FEMA’s Discrimination & Issues w/Other Federal Agencies – Top 3 Takeaways – November 19th, 2024
- No help for you. It’s been two weeks since Election Day. Which means it’s been two weeks since we’ve been talking about Trump’s roadmap to making America Great Again. Time flies when you're having fun. You know when time doesn’t fly? When you don’t have power or running water or potentially even a roof over your head. And while I do know what it’s like to be without power for a week after a hurricane, I’ve been blessed to not know what it’s like to be without running water or without a roof over my head. Sadly, the same is not true for thousands of Americans from Florida to the Carolina’s following Hurricanes Helene and Milton this year. Currently my vacation home in the North Carolina mountains is undergoing renovations following the flooding Helene brought to our home and the region. That we’re able to renovate as opposed to needing to replace makes us among the most fortunate in the area. This was a note I received from a friend on October 24th, nearly a month after the impact of the storm when she finally was able to communicate with the outside world once again: “Honestly, we have all been in shock. 6 of my neighbors washed away. But almost a month later we are cleaning up and building back and moving forward. We will have these mountains back to normal in no time”. As for our contractor, whose home took on significant damage, he Facetimed with Ashley and me to show us that over half of the homes in his neighborhood had washed away. Piles of debris like what you’ve seen on TV were clear all around him for as far as we could see along with layers upon layers of mud. You know who wasn’t around? FEMA. In fact, following the impact of Hurricane Helene, here’s a list of all the people I was told made it to the area to provide assistance to those in need before FEMA. The North Carolina National Guard, The Florida National Guard (in fact many of our neighbors told us that Governor DeSantis had done more in the immediate aftermath of the storm than their own governor had done – let alone FEMA), The Tennessee National Guard and Greg Biffle. Now, the thought by many at the time was that it was just a slow response to a desperate situation by FEMA. Not that a slow response is acceptable but that perhaps it was due to a lack of planning. Maybe it was due to a lack of coordination and understanding of the demanding mountain terrain. What we’ve come to learn is that it’s possible that many of these communities which commonly voted 70 to 80 percent for Donald Trump...
- Were intentionally avoided. As we came to learn following Hurricane Milton’s impact in Florida, a supervisor issued an order that properties with displays for Donald Trump were to be avoided. Specifically, it was documented that there were 20 homes in Lake Placid where people were in need of assistance and yet FEMA deliberately passed them over. This is what FEMA administrator Deanne Criswell will be compelled to address before the House Oversight and Accountability Committee today. While Criswell fired the FEMA supervisor who issued the order, and called the directive “reprehensible”, she also suggested it was isolated. However, the whistleblower who ripped the lid off this discriminatory abuse in Florida, said that it was happening elsewhere including in the Carolinas, and the fired supervisor has come out publicly to say that she’s being used as a scapegoat to coverup the agencies' policies. According to Marn’i Washington, the fired FEMA supervisor, she said: Why is this coming down on me? I am the person that jotted down the notes from my superiors and my notation in [Microsoft] Teams chat was exposed from their search capacity team. This was the culture. They were already avoiding these homes based on community trends from hostile political encounters. It has nothing to do with the campaign sign. It just so happened to be part of the community trend. But I'm just simply executing again, what was coming down from my superiors. That supports the whistle-blower's claim that the practice wasn’t isolated to one supervisor on the ground in Florida, and thus it may also explain the slow or even non-existent FEMA response in North Carolina’s most conservative mountain communities that had been devastated.
- Could you imagine if first responders denied assistance to people in need based upon political beliefs? Yet that’s exactly what emergency management workers in Florida did. That much we know. The questions are how high did the directive go and how pervasive is the practice? Today ought to be an instructive day for what’s been happening at FEMA that can provide team-Trump with an idea about what needs to happen to Make FEMA Great Again, or at least a competent and credible agency. But here’s the next question to ponder as Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy will soon commence a government efficiency committee. What are the odds that federal agencies discriminating against conservatives is limited to just what’s happened recently within FEMA? For example, we know that as far back as twenty years ago, the IRS began the practice of targeting conservatives and conservative groups for further scrutiny as was revealed by the Treasury Department’s Inspector General in 2017. It hadn’t just been limited to the targeting of Tea Party related non-profits in 2010 and 2011 as many for first led to believe. And we’re all well aware of the two-tiered system of justice that let Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden walk, while attempting to put Donald Trump away for the rest of his life. Washington D.C. has nothing in common with the rest of the country. Nothing. It’s a District not a state, and it’s the most left-wing population of people in the country. Kamala Harris won D.C. with 92.4% of the vote. Even in the most left-wing state in the country this election, the land of Bernie, Trump still won 33% of the vote. Meanwhile, across the country Donald Trump won 31 states and over half of the country’s vote. D.C. culturally is clearly a huge part of the problem which is why we not only need fewer agencies doing fewer things with our money. We need Trump’s plan put into motion to move agencies out of Washington, D.C.