Kamala Can't Even Capitalize on the Hurricanes

[WestCanMan]

This was Kamala's moment to shine, and she flew from the top rope just to step on a rake. And another rake. It's like she has rakes attached to her shoes.

Two massive hurricanes just showed up during October surprise month, and she hasn't even been able to use them to make the election all about global warming because she's so incompetent.

She was at a fundraiser during the first one, then she tried to manufacture a coup against DeSantis which was promptly crushed by Joe Biden himself. Apparently Joe and Ron are working together quite well.

Oh, and there's also the issue that the FEMA money was given to Kamala's illegal aliens. I'd laugh but it's like the worst joke ever, played by Kamala against America. 

Ho hummmmm... just another Kamala clusterfugg of epic proportions.

[Deluge]

Maybe Joe's beginning to see the light as he gets ready to meet his maker.

Good for him. 

[gatomontes99]

19 minutes ago, Deluge said:

Maybe Joe's beginning to see the light as he gets ready to meet his maker.

Good for him. 

Or maybe he's rebelling against the dems that performed the soft coup. He's not a good person. I could see him going scorched earth.

[Deluge]

4 minutes ago, gatomontes99 said:

Or maybe he's rebelling against the dems that performed the soft coup. He's not a good person. I could see him going scorched earth.

Which would also be great. lol

[WestCanMan]

1 minute ago, gatomontes99 said:

 the soft coup. 

Just another example of a huge Demi lie that the MSM plays along with: "For the good of the country, Joe relinquished his nomination 😇 ".

🤣 

It's a crime how much the Demonrats and their MSM flunkies lie. 

[BeaverFever]

4 hours ago, WestCanMan said:

Oh, and there's also the issue that the FEMA money was given to Kamala's illegal aliens. I'd laugh but it's like the worst joke ever, played by Kamala against America. 

Fake news, sucker.

As usual Trump and Republicans are spewing one fabricated lie after another to literally blame the weather on Kamala  and politicize a national disaster l. 
 

Hilariously your post attempts to criticize Kamala for NOT politicizing a natural disaster (as if you would approve of her doing that)

Reality:

 

Florida Republicans Who Voted Against Funding FEMA Are Now Facing Disaster
 

Nearly 100 Republicans voted against a government funding bill in the heart of hurricane season

When Congress was debating a short-term government funding resolution last month, Democrats pushed for the bill to include billions in additional disaster-relief funding. A cohort of far-right conservatives favored a stripped-down resolution that didn’t include the extra disaster-relief money — and ultimately got their way.

The approved measure did, however, extend the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s funding through the end of the year; it just did not infuse FEMA — which is already operating at a deficit — with any additional funding in the heart of hurricane season. “The right-wingers here, the MAGA crowd, even after disasters happen, they have opposed disaster aid for communities in need,” Rep. Kathy Castor (D-Fla.) told Politico after the stop-gap bill passed.

The concessions still weren’t enough for the nearly 100 Republicans in the House and Senate who voted against the resolution that passed — and the $20 billion funding base it allocated to FEMA as Hurricane Helene bore down on the East Coast. Many of those Republicans represent Florida, which is now bracing for Hurricane Milton. Reps. Aaron Bean, Gus Bilirakis, Kat Cammack, Byron Donalds, Matt Gaetz, Laurel Lee, Anna Paulina Luna, Cory Mills, Bill Posey, Mike Waltz, and Daniel Webster all voted against the bill in the House.

Some of the Republicans who voted against funding FEMA are now calling for more money.

“Cut the crap. We need FEMA DOLLARS FREE’D UP,” Rep. Anna Paulina Luna posted on X Monday. On Tuesday, Luna introduced legislation to allocate $10 billion from FEMA for disaster relief in Florida.

Luna represents Clearwater and St. Petersburg on Florida’s Gulf Coast. Her district could be significantly impacted by Hurricane Milton. Following Hurricane Helene, Luna said in a statement that her “constituents in Pinellas County depend on Congress to take swift and decisive action in the wake of this unprecedented disaster caused by Hurricane Helene,” adding: “I am ready and willing to return to Washington and ensure our communities receive the critical resources necessary for a rapid recovery.”

Editor’s picks

Gaetz, who also voted against funding FEMA, said in a post on X that “FEMA is absolutely botching hurricane relief efforts.”

He is also pushing the lie that FEMA misused disaster relief funds on undocumented migrants. Former President Donald Trump has made similar claims, as did another Florida Republican who voted against the stop-gap bill, Cammack. “I started ringing the alarm on FEMA using money for illegals instead of Americans years ago,” she wrote on X, quoting a post from 2022 about FEMA using funds on undocumented migrants. 
 

