Armed Militia "hunting FEMA" causes hurricane responders to evacuate—report
Armed Militia "hunting FEMA" causes hurricane responders to evacuate—report
Federal emergency workers were told to evacuate Rutherford County, North Carolina, on October 12 over safety concern.
"FEMA also been accused by former president Donald Trump, the Republican nominee, and other Republicans of not being able to respond well enough to Helene because it had diverted disaster relief funds to help migrants.
That is not true, because while FEMA administers the Shelter and Services Program, funding for it comes from a separate pot of money funded by Congress for U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
Other false claims that have circulated include that people taking federal relief money could see their land seized or that that $750 is the most they will ever get to rebuild. FEMA has pushed back against the false claims and conspiracy theories, setting up a page on its website to combat misinformation and rumors."
Trump and Stochastic Terrorism - like peanut butter and jelly, salt and pepper, beans and rice.
Edit: I see I (and other top level comments) have the customary downvote from the silent maga that seems to pay attention to threads like these. Thank you buddy, until I see that one downvote show up with no counterargument to be seen I feel like my comments about Trump aren't complete.
Southern states and the need to protect people who rightfully shouldn't need protection. Really hope the national guard is the next stage of this. It should be reinforced that this behavior is not to be tolerated.
bread and butter
Flies and shit
If you were wondering what societal collapse looks like, this is it.
Sadly I wasn't wondering. Just watching the country implode very quickly, only for an equally horrifying explosion coming all too soon.
There will be mass violence if Trump wins or loses. Far more manageable if the latter, but democrats are masters of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.
Can you please explain? I'm interested
Not OP, but I guess it shows the general loss of confidence in institutions in the US. When people wanna shoot their guns at disaster relief organizations, it indicates they don't trust anything from the government, and the feeling is more than just skepticism, it's heinous.
Trump has now successfully sown distrust in FEMA.
FEMA. An agency created to help people recover from natural disasters.
We can put that right up on the list with news organizations, the Department of Education, our election system, and children's hospitals.
The damage that Trump has done to this country will take decades to recover from. If we ever can. You figure, with the 3 stooges on the bench willing to carry on Trump's legacy, we're looking at 40 years minimum of lingering Trump fuckery.
And there's a very good chance he'll become President again. At that point, we as a country deserve whatever we get.
As usual, Trump only amplifies something that was floating around for decades. FEMA has long been the target of conspiracy theories. You can get a taste of it from the old X-Files movie. Being a federal department that gets to do extraordinary things in emergencies tends to make it a target.
The difference is back then, it was relegated to the insane fringe. The premise of the X-Files is "what if all those farfetched conspiracy theories were true", evil FEMA was in the same category as cryptids and alien abduction. Now it's part of the platform of the second largest political party in the country. It's roughly equivalent to campaigning on killing Bigfoot, if not worse because at least the latter is harmless.
I somewhat disagree with this.
The conspiracy theories that have been floating around were the typically outlandish and unrealistic conspiracy theories of the time. You know, like the moon landing being fake. And with social media being nonexistent and the conspiracy theories being so batshit crazy, it was near impossible for these theories to gain any kind of critical mass or be taken seriously.
And Trump doesn't amplify existing things. He creates conspiracy theories around literally everything and just hopes some of them stick. Mostly around migrants. Or he ties them back to migrants.
FEMA? Fema can't help you because they gave all their money to the migrants. Child Care? Gas? Those would plummet in price if we just got rid of all the migrants, if you believe what Trump said at the debate. 20,000 Hatians in Ohio? If we were to just get rid of them, it would solve whatever problems your state is having too! Judges in his trials can't be impartial because they have Mexican heritage.
The real problem is that there are far more openly racist people in our country than we were willing to admit to. We all have that creepy Uncle Joe in our family that only comes around for holidays, looks at his niece just a little too long, and spends half the day spouting racist bullshit, but never really considered just how many Uncle Joes there are in this country. Trump realized that and has simply been tapping into their racism ever since. That's all it is. Trump has simply coralled the most gullible and racist into one huge voting bloc, and we severely underestimated how big that bloc could get.
And now it's too late. There are enough of them in this country where they are openly embracing the racism and saying "Yeah, we want it this way." And theree may be enough of them to get what they want.
