The Corporate Transparency Act (CTA) is an aggressive domestic program to federally register millions of unsuspecting small business owners under the guise of an “anti-money laundering initiative.”
By the end of this year, Americans will be required to hand over their small businesses’ private data — such as owners’ names and home addresses — to the federal government’s law enforcement database, operated by the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), housed under the Department of the Treasury. Such small businesses include limited liability companies, corporations, “and any other entities created by the filing of a document with a secretary of state or any similar office in the United States.” //
The true goal of CTA appears to be setting up yet another new database of citizens to monitor, observe, and punish. The federal government is moving quickly to implement the CTA, as millions of small business owners in the United States have no idea this law even exists (only 13 percent of businesses in California, 5 percent in Ohio, and 4 percent in Pennsylvania have registered). Millions of businesses owners face becoming felons in three months unless they comply.
There are currently seven separate lawsuits challenging the validity of the law. Last year, the House of Representatives passed a bill to give businesses more time to comply, but the bill is sitting in the Senate going nowhere. A recent email from their accountant may have been the first time many businesses realized this law exists. The legal confusion and seeming lack of urgency to inform the public suggest that FinCEN’s true intent is to “catch” millions of small business owners in “non-compliance” so that they can be investigated and audited by Department of the Treasury and punished. Serious criminals will not be concerned about paperwork violations. Mandatory compliance is required by January 1, 2025, or business owners will be subjected to hefty fines of $591 dollars per day (or up to 10 percent of a company’s annual receipts) and up to two years in federal prison. //
President Trump vetoed this unconstitutional power grab, as part of the National Defense Authorization Act of 2021, but his veto was overridden. In an unprecedented act of overreach, the feds are moving to collect data on all small business owners, who make up the backbone of the U.S. economy, for reasons that seem murky at best. And the information collected goes to FinCEN, the counterterrorism arm of the Treasury. Business owners have to register with a terrorism department. This seems to infer criminality on millions of law-abiding citizens.
Under CTA, for-profit business entities with fewer than 20 employees and under $5 million in revenue are in the crosshairs. But businesses that make more than $5 million annually, or employ more than 20 full-time employees, are exempt from this invasive self-reporting requirement that could put owners in prison. That means BlackRock, Amazon, Facebook, Pfizer, etc., can operate “business as usual,” but “Grandma’s Donut Shop” will be required to show her “paper’s please” if she wants to make a living. //
Business registration and entity creation has always been handled at the state level through State Corporation Commissions. With the CTA, even though a business is a registered entity at the state level, if it does not then self-report and register into a criminal database at the federal level, owners will not be able to operate the business. The federal government is overreaching into a state rights issue and creating a massive database in violation of the commerce clause. State attorneys general in every state should be weighing in on this issue. Unfortunately, their silence is deafening.
Media Research Center
@theMRC
·
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Must watch TV as the Press Briefing leads to KJP storming out
Peter Doocy & KJP get heated over Biden sending money to Lebanon without Congressional approval but refusing to do so for North Carolina.
Doocy: "You can't call a question you don't like misinformation."
3:03 PM · Oct 7, 2024. //
But as Doocy pointed out, Biden is "fond" of saying, "Show me your budget and I will tell you what you value.". //
Imagine you're suffering from the hurricane or you have family who are, and you see that, what must you think? Why can't that money be deployed for hurricane relief if it can be deployed for relief for people in Lebanon? And why are you spending it on Lebanon?
Doocy also noted that Joe Biden was posting about how the Small Business Administration disaster loan program was going to be running out of money too, "if Congress doesn't come back."
To most people, Doocy explained, "A taxpayer dollar is a taxpayer dollar is a taxpayer dollar."
"That is not misinformation," he declared. "That is a FACT." //
Froge
30 minutes ago
What is asinine about the money to Lebanon, is the people who need "refugee" money are Hezbollah, their operatives and families who have been defeated by Israel.
So Israel finally gets rid of them and here we are paying for temporary housing for the terrorists. How nice of us.
The Harris administration and Mayorkas’ department were behind the eight ball from the start in coordinating a response. Why? The agency’s Shelter and Services Program – a program providing grants to communities to deal with the rapid influx of illegals – ballooned from $363.8 million in 2023 to $650 million the following year.
That revelation yielded a stark admission from Mayorkas — that FEMA does not have the funding to deal with disasters going forward.
“We are meeting the immediate needs with the money that we have. We are expecting another hurricane hitting,” Mayorkas said. “FEMA does not have the funds to make it through the season.” //
This is what happens when a man whose top credential is his ethnic background and immigration status as opposed to what he can do to effectively run the DHS. Funds go to pet projects that help aid illegal aliens first, while disaster victims become an afterthought.
And while FEMA allocated over $1 billion in funding to provide housing to illegal migrants, Harris — chosen herself by Biden almost exclusively based on gender and skin color — was announcing that the agency was accepting applications for a small stipend to victims of Helene in Georgia. //
FEMA, in a recent press release, revealed that the agency had disbursed roughly $10 million in "flexible and upfront" assistance as a consolation prize for Helene victims. Since then, they have spent roughly $137 million for the recovery effort. That represents just a tick over 13 percent of the budget allocated for the Shelter and Services Program for illegals.
Victims are 13 percent as important in the eyes of the administration. And the plebians can happily accept their $750 stipends when illegals get their rent paid for up to a year.
Georgians and North Carolinians surely recognize where Harris’s priorities would lie over the next four years.
