Opinion
By Jeff Childers
10-01-24
Good morning, C&C, it’s Tuesday! And it’s October, so we are now in final approach to the election. Get ready for a wild ride of October surprises. I’m racing a little since I have to argue at an emergency hearing this morning on a critical local voting issue. Your roundup this morning includes: Hurricane Helene multiplier; Hurricane updates as leadership vacuum expands and criticism of federal response surges; Biden approves massive aid packages to help disaster-struck people, just not in the US; Conyers chemical fire is NOW extinguished, for sure this time, probably; UN passes more globalist nonsense and makes a pact with wokeness; dockworker strike threatens supply chain in leadup to election as Biden fiddles, if he could fiddle anything at this point; and your much-needed pick-me-up video about saving tiny refugees.
🗞 C&C ARMY POST 🗞
🪖🪖 MULTIPLIER: It’s that time again. C&C Army, to arms! Today we must focus our mighty forces on our fellow Americans who’ve been harmed by turbo Hurricane Helene. And we have a terrific vehicle—President Trump promoted the fundraiser, announcing it while he was on the ground yesterday in Georgia, and criticizing the anemic federal response:
High-profile donors so far include former Senator Kelly Loeffler (R-Ga.), who gave $500,000, Bass Pro gave $100,000, UFC CEO Dana White gave $100,000, and Bill Ackman, $100,000. It’s super encouraging.
Here is the link: Donate to Support Hurricane Helene Victims – GoFundMe. For new readers: stop reading, click the link, and donate any affordable amount, no matter how small, but make sure the amount ends in a ‘$2.’ No matter how small (or large) is our individual contribution, it adds up to a significant, needle-moving amount. Like lifting a car, it’s easy if everyone joins in!
The best part is we get to do something effective about a hair-raising situation that feels totally out of control. Trust me, you’ll feel terrific afterwards. Do it now!
🪖🪖 The Childers family remains without cable internet, but our StarLink router arrived yesterday (thanks, WalMart overnight delivery). Michelle set it up while I was at work. When I got home, we had service that I would swear is —so far— noticeably faster and more consistent than our expensive cable package. Weather conditions were mostly cloudy. I’ll let you know in a couple weeks how it holds up. We may cut the cord.
🗞💬 WORLD NEWS AND COMMENTARY 💬🗞
🌪️🌪️ It’s come to this. The Associated Press ran a hurricane story yesterday headlined, “Supplies arrive by plane and mule to North Carolina as Helene death toll tops 100.” Mules! The stubborn methane makers are helping deliver emergency supplies to Asheville.
In the story’s lead paragraph, the AP called Turbo Hurricane Helene “one of the worst storms in U.S. history.” By all appearances, before this is over, Helene will claim her inglorious crown as the most worst storm in American history. Mark those words.
Careful readers will recall the discussion earlier this year of the New Madrid earthquake zone, not that far from the parts of the country hardest-hit by Helene. We marveled at how, in the early 1800’s, the New Madrid earthquake set the catastrophic bar of destruction, and we soberly considered the effects of a similar disaster in the modern, much more populous present. Fortunately, the criss-crossing eclipses did not produce that lamentable outcome.
But this Helenic Disaster is comparable to a new, New Madrid earthquake.
Secondhand reports online suggest the damage and death tolls are much worse than are being reported, with extreme reports of thousands of bodies in submerged cars and so forth, but I advise the usual caution regarding these claims. They could be true, but we are still in the hot takes phase, when the kindergarten telephone game rules the day.
Between visiting —and re-visiting— affected Florida counties and towns, Governor DeSantis continues surging Florida resources to North Carolina. DeSantis asked FEMA to re-direct all resources slated for Florida to North Carolina.
President Trump, on the ground in Georgia, is now working with Elon Musk to coordinate surging StarLink kits to North Carolina as fast as possible.
If there weren’t a vacuum of leadership on the storm recovery, DeSantis and Trump (and others) wouldn’t have to step into the gap.
🌪️ As you’re considering that, ask yourself how much taxpayer money should go to Americans devasted by 1,000-year turbo hurricanes? Before you answer, consider these three headlines within the last four days—all since the hurricane hit.
Help is on the way! Four days ago, Reuters ran a story headlined, “Israel says it has secured $8.7 billion U.S. aid package.” Three days ago, Responsible Statecraft ran a story headlined, “Biden ‘surges’ $8 billion in aid to Ukraine, this senator wants guardrails on it.” Yesterday, Reuters ran a story headlined, “Biden approves $567 mln in defense support for Taiwan, White House says.”
Just hold on. I know what you’re thinking, dummies. But you don’t understand geopolitics. The wheel of money and war must keep spinning, or what’s the point? True, people in North Carolina might not have food, water, or houses, but what would they do if China invaded Taiwan? Huh? What would they do if Russia defeats Ukraine before all that sweet, sweet tax money greases all the necessary palms?
How will we keep all those wars going?
It’s fine and dandy to help all those poor citizens of other countries deal with their disasters. But here’s a radical idea. Maybe we should suspend aid to fix other countries’ problems until we have a firmer grasp on our own? Just saying.
