Bryan Zepp Jamieson<\/i><\/p>\n
October 6th<\/sup> 2024<\/i><\/p>\n In the days following the passage of Hurricane Helene through the deep South, the shitposters came swarming out of Truth Social, Newsmax, and other anal orifices of the web to decry the horrible, even non-existent response by the Biden administration in the way of disaster relief.<\/p>\n It\u2019s going to be a while before we can even really assess the amount of damage Helene did. Certainly, the region suffered more damage than it did during the Civil War. The number of homeless may number in the millions. A lot of regions are accessible only by helicopter, due to the number of roads and bridges that were swept away.<\/p>\n But to the right wing shitposter, no crisis should go to waste. The tone was often openly gleeful; it would make Harris look bad, which would help Trump, so the more dead Americans the better. They even showed up in non-political corners of the web (non-partisan weather-related sites were especially targeted) to spray lies about the catastrophe like AR-15s in a kindergarten. Biden wasn\u2019t answering calls from southern governors. FEMA was showing a clear \u201canti-Republican bias\u201d in aid efforts. In a bout of wishful thinking, the Lord Haw-Haws reported the entire nation was furious over the lack of response. Harris spent all the FEMA money on \u201cillegals.\u201d Over a billion dollars was supposedly missing. And there were no signs of rescue operations at all in North Carolina.<\/p>\n These were all blatant lies, easily debunked. Some didn\u2019t even make sense on the face of it. The Vice President has no say in FEMA spending, or access to same. Air traffic over NC was triple what it would normally be due to the huge amounts of helicopters flying food, water and shelter in to ruined areas.<\/p>\n The source of these lies was easy to pinpoint: it was Donald Trump himself. The king of American shitposters. Just last night, he posted, \u201cThis has been the worst Hurricane Response by a president and vice president since Katrina\u2014and this is simply unacceptable… Kamala wined and dined in San Francisco, and all the people in North Carolina\u2014no helicopters, no rescue. They\u2019re offering $750 to people whose homes have been washed away\u2014meanwhile, they send our money to other countries by the billions.\u201d<\/p>\n It\u2019s a disgraceful response by a disgraceful man. But his followers are ecstatic. They flooded social media with an AI picture purporting to show Trump, in full business suit, wading into floodwater to rescue victims of the storm. No, really. It\u2019s a shame the image isn\u2019t real; they desperately need rafts down there right now, and Trump would make a fine raft.<\/p>\n Normally these shenanigans wouldn\u2019t warrant a response from me. We\u2019re all so used to self-serving, self-aggrandizing bullshit from Trump and his followers that ranting more about it would just put my readers to sleep. Some of you are probably nodding off like Trump in a courtroom right now.<\/p>\n But there\u2019s a couple of more elements to all this that put this up to a higher level.<\/p>\n First, FEMA really is nearly out of funds. Like most of the rest of government, they\u2019ve been getting by on Continuing Resolutions, which means they aren\u2019t even getting cost-of-living adjustments, let alone funds to deal with the ever-increasing weather disasters that stem from climate change. And no, the money wasn\u2019t spent on undocumented immigrants by Kamala Harris.<\/p>\n Congress is in recess. All the representatives are at home for the campaign, sucking for dollars. But responsible members from both parties have been clamoring for an emergency session to provide FEMA with the needed funds. That seems like a no-brainer, and I\u2019ll repeat that the demands are bipartisan.<\/p>\n The man empowered to call Congress back into session isn\u2019t Joe Biden. The President doesn\u2019t have that authority. Neither is it Kamala Harris, even in the role of Presiding Officer of the Senate. Only House Speaker Mike Johnson can do that.<\/p>\n And he will NOT be calling the House back early to vote on a disaster aid supplemental He told Politico\u2019s Olivia Beavers the cost of damages has to be ‘tabulated’ before a supplemental is considered. And that could take some time.<\/p>\n Remember that $750 that Trump was sneering at? It wasn\u2019t to \u201crebuild homes\u201d–it was just to give people in areas not totally destroyed money to get food, water and shelter right now in order to stay alive. And it will save thousands of lives. Johnson, in effect, is saying \u201cdon\u2019t do anything for desperate people until we have some idea of how much they lost.\u201d<\/p>\n I don\u2019t know if it\u2019s an act of political calculation or just pure sociopathy, but Johnson obviously sees merit in crippling rescue and recovery operations. I\u2019m sure that Trump is delighted.<\/p>\n But there\u2019s more. Another hurricane is coming. Hurricane Milton. It is aiming straight toward Tampa Bay, Florida, and is projected to arrive as a major hurricane. It\u2019s a nightmare scenario, since the heavily populated areas around Tampa Bay are particularly vulnerable to storm and tidal surges. It will arrive at new Moon, when tides are particularly high. The result could be a far smaller area devastated, but far more deaths and property damage than we have seen from Helene.<\/p>\n But not to worry. Congress will reconvene after the election, and if they aren\u2019t too busy figuring out how to steal the election for Trump, they might consider throwing a few bucks to the survivors, even if the survivors were too thoughtless to submit an itemized bill first. It\u2019s the Christian Nationalist thing to do, after all.<\/p>\n Also, the long range is hinting at another hurricane which may sweep up past Miami and up the eastern seaboard and into New England. Unlike Milton, it\u2019s far enough in the future to hope that it won\u2019t happen, but it\u2019s a signal that the climate isn\u2019t finished with us just yet, no matter what Congress thinks.<\/p>\n Call your own reps and demand they meet to establish emergency relief aid. It is critically needed, and it will get far worse in the next week. Or go here (https:\/\/abcnews.go.com\/GMA\/News\/hurricane-helene-how-to-help\/story?id=114345534<\/a> ) and donate to the charity of your choice.<\/p>\n And if you encounter Trump\u2019s shitposters, don\u2019t bother being polite. They don\u2019t deserve any human courtesy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Bryan Zepp Jamieson October 6th 2024 In the days following the passage of Hurricane Helene through the deep South, the shitposters came swarming out of Truth Social, Newsmax, and other anal orifices of the web to decry the horrible, even non-existent response by the Biden administration in the way of disaster relief. It\u2019s going to … <\/p>\n