FEMA, under her and Biden’s purview, has morphed into a DEI experiment gone wrong. And they’ve been bragging about it to the public for years. //
FEMA bowing down to DEI practices hasn’t just been limited to using up funding to aid illegals. A disaster preparedness meeting in March of 2023 saw the agency “focusing efforts on LGBTQIA+” victims.
The Daily Mail reported that FEMA was “prioritizing LGBTQ people” because they are “already disadvantaged.” //
Where disaster aid must be prioritized based on greatest need, Harris wants it prioritized by race.
Prior to this administration, there were laws against such obvious discrimination. Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, or national origin in programs or activities receiving federal financial assistance.
Now, such discrimination is openly celebrated. People are dying because of it. And Kamala Harris will only amplify the DEI disaster enveloping this nation if she wins in November.
"Politicians, billionaires and grifters who peddle lies during a time of crisis should be held accountable." The first part of that last part stands: Cooper should definitely be held accountable. The "unprecedented response" he crows about had little to do with him and everything to do with billionaires like Elon Musk, the relief organizations, and the incredible Americans who entered the breach and were the first to respond. Instead, Cooper chose to cozy up to FEMA heads and play at CENTCOM from his cushy office and home in Raleigh, while the people he hindered and maligned were the ones doing the work of saving lives and offering hope.
Although the Federal Emergency Management Agency told Congress last month that it had $4 billion in its Disaster Relief Fund, officials also warned that the fund could have a shortfall of $6 billion by year’s end, a situation FEMA says could deteriorate in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene.
While FEMA is expected to ask Congress for new money, budget experts note a surprising fact: FEMA is currently sitting on untapped reserves appropriated for past disasters stretching back decades.
An August report from the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Inspector General noted that in 2022, FEMA “estimated that 847 disaster declarations with approximately $73 billion in unliquidated funds remained open.”
Drilling down on that data, the OIG found that $8.3 billion of that total was for disasters declared in 2012 or earlier.
Such developments are part of a larger pattern in which FEMA failed to close out specific grant programs “within a certain timeframe, known as the period of performance (POP),” according to the IG report. Those projects now represent “billions in unliquidated appropriations that could potentially be returned to the [Disaster Relief Fund].”
These “unliquidated obligations” reflect the complex federal budgeting processes. Safeguards are important so that FEMA funding doesn’t become a slush fund that the agency can spend however it chooses, budget experts said, but the inability to tap unspent appropriations from long-ago crises complicates the agency’s ability to respond to immediate disasters.
Please donate what you can, try to find a nonprofit to donate to. Uh, church, local PD. A lot of those are taking donations, sheriff's departments. I know my department is running a bunch of stuff to the western part of the state to help donate, but please do not donate to FEMA.
They are hindering a lot of what people are trying to accomplish out in the western part of the state.
FEMA doesn't understand that these Appalachian people are built differently. I'm very familiar with them. They are not gonna stand by idly and have government officials tell them what to do. FEMA's playing a game of FAFO because free men don't ask for permission. Again, please donate and help these people out. They need us now more than ever.” //
FEMA can try their bureaucratic "We're in charge" moves to try and divert resources and true help, but these mountain folks are not going to go quietly. Posts like this one, from law enforcement no less, help to bring even more noise.
After this first video went viral, Deputy DeStefano received lots of response and requests asking where they should send their donations. So, he did a follow-up video encouraging relief organizations and churches in the western part of the state to drop their contact information in the video comments.
"So what has happened," Tuberville continued, "is Mayorkas and this whole group have lied to the American people for three-and-a- half, going on four years." Is there any doubt?
He kept saying our border's closed and this and that. Now, you know, we all been looking for, where are they getting this money from to take care of these people? Other than the fact we knew they’re using the CARES money, COVID money, Inflation Reduction Act money.
Now we know that the group that has been confiscated by this regime other than the DOJ, the FBI, the CIA, everybody involved, now FEMA. They have been taking money from FEMA and paying these illegal immigrants and taking care of them. And it’s all coming out in the light.
"And people [are saying] 'Wait a minute,'" the senator said, "'This is for a natural disaster, not a manmade disaster like the border."
Tuberville then brought the hammer down:
But they’re corrupt. Every day, something comes up now that they’ve been exposed, that they’ve been doing, they shouldn’t be doing. And people should be going to jail. This is treason. And not taking care of these people up and down the East Coast because this.
We don’t have the money. We’re printing $80,000 a second right now, just to keep our country going. They have absolutely, Jeff, run us in the ditch.
Early voting in North Carolina starts in just days, and Appalachian voters in the western, deep-red stronghold of the state are still desperate for help with basic necessities after destruction wrought by Hurricane Helene. A slow-rolled disaster relief response from federal and state government agencies has many wondering if the Democrats in charge are trying to suppress the votes of the predominantly Trump-supporting region. //
The vast majority of the 28 counties and tribal areas included in the emergency declaration are Republican strongholds, and the voters there can make or break a win for former President Donald Trump in the tight swing state he only carried by about 75,000 votes in 2020.
According to an analysis by The Federalist, 604,119 voters in the emergency declaration region cast their ballots for Trump in 2020, while 356,902 chose President Joe Biden. That 247,217-vote difference is more than three times Trump’s margin of victory in 2020.
Trump voters in the affected region also made up 10.9 percent of the total 5,545,848 votes cast in 2020, and the average county voter participation rate is 77.3 percent.