…

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/florida-republicans-funding-fema-hurricane-helene-milton-1235130244/

 

[WestCanMan]

16 minutes ago, BeaverFever said:

Fake news, sucker.

Hiya, stupid!

https://www.newsweek.com/fema-migrant-funding-hurricane-disaster-relief-1963336

• The funding shortfall has come under scrutiny at a time when at least $640 million in FEMA funding is being spent on assisting communities across the country dealing with an influx of migrants.

What do you think ^that^ means?

[BeaverFever]

54 minutes ago, WestCanMan said:

Hiya, stupid!

https://www.newsweek.com/fema-migrant-funding-hurricane-disaster-relief-1963336

• The funding shortfall has come under scrutiny at a time when at least $640 million in FEMA funding is being spent on assisting communities across the country dealing with an influx of migrants.

What do you think ^that^ means?

As stated in your own link:

However, SSP is a small share of FEMA's overall yearly budget. For the new financial year which began Oct. 1, the agency laid out a need for $33.1 billion.. “As Secretary Mayorkas said, FEMA has the necessary resources to meet the immediate needs associated with Hurricane Helene and other disasters.

"The Shelter and Services Program (SSP) is a completely separate, appropriated grant program that was authorized and funded by Congress and is not associated in any way with FEMA's disaster-related authorities or funding streams."

 

The article clearly states that FEMA has enough funds to deal with Helene and Milton but since Republicans recently stripped FEMA disaster relief funding for the upcoming cycle that will cover future hurricanes through to the end of the season. . And if you go on to the next article, on newsweek this is confirmed. 

[BeaverFever]

Meanwhile the Republican Party might as well change its name to the death threat party since their cult-following supporters do this in droves every time one of their bile leaser steps to the podium and utters another despicable fabricated lie and hare-brained conspiracy.  GOP is where sheer stupidity and utter vileness of character meets. 
 

Meteorologists Get Death Threats as Hurricane Milton Conspiracy Theories Thrive

Lorena O'NeilOctober 9, 2024

 

It's their job to warn residents about destructive storms — but political polarization has made them targets online 

As Hurricane Milton approaches Florida, meteorologists are staying awake for days at a time trying to get vital, life-saving information out to the folks who will be affected. That’s their job. But this year, several of them tell Rolling Stone, they’re increasingly having to take time out to quell the nonstop flow of misinformationduring a particularly traumatic hurricane season. And some of them are doing it while being personally threatened.

“People are just so far gone, it’s honestly making me lose all faith in humanity,” says Washington D.C.-based meteorologist Matthew Cappucci, in a phone interview conducted while he was traveling down to Florida for the storm. “There’s so much bad information floating around out there that the good information has become obscured.”

Cappucci says that he’s noticed an enormous change on social media in the last three months: “Seemingly overnight, ideas that once would have been ridiculed as very fringe, outlandish viewpoints are suddenly becoming mainstream and it’s making my job much more difficult.” 

He says meteorologists and disaster relief experts have to strike a balance between putting out helpful, high-quality information while also squashing misinformation. “Nowadays, there’s so much bad information out there that if we spent our time getting rid of it, we’d have no more time.”

 

This hurricane season, Cappucci and the other meteorologists I spoke with say, conspiracy theories have been flooding their inboxes. The main one that people have seemed to latch onto is the accusation that the government can control the weather. This theory seems to be amplified with climate change creating worsening storms combined with a tense election year, and the vitriol is being directed at meteorologists. “I’ve been doing this for 46 years and it’s never been like this,” says Alabama meteorologist James Spann. He says he’s been “inundated” with misinformation and threatening messages like “Stop lying about the government controlling the weather or else.”

“For me to post a hurricane forecast and for people to accuse me of creating the hurricane by working for some secret Illuminati entity is disappointing and distressing, and it’s resulting in a decrease in public trust,” says Cappucci. He says he hasn’t slept in multiple days and is exhausted. This last week he received hundreds of messages from people accusing him of modifying the weather and creating hurricanes from space lasers. 

“Ignorance is becoming socially acceptable. Forty or 50 years ago, if I told you I thought the moon was pretend, people would have laughed at me. Now, people are bonding over these incredibly fringe viewpoints.”

“An average hurricane’s life cycle burns through the energy of roughly 10,000 nuclear bombs,” says Cappucci, “The idea that we can even influence something like that, never mind direct it, is just so outlandish that it’s almost, sadly, funny.”

‘Murdering meteorologists won’t stop hurricanes’

Meteorologist Katie Nickolaou went viral after correcting a male commenter who tried to claim a category five hurricane can turn into a category six, at which point it becomes a tornado. 

“Those are different storms with different processes,” clarified Nickolaou. “Though hurricanes can produce tornadoes, it doesn’t affect the overall categorical rating.”