People forget the conspiracy theories from Katrina. Where they accused FEMA of stockpiling body bags in New Orleans before the hurricane. And of course the 9/11 conspiracies which weren't helped by the Bush administration actually lying to make sure we ended up in not one, but two wars.
TBF, the crazies have been talking about deranged things in relation to FEMA for decades. Like everything else, dementia donnie did not build that, he just walked in the front door and put his name on this shit.
For instance, the hatriot radio types were talking about Clinton's "FEMA death camps" way back in the 90s.
At that point, we as a country deserve whatever we get.
I'm not saying this isn't true, just please don't drag the rest of the world with you. Psychos in the world are taking notes, if Trump wins they'll follow his lead.
Not just Trump. Elongated Muskrat couldn’t help himself.
we as a country deserve whatever we get.
That would be death, destruction and collapse - enjoy.
Trump has now successfully sown distrust in FEMA
Putin, and Trump.
FEMA [...] been accused [...] of not being able to respond well enough to Helene because it had diverted disaster relief funds to help migrants
so if they are dead they will surely do a better job?
the article isn't really getting into the conspiracy theories that are actually causing this.
it's more qanon style "fema is the secret police enforcement arm of the deep state coming to do their dark bidding on you the one time you're vulnerable and no one will see or believe you"
that's what they believe that makes them want to kill them. generally speaking.
Was it not every single Florida Republican who voted no on FEMA relief? 😅
Safe bet!
The national guard "came across" these fuckwits. Why not do something about it?
Mainly because after the pr disasters of ruby ridge and then Waco, right winged militia's grew in numbers, basically using the events as marketing materials.
Right winged grifters love it when they are confronted, it fulfills all their fantasies about the underdog standing up to authority, and proves in their minds that they were correct the whole time.
Since the American fascist movements have legitimized news organizations that will echo their claims, it's extremely hard to actually crack down on them without turning them into Martyrs.
The end result has been the federal government putting right winged extremists on the back burner for the last 30 years, allowing them to fester into the infection we know and hate today.
Not even. They aren't called up in a law and order capacity. They simply don't have their guns or authority to arrest anyone.
You are right. Maybe a much better thing would be to video them, make sure it's good enough to identify all of them, then issue a warrant to kick open their doors at pre-dawn times, individually and when they aren't wearing their dopey Meal Team 6 gear.
Make sure to give the media the heads-up, too, so there is lots of humiliating footage of them being frog-marched out of their house...
Because there's three modes of call up for the NG. Law and order, for riots and such. Which is what your thinking of, and where they get their rifles and can arrest people. Federalization, where they generally get all of their gear and they generally go into combat overseas. And disaster response, where they only get rescue gear and no authority to arrest or shoot at anyone.
In short they didn't do anything because they weren't armed and weren't authorized to use force.
This motherfucker is single handedly standing up an insurgency in his own country. This is exactly the kind of shit we used to see when we were in Iraq and Afghanistan. And then we had to send armed escorts around with the polio vaccinators, malaria mitigation, and rebuilding teams that were literally looking for locals they could pay to do the job. Which of course feeds right back into the FUD about those guys actually being nefarious in some ridiculous way. This generally lasts until the insurgents get control of an area, do ridiculous shit, and get put on blast for it; or we manage to help enough people that they tell the insurgents to kick rocks.
I'd say welcome to 2025 but we have (check notes) two and a half months left of 2024 first.
Headlines about USA that wouldn't have been possible when I was a child.
I don't know your age but chances are you were just not familiar with right wing FEMA conspiracies, because they're ancient.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/FEMA_camps_conspiracy_theory
Wall of text, but a good read if you have the time.