Voter suppression in the disaster zone could be catastrophic for the Trump campaign, and the malaise shown by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), Cooper, and the Democrat-run North Carolina State Board of Elections (NCSBE) raises significant questions about a life-threatening power play from Democrats and deliberate election interference in order to carry the state for Vice President Kamala Harris in November.
Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg took to "X," the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, to promise the FAA would stop interfering with private humanitarian flights into hurricane-devasted Western North Carolina:
Elon Musk @elonmusk
Oct 4, 2024
·
Replying to @SecretaryPete
Thanks for expediting approval for support flights.
Just wanted to note that Sec Buttigieg is on the ball.
Secretary Pete Buttigieg @SecretaryPete
·
Glad we could address —thanks for engaging.
7:50 PM · Oct 4, 2024 //
The FAA's effort to force civilian aircraft out of the area seems to be documented in this NOTAM dated October 1 that closes the critical part of the disaster area to all aircraft except those "UNDER THE DIRECTION OF North Carolina task force 8." [That is their spelling, not mine.]
They’ve spent hundreds of millions of dollars on services for illegal immigrants as Americans struggle after Helene. //
While the emergency response agency is typically proactive, with pre-staged supplies ready for immediate rescue operations, that same support was clearly not available to the Appalachian towns where Hurricane Helene wrought havoc. Instead, the Biden-Harris administration restructured FEMA to provide services for illegal migrants with a new bureaucratic mandate to instill “equity as a foundation of emergency management.” Storm preparedness ranks as a third priority for the disaster relief task force under “lead[ing] whole of community in climate resilience.”
According to the government’s website, FEMA has spent more than $1 billion “to provide humanitarian services to noncitizen migrants following their release from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS)” under the “Shelter and Services Program” just within the last two years.
Secretary Antony Blinken @SecBlinken
·
The U.S. is at the forefront of humanitarian response to the growing crisis in Lebanon, announcing nearly $157 million in assistance today. We are committed to supporting those in need and delivering essential aid to displaced civilians, refugees and the communities hosting them.
6:04 PM · Oct 4, 2024
Elon Musk @elonmusk
·
SpaceX engineers are trying to deliver Starlink terminals & supplies to devastated areas in North Carolina right now and @FEMA is both failing to help AND won’t let others help. This is unconscionable!!They just took this video a few hours ago, where you can see the level of devastation: roads, houses, electricity, water supply and ground Internet connections completely destroyed. @FEMA wouldn’t let them land to deliver critical supplies … my blood is boiling …
3:25 PM · Oct 4, 2024 //
Secretary Pete Buttigieg @SecretaryPete
·
Replying to @elonmusk
No one is shutting down the airspace and FAA doesn’t block legitimate rescue and recovery flights. If you’re encountering a problem give me a call.
2:32 PM · Oct 4, 2024
Elon Musk @elonmusk
·
Replying to @SecretaryPete
There are hundreds of reports of FEMA/FAA blocking flights. This literally just happened.
I will follow you. Please DM me the number to call.
3:32 PM · Oct 4, 2024
Elon Musk @elonmusk
·
Replying to @elonmusk and @SecretaryPete
Still waiting … the helicopter is trying to land to deliver critical supplies. What’s the number to call?
3:48 PM · Oct 4, 2024
Musk said the pilots were not trying to land in an unsafe area.
How is the governmental effort so lacking in coordination and response, and then on top of that, getting in the way of those that are responding? Even this exchange seems to tell the tale — why should Elon Musk have to be begging Pete Buttigieg for a phone number just so a helicopter can land?
It's just unreal.
Buttigieg finally did get back to him. But he's responding only after all this has exploded all over X, with many who are not as well placed as Elon Musk complaining about the issues. //
Elon Musk @elonmusk
·
Replying to @SecretaryPete
Thanks for the call. Hopefully, we can resolve this soon.
4:29 PM · Oct 4, 2024 //
CarolineL
5 hours ago
Several years ago, a typhoon hit the Philippines, hard. We diverted a Carrier group or two and were there in two days, with helicopters being sent ahead to rescue and supply (same for the tsunami in Japan years ago).
It’s been EIGHT DAYS! Where is the military, all of their helicopters, supplies and medics? There are multiple military bases nearby, the soldiers could have Walked there in EIGHT DAYS! //
sb2
5 hours ago
The key word was "legitimate". So Buttigieg is saying they will determine who is "legitimate" or not. In other words, nobody is if they're not a Dem operative. //
War Planner
5 hours ago
Musk at 12:32..
..silence..
Musk at 12:48..
..silence..
Butte-Plugge at a little before 1:29..
When seconds count, your government are minutes, sometimes hours away..
The government response to Hurricane Helene has been nothing short of horrific. As RedState has been covering, everything that should be functioning normally to help the American people in terms of rescue efforts and assistance has been a colossal failure due to our inept and corrupt government.
Amid all of this failure of government has been an incredible display from private citizens who are lining up to help those in trouble in the affected areas. They're willing to put their time, money, resources, and skills at the disposal of those in need. It truly is a stunning display of humanity.
(READ: The Government's Failure to Help After Helene Goes Far Beyond What the Media Is Willing to Tell You)
But among all of this are reports that there are government officials attempting to halt the people's efforts in various ways. They threaten to arrest helicopter pilots who are rescuing the stranded. Reports that FEMA has told people to stop giving supplies out privately and direct them to FEMA camps have been made.