Undeterred, he pushed back, insisting that “anything above a category five would be a tornado,” which is untrue. “I’m going to go scream into an abyss now,” Nickolaou tweeted in response. She tells me her tweet “struck a chord” with meteorologists and people tired of the misinformation.

There is no category six designation for hurricanes, she explains. Designations are based on wind speed, so there has been conversation amongst scientists that now that hurricanes are getting stronger, we need an additional category. But there are meteorologists that say adding a designation is unnecessary because a Category 5 already means nearly total destruction. They worry that adding a category six would decrease the significance of a four of five and impact people’s decision to evacuate. 

“I put on armor every day to try to go online and make sure people aren’t saying things that could harm responses,” says Nickolau. She’s had to fend off rumors that meteorologists should just use giant fans to blow the hurricane away or try nuking it. “You get a person arguing that a hurricane turns into a tornado at a category six and your brain short circuits.”

“Stopping misinformation is becoming an exhausting part of the job which is taking away from spending time forecasting or sending out other information that could be helpful,” says Nickolau. She says her heart sinks when she sees a false post get millions of views because it’s virtually impossible to go back and fact-check it for everyone that’s seen it.

After our phone call, Nickolau received an even more troubling message on her page: “Stop the breathing of those that made them and their affiliates.” She responded that she would not allow people to advocate for murder. “Murdering meteorologists won’t stop hurricanes,” she tweeted. “I can’t believe I just had to type that.”

‘It beats you down’

Spann, the meteorologist in Alabama, has been doing this work for decades and says he can’t believe what he’s seeing unfold.

“Something has clearly changed within the last year,” says Spann. “We know some of it is bots but I do believe that some of it is coming from people that honestly believe the moon disappeared because the government nuked it to control the hurricanes, or that the government used chemtrails to spray our skies with chemicals to steer Helene into the mountains of North Carolina.”

He says the misinformation has gotten so out of control it’s distracting meteorologists from doing their jobs, which involves keeping people safe ahead of, during, and after a devastating hurricane. Spann posted a public service announcement on Facebook that went viral, asking people to stop flooding his page with conspiracy theories.

“We’re trying to push critical information to people that need it and people who are looking for a credible source,” says Spann. He sounds weary as he tells me that if people are going to push conspiracy theories, he wishes they would wait until after the danger has passed. As we’re talking he receives an email from a colleague telling him about an angry caller who demanded to be connected to the folks responsible for stopping the hurricane.

“It affects our mental health,” he adds, saying he’s spoken to the Weather Channel’s Jim Cantore and other meteorologists about it a lot this week. After Spann posted a FEMA website about rumor control, he got multiple private messages telling him to retire or personally threatening him. “You’re working with two to three hours of sleep for multiple weeks under a high stress situation and then you deal with these threats that come in, it’ll beat you down.”

‘It costs lives’

South Florida meteorologist John Morales made headlines this week when he cried on air while warning Floridians about how strong Hurricane Milton will be. For his part, he’s been getting overwhelmingly supportive messages on social media from people who share his angst and anxiety about the climate crisis. He’s been using the increased attention to spread awareness about global warming, climate action, as well as the dangers of misinformation.

“I’ve seen the reactions of climate dismissives for many, many years, and it’s become particularly vitriolic in the last year or two, especially on X,” says Morales, referring to the former Twitter. He’s Puerto Rican, and said that in Latin countries he’s heard the conspiracy theory that Americans control the weather, but now the belief has exploded.

“This is the post-truth era and these types of crazy beliefs aren’t just confined to your crazy Uncle Joe,” says Morales. “It seems to spread with greater ease and I am particularly alarmed that after Hurricane Helene it’s really spread and truly impacted the work of the emergency management agencies that are trying to help people recover and have to dedicate resources to dispel rumors and trample down on the type of stuff that sadly, even some politicians are spreading. It costs lives and dishonors first responders and civil servants.”

Marjorie Taylor Greene has doubled down on claims Democrats control the weather, prompting fellow GOP congressperson Carlos Gimenez to tweet she should “have her head examined.” Meanwhile, the White House is launching a Reddit account to keep the public informed on Helene/Milton response and recovery.

“Science is one of the few things that doesn’t care about politics,” says Cappucci. “If a tornado is coming down the road at you, it doesn’t check your voter registration.”

He says every October the bird migration causes fuzzy images on weather radars, but this year conspiracy theorists are convinced that these fuzzy images are actually caused by lasers heating up the atmosphere to create hurricanes. Some experts I spoke with think that misinformation is exceptionally bad this year because we are leading up to a presidential election. Some of the conspiracy theories accuse Democrats of intentionally steering hurricanes to red-leaning swing states, in order to hurt Donald Trump’s chances of winning.

