News of the week 2.

Pittance offered to desperate victims in North Carolina, while billions is spent on foreign wars ?



Former president Donald Trump delivers remarks to the press in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene in Valdosta, Georgia, on September 30, 2024.
Former president Donald Trump delivers remarks to the press in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene in Valdosta, Georgia, on September 30, 2024. Chandan Khanna/AFP/Getty Images
Washington
CNN
—
Former President Donald Trump has delivered a barrage of lies and distortions about the federal response to Hurricane Helene.

While various misinformation about the response has spread widely without Trump’s involvement, the Republican presidential nominee has been one of the country’s leading deceivers on the subject. Over a span of six days, in public comments and social media posts, Trump has used his powerful megaphone to endorse or invent false or unsubstantiated claims.

The chief targets of his hurricane-related dishonesty have been Vice President Kamala Harris, his opponent in the November presidential election, and President Joe Biden.

Monday: Trump falsely claims Biden hasn’t answered calls from Georgia’s governor

During a visit to Georgia on Monday, Trump said of Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp: “He’s been calling the president, hasn’t been able to get him.”

It was immediately clear that Trump’s claim was false. Kemp, a Republican, told reporters earlier Monday that he had spoken with Biden the day prior — and that it was Kemp who had initially missed a call from Biden, not the other way around.

Kemp told reporters that he had successfully called Biden right back. Kemp added: “He just said, ‘Hey, what do you need?’ And I told him, you know, ‘We got what we need. We’ll work through the federal process.’ He offered that if there’s other things we need, just to call him directly, which — I appreciate that. But we’ve had FEMA embedded with us since a day or two before the storm hit in our state operations center in Atlanta; we’ve got a great relationship with them.”

Monday: Trump cites baseless ‘reports’ about anti-Republican bias in the North Carolina response

In a social media post on Monday, Trump said of North Carolina: “I’ll be there shortly, but don’t like the reports that I’m getting about the Federal Government, and the Democrat Governor of the State, going out of their way to not help people in Republican areas.”

It’s unclear what “reports” Trump might have been getting, but there was no apparent basis for the underlying claim that the Biden administration and North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper were maliciously abandoning certain communities out of partisan bias.
Trump provided no evidence when a reporter pressed him later in the day.

Thursday: Trump falsely claims the Biden-Harris response had received ‘universally’ negative reviews

Trump wrote in a social media post on Thursday that Biden and Harris “are universally being given POOR GRADES for the way that they are handling the Hurricane, especially in North Carolina.”

That wasn’t even close to accurate. Though the Biden administration’s response had certainly received criticism, it had also been praised by various state and local leaders — including the Republican governors of some of the affected states and the Democratic governor of North Carolina, plus local leaders including the Democratic mayor of the hard-hit North Carolina city of Asheville.

For example, Republican South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster said at a Tuesday press conference that federal assistance had “been superb,” noting that Biden and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg had both called and told him to let them know whatever the state needed. McMaster also said FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell had called.

Thursday: Trump falsely claims Harris spent ‘all her FEMA money’ on housing illegal migrants

At a campaign rally in Michigan on Thursday, Trump claimed that “Kamala spent all her FEMA money, billions of dollars, on housing for illegal migrants, many of whom should not be in our country.” He added in an election-related conspiracy theory, saying, “They stole the FEMA money, just like they stole it from a bank, so they could give it to their illegal immigrants that they want to have vote for them this season.”

This is false.

First, there is zero basis for Trump’s suggestion that the Biden administration is running some sort of scheme to get undocumented immigrants to vote illegally in the 2024 election. Voting by noncitizens is a felony.

Second, there is zero basis for claiming that FEMA disaster assistance money was stolen — by anyone, let alone Harris personally — for the housing of migrants.

Congress appropriated $650 million in the 2024 fiscal year to fund a program that helps state and local governments house migrants — and instructed US Customs and Border Protection to transfer that $650 million to FEMA to administer the program. But this $650 million pot is entirely distinct from FEMA’s pot of disaster relief funds; as the Department of Homeland Security, the White House and independent observers noted this week, they’re just two separate things funded separately by Congress.

Congress appropriated more than $35 billion in disaster relief funds for fiscal 2024, according to official FEMA statistics.

Friday: Trump falsely claims $1 billion was ‘stolen’ from FEMA for migrants and has gone ‘missing’

Though Trump’s Thursday claim about FEMA money and migrants had already been debunked by Friday, Trump repeated the claim to reporters at least twice on Friday — and then said it again at a Friday night town hall event in North Carolina.

Saturday: Trump falsely claims the federal government is only giving $750 to people who lost their homes

At a campaign rally in Pennsylvania on Saturday, Trump strongly suggested that Americans who lost their homes in the hurricane were only being offered $750 in federal aid.

“They’re offering them $750, to people whose homes have been washed away. And yet we send tens of billions of dollars to foreign countries that most people have never heard of. They’re offering them $750. They’ve been destroyed, these people have been destroyed,” Trump said. He added, “Think of it: We give foreign countries hundreds of billions of dollars and we’re handing North Carolina $750.”

Trump’s claim is wrong. As FEMA explained earlier in the week on social media and on a web page it created to combat misinformation about the response, $750 is merely the immediate, upfront aid survivors can get to cover basic, pressing needs like food, water, baby formula and emergency supplies. Survivors are also eligible to apply for additional forms of assistance, such as to pay for temporary housing and home repairs, that can be worth thousands of dollars; the current maximum amount for home repair assistance, for example, is $42,500.

Interesting theory, Rikii. Emissions from tyres are certainly a massive - and unregulated - environmental pollutant and a major concern for health. Have there been any studies which link them to cancer?

At least it's over with for now, Rikii.

I've seen the emissions figures for tyres, which are quite alarming, and I can well believe that occupational exposure in the rubber-manufacturing industry is associated with a variety of cancers - the same is probably true of many other industries. That doesn't necessarily mean that incidental exposure to the emissions from tyres has the same associations, but it might be worth investigating.

I don't know him Maris, but the surgery is on one of the main roads into the city. Reports are that everyone thought he was a lovely GP and of course this attempted murder came about because his mother had met someone else and he wanted to ensure she left everything to him and not her new partner. He pretended he was coming to give the Covid boosters. Evil man.

We don't tend to comment on people's personal appearances as a rule and as they knew someone was coming, when this chap turned up in an awful wig and rose coloured glasses they probably just thought- crikey, but said nothing.

There's a budget coming up , perhaps people will apologise to the Labour party for having to cancel the fuel allowance to well off pensioners , when they see the true extent of the Tories rape of the economy.

Sick of Starmer treatment? ( Will this savage blow increase NHS hospital attendance?)

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/10/09/how-starmer-has-shown-us-labour-hates-old-people/