Hurricane Helene devastated the Southeastern United States late last month, destroying entire towns, displacing families, and leaving a level of destruction not seen in generations. The flooding was historic — a “once-in-a-thousand-years” event — but it’s only part of the problem. A huge and looming issue is the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s total failure to respond effectively. When Americans needed help most, FEMA was absent.The agency’s response? Offering just $750 to people who lost everything. How is that supposed to help anyone rebuild their lives?Can we really survive another four years of this kind of mismanagement?To make matters worse, less than a day after communities in North Carolina and Florida were inundated and submerged, Congress sent $8 billion to Ukraine, alongside millions more to Israel and Lebanon. Meanwhile, Kamala Harris offers struggling American citizens — the taxpayers funding the government — a pitiful $750, and that’s only if they “qualify” for assistance. Where are the government's priorities? Certainly not here.Adding insult to injury, while FEMA drags its feet in assisting Americans, the agency has spent more than $1.5 billion since 2022 to house illegal immigrants. This year alone, the Biden-Harris administration allocated $640 million to address the migrant crisis the government fueled with open-border policies.Meanwhile, Americans who lost their homes, businesses, and sense of security to Helene are being told to scrape by with almost nothing. Prioritizing illegal immigrants over our own citizens during a crisis isn’t just wrong — it’s a disgrace. Our government should put Americans first. Period.This disaster has made one thing painfully clear: FEMA is not fulfilling its mission. The agency responsible for helping Americans rebuild after disasters is failing, plain and simple.While FEMA makes excuses, private citizens and companies, like Elon Musk’s Starlink (a division of SpaceX), are stepping up to fill the gap. Musk offered to deploy Starlink communication systems, a vital resource for those cut off from services, but FEMA's bureaucracy has stood in the way. Instead of facilitating aid, the agency is trying to micromanage every detail, which only delays the recovery process. People are waiting for help, but FEMA is tangled in its own red tape.This goes beyond a FEMA failure — it’s a national embarrassment. Our government is meant to support us in times of crisis, but time and time again, it’s leaving Americans behind.In the face of such a disaster, where is the president? Nowhere near the areas hardest hit. Instead, he flew over the devastation in Appalachia last week on his way to Raleigh, North Carolina, for a political meet-and-greet with state leaders. He couldn’t even be bothered to land and see the damage in Asheville for himself. This just shows what we’ve all been feeling for a while now: Our national leaders have abandoned us.Families have lost everything — homes, jobs, loved ones. Instead of offering comfort and support, Joe Biden merely flew over, treating the devastation below as a distant inconvenience. His focus wasn’t on the thousands of Americans struggling to rebuild their lives; it was on checking off his political agenda in Raleigh.And where is Vice President Kamala Harris? Posturing and complaining on cable news that Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis — who is dealing with a second disaster this week with Hurricane Milton — won’t take her calls. Even Biden had to admit this week, “The governor of Florida has been cooperative.”How much more incompetence can we tolerate from this so-called leadership? From the border crisis to inflation to disaster relief, this administration has repeatedly shown that it lacks direction. Our officials have no plan, no strategy, and certainly no accountability. It’s clear that they care more about foreign affairs and photo ops than about American lives. When we need them most, they are nowhere to be found.Every day, it’s clearer that this administration is flying by the seat of its pants. And now, with the botched response to Hurricane Helene, it’s obvious the administration isn't competent — or even willing — to put Americans first.FEMA’s failure is just one more glaring example of a government that’s completely out of touch with the people it’s supposed to serve. While American families are left scrambling for necessities, Biden and Harris are busy sending billions overseas and fumbling their responsibilities here at home. They talk about “building back better,” but when disaster strikes, their actions tell a very different story. Americans are left behind to pick up the pieces, while this administration carries on as if everything is fine.The truth is that it’s the everyday Americans who are paying the price for this incompetence — from the families in the Southeast devastated by flooding to the many millions more struggling under the weight of inflation, rising crime, and a border out of control. Can we really survive another four years of this kind of mismanagement?

While the aftermath of Hurricane Helene is still dominating the news cycle, Al Robertson and Zach Dasher got a front-row seat to the devastation — and are still dealing with it. Robertson and his family were trapped in the Black Mountain region of North Carolina, while Dasher and his family were trapped in the Asheville area. “Thanks to Elon Musk, we’ve got Starlink. Bunch of Starlinks got sent in. So I got Starlink on the top of the building, and then I’ve got a 6,000-watt generator full of gas outside and about eight extension cords to make all this happen,” Dasher tells the Robertson family on “Unashamed.” “Did you ever think we’d be in our culture, where you open the podcast by thanking Elon Musk?” Jase Robertson jokes. “We laugh and we joke, but this has been a tremendous sobering moment for our history. A lot of people have lost their lives, and a lot of stories are just horrific.” Dasher can attest to the horrific nature of the stories. “I don’t know what the total count is; I mean, they’re still pulling bodies out now. Some of these people’s bodies will never be recovered, because they’re under 20 feet of mud, and these mudslides, and this river. Just, I mean, it’s horrific,” he tells the Robertsons. While there are too many horror stories to count, there are also plenty of stories of hope as well. “I’ll tell you this, though, to see God’s people swarm in has been humbling. That part has been beautiful. You know, in the midst of all the storm, to see God’s people come into this area in a way that I never knew was possible,” Dasher says. However, while Dasher was overwhelmed with appreciation for good people who came out to help, he couldn’t help but notice that there wasn’t much government aid. “What’s happening in our culture right now is that we’re being slowly duped into believing that the government systems and programs are going to take care of us, but in a catastrophe like this, you see the incompetency of it,” Dasher explains. “And you think, ‘Well, it's not possible for someone trained at the London School of Economics that sits in an ivory tower in Washington, D.C., to know how to fix something in Swannanoa, North Carolina,’” he adds. Want more from the Robertsons?To enjoy more on God, guns, ducks, and inspiring stories of faith and family, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

A one-legged man who went viral on social media for saying he was going to face Hurricane Milton in his sailboat turns out to have a long criminal past, including an allegation that he tried to set a woman on fire. 54-year-old Joseph Malinowski was nicknamed "Lieutenant Dan" by his fans online after the character in the "Forrest Gump" movie and went viral after being interviewed by “Tampa” Terrence Concannon, who has half a million followers on TikTok. 'God told me to come out here and get a boat ... I’m in good shape. We’re gonna ride this one out.' The man credited his faith in God when asked why he was refusing to evacuate. “God told me to come out here and get a boat," Malinowski said. "I came out here and got a boat. He’s been telling me in the last two days I’m doing the right thing. He’s got my back. I’m in good shape. We’re gonna ride this one out.”Concannon set up a GoFundMe account to raise money for Malinowski, who he described as "the kindest soul" with the "true spirit of a pirate." Online sleuths then discovered that the man had a lengthy rap sheet with charges beginning from simple traffic infractions all the way to assault on a police officer. There's even a criminal case related to whether he actually owns the sailboat he is celebrated for. Malinowski was charged with aggravated battery with a deadly weapon, drug possession, and attempted breaking and entering. In one case, he was accused of trying to light a woman on fire after getting into an argument, but the charges were dropped without explanation in that case. The GoFundMe account has raised more than $43k for Malinowski. Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

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