Last Thursday, Hurricane Helene made landfall in the Big Bend region of Florida and proceeded to dump rain and cause flooding throughout the Southeast over the next few days. North Carolina was especially hard hit with flooding. Roads were decimated, utilities were cut off, and entire towns were wiped off the map. The death toll as of this morning is 215 and counting.

Last Friday, Kamala “Not the Border Czar” Harris finally visited the border, which coincided with a damning report about the hundreds of thousands of criminal aliens still in the U.S. perpetrating theft, rape, and murder.

As it turns out, the two stories are related, and not just because Harris has been largely AWOL in each case.

Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas made the connection implicit when he warned that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) “does not have the funds” to fund recovery efforts. “We are meeting the immediate needs with the money that we have,” Mayorkas said. “We are expecting another hurricane hitting,” he added. “We do not have the funds. FEMA does not have the funds to make it through the season and what — what is imminent.”

Isn’t he the same guy who, in July, said FEMA was “tremendously prepared” for hurricane season? Yes, he is.

Why has that changed? One reason is because FEMA has diverted more than $1.4 billion over the last two years dealing with the crisis consequences of “Border Czar” Harris’s disastrous open border policies. That includes $640 million just this year to help state and local governments address the flood of asylum seekers.

“This is easy,” retorted Texas Republican Governor Greg Abbott. “Mayorkas and FEMA — immediately stop spending money on illegal immigration resettlement and redirect those funds to areas hit by the hurricane. Put Americans first.”

It certainly would cost American taxpayers a lot less if the Biden-Harris administration would enforce the border laws already on the books and keep out illegal entrants. Don’t create an emergency by lawlessness and then spend all our money addressing it.

“These claims are completely false,” DHS replied (of Republican objections, not Mayorkas’s assertion). “FEMA has the necessary resources to meet the immediate needs associated with Hurricane Helene and other disasters.” Money for migrants, DHS insisted, is “completely separate” from disaster relief.

Representative Jim Jordan isn’t convinced. “The Biden-Harris administration took more than a billion tax dollars that had been allocated to FEMA for disaster relief and used it to house illegal aliens,” Jordan said. “Now, they’ve abandoned American hurricane victims in North Carolina, Georgia, Florida, South Carolina, and Tennessee.”

The Associated Press also isn’t convinced. “Congress recently replenished a key source of FEMA’s response efforts,” the AP reported, “providing $20 billion for the agency’s disaster relief fund as part of a short-term government spending bill to fund the government through Dec. 20. The bill also gave FEMA flexibility to draw on the money more quickly as needed.”

Cue Joe Biden, the president few remember is even there. “In a moment like this, we put politics aside. At least we should put it all aside, and we have here,” he said before launching into a political insult: “Nobody can deny the impact of [the] climate crisis anymore — at least I hope they don’t. They must be brain-dead if they do.”

[Insert obvious joke about who’s brain-dead.]

This is the same president who angrily rebutted criticism of his absentee leadership by saying, “I was commanding it. I was on the phone for at least two hours yesterday and the day before as well. I command it. It’s called a telephone.”

Two hours? On the phone? Wow, Mr. President, don’t pull a muscle.

How about the sitting vice president? Harris was attending a campaign fundraiser while Helene swamped a path across the South, but almost a week later, she showed up there to offer comfort. At least she didn’t wait a year as Biden did with East Palestine, Ohio.

Her comfort was to announce $750 for people affected by the storm. Yeah, seven hundred fifty bucks. In Augusta, Georgia, she said, “The federal relief and assistance that we have been providing has included FEMA providing $750 for folks who need immediate needs being met, such as food, baby formula, and the like.”

As her other remarks made clear, that’s not all the aid that will be disbursed. It’s merely a quick payment to help people meet their immediate needs. That said, $750 doesn’t go nearly as far as it did before Vice President Harris, the Senate tiebreaking vote, lit the fire of inflation. And when you consider the millions and billions of dollars going to deal with illegal migrants here and to far-away places like Ukraine, it feels more like an insult added to injury.

If you lost your home and your insurance doesn’t cover it, just speak a little Spanish when you tell ‘em you have an unpaid student loan, and you’ll be fine.

On a serious note, the best work being done in ravaged areas is by private citizens helping each other. That, not waiting for or complaining about government aid, is the American Spirit. The people cutting trees, shoveling mud, distributing basic necessities, and flying helicopters or piloting boats to rescue people or recover bodies are the ones to be commended here. Honestly, that’s as it should be. Self-reliance is what made America great, and it’s what will make America great again.

(Updated)

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