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.

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.

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Why spend your time cutting holes when you could be doing something more valuable with your time? FactoryMation can add custom cutouts to any of our industrial enclosures and subpanels. We can cut holes to your specifications so that the enclosure arrives ready for assembly.

While active, the natural reactor generated fission waste byproducts similar to those produced by modern nuclear reactors at power plants. This provided some useful evidence for the scientists, who found that the radioactive waste products created by this natural process, including those with million year half lives, have decayed away. The byproducts have also barely moved - according to the US Department of Energy, the plutonium “has moved less than 10 feet from where it was formed almost two billion years ago.”

This means that when the Oklo reactor was discovered in 1972, the fission products had been harmlessly lying in the same place for around a billion years.

Also, in the hundreds of thousands of years it has operated as a nuclear reactor, Oklo has never had a meltdown or explosion. Scientists found that “the combination of aluminium phosphate grains to trap radioactive materials and the groundwater to regulate the reaction allowed for an extremely safe reactor.” Mother Nature knows best.

So next time someone tells you that solar and wind are the only ‘natural’ forms of energy generation, tell them about the natural reactors in Gabon. I’ve yet to hear about solar panels and wind turbines sprouting up naturally and generating electricity without human intervention anywhere in the world in the history of our planet. The blunt truth is that nature created fission well before humans were capable of building nuclear reactors. If that isn’t a clear definition of ‘natural’ energy, I don’t know what is.

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

Overnight, Israel carried out air and sea strikes against an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps ammunition dump on the Russian naval base at Khmeimim/Hmeimim, Syria. The attacks avoided Russian-manned facilities and were timed to coincide with the arrival of a suspected shipment of weapons from Iran by the sanctioned Qeshm Fars airline.

Russian and IRGC air defense systems were used, but video demonstrates their ineffectiveness to attacks from air-launched and sea-launched weapons. //

Shortly after the attack, Russia began evacuating diplomats and citizens from Lebanon and encouraged the 1.5 million Russians living in Israel to leave the country "while such opportunities exist." //

Russia has a decision to make about its adventure in Syria. It has shown that it is unable to either prevent attacks on its areas of interest or to credibly defend those areas when they are attacked. By allying itself with Iran, its reputation is inextricably attached to Iran's fate. If it continues to let IRGC thugs snuggle up to its facilities, inevitably, Russians are going to be killed, and then the Kremlin will have a whole new level of humiliation to contend with. //

Laocoön of Troy
2 hours ago
Word of caution:

"... Russia ambassador in Tel Aviv recommended that citizens in Israel consider leaving the country "while such opportunities exist." He said this in an interview with TASS. ..."

Evacuating your nationals from territory and nations you are preparing to go to war with usta be a sign of impending hostilities. We've done it, the old Soviet Russians have done it, and the Putinist Russian Federation have done it. If that holds in this instance are we looking at direct hostilities with Israel by the Russians? Are the Russians that stupid or desperate?

This bears watching.

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.]

UOCAVA voters can download the Federal Postcard Application (FPCA) from the internet and use it as a voter registration form and as a ballot request. The FPCA asks for a Social Security number and a state-issued driver’s license or identification number. This information is matched with state information to verify a voter is a real person.

But a directive from the Pennsylvania Department of State tells counties they cannot reject voter registrations from UOCAVA voters just because the numbers they provide on their application don’t match state database numbers. The state tells counties they “must” accept UOCAVA applications, even if the driver’s license or last four of the Social Security number cannot be matched. //

UOCAVA voting played a role in the 2020 election. The case cites a report from the U.S. Election Assistance Commission that says in 2020, the state received approximately 27,000 ballots through UOCAVA, with approximately 20,000 of those ballots coming from non-military applicants.

Already in 2024, more than 25,000 UOCAVA ballots have been transmitted to potentially unverified UOCAVA applicants, court papers say, citing the Department of State Absentee and Mail Ballot Report.

The congressmen asked the court to order the state to direct counties to verify UOCAVA voters’ identities before counting UOCAVA ballots. They also asked the court to order counties to segregate 2024 UOCAVA ballots until voters’ identity can be verified.

New before-and-after aerial photos paint a grim picture of Hurricane Helene’s devastation in parts of western North Carolina that have been hard to access after the storm swiped away the state’s roads and bridges. //

The storm threw down so much water over the southern Appalachians over a 3-day span that it was a widespread once-in-1,000 year rainfall event for the region, according the National Weather Service.

All of that water barreled down the mountains, liquifying the slopes in some places into devastating mudslides that wiped homes off their foundations. But eventually, it all ended up in rivers.

Android doesn’t support characters like "*/:<>?| in filenames (see https://stackoverflow.com/questions/2679699/what-characters-allowed-in-file-names-on-android/64021421#64021421 2). If you want to sync those files to an Android device, you do need to remove these from their names.

For modern IoT applications, automation technology needs to be increasingly more powerful and adaptable. u-mation offers a coordinated hardware portfolio designed for the future-proof preparation of your machines and systems. u-control 2000 is one of the most compact and state-of-the-art control systems on the market and is the centrepiece of our hardware portfolio. u-control 2000 forms the basis required for use of our engineering solutions u-create web, studio and IoT. The controllers modular design is based on the remote I/O system u-remote, and allows for needs-based expansion to include other components from the u-mation family.

‘There is deep frustration,’ one North Carolina official who works with groups in the Hurricane-battered areas told The Federalist.

Melania Trump’s unequivocal support for abortion puts pro-life advocates, the Republican Party, and her husband in a rather difficult position. At the very least, it places her at odds with her husband’s conservative base. At most, should Donald Trump prove to be as pro-life during his second term as he was during his first, it will put her at odds with him as well.

court-appointed Special Master and retired Arizona Superior Court Judge Christopher Skelly delivered his report to the Maricopa County Superior Court revealing Prop 140’s 38,000 pairs of duplicate signatures.

Despite these findings calling into question the measure’s eligibility to appear on the state’s November ballot, Maricopa Judge Frank Moskowitz ruled on Sept. 19 that votes cast for the measure would count. As summarized by AZ Free News, the judge “claimed that the confirmation of duplicated, invalid signatures was ‘moot’” because the state had already begun printing ballots for the election and that the courts lacked statutory authority to issue such an order. //

“Perhaps the absence of such express authority in statute is because the Legislature never intended for initiative challenges to go past the ballot printing deadline.”

Plaintiffs appealed the decision, which was subsequently upheld by the Arizona Supreme Court on Friday. //

“The committee behind the measure was aware of the duplicates, yet they obstructed and delayed the review of the duplicate signatures for over a month,” Mussi said. //

“What the AZ Supreme Court just affirmed is that as long as you can conceal your cheating long enough, you can fraud your way onto the ballot,” Strong Communities Foundation of Arizona Chair Merissa Hamilton wrote on X.

Tom Cotton @TomCottonAR
·
Incredible.

Imagine Kamala negotiating with Putin or Xi.
Trump War Room

@TrumpWarRoom
Kamala's teleprompter briefly went out at the beginning of her speech — you can tell the exact moment it happened.

She had absolutely no idea what to do or say.

Humiliating.
Embedded video
7:26 PM · Oct 4, 2024 //

Cuddly Curmudgeon
3 hours ago
Maybe she really did think Biden was sharp as a tack. there doesn't seem to be much of a difference betweeen them.

(EDITOR'S NOTE: This story was first published August 9, 2024 at 6:56 PM EDT, but is being republished, with additional commentary, in light of additional media reports on the issue.)

Audio from the Las Vegas Metro Police Department's protective detail for President Joe Biden on July 17 was released Friday afternoon by Oversight Project, which obtained the recordings through a Freedom of Information Act request. Those recordings confirm RedState's reporting that Biden was first headed to University Medical Center, a trauma center, after he suddenly canceled a speaking engagement reportedly due to illness, then suddenly diverted directly to Harry Reid International Airport.

Former President Donald Trump can expect to fight impeachment efforts again pending a second term this November.

Special Counsel Jack Smith’s 165-page report unsealed Wednesday is the Steele Dossier 2.0, an anonymously sourced manifesto compiled to warrant deep state investigations into former President Donald Trump with the ultimate aim of tossing him out of the White House. //

The report, filed and made public within 60 days of an election, serves no legitimate legal purpose, as the special counsel desperately attempts to thwart Trump’s return to the Oval Office.

“Smith was clearly eager to get this out before the public despite Justice Department policies that encourage prosecutors to avoid acts that would be viewed as trying to influence an election,” wrote George Washington University Law Professor Jonathan Turley on X. //

“In some ways …” wrote former prosecutor and National Review Editor Andrew McCarthy, “Smith’s public submission is better than a trial.”

Trials are messy and unpredictable; prosecutors’ written descriptions of what they hope to prove are often compelling and damning. That is why, at a trial, the judge routinely instructs the jury that an indictment and proffers by a prosecutor are only allegations; they are not evidence, they are not subject to cross-examination, and they prove nothing. Here, by contrast, there will be no cautionary instructions. //

If Trump were to win, Smith is certain to continue the deep state lawfare campaign even after the election, likely challenging any effort for the president to pardon himself. In other words, Smith’s persistent prosecution laid out in the 165-page filing is the Democrats’ “insurance policy” against another Trump presidency.

North Carolina’s constitution requires that voters be residents of the state. But a state statute currently in place violates this requirement, opening the door for individuals who have never resided in the state to vote, a newly filed lawsuit alleges.

The Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act (UOCAVA), passed by Congress in 1986, allows absentee voting by members of the U.S. military and Merchant Marine, their family members, and U.S. citizens residing outside the United States.

The rule has been around for decades, but in recent years, UOCAVA voting has displayed some anomalies. //

It goes on to say that even if someone else lives at that address now, or the house was torn down, that’s fine because election offices only use voting residence address to determine if you are eligible to vote in that jurisdiction and which ballot to send. //

"Occasionally, current residents may receive election mail for a UOCAVA voter who no longer lives at that address. Election officials should explain to the current resident that a military or overseas voter is eligible to use their former physical residence for voter registration purposes, even if they typically receive mail overseas.”

In 2009, Congress passed the Military and Overseas Voter Empowerment (MOVE) Act, sponsored by Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y. It requires all states to accept the Federal Post Card Application as both a voter registration form and an official request for an absentee ballot.

The postcard allows wannabe voters to request ballots by email. That means no postmark. That means you can request your UOCAVA ballot from anywhere. It is hypothetically possible to sit in Anytown, U.S.A., and request that a UOCAVA ballot be emailed to you, while claiming you are in another country. And in 31 states, certain voters can submit their ballots electronically to the state to be counted. //

According to federal documents, “unlike in 2018 and 2016, email was the most common mode of UOCAVA ballot receipt in 2020,” but many voters still mailed their ballots in. //

In 2020, UOCAVA voter participation increased dramatically compared to previous years. That is despite the fact that during the 2020 Covid pandemic, the United States advised Americans abroad — business people, study-abroad students, missionaries, and holiday travelers — to return home. //

Despite an unprecedented number of Americans returning to the states where they could vote on their home turf, the number of UOCAVA ballots counted in the 2020 election was an astronomical 913,734. //

that 36 percent jump in UOCAVA voters another unexplained anomaly of the 2020 election.

The REPOWER plan rests on four pillars:

1) Replacing all subsidies and mandates with a CO2 fee, which shall be set by Congress.

2) A grid of ratepayer owned coops which provide local power distribution and backup power.

3) Coops or consortia of coops contracting with merchant providers for the bulk of their power, or possibly building their own base load plants.

4) Unshackling nuclear from a regulatory system based on the Two Lies. Nuclear's remarkable energy density, combined with competition will drive the cost of nuclear down to its should-cost of less than 3 cents per kilowatt-hour.

The end result will be a largely nuclear grid, backed up by local fossil generation and supplemented in some areas by hydro, wind, or solar. //

The REPOWER plan has been criticized on the grounds it not only does not get rid of fossil fuel, it requires extensive expansion of fossil fuel capacity. The goal here is reducing CO2 emissions, not eliminating fossil fuel capacity. And we must reduce CO2 emissions in a way that uses the planet's resources efficiently. If we end up in a situation where we could have both less CO2 and less cost, we are being criminally stupid.

REPOWER will result in nuclear at a naive LCOE of less than 3 cents/kWh. That makes drastically reducing grid CO2 emissions so easy it's almost automatic. Figure 1 summarizes the results of a study of the German grid in which nuclear's overnight CAPEX was set at $2000/kW. (In the 1960's, we were building nuclear plants at less than $1000/kW in today's money.) //

Currently, the grid is producing about 25% of man-made CO2 emissions. If we cut that by a factor 20 with should-cost nuclear, we are down to about 1% of the total. At that point, we are far better off going after the other 99%, then expending resources on further reducing the 1%.
Takeaway

Unless we have cheap electricity, decarbonization in going nowhere. The Good News is we can have both very low grid emissions and cheap electricity. All we have to do is:

a) Put the ratepayer in charge of the grid.

b) Let the underwriters balance nuclear safety and cost.

GBenton
6 hours ago
They know they are going to lose. Projection: they may not peacefully transfer power.

Never forget they always accuse us of what they are. //

Laocoön of Troy
6 hours ago edited
If this is true...and I think it's likely...then Republican Governors all across the nation need to be prepared to deal with the violence quickly. One of Trump's failures in his first administration was the near-complete lack of action to confront and suppress any revolts that occur. This nation cannot survive another orgy of lootings, burnings, murders, and assaults that Trump tolerated during the George Floyd unrest.

During the 1906 earthquake and fire in San Francisco, the Army left their barracks with orders to shoot looters. I don't know if any looters were actually shot, but the threat alone facilitated cleanup, and restoration of services pretty quickly. If we have another wave of George Floyd-style revolts...and the Republicans sit on their hands as they did the first time...the political price to be paid will be unbelievable. That means you Gov Kemp and you too Gov Hogan. //

NightTwister
6 hours ago
If he thought Kamala was going to win he wouldn't be talking about transfer of power.

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..