By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: October 15, 2024 ~
Donald Trump
On Sunday, the Washington Post reported that it had obtained an email penned by a Forest Service official who was assisting in Hurricane Helene recovery response operations in Western North Carolina indicating that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) “had advised agencies on the ground to relocate workers, noting that U.S. military personnel ‘had come across…trucks of armed militia saying they were out hunting FEMA.’ ”
While the report of trucks of armed militia has yet to be confirmed, a North Carolina man armed with a handgun and AR-style rifle was arrested on Saturday after allegedly stating that he was going to “go mess up some FEMA personnel,” according to Captain Jamie Keever of the Rutherford County, North Carolina Sheriff’s Office. The arrested man, 44-year old William Jacob Parsons, has been released on bail. That decision will, no doubt, raise anxiety levels among the already stressed government workers who are attempting to provide relief efforts to the decimated towns in Western North Carolina under the already challenging conditions.
The Rutherford County Sheriff’s Office posted the following information about Parson’s arrest and release:
“Parsons was transported to the Rutherford County Sheriff’s Detention Center where he was charged and presented to a magistrate. Parsons received a $10,000 secured bond. Parsons made bond and was released later the same evening from the Rutherford County Detention Center.”
Two of the most devasted towns impacted by Hurricane Helene were located in Rutherford County: Chimney Rock and Lake Lure. (See our report: Hurricane Helene Dumped 20 Trillion Gallons of Rain, Destroying Entire Towns in Western North Carolina, Hundreds of Miles from any Coastline.)
According to a video posted by a local resident, unprecedented raging waters from the Broad River completely decimated Chimney Rock, with many homes reduced to toothpicks flowing downstream.
A report by the BBC contained this information on Parsons:
“Mr. Parsons’ Facebook profile included dozens of posts about Covid, vaccine and voting conspiracies, along with several posts which included the logo of the anti-government militia movement the Three Percenters.
“In an email to the BBC, Mr. Parsons said that he is not a member of any militia and called the US government a ‘terrorist organization’ that has ‘been Violating our Constitutional Rights for way (too) long.”
Other media reports out this morning indicate that some FEMA workers engaged in disaster relief efforts in Western North Carolina are being verbally harassed as they attempt to go about their duties. The typical refrain is that their help is not wanted and they should leave.
This antagonism against FEMA is consistent with the anti-federal government narrative being fueled by presidential candidate Donald Trump and the radical right-wing platform known as Project 2025 that is expected to be rolled out if Trump is elected President in November.
Trump has alleged recently, without providing a shred of evidence, that FEMA is “going out of their way to not help people in Republican areas.” Trump also repeatedly stated that FEMA was diverting its disaster relief money to help immigrants. Trump has also failed to provide any evidence to support that allegation.
Project 2025 writes this about FEMA in its Chapter 5:
“The bloated DHS [Department of Homeland Security] bureaucracy and budget, along with the wrong priorities, provide real opportunities for a conservative Administration to cut billions in spending and limit government’s role in Americans’ lives. These opportunities include privatizing TSA screening and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) National Flood Insurance Program, reforming FEMA emergency spending to shift the majority of preparedness and response costs to states and localities instead of the federal government, eliminating most of DHS’s grant programs, and removing all unions in the department for national security purposes….”
Shifting the response costs of catastrophic hurricanes to states would render them bankrupt in very short order.
Project 2025 also has an apparent problem with allowing the U.S. Senate to perform its mandated role of “advice and consent.” Project 2025’s Chapter 5 also contains this plan for FEMA:
“FEMA currently has four Senate-confirmed positions. Only the Administrator should be confirmed by the Senate; other political leadership need not be confirmed by the Senate.”
The 900-page Project 2025 platform would also oust tens of thousands of federal government workers and replace them with “trained” conservatives vetted by the ultra-right Heritage Foundation, the creator of Project 2025. Three notable parts of the playbook are to put the next U.S. President (whom it expects to be Donald Trump) in direct charge of the U.S. Department of Justice and other key federal agencies, gut environmental protections, and make things a lot friendlier for the fossil fuel industry – whose emissions are causing the record heating of the Gulf of Mexico and the catastrophic hurricanes it is producing.
Trump has denied involvement in the creation of Project 2025. Journalist Judd Legum has published a listing of “the 31 authors and editors of Project 2025” that held positions in or had formal ties to the first Trump administration.
