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But lots of these takes are not unhinged.
FEMA distributes relief to migrants and illegals. That's not a conspiracy or furtive rumor. That's a basic function it performs with budget allocations and press releases and grants. Noticing that FEMA is now claiming to be out of money is not some weird partisan non-sequitur. It's a basic observation of cause-and-effect: they spent money on illegals and now are out of money for Americans.
Likewise, rumors about FEMA getting in the way. This is rumoring of the worst sort, but it's also correct to talk about it. You have first-hand accounts of people claiming that FEMA officers are confiscating relief and getting in the way. Imagine that that happened to you -- well, some guy on twitter concluded that this is just all part of a broken media incentive infrastructure, so it doesn't matter if it's true or false. Comforting!
But those are separate earmarked categories of funds. The FEMA Disaster Relief Fund was down to $1 billion dollars on hand and moved to "Immediate Needs Funding" until Congress passed a bill providing an additional $20 billion at the end of last month. But the FEMA Shelter and Services program spending money on migrants ($650 million in 2024) was never part of that. Both are under FEMA but my understanding is that there's not some unified pool of FEMA funds, you might as well blame NASA. And obviously "FEMA's Disaster Relief Fund is about to run out of money" stories are generally overblown in the first place, since Congress is going to provide it additional funds as needed.
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Sure. And a functioning media ecosystem would be able to discuss these cases without partisan mud-slinging.
And I don't doubt that there are cases of FEMA dysfunction. But that's not under dispute here. The more interesting claims are that FEMA is deliberately, systemically, and strategically witholding help from those in need to help Harris win the election.
Meditating on the potential emotional state of a potential truth-teller not being believed does not really tell us much about whether the person making such claims is actually telling the truth. Facts over feelings cuts both ways.
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