasizes DEI over public safety. The FEMA Shelter and Services Program is designed to exclusively provide shelter and services to illegal aliens.”

When you hear heartbreaking stories of Americans stranded for days without food or water because no one rescued them, remember that somewhere there are ILLEGAL ALIENS being given food, luxury housing, medical, and education from the Harris-Biden administration.

Remember also that the Harris-Biden administration has money, but not for Americans. And especially not for Americans who support Donald Trump.

Look at what Secretary of State Blinken tweeted on October 4, while so many Americans are suffering from Hurricane Helene! On November 5, the United States makes history or becomes history. 

One reader sent this to me:

The Peter Principle is a concept in management developed by Laurence J. Peter which observes that people in a hierarchy tend to rise to "a level of respective incompetence": employees are promoted based on their success in previous jobs until they reach a level at which they are no longer competent, as skills in one job do not necessarily translate to another.  Kamala Harris has surpassed the Peter Principle by a wide margin. Her level of incompetence is astounding. 

In truth, the Peter Principle doesn't really apply to Kamala Harris, because before becoming Vice President she was never successful at anything, and she has been a failure at being VP!  She's always been incompetent.  Which is why her original effort to become President during the 2020 race was a total bust and she had to drop out even before the first primary.

Hurricane Milton, a Lack of Leadership, and Election 2024

Milton may turn out to be the real October surprise.

by Leesa K. Donner | Oct 8, 2024 @ Liberty Nation News, Tags, Articles, Opinion, Politics

The Gulf Coast of Florida is bracing for what is being billed as an historic weather event as Hurricane Milton strengthens to a Category 5 storm with winds up to 150 mph. Coming on the heels of Hurricane Helene – which has devastated parts of Georgia and North Carolina – Milton may just be the defining moment of Election 2024. After all, what is the government’s purpose if it does not come to the aid of its citizens in moments of hardship? Right now, a lot of Americans are hurting, and when Milton makes landfall tomorrow (Oct. 9), more people will be in desperate need of help. Will the Biden-Harris administration step up to the plate? If the response to Helene is a harbinger of things to come, it’s unlikely.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) ineffectiveness has been a cornerstone of criticism regarding the lack of aid to people suffering in the aftermath of Helene. Yesterday (Oct. 7) on Fox & Friends, GOP vice presidential candidate JD Vance suggested the federal government’s poor response was due to a lack of leadership: “I think the fundamental mistake the Kamala Harris administration has made here … was that from the get-go you should have imposed military-style command and control.”

Vance asserted that an organized military approach would have cut back on the red tape and delivered goods and services to those most in need in a targeted fashion. Helicopter and airplane landings could have been coordinated, as well as food and water distributions. As it is, he said, “The problem here, I really believe, is it’s like the DMV [Department of Motor Vehicles] at industrial scale, and because of it, a lot of folks in North Carolina are suffering unnecessarily.”

Thus far, FEMA has been in the eye of the poor response storm, and those affected by the first hurricane are hopping mad about it. Residents of the two states have been begging for government assistance. However, it appears that those stepping up are private organizations and community relief efforts. As Liberty Nation’s Sarah Cowgill reported, “[H]eartlanders are deploying whatever resources they must to help their neighbors.” Meanwhile, hurricane survivors continue to hang on for the broke and illusive organization that could easily be dubbed the Federal Emergency Migrant Assistance program – the all-new FEMA.

On Fox, Will Cain asked Vance how he and former President Donald Trump would put Americans first in this situation:

“[T]he fundamental point [is] that the Biden Harris administration has turned FEMA effectively into an agency that helps to resettle and helps to deal with illegal immigration. That is just fundamentally going to distract focus from their core job of helping American citizens in their time of need. “

However, FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell vociferously disagreed with the Republican assertion that FEMA has used its funds for the illegal migrant population. USA Today quoted Criswell’s interview on ABC’s This Week news program:

“Criswell defended FEMA’s response and shot down Trump’s claims that the agency is short on disaster relief funds because money has been diverted to help undocumented immigrants and that help is being withheld from Republican areas, calling such assertions ‘frankly ridiculous and just plain false.’”

Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R-LA) made an effort to clear up the matter on Fox News Sunday. “The streams of funding are different, that is not an untrue statement, of course.” But the Biden-Harris administration, under the direction of Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, has been putting federal money toward the resettlement of those who have crossed the border illegally. Johnson added, “That’s what the Biden administration, Kamala Harris and Secretary Mayorkas have been engaged in.”

The Federal Emergency Management Agency’s mission is to help people in times of natural disaster, and whatever the reason its response has been neither timely nor well-coordinated.

Hurricane Milton — Its True Cost Will Be at the Polls

No matter which cache of federal funds was used, those whose homes and lives have been destroyed by Helene and those who will suffer the same fate when Hurricane Milton lands likely don’t care. What concerns them is Mayorkas’ statement that FEMA is broke. Meanwhile, yesterday (Oct. 7), “[T]he Inspector General for Homeland Security released a report saying FEMA is sitting on at least $8.3 billion in untapped, unspent funds.”

Bored? Check This Out!

While this political game of verbal gotcha takes place, hurricane victims are left holding the bag. Fortunately, Sunshine State residents have Gov. Ron DeSantis as their failsafe. DeSantis has proven to be a tried-and-tested leader when it comes to dealing with hurricanes. And it could be said that leadership – even more than money — appears to be what is sorely lacking in this challenging time.

But make no mistake: These unplanned events will affect the upcoming election as thousands of people are likely to express their displeasure with those who didn’t step up to assist their fellow Americans when they were in desperate need.

~

Liberty Nation does not endorse candidates, campaigns, or legislation, and this presentation is no endorsement.

Read More From Leesa K. Donner

News and Views

By Rich Kozlovich

I've not posted much about the two debates because the national consensus is clear.  Both Trump and Vance won, hands down,  even with the help of a corrupt, antagonistic, and lying media promoting a leftist agenda, both Kamala and Walz looked like dimwits.

Ford has lost billions on their ridiculous electric vehicles agenda, and so what do they do? Double down on stupid.  It's mind boggling. The same people who are working to destroy the world's energy production, are the same people telling us to convert to electric vehicles. How in the world did that stupid gene become so ubiquitous? Answer, it was always been there, but mostly dormant, all that was needed to fan that ember of stupidity into flame was a thoroughly corrupted system of education. And it's here, and maybe ... just maybe....  it's a good time to look at eliminating tenure in academia.

• My 

But it gets better all the time.   It turns out if the world is going to embrace AI and quantum computing, and it is, then and in order to do that the energy needs are going to be ....MASSIVE....!  Far beyond what we're producing now, and so far beyond what all these idiotic "alternative" environmentally destructive energy schemes are capable of producing.  

These expensive alternative energy programs are at best unreliable, and so unreliable that traditional power plants have to be built and maintained and running on stand by in order to supply power when these stupid green sources fail to work, such as when the sun stops shining in the winter and the wind stops blowing in the summer. In order to have ‘alternative’ energy we have to pay for energy we aren’t using in order to pay for energy we don’t need. How stupid can we get?

Solution?  Traditional energy production ramped way up, and nuclear.  And guess who's all on board with that.  Mister (globalism is beautiful, all leftism is good and pure, reduce the world's population, eat bugs to save the world from global warming himself) Bill Gates.  Remarkable! 

FEMA is a DEI disaster, the left loves hurricane Helene, and while the people in these states are suffering terribly, the left loves it because conditions are so bad all these Republican strongholds may not:

 

"be able to cast their ballots".  Due to... "FEMA's arrogance and interference....... 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."  ...........FEMA blew out its budget to pay for illegals, now it's using its remaining resources to block aid from private citizens October 3, 2024 by Monica Showalter They're from the government and they're here to help themselves........  Axelrod gloats that North Carolina's Hurricane Helene victims in pro-Trump areas may be unable to vote.