🔥🔥 It seems I spoke a little too soon yesterday. Although the Conyers, Georgia “BioLab” chemical fire was extinguished, residents were ordered to continue sheltering in place without air conditioning and with their windows and doors sealed shut. Local OCG News ran the story headlined “Rockdale County’s Shelter-In-Place order continues, other metro Atlanta counties now impacted by BioLab chemical fire.”
Conyers is only 30 miles east of Atlanta. It sounded serious:
But now it might be over. I think. This morning, CNN ran a more hopeful story headlined, “Shelter-in-place, evacuation orders lifted a day after chemical plant fire sent a plume containing chlorine high into the air.”
So hopefully, this time it sticks, and isn’t another East Palestine.
🔥 Last week, the Useless Nations, sorry United, passed another bloated, deceptively named program. Reuters reported the story headlined, “UN adopts pact that aims to save global cooperation.”
They called it “a new beginning in multilateralism,” a mouthful of buzzwords having no formal dictionary definition but, whatever it means, we probably aren’t going to like it. According to Reuters, each country pledged to meet moronic, DEI-powered “goals” in 56 categories of bureaucratic word salad, including peace and security, global governance, AI, “sustainable” cities and development, climate change, digital cooperation, human rights, gender, and youth.
On an aside, if 15-minute cities are good, then are 10-minute cities even better? What about a 1-minute city? Isn’t that the best of all? Just stay home! Sometimes, I think these sustainable cities are meant to be like giant Purdue chicken farms for humans, or something like that. But I digress.
Only one country opposed the UN’s stupid, virtue-signaling Pact. At the last minute, this courageous country tried to push through a fail-safe provision in a late amendment. Unfortunately, this country was crushed in the vote, having only been joined by seven allies. The amendment would have explicitly provided, “the United Nations and its system shall not intervene in matters which are essentially within the domestic jurisdiction of any state.”
That perfectly reasonable sentiment was roundly rejected by the vast majority of countries, including the United States.
The irony! Guess which country heroically tried to derail the UN’s Orwellian Globalist Pact for the Future?
As far as I can tell, the Pact contains no mandatory metrics or required roles. It’s more like the sheet music to an awful opera, instructions for keeping all the world’s countries focused on the same 56 woke songs, and making everyone else’s ears bleed. It’s not the kind of opera even opera fans would want to see. You would walk out in the first 90 seconds, except you aren’t allowed to leave. Sorry. It’s the six-minute opera rules.
🔥🔥 Early this morning, the AP confirmed worst fears and ran a story headlined, “Dockworkers at ports from Maine to Texas go on strike, a standoff risking new shortages.” It’s another Bidenic disaster; the Cabbage in Chief could have stopped the strike, but said he prefers to let the collective bargaining process work itself out.
Dockworkers, also called longshoremen, are the burly guys who run the big machines unloading containers from ships and putting them on trucks for delivery all across the United States. They are altogether a sweaty and sometimes smelly group of hard-working Americans who play a crucial role in the supply chain, about which we have painfully learned so much over the last few years.
The now-official strike involves 45,000 East Coast longshoremen —at 36 ports along the Gulf and East Coast of the United States— who went on strike starting at midnight last night over a variety of unmet demands related to pay, working conditions, and job security. For some reason they don’t want to be replaced by robot longshoremen, which sometimes break down but never go on strike.
The trouble is the strike threatens to halt the movement of billions of dollars worth of goods including furniture, paper, manufacturing components, medications, produce, vehicles and virtually everything shipped overseas.
Biden told reporters he would not intervene, no matter how destructive and no matter what a bad time it is for another supply chain breakdown. “It’s collective bargaining. I don’t believe in Taft-Hartley,” the Cabbage told reporters. Biden’s smug but clueless Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo had no idea what is going on, she said she “hasn’t focused on” the problem:
CLIP: Clueless Secretary of Commerce sounds off on port strike (0:13).
With the stroke of a pen, Biden could have pushed off any strike for 80 days — until after the election. Why would he not take advantage of that reprieve? Principles? (Okay, stop laughing.)
It’s awkward timing, what with a hurricane recovery in the works. Most commenters think serious problems will not start immediately, since suppliers have known the strike was potentially coming for months and, in theory, had time to stock up. We’ll see.
🔥🔥 With all the hair-raising news this month, we’ll need some extra feel-good silliness. So please post in the comments: what would you do if you ran into this real-life refugees, Trouble With Tribbles-style problem?
CLIP: Man tries to do the right thing and then this happens. What would you do?
Good thing they weren’t in Springfield. What exactly is the flow-chart for this difficult refugee crisis? Provide advice in the comments.
Procrastinators! Here’s your multiplier link again; do it NOW! You’ll feel great! Donate to Support Hurricane Helene Victims. Then have a terrific Tuesday! I’ll be back tomorrow, with internet, without emergency hearings, and raring to go.
Don’t race off. We cannot do it alone. Consider joining up with C&C to help move the nation’s needle and change minds. I could sure use your help getting the truth out and spreading optimism and hope, if you can: ☕ Learn How to Get Involved 🦠
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The views expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida
