In their joint press conference today, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis tried to show "leadership" with his substance-light "plan" to aid Hurricane Ian victims, but seemed to become "distracted" as Pres. Joe Biden gave a detailed summation of what the federal government was going to do:
This came after one of those pathetic displays of groveling hypocrisy from the office of the governor, this press release:
Today, Governor Ron DeSantis requested President Biden grant a Major Disaster Declaration for all 67 counties, for all categories, and all types of assistance, due to the ongoing devastating impacts of Hurricane Ian. If granted, a Major Disaster Declaration provides a wide range of federal assistance programs for individuals, as well as funds for both emergency and permanent work and public infrastructure.
Governor DeSantis also requested President Biden grant the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) the authority to provide 100% federal cost share for debris removal and emergency protective measures (FEMA Categories A and B) for the first 60 days from landfall. This FEMA grant can only be authorized by the President of the United States.
This “request” by this anti-government, anti-people bigot was not just a sign of fiscal desperation, but clearly political in nature. He was “daring” Biden to say “no” to paying all of the cost for damage and clean-up from Hurricane Ian for next 60 days, which DeSantis of course hopes will constitute the bulk of the cost, with his state having no liability whatever for the time being.
You know what? People who live in New York should know that when they choose to live there, they are getting the good with the bad. If you choose to live in a semi-tropical climate with all perks that warm weather on a year-round basis provides, you also must realize that living in this climate zone has costs that come with it.
Oh wait, somebody must have gotten their spurs tied up: this is Florida in 2022, not New York in 2013, which I’ll get back to shortly.
Why should people in Florida be treated any differently than the way U.S. citizens in Puerto Rico were treated by Donald Trump after Hurricane Fiona—when instead of passing out food and water as President Biden did recently, he showed up tossing paper towels which was clearly meant to be private “joke” that maybe only he and Stephen Miller would find “funny”:
For that matter, there was nothing “funny” about FEMA’s initial responses under George Bush to Hurricane Katrina; its attitude toward the flooding in New Orleans seemed at first to be “well, they chose to live there, it’s not our problem.” In fact the Bush administration was accused of seeking to make the city unlivable for the black population most effected, and force them to disperse to other states to make the voting population of Louisiana more Republican.
What Biden should have done is force DeSantis to negotiate with the federal officials responsible and not with himself about how to split the cost, and make him say “no” to helping the people of his own state—instead of doing what he has been doing, like endangering the health of people, and attempting to taking away the free speech and freedom of assembly rights of those opposing his semi-fascist regime. His recent anti-immigrant stunts—illegally paid for from the $12 million federal COVID relief fund—should fly back in his face if we learn that a “no questions asked” policy is being instituted to recruit migrants to do much of “dirty work” in the clean-up efforts.
The New York Times is calling the “request” a “pause” in DeSantis’ political bomb-throwing, and is an example of “partnership.” Well, it isn’t. DeSantis hasn’t been forced to face a disaster of this magnitude so close to election time, and he has to show “leadership.” But he’s not showing “leadership”—he’s passing the buck in case something goes wrong. At a CPAC convention earlier in the year, DeSantis accused Biden of “hating” Floridians. yet he opposed federal health guidelines during the pandemic; isn’t that evidence he “hates” Floridians, or at least those who don’t vote for him? Here is a chance for DeSantis to put his money in his mouth, instead of his pie-hole; instead, he wants the federal government to foot 100 percent of the bill for the choices he and the residents of his state make after all the contemptible slurs they’ve called Biden.
Tucker Carlson on Fox News surprisingly asked DeSantis why he should expect cooperation from the Biden administration when he and his Republican colleagues have politicized the aid situation in the past. After all, when 100 people in the Northeast died from Hurricane Sandy in 2013, DeSantis was one of 67 Republicans in Congress to vote against recovery assistance for a Democratic-leaning voting demographic. DeSantis justified this reversal by claiming that Biden “wants to be helpful,” and to take advantage of the president’s generosity he expects the federal government to foot 100 percent of the recovery costs over the next 60 days—which, frankly, is being over-generous by half to bail out this fascist wannabe.
In voting against the aid package in 2013, DeSantis—then a member of the far-right “Freedom Caucus”—made the ludicrous claim that no aid money should be granted unless it was “off-set” by cuts in other federal programs, most likely social welfare programs for the poor. Of course Republicans never explain how tax cuts for the rich are supposed to be “off-set,” since the claim that they “pay” for themselves through “trickle-down economics” is a farce that in the UK right now its implementation by the far-right government of Liz Truss is coming under attack as irresponsible even by some in the right-wing media.
When asked for an explanation for his self-serving U-turn on disaster relief aid, a spokesperson for DeSantis told the NYT that the governor has “no time for politics or pettiness.” As we should know by now, we always receive such comments like this from far-right types who have “no time” to explain their petty, political hypocrisy.
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