The politics of hurricanes and other disasters (1 Viewer)

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    superchuck500

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    There’s a lot of discussion of this in various threads but I think it needs its own. In the aftermath of Helene, we have Milton bearing down on the Tampa area. It looks like it’s gonna be bad. The FEMA Director has already said that additional funds are needed – but speaker Johnson has indicated that he does not wish to reconvene the house in order to approve additional disaster funding.

    There have been 152 declared disaster areas in 2024 – I looked it up. They come in the form of fires, floods, blizzards, and ice, storms, earthquakes, tornadoes, and hurricanes. There is no set number of assistance funds needed in any given year, and anyone who suggest that “FEMA spent all the money” is being ignorant or worse.

    Milton is going to be bad. This is going to be a big issue in the near term. And it counties to shock me that MAGA in Congress won’t vote for disaster funds - including people like Senator Rick Scott of Florida and Congresswoman Nancy Mace of coastal South Carolina. How on earth do they get re-elected?

    And I just want to also say that I HATE the online ignorance about this stuff. Like people using a flight tracker of a NOAA hurricane hunter flight as evidence of storm seeding. It’s just so stupid.


     
    If it's an official petition to be filed with the state, I don't think it's legal to offer any kind of benefit in exchange for people signing it. Giving someone a chance at winning a million dollars is a benefit.
    but he is betting trump will let him off.
     
    but he is betting trump will let him off.
    I found out more about it. The petition isn't anything official and it's really just Elon Musk trying to bribe people to register to vote. To sign the petition to have a chance at winning a million dollars, a person has to register to vote first.
     
    I found out more about it. The petition isn't anything official and it's really just Elon Musk trying to bribe people to register to vote. To sign the petition to have a chance at winning a million dollars, a person has to register to vote first.
    Well, the other thing Elon gets is all your contact info if you sign his petition. 🤷‍♀️

    But giving someone money to register is definitely against federal law, whether what he is doing actually breaks the law is unclear. I suppose he could argue that he is rewarding signing the petition, and being registered to vote is merely a condition to be eligible to sign the petition.

    Several people on line called the first million dollar winner scenario into question - I didn’t watch it, but I saw people saying it looked stilted. The guy didn’t seem to be overly excited, and people were speculating it was a set up and not real. 🤷‍♀️
     
    I found out more about it. The petition isn't anything official and it's really just Elon Musk trying to bribe people to register to vote. To sign the petition to have a chance at winning a million dollars, a person has to register to vote first.
    let the roles be reversed let Taylor Swift do the exact same type of thing and the Rs would lose their mind.. even when Musk is doing it at the same time they would be losing their minds..
    But surely registration for the Nov 5th election is closed by now?
     
    There’s a lot of discussion of this in various threads but I think it needs its own. In the aftermath of Helene, we have Milton bearing down on the Tampa area. It looks like it’s gonna be bad. The FEMA Director has already said that additional funds are needed – but speaker Johnson has indicated that he does not wish to reconvene the house in order to approve additional disaster funding.

    There have been 152 declared disaster areas in 2024 – I looked it up. They come in the form of fires, floods, blizzards, and ice, storms, earthquakes, tornadoes, and hurricanes. There is no set number of assistance funds needed in any given year, and anyone who suggest that “FEMA spent all the money” is being ignorant or worse.

    Milton is going to be bad. This is going to be a big issue in the near term. And it counties to shock me that MAGA in Congress won’t vote for disaster funds - including people like Senator Rick Scott of Florida and Congresswoman Nancy Mace of coastal South Carolina. How on earth do they get re-elected?

    And I just want to also say that I HATE the online ignorance about this stuff. Like people using a flight tracker of a NOAA hurricane hunter flight as evidence of storm seeding. It’s just so stupid.



    I wonder if the Dems are holding conversations with the representatives of these hard-hit areas along the lines of "Y'know, your neighbors are suffering and Mike Johnson cares not one bit. How would YOU like to be Speaker? Get five or six of your GOP friends together and we can make that happen."
     
    I wonder if the Dems are holding conversations with the representatives of these hard-hit areas along the lines of "Y'know, your neighbors are suffering and Mike Johnson cares not one bit. How would YOU like to be Speaker? Get five or six of your GOP friends together and we can make that happen."

    This 2-year session of Congress is about to end and in a few weeks we're going to know the makeup of the next session. I doubt anything is being discussed now, but if the numbers end up substantially similar it sure would be nice to see some kind of new coalition of the productive. But I'm skeptical.
     
    LAKE LURE, N.C. — It started with hot coffee.

    Hurricane Helene had just cut off this already isolated foothill town from everything: power, water, information. Paralyzed, the only thing that residents Carin Harris and her young daughter could think to do was post up outside their Ingles supermarket and hand out something warm. People like Hilary Yoxall needed it. People needed a lot of things. The women decided to organize something bigger. Soon, donations began to pour in, and a makeshift supplies distribution center emerged from a parking lot off the main two-lane road.

    Then everything changed.

    A group called Veterans on Patrol showed up in Rutherford County late on the night of Oct. 11. They called themselves a disaster response group but showed up with no trucks, no supplies and just four people. But their leader, Lewis Arthur, came with a lot of promises and a big vision, which he said was sent from God: a three-year plan to help this lakeside community and others around here bounce back, according to Yoxall and Arthur.

    At first, it did seem like a Godsend, Yoxall, Harris and other residents said. They started organizing the piles of diapers, boxes of canned food and mounds of winter clothes. But as soon as Yoxall, a retired Army nurse, and Arthur got to talking, and he started telling her about his work fighting cartels at the border, about his need for armed security, she got a bad feeling.