As former Army Ranger and MMA fighter Tim Kennedy told a local news agency, the government is actively hampering attempts to help. //
A Man Of Memes @RickyDoggin
·
She’s based. She’s 100% correct and you can’t deny it or bust her argument.
Let’s change the status quo. The quickest way to change it is to vote for the person that both sides hate…. Hmmmm, I wonder who that is?
6:25 PM · Oct 3, 2024
Summarized, her point is this.
If the media were to begin accurately reporting on the civilian effort to help the people and how successful it's been, operating on a shoestring budget with supplies gathered here and there, and all without government assistance, then you'd likely start wondering what the point of the government is.
The government wants you to believe that without it, you're entirely vulnerable and at the mercy of everything around you. It wants you to believe that you need it for your protection and survival. To be sure, there are elements of it that should exist for that very reason. Police forces and the military are necessary to maintain safety from both domestic and foreign threats.
However, it's pretty clear that the extraordinary amount of taxpayer dollars that we pay to it in order to keep the country functioning as it should are being wasted continuously. Even with all the billions and billions of dollars it takes from us, it can't seem to prioritize it well enough to be utilized properly. You start to realize you don't need the government as much as you think you do, and before long, you're enthusiastic about shrinking it, giving it less of your money, and reducing the number of people who work there.
This is a nightmare scenario for the government. If you know your own power, it highlights the weakness of the government //
If anything, Helene is a wake-up call. It's a full-on display of the power of the people, and a perfect example of how government should always be small and minimally funded based on basic need. //
Xanthro
33 minutes ago
All this failure is because of the current Administration. CERT (Community Emergency Response Team) is actually part of FEMA and we have been part of search and rescue for years. We are the ones who often train others, as we are volunteers and usually have decades of experience.
When we showed up at a disaster, we often even took lead, because we were there first. CERT is sometimes called the Zero Responders, because we are in the community, we don't need to travel to it.
I noticed a massive change with the snowstorms the San Bernardino Mountains. People were trapped for days and we were not allowed up the mountain, and those who came down the mountain were not allowed back up. People were tricked into coming down the mountain in refill medications and were arrested to prevent them from going back up, all the while their family members died.
While have no direct knowledge of the Maui, it screams the same incompetence.
Nowwe are once again prevent from rescuing people. Eastern Tennessee and Western North Carolina are insanely impacted. FEMA is doing everything they can to thwart rescue and aid.
I'll admit, FEMA was pretty shoddy at time pre-Katrina, but after that they stepped up their game, but all that improvement is gone.
FEMA is the problem, not the solution. //
C. S. P. Schofield
an hour ago
The Progressive Establishment firmly believes in the wonderfullness of Central Planning. They believe in it the way Medieval Aristocrats believed in the Divine Right of Kings. No matter how often it falls down, it is their reason for existing in the first place. And, to be fair (and it hurts to be fair to these weasels) Central Planning has had its victories. The spread of water and sewage systems was planned that way. Such networks are hard to start as private enterprise because the value they impart is diffuse and therefore hard to charge for up front. But the Progressives think EVERYTHING should be centrally planned and controled, and that simply doesn’t work.
The core idea behind our Constitution and Bill of Rights was that government should be a service organization, limited in authority. It was a radical idea in 1789 and 1791 (when the Constitution and Bill of Rights were ratified, respectively), and it has REMAINED a radical idea ever since. Elites do not like the idea of limited government. They do not like the idea that the peasants (that’s us) get to tell them to go climb a tree. So they try to undermine the Constitution every chance they get.
Erick-Woods Erickson
Oct 04, 2024
A lot of people who think the government is a mess are upset that it has been slow to respond to Helene. Of course it has. What did you expect?
In fact, it was FIVE DAYS after the storm struck that Joe Biden really mobilized the government. The Southern Baptist Convention was already on the ground while the flood waters were still raging.
The government is not going to help you.
You think FEMA is a mess? You’re damn right it is. You do not need to imagine maliciousness when the government that got research showing COVID doesn’t spread well outside decided to shut down beaches. You do not need to imagine maliciousness when the government that got research showing COVID mostly does not affect kids chose to shut down elementary schools. You do not need to imagine maliciousness when the government cannot deliver the mail competently, which is an Article 1, Section 8 responsibility, unlike disaster relief.
Besides, these people are fools, and a dementia patient leads them.
Pete Buttigieg and the Biden Administration have hindered private aviation’s ability to rescue people and ferry supplies as needed because Buttigieg et al put their trust in Uncle Sam’s man boob. Meanwhile, in North Carolina, neighbors are helping neighbors. Towns are rallying. Private helicopter pilots are defying threats of arrest to rescue people. Private pilots are shuttling supplies as needed. Baptists and Mormons are working together as first responders.
The question should not be about the government stopping citizens' private charity but about the response of those citizens and communities to the government trying to stop them. After all, the government is ultimately beholden to the people.
Joe Biden's government wants people to rely on the government. After all, Democrats believe the government is the only thing we are all a part of. They forget about the community. We are all part of one. And our local community is what will help us through hard times. The local communities of North Carolina will provide more help than FEMA. The state government of North Carolina and its neighbors will provide more immediate resources and do more heavy lifting than the federal government and that is by design and how it should be.
FEMA has prioritized equity for relief distributions, and it’s still looking for underserved non-white communities in the mountains to help first.
FEMA and the feds should be a last resort. These disasters are best recovered at the state level, with an assist from the Feds. Local and state disasters are not, after all, in Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution.