 

Given their incompetence, and their corruption, and massive waste of America tax dollars I think we need to ask if it's time to abolish FEMA?

 

Biden wants to give millions to Lebanon, and billions to Ukraine, which is being stolen hand over fist, and then says he's out of money to give to Americans "who remain stranded, homeless, powerless, and without access to necessities like food and water.".........."Are American lives not as important to the Democrats as the lives of illegal aliens? Apparently not, in the eyes of the Democrats. Make no mistake about it, siege and starvation are tools of warfare. And the Democrats are, by calculation, waging war against the dying citizens of western North Carolina."......

But the real fault for this hurricane is global warming, right?  Well, since the world stopped warming over 25 years ago, it isn't global warming any longer, it's climate change, which encompasses everything and anything.  And we know it's true because the media says so. Or then again.....is it possible they're lying?  

However, I now think we all should give CNN a round of applause.   In spite of all their lies and corruption, (if lies and corruption defined being a predator, they'd be an apex predator)  they've apparently decided it would be financially better for them to have less viewers than they do now, which has been steadily shrinking.  So, they've now decided you will have to pay a monthly fee of $3.99 to watch them spout their lies.  What could possibly go wrong?  I wonder if anyone there remembers just how successful their pay for view CNN+ streaming service worked for them?  For those who don't know, it failed.

Let's try and get this right.  Anthropogenic Global Warming is one of the greatest scientific frauds ever perpetrated on humanity, and if the media embraces it, you know it's a lie. This link will take you to my global warming commentaries.

Helene was a monster storm destroying homes, power infrastructure, bridges, destroying whole towns, killing over 200 people with untold numbers still missing, through out Tennessee, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, and North Carolina.  The estimated cost? Over three hundred billion dollars.  But not to worry, America is going to provide $157 Million in humanitarian aid to people affected by  the crisis in Lebanon.   And who are these people in Lebanon?  

(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.)

As for those Americans devastated by Helene, Kamala  says:

“… the federal relief and assistance that we have been providing has included FEMA providing $750 for folks who need immediate needs being met, such as food, baby formula, and the like.  And you can apply now.”  

Wow, a whole $750 bucks from the Obama/Biden/Kamala/Walz/Mayorkas cabal, while Dolly Parton is personally donating a million dollars for hurricane Helene relief efforts.  Why's FEMA out of money?  Because they lavished their funds on illegal migrants.  The agency Mayorkas claimed two months ago was totally prepared for such and event.  

Who really is Kamala's base?  Let's try this: Those who are mentally disturbed, amoral, immoral, dependent on government in some way, along with those who are ignorant and stupid. What could possibly go wrong?  A lot!  If there was any doubt America's military leadership has been corrupted by Obama resulting in a military that's incapable of defending the nation, we now have over 200 retired Generals and Admirals endorsing Trump and address why they feel that's necessary. 

Talking more about doubling down on stupid, there's always, Liz Chaney, who the Democrats now love, along with her father, the man they vilified as a real life Darth Vader for decades, and now believe these two misfits are going to rally a massive number of Republicans against Trump.  "What a time to be alive."   

Well Liz, enjoy the limelight.  The Republicans hate you, and the Democrats are laughing at you, and when the election is over, no matter how it turns out, no one will want you around them, because your legacy will be a Benedict Arnold legacy, right along with your dad.  I often wonder what her mother thinks, since she's been silent over all this.   Liz is now campaigning with Kamala, and I know the real reason for that.   It's a competition to see who can be crowned the most unlikable person in America.   I'm just surprised George Conway isn't on the stage with them.  George Conway claims Trump is another Hitler and a cancer on American life, and  Caroline Giuliani, Rudy Giuliani's daughter says Trump as a disease’.   Does anyone beside me think that falls under the category of being justifiably certifiable?

