Trump Makes Landfall with Category 5 Bullshit
Georgia hit with post-storm surge of lies and powerful gusts of total horseshit
Oct. 1: Biden responds: “Donald Trump is a liar” … Israel invades Gaza Lebanon … U.S. sends thousands of troops to Mideast … Dockworkers go on strike …
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Former Pres. Donald Trump hit Georgia as expected yesterday, bearing Category 5 lies that were organized, sustained, and potentially damaging.
Pres. Joe Biden responded by declaring the stricken area around Trump’s bullshit a disaster zone, and offering federal relief in the form of direct evidence that Trump’s hot air was full of shit. Biden and Republican officials have been coordinating closely to erect reinforcements against the rising tide of Trump’s lies, which are not forecast to subside any time soon.
Trump’s swirling bullshit is expected to slam into North Carolina on Wednesday.
Trump made landfall in Georgia in order to appear on camera in Georgia after the devastation of Hurricane Helene. Trump slammed federal relief efforts and falsely said that Biden and Vice Pres. Kamala Harris have not been responsive to officials leading Helene relief efforts:
“They’re having a very hard time getting the president on the phone. He won’t get on it. Of course, the vice president, she’s out someplace campaigning.”
Because it’s difficult in the middle of a storm of lies to get the facts right when you’re just a humble multi-million-dollar news outlet, the Associated Press suggested that Trump claimed Gov. Brian Kemp (R-GA) couldn’t get Biden on the phone because he was “sleeping.” But as Trump receded from Georgia and TFN watched the actual fucking video, it turned out that Trump was referring to whether he had spoken to Biden:
MEDIA PERSON YELLING: Have you reached out to President Biden about federal relief efforts?
TRUMP: No, I haven’t reached out to him. No, he, uh, I think he’s sleeping right now.
Federal relief workers scrambled to distribute much-needed reality to the stricken media, releasing the fact that Biden had spoken the day before with Kemp, Gov. Roy Cooper (D-NC), and Florida Emergency Management Director John Louk. Biden had also spoken with Scott Matheson, mayor Valdosta, GA, the actual town where the eye of the shitstorm of Trump bullshit struck.
Even before Trump’s lies battered the region, Kemp had said publicly that while he and Harris had been playing phone tag, he did, in fact speak with Biden. Because Biden called him:
“The president just called me yesterday afternoon and he just said: ‘Hey, what do you need?’ And I told him, you know, we’ve got what we need, we’ll work through the federal process. He offered if there are other things we need just to call him directly, which, I appreciate that, but we’ve had FEMA [Federal Emergency Management Agency] embedded with us since, you know, a day or two before the storm hit.”
In other words, officials don’t need to speak with Biden because the federal process is working so well that Republican governors are getting what they need. And in more other words, federal officials were on the ground before the storm was.
Here’s a picture of Biden delivering desperately needed truth last night to the stricken region:
Trump quickly evacuated the stricken area and the force of his lies weakened almost immediately. But even downgraded to topical shitposting, Trump continued to do damage. He posted on his failing website that the Biden administration and Cooper are “going out of their way to not help people in Republican areas.”
Meteorologists noted that the only two states Trump is forecast to hit so far are both swing states.
Other damage from Trump’s powerful gusts of lies include his claim that “[N]obody thought this would be happening — especially now it’s so late in the season for the hurricanes.” As Mediaite noted yesterday, it is, in fact, peak hurricane season. As TFN is noting right now, “this” is precisely what climate scientists thought would be happening decades ago as they began warning us that storms would worsen as the climate and the seas got warmer and American politicians of both parties responded that we couldn’t afford to shut down ExxonMobil.
The death toll from Helene now stands at more than 130 people.
DISASTER THEOCRACY Trump was accompanied by Franklin Graham, one of the world’s top purveyors of disaster theocracy, exploiting catastrophes by tying aid to survivors with efforts to help Jesus win converts. Trump actually solicited for volunteers for Graham’s organization, Samaritan’s Purse, which delivers disaster relief around the world, including food, medical supplies, the importance of accepting Jesus as your personal savior, and the wrongness of LGBTQ+ and reproductive rights.
(Graham’s father Billy was a pioneer of disaster theocracy, a key factor in flipping countries to evangelical Protestantism, as I touched on in some of my reporting about the Jesusification of Guatemala.)