Currently, however, some people on social media profit from rumors, unsourced allegations, and lies. My personal favorite is about Chimney Rock, NC, where the feds have purportedly told people they’re going to leave the bodies in the street and let them rot, then bulldoze the town and take the land. Seriously — that allegation had over 2,000,000 views on Twitter.
It is not true.
How do I know? I asked my friend who lives in Chimney Rock who survived the disaster.
Lots of people are showing drone footage, claiming no one is coming to help the locals. Well, someone is there—bulldozers and dump trucks are working. You can see them in the very footage used as proof no one is there to help.
It is probably not FEMA, but it is not supposed to be. Despite the branding, FEMA is not actually a first responder and never has been. We’ve only been conditioned to think FEMA comes first because of Anderson Cooper’s outrage about the incompetent state and federal response to Katrina on CNN in 2005.
The Southern Baptists always show up first.
Americans show up first. They are first in and last out, as they should be. The government is not malicious. The trolls are preying on many people’s existing distrust of government to sow more discord and division. If it sounds super outrageous online, it just might not be true. //
What is true is that Americans will take care of each other, with or without the federal government. And this, my friends, is another reminder that we should not grow the federal government for Republican purposes. We should gut it and encourage people to rely more on their local communities and states.
In his pamphlet, “A Simple Way To Pray,” Martin Luther said of the line “Give us this day our daily bread,” in the Lord’s Prayer, that we should reflect on it praying, in part, “Grant to every estate-townsman or farmer-to be diligent and to display charity and loyalty toward each other.”
We get our daily bread not directly from God, but from the farmer who grows the wheat, the harvester who harvests the wheat, the petrol man who makes the gas to fuel the combine and truck that goes to market, the grocer who sells it, and the relief operator who buys it and delivers it to the mountains to those in need. It is the body of Christ working and the people in communities working who are going to provide relief and rescue.
The government will not save us. FEMA will not save us. We will save each other.
“[S]eek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.”
The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Je 29:7). (2016). Crossway Bibles.
Trump War Room @TrumpWarRoom
·
.@AshleyMoodyFL: "Everyone should be waking up this morning outraged... They have taken the FEMA EMERGENCY food and shelter program, and over time, siphoned off hundreds of millions of dollars into basically making it an illegal immigrant resettlement program."
1:22 PM · Oct 3, 2024 //
FEMA @fema
·
If you were affected by Helene, we urge you to apply for assistance as soon as possible.
We understand that everyone's journey to recovery is different, so we are here to help with your unique situation.
To apply, call 1-800-621-3362 or visit http://DisasterAssistance.gov.
#Helene
5:22 PM · Oct 2, 2024
But riddle me this: How do people who have absolutely no access to phone, power, or internet accomplish this? This is one indication that someone at FEMA failed to think this through.
There have been claims that FEMA is restricting private citizens from rendering rescue, aid, and comfort to the ravaged towns and limiting emergency response to their approved agencies, and counter claims that this is not occurring. What appears to be confirmed is that whatever resources FEMA does have available are not being distributed. Aircraft, ambulances, fuel supply tankers, and trucks with supplies that are supposed to be for the Hurricane Helene victims are sitting on a tarmac in Greenville, SC, still waiting to deploy. //
RedinOR 3 hours ago edited
This is why we should NOT have socialized healthcare. The government (as currently mismanaged) is incapable of efficiency. No one in the government bureaucracy is incentivized to operate in a way to maximize resources and funding. Their survival is based on growing, when they should be focused on staying as small as they can be and still cover the bases. It is said that a piece of writing is perfect not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing more to remove. The same can be said of a bureaucracy.
This is a tragic reminder that the government cannot be trusted to be there when we most need support. //
duggersd 3 hours ago
Someone else pointed out to me that the beginning of the fiscal year is October 1. So how did they run out of money in less than 4 days?
Perhaps you've seen the video of Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg going around where he tells citizens to refrain from sending drones into the air, or piloting aircraft in the area where Helene has left a path of destruction.
"There's also some safety issues that come up," said Buttigieg. "For example, temporary flight restrictions to make sure the airspace is clear for any flights or drone activity that might be involved in helping to allow those emergency responders to do their job."
Brandon Morse @TheBrandonMorse
·
This video is the government attempting to stop footage from getting out that shows the extent of their ineptitude and halt civilians help so there’s no contrast to highlight it’s failure. Full stop.
12:26 PM · Oct 3, 2024
The excuse is that you need to keep your drone or aircraft out of the sky in order to allow emergency workers to do their jobs and not complicate matters. That would be a valid thing to suggest... if there was an effective rescue operation going on, but there's not. As I covered in my last VIP article, FEMA is out of disaster relief money because it was spent on illegals.
If you're like me, you probably didn't see this as a federal official attempting to help people. Given that this is the Biden-Harris administration, you probably became suspicious pretty quickly that something else was likely behind Buttigieg's words.
Personally, this feels a lot like a call for censorship, even if it's just an attempt to encourage it through "advice."
If you want to know what the real story on the ground is, the government isn't going to tell you. Their response has been disastrous, and it makes them look awful. The less you see of this disastrous response, the better for them. They can craft their own narrative where they were the ever-present heroes working hard to help victims.