Then we have Democrats, masters at projection, accusing Trump of election interference, which is like Stalin accusing someone of being inhumane.   

"That is the ultimate danger of a Harris/Walz administration. Starting from deep in the well of corruption, how much lower will they go? The answer: as low as necessary to destroy the republic and replace it with “our democracy.” 

"As the venerable saying goes, you can vote your way into socialism, but you have to shoot your way out."

Finally, we just gotta see the humor in this.  Mexico's new President, Claudia Sheinbaum who is defined in one word, leftist, and appears with the approval of the drug cartels, has been sworn in what's being called a ‘Satanic’ Inauguration Ceremony.   A nation awash in murder, child sex trafficking, illegal drugs, much of which goes on with the corrupt acceptance of government officials, is now wanting to sue America gun makers for ten billion dollars.  Yep, all that corruption is the fault of American gun makers.    

It's not only time for a border wall, it's time we totally shut down immigration, deport all the illegals, most of them to Mexico who allowed them to cross their country into America, and end the North American Trade agreement putting massive tariffs on anything coming from Mexico, or even cutting Mexico out of the picture entirely. 

FEMA’s DEI Crippled Hurricane Helene Response

By Daniel Greenfield @ Sultan Knish Blog

 

“I don’t know that anybody could be fully prepared for the amount of flooding and landslides that they are experiencing right now,” FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell protested to CBS News.

The ravages of Hurricane Helene had left parts of Asheville, North Carolina underwater, but it wasn’t just the homes and roads that were underwater, but FEMA’s botched response..

Criswell, who had been appointed to head FEMA by the Biden-Harris administration as a reward for coordinating New York City’s horrendously botched response to the pandemic, posed in a starched FEMA blouse and gold necklace on a morning show even as private volunteers were once again having to step in because the Federal Emergency Management Agency had failed.

FEMA was unprepared for the flooding because under Criswell, a DEI hire whose resume included being “the first woman commissioner of New York City Emergency Management”, the agency had shifted from disaster management to DEI disasters.

Goal 1 of FEMA’s Strategic Plan was to “instill equity as a foundation of emergency management”. FEMA’s Objective 1.1 was also not disaster management, it’s to “cultivate a FEMA that prioritizes and harnesses a diverse workforce”. FEMA’s leadership was required to make its priority “integrating diversity, equity, and inclusion in delivering the agency’s mission.”

Leading the way in implementing FEMA’s new ideological disaster management was Vice President Kamala Harris who claimed that she had started one of the “first environmental justice units of any DA’s office” when she helped turn San Francisco into a crime zone, and claimed that it’s “communities of color that are most impacted by” weather and natural disasters.

Kamala then argued that “we have to address this in a way that is about giving resources based on equity” so that minorities would be first in line for aid regardless of who has the greater need.

FEMA kicked off hurricane season in 2022 with a preparedness campaign contending that black people were more vulnerable to hurricanes because, according to FEMA Deputy Administrator Erik Hooks, “black communities are on the frontlines of climate change.”

Hooks, another Biden-Harris nominee, had been appointed deputy administrator despite only five years of experience in emergency management, in order to “infuse equity across our agency” described the campaign prioritizing black people for natural disasters as reaffirming “our commitment to equity”. But FEMA’s commitment to equity was getting people killed.

“Black and African American communities often suffer disproportionate impacts from disasters. This is something that we must work to change and that starts with how we prepare,” FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell argued.

A few weeks later, Hurricane Ian became the third most expensive weather disaster and claimed over 150 lives. Most of the dead were white senior citizens. Elderly people living near the coast were the ones actually most at risk. FEMA had sacrificed their lives for equity.