“The 2024 misinformation is being fueled to a certain extent by political polarization,” says Sarah DeYoung, a professor at the Disaster Research Center at the University of Delaware. “I think that’s corresponding with there being a presidential election this year.”

DeYoung says there are certain myths that pop up for every disaster. Some of them are well-intentioned, like telling people that hotels have to accept pets in an emergency event, which is not true. Others are misconceptions, like saying looting goes up after natural disasters when in fact, the crime rate often goes down and people are just trying to locate basic essentials like food and water to survive. But in 2024, they are often politically motivated.

“It becomes particularly dangerous because it starts to rile up additional feelings of division and then the false information about FEMA funneling money towards immigrants, that makes people who are immigrants more vulnerable to potential acts of violence and backlash from those kinds of rumors.”

DeYoung says this harms both the people that need help and the people trying to help, by adding confusion, slowing down the recovery process and fomenting mistrust. 

‘Platforms are not prepared’

Misinformation and climate change researcher Abbie Richards says she likes to look at the core emotions that drive conspiracy theories.

“When people feel really anxious, really powerless, really uncertain, those are the times where we expect misinformation to thrive,” says Richards. She says this is exacerbated with a big moment in the news cycle, and then even further inflamed by something as emotionally overwhelming as climate change.

“It’s a problem that by its very nature, makes people feel a wide range of pretty negative emotions — scared, anxious, uncertain — maybe guilty or conflicted if it’s something they’ve been denying,” says Richards. “We are mixing these giant events that are catastrophic and devastating with these big emotions and it’s really easy for people to fall into scapegoating and blaming conspiracy theories that provide really simple explanations for these super complicated problems.”

Richards explains that in order to regain a sense of control, people drink in whatever information they can get their hands on, even when it’s false. “Sometimes it’s the moon was nuked, but sometimes it’s also just people wanting to help and that can get us into bad situations, too — I’ve seen a lot of hoaxes spread in the name of awareness.”

She says she doesn’t criticize consuming news on TikTok because it is an excellent source for firsthand accounts of events that can fill a different emotional need for people. For example, Richards says TikTok has helped people understand the nuanced challenges of evacuating.

But, she says, social media change is needed.

“The platforms are just not prepared,” says Richards. “They are seemingly very unequipped to handle widespread misinformation that arises in the wake of these events. And if we’re going to learn anything from this experience, it’s that the platforms need to seriously invest in climate-related content moderation, because this is causing harm and it’s impeding relief efforts, and it could hurt people.”

 

https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/hurricane-milton-misinformation-meteorlogist-death-threats-1235130352/

[BeaverFever]

20 minutes ago, BeaverFever said:

Meanwhile the Republican Party might as well change its name to the death threat party since their cult-following supporters do this in droves every time one of their bile leaser steps to the podium and utters another despicable fabricated lie and hare-brained conspiracy.  GOP is where sheer stupidity and utter vileness of character meets. 
 

Meteorologists Get Death Threats as Hurricane Milton Conspiracy Theories Thrive

Lorena O'NeilOctober 9, 2024

 

 

It's their job to warn residents about destructive storms — but political polarization has made them targets online 

As Hurricane Milton approaches Florida, meteorologists are staying awake for days at a time trying to get vital, life-saving information out to the folks who will be affected. That’s their job. But this year, several of them tell Rolling Stone, they’re increasingly having to take time out to quell the nonstop flow of misinformationduring a particularly traumatic hurricane season. And some of them are doing it while being personally threatened.

“People are just so far gone, it’s honestly making me lose all faith in humanity,” says Washington D.C.-based meteorologist Matthew Cappucci, in a phone interview conducted while he was traveling down to Florida for the storm. “There’s so much bad information floating around out there that the good information has become obscured.”

Cappucci says that he’s noticed an enormous change on social media in the last three months: “Seemingly overnight, ideas that once would have been ridiculed as very fringe, outlandish viewpoints are suddenly becoming mainstream and it’s making my job much more difficult.” 

He says meteorologists and disaster relief experts have to strike a balance between putting out helpful, high-quality information while also squashing misinformation. “Nowadays, there’s so much bad information out there that if we spent our time getting rid of it, we’d have no more time.”

 

This hurricane season, Cappucci and the other meteorologists I spoke with say, conspiracy theories have been flooding their inboxes. The main one that people have seemed to latch onto is the accusation that the government can control the weather. This theory seems to be amplified with climate change creating worsening storms combined with a tense election year, and the vitriol is being directed at meteorologists. “I’ve been doing this for 46 years and it’s never been like this,” says Alabama meteorologist James Spann. He says he’s been “inundated” with misinformation and threatening messages like “Stop lying about the government controlling the weather or else.”