But it would be an egregious lie. The real heroes are the ones out there helping their fellow civilians in any way they can. Private pilots are attempting to rescue stranded victims. Food and water are being delivered where it can be effective, and this is in spite of government disaster groups telling them to stop. //
Maximus Decimus Cassius
19 hours ago
The "authorities" are trying to enforce no-fly zones for everything--helicopters, drones, whatever--to prevent assistance to the stricken. This is beyond treason.
Lets just call it what it is: government sponsored genocide. //
Vigilo
17 hours ago
This is like the Biden regime response to the Maui wild fire. "No cameras allowed". //
Sancho Panza
18 hours ago
The idea of citizens taking direct action to make things better for their communities, neighbors, families and selves has uncomfortable connotations for fascists. They feel it keenly, and instinctively suppress it any way they can.
Mark Moyar’s story shows why Trump has to prove to the people he needs for an effective presidency that he will not leave them twisting in the wind. //
In advance of Tuesday’s vice presidential debate, the Democratic National Committee put up a billboard outside Madison Square Garden calling Donald Trump’s running mate, Sen. J.D. Vance, the “Poster boy for Project 2025.” As predicted by campaign email blasts, during the debate Kamala Harris’ running mate, Gov. Tim Walz, name-checked this blueprint for conservative federal governance, yet again proving the Harris-Walz campaign has zero policy accomplishments to run on.
Since most voters don’t care about this pretty unremarkable effort to slim an ungovernable federal bureaucracy and staff the next Republican administration with effective people loyal to the United States, it’s telling that Democrats have turned it into the only other issue they’re running on besides abortion until birth. It shows Democrats believe growing the unelected bureaucracy that undermines elected officials such as Congress and the president is their top priority (competing with murdering mostly black and brown babies in the womb).
It’s also yet more evidence they always push Republican defeat even in the event of Republican victory, because Project 2025 proposals are nothing more than simple common sense. A majority of voters, and three-quarters of solid Republicans, think the federal government is corrupt. And it is. It’s now obviously a far cry from early progressive fantasies about “apolitical experts.” It’s a politicized fifth column enacting regime change by substituting unelected, unconstitutional government for elected, constitutional government of, by, and for Americans. //
A book out this year, Masters of Corruption, by former Trump appointee Mark Moyar, provides yet another vivid illustration of why. In it, Moyar, a former Trump appointee to the U.S. Agency for International Development, details how career bureaucrats sabotaged his whistleblowing on their corruption. His story shows that Trump has to prove to the people he needs for an effective presidency that he has their back, and that if they work to achieve Trump’s goals in office they will not be left twisting in the wind.
That’s effectively what happened to Moyar. A researcher with military and foreign policy experience, plus a PhD, Moyar wrote his sixth book in 2016. He submitted the manuscript for Defense Department review, in multiple ways going far above the legal and regulatory standards for ensuring he didn’t release classified information. After the department failed to review his manuscript despite receiving more than six times as much time to do so as court precedent allows, Moyar informed them he was moving forward with publication.
The book was published, and that was the end of it — until Moyar became a Trump appointee at USAID two years later and started to blow the whistle on corrupt employees. Then the manuscript review resurfaced. It was used as a pretense to deny Moyar the security clearance he needed to do his job, then ultimately to kick him out of the job on the grounds that he couldn’t do it without a security clearance. In a recent speech, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said his uncle, President John F. Kennedy, started USAID to benefit U.S. policy, but it’s become a CIA front organization for regime change.
The entire time, no one ever provided any evidence that Moyar had published any classified material in his book that the Defense Department had failed — or refused — to review. And higher-level Trump appointees refused to defend Moyar against the bureaucratic jackals, leaving him defenseless. While his security clearance was held up simply out of spite, he couldn’t be hired for the majority of jobs for which he is qualified.
Torture by a Thousand Bureaucrats
That sounds Kafka-esque enough, yet it is a very brief gloss on the labyrinthian twists and turns that Moyar’s book relates. Reading them imparts a horror of ever getting caught in such a system embedded with people with the power to screw with you while they trap you there, all out of sheer hatred for political commitments that represent half the country. //
Moyar points out that anti-Trump bureaucrats worked furiously to sabotage the work voters had elected Trump to accomplish. They organized within agencies like an internal spy ring. They used their government positions to — often illegally — leak half-truths to media in a way that would damage Trump’s ability to govern. In Zoom meetings, they “offered the federal employees tips for thwarting Trump appointees, such as concocting excuses for procedural delays, demanding protracted legal reviews, leaking information to sympathetic journalists, and bringing complaints to the inspector general,” Moyar writes.
Thousands of good people who risked their careers to advance Trump’s policy agenda were not only backstabbed by agency colleagues, like Moyar was, but also placed on Democrat target lists and personally and professionally harassed to this day. //
Trump’s September promise to appoint Elon Musk to “conduct[] a complete financial and performance audit of the entire federal government” also is the right direction. A week later, Musk gave more details, according to a RealClearPolitics transcript: “We do have an opportunity to do kind of a once-in-a-lifetime deregulation and reduction in the size of government. Because the other thing besides the regulations, America is also going bankrupt extremely quickly.”
When asked if federal agencies could be cut by “two, three, four, five percent,” Musk replied, “I think we’d need to do more than that.” Yes, more — try at least a factor of ten.
Seidhom said he tried to de-escalate and asked the official for instructions on how to communicate with the Lake Lure Fire Department while he was flying a rescue mission near the town. Seidhom said the fire official ordered him to leave and not come back.
