The GOP's new campaign theme: Are you dumber than a third grader?
31 Aug 2008 04:00 pm
That's what this election comes down to. Do you think drinking Honest Tea disqualifies you from the presidency? Do you think global warming comes from comet dust? Do you think evolution is the work of the gene-fairy? And do you think being governor of Alaska gives you foreign policy experience via osmosis? If so, you're surely dumber than a third-grader, so vote McCain\Palin.
As a scientist, if there is one thing I can't stand is stupid people. I don't mean developmentally/mentally challenged individuals. I don't even mean low-information voters. I mean those among us who when faced with obvious, disingenous lies, still decide to belived the falsehood.
I was just telling a co-worker of mind that thanks to McCain/Palin, we will finally find out how clueless a large majority of American voters really are.
On November 4, 2008, America will sit down for a political aptitude test. I hope we can pass it.
Wow, talking about stupid, sorry for all those typos. Trying to type too quickly at work.
As a scientist, if there is one thing I can't stand is stupid people. I don't mean developmentally/mentally challenged individuals. I don't even mean low-information voters. I mean those among us who when faced with obvious, disingenous lies, still decide to believe the falsehood.
I was just telling a co-worker of mine that thanks to McCain/Palin, we will finally find out how clueless a large majority of American voters really are.
On November 4, 2008, America will sit down for a political aptitude test. I hope we can pass it.
Hey, Karl Rove just called me and he said that he appreciates this one, but he was hoping that you could put some pictures of Palin holding a gun or something in the next one. Please play up how she supports ID being taught alongside Evolution in Our Nation's Schools.
You know what, I gave Honest Tea a try because of the McCain bullshit. And it's great. Black forest berry is the best. It's only a little sweet and won't make your teeth hurt. Not that I give a shit, but the man has good taste.
Plus, does Sarah Palin really think it's ok to abort the convention at this late term just because Gustav makes it inconvenient to her career plans? So selfish!
I prefer Republic of Tea's Vanilla Almond, but I will do my best to cross the tea divide. (Whatever happened to the Dunkin Donuts/Starbucks thing? Are we all Starbuckers now?)
Shoutout to lamh31 for his or her excellent comments at TNR.
To Jaybird, I don't think she's even going for ID, which allows the necessary timeline. Creationism as one of many theories, and no doubt astrology in physics class and alien conspiracy theories in social studies--all points of view must be given equal time in every subject.
The Republican party and its league of cretins are reaping the whirlwind. The administration's utter failure to help millions of people along the Gulf Coast during Katrina was one of the most despicable and criminal activity ever perpetrated by the United States government upon its citizens in recent history. Over 1,800 people died after Katrina made landfall. The great majority of those people died after the hurricane passed. This administration sat on its incompetent stupid ass, and hardly watched. A great American city was destroyed and the Bush administration never cared and still doesn't as evidenced by anyone who has visited New Orleans over the past three years knows.
Katrina and the Iraq war are the legacies of the Bush administration. As I watched how the Americans in New Orleans were ignored in the hour of their greatest need will forever being burned into my soul. This election isn't about the joking, back slapping hyenas on TV. This election is about life and death.
Now these same Republicans are having their bullshit convention. Thay are being forced for political reasons to truncate their convention. But, the proof will be in the pudding. Watch how they act after the hurricane hits and passes. That's where we'll see what these criminals learned. They'll try to use a "post-partisan" strategy to quiet Obama and to cover their continued criminality. They are like serial killers; they know no other way to be.
They will use the coming hurricane for political reasons. As the next few days pass watch them. And remember Katrina.
This post makes me sad. One of the most corrosive forces in modern American politics is the idea that anyone who disagrees with you, or sits on the other side of the isle, can't possibly have a rational reason for it. So they must be dumb, or evil, or both.
If you don't understand why people think the way they do -- beyond "they must be dumb, there's no other explanation" -- then you'll have a harder time beating them, whether in an argument or an election.
Besides, idiotic and ineffective mud-slinging is par for the course in any election. Either side. People made fun of Kerry over ketchup. Bush was unfit for the presidency because he was a cheerleader. If that bothers you, don't just switch it on 'em.
Yeah, it's ridiculous stuff, but back when Bill ran for the Presidency for the first time he'd point to his command of the National Guard too*, as well as, if I'm not mistaken, some kind of low-level dealings he had with Mexico. Oh, and also a lot of Cuban refugees were sent to Fort Chafee in Arkansas in 1979; hundreds broke out, and Clinton bugged Carter about it. Didn't actually get Carter to move the refugees elsewhere, but he claimed that as experience.
"Mr. Clinton reminded his audience that he is commander of the Arkansas National Guard."
I think everyone is worried about the wrong things; the fact that she doesn't have foreign relations or national experience is not why McCain chose her; he is going after the people Hillary Clinton called "Hard Working, Uneducated, Invisible Americans." That is who Sarah Palin is going to appeal to in a major way. Just throwing her high school picture in an ad will show them that she looked like them and came from similar beginnings.
Don't sleep on this, it will bite Dems right in the butt.
Which isn't to say I support or buy that kind of a defense of Palin. But the fact is, governors just don't have much occupational foreign-policy experience, we often elect them to be Presidents anyway (Bush, Clinton, Reagan, Carter, FDR, Coolidge, Woodrow Wilson), disaster usually doesn't ensue because they surround themselves with hundreds of people who do foreign policy for a living; nevertheless, voters and the media cling to the experience issue, so when governors get asked about their foreign-policy experience, they're apt to point to something stupid like their command of the state National Guard, or their state's proximity to other nations. The problem's really the question, not the inevitable silly answers.
