America Has Been Through a Lot—And It’s All Trump’s Fault

(At least that's what the media wants you to think)

Three major hurricanes, wildfires in California, a mass shooting in Las Vegas, and four dead American soldiers in Niger all affected the USA in the summer to fall of 2017. And the mainstream media and other leftists are trying to blame it all on President Trump, or at least are claiming these disasters and tragedies have been made worse by Trump’s incompetence. His responses to a couple of these events have even been declared racist. But are any of these leftist claims true?

Hurricane Harvey

The first major disaster to hit the United States in recent weeks was Hurricane Harvey’s direct hits on Texas and Louisiana. Harvey hit Texas as a Category Five Hurricane. And it was Trump’s fault it got so strong! How can that be? Because President Trump pulled the USA out of the Paris Climate Accord, and it was due to global warming that Hurricane Harvey grew so strong. But there are so many problems with this line of reasoning, I don’t know where to begin.

Let me start with something I have written about before (see Pittsburgh, not Paris), the Paris Climate Accord was an unconstitutional treaty that was never approved by Congress. That is one reason President Trump pulled us out of it. Another was it was not good for America. See the aforementioned article for details. But here I will just note, Trump is trying to actually obey the Constitution of the United States, something our previous President paid little attention to. And for that, President Trump should be commended, not derided.

Other examples of President Trump undoing unconstitutional executive orders by Obama concern DACA and the appropriations for insurance company subsidies under Obamacare. The latter was an effort by Obama to make up for a deficiency in the ill-written Affordable Care Act, which failed to include a provision for those subsidies. But it is unconstitutional for a President to alter a law passed by Congress and especially to appropriate money. Thus, Trump was simply obeying the Constitution by undoing both of these provisions.

Second, even if the USA had stayed in the Accord, it would not have made any difference in the climate, short or long term, which is another reason Trump pulled us out of it. It most definitely would not have made a difference fast enough to have kept Hurricane Harvey from turning into a Category Five Hurricane.

Third, if supposed climate change was the reason Harvey grew into a Category Five, where were all of the other Category Five Hurricanes over the past decade? The fact is, there have been none since Katrina hit New Orleans in 2005. If climate change was affecting hurricanes as the climate doomsayers are claiming, we should have been hit by Category Five Hurricane after Category Five Hurricane throughout this entire century, but that has not even been close to being the case.

Fourth, the reason Harvey was such a disaster was not so much the wind as the rain, but it is wind speed that determines a hurricane’s category, not the amount of rainfall, while it is only the wind speed that could be considerably affected by climate change. Therefore, climate change had nothing to do with the amount of rain Harvey dumped on Texas.

The reason it dumped so much rain is that normally a hurricane blows through an area and then moves on rather quickly. But Harvey was a very slow-moving hurricane that stalled over Texas. As it just sat there, it dumped several feet of rain on Texas. It then went back out to sea, then came back in, dumping even more rain on Texas and then also on Louisiana. Climate change would not have affected the movement of the hurricane, so it was not the reason Harvey was so devastating

In the end, Texas received over five feet of rain. That is an unimaginable amount of rain. To put it in terms us Northerners can understand, if that were snow, it would be about fifty feet of it! That would completely bury most houses and many apartment and office buildings. We would be digging out of it for months.

Otherwise, the leftists were hoping Trump’s response to Harvey would be fickle, so they could blame him for any deaths that occurred or any suffering people experienced, just as they blamed President George W. Bush for the problems that occurred after Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans in 2005. But unfortunate for the leftists, the response of the Trump administration was stellar, as FEMA (the Federal Emergency Management Agency) was immediately on the spot with relief supplies.

But even more important was the response of the average Texan. Rather than just sitting there and expecting the government to do everything, average Texans jumped into action helping their fellow Texans. Those that had boats or anything that could float, cruised around their neighborhoods and saved anyone that needed saving. They were also prepared for this disaster, with many of them having their own emergency supplies to hold them over until FEMA arrived. Moreover, many Texans had guns that the Texas government let them keep that they used to protect their own property, and that is why looting was kept to a minimum. For all of this, Texas and Texans are to be commended.