“If that’s what you want us to do, we’ll leave no issue. And I explained to him that I left my son on the side of the mountain, and I left another victim. I was going to go back and bring them. It was already set up for the landing spot and then I would get out of his area. He told me I wasn’t going to go back up the mountain to get them, I was going to leave them there.”
Seidhom said he asked the official for a specific reason he was ordering him to stop his rescue efforts. “You’re interfering with my operation,” is the reason Seidhom said the fire official gave.
“I’m going back and getting my copilot. He said, ‘If you turn around and go back up the mountain, you’re going to be arrested.’ I said, ‘Well, sir, I’m going back to get my copilot, I don’t know what to tell you.'”
Seidhom said the official called over two law enforcement officers and again threatened him with arrest if he flew back up the mountain.
“At that point, I had to make a decision. I have a victim, I have my son, and I politely asked the officers, told him the situation again, explained everything, told them who I’d been coordinating with, and I said, ‘Hey if I go back up and get this victim and bring him down to this landing spot that other emergency personnel have designated, am I going to be arrested? And the officers’ response was, ‘Man, I really don’t know what to do in this situation.’ I said, ‘So you can’t tell me if I’m going to get arrested or not?’ And he said, ‘Man, I’m not sure what to do.'”
The out-of-state chief and fire captain Seidhom said he encountered at the landing zone spoke with him before he took off.
“They came back over and said, ‘Hey, man, we can’t tell you to go get the victim. We can’t even ask you to go get the victim, but we can tell you if you come back with the victim, we’ll have you a designated landing spot and we’ll make sure they don’t come over here,” Seidhom told WJZY.
“So, at that point, I felt like the other person was going to pressure him to arrest me when I come back with the victim and then my son would have been left on the side of a mountain with this person to go and rescue him,” Seidhom said. //
The fire official told Seidhom to report to the Rutherford County Airport and wait for Federal Aviation Administration officials to meet with him, according to Jordan Seidhom.
The father of two got back into his chopper, turned it in the direction of the mountain and lifted off right back to where he left his son and the woman’s husband. He picked his son up and told the husband what happened at the drop-off with the Lake Lure fire official.
Seidhom took off and looked back at the husband, standing helpless in his crumbling driveway as the help he thought would come for him flew away. Seidhom said the fire official told him the fire department’s ground crew would walk up the mountainside to rescue the man “in a few hours.” Seidhom said it was a three-minute flight from the couple’s driveway to the landing site where he left the woman with first responders.
Seidhom and his son flew to the Rutherford County airport, just as they were directed.
“I did leave the Rutherford Airport. I knew at that point he had no jurisdiction, I was legal in what I was doing, and I was following all FAA guidelines and airspace guidelines. I was on private property,” Seidhom said.
The Seidhoms spent three hours at the airport, but no one from the Federal Aviation Administration came.
Within a half-hour of the fire official and the arrest threat, Seidhom said a Temporary Flight Restriction was set up over the Lake Lure gap, right in the center of where he and the fire official faced off minutes earlier. //
Seidhom said the fire official told him to tell any other pilots he knew that they would also be arrested if they came back. Seidhom said he was the only helicopter within 40 nautical miles of Lake Lure at the time.
After the encounter with the fire official, Seidhom decided to fly back to his home in Pageland, South Carolina, and call off his efforts to help. //
“I’m sorry, if I had to do it over again, I would have stopped and I would have rescued as many people until they decided they were going to arrest me,” said Seidhom.
AkronMike 2 hours ago edited
Clearly, this malicious antipathy is intentional. So, the trillion dollar question is: why?
The Occam's Razor answer is that these suffering folks are mostly white, mostly Republican voters. So, the government doesn't care . . . or worse. If they die or are stuck wallowing in their destroyed homes, then they won't vote and key states go blue next month.
But my Spidey-senses tells me there might be something else going on. Maybe Joe Biden is getting payback against Harris-Pelosi-Shumer-Deep State for forcing him out. He's slow-walking all this aid to drive outrage in key swing states to ensure Harris loses those states.
Only the President can invoke Taft-Hartley to end a strike of national importance. But Brandon's not invoking the law . . . and it's going to bring lots of pain to lots of people ahead of the election.
Maybe Brandon has just enough grey matter left to get his revenge on those who crushed his dream of remaining President before he goes into a full vegetative state. Just maybe. //
Political-Paige 2 hours ago edited
NOBODY. Nobody on the planet is this incompetent. The only possible conclusion is that this is intentional.
Why?
NC is a critical swing state next month. The Dems are all clustered in the Piedmont to the east, where the academic & research triangle sits. The mountain side of the state (except for the lunatic clownshow of Asheville itself) is the Republican stronghold.
People with no power or water or livelihood don't vote.
Dead Republicans can't vote.
People who have been taught a lesson that failing to bend then knee has consequences are afraid to vote.
The only American disaster in my long life that would have bodies hanging in trees and underwater in cars a week out, that has no govt helicopter or supply support, that has government trying to actively BLOCK civilian rescue flights, is this one.
That can NOT be an accident.
So what's happening in WNC right now? Well, the sun has just come up, but:
- Yesterday, private NC & SC pilots airlifted 26 tons of food to us.
- Yesterday, the skies were full of private helicopters... not government.
- Yesterday, utility trucks from a plethora of southern states worked 24 hours to try to get power against massive odds.
- Yesterday, our local restaurants with any power or water at all gave free meals to everyone.
