😡If they don't want help, why bother? Declare them an independent nation and let them apply for humanitarian aid from countries they trust. Like Russia and North Korea. And while we're at it empty the South of Federal assets and let them have their stupid Confederacy. Open the border for a year and allow people to vote with their feet on how they want to live. Use the Federal money usually sent South to resettle refugees and help businesses relocate. The South can do whatever it wants🤬
Ms. Schoenkopf feel free to delete if I have crossed from bitterness to cruelty.
Rebecca, are you ever going to do anything about this kind of psychopathic region-shaming bullshit in the comments? Like I realize assholes are gonna asshole, but it's not like the comments are a free speech paradise like Musk's Twitter, there's plenty of content we have rules about.
Yeah, fuck that. I live in the South, and I can't afford to give up my job, my wife's job, our home, and pay tens of thousands of dollars to take up a new jobless life somewhere else. And I'm doing pretty well compared to a lot of people. The fact that there's some idiots who believe whatever they see on Facebook is not limited to the South, and the armed goons looking for a fight need to get jailed. I feel like there's probably some federal regulations against threatening federal workers that might apply here.
The lithium thing is so stupid. If there really wpetere lithium under people's homes, it'd be corporations wanting to bulldoze the homes -- because why would oligarchs leave money in the ground?
Right? It would be corporations, not the government, that would be going after that. The US government isn't in the business of building EVs or battery storage–companies are—even if the government is providing subsidies.
I couldn't get through three minutes of that Vance interview. He's a bigger liar than Trump. I f*king hate those guys. They're gladly destroying the fabric of this nation for their own personal gains. Pilloried through winter seems appropriate.
Weird how when it's domestic terrorists, it's "militias," but when it's foreign ones, it's a "terrorist cell" or "terrorist network" or something like that. Really tells you all you need to know about how seriously the threat from heavily-armed right-wing lunatics is taken in this country.
But they're the REAL Americans, and notwithstanding the flourishing of Nazi and Slave Driver flags, they claim to be "patriots" just looking to restore their bizarre, peculiar ideas about what the Constitution says. And don't they all self identify as "Xtians"? You can't go treating White, Xtian patriots like they were P.O.C. who don't do religion right, now can you?
"if people apply for financial assistance, FEMA will take their house, so that the government can mine their properties for lithium."
And none of these "patriots" defending their property from FEMA's supposed black helicopters have thought about the fact that you can only "mine for lithium" in places that actually HAVE lithium deposits?
You know how these bastards are always claiming that they're being silenced just for being conservative, or that someone or something is going to throw them in prison because they're part of Trump's cult?
They're unintentionally making a damn good argument for doing exactly that.
I just heard from a family of friends from the Ashville area; they have water and power again! I went without for 2 days once; couldn't imagine lasting 17 days.
When Dubya was in charge, he just whipped up Katrina for some giggles. And after what happened in Iraq you can't deny that he enjoyed watching people suffer horribly and die in terrible ways.
Although Vance has not been in the Senate very long he should know how federal programs are funded. Congress appropriates funds for specific programs within a federal agency. They do not just dump $50 billion into agriculture, the EPA, or Homeland Security and say use at your discretion. Each program is allowed a specific amount of funding and even that funding is set for individual parts like salaries, cancer research at universities, testing for pollutants in well water, and other specific uses. You cannot transfer funds from say well water testing to research on effects of toxic chemicals on fish without congressional approval because they are probably in different pools of fund, essentially separate bank accounts restricted to specific uses.
In the case of disaster relief funds, Congress set a specific amount for that program and a different amount in a separate program for refugee and immigrant support services. Biden cannot just take money from one program and dump it in another one, he needs Congressional approval, at least by the top congressional leaders but sometimes by the entire Congress. Vance would be screaming about stealing money if Biden tried. But Trump stole money to build his wall, declaring a fake national emergency about a caravan of immigrants approaching the US border for over a month.
Normally this drastic action is supposed to be for an unforeseen event like 9/11, where Congress has not had a chance to include that disaster or threat in their appropriations. But in that event, Congress knew about the immigrant caravan when they appropriated a specific amount for Trump's wall, and just a few days after the funding became law Trump declared his emergency that wasn't an unexpected event and Congress had already considered in funding. He stole money from several programs, including schools and housing on US military bases to replace schools and housing built in the 1950s and falling down. The Supreme Court hacks said it was none of their business what a president did when declaring a national emergency.
This should scare the shit out of everyone if Trump is re-elected. The Court basically gave Trump the right to take funds from wherever he wants for whatever he wants to spend it on by declaring a national emergency. Including building concentration camps to hold millions of immigrants and Democrats. But you never hear about this in the liberal media.