LOOTERS In a perfect metaphor for something, a Trump merch store in the disaster zone was looted by two Trump fans who are literally what latte-sipping coastal elites imagine when they think MAGA.
John Peters and Lance Petrisevac are accused of burglarizing a Trump store in Madeira Beach, FL, near Tampa. The store was unsecured due to storm damage, The Smoking Gun reports. Peters and Petrisevac were spotted outside the looted Trump swag store.
Wearing Trump swag.
Petrisevac told police that the “Trump cowboy hat” he was wearing “washed up from the hurricane.”
The two suspects are transients with criminal records, which reminds me what this is all a metaphor for: Incredibly sad American self-destruction.
NOW WHAT Of course, when if the waters recede, renters and owners of homes and businesses will soon be able to get back on their feet thanks to the payouts on their insurance claims.
[Pause for laughter].
In Florida, just to pick a state at random, Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) was going to do something about the escalating insurance crisis. Insurers were leaving or jacking up rates.
DeSantis responded with a strategic plan to attack drag performers and ban history lessons that might trigger feelings of compassion or empathy.
As Abby Vesoulis reported for Mother Jones last year, DeSantis took millions from insurers. And then he made it easier for them to weasel out of paying off the claims of Florida residents. DeSantis made it harder for Floridians to sue their insurance companies for said weaseling.
Which means thousands of people are about to lose a lot of money thanks to incredibly sad American self-destruction.
TAMBIÉN The combined impacts of Helene and Trump were so bad that no one seems to have noticed that Mexico got hit by a recidivist storm.
Hurricane John made landfall near Acapulco on Sept. 23, dropping three feet of rain on a region where the vast majority of umbrellas are extremely small. Then, on Friday, the same exact storm came back, only disguised this time as Tropical Storm John. Entire towns are devastated and at least 17 people are dead.
Israel Invaded Lebanon
As any hobbyist with a completist streak knows, once you start collecting something, you gotta collect ‘em all. Well, Israel is now engaged in direct, active military conflict with four separate countries.1 (And, yes, it’s fair to note that forces in all four are engaged in indirect, terrorist conflict with Israel.) This morning, Israel added another country to its invasion subset, as Israeli Defense Forces marched/rolled/shot their way into southern Lebanon.
With the U.S. calling on all parties to de-escalate, it’s unclear why Israel would march on Lebanon, unless it’s the fact that the U.S. keeps supplying it with weapons and literally told Israel that invading Lebanon was cool.
According to Politico, White House adviser Amos Hochstein and Middle East coordinator Brett McGurk “told top Israeli officials in recent weeks that the U.S. agreed with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s broad strategy to shift Israel’s military focus to the north against Hezbollah in order to convince the group to engage in diplomatic talks to end the conflict.”
Politico reports there was opposition to that approach in the White House. And in the Pentagon. And in the State Department. And in the intelligence community.
How come? Because “Israel’s move against the Iran-backed militia could drag American forces into yet another Middle East conflict.”
So who are Hochstein and McGurk, the ghost-writing duo of Israel’s invasion? Glad you asked!
Hochstein is literally a former soldier in the Israeli Defense Forces and literally a former soldier in Big Oil’s marketing forces. McGurk was one of the top officials in the Bush administration’s Iraq efforts debacle and, as we learned during a Senate hearing, offered access and sensitive information to a reporter lady he ended up marrying. So now he’s got a job handling Mideast diplomacy.
And I’m unemployed.
At this rate, America’s attempts at de-escalation are going to lead to America sending more troops and weapons to the Middle East.
America Sends More Troops and Weapons to the Middle East
The Pentagon said yesterday that it’s increasing the number of U.S. troops in the Middle East by a few thousand — on top of the tens of thousands already stationed there — in order to prevent war from breaking out continuing getting worse causing humanitarian catastrophe threatening American interests. The U.S. is also upping the number of warplanes in the Middle East capable of blow-upping the Middle East.
Military officials called the ramp-up a response to new rhetoric from Iran, which was responding to the non-rhetoric of Israel, which is responding to the shelling by Hezbollah, which is responding to the Israeli devastation of Gaza, which was in response to the horrors of Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack, which was in response to Israel’s system of apartheid in Gaza, which is…
Point being, more troops and warplanes should settle things down.