That was a far cry from what happened in New Orleans after Katrina. The average New Orleanian expected the government to sweep in and save them, not having their own emergency supplies to last the recommend three days until help can arrive. They were not floating around in boats saving one another, and most of all, the Louisiana government confiscated the guns of law-abiding citizens, so they were not able to protect their own property, and that led to the widespread looting and even violence after Katrina.

NEW ORLEANS, Sept. 8 [2005] - Local police officers began confiscating weapons from civilians in preparation for a forced evacuation of the last holdouts still living here, as President Bush steeled the nation for the grisly scenes of recovering the dead that will unfold in coming days….

That order apparently does not apply to the hundreds of security guards whom businesses and some wealthy individuals have hired to protect their property (New York Times).

[Glen] Beck went on to air part of a news report about a woman who was disarmed and forced from her home during Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans.

Patty Konie explained to officers back in 2005 that her home was dry, she had plenty of food, and she wanted to stay in her home with her dogs. However, police did not respect her request and forced her to leave. Further, when she revealed to officers that she had an unloaded handgun, officers tackled her to the floor and confiscated the gun — even though it was a legal firearm.

“I said, ‘it’s not even loaded,’ while I dropped it on the floor, and they punched me in the face,” Konie says in the video report. “They dragged me out of here. I really thought they were going to kill me. I really did” (The Blaze).

Thus, the rich were allowed to keep their armed security guards, but the rest of the populace was left defenseless. That is why conservatives are such gun-rights advocates. And since authorities here in the USA have confiscated guns, it is disingenuous for leftists to claim such would never happen here in the USA.

In any case, both a better response of FEMA and the actions of the average Texan kept Harvey from being an even greater disaster than it would have been. This is not to say there were and are not many problems in Texas that required outside help. They needed outside aid and continued to do so. And not only FEMA but Christian relief organizations are helping much in this regard. In fact, collectively, Christians relief organizations have provided far more aid to Texas that FEMA has.

Christian non-profit organizations have outdone FEMA and provided the vast majority of the relief aid to victims of Hurricanes Harvey and Irma. Faith-based relief groups are responsible for providing nearly 80 percent of the aid delivered thus far to communities with homes devastated by the recent hurricanes, according to USA Today (Daily Caller).

As such, if you have not already done so, I would strongly recommend you donate to one or more Christian relief organizations: The ones I recommend are: The Salvation Army, Samaritan’s Purse, and Operation Blessing. These are all Christian organizations, proclaiming the Gospel as they offer relief supplies. The Red Cross was founded as a Christian relief organization, but it is no longer specifically Christian, though is still a good organization to support.

Hurricane Irma

Right after Hurricane Harvey hit Texas, Hurricane Irma hit Florida as a Category Four Hurricane. Once again, the leftists were hoping for a fickle response from the Trump administration. But once again, they were disappointed. FEMA was on site as soon as possible to provide relief, as were the aforementioned Christians relief organizations. Like Texas, Florida still needs much help, but the disaster has been kept to a minimum due to the excellent response of FEMA and these relief organizations.

Hurricane Maria

Before Hurricane Irma hit Florida, it hit Puerto Rico (PR). It was not a direct hit, but it still caused widespread damage, especially to PR’s energy grid. This was mainly because their power grid is old and outdated and most of all, ill-kept. That is because of PR’s very poor financial situation. The government of PR has been mishandled for decades, and they are now so far in debt that they cannot even pay the interests on their loans. As a result, they have been unable to keep up with basic maintenance of their power grid.

The head of an international engineering firm in Puerto Rico said in an editorial Saturday that when the time came to send 50 of his engineers to help in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria, he bypassed local officials and went straight to FEMA.

The reason, said Jorge Rodriguez, the CEO of PACIV, in an editorial in the New York Post, is that “for the last 30 years, the Puerto Rican government has been completely inept at handling regular societal needs, so I just don’t see it functioning in a crisis like this one.”

