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🌪️🌪️ It’s come to this: FEMA’s Director of Public Affairs Jaclyn Rothenberg has locked down her Twitter account. She does not want to hear any more cranky feedback from any more upset citizens.
As stated in her FEMA profile, “Jaclyn is a public affairs, media relations, and crisis communications strategist.” She might be a crisis communications strategist, but she’s no constitutional scholar. Abundant caselaw finds it a First Amendment violation for public officials to block citizens’ speech on social media. Maybe Jaclyn thinks that, since this is her personal twitter account, it somehow doesn’t count. But her use of FEMA’s logo on her Twitter bio page is probably sufficient to show she’s using it in her official capacity.
When danger reared its ugly head, Brave Sir Jaclyn bravely ran away…
I suspect she’ll soon reverse her hasty decision. Apart from the legal issues, the irony is deliciously thick; Jaclyn is the FEMA official in charge of crisis communications, who just refused to communicate directly with citizens during a crisis. Nyah, nyah, nyah, nyah, I can’t hear you!
Maybe Jaclyn’s crisis communications strategy of stony silence seems like a small story, but it’s representative of one of FEMA’s chief failures in Hurricane Helene’s aftermath. The fog of natural war hangs thick over the Western Carolinas, and apart from the agency’s inexcusably slow response, it’s vexedly difficult to evaluate FEMA’s overall performance given all the varying reports.
But we can see one abject FEMA failure very clearly. Unlike previous large disasters, such as 2005’s Hurricane Katrina, this time FEMA is not providing any scheduled daily press briefings where reporters might have a chance to ask uncomfortable questions. Thin FEMA reports are dribbling out in 164-character Twitter posts, a handful a day.
Jaclyn’s silence is synonymous with FEMA’s inexcusable silence. If I were in Congress, I’d be demanding FEMA’s communications director come out of her hidey-hole. Just a suggestion.
https://x.com/FLVoiceNews/status/1844028326236799447
CLIP: DeSantis says FEMA can’t stop people from returning to their homes in Florida (1:37).
Later yesterday, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis was asked in a Fox interview about FEMA conspiracy theories. Here’s how he answered:
“Now, people have asked me: ‘Is FEMA going to do this?’ Let me be clear in Florida. We run the show. FEMA is not running the show. We will utilize them to support some of the things we’re doing, but you are not going to see FEMA running amok in Florida. I know that’s been out there on the internet. That is not going to happen. I’m the sheriff that’s in charge here. And we will make sure to protect you. Don’t worry about it.”
patrick.net
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