Six Quickies
Some 45,000 members of the International Longshoremen’s Association went on strike this morning. The striking dockworkers are seeking better wages and pushing back against automation. (This is your regular reminder that automation is our friend; the enemy is the hoarding of automation’s profits.) While the strike could save us from succumbing to mindless consumerism if our desired products aren’t immediately available, supply shortages and/or price-hiking profiteering could also save former Pres. Donald Trump from the humiliation of losing the popular vote for a third time.
Pres. Joe Biden yesterday made it even harder for asylum-seekers to get close enough to read the poem on the Statue of Liberty that welcomes them here. Earlier this year, Biden enacted a rule under which the U.S. will not consider asylum requests from undocumented immigrants while border crossings remain above a certain level, which Biden just lowered to 1,500 per day — and the U.S. is now counting kids as part of that number. Biden also said crossings have to remain below that threshold for an even longer period of time, 28 whole days, before asylum applications will be considered. Limiting the influx of immigrants will, of course, raise the U.S. crime rate and worsen productivity.
The guy who didn’t take a shot at former Pres. Donald Trump pleaded not guilty to federal charges in Florida yesterday. Ryan Routh faces five separate charges under federal law. Under Florida law, Routh’s possession of a rifle on public property entitles him to a GoFundMe campaign and a parade.
Since mastermind CEO Elon Musk obeyed his genius brain and bought Twitter two years ago for $44 billion, its value has dropped by 75%, according to a new filing. The filing shows that brilliant investors who managed in just two years to reduce their stakes to one-quarter of their value include Fidelity, right-wing hater of free speech and academic freedom Bill Ackman, and Sean “Diddy” Combs whose rap name is now a question for a jury to answer.
Mexico has a new president today. Claudia Sheinbaum is Mexico’s first woman president. She’s also Mexico’s first Jewish president (Sheinbaum supported her own campaign, making her a bad Jew according to former Pres. Donald Trump). She’s also a former climate scientist.
TFN yesterday published a preview of tonight’s debate between Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN) and Sen. JD Vance (R-OH) that was for paid subscribers only. Since my ambition is to keep everything available for every Newsfucker, paid or free, I was going to include it in this edition of TFN, but tbh it’s so long already, that’d be nuts. So, you can either become a paid subscriber and read it now (thank you!) or you can wait and I’ll send it out free to everyone later today. Either way, thanks for your support, cherished Newsfuckers!
TCB
VANCE-WALZ DEBATE! Don’t forget to join tonight’s TFN live chat for the debate between Sen. JD Vance (R-OH) — bringing his almost two full years of government experience in a legislative minority — and Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN), who’s run a whole-ass state and served in Congress for more than a decade.
It’ll be streaming live everywhere, and debate-watching Newsfuckers will be right here comparing notes, doing fact-checks, sharing devastating insights, and dropping knowledge bombs left and right but honestly probably mostly left. And then, if all goes well, we’ll do a post-debate LIVE VIDEO! Don’t fucking miss it, because we’d fucking miss you.
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Go get ‘em, kids!
Palestine, Syria, Yemen, and Lebanaon.
Know what else happened in Georgia? A judge (the same one who’s slated to hear the new election board fuckery case) overturned Georgia’s 6 week abortion ban. I think that’s kind of a BFD, at least for the next couple of days until the GA Supremes decide that, in fact, this case was not correctly resolved and reinstates the ban. Either way, it’s not a great look for a state government who just lost a case that tossed a very unpopular law to turn around and fight for that law’s reinstatement.
Top of your game and what the world (the ones bright enough to read TheF'inNews) needs. Tempted to send some of your words directly to a few media outlets just so they get the direct message TO DO THEIR F'IN JOBS!, but that might them to have integrity and knowledge of HOW to do their job. Fat chance. Most appear to not be able to read or even comprehend 'words', just parrot them.
Anyhow, I wanted to say I absolutely loved this particular great transition today:
'At this rate, America’s attempts at de-escalation are going to lead to America sending more troops and weapons to the Middle East.'
America Sends More Troops and Weapons to the Middle East
Crack me the hell up.
Thanks for all you do, taking all the shit out there, mixing it into great comedy (as funny as anyone can be in this dark world of idiots) and keeping your knee on the throats of the assholes that don't know enough to report it... and THEY have a job. Yeesh.