Instead of atoning for the lives lost, Administrator Criswell doubled down by signing an agreement with the NAACP, a Biden-Harris administration ally, and assured illegal aliens that they could apply for taxpayer-funded aid. FEMA directed millions to creating “equitable” fire departments and tried to make sure too many white people weren’t applying for disaster aid.

During the devastating fires in Hawaii last year, FEMA was busy running DEI training which falsely claimed white supremacy is “ingrained in nearly every system and institution in the U.S” as part of ‘Goal 1’ and its mandate to make “equity a foundation of emergency management.

The introduction to FEMA’s Building Alliances for Equitable Resilience by Chauncia Willis, a former wellness and diversity coach, urges disaster officials to reach out to “LGBTQ+ advocacy groups, Black Lives Matter chapters”.

The DEI bureaucracy at FEMA had fundamentally tainted its risk calculations. As Freedom Center Investigates revealed in a 2022 investigation, the agency’s National Risk Index had baked in a “social vulnerability” component based on the percentage of minority groups.

A town that is 40% black, 33% Hispanic and 12% Asian is calculated by FEMA as being more at risk than a town that is made up of 23% Italian-Americans, 44% Irish, 9% Jews and 18% Swedish-Americans. Two towns with the same risk level, but different racial numbers will put the minority town ahead of the non-minority one when it comes to aid to prepare for a disaster.

Asheville, North Carolina, which has an 84% white population and only 4.5% black population, was doomed to be considered lower risk than similar black or minority areas because of the systemically racist algorithms being employed by federal bureaucrats at FEMA.

Administrator Criswell told the media that FEMA couldn’t have been prepared for the historic flooding in North Carolina, but the area has a history of floods going back two centuries. The Great Flood of 1916 had killed 80 people and flooded the area with more rain than ever before. Had FEMA studied the history of floods, instead of the history of race, it might have been ready.

But the Biden-Harris administration had illegally mandated racial discrimination across every federal agency with its ‘equity’ executive orders.

The dead in North Carolina are just more of the victims of the systemic racism of equity.

FEMA’s failures in Hurricane Helene were not an accident. They were the inevitable outcome of prioritizing ideology over mission, quotas over merit, and race over need. A DEI leadership dedicated to enacting DEI has ineptly presided over another natural disaster. From East Palestine to Ashevillle, the Biden-Harris administration has allowed innocent people to suffer and die because the racist ideology of equity values some lives less depending on their race.

The foundation of disaster management can either be racial equity or disaster response.

FEMA Administrator Criswell, Deputy Administrator Hooks, and FEMA’s DEI bureaucracy have demonstrated that it cannot be both because there’s no room for DEI when people are dying.

Daniel Greenfield is a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center. This article previously appeared at the Center's Front Page Magazine. Click here to subscribe to my articles. And click here to support my work with a donation.

From San Francisco, another Great Moment in Local Government

June 27, 2020 by Dan Mitchell @ International Liberty 

Some people say that California is the worst-governed state (I would probably choose Illinois or New Jersey, but it’s a close race).  And if you wanted to pick the worst-governed place in California, San Francisco might be at the top of the list.  The city manages to combine horrible zoning laws with insufferable red tape (there have been efforts to ban everything from Happy Meals to…umm…foreskins).

 

Most disturbing of all, San Francisco now has a major problem with public defecation (not that the sewer system is anything to brag about).  In an article for City Journal, Erica Sandberg explores the latest bit of upside-down governance from The City by the Bay.

San Francisco is surreptitiously placing homeless people in luxury hotels by designating them as emergency front-line workers, a term that the broader community understands to mean doctors, nurses, and similar professionals. …the city has evoked emergency-disaster law to keep the information private. Officials refuse to notify the public about what is happening in their community and are blocking the press by withholding the list of hotels and preventing reporters from entering the properties. …obfuscation is ultimately futile. Security guards standing outside hotel entrances, where they had never been before, are clear indicators that something is amiss. An uptick in crime, drug activity, and vagrancy around the hotels is another clue.