“Even before the hurricane hit, water and power systems were already broken. And our $118 billion debt crisis is a result of government corruption and mismanagement.”…

Rodriguez’s criticism follows that of many experts and members of Congress, who note that Puerto Rico was mired in financial chaos well before Hurricane Maria. Puerto Rico was facing a $74 billion public debt load and a decade-old economic recession – sending hundreds of thousands of islanders fleeing to the U.S. mainland (Fox News).

Also due to PR’s poor financial state, much of the housing was not very sturdy, so many houses and buildings were destroyed by Irma. Making matters worse, the people and the government did not have the financial reserves to deal with an emergency, so they were still struggling to recover from Irma when Hurricane Maria hit.

Hurricane Maria was a Category Five Hurricane, and it made a direct hit on PR, and the island was devastated. The entire power grid was wiped out, many neighborhoods were flattened, and roadways were left unpassable. As a result, the entire island was left without power, drinking water, and a viable transportation system.

However, FEMA was prepared before the hurricane even hit. Supplies were already on docks in PR waiting to be distributed, and more boats were immediately sent on the way after Maria left the area. But there was so much devastation, it was very difficult to move supplies from the coasts to inland.

It was because of that delay that the leftist media finally had their chance to attack Trump for a supposed lackluster response to a disaster. None of what they said was true, but it made for a good story. And to feed the leftist base of the mainstream media even more, the media made up the idea that the supposed lackluster response was because the island was mostly populated with non-whites, so the reason for the slow response was Trump is a racist, so he didn’t want to help those people of color.

However, this line of reasoning is false on every level. The reason the response to Maria was slower than the response to Harvey and Irma is simple geography. Texas and Florida are part of the mainland USA (duh). That means, FEMA could send a caravan of trucks to those states as soon as the hurricanes left their regions. But PR is an island. As such, you cannot just truck supplies to it. Everything must be sent by boat or plane (also duh). And it takes a lot longer to move supplies by those means than by a caravan of trucks.

Moreover, once supplies reached the coasts, again, moving them inward was very difficult due to most roads being blocked by debris and downed powerlines. The latter was particular difficult to deal with, since again, PR’s power system was already in very poor shape before the hurricanes hit, and PR was ill-prepared to even move the powerlines, let alone repair them. In addition, a curfew by the inept PR government did not helps matters.

“For instance, shortly after the hurricane hit, the government imposed a curfew from 6 pm to 6 am and then changed it,” Rodriguez said. “Now, it’s 7 pm to 5 am, and makes no sense. The curfew has prevented fuel trucks from transporting their loads.

“These trucks should have been allowed to run for 24 hours to address our needs, but they have been stalled, and so we have massive lines at gas stations and severe shortages of diesel at our hospitals and supermarkets.”

Rodriguez said it is the federal government that has put forth an organized response, and that it is wrong of Puerto Rico’s own political leaders to blame it (Washington Post).

None of this has anything to do with racism. It is only the leftists’ propensity to turn everything into being about race that even raised the issue.

Adding fuel to the fire of the leftists’ claims was the mayor of San Juan, Carmen Yulín Cruz. She made an appeal to the Trump demonstration asking for more help, saying it wasn’t coming fast enough. But when Carmen first made that appeal, she was standing in front of pallet after pallet of relief supplies still in their boxes! Rather than wasting time crying out for more supplies, she should have been organizing distribution of the supplies right behind her.

Carmen and Trump then went on a Twitter war, as Trump is wont to do. But Carmen just made a fool of herself, as the governor of PR and most of the rest of the PR mayors all supported Trump and the excellent response of his administration to the disaster. But of course, the hate-Trump media have ignored all of those mayors and continue to focus on the one mayor claiming otherwise.

Trump really got himself in trouble when he claimed the Puerto Ricans were not doing enough to help themselves. But he was not incorrect in that assessment. Unlike Texas, where many of the residents had their own emergency supplies, Puerto Ricans by and large did not. Again, the reason they did not was the pre-existing poor economy of the island, an economy that was so poor due to liberal economic policies, while Texas had a pre-existing strong economy due to its more conservative polices, enabling the state and its citizens to be better prepared for a disaster.

