Since Ron DeSantis is so anti the Federal government, do you think he'll scorn FEMA help after the hurricane?

He’ll spin it.
“FEMA is one of the few good federal organisations.”
He’s as smooth as a snotty eel.

Wait…wait…why won’t the retirees get flown up here??

@canidmajor Airport is closed. You’d better start making the beds and cooking soup though.

(I have friends from the Tampa area who are stuck in Italy.)

I love to cook for crowds! He is welcome to send all the queer people he so despises to us, too, we are welcoming of all the humans that need help.

Is he anti-federal government? I haven’t had that impression from him. Sure, he believes in the state having some autonomy, but I’m not so sure he has talked about the fed like they do in the Deep South. I haven’t heard that, maybe some jellies have some links.

Of course he will accept FEMA help. He has already declared counties as disaster areas ahead of the storm so when the storm hits the fed just has to approve the counties that are actually hit. That is exactly what he should do as governor. I have been through a lot of hurricanes in Florida and he seems to be handling this well. Good messaging, multilingual, all toll roads around Tampa are free for a couple of days already for evacuations, lots of communication on TV and radio regarding preparedness, evacuations, official websites, etc.

We had a hurricane during the height of covid fear and he handled that very well also, he created shelters in hotels so people would be safer from the virus and not crowded in one big room like usual.

It will be hard to criticize him during the hurricane, he has many other things he does that deserve real criticism, the democrats should stick with those.

You mean like the fact that Florida ranks second with most book bans?

https://wusfnews.wusf.usf.edu/education/2022-09-20/florida-ranks-second-among-states-with-the-most-book-bans-report-finds

Desantis already requested federal assistance from FEMA for hurricane Ian, and Biden approved it.

I’m glad that DeSantis is handling the hurricane right. I have full empathy for Floridians facing this after having lived through Sandy. I just wish there was a realization that maybe there is a place for big government and being part of the solution in issues like immigration instead of pulling provocative political stunts might help.

I think Biden is proving the Federal Government has a part to play in the nation’s life. Republicans are fighting him every step of the way. I’d like to see a Republican state go it on their own. Oh, wait. Texas did that with disastrous results for their electrical grid. The electrical plants themselves froze during the bad winter a couple of years ago. My own children were forced out of their apartment from burst pipes due to no electricity so no heat to keep the pipes from freezing. Republicans are trash.

This is slightly off-topic but it’s my question and in Social so I will post it. This is I think a very fair and balanced article about the current issues with immigration. I hope people can open the link:

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/27/opinion/ron-desantis-asylum-border.html

Hell yes I wish Republicans would realize that the fed does a lot of good, and we should be working together as a nation.

Immigration needs to be addressed, but right now it has become a wedge issue and it behooves politicians from both parties to keep the issue alive. What are the current wedge issues? Abortion, immigration, and inflation from what I can tell. Climate change might be on its way out if Republicans more and more are accepting there is a climate crisis, I think some are shifting their views.

DeSantis pulled a horrible stunt with shipping the immigrants to Martha’s Vineyard. He did nothing to earn Massachusetts they were coming, and obviously it was political garbage, BUT the way the Democrats frame it is annoying to me too. I’ve seen the map the people were given of the US and as far as I’m concerned there is nothing wrong with that map.

Some of them wanted to get closer to family in NY, that was closer. It would have been nice if they could have been flown to NY. There is nothing wrong with the US COORDINATING with states to move people around who are coming across the boarder, but his stunt wasn’t that. From what I understand the people also weren’t given correct information to reschedule their appointments with for asylum review, but I have to say I was surprised the appointment aren’t with USCIS myself, but they should know better.

I saw DeSantis on the Weather Channel about an hour ago. He was complimenting the local disaster management people and mayors in the counties, which I was happy to see he didn’t try to take all of the credit. He reassured that our long term care facilities deemed ok to stay in during the hurricane all have back up generators (he was specifically asked about them during interview). Gas for cars has been kept fairly well available and water, and giving good general advice again to expect to lose power. 30,000 utility workers are standing by waiting for the storm to pass.

Edit: The central government is characterized by the Religious Right as secular, anti-Christian, irresponsible, and destructive.

I hope not. They need the help after such a disaster and political grandstanding is uncalled for when peoples life’s are at stake!

@RayaHope I couldn’t agree more.

Over 103 million from FEMA for Cali wildfires in 2021, compared to 2 billion after Katrina. Politics be damned and help the people.

@KNOWITALL Right On!

Well, it’s an election year, he has to pretend to care about his constituents.

