You’ve probably heard of a hurricane called Helene that made landfall more than a week ago and caused what may turn out to be the worst natural disaster in American history. A lot of people say it’s already among the worst, with the official death toll, according to the Federal Emergency Management Agency, at 230.
The storm laid waste to much of the American south, even hitting far inland into Western North Carolina, bulldozing entire towns off the map. People are trapped behind log-jammed roads with no electricity or internet service, no phones, no food, no way to call for help, or some combination of these things. Social media reports from regular people on the ground who live in the areas affected report little federal or national guard help, and a lot of red tape and government interference. Elon Musk himself reports that his SpaceX staff was thwarted from delivering satellite phone equipment by overzealous federal officials.
Amid all of this, FEMA and the feds generally want all of us to put on a happy face. They seem more upset about quelling what they call rumors (and some are, and will turn out to be false) than about acknowledging why Americans don’t trust a thing they say. This Associated Press article reeks of a leftist-transcription-for-the-government service that falsely tells the public it is a news outlet.
Can we question the skepticism of any American toward FEMA when they’re devoting taxpayer dollars—and desperately short time—to things like this?
Just watch this absurdity below:
It’s more than a minute and a half of gender-confused “LGBTQIA” people moaning about how hard society oppresses them every single minute of the day. It is fair to ask: have any of these people ever met anyone who has lost everything in a disaster?
J.D. Vance and Tim Walz faced off in the only scheduled debate between the two vice presidential nominees on Tuesday, Oct. 1.
The debates marked a stark difference to the two presidential debates so far this campaign, with the Ohio Sen. and Minnesota Gov. appearing to get along and engaging in a more civil manner than the slugfests we’ve previously witnessed.
Political commentators were split along ideological lines as to who won the debate; that said, Vance’s experience shone through as a nervous Walz struggled to deliver a knockout blow – particularly evident in the candidates’ opening statements.
J.D. Vance opened the debate by masterfully introducing himself with confidence, telling the American people that under a Trump administration, the American Dream would once again be attainable.
"I stand here asking to be your vice president with extraordinary gratitude for this… pic.twitter.com/o0rGIUXNlO
Walz, like many Democrats have during the campaign, found difficulty in distancing Kamala Harris from the administration in which she currently serves as vice president.
As the debate continued, Vance flipped the script on Tim Walz when Walz attempted to blame Donald Trump for the Iranian threat.
"You yourself just said Iran is as close to a nuclear weapon today as they have ever been. And, Governor Walz, you blame Donald Trump. Who has been the… pic.twitter.com/TQE1tXhJEO
The two vice presidential candidates found common ground throughout the 90-minute debate, particularly on sensitive topics such as Hurricane Helene.
On the topic of Hurricane Helene, Vance communicated with the American people so well that even Tim Walz nodding in agreement.
He painted a vivid picture of the disaster, saying, "I just saw today, actually, a photograph of two grandparents on a roof with a six-year-old child.… pic.twitter.com/wCA5WtR9U9
Despite being an arguably advantageous topic for his Democratic rival, Vance provided excellent responses to addressing climate change.
On climate change, Vance didn’t hold back, telling Walz to his face that if Kamala Harris truly cared about the issue, she would be pushing for more manufacturing and energy production in America because it’s cleaner to do so here.
He would continue this momentum when the topic switched to the border.
Vance got Tim Walz’s head hanging in shame when he exposed the executive orders the Biden-Harris admin signed that upended what Trump did to keep the border safe.
“We have a historic immigration crisis because Kamala Harris started and said that she wanted to undo all of Donald… pic.twitter.com/vkEzBwyzr4
The most memorable moment of the night came as the Republican clashed with CBS News’ moderators. Vance tackled the on-the-fly fact-check head-on, resulting in a momentary muting of microphones.
At one point, Vance’s microphone was cut off by CBS News when he began refuting their fact-check on the subject of Springfield, Ohio, and Haitian immigrants.