Be that as it may, PR is in a mess, and it will take a long time to fix all of the problems. Of that, there is no doubt. But once again, not only is FEMA still there providing needed aid, but so are the aforementioned Christian relief organizations. Again, I would encourage the reader to donate to one or more of them if you are able to do so.

California Wildfires

Just after these hurricanes hit, wildfires began spreading over Northern California, especially in Sonoma County. To date, “More than 220,000 acres have burned in 13 major fires and destroyed 6,700 homes and other structures, including wineries.” While, the “Death toll in California wildfires grows to 42” (CNBC).

The media is once again claiming climate change is at the root of this devastation, blaming Trump for it. But California has had problems with wildfires for a very long time, long before climate change became an issue. And again, nothing Trump has done or hasn’t done would have affected the climate just yet.

In fact, the verdict is still out on what caused these fires and why they have been so devastating. But I do know that in previous wildfires, the lack of logging due to leftist “save the forests” ideas prevented fire breaks from being cut through forests to prevent just such unchecked spread of fires.

The media has also been saying that the lack of response to this disaster is because California is a blue state that did not vote for Trump, so he doesn’t care about Californians. But such is just nonsense. The Trump administration has been providing aid as requested. But not much can be done until the fires are under control, which thank God, is beginning to be the case due to the brave work of the firefighters and a much-needed change in weather.

Mass Shooting in Las Vegas

As if these natural disasters were not enough for America to deal with, we then had a “man-caused disaster” as the Obama administration would term such things. But in this case, it was a not a terrorist attack. By all accounts, it was just a crazed lone-gunman who opened fire for no apparent reason on a crowd attending a country music concert in Las Vegas. But the response of the media and other leftists to this tragedy has been truly despicable.

When news of the shooting first began to be reported, you actually had leftists tweeting things like, “I hope he kills as many Trumpers as possible” or “Good. That will fewer Trump supporters to deal with.” They were saying such obnoxious things, as being a country music concert, they were assuming that most of the concert-goers were conservatives. Yet liberals claim it is conservatives who are full of hate!

Then before the bodies were even cold, the left, as could have been predicted, began calling for more gun control, blaming Trump for the lack thereof. But then they ended up with egg of their collective faces when it was discovered that the reason the shooter was able to fire so many rounds so quickly was because of an Obama-era regulation that allowed bump stocks to be sold.

Very few of us even heard of “bump stocks” before this event. But they are devices that can be attached to semi-automatic weapons so that they can sort of function like automatic weapons. The latter are banned in the USA and have been for decades, but semi-automatic weapons are allowed to be sold.

With automatic weapons being illegal, you would think the means to convert a semi-automatic into somewhat of an automatic would be illegal as well. But that reasoning seemed to escape the Obama administration. As a result, the ATF (Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms) under Obama passed regulations allowing bump stocks to be sold.

There are now calls in Congress to ban the sell of bump stocks. Conservatives have little opposition to such, with even the NRA (National Rifleman’s Association) not being against it. But frankly, it would make little difference, as it is not that difficult to make a bump stock, especially with 3D printers now readily available.

Despite all of these facts, leftists are still blaming Trump, conservatives, and especially the NRA for this tragedy. But none of the gun-control laws being proposed by liberals would have stopped this tragedy nor any of the previous mass shooting that have occurred in this country in recent years. In this case, no laws were broken by the shooter in the acquisition of his arsenal, and there were no mental health issues or other warnings signs that he was going to commit such an atrocity.

There have been some reports that he was on anti-depressants. But if every American who ever used anti-depressants was denied their Second Amendment right to own a gun, that would be a lot of Americans so denied. But then, that is what the leftists want—for no one to own a gun except for the government. In fact, some are even going as far as to call for the abolishment of the Second Amendment.

That would be an absolute tragedy, as Second Amendment or no Second Amendment, criminals would still be able to attain guns. There are just too many of them floating around for the government to confiscate all of them. As happened in New Orleans, only the guns of law-abiding citizens would be confiscated, while criminals, breaking the law as they are wont to do, would hang onto their guns.

