Lost in the news about North Korea, the Justice Department's inspector general's report, and a host of other big stories is a quietly big one: the death of the left's bid to pin the "Katrina" tail onto President Trump.

It's failed.  Bigly.

Today's news from volcano-battered Hawaii is that President Trump has sent in the cavalry for its beleaguered citizens on the Big Island, offering individual aid for the thousands of Hawaiians who have lost their homes or even lost access to them in the slow, terrifying burning lava flows from Mount Kilauea, which have destroyed more than 800 homes.  Since my sister is one of these people well within the vicinity of the lava's path, living in Leilani Estates just two streets away from the infamous Fissure 8, the origin of the lava rivers that have buried so many houses downwind, I can tell you firsthand that the news was greeted with shouts of joy.  President Trump's sign-off was done less than 24 hours after Hawaiian officials got the paperwork done, in what was absolutely record time in getting help on the way.

It's wonderful.  It's been six weeks since the first volcanic activity hit, triggering the mass evacuations, with only intermittent periods of being able to revisit the homes and retrieve possessions.  Not everyone was able to do that, either; some people lost everything without being able to evacuate.  My sister's house is still standing, but it's so close to the still active fissures that she can't get back now, and when she eventually does – unfortunately, no one knows when – it will be covered with volcanic glass and debris.  So there is a tremendous cleanup ahead – from saving houses to restoring roads – and the neighborhood will never be the same anyway.  The news of aid for these beleaguered residents, unable to re-enter their homes, worn down by the uncertainty and strained of finances, is a cause for joy and being greeted with gratitude.

President Trump came through, just as we knew he would.

That calls to mind the appalling "narrative" the left has been pushing for some time now, starting with the mess in Puerto Rico in the wake of 2017's Hurricane Maria, which pummeled the island and left the family of another relative of mine, in rural Puerto Rico, cut off and forced to live Third World-style, without clean water, access to communications, or even batteries (this was what they said the biggest problem was).

The mayor of San Juan, Carmen Yulín Cruz, who tried to make so much political hay for Democrats by claiming that President Trump was neglecting Puerto Rico, is now under investigation for corruption.

That same corruption delayed the aid in the first place.  She tried to blame President Trump for the delays in aid, doing the same thing Democrats did to President Bush when the 2005 Katrina disaster in New Orleans happened, which was to claim that he was heartless and didn't care about people in peril.  Hillary Clinton made lots of hay from this, smarmily lecturing President Trump on Twitter with the news that Puerto Ricans are citizens, as if he didn't know.  As recently as June 4, the New York Times put out a fact-challenged editorial titled "The Shame in Puerto Rico," laying the blame for mismanaged disaster relief on President Trump instead of local officials.  It was so disgusting.

Now the reality is obvious: the problem was corruption all along, and it turns out that the noisy grandstanding mayor of San Juan was part of the corruption.

The media went right along, playing to that narrative, blissfully incurious about how corrupt she might be and how that very corruption delayed aid.  Oh, what fun they had.  Now the news is out that she is under probe for this kind of illegal behavior that did have consequences for ordinary people, and you can bet they will try to bury it on the back pages.

Just as the Hawaii aid news is buried news.

All the same, word is getting out.  The local press in Hawaii is keeping people informed, and the Puerto Ricans know the score about corruption that is its own disaster for their beautiful island home.

As for the left, the hard reality now is that the Katrina narrative is another exploding cigar in their own faces, not President Trump's.  They blew it.  Another FAIL for the left.