“For me to post a hurricane forecast and for people to accuse me of creating the hurricane by working for some secret Illuminati entity is disappointing and distressing, and it’s resulting in a decrease in public trust,” says Cappucci. He says he hasn’t slept in multiple days and is exhausted. This last week he received hundreds of messages from people accusing him of modifying the weather and creating hurricanes from space lasers. 

“Ignorance is becoming socially acceptable. Forty or 50 years ago, if I told you I thought the moon was pretend, people would have laughed at me. Now, people are bonding over these incredibly fringe viewpoints.”

“An average hurricane’s life cycle burns through the energy of roughly 10,000 nuclear bombs,” says Cappucci, “The idea that we can even influence something like that, never mind direct it, is just so outlandish that it’s almost, sadly, funny.”

‘Murdering meteorologists won’t stop hurricanes’

Meteorologist Katie Nickolaou went viral after correcting a male commenter who tried to claim a category five hurricane can turn into a category six, at which point it becomes a tornado. 

“Those are different storms with different processes,” clarified Nickolaou. “Though hurricanes can produce tornadoes, it doesn’t affect the overall categorical rating.”

Undeterred, he pushed back, insisting that “anything above a category five would be a tornado,” which is untrue. “I’m going to go scream into an abyss now,” Nickolaou tweeted in response. She tells me her tweet “struck a chord” with meteorologists and people tired of the misinformation.

There is no category six designation for hurricanes, she explains. Designations are based on wind speed, so there has been conversation amongst scientists that now that hurricanes are getting stronger, we need an additional category. But there are meteorologists that say adding a designation is unnecessary because a Category 5 already means nearly total destruction. They worry that adding a category six would decrease the significance of a four of five and impact people’s decision to evacuate. 

“I put on armor every day to try to go online and make sure people aren’t saying things that could harm responses,” says Nickolau. She’s had to fend off rumors that meteorologists should just use giant fans to blow the hurricane away or try nuking it. “You get a person arguing that a hurricane turns into a tornado at a category six and your brain short circuits.”

“Stopping misinformation is becoming an exhausting part of the job which is taking away from spending time forecasting or sending out other information that could be helpful,” says Nickolau. She says her heart sinks when she sees a false post get millions of views because it’s virtually impossible to go back and fact-check it for everyone that’s seen it.

After our phone call, Nickolau received an even more troubling message on her page: “Stop the breathing of those that made them and their affiliates.” She responded that she would not allow people to advocate for murder. “Murdering meteorologists won’t stop hurricanes,” she tweeted. “I can’t believe I just had to type that.”

‘It beats you down’

Spann, the meteorologist in Alabama, has been doing this work for decades and says he can’t believe what he’s seeing unfold.

“Something has clearly changed within the last year,” says Spann. “We know some of it is bots but I do believe that some of it is coming from people that honestly believe the moon disappeared because the government nuked it to control the hurricanes, or that the government used chemtrails to spray our skies with chemicals to steer Helene into the mountains of North Carolina.”

He says the misinformation has gotten so out of control it’s distracting meteorologists from doing their jobs, which involves keeping people safe ahead of, during, and after a devastating hurricane. Spann posted a public service announcement on Facebook that went viral, asking people to stop flooding his page with conspiracy theories.

“We’re trying to push critical information to people that need it and people who are looking for a credible source,” says Spann. He sounds weary as he tells me that if people are going to push conspiracy theories, he wishes they would wait until after the danger has passed. As we’re talking he receives an email from a colleague telling him about an angry caller who demanded to be connected to the folks responsible for stopping the hurricane.

“It affects our mental health,” he adds, saying he’s spoken to the Weather Channel’s Jim Cantore and other meteorologists about it a lot this week. After Spann posted a FEMA website about rumor control, he got multiple private messages telling him to retire or personally threatening him. “You’re working with two to three hours of sleep for multiple weeks under a high stress situation and then you deal with these threats that come in, it’ll beat you down.”

‘It costs lives’

South Florida meteorologist John Morales made headlines this week when he cried on air while warning Floridians about how strong Hurricane Milton will be. For his part, he’s been getting overwhelmingly supportive messages on social media from people who share his angst and anxiety about the climate crisis. He’s been using the increased attention to spread awareness about global warming, climate action, as well as the dangers of misinformation.

“I’ve seen the reactions of climate dismissives for many, many years, and it’s become particularly vitriolic in the last year or two, especially on X,” says Morales, referring to the former Twitter. He’s Puerto Rican, and said that in Latin countries he’s heard the conspiracy theory that Americans control the weather, but now the belief has exploded.

“This is the post-truth era and these types of crazy beliefs aren’t just confined to your crazy Uncle Joe,” says Morales. “It seems to spread with greater ease and I am particularly alarmed that after Hurricane Helene it’s really spread and truly impacted the work of the emergency management agencies that are trying to help people recover and have to dedicate resources to dispel rumors and trample down on the type of stuff that sadly, even some politicians are spreading. It costs lives and dishonors first responders and civil servants.”