Four Dead American Soldiers in Niger

The most disgusting display of politicizing a tragedy has been the media’s’ response to four American Green Berets killed in Niger, Africa. Most Americans never even heard of this tragedy until a fuss was raised about President Trump’s condolence call to the widow of one of the dead soldiers.

For that matter, most Americans didn’t even know we had troops in Africa, this writer included. But it seems we have about 1,000 of them. The reason they are there is that as we have been defeating ISIS in Syria and Iraq, they are fleeing into Africa and setting up shop there. Our troops are training the local forces there to fight ISIS. On a side note, yes, our brave soldiers have been defeating ISIS, with ISIS holdings now down 85%.

ISIS down to 6,500 fighters, holds only 3 percent of Iraq ... “ISIS in Iraq and Syria are all but isolated in their quickly shrinking territory,” said Col. Ryan Dillon, a U.S. military spokesman in Baghdad (Washington Examiner).

But you probably never heard about this great development, as the media would have to give President Trump at least some of the credit, and that is something the media is loath to do. However, the media will jump at the chance to degrade him, so they have greatly publicized Florida congresswoman Frederica Wilson’s blasting of President Trump for his supposed insensitivity in his condolence call to Myeshia Johnson, widow of slain Army Sgt. La David Johnson. Frederica claimed Trump told Myeshia that La David, “Knew what he was getting into, but it still hurts when it happens.” That was painted as being uncaring, uncouth, insensitive, or whatever negative label the media could put on it.

President Trump fired back, saying he never said that, at least in the manner in which Frederica portrayed it. A Twitter storm erupted between the two of them, with the media siding with Frederica against President Trump, with all the while, the deaths of the four soldiers being lost in the scuffle.

But here are some facts. First, even if President Trump said, “He knew what he was getting into” he was totally correct in that statement. Anyone who signs up for the military knows that they are signing up to potentially be shot at and killed. That is what happens when you are at war. In fact, that statement is a compliment, as indicates the bravery of those who sign up for our all-volunteer military.

Second, to say that President Trump was deliberately insensitive is to not only paint him as incompetent as the media has been trying to do ever since the day he took office, but it is to say he is a terrible human being, wanting to rub salt into the wound of a grieving widow. You would think that even the most ardent Trump-hater could not possibly believe that, but apparently many do.

Third, the congresswoman had no business listening in on the call. It was a private conversation between the widow and President Trump. The reason she heard the conversation was because also in the car was La David’s aunt, who raised him after his mother's death, so Myeshia put her phone on speaker so that the aunt could listen in. But if Frederica had any respect, she would have stayed out of it. But apparently, getting attention matters more to her than respecting the dead and those grieving over them.

Fourth, the reason Frederica was in the car with the aunt and widow is she is a friend of the family. Frederica’s hatred for Trump is well-established, with her previously calling for him to impeached. It is safe to assume that her hatred has rubbed off on her friends, so it is understandable that the aunt would support her story, as she probably already hated Trump as much as Frederica does.

The same would go for Myeshia. It wasn’t until a week later that she came out and spoke publicly in an interview on Good Morning America. When she did, she said she was hurt by President Trump’s statement about her husband knowing what he was getting into. She even claimed President Trump couldn’t remember her husband’s name, a claim Trump disputes. But again, given her friendship with Frederica, Myeshia was probably expecting President Trump to be insensitive, so matter what he said, she would have taken it as such.

Fifth, Frederica has accused Trump of not even knowing the name of the widow, since he referred to her as “the woman” or “the wife” in his initial tweet. But Trump referred to Frederica as “the congresswoman” rather than by name in that same tweet. Moreover, Frederica has so little respect for the grieving widow that she misspelled her name in her tweet blasting Trump for supposedly not knowing her name!

Sixth, those in the room with Trump have said that what he said was perfect acceptable. And that includes General John Kelly, who lost his son in Afghanistan in 2010. He was so distressed by Frederica’s politicizing of the deaths of American soldiers that he took the podium instead of Press Secretary Sarah Sanders-Huckabee during the normal press briefing on Thursday, October 19, 2017.

