Almost five months after Helene and more than 120 days since we applied for aid, a FEMA inspector finally came and visited us, inspecting the damage, looking over the receipts for work we’ve done, and taking pictures. I gave him receipts for the generator we purchased, the HVAC repair, the first emergency road repair, and our landslide cleanup.
He didn’t promise we’d get a check, but he implied that there was a strong likelihood that we would get one as soon as seven to ten days. I’m going to hope he knows what he is talking about.
The inspector works for a third-party inspection company and has been in the business for 20 years, working disasters as far back as Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans. He said Helene was the worst destruction he’s ever seen.
He also said FEMA’s policy on paying for private road repairs has changed since the inauguration. In fact, he’s had to go back and re-inspect some locations that were turned down while Biden was president because the policy on funding repairs to private roads and bridges has changed under Trump.
If we get any money, I guess we’ll have to thank Trump. It will also be the first time the government has given me “free” money, other than unemployment insurance.
As a general update on Helene’s impact locally, I met two families who had their power turned on only within the past two weeks. They could previously leave their property only on an ATV, not by car; it took that long for their roads to their holler to be repaired. I guess the initial statement that power would not be back on until January was true for some. Some people may never get back their land line or internet.
When is an NGO not an NGO?
In fiscal 2024, FEMA gave $650 million in aid to non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that provide shelter and food for illegal immigrants who had crossed into the United States. This could be why FEMA said they had no money to pay for disaster relief in Tennessee and North Carolina. I guess they’d rather spend it on people who are here illegally rather than citizens who have been paying taxes for years. Happily, Trump seems to have addressed that from both ends—cutting off the flow of illegals and kicking a little ass at FEMA.
I am not against NGOs. Two different organizations came and helped us with tree removal and cleanup. But organizations like Samaritan’s Purse are funded by people, not just the government. The NGOs I dislike often get most of their funding from the government. If they are staffed by political allies of one party and fully funded by government dollars, how can they be considered “non-governmental?”
I also find it ironic that the very party that received funding from George Soros and many other like-minded liberal billionaires suddenly wants to “get the billionaires out of the government.” Help me understand, is it all billionaires or just Trump’s billionaires you want to get rid of?
I hope the Democratic Party continues to act like entitled socialists and bratty children for the next two years. It will help Republicans grab even more seats during the mid-term elections.
The Democrat’s DOGE Fallacy
I think it hypocritical that the Democrats in congress and their friendly states Attorneys General are concerned DOGE will look at all our private data. First, I expect the guys working at DOGE have far better things to do than to look at my social security records or tax data. Second, doesn’t it bother the Dems that people working in these organizations already have access to our private data? For example, the following agencies have data on me:
- The Social Security Administration (SSA) has been collecting data on me since I got a work permit and collected my first paycheck at age 16.
- The IRS has even more data. They know where I lived, where I bank, my investments, if I sell cryptocurrency, when my kids were born, when I got married or divorced, and the charities to which I make contributions.
- The BATFE has all the personal details I filled out on their various forms to buy silencers, plus my photo and fingerprints. I expect they have a good bit of information on what guns I own, too.
- The FBI probably has a file on me. I don’t know for sure, but I’ve had plenty of background checks which often require fingerprints. At the very least, they have my fingerprints.
- I used to fly frequently, including going overseas, so I suspect the FAA or the TCA has my name.
- Speaking of travel, I’ve had multiple passports. That means the State Department has a file on me and knows where I’ve been.
- The various intelligence agencies are known to buy data on citizens. I expect I’m in their databanks.
- Who knows what data the local health department and doctors reported to the CDC, NIH or other agencies?
I think you see my point: The government has boatloads of information on us and hundreds of thousand of government employees have access to that data. So what’s a few more?
Bulk Data
Private database companies, the credit bureaus, your credit card company, and your phone provider have even more data. Unless you use a VPN, your ISP also has information on you. Face it, anywhere you subscribe or have a membership card—from the grocery store to your streaming service—collects information on you, and often sells it. We have no privacy. All we can to do is try not stand out, so they ignore us. If they never look at the data, they might as well not have it.
A few more guys having access to my data doesn’t make me feel what little privacy I have has been violated. If you feel differently, here are two important points:
First, if you look at who has leaked information in the past, it has almost always been people on the left. There are plenty cases of people being doxed by libs; Trump’s tax returns are just one example.
Second, DOE seems to do bulk searches looking at top-line data. For example, Elon said the Social Security database contains more than 20 million people who are over 100-yeasr-old, while the census reports there are only about 80,000 people over 100. Do you think the DOGE people had time to look at the data on all 20 million people over 100 years old? Of course not. They probably programmed a quick SQL search (or the equivalent) and had the social security system report on how many people were born in each year. No one born before 1910 should get Social Security. If someone is cashing those checks, then not only is that fraud, but the SSA should have investigated years ago.
Third, there is just so damn much information in the hands of the feds I doubt the DOGE employees have time to look into it in narrow terms. I suspect it is much easier for a police officer to track the license plate of a car he saw parked outside his girlfriend’s house than it is for a DOGE employee to look up the data on the same woman using the treasury or IRS database.
The Left is Afraid
Those that protest DOGE probably don’t want people prying into their files because they have sold their influence, taken kickbacks, hidden illegal campaign contributions, paid their relatives and friends for no-show jobs, under reported their taxable income, accepted gifts they should not have, or otherwise broken the law or had ethical violations.
When people like Maxine Waters and her ilk say things like “We don’t know what they have on us, our bank accounts, everything in our lives,” they are expressing fear because they know what they have done wrong and doesn’t want to get caught. People like that no doubt have good reason to be frightened. People like us? Not so much. My bank account is pretty boring. Maybe theirs is not.
