Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas reportedly went on a luxury shopping spree in Georgetown this weekend as residents across southern Appalachia continue to beg for emergency supplies.

“Mayorkas, who was impeached by the House of Representatives earlier this year for his handling of the border crisis, was spotted by the Washington Free Beacon strolling through the mens section of Sid Mashburn, a high-end menswear store, surrounded by security,” the Washington Free Beacon reported Saturday. “He appeared to purchase some items at the store, where suit jackets go for as much as three thousand dollars.”

The Beacon noted that there are still more than 170,000 power outages in North Carolina “alone” and the death toll from Hurricane Helene stands at 227. Residents across flooded out regions of southern Appalachia, however, have been left without immediate disaster relief from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), an agency Mayorkas oversees as part of the Department of Homeland Security.

“They desperately need oxygen for stranded home-bound seniors. They need food, clean water, and shelter,” The Federalist’s Matt Kittle reported Friday. “Sadly, they also need bodybags.”

Residents have “been literally begging FEMA officials for critical supplies.”

Hurricane Helene crashed into Florida as a Category 4 storm and poured a record-breaking 40 trillion gallons of water across the South, washing away entire Appalachian towns. FEMA is typically proactive in disaster-response efforts, with pre-staged supplies set up where storms are estimated to hit, but such support was completely absent before the torrential downpours in Appalachia.

Last week, Mayorkas responded to

Amid the aftermath of the catastrophic Hurricane Helene, Americans have been reminded that the federal government’s prioritization of some citizens over others extends even to disaster relief, given recent revelations of FEMA’s emergency management blueprint to “instill equity as a foundation of emergency management.”

Not that we should be surprised: The Biden administration constantly claims white supremacist domestic terrorists are the greatest danger to our republic, while the FBI warns that the top domestic violent extremist threat is “racially or ethnically motivated violent extremists, specifically those who advocated for the superiority of the white race.” Left-wing corporate media have insisted that the 2024 presidential election is, at its heart, a battle over whether America will return to an alleged white supremacist, misogynist past.

Such assertions, at least implicitly, are grounded in a belief that tribalism — the prioritization of and extreme loyalty to one’s group, be it ethnic, racial, or sexual — is ultimately a destructive force in politics because it engenders fear, resentment, and, in its most extreme form, violence. 

Yet it doesn’t require much reflection to appreciate that tribalism, far from being a competitor to liberal ambitions, is actually the most potent weapon Democrats wield to generate energy among their base, stoking the very identity-driven animosity that Vice President and 2024 candidate Kamala Harris appeals to when she declares: “We are not going back.” Yet even a cursory review of how mankind slowly labored to overcome its naturally inclined tribalism in favor of respect for all peoples indicates

Monday is the anniversary of the beginning of Hamas and Hezbollah’s reign of terror in Israel. We’ve heard countless horrific stories of the events of Oct. 7, while the Foundation for Defense of Democracies reports that, according to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) over the past year, 19,000 unguided rockets have been fired at the Jewish state. We’ve also been horrified and outraged by the vicious attacks and threats directed at Jews in our own country, including those on prestigious college campuses and in major cities.

Still, if you are not literary-minded and not Jewish, you may not be aware of what happened to the writer Elisa Albert when she tried to take the stage at the Albany Book Festival last month.

Although our politics clash (Albert’s an ardent feminist and passionate leftist), I’ve long admired the author. Primarily a fiction writer, she has published three novels and a volume of short stories. But like me, Albert is also an essayist. Her work is honest, funny, and irreverent. She is a wife, mother, ex-New Yorker, Albany resident, and doula. Elisa Albert is also a Jew.

As an accomplished local literary figure, the author was scheduled to moderate a panel on Sept. 21 at the Albany Book Festival, an event she has supported every year since its inception in 2017. The session entitled, “Girls, Coming of Age,” featured three writers in addition to Albert.

Two days before the event, Albert received an email from one of the organizers letting her know