Marjorie Taylor Greene has doubled down on claims Democrats control the weather, prompting fellow GOP congressperson Carlos Gimenez to tweet she should “have her head examined.” Meanwhile, the White House is launching a Reddit account to keep the public informed on Helene/Milton response and recovery.

“Science is one of the few things that doesn’t care about politics,” says Cappucci. “If a tornado is coming down the road at you, it doesn’t check your voter registration.”

He says every October the bird migration causes fuzzy images on weather radars, but this year conspiracy theorists are convinced that these fuzzy images are actually caused by lasers heating up the atmosphere to create hurricanes. Some experts I spoke with think that misinformation is exceptionally bad this year because we are leading up to a presidential election. Some of the conspiracy theories accuse Democrats of intentionally steering hurricanes to red-leaning swing states, in order to hurt Donald Trump’s chances of winning.

“The 2024 misinformation is being fueled to a certain extent by political polarization,” says Sarah DeYoung, a professor at the Disaster Research Center at the University of Delaware. “I think that’s corresponding with there being a presidential election this year.”

DeYoung says there are certain myths that pop up for every disaster. Some of them are well-intentioned, like telling people that hotels have to accept pets in an emergency event, which is not true. Others are misconceptions, like saying looting goes up after natural disasters when in fact, the crime rate often goes down and people are just trying to locate basic essentials like food and water to survive. But in 2024, they are often politically motivated.

“It becomes particularly dangerous because it starts to rile up additional feelings of division and then the false information about FEMA funneling money towards immigrants, that makes people who are immigrants more vulnerable to potential acts of violence and backlash from those kinds of rumors.”

DeYoung says this harms both the people that need help and the people trying to help, by adding confusion, slowing down the recovery process and fomenting mistrust. 

‘Platforms are not prepared’

Misinformation and climate change researcher Abbie Richards says she likes to look at the core emotions that drive conspiracy theories.

“When people feel really anxious, really powerless, really uncertain, those are the times where we expect misinformation to thrive,” says Richards. She says this is exacerbated with a big moment in the news cycle, and then even further inflamed by something as emotionally overwhelming as climate change.

“It’s a problem that by its very nature, makes people feel a wide range of pretty negative emotions — scared, anxious, uncertain — maybe guilty or conflicted if it’s something they’ve been denying,” says Richards. “We are mixing these giant events that are catastrophic and devastating with these big emotions and it’s really easy for people to fall into scapegoating and blaming conspiracy theories that provide really simple explanations for these super complicated problems.”

Richards explains that in order to regain a sense of control, people drink in whatever information they can get their hands on, even when it’s false. “Sometimes it’s the moon was nuked, but sometimes it’s also just people wanting to help and that can get us into bad situations, too — I’ve seen a lot of hoaxes spread in the name of awareness.”

She says she doesn’t criticize consuming news on TikTok because it is an excellent source for firsthand accounts of events that can fill a different emotional need for people. For example, Richards says TikTok has helped people understand the nuanced challenges of evacuating.

But, she says, social media change is needed.

“The platforms are just not prepared,” says Richards. “They are seemingly very unequipped to handle widespread misinformation that arises in the wake of these events. And if we’re going to learn anything from this experience, it’s that the platforms need to seriously invest in climate-related content moderation, because this is causing harm and it’s impeding relief efforts, and it could hurt people.”

 

https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/hurricane-milton-misinformation-meteorlogist-death-threats-1235130352/

In the article above note the first meteorologists statement that accurate information is completely obscured by the sheer volume of lies and false information and if they tried debunking and disproving it all they would have no more time left to actually report the accurate information.
 

This is exactly the Republican strategy: you don’t have to suppress the truth or even convince people to believe your lies. You just have to convince people that no information can be trusted and it is all but impossible to tell what is true and what is not.   Once the truth becomes impossible to distinguish people will just stop trying and stop paying attention altogether or they’ll pick and choose the reality that’s convenient for them based on what their favourite celebrity says or which candidate claims to drink their favourite beer or root for their favourite sports team.  It’s what the GOP heroes Putin and Orban did to solidify their authoritarian regimes. In fact they go out of their way to make sure people know that their governments run fake election candidates and run fake news outlets. Steve Bannon stated it publicly:  you neutralize media and critics by “flooding the zone with shit” making you immune to fact checking, critical thinking logic, scandals and reality in general.  
 

The goal Is to discredit the very notion of objective reality itself. 

Edited October 10, 2024 by BeaverFever

[Hodad]

9 minutes ago, BeaverFever said:

In the article above note the first meteorologists statement that accurate information is completely obscured by the sheer volume of lies and false information and if they tried debunking and disproving it all they would have no more time left to actually report the accurate information.
 