"One of the first known references to FEMA concentration camps comes from a newsletter issued by the Posse Comitatus organization in 1982, with the warning that "hardcore patriots" were to be detained in them.[2] The prevalence of the conspiracy theory increased in line with the rise of the militia movement in the 1990s.[2] The conspiracy was part of the rhetoric of the now largely disbanded Militia of Montana. The self-styled congressional analyst David Fletcher was their spokesman and brought it up in meetings, even pointing out "United Nations Reserves" that the government was building camps for in the Northern Cascades.[13]
A supposed FEMA camp was featured in Linda Thompson's 1994 film America Under Siege; in reality, the "FEMA camp" was an Amtrak repair facility.[14][15] She accused the government of using "black helicopters" against patriots to prevent them from interfering with plans to establish a New World Order.[16][17][18] Following the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, the conspiracy theory was discussed by the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Domestic Terrorism.[9] The theory's inclusion in the plot of the 1998 X-Files movie showed its growing reach.[1]
Fears of FEMA declined in the early 2000s as foreign terrorists were perceived as the major threat but the late-2000s recession and the election of Barack Obama renewed opposition among conservatives and libertarians to the federal government. Obama's election also enabled the theory to reach more mainstream right-wing circles whereas it had previously been confined to the fringes. There was a resurgence in the militia movement, and with it a resurgence of the FEMA camps conspiracy theory[9] and a corresponding boom in the "prepper" economy.[19] Reader emails published by the magazine National Review have also promoted the theory.[3]
Congresswoman Michele Bachmann alluded to the theory while in office,[20] as have other Republican Party politicians.[21] In December 2011 Camille Marino of the animal liberation website Negotiation is Over posted an alert on her website titled "Military Now Recruiting Guards for FEMA Domestic Detainment/Internment Camps" containing the usual warnings about the end of civil liberties and the announcement that the U.S. Army is looking for "a Few Good Totalitarians" to herd dissenters into camps.[22]
In 2015, fears of the FEMA roundup beginning surfaced with the announcement of a domestic military training operation called Jade Helm 15. County and state officials in Texas denounced the fears[23] and the exercise was completed with no one being placed into an internment camp.[24] Also in 2015, additional speculation about the theory was stoked by retired general Wesley Clark when he called for World War II-style internment camps to be revived to combat Muslim extremism. He stated, "If these people are radicalized and they do not support the United States and they're disloyal to the United States as a matter of principle, fine, that's their right. It’s our right and our obligation to segregate them from the normal community for the duration of the conflict."[25]
According to the Las Vegas Police Department and witnesses in the weeks leading up to the 2017 Las Vegas shooting, gunman Stephen Paddock reportedly espoused right-wing anti-government and conspiratorial views, including FEMA conspiracies. He reportedly told a friend that "sometimes, sacrifices have to be made" in order to encourage the American public to arm themselves.[26][27]
Conspiracy theorists have used the actual internment of Japanese Americans during World War II in specifically constructed camps as evidence that such a scenario has historic precedent.[2] Proponents have cited a contingency plan (Rex 84) drafted in part by U.S. Marine Colonel Oliver North calling for the suspension of the Constitution and the detainment of citizens in the event of a national crisis.[2] This was aimed at left-wing activists, not the libertarians and right-wingers generally associated with FEMA theories.[28] This has been linked to a 1970 document by Louis Giuffrida (years later, the director of FEMA) calling for the establishment of martial law in the event of an uprising by African American militants and the internment of millions of African Americans.[2]
Alex Jones has promoted conspiracy theories about FEMA on InfoWars. In 2010, Jones produced and directed Police State 4: The Rise of FEMA, a film he claimed "conclusively proves the existence of a secret network of FEMA camps" and that "The military-industrial complex is transforming our once free nation into a giant prison camp." In 2012, Jones linked to a story titled "List of All FEMA Concentration Camps in America Revealed" from the German UFO conspiracy website Disclose.tv.[29]"
I pointed out to someone that the SSP money for helping migrants was separate from the billions in the FEMA budget.
The response I got?
'I don't give a shit. We shouldn't be spending any FEMA money on illegals and should be helping Americans instead."
They don't listen. They don't care. They don't want to know.
Honestly, I really wish this administration would just deploy National Guard. If some dipshit Meal Team 6 types show up and start causing shit for FEMA, dial that up to 11 immediately.
Start using antiterrorism measures against these assholes. Because they ARE terrorists.
Exactly. “We will provide our territory with emergency relief for all who want it. You’re welcome to decide not to accept it for yourself, but not for your neighbors”.
I mean, not that many countries just allow various militias to form & roam around.
It's different if the militia is born out of a political party-ish movement with significant support within the country. In that case any action has political consequences & as such up to politically political politicians.
This is the world of a maga mental invalid. A world of endless fear and abuse. Tyranny.
Alright bros, have fun with no hurricane support!
Alternatively anyone caught threatening a FEMA agent should be captured and released into the hurricane by plane with no parachute
If I may make a suggestion - with a parachute.
With no parachute they just go down for a couple minutes. With a parachute they go up and down for hours, in the middle of a hurricane.
Threatening a federal official is already a federal crime.