I remember driving through Western NC on our way to Myrtle Beach through some of those small towns thinking that as a half Jewish person I absolutely did not want to break down up there.
I talked to a law enforcement officer from Puerto Rico after Maria.
His mother slept with a CPAP machine, or had been doing so but three months after the storm hit she still didn't have electricity so the machine was useless.
One pictures Sir -- nuggets in one hand, the other self-comforting Sir's Nethers -- splayed verily upon Sir's fainting couch. Sir, a veritable Manet's "Olympia" redolent of male flesh and manly timbre. Eyes transfixed by flashing movements across the giant flat screen mounted on the ceiling. Watching, Chauncey Gardiner-like, the Greatness Unfold exactly as imagined. And chortling. Chortling "militias... militias... such well... regulated... militias..."
A lot of them are going to be surprised when they find out FEMA does not, and never has, given people enough $$ to rebuild their home. After Katrina I got $19,000 from FEMA. $14,000 of that was for contents, and $5000 was for home repair. $5000 wouldn't even have paid for all the new appliances I needed. This is why you should buy flood insurance.
Their maximum payout in 2005 was $25,000, but you only got that much if your house actually collapsed or was in imminent danger of collapsing, or washed away. Mine didn't, it was just uninhabitable.
Except for Project 2025 or Trump's stated plan to eliminate Social Security and Medicare payroll taxes. With no plan to replace it through the general budget. No money coming in, no money going out. But Trump can pocket 7.65% of the pay of every employee of the Trump organization he is responsible for in payroll taxes. That's $3,000 for someone making just $40,000 a year. You can bet he will not kick it over into another employee benefit, he will keep it himself. He proposed the same thing as a stimulus during Covid for the same reason, saving him money and bankrupting Social Security.
"seizing goods […] and locking them away to state they are their own"
WTF????? Has Elon Musk never seen what's left inside your house after it has flooded? There's nothing worth seizing. All I got out of my house after Katrina was my dishware, glassware, silverware, a few pots and pans, 3 area rugs (black with mud and stinking horribly and had to be professionally cleaned) plus (thank god) my grandmother's 10 hand-made quilts which were hanging on poles behind my headboard, and when the bed floated up, the headboard tilted back because it was heavier than the footboard, caught the bottom of all the quilts, and raised them all to the ceiling, above the 6' flood line. Oh, yeah, plus 2 tall silk fig trees and all my cookbooks which were in the cabinet above the stove and my Mikasa circular saw. That was it. Everything else was filthy and stinky, everything that was electronic was dead, and there were small dead things everywhere, plus one very alive and very large snake. Everything else had to be hauled away, including 2000 books. The snake took off on its own.
I did save my 1976 Schwinn 5-speed bicycle, but it required major work at a bicycle shop to get the rust off, plus new brakes and chain and tires.
I think the refrigerator probably worked since it floated on it's front due to the air sealed inside, but after I got it outside and cleaned it up and threw away all the spoiled food, someone stole it off my driveway. Someone who was not FEMA.
It's the terrible smell that lingers in my mind. I wish I could have bottled that smell and let people who haven't gone through a flood give it a little sniff, because there's no way to describe it. I tried washing some good clothes several times, and even had a few dry cleaned, but the smell never entirely went away.
Boone, Asheville, Black Mountain, Brevard, Cullowhee.... We have a lot of artsy and college towns that are very much not "all in" for Trump. The bog-standard rural/urban divide which, when coupled with gerrymandering, leaves us with the likes of Madison Cawthorn (gone) and odious old coots like Virginia Foxx.
😡If they don't want help, why bother? Declare them an independent nation and let them apply for humanitarian aid from countries they trust. Like Russia and North Korea. And while we're at it empty the South of Federal assets and let them have their stupid Confederacy. Open the border for a year and allow people to vote with their feet on how they want to live. Use the Federal money usually sent South to resettle refugees and help businesses relocate. The South can do whatever it wants🤬
Ms. Schoenkopf feel free to delete if I have crossed from bitterness to cruelty.
Rebecca, are you ever going to do anything about this kind of psychopathic region-shaming bullshit in the comments? Like I realize assholes are gonna asshole, but it's not like the comments are a free speech paradise like Musk's Twitter, there's plenty of content we have rules about.
Who is this "they" who don't want help? Get a grip.
Yeah, fuck that. I live in the South, and I can't afford to give up my job, my wife's job, our home, and pay tens of thousands of dollars to take up a new jobless life somewhere else. And I'm doing pretty well compared to a lot of people. The fact that there's some idiots who believe whatever they see on Facebook is not limited to the South, and the armed goons looking for a fight need to get jailed. I feel like there's probably some federal regulations against threatening federal workers that might apply here.