This sounds crazy, but it gets even worse.

The Department of Public Health manages the controversial free alcohol, cigarette, and cannabis program for homeless people placed in the hotels. …A public-records investigation into the matter has revealed that, as of June 16, DPH approved $3,795.98 to buy the homeless guests vodka and beer (cigarettes have been scrapped). …concerned inside sources report destroyed rooms and rampant illegal drug use. In one hotel, guests are given needle kits and are advised to call the front desk before shooting up. …The hotels were pressured into accepting the homeless guests, though they were also eager for the chance to recoup some revenue lost to the Covid-19 lockdowns. …The city-sponsored guests also receive personal grooming, sanitary, and cleaning supplies, three delivered meals, and laundry service for clothes and linens.

Free hotel room, along with free food and laundry service? And booze and pot? Who knew being homeless was such a good racket!  Since I’m a fiscal wonk, this is the part that captured my attention.

Rooms are rented at close to $200 per night, totaling $6,000 a month—nearly double the cost of a private one-bedroom apartment in San Francisco.

Though I shouldn’t be surprised by such profligacy. The state government’s “success story” was spending “billions of dollars” to cause homelessness to “dip by 1 percent.”  And San Francisco’s government had a different program for the homeless that cost about $700 per night. So maybe the new approach described in above article is a fiscal bargain.  By the way, it appears that taxpayers across the country are contributing to this insane policy.

Hotel owners consented to the arrangements fully aware of the potential pitfalls, having been assured that FEMA dollars would cover at least some of the damages incurred.

Good ol’ FEMA. Always ready, willing, and able to foolishly spend taxpayer money.

P.S. While San Francisco is a bit of a mess, folks in other cities (such as Seattle, Chicago, New York City, Detroit, etc) can make a legitimate claim that they have the nation’s worst local government.

P.P.S. When he crunched all the numbers, Dean Stansel of Southern Methodist University found that the Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario metropolitan statistical area in California had the worst policy in the country (San Francisco was #38 out of the 55 MSAs with at least 1 million residents).
 

Data shows Christian Nonprofits Provided More Hurricane Relief than FEMA

By Constitution.com September 11, 2017

Christian non-profit organizations have outdone FEMA and provided the vast majority of the relief aid to victims of Hurricanes Harvey and Irma.  Faith-based relief groups are responsible for providing nearly 80 percent of the aid delivered thus far to communities with homes devastated by the recent hurricanes, according to USA Today. An alliance of non-profit organizations called National Voluntary Organizations Active in Disaster (NVOAD), 75 percent of which are faith based, has helped FEMA distribute relief assistance to communities hit by disasters and assisted families in navigating government aid programs to begin the process of rebuilding............From the Daily Caller News Foundations:

 

Fear, Everywhere, Fear

 By Alan Caruba

This originally appeared here.  I wish to thank Alan for allowing me to publish his work.  RK

If my emails and the headlines I am reading indicate anything, there is widespread fear among Americans that something terrible has occurred with the reelection of President Obama. Not all Americans, though. Those who voted for Obama appear to remain oblivious despite the threat of a “fiscal cliff” or the new taxes in Obamacare that will kick in on January 2^nd.

We have a Secretary of the Treasury, Timothy, Geithner, calling for an end to debt ceilings, apparently believing that America can continue to borrow money to pay for the interest on its escalating debt, now pegged at $16 trillion and growing daily. The U.S. borrows $4 billion a day. Anyone with a credit card knows that their payments increase as they struggle to deal with their personal debt. Eventually they either declare bankruptcy or turn to companies that negotiate a payment to release them.

If America was to default on its debt, the dollar, already in free fall, would be worth nothing. We would be bartering shiny beads and anything else to buy food and other necessaries. We would become Zimbabwe where you need a million of their dollars to buy a loaf of bread.