But it's Republicans doing it so the FBI doesn't give a shit. Hell there are probably FBI members in the militia (zero doubt local law enforcement is involved).
(zero doubt local law enforcement is involved).
I think a Presidential Order should be issued that someone making threats against those working for FEMA is considered terrorism. And then light up a few of these asshats if they fuck around - let them find out.
Username: Charles Darwin
Philosophy: Natural Selection
This checks out
“We must hurt people, because they are helping the wrong people”
“We must hurt people, because they are helping
the wrongbrown people”Of course they'll never say it out loud.
no no, some of them will proudly say it out loud.
This is stochastic terrorism and he will keep doing it because he hasn't suffered any fucking consequences.
Seriously it should be simple. Biden should tell Trump to denounce these people completely, call them the disgrace they are, ask for them to surrender to be imprisoned and if Trump doesn't comply, he needs to be labeled officially as an enemy of the state.
That would also make it so all that give him aid are guilty of treason.
on one hand I hate stupid conspiracy theorists, on the other hand terrorism shouldn't be illegal when it only effects the feds.
Honestly, states like Florida should be ineligible for federal aid across the board
I'd like to see Dems plop down a bill that says if you vote against FEMA for states affected by a disaster, any aid your district/state receive comes with labels that say "Your name of your party affiliation declined to fund the program that is providing you this item/service"
People with political incentive to make the government to look bad are actively trying to make the government helpful response worse. I hope people are seeing how dangerous Trump and these right wing nutjobs are to normal people and normal Republicans
REAL Americans who Care about One Another Just as Jesus intended THREATEN TO MURDER AID WORKERS, CALL IN BOMB THREATS TO CHILDRENS HOSPITALS and FIGHT KIDS IN SCHOOLS!
That's domestic terrorism. These militia should be hunted down and exterminated by the army
The red state governors are just mad because they can't divert the FEMA funds directly into their own causes. (and pockets).
Life is the crummiest book I ever read
There isn't a hook
Just a lot of cheap shots
Pictures to shock
And characters an amateur would never dream up
Sometimes, truth is stranger than fiction.
If I could fly
up above the world
Would I see a bunch of living dots
Spell out the word: stupidity
With a few spelling mistakes.
It's "The Running Man" plot! They are just going to AI videos to fit a narrative, and start sending people to jail, or worse...
It sucks when 20% of people in a country become terrorists and another 20% turn into their accomplices, including no small portion of the people whose job it is to stop the terrorists.
How the fuck are people who are this STUPID allowed to own Firearms? It's a mircale that these cavemen even know how to operate firearms. What's next? Shooting at the Hurricane? Attacking Firefighters?
What the actual fuck is happening. I cannot with this shit anymore
Make sure every affected person understands whose side the militia is on and who’s on the side of FEMA
Newsweek - News Source Context (Click to view Full Report)
Information for Newsweek:
MBFC: Right-Center - Credibility: High - Factual Reporting: Mostly Factual - United States of America
Wikipedia about this sourceSearch topics on Ground.News
https://www.newsweek.com/armed-militia-hunting-fema-hurricane-responders-1968382
And you really think one more democrat president will fix this?
The US is collapsing as we speak, there is no turning back now.
Re-electing Trump certainly won't help.
So vote trump? Stein? Move away? Build a bunker? What other options do you suggest?
Well, certainly move away if you can, but most people don't have that option
If that president was Bernie Big Balls Sanders, then Yes.
But 8 years of Kamala with a supermajority in the house and senate would be a great start
I don't think (ether party - for what it's worth) has the power to like just raise corporate taxes, pump up regulations (funding, legislative power), pass laws affecting financial markets for the worse of the current shareholders, shut down military actions keeping colonialism going, etc.
The parties were restricted to "inconsequential" daily stuff that only affect the whole lives of regular plebs (so lqbtq freedoms/equality, reproductive rights, etc - none of the affects the ruling class whichever way it goes as they are above it).
8 years of Kamala supermajority can have effects ofc, but a system (within a system) trying to survive for it's own sake (instead of "the people") will play along nicely with all the factors.
Also, politically loud people getting shot is the same as 'fell out of the window' in Russia. But in recent decades in USA stuff that eg MLK tried to warn (economical inequality), doesn't even get serious political attention anymore - bcs artificially manufactured bullshit affects real lives more immediately.