This is exactly the Republican strategy: you don’t have to suppress the truth or even convince people to believe your lies. You just have to convince people that no information can be trusted and it is all but impossible to tell what is true and what is not.   Once the truth becomes impossible to distinguish people will just stop trying and stop paying attention altogether or they’ll pick and choose the reality that’s convenient for them based on what their favourite celebrity says or which candidate appears to drink their favourite beer or root dor their favourite hime team.  It’s what the GOP heroes Putin and Orban did to solidify their authoritarian regimes. In fact they go out of their way to make sure people know that their governments run fake candidates and run fake news outlets. Steve Bannon stated it publicly:  you neutralize media and critics by “flooding the zone with shit” making you immune to fact checking, critical thinking logic, scandals and reality in general. 

Republicans get crazier every year. I don't know how thinking people can continue to identify with that party. There are plenty of intelligent conservatives out there, but these absolute nutters are the other half of the base. That should be more than enough cause to rethink one's positions and allegiances.

[BeaverFever]

7 minutes ago, Hodad said:

Republicans get crazier every year. I don't know how thinking people can continue to identify with that party. There are plenty of intelligent conservatives out there, but these absolute nutters are the other half of the base. That should be more than enough cause to rethink one's positions and allegiances.

The nutter movement isn’t even conservative by any definition of the term. Many of them had virtually zero knowledge or interest in politics, news, current events and the like until the Tea Party or Trump era and still haven’t formed any coherent political or economic understanding or theory other than Trump=infallible god and not Trump = evil and “I should be allowed to do whatever I want”.  That’s why MAGAism is so popular among hedonistic “low-brow” and  “sin” cultures like wrestling, MMA, sex worker & porn industry, the Las Vegas scene and so on  

The shrinking minority of intelligent conservatives who continue to throw in their lot with this group think they can take advantage of these “useful idi*ts” to seize power, while keeping them contained.  We will soon see how mistaken they are. 

[Aristides]

 

Who knew ignorance would become a virtue. America is f**ked. Hope it isn't contagious.

[WestCanMan]

36 minutes ago, Aristides said:

Who knew ignorance would become a virtue. America is f**ked. Hope it isn't contagious.

Listen to the vaxtard popping off about other people's ignorance. 🤣 In a response to cowusion boy, no less.

What a couple of f'n jugheads.

1. FEMA spent almost a billion dollars putting up Kamala's illegal immigrants, and that's a fact. That's money that's gone for good. There's also the issue of other billions that were spent chasing around Kamala's illegal immigrant horde.
2. Congress can still come up wth all that money Beave was talking about. It wasn't wasted, it just didn't get approved or spent yet. That's not the same as 'money already wasted because of Kamala's gross incompetence'.

[Aristides]

You mean like the claims that "they" engineered the weather to just attack red states? That kind of ignorance? That weather forecasters are complaining about the amount of misinformation coming for the the amount of misinformation and downright lies being peddled by the MAGA crowd. 

Edited October 10, 2024 by Aristides

[Hodad]

49 minutes ago, Aristides said:

 

Who knew ignorance would become a virtue. America is f**ked. Hope it isn't contagious.

It's definitely highly contagious. You see what your fellow Canadians post on this board. They're lining up to promote and defend the indefensible.  

[Aristides]

4 minutes ago, Hodad said:

It's definitely highly contagious. You see what your fellow Canadians post on this board. They're lining up to promote and defend the indefensible.  

I'm afraid you are right but so far they are a rather small but vocal minority in Canada. The internet was supposed to enlighten people but has done the opposite. When I look at my facebook feed and see how much garbage is posted about things in which I have personal expertise, it makes me wonder how much garbage is posted on subjects I don't know a lot about. You have to fact check everything.

Edited October 10, 2024 by Aristides

[Hodad]

16 minutes ago, Aristides said:

I'm afraid you are right but so far they are a rather small but vocal minority in Canada. The internet was supposed to enlighten people but has done the opposite. When I look at my facebook feed and see how much garbage is posted about things in which I have personal expertise, it makes me wonder how much garbage is posted on subjects I don't know a lot about. You have to fact check everything.

It has 100 percent done the opposite--at least for generations that are not digitally native. They have no natural immunity to misinformation. No ability to evaluate sources or tune out the nonsense. 

I'm hoping the young people can save us. You know, when they're not trying to get views on TikTok.

[robosmith]

5 hours ago, WestCanMan said:

Hiya, stupid!

https://www.newsweek.com/fema-migrant-funding-hurricane-disaster-relief-1963336

• The funding shortfall has come under scrutiny at a time when at least $640 million in FEMA funding is being spent on assisting communities across the country dealing with an influx of migrants.