Writing recently on her Fox Business blog, Gerri Willis spelled out the huge rise in taxes Americans are facing. “All told, next year, total taxes will go to almost 50% for the middle class; the very group that the president says he wants to protect. That means 50 cents out of every dollar earned has to go to the government. Half of everything will go to an entity that didn't earn that money, and shouldn't be entitled to all that dough.”

What kind of madness is it that the Teamsters union would impose such senseless rules that it would weaken Hostess to the point of bankruptcy, preferring to let the company die rather than to protect the jobs of 18,500 bakers? Other unions are engaged in attacks on a weakened economy. What kind of nation is it that its government employees are lobbying Congress to not only increase their pay, but to exempt them from the impact of the spending cuts scheduled to kick in?

There is a full-scale attack on the privacy Americans have taken for granted, protected by the fourth Amendment that says “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated…”

On November 14^th, the Heritage Foundation asked “Do you trust the government with your computer?” The government has had “13 breaches and failures of its own cybersecurity just in the last six months.”  Even so, “the President and his allies in the Senate are pushing forward to regulate America’s cyber-doings, without any clues about how much this will cost or how it will work.”

“It has become the norm with this President—if Congress fails to accomplish his objectives, he goes around it with executive orders and federal regulations. He’s doing it again. Congress did not pass the Cybersecurity Act of 2012 before the election, so the President has issued a draft of an executive order to put much of that legislation in place without lawmakers voting.”

This is the very essence of tyranny and the President has had four years to perfect it. Are conservative think tanks the only ones paying any attention? It would appear so.

A new proposed law in the Senate would strip Americans of any privacy as they communicate with one another by email. A vote for the law would allow warrantless access to American’s email and is scheduled for a vote shortly. It would allow 22 federal agencies as well as state and local law enforcement to access one’s emails with nothing more than a subpoena. This is totally unconstitutional.

Already $16 trillion in debt, the government is looking for ways to take over the $3 trillion that is held in private retirement plans such as 401(k) plans and IRA’s. A recent hearing by the Treasury and Labor Departments addressed the nationalization of the nation’s pension system. The director of the National Senior’s Council, Robert Crone, warns “It is clear that this is the first step towards a government takeover. It feels just like the beginning of the debate over health care and we all know how that ended up.”

As we move closer to an Electoral College vote confirming Obama’s reelection, whistleblowers are coming forth in Ohio, Florida and elsewhere to reveal that significant voter fraud was a contributing factor, but it receives little or no media coverage. One must ask how 99% of votes in Philadelphia districts went to Obama and ask why nothing is being done to investigate this and other offenses such as the 141.1% of the vote recorded in Florida’s St. Lucie County. That is statistically impossible, but it robbed Rep. Allen West (R) of his seat in Congress.

This isn’t government. It is gangsterism. It is “the Chicago way.”

The monster Homeland Security Agency just graduated its first class of FEMA Corps, kids aged 18-24, recruited from the President’s Americorps volunteers, that will become a full time, paid standing army. Fears of FEMA camps abound and in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, people seeking shelter and food were herded into one that resembled a concentration camp of the Nazi regime and told not to use various means of communication to contact the media or outside community. They went from hurricane victims to prisoners of the government.

In so many ways, the freedoms protected by the U.S. Constitution are in danger of disappearing along with the separation of powers it requires.

Little wonder that citizen’s petitions from a growing number of states are called for secession. Or that governors are refusing to set up the Obamacare exchanges required by a law that has taken control of twenty percent of the nation’s economy; their budgets held hostage to Medicaid.

On an individual level, people who have jobs are fearful of losing them. College graduates are fearful of the huge debt they carry for the loans they received. People wonder if they can afford to get married. Married couples fear the cost of having another child. Homeowners fear not being able to pay their mortgages. Seniors fear that their savings won’t last as they live longer.

There is ample reason to fear not only the collapse of the nation’s economy, but the loss of liberty in America.  

© Alan Caruba, 2012