Sure Enough, Lies About Federal Disaster Response Prompts Violence Threat, Interferes With Recovery

William Jacob Parsons, 44, was arrested for makimg
threats to FEMA workers trying to help
flood victims in North Carolina. 

 Sure enough, the toxic lies and conspiracy theories regarding the federal response to Hurricane Helene in North Carolina has interfered with those recovery efforts.  

Those relief efforts had to be temporarily shut down last weekend because of threats based on those lies, many of which were spread by our highly irresponsible (to put it mildly) Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump.

Makes you wonder if he really cares about the people he's selling his schtick to, huh?  By the way, read on as the story takes on a small twist. 

I did a deep dive into the falsehoods in an October 13 post and mentioned that the horrible people spreading them would interfere with relief efforts. 

As the Associated Press reported on Tuesday: 

"Over the weekend, reports emerged that workers with the Federal Emergency Management Agency could be targeted by militia as the government responds to Hurricane Helene. A sheriff's office said Monday that one man was arrested during the investigation, but that the suspect acted alone."

Earlier reports that a band of militia members were roving around and planning an attack, but that thankfully proved false. Still, that just added to the climate of fear federal worker and flood victims are dealing with on top of all the other chaos in the flood zone. 

As the Associated Press reports, an exasperated North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper said he's sure some people eligible for federal help are not applying due to lies spread by people who have an agenda other than helping flood victims.  

"'There's still a persistent and dangerous flow of misinformation about recovery efforts in western North Carolina that can lead to threats and intimidation, breeds confusion and demoralizes storm survivors and response workers alike,' Cooper said in a briefing. 'If you're participating in spreading this stuff, stop it. Whatever your aim is, the people you are hurting are those in western North Carolina who need help.'

'This is happening in the middle of an election where candidates are using people's misery to sow chaos for their own poltical objectives - and it's wrong,' he said."

Unfortunately, I'm sure the governor's words will fall on deaf ears as the gullible, angry believe anything you hear crowd is going to continue making everything worse for themselves and their neighbors. 

 The man who was arrested, William Jacob Parsons, 44, who was found armed with a handgun and a rifle. He was charged with something called going armed to the terror of the public. He was later released on $10,000 bond. 

 He actually agreed to talk with local television staton Fox 8 WGHP.

Apparently, Parsons bought the misinformation hook, line and sinker and spread it on Facebook, where he wrote, "We the people are sick and tired of the BS. We the people are seeking volunteers to join us and overtake the FEMA site in Lake Lure and send the products up the mountains this Saturday. We the people are done playing games. It's time to show who we are and what we believe. They want to screw our citizens. Now we return the favor."

Parsons told the television station he believed FEMA was failing people in need. "'I viewed it as if our people are sitting on American soil, and they're refusing to aid our people,' he said. 'So we were going to go up there and forcefully remove that fence.'"

Here's the small twist I referred to: Parsons said when he actually arrived, the reality was much different than advertised. He said he didn't really see anything untoward so he stayed and volunteered for the day.

If you take what Parsons said at face value, if he's telling the truth, it was another person who fell under the spell of Trump and figured out - too late - he's been lied to.

Because of his prior threats, law enforcement arrested Parsons at the scene. He insists he was only exercising his Second Amendment rights. He had one gun on him, and a rifle and a pistol in his vehicle. Parsons said they were all legally purchased.   

This will all get sorted out in court, I'm sure. 

Meanwhile, people are still making threats, thanks to the cynical actions of the liars out there lying. I'm guessing the goal is create conditions in which FEMA can't do their work, and then say, see, the current administration is a failure because FEMA is not doing their work.

In other words, some awful politicians are cruelly using flood victims in North Carolina as pawns.

You can't get any worse than that.