I can't afford to move from here, either. Anybody want to buy me a house in a blue state? I thought not.
The lithium thing is so stupid. If there really wpetere lithium under people's homes, it'd be corporations wanting to bulldoze the homes -- because why would oligarchs leave money in the ground?
Right? It would be corporations, not the government, that would be going after that. The US government isn't in the business of building EVs or battery storage–companies are—even if the government is providing subsidies.
I couldn't get through three minutes of that Vance interview. He's a bigger liar than Trump. I f*king hate those guys. They're gladly destroying the fabric of this nation for their own personal gains. Pilloried through winter seems appropriate.
These dumb, mouthbreathing motherf*Akers are not a "militia". They are simply armed gangs. Basically, they are as low as the Klan.
in other words, domestic terrorists. Who should be hunted down and disposed of in a sanatory manner.
Weird how when it's domestic terrorists, it's "militias," but when it's foreign ones, it's a "terrorist cell" or "terrorist network" or something like that. Really tells you all you need to know about how seriously the threat from heavily-armed right-wing lunatics is taken in this country.
But they're the REAL Americans, and notwithstanding the flourishing of Nazi and Slave Driver flags, they claim to be "patriots" just looking to restore their bizarre, peculiar ideas about what the Constitution says. And don't they all self identify as "Xtians"? You can't go treating White, Xtian patriots like they were P.O.C. who don't do religion right, now can you?
"if people apply for financial assistance, FEMA will take their house, so that the government can mine their properties for lithium."
And none of these "patriots" defending their property from FEMA's supposed black helicopters have thought about the fact that you can only "mine for lithium" in places that actually HAVE lithium deposits?
*sigh*
Of course not. Because that would make sense.
You know how these bastards are always claiming that they're being silenced just for being conservative, or that someone or something is going to throw them in prison because they're part of Trump's cult?
They're unintentionally making a damn good argument for doing exactly that.
I just heard from a family of friends from the Ashville area; they have water and power again! I went without for 2 days once; couldn't imagine lasting 17 days.
“And then there’s Marge Taylor Greene and other conspiracists fantasizing that the storm was made by the Democrats who control the weather…”
If that’s the case, why didn’t Trump control the weather when he was president? Just asking questions…
Also, why would his trash palace in FL still be standing if Democrats could direct hurricanes?
When Dubya was in charge, he just whipped up Katrina for some giggles. And after what happened in Iraq you can't deny that he enjoyed watching people suffer horribly and die in terrible ways.
Abu Ghraib was another strong indicator.
He used restraint because he is so moral and loves each and every citizen and would never... oh, who am I kidding?
Although Vance has not been in the Senate very long he should know how federal programs are funded. Congress appropriates funds for specific programs within a federal agency. They do not just dump $50 billion into agriculture, the EPA, or Homeland Security and say use at your discretion. Each program is allowed a specific amount of funding and even that funding is set for individual parts like salaries, cancer research at universities, testing for pollutants in well water, and other specific uses. You cannot transfer funds from say well water testing to research on effects of toxic chemicals on fish without congressional approval because they are probably in different pools of fund, essentially separate bank accounts restricted to specific uses.
In the case of disaster relief funds, Congress set a specific amount for that program and a different amount in a separate program for refugee and immigrant support services. Biden cannot just take money from one program and dump it in another one, he needs Congressional approval, at least by the top congressional leaders but sometimes by the entire Congress. Vance would be screaming about stealing money if Biden tried. But Trump stole money to build his wall, declaring a fake national emergency about a caravan of immigrants approaching the US border for over a month.
Normally this drastic action is supposed to be for an unforeseen event like 9/11, where Congress has not had a chance to include that disaster or threat in their appropriations. But in that event, Congress knew about the immigrant caravan when they appropriated a specific amount for Trump's wall, and just a few days after the funding became law Trump declared his emergency that wasn't an unexpected event and Congress had already considered in funding. He stole money from several programs, including schools and housing on US military bases to replace schools and housing built in the 1950s and falling down. The Supreme Court hacks said it was none of their business what a president did when declaring a national emergency.
This should scare the shit out of everyone if Trump is re-elected. The Court basically gave Trump the right to take funds from wherever he wants for whatever he wants to spend it on by declaring a national emergency. Including building concentration camps to hold millions of immigrants and Democrats. But you never hear about this in the liberal media.
I remember driving through Western NC on our way to Myrtle Beach through some of those small towns thinking that as a half Jewish person I absolutely did not want to break down up there.
