From The Washington Post:
Federal emergency response personnel on Saturday had employees operating in hard-hit Rutherford County, N.C., stop working and move to a different area because of concerns over “armed militia” threatening government workers in the region, according to an email sent to federal agencies helping with response in the state. Want to know how your actions can help make a difference for our planet? Sign up for the Climate Coach newsletter, in your inbox every Tuesday and Thursday.
Around 1 p.m. Saturday, an official with the U.S. Forest Service, which is supporting recovery efforts after Hurricane Helene along with the Federal Emergency Management Agency, sent an urgent message to numerous federal agencies warning that “FEMA has advised all federal responders Rutherford County, NC, to stand down and evacuate the county immediately. The message stated that National Guard troops 'had come across x2 trucks of armed militia saying there were out hunting FEMA.’”
And The NYTimes:
A meteorologist based in Washington, D.C., was accused of helping the government cover up manipulating a hurricane. In Houston, a forecaster was repeatedly told to “do research” into the weather’s supposed nefarious origins. And a meteorologist for a television station in Lansing, Mich., said she had received death threats.
“Murdering meteorologists won’t stop hurricanes,” wrote the forecaster in Michigan, Katie Nickolaou, in a social media post. “I can’t believe I just had to type that.”
And:
Last summer, Chris Gloninger, the chief meteorologist of a television news station in Iowa, left his job after he received a string of harassing messages — including a death threat — for his on-air discussions of climate change. He began incorporating the topic into his forecasts after being stunned by Hurricane Sandy.
Back to The Post on how damaging this is:
The heightening tension has resulted in residents harassing federal employees, said Riva Duncan, a former Forest Service official who lives in Asheville.
Duncan, who is also a representative with the Grassroots Wildland Firefighters, said people have been yelling at federal employees delivering aid or showing up to do repairs, saying, “We don’t want your help here.”
One Forest Service employee, she said, was pulling into a gas station when someone yelled at him to leave, saying “We don’t want the government here.”
“It’s terrible because a lot of these folks who need assistance are refusing it because they believe the stuff people are saying about FEMA and the government,” Duncan said. “And it’s sad because they are probably the ones who need the help the most.”
Yea. And then what happens next? They complain that they're not being helped.
Claim: The federal government isn’t helping Republican areas of western North Carolina.
“They’re being treated very badly in the Republican areas,” Trump said in a Fox News interview on September 30. “They’re not getting water, they’re not getting anything.”
Reality: FEMA administrator Criswell has described these allegations as “frankly ridiculous and just plain false.”
And so on.
So Trump lies to his flock, the flock believes the lies and then refuses guv'ment help - or worse threatens the lives of those delivering it.