What do you think ^that^ means?

It means you don't understand how Congress appropriated the money.

[robosmith]

3 hours ago, BeaverFever said:

In the article above note the first meteorologists statement that accurate information is completely obscured by the sheer volume of lies and false information and if they tried debunking and disproving it all they would have no more time left to actually report the accurate information.
 

This is exactly the Republican strategy: you don’t have to suppress the truth or even convince people to believe your lies. You just have to convince people that no information can be trusted and it is all but impossible to tell what is true and what is not.   Once the truth becomes impossible to distinguish people will just stop trying and stop paying attention altogether or they’ll pick and choose the reality that’s convenient for them based on what their favourite celebrity says or which candidate claims to drink their favourite beer or root for their favourite sports team.  It’s what the GOP heroes Putin and Orban did to solidify their authoritarian regimes. In fact they go out of their way to make sure people know that their governments run fake election candidates and run fake news outlets. Steve Bannon stated it publicly:  you neutralize media and critics by “flooding the zone with shit” making you immune to fact checking, critical thinking logic, scandals and reality in general.  
 

The goal Is to discredit the very notion of objective reality itself. 

The MAGA CULT is UNHINGED.

2 hours ago, WestCanMan said:

Listen to the vaxtard popping off about other people's ignorance. 🤣 In a response to cowusion boy, no less.

What a couple of f'n jugheads.

1. FEMA spent almost a billion dollars putting up Kamala's illegal immigrants, and that's a fact. That's money that's gone for good. There's also the issue of other billions that were spent chasing around Kamala's illegal immigrant horde.
2. Congress can still come up wth all that money Beave was talking about. It wasn't wasted, it just didn't get approved or spent yet. That's not the same as 'money already wasted because of Kamala's gross incompetence'.

Kamala didn't appropriate the money, lDIOT.

[robosmith]

1 hour ago, Hodad said:

It has 100 percent done the opposite--at least for generations that are not digitally native. They have no natural immunity to misinformation. No ability to evaluate sources or tune out the nonsense. 

I'm hoping the young people can save us. You know, when they're not trying to get views on TikTok.

Instead they tune out anything which doesn't support the MAGA CULT conspiracy theories. AKA Trump's LIES 🤮

[CdnFox]

5 hours ago, BeaverFever said:

As stated in your own link:

However, SSP is a small share of FEMA's overall yearly budget. For the new financial year which began Oct. 1, the agency laid out a need for $33.1 billion.. “As Secretary Mayorkas said, FEMA has the necessary resources to meet the immediate needs associated with Hurricane Helene and other disasters.

 

"The Shelter and Services Program (SSP) is a completely separate, appropriated grant program that was authorized and funded by Congress and is not associated in any way with FEMA's disaster-related authorities or funding streams."

 

The article clearly states that FEMA has enough funds to deal with Helene and Milton but since Republicans recently stripped FEMA disaster relief funding for the upcoming cycle that will cover future hurricanes through to the end of the season. . And if you go on to the next article, on newsweek this is confirmed. 

So you're arguing that it was SOOOO serious that biden, with all his spending, didn't put a dime into it. 

Kay kid  

[BeaverFever]

7 hours ago, CdnFox said:

So you're arguing that it was SOOOO serious that biden, with all his spending, didn't put a dime into it. 

Kay kid  

Congress appropriates funding and controls the federal budget, genius. What rock have you been living under?

[Aristides]

Seems to me the only ones trying to capitalize on a natural disaster are the MAGA crowd. This thread is a good example.

[CdnFox]

4 hours ago, BeaverFever said:

Congress appropriates funding and controls the federal budget, genius. What rock have you been living under?

Why must you be so childish? Every now and again you put something forward that makes sense so I know you're not a completely brain dead 1diot like some of these people, but you have to know how stupid what you just said is.

President is quite capable of dishing out emergency funding in an emergency. Happens all the time. Secondly In cases where he does need additional congress support to pass something for spending it's very easy to get the congress back in to vote on an emergency Bill and that also happens all the time.

Your argument appears to be there was no possible way for Biden to provide aid in a time of crisis to Americans desperately in need. That is just plain stupid. Unacceptably stupid. Get your head out of your tush and at least presents a sensible argument

1 hour ago, Aristides said:

Seems to me the only ones trying to capitalize on a natural disaster are the MAGA crowd. This thread is a good example.

Sure, kamala Spins a complete bullshit fabrication about trying to help out and then cusses out the governor for not Taking a phone call he had no idea was coming and it's trump and friends who are trying to turn it into a political football.

She tried to make it political, she tried to look like she was being helpful, she acted like a spoiled Karen when it didn't go her way and she is totally wearing the results. This is on her entirely.