Daily Caller
FEMA Doled Out Millions Pushing ‘Equity,’ Prioritizing ‘Underserved Communities’ Leading Up To Hurricane Season
From the Daily Caller News Foundation
The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) in May 2023 launched a $12 million grant program designed to increase “equity” in disaster responses by making greater investments in communities with high concentrations of racial and sexual minorities, documents show.
FEMA’s 2023 Regional Catastrophic Preparedness Grant Program sought to disburse multi-million dollar grants designed to bolster disaster preparedness “equity” for what it called “underserved communities,” a label later defined in grant documents as “populations sharing a particular characteristic, as well as geographic communities, who have been systematically denied a full opportunity to participate in aspects of economic, social and civic life.” Examples of these groups cited in the FEMA documents include African Americans, Hispanics, Middle Easterners, LGBT people and people living in rural areas, among others.
“LGBTQIA people, and people who have been disadvantaged, already are struggling,” FEMA emergency management specialist Tyler Atkins said in a leaked Zoom recording that surfaced on Sunday. “They already have their own things to deal with. So, you add a disaster on top of that, it’s just compounding on itself.”
Maggie Jarry, an emergency management specialist at the Department of Health and Human Services, responded to Atkins by stressing that emergency management is moving away from providing “the greatest good to the greatest amount of people” and working towards “disaster equity.”
FEMA Disaster Preparedness Meeting:
"We should focus our efforts on LGBTQIA people… they struggled before the storm"
"FEMA relief is no longer about getting the greatest good for the greatest amount of people…. It's about disaster equity." pic.twitter.com/IqXeKI8OTT
— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) October 7, 2024
Black and gay people disproportionately live in areas where the effects of climate change, alongside poor infrastructure and a lack of resources, make natural disasters more dangerous, according to the FEMA documents. The agency used this position to argue that investments in these communities are needed to “effectively address equity in emergency management.”
FEMA instructed entities applying for grant funding under the program to use the Biden-Harris administration’s Climate and Economic Justice Screening Tool (CEJST) to identify disadvantaged communities where they would spend their federal grant dollars.
CEJST provides users with a map of every county the federal government considers “underserved” for the purposes of federal grantmaking. Many of the counties hit hardest by Hurricane Helene in western North Carolina and northern Georgia were made ineligible for funding through this program as a result of CEJST’s designations.
Hurricane Helene had left 227 people dead as of Saturday and damages caused by the storm could reach as high as $35 billion, according to estimates from the reinsurance company Gallagher Re. North Carolinians have received $27 million in individual assistance approved by FEMA, The Associated Press reported.
Entities that requested FEMA grant funding had their applications evaluated based on whether or not they selected communities labeled as “underserved” by CEJST as well as the degree to which they centered equity in their proposal.
“To advance considerations of equity in awarding RCPGP grant funding, FEMA will add additional points to the scores of projects that will benefit disadvantaged communities,” the grant document reads.
“We are expecting another hurricane hitting,” Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said on Wednesday “FEMA does not have the funds to make it through the season.”
FEMA’s shortfall in funding comes after the agency spent nearly $1 billion on migrant assistance programs in the 2023 and 2024 fiscal years.
Hurricane Milton is a Category 5 storm on track to hit the Florida Gulf Coast on Wednesday, CNN reported. Florida is still recovering from Helene.
FEMA did not respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.
Daily Caller
Laura Ingraham’s Viral Clash With Trump Prompts Her To Tell Real Reasons China Sends Students To US
From the Daily Caller News Foundation
On Monday, Ingraham pressed Trump on why a plan to admit 600,000 Chinese nationals into U.S. universities qualifies as a “pro-MAGA” move, challenging him directly after he defended the influx as vital to maintaining Washington’s relationship with Beijing. During a Wednesday broadcast, Ingraham said no modern president has fought harder for American workers than Trump and predicted he will “honor that distinction for the next three years.”
“There was also more consternation over the approach to allowing Chinese and other foreign students to take spots at U.S. universities. A lot of MAGA folks didn’t like that at all. And it’s not, by the way, as some Chinese influencers today said on X, I love this, it’s not that the MAGA folks, certainly not myself, dislike the Chinese people. It’s ridiculous,” Ingraham said.
“What they dislike is the Chinese system that represses Chinese people and uses them as human spies and saboteurs. Remember, when the CCP greenlights hundreds of thousands of their people to come study here, they’re not sending them so they can learn about the wonders of Western civilization, Plato and Socrates, Greek history, become champions of individual freedom and take that message back home. They’re sent here to do whatever is necessary to learn how to push the People’s Republic closer to crushing America, to stealing from us, and for spying on us,” Ingraham added.
Ingraham said that people “understandably perplexed by some of the president’s comments, we cannot forget, what American president has ever been tougher on China than Donald Trump? None.”
Ingraham told viewers that Beijing does not send its students to America to study the Western canon or return home as advocates of individual liberty.
WATCH:
Ingraham warned that China’s rise didn’t happen overnight, saying that decades of inattentive presidents allowed Beijing to gain the strength Trump now must confront.
“Given China’s growing strength that’s been amassed over decades of presidents who were out to lunch, President Trump inherited the most challenging situation,” Ingraham said. “I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say this, that any president has faced in the last 50 years. He and his entire team are dedicated to countering the Chinese aggression that’s building.”
Washington and Beijing struck a deal in June clearing the way for Chinese nationals to enroll in American universities, a shift that followed the administration’s June 5 move blocking Harvard from bringing in additional international students. Officials justified the restriction by pointing to security vulnerabilities and rising campus turmoil, including allegations of antisemitic activity, as reasons to tighten the flow of foreign applicants.
Trump acknowledged at the time that admitting large numbers of students from a country controlled by the Chinese Communist Party carries real intelligence concerns, saying in June that the government “must be vigilant” about who enters U.S. classrooms. National security experts told the Daily Caller News Foundation that the policy could create openings for the CCP to exploit America’s higher-education system and potentially endanger U.S. interests.
From the Daily Caller News Foundation
Baton-wielding protesters stormed the COP30 summit in Belem, Brazil, on Tuesday, with video showing some dressed in indigenous outfits, according to multiple reports.
The COP30 summit is the 30th annual meeting of parties to the United Nations’ Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC), an agreement to reach “net-zero” carbon emissions by 2050, according to the conference’s website. Video posted on X and aired by the BBC showed the protesters kicking doors and forcing their way into the building.
WATCH:
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Two security guards were injured in the fracas, with one being taken out in a wheelchair while holding his stomach, Sky News reported.
Past COP summits have seen speakers propose taxes on the meat and dairy industry and “climate finance” initiatives for less-developed countries. The Biden administration signed on to a pledge to start “transitioning away from fossil fuels” at the United Nations COP28 climate summit on Dec. 13, 2023.
Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom of California attended the summit, where he labeled President Donald Trump “an invasive species” and “a wrecking-ball president” who was “doubling down on stupid.” Newsom also announced an agreement between California and Nigeria, which was declared a “country of particular concern” due to persecution of Christians.
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