A glimpse at Donald Trump’s priorities
Minutes south of here:
Hundreds of residents signed up for FEMA buyouts after Helene. Not one has been approved.
FAIRVIEW, North Carolina — A dusting of December snow had turned the mountains around her white, but Elizabeth Clark barely had time to notice.
It had been 438 days since Hurricane Helene’s floodwaters wrecked her home’s foundation, inundated the first floor, destroyed the septic system and swallowed theirbelongings. Her mortgage company agreed to pause her payments for a year, but now seemed to be losing patience over the $270,000 she still owed on a house no longer safe to live in.
“I’ve never missed a payment in my whole life,” said Clark, a neonatal nurse at a nearby hospital. “Here now, at 42 years old, I’m having to consider foreclosing.”
In November 2024, Clark was among the first storm victims in her county to apply for a voluntary program funded by the Federal Emergency Management Agency that would enable the government to buy out her property.
She and her husband have heard nothing in over a year.
More than 800 storm victims around Helene-battered western North Carolina have applied under FEMA’s Hazard Mitigation Grant Program. State officials vetted applications and began sending them up the chain to FEMA as far back as February. As of Dec. 15, they had sent nearly 600 buyout requests to Washington, with more likely to follow.
So far, they say, not a single approval has come through.
North Carolina Gov. Josh Stein has called the paralysis “absolutely unacceptable,” and has pushed for answers. Earlier this month, he wrote to FEMA’s acting administrator, detailing the startling number of applications that “remain without a final decision.”
“Further delay of these approvals,” he wrote, “keeps communities and families in limbo, in some cases paying expenses on homes they cannot live in while they await word from FEMA.”
FEMA did not comment on questions about the program.
Was anyone left after DOGE to answer the phones?
FEMA claims “80% of acquisitions [are] approved in under two years and 93% in three years or less,” with an average time of 16 months.
But Don Campbell, chief of staff to North Carolina’s emergency manager, told a Helene recovery task force it is his understanding that many of the applications are sitting on Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem’s desk.
When she’s not in cotume chasing down taco vendors and car wash employees, or jetting around with Corey Lewandowski, she’s getting hair extensions and Botox.
When he’s not focused on toppling the government in Venezuela, Trump Secretary of State Marco Rubio has his people making sure not to admit tourists who dislike his boss:
Trump officials move to screen visa applicants’ posts for ‘anti-American’ speech
The Trump administration is widening efforts to screen visa applicants for online speech considered dangerous and “anti-American” as the government moves to restrict legal migration and remove people from places the president has called “garbage.”
The State Department earlier this month expanded new regulations requiring foreign students and people on academic and cultural exchange programs to disclose five years of their social media histories and make all of their posts public. All applicants for H-1B employment visas and their dependents will now also be subject to the more rigorous online review.
[…]
Trump administration officials said they are acting to protect public safety against terrorist sympathizers and those who wish harm upon Americans. In a statement, Department of Homeland Security assistant secretary Tricia McLaughlin disputed the suggestion that the administration is stifling free speech.
“DHS takes its role in addressing threats to the public and our communities seriously, and the idea that enforcing federal law in that regard constitutes some kind of prior restraint on speech is laughable,” she said.
A federal judge disagreed. In September, U.S. District Judge William G. Young of Massachusetts ruled that the Trump administration had misused its sweeping powers in a manner “that continues unconstitutionally to chill freedom of speech to this day.”
Don’t think they’ll stop with non-citizens. You’re next.
Happy Hollandaise!