J.D. Vance's op-ed highlights Biden administration's incompetence

Donald Trump found an eloquent-sounding pit bull to attack the Biden administration's terrible response to Hurricane Helene. His name is J.D. Vance, the author of Hillbilly Elegy. Sen. Vance didn't pull punches in his WSJ op-ed. For instance, Sen. Vance wrote "On Oct. 2, six days after the storm made landfall, the Defense Department announced that 1,000 troops had been authorized to deploy to the hurricane-response zone, including elements of the 82nd Airborne Division from Fort Liberty, N.C. These troops bring with them debris-clearing and water-purification equipment—critical resources for communities with blocked roads and orders to boil drinking water. As evening fell on Friday, Oct. 4, fewer than half of the 1,000 troops were conducting operations and deployed to Western North Carolina."

That's pathetic. Businesses, churches and charities were on the ground within hours of the hurricane hitting western North Carolina. Donald Trump, the former president, immediately started raising money for hurricane victims. Then he called Elon Musk to have him donate Starlink units to restore communications to Appalachia.

Those things happened the day after Hurricane Helene hit Florida. Meanwhile, Scranton Joe, the famed 'man of the people', got a tan on a beach in Delaware. Meanwhile, VP Kamala Harris paid a 19-minute (photo op) visit to Arizona before jetting off to a series of Hollywood fundraisers for her floundering campaign.

Each paragraph of Sen. Vance's op-ed reads like an indictment. Check this out:

Deployment delays became severe enough that North Carolina Sens. Ted Budd and Thom Tillis issued a joint statement on Oct. 4 calling for “an active-duty military leader who has extensive experience with operations of this magnitude to lead moving forward.” The statement seemed to have an effect: The rest of the active-duty forces were deployed by the evening of Oct. 6, and the Pentagon authorized an additional 500, including advanced command-and-control resources.

Sen. Rubio and Sen. Scott, by comparison, didn't need to write a letter like that to their governor. That's because their governor, Ron DeSantis, is the best in the business in terms of disaster relief. Florida was so prepared that they sent troops to Georgia and North Carolina. Apparently, leadership matters.

Then there's this:

In disaster response, every second counts. A week went by while the citizens of North Carolina suffered without the equipment and soldiers needed to save lives and begin recovery. This is the sort of bureaucratic hiccup that engaged political leaders solve. A competent leader would have ordered those men and women into motion earlier, bureaucracy be damned. Ms. Harris and Mr. Biden treated the situation like a public-relations disaster instead of a real one.

Let's remember that it took 'Speedy Joe' over a year to visit East Palestine, OH. If we're expecting a Harris admimistration to improve their disaster relief responses, I'd just ask what hope (or proof) mioght point to that. Lawrence Jones provided this report from North Carolina:

Sen. Vance paid a visit to Appalachia. While there, he took questions and talked about how t0e 'forgotten people' of this nation had built this nation:

His visit with Gov. Youngkin provided lots of inspiration to the community. That's the type of leadership we need in Washington, DC.