CBS News said they had more topics to get to, but the apparent reality is that they were getting uncomfortable with Vance… pic.twitter.com/31Xd9jZggg
On the topic of the economy, an uncomfortable Walz could only watch as Vance destroyed Harris’ track record.
Vance continued to deliver a sharp critique of Harris’s economic policies, pointing out the rising costs of essentials.
"If Kamala Harris has such great plans for how to address middle-class problems, then she ought to do them now," he said, emphasizing the 25% increase in food… pic.twitter.com/ZjEfAmVivI
Little was known about Gov. Walz beyond his jurisdiction before he was picked as Harris’ running mate. Describing himself as a “knucklehead”, Walz was forced to admit his presence at the Tiananmen Square massacre was false.
Walz found himself in a tough spot when confronted about a false claim regarding his presence in Hong Kong during the Tiananmen Square massacre.
After a two-minute rant, Walz admitted that he wasn’t actually there during the tragedy, exposing a major inconsistency in his… pic.twitter.com/D3a92ryau5
In a futile effort to reassure doubters that she is ready to lead the country, Kamala Harris said she suffered from insomnia following Joe Biden’s decision to quit his campaign, adding that she was sleep-deprived when she selected Tim Walz as her running mate.
“From the time that the president called me and told me he wasn’t running, I mean, it’s just like everything was in speedy, speedy motion, and I was not sleeping so well,” Harris said on the podcast. “And that one morning I just, I mean, I had, I don’t know, a few hours’ sleep – and I, you know, I like to sleep. I just got up. I was like – so I just went out and got a pork roast and started marinating it.”
“And my family were all going to be in town, so they were very happy about the whole situation, but I just got up and started — everybody’s asleep, I just got up and started cooking,” she continued.
Harris’ lack of sleep also contributed to her “gut” decision to pick Walz as her running mate. Through cooking, Harris eased her nerves on the morning of Tuesday, Aug. 6 before later announcing the Minnesota Gov. had joined the Democratic ticket.
Perhaps a “sleepy Kamala” nickname is in the works?
Needless to say, social media commentors were less than impressed with her approach to decision-making.
Many also felt that this was yet another excuse from the Vice President.
A CNN segment left conservatives in stiches when it went viral on social media.
The segment, titled “kids on politics”, involved a number of elementary school children responding to questions about the upcoming presidential election. The kids surveyed attended schools in safe states such as New Jersey and Texas, as well as the battleground of Arizona.
One child praised Donald Trump for “giving his life and his heart” to the country. But, it was the response of another adolescent which caught the attention of social media.
“What’s the first word that pops into you head when you hear the name Kamala Harris?” the ten-year-old was asked.
“Liar,” was his response.
The clip caught the attention of Donald Trump Jr., who said, “The kids always know.”
The North Carolina Election Board (NCEB) has removed hundreds of thousands of names from the voter rolls ahead of the presidential election.
A combined total of 747,274 names were removed from the swing state’s voter rolls, including 130,688 people who are now dead.
Just under 290,000 voters were removed as duplicates due to their relocation within North Carolina, while approximately one-third were taken off the list for being inactive the two most recent federal elections. Other reasons for removal included moving out of the state (31,242), duplicates (26,939), felony convictions (18,883) and requests from the voter themselves (2,329).
North Carolina is a swing state won by Donald Trump in 2020. And Kamala Harris seeking to take the Tarheel State in her bid to secure the presidency, Democrats have actively campaigned to try and secure a much-needed 16 electoral college votes.
The state’s importance has led to a number of lawsuits in recent months. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has faced difficulty in removing his name from the ballot in order to assist Trump, while the GOP has filed lawsuits against the NCEB amid concerns over noncitizen voting.
Arguably, the decision to remove more than 7% of the state’s potential electorate from the voter roll has raised more questions over election integrity.
Given the most recent election’s controversy over voter fraud, many will be keeping a close eye on results across the country.
Independent Sen. Joe Manchin has refused to endorse Vice President Kamala Harris in a filibuster row over Roe vs. Wade.
The West Virgina Sen., who left the Democrats earlier this year, slammed Harris for her desire to “eliminate the filibuster” for the controversial abortion bill. By doing so, the Democrat-controlled Senate would be able to ram legislation through on 51 votes, rather than the usual 60.
“Shame on her,” Manchin said on Tuesday, Sept. 24. “She knows the filibuster is the Holy Grail of democracy. It’s the only thing that keeps us talking and working together. If she gets rid of that, then this would be the House on steroids.
Harris’ promise to remove the filibuster has cost her an independent endorsement. Nevertheless, Harris’ has previously threatened to remove the political tactic on issues such as abortion and the Green New Deal.
“Well, she said she supported banning fracking too, and she changed that. I was hoping she would change this,” Manchin said when quizzed on the Vice President’s efforts to remove the filibuster.
Many on social media wondered whether the former Democrat’s decision would have any major impact.
That said, some commentors had praise for the soon-to-be retiring Sen.
Republican lawmakers have slammed Vice President Kamala Harris for the administration’s failure to expand broadband service to rural, unserved communities.
President Joe Biden previously tasked Harris with leading the administration’s $42 billion Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) program in 2021. However, the program has yet to connect a single person to the internet.
In a letter to the Vice President, nine GOP Senators criticized the Democrat’s presidential nominee, labeling her the “broadband czar” which, akin to her performance on the border, has been “marked by poor management and a lack of effectiveness.”
“Instead of focusing on delivering broadband services to unserved areas, your administration has used the BEAD program to add partisan, extralegal requirements that were never envisioned by Congress and have obstructed broadband deployment,” wrote the senators. “By imposing burdensome climate change mandates on infrastructure projects, prioritizing government-owned networks over private investment, mandating the use of unionized labor in states, and seeking to regulate broadband rates, your administration has caused unnecessary delays leaving millions of Americans unconnected.”
Many on social media were stunned by the $42 billion expenditure.
Others called for Elon Musk’s Starlink system to be installed across the country.
In July of 1979, then-President Jimmy Carter took to the airwaves to address the nation about a threat that he believed “strikes at the very heart and soul and spirit of our national will.” Carter called it a “nearly invisible threat” that in many ways goes unnoticed. Carter dubbed it “a crisis of confidence.”
We can see this crisis in the growing doubt about the meaning of our own lives and in the loss of a unity of purpose for our nation. The erosion of our confidence in the future is threatening to destroy the social and the political fabric of America.
But, even during his own trying times, Carter dismissed out of hand the idea that the soul of America was at stake during his “crisis of confidence,” stating, “I do not mean our political and civil liberties.”
“They will endure.”
Forty-five years later, I fear I cannot say the same, as I firmly believe that America faces a new “crisis of confidence” threatening to destroy our social and political fabric.
Ten years ago, you might have dismissed my opinion as conspiratorial nonsense. Yes, we have a growing partisan divide. But no one would dare weaponize the levers of power in government to lord over political rivals.
Anyone paying attention to politics since President Donald Trump shocked the political establishment to its core in 2016 would laugh at our naivete.
When Trump defeated Hillary Clinton, the embodiment of an entrenched political legacy and the poster child of Washington “swamp” culture, a “fight or flight” reflex activated in partisans on the left, breaking a détente which Carter most likely imagined would endure; a silent agreement to never weaponize the powers entrusted to the federal government by We The People against a political rival.
I need not remind you of the myriad ways an unholy union of government power brokers, mainstream media, big tech social media platforms, and government bureaucracy behaved during the Trump years. Merely invoking the name “Hunter Biden” should be sufficient shorthand summarizing the left’s amplification (to the point of absurdity) of “Orange Man Bad” and the suppression of credible facts and circumstance that ran counter to their skewed narrative. From this manipulation spawned a form of fanatical tribalism that saw many politicians crossing lines that Carter took for granted.
Which brings us to the current political climate. It is a climate where it has become commonplace to call fellow Americans a “threat to democracy,” “vicious,” “dangerous,” or “extreme.” It’s a political climate where odious individuals go on national television and say, “They’re still going to have to go out and put a bullet in Donald Trump.”
And wouldn’t you know it? After nearly a decade of ratcheting up the temperature to a boiling point, someone tried to do just that.
Actually, two somebodies.
In the wake of this climate and the two assassination attempts that followed, it would be malpractice to not question what the hell is going on in the federal government. It would also not be unreasonable to debate whether government Is this incompetent or whether the near decade of political tribalism has taken its toll on essential government functions, like the protection of a political rival.
But that is where we are at. In the fallout of these assassination attempts, the latest of which prompted Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis to state that “it is not in the best interests of our state and nation to have the same federal agencies seeking to prosecute Trump leading this investigation.”
It is not just partisans on the right like DeSantis expressing a lack of confidence in the federal government. Even the staunchest voices on the left who are investigating cannot help but to criticize the Biden administration – of which they’re part of – because they too want to know how a shooter got onto a rooftop with a rifle and was able to get off multiple shots killing civilians in what should have been one of the most safe places anyone should have been.
Voices like Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), the chair of the panel charged by the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee – who is no friend of Donald Trump – has expressed his dismay with the federal government failures as well as his opinion that our government has been less than forthcoming with relevant information:
I think the American people are going to be shocked and appalled by our findings as to the lapses and failures — on that day, at that site, but also more deep seeded — still plaguing the Secret Service, And I think the American people are also going to be deeply disappointed in the Department of Homeland Security, not just in the lapses In performance, but also in its resistance to providing information.
Those are pretty disturbing sentiments, made even more terrifying knowing that a second attempt happened weeks later. Same target. Same agency. Same lapses.
If partisans on both sides of the aisle are so brazenly questioning the effectiveness of the federal government to do its job, how can we not openly do the same?
The Heritage Foundation’s legal department has uncovered an apparent police report from Springfield, Ohio, where a woman complained about her neighbors allegedly eating her cat.
The report dates from Wednesday, August 28 – around two weeks before cat-eating allegations went viral.
In a two-minute phone call, a woman named Anna called local law enforcement officials believing “her neighbors stole her cat and chopped it”, according to the unverified report. She requested a callout from officers who arrived just under an hour later at 3.30pm.
Anna told officers that her cat went missing four days prior and had not been seen since. She said she discovered “meat” in her backyard, which she believed to be from her cat.
There was no fur or bones around the meat, and it was unknown whether it was indeed from her cat. She suspected the Haitian neighbors, although officers wrote that there was “no evidence” to support her claim.
“Anna had collected the meat and put it in her fridge in hopes to get it cremated [sic],” officers added.
Many on social media were reminded of the ABC presidential debate where moderator David Muir said the city had received “no reports” of cat-eating incidents.
Others, however, noted the section where officers said there was “no evidence” to support the woman’s claim.
Kamala Harris has stolen yet another policy from her Republican rival Donald Trump in her bid to become president.
The Vice President announced the pledge at a rally on Friday, September 13 in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. Under her “new” policy, Harris would remove all unnecessary four-year college degree requirements for federal jobs.
“For far too long, our nation has encouraged only one path to success,” she told supporters in the swing state. “Our nation needs to recognize the value of other paths, additional paths, such as apprenticeships and technical programs. As president, I will get rid of the unnecessary degree requirements for federal jobs to increase jobs for folks without a four-year degree… understanding that requiring a certain degree does not necessarily talk about one’s skills.”
Harris added she would “challenge the private sector to do the same” if elected president.
Many on social media recollected the policy from the previous administration. On June 26, 2020, then-president Trump signed an executive order stating skills would be prioritized over a college degree when applying for federal jobs.
Many noted that this was not the first policy Harris had pinched from her rival’s campaign. Key Trump pledges such as “no tax on tips” have been copied by the Democrat so far in this electoral cycle, while the Biden-Harris administration’s continuation of Trump-era policies led to the Republican offering the Vice President a MAGA hat during the presidential debate on Tuesday, Sept. 10.
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