In his remarks, he gave a very emotional recounting of what happens when a member of the armed forces dies in the line of duty. He also recounted what he was told when his son was killed in action. And that included the very same line that Trump has been blasted for, “He knew what he was getting into.” But context makes all the difference, which Frederica conveniently left out when she repeated it. And again, one’s expectations also matter in a condolence call.

Kelly went on to blast the congresswoman for her remarks, saying he thought the deaths of American soldiers would be the one thing still sacred in America. He was so upset by her remarks, that he wandered around Arlington National Cemetery for an hour and a half to be around “the finest men and women on the planet.”

His speech was a complete beatdown of the leftist attitude toward this situation and the military in general. And you would think that would have been the end of that. But no! The media and other leftists doubled-down in their attacks on Trump, now attacking generally Kelly just as strongly for supporting Trump. They have gone so far as to call Kelly a racist for calling Frederica an “empty barrel.” How they are making that into a racist remark is quite a stretch, to say the least. But that is all leftists can do when they have nothing of substance left to say—they pull out the racist card, no matter how unwarranted it is.

But Kelly is not a racist, and neither is President Trump. They are both men who care greatly for this country, all of the country, and all of its citizens. That is why Kelly dedicated his life to the service of this country, being such a good example of such that both of his sons joined the military. As mentioned, one of his sons gave his life for that dedication and the other son is currently serving his fifth tour in Afghanistan. For that, General Kelly and his sons should be commended, not derided.

Meanwhile, the left is doing its best to blame the deaths of the four American soldiers on President Trump, no matter how much they must make things up to do so. This was seen in in a tale leftist talking head Rachael Maddow spun on her show on MSNBC on October 19th.

Racheal tried to tie Trump’s travel ban on Chad to the death of these four soldiers in Niger. How she did so is so convoluted that even the normally Trump-hating Huffington Post said about it, “Maddow’s theory was so flimsy that it could be debunked by a quick glance at a map, let alone a phone call with an expert” (Huffington Post).

At this writing, the exact reason for the deaths for these four brave American soldiers is unknown. But an investigation is underway, and eventually we will have some answers, and they will have nothing to do with Trump’s travel ban. Most likely it will not be due to any incompetence on Trump’s part either, though something did go wrong. When it is discovered, I am confident it will be corrected. But I am also sadly assured the media will try to spin the result so that the fault will be on Trump, no matter what the investigation actually reveals.

Conclusion

My heart and prayers go out to all of my fellow-Americans affected by the disasters and tragedies discussed in this article, especially those who lost loved ones. May the LORD comfort their hearts. They should have been allowed to grieve in peace. But the hatred of the mainstream media and leftists for President Trump would not allow that. They just could not miss the opportunity to use these disasters and tragedies as unjustified fodder to attack Trump.

These Trump-detractors just keep finding problems where there are none, making stuff up if they have to, to try to cast Trump in the worst possible light. The saddest part of it is that millions of Americans are falling for their subterfuge. But the facts are, President Trump and his administration have handled each of these disasters and tragedies in a timely and competent manner. Trump and his lovely wife have visited the sites of each one of them, offering their condolences and aid as a sympathetic President and First Lady should.

President’s Trump’s compassion and competence in these regards was brought out in the speech by General Kelly. If you did not see or hear it, I strongly suggest you take the time to watch it. Click here for the video. Just have some tissues nearby, as it is quite emotional (copied from NBC).

Finally, there is no recording of President Trump’s conversation with Myeshia, but there is of another condolence call he made to a fallen soldier’s widow, Natasha De Alencar, after her husband, Army Staff Sgt. Mark R. De Alencar, had been killed in Afghanistan on April 8, 2017. Click here for the video. Listen to it, and judge for yourself if President Trump is insensitive (copied from The Washington Post).

References:

In addition to the linked to sources, other sources for the information in this article are various news reports, especially those on Fox News and CBN News. Also, the Sean Hannity radio show and news reports on his iHeart station.

The above article was posted on this website October 24, 2017.

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