- Yesterday, donated water trucks pulled up in parking lots all over NC and people carried whatever they could: jugs, bottles, bins, even cat litter boxes, to scoop up some lifesaving water for their families.
- Yesterday, volunteers tried to clean up 500 mentally & physically disabled people left to rot in their own waste in a low-income complex in Asheville, but were deterred by looters.
- Yesterday, farmers from SC & north GA brought what feed they could to starving herds wandering WNC.
- Yesterday, animal shelters across the south desperately tried to find airlifts & transport for starving, stranded, & lost pets, but all the volunteer vehicles are needed to rescue people who are running out of time.
- Yesterday, police were ordered to stop anyone not local from taking passable interstates into the hard-hit areas, so volunteer relief supplies are stymied. One assumes they're acting on directives from the Democrat governor or FEMA bureaucrats. Social media was full of ways to out-fox them by taking passable back roads (scarce as those are).
- Yesterday, volunteers seeking FEMA in both SC and NC were turned away, but only after the FEMA workers took the meager cash donations they carried with them. FEMA, you see has smugly announced that it's out of money for this hurricane season, despite their 29.2 BILLION dollar budget and their decision APRIL 2024 to give 640,000,000 to DHS for illegal aliens.
Illegals will vote Democrat, now or later. 640 million.
WNC folks will vote Republican.
What's that tell you? //
Grumpy Right Seater 2 hours ago
Keeping the CNN crew out of a hard hit area is the same tactic used to keep news folks away from the Maui fire. Is this a new type of censorship? //
Random US Citizen 41 minutes ago
It’s on purpose. All those rural voters are cut off… but the big blue cities will be voting just fine. Harris was behind in NC… but there’s a very real chance she wins if actual Americans can’t submit ballots while those who are no longer our countrymen can stuff drop boxes like there’s no tomorrow. This could definitely swing the election.
As a side note: somebody should graffiti over the “Liberty” with Bragg on all the off post signs. //
Cafeblue32 2 hours ago edited
Biden: "We've given everything that we have."
If that's your best, then no wonder your party looks like a Chinese fire drill.
A smart party trying to win an election would have seen it as an opportunity for their candidate to take command of a tragedy dropped in her lap and show off her decision making and administrative chops, her being VP and all. But because they're rural folks, they must be Trump heads, so the instinct to punish them overides anything that might happen to be sane and logical. My granny used to call it cutting off your nose to spite your face. //
Ed in North Texas an hour ago
"...this is NOT the National Guard; it is the organization Ron DeSantis formed that caused some to befoul themselves over the thought that he may be going full Mussolini or something."
Texas formed the Texas State Guard in 1871 with Federal recognition starting in WW II. Among other missions, the State Guard takes over securing and operating the TXNG facilities on activation of the TXNG units to Federal service.
It has been nearly a week since Hurricane Helene hit western North Carolina, and Joe Biden has finally announced on behalf of whoever is running the country that he has authorized 1,000 federal troops from Fort Bragg (I will never call it anything else), North Carolina, to assist in disaster relief operations a mere 250 miles away in Western North Carolina.
These 1,000 troops will constitute the overwhelming federal military disaster response in Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Virginia.
According to the Department of Defense, the federal military involvement in this five-state catastrophe is minimal:
...
- Four helicopters with para-rescue teams are at McGhee Tyson Airport in Knoxville, Tennessee.
- Eight Army helicopters and ten Navy helicopters were available at Fort Bragg on Monday.
- Thirty high-water vehicles are at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, for reasons that are unclear.
The critical resources needed in the hardest hit areas of Western North Carolina are helicopters for getting stranded people out of danger and bringing supplies to areas cut off by flooding. As of this afternoon, the only military aircraft available are 11 from Florida, two from South Carolina, seven from Tennessee, and one from Virginia. Some of those may be in use in North Carolina as both Florida and South Carolina have sent National Guard contingents to North Carolina.
A lot of hard questions are being asked.
//
As an aside, Howard's story of petty bickering among local officials seems to be spot on; see Pilot flying Helene rescue missions in NC ordered out, threatened with arrest.
The Civil Rights Lawyer @johnbryanesq
·
People are flying their own helicopters in and actively rescuing people in NC and local government officials are threatening them with arrest. You don’t hate your government enough.
Last edited
7:01 AM · Oct 1, 2024 //
To qualify for federal military assistance after a disaster, the Stafford Act must be invoked. This requires a governor to request assistance under that law. Biden declared a state of emergency in North Carolina on September 26 which released some federal aid. Governor Roy Cooper made a Stafford Act request on September 27), but Biden delayed invoking the Stafford Act until today, Wednesday. //
Note the tasking includes a single Forward Support Company. This is rather astounding as that unit has extremely limited capabilities. It has an aid station, a field kitchen, about a half-dozen trucks, and vehicle repair section. What is needed in Western North Carolina is emergency generators, communications, heavy engineering equipment, medical support, cargo haul capability, and helicopters. Even though Fort Bragg has well over 100 helicopters, only eight have been tasked to assist in recovery and relief operations.
Why has the tap been turned off to military assistance for North Carolina and other battered states? One can't help but remember this statement by Biden.
Greg Price @greg_price11
·
Reporter: "Do you have any words to the victims of the hurricane?"
Biden: "We've given everything that we have."
Reporter "Are there any more resources the federal government could be giving them?"
Biden: "No."
10:36 PM · Sep 29, 2024
And private helicopters flying rescue missions still outnumber military ones in the storm-blasted areas. //