@Knowitall Yes, that is the point. Political theater serves nobody well.

Of course not.
The republican mantra is “rules for thee, not for me”.
He will loudly demand the help, because they deserve the help, not those commie dem states.

In North Carolina, the Republicans took control of the state congress and at one point had a republican governor. During that time, they did away with the gross state budget deficit that the Democrats had blown up over previous decades. They ended up with almost a billion dollars in excess revenue. When Hurricane Florence it, that money was ready to be used to help citizens that needed the help and to repair damaged infrastructure. FEMA help was not as readily needed and I know people that actually got some FEMA housing. It took several months and ended up being the equivalent of a box in the woods with no electricity and no indoor plumbing.

I guess the question, while trying to be provocative, needs to also establish how much FEMA actually helps and how much of money that goes to FEMA goes to the needy people and how much goes to contractors and other administrative costs.

Don’t the Rep / Con want to end ALL abortions; even incest and rape ?

Don’r\t some counties want to restrict people of color from voting ?

Heather Cox Riichardson had this to say today about DeSantis and the Federal government:

“This destructive storm highlights the distance between reality and the ideology that calls for getting rid of the federal government.

As a newly elected congress member in 2013, now-governor of Florida Ron DeSantis was one of the 67 House Republicans who voted against a $9.7 billion federal flood insurance assistance package for the victims of Hurricane Sandy in New York and New Jersey. Now, with Florida on the ropes, DeSantis asked President Joe Biden for an emergency declaration to free up federal money and federal help even before the storm hit, and said Tuesday, “We all need to work together, regardless of party lines.””

I saw a video clip of DeSantis stating that Biden has been very supportive, and the counties all coordinating, no mention of political party. I’m sure DeSantis will be able to use it to say he works across the aisle in his final push for the election in November, and also if he runs in 2024 for President.

I posted on Facebook a photo yesterday of the hundreds of power company trucks waiting for the hurricane to pass and more than one of my Republican friends on my Facebook who are always quick to say how great Trump was or how horrible Democrats are, are saying how great it is that DeSantis is such a great governor. They are obsessed with him.

Democrats on the same thread saying how lucky we are that Biden is president and helping Florida. They both have to JUMP on anything they can to praise their guy and diss the other. So fucking annoying to me. It just encourages our politicians to keep doing it also. If the constituents really valued working together then the political animals in the country would have to do it to get elected.

The aftermath will definitely have stories of devastation and people going through some very bad times. Hurricane Ian was horrible coming into the coast. I can’t imagine what the islands are like off of the southwest coast of the state let alone the situation along the mainland within a mile of the water. It’s really bad.

It would be great if the opportunity could be taken to point out the hypocrisy of Ron DeSantis to Ron DeSantis. He’d probably say this is not the time for political finger pointing, it’s time for coming together to help the people in need, which would of course be accurate, but still, I would love to have the question posed to him to see what he says.

With the airports closed his flight to Cancun was cancelled.

I just read @janbb’s most recent post and googled more regarding DeSantis voting against helping Sandy victims. I think it’s legitimate to call him hypocritical or to press him on why specifically he voted against the bill. Just can’t do it now, because people will complain that the people struggling in Florida should have all of our attention now, and that people died, it’s disrespectful, etc. But, a few weeks from now before Floridians start voting it’s worth it to corner him and for Florida Democrats to bring up the issue over and over again.

It doesn’t change he did a good job this time for Florida. If he says, “I was wrong about Sandy.” It will shut it down. Then what?

As an aside on this question, it will be next to impossible for people looking to rebuild along the devastated coast to get new insurance policies. If they can, the premiums will be much higher. And there may be strict codes in order to get money for rebuilding. This happened in NJ after Sandy.

When companies are hit by such extreme devastation, they sometimes will raise premiums nationwide to recoup some of the loss.

I’ll add regular homeowner’s doesn’t cover flood, that’s separate insurance, so people who didn’t have flood are basically uninsured if the rising water did their house in or damaged everything on their first floor.

^^ That’s true. What a mess!

I have heard that the big companies, State Farm, All State, etc., won’t write home policies in Florida. Such a shame.

@chyna I think that generally if you are close to the water you have to go through a state assigned pool that apportions risk to various companies. It has been already expensive.

I’ve been on Facebook threads for home insurance where I live and if comments were correct State Farm does insure if the house is built after 2003, but maybe they only insure in the interior of Florida, that I don’t know.

North Carolina has “beach zone” insurance which pay a totally different and much higher insurance rate.