Myrtle Beach = Pigeon Forge by the Sea. You could've saved yourself four hours of driving.
I talked to a law enforcement officer from Puerto Rico after Maria.
His mother slept with a CPAP machine, or had been doing so but three months after the storm hit she still didn't have electricity so the machine was useless.
But tell me how being handed $750 is bad again.
One pictures Sir -- nuggets in one hand, the other self-comforting Sir's Nethers -- splayed verily upon Sir's fainting couch. Sir, a veritable Manet's "Olympia" redolent of male flesh and manly timbre. Eyes transfixed by flashing movements across the giant flat screen mounted on the ceiling. Watching, Chauncey Gardiner-like, the Greatness Unfold exactly as imagined. And chortling. Chortling "militias... militias... such well... regulated... militias..."
We don't want no government down here! And why are you so slow cleaning up this mess?!
And where's mah gubmint check? Gimme it or ah'll shoocha!
And where's our free money????
A lot of them are going to be surprised when they find out FEMA does not, and never has, given people enough $$ to rebuild their home. After Katrina I got $19,000 from FEMA. $14,000 of that was for contents, and $5000 was for home repair. $5000 wouldn't even have paid for all the new appliances I needed. This is why you should buy flood insurance.
Their maximum payout in 2005 was $25,000, but you only got that much if your house actually collapsed or was in imminent danger of collapsing, or washed away. Mine didn't, it was just uninhabitable.
And keep your dirty government hands off my Social Security.
That one's evergreen.
Same with "I hate Obamacare! But the ACA is good!"
We lookin' at you JD (Grie)VANCE
Except for Project 2025 or Trump's stated plan to eliminate Social Security and Medicare payroll taxes. With no plan to replace it through the general budget. No money coming in, no money going out. But Trump can pocket 7.65% of the pay of every employee of the Trump organization he is responsible for in payroll taxes. That's $3,000 for someone making just $40,000 a year. You can bet he will not kick it over into another employee benefit, he will keep it himself. He proposed the same thing as a stimulus during Covid for the same reason, saving him money and bankrupting Social Security.
"seizing goods […] and locking them away to state they are their own"
WTF????? Has Elon Musk never seen what's left inside your house after it has flooded? There's nothing worth seizing. All I got out of my house after Katrina was my dishware, glassware, silverware, a few pots and pans, 3 area rugs (black with mud and stinking horribly and had to be professionally cleaned) plus (thank god) my grandmother's 10 hand-made quilts which were hanging on poles behind my headboard, and when the bed floated up, the headboard tilted back because it was heavier than the footboard, caught the bottom of all the quilts, and raised them all to the ceiling, above the 6' flood line. Oh, yeah, plus 2 tall silk fig trees and all my cookbooks which were in the cabinet above the stove and my Mikasa circular saw. That was it. Everything else was filthy and stinky, everything that was electronic was dead, and there were small dead things everywhere, plus one very alive and very large snake. Everything else had to be hauled away, including 2000 books. The snake took off on its own.
I did save my 1976 Schwinn 5-speed bicycle, but it required major work at a bicycle shop to get the rust off, plus new brakes and chain and tires.
I think the refrigerator probably worked since it floated on it's front due to the air sealed inside, but after I got it outside and cleaned it up and threw away all the spoiled food, someone stole it off my driveway. Someone who was not FEMA.
It's the terrible smell that lingers in my mind. I wish I could have bottled that smell and let people who haven't gone through a flood give it a little sniff, because there's no way to describe it. I tried washing some good clothes several times, and even had a few dry cleaned, but the smell never entirely went away.
Musk could easily have a new house everyday of the week. With everything inside brand new.
He could certainly afford to actually HELP the people who have lost everything, instead of running his fool mouth on social media like an asshole.
He probably already does.
I suspect all he would have to do to get an idea of that would be look inside his brain, but that would be too close to introspection.
The people in western NC are overwhelmingly all in for Trump.
It’s up to them to decide to believe conspiracy theories or reject conspiracy theories.
Seems enough of them believe the lies that they halted aid to themselves.
I have zero sympathy for any Trump supporter or believer in his lies.
Trump’s coming after immigrants and naturalized citizens, which is what I am.
Boone, Asheville, Black Mountain, Brevard, Cullowhee.... We have a lot of artsy and college towns that are very much not "all in" for Trump. The bog-standard rural/urban divide which, when coupled with gerrymandering, leaves us with the likes of Madison Cawthorn (gone) and odious old coots like Virginia Foxx.
And here I thought I could no longer be surprised by the depths of rightwing lunacy. But this takes the fucking cake.
"You ain't seen nothing yet" -- Stephen Miller