    “There’s something wrong here,” she told another longtime resident and fellow organizer.

    What she and others didn’t know yet was that Veterans on Patrol is an anti-government group steeped in conspiracy theories and that its leader has a well-documented history of harassment and embedding in communities to launch missions related to migrants or purported child trafficking, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Western States Center, two watchdog groups.

    And that the group was motivated to come to this small town because its members believed that the government was using the hurricane to move people here off lithium-rich land and stop them from getting it back, according to the group’s posts on Telegram, the messaging service.

    “Hurricane Helene was an act of war perpetuated by the United States Military”; a “land grab” responsible for “murdering hundreds, if not thousands, of Americans,” the group said on Oct. 3. That same day, it launched its disaster deployment operation, stating that it was “coming to the aid of those who will not sell, have stolen, or be restricted their property” and to replace the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

    Over the course of 11 days, this makeshift hurricane supplies depot in a supermarket parking lot became a snapshot of the chaos that can unfold in some corners of post-disaster America: Residents came together to help their community because local officials were unable to. People came searching for critical supplies because the federal government does not give those out as part of its disaster response. An extremist group motivated by anti-government beliefs and conspiracy theories was able to show up, wield influence and become a source of help for some and fear for others.

    And in the mix of all that, an armed man from a town over, also fueled by viral, anti-government misinformation, joined the fray. He showed up right when Veterans on Patrol did, Yoxall and two other volunteers said, joining their Sunday prayer circle. Then he talked about “hunting FEMA,” she said. Police eventually arrested and charged him with “going armed to the terror of the public.”

    “What is happening in my backyard?” Yoxall said last week. “I don’t know these people, and if they are trying to get a foothold here in my community, they are getting a good start.”................


    How a conspiracy-fueled group got a foothold in this hurricane-battered town

     


    Full Text:

    #BREAKING Hurricane HELENE *UPDATE*

    This will BLOW your MIND! Lithium Battery Deposit SIT under the ground of Asheville, North Carolina!

    MARK My words... If something isn't done to save this land that has been devastated by Hurricane Helene in North Carolina, they will begin MINING or building Lithium facilities in the devastated areas of North Carolina.

    ONLY 70 Miles from Asheville is one of the biggest Lithium deposit and factory's we have, and they have been buying up land all over that area.

    Don't believe me?... Read the article in the attached post below on the progress thus far and all the land they have been buying in that EXACT AREA!

    Ask yourself if it's still a coincidence that a once in a century storm just hit that area...For those of you who haven't seen the video of VERY strange anomalies taking place during Hurricane Helene the video is below!
     
    Considered where Milton is / has been, can @SystemShock please check in when he can? I just checked and he hasn’t posted since last night and I read that Milton had passed over Yucatán which is I think where he is.
    allow me to "Bat signal him"

    @SystemShock - US will beat Mexico 3-1 Oct 15.

    That should do it...

    I am very sorry for the very late response. I don't visit this site often anymore. I appreciate the concern. Nothing really happened here where I am in Merida..
     
    I am very sorry for the very late response. I don't visit this site often anymore. I appreciate the concern. Nothing really happened here where I am in Merida..
    Glad to hear it. Thanks for letting us know.
     
    So why does this article not mention that both GOP nominees also spread the Russian disinformation? They only mention Gosar. Trump and Vance and many other MAGA GOPs have also been spreading it as well.

     
    The climate emergency was already a hot-button political issue in Florida long before devastating back-to-back hurricanes named Helene and Milton barreled into the state in recent weeks.

    Ron DeSantis, the Republican governor who considers global warming “leftwing stuff”, angered environmental advocates by signing a bill in May scrubbing the words “climate change” from state statutes and in effect committing Florida to a fossil fuel-burning future.

    They saw his comments and actions as merely the latest acts of an extended period of climate denialism by state leaders – including Rick Scott, his predecessor as governor who is seeking re-election as US senator next month in a tight race with the Democrat Debbie Mucarsel-Powell.

    Scott also censored talk of the climate crisis. Nicknamed “Red Tide Rick” by opponents for slashing $700m in water management funding intended to fight toxic algae blooms, Scott “systematically” disassembled “the environmental agencies of this state”, according to the Democratic former senator Bill Nelson.

    Now, as weary Floridians head for the polls next month, many in areas still devastated by the deadly storm surge and high intensity winds from two hurricanes, there is evidence that the twin disasters are fueling something of a backlash.

    DeSantis is not on the ballot, but Scott is, and so are many among the Republican supermajority in the state house and senate who have been blindly loyal to both governors’ agendas.

    Some voters say climate issues have become uppermost in their minds, having experienced or witnessed the wrath of Helene and Milton, as well as other recent Florida cyclones, and frustration over the long history of inaction or denial in the face of rising sea levels and record ocean heat that experts say is powering ever-stronger storms.

    The movement is pronounced among younger and first-time voters, whom advocates say have been registering and voting early in unprecedented numbers.

    Jayden D’Onofrio, chair of Florida Future Leaders, said canvassing efforts by his group and others have spurred “record-breaking early turnout” on several campuses including Florida State University, Florida Atlantic University and the University of Miami, with students fired up by the climate debate.


    “There was a video of a meteorologist in south Florida who ended up crying on air. A number of my friends, who are not political, sent me that video saying, like, ‘Hey, pretty insane dude. What the hell is going on over here?’” he said……

     

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