I was just thinking, relative to the experience issue, McCain's new slogan should be, "I know you are, but what am I?"
If anyone doubts that is the ploy, watch Pawlenty from this morning MTP with Brokaw. Schoolyard logic. Check it at 2:00 and then at 3:35. Brokaw makes the case that Obama is tested via the campaign, but watch Pawlenty sling the question back at 3:35. "In fairness to Gov. Palin, let's do the same analysis for Obama . . ."
I think it is a big mistake to consider Palin to be "dumb," and suspect that is part of the rationale behind the selection. she gave an interview to Maria Bartiromo for CNBC, and on the subject of energy, she is very conversant. Yes, she advocates the "drill here, drill now" philosophy, but she does so in a way that will appeal to Mr. and Mrs. NASCAR, and even more so with creationist/pro-life NASCAR Gimme CHEAP Gas crowd.
According to the tease on Meet the Press this morning, Palin also had some apparently biting comments about Joe Biden's support of the bankruptcy legislation that was passed recently.
Oh yeah! That was a hardball interview! Man, some serious grilling by that CNBC lady. And she parried it so well.
Whatever. She may very well be smart, but that video was right-wing propaganda. Once again, it was drill drill drill as the solution to get us off foreign oil. Give me a break!
"This administration sat on its incompetent stupid ass, and hardly watched. A great American city was destroyed and the Bush administration never cared"
This is such bullshit. Gross incompetence at the state, local, and individual level led to the majority of those deaths, and in the wake of Katrina the Bush administration heaped money and resources on New Orleans. New Orleans residents had five days warning to get out of dodge -- that's enough time to walk out of the danger zone if you had to. Ray Nagin let hundreds of school buses sit idle instead of using them to evacuate his residents. Giant natural disasters hit mostly white states (like the recent floods in the Midwest) and no one cares. I wish Gustave were heading for Vermont now instead of the Gulf States, so we would have to hear these ridiculous accusations and have Republicans trip over themselves to get New Orleans residents do the sorts of things that Iowa residents do on their own in the face of disaster.
Also, Donovang, I don't think Ta-Nehisi was all saying Palin was smart. He was just saying that all of the Republicans' defenses of McCain's pick assumed that we were a nation of six year olds.
I wonder if McCain has better judgement than a third grader. If you pick a newcomer to the scene, don't you expect that person to undergo some serious scrutiny? Has anyone been nominated to VP who was under investigation? I mean, doesn't someone in the McCain campaign monitor TPM-- which would have given you the Cliff Notes version of troopergate?
As I said in the Ambinder free for all blog-- all this stuff, troopergate and support for Buchanan, etc. may blow over-- but in two months? And what about the cumulative effect of all this stuff?
This is like drafting a NBA/NFL/MLB player with character and legal issues-- it may be justified in later rounds-- but with the first pick in the draft?
To clear things up, I think TNC is calling the pick brazenly cynical. In that, with this pick, we think you're dumb enough to fall for it.
Its not the pick, but the shout outs (and successive booing) to Geraldine Ferraro and Hillary Clinton. If that's not a cynical reach, I don't know what is.
In fact, on the results of that alone, I think McCain was in a much better position yesterday morning than he is today.
It was not my intention to provide any sort of defense for Palin, nor to endorse her interview as a sparkling example of political genius. However, it would be a serious mistake to write her off as a doofus because she has some, "ahem," controversial beliefs on religion, evolution or reproductive rights.
My point was that, given her performance in that interview, the expectation that she will implode upon contact with Joe Biden (as has been predicted elsewhere), or that she will fail to impress the folks who voted for Bush (twice!) is a huge mistake.
I can hear it now: Holy shit, honey! She's purty, carries a goddam gun, hunts, fishes, believes in the righteous truth of Jeebus and the creation, and kicked Joe Biden's ass to boot!!
It's a mistake to think that anyone votes for the smarter of the two candidates. Don't make me quote Mencken. But hey, look at this way - If you went for the "above-average intelligence" demographic, you'd end up with a minority, right?
"This is such bullshit. Gross incompetence at the state, local, and individual level led to the majority of those deaths, and in the wake of Katrina the Bush administration heaped money and resources on New Orleans."
Re: Gross incompetence at the state, local, and individual level led to the majority of those deaths
Sure-- but you cannot leave out gross incomptence at the federal level either. There's plenty of blame to go around, and a large blame-flop was dumped right in the Oval Office too. (And recall Harry Truman: the buck stops WHERE?)
Re: New Orleans residents had five days warning to get out of dodge -- that's enough time to walk out of the danger zone if you had to.
Actually, FEMA planning was ambiguous on this: after Floyd turned half the Southeast into a parking lot back in 1999, stagnding hurricane plans de-emphasized long-distance evacuation and instead urged short-distance evacuation to high ground and shelters. Which is (or should be) good enough for most regions, even Florida, where flood zones are narrow enough that, in principle, one should be able to evacuate on foot if necessary, Porblem is, the whole of New Orleans is a evacuation zone. And worse, the shelters were not supplied. And no provisions were made for car-less people or disabled people or people with pets. Sorry but all of those issues should have been addressed at the federal level and they weren't. The current evacuation shows that such planning is indeed possible so the Bush administration doesd not get off on an argument of "Oh, none of it was possible!"
Meanwhile, George W Bush, in a weird imitation of Nero and his lyre during the Great Fire of Rome, was off trying to play a guitar on stage when Katrina was flooding New Orleans. That's the second disaster during which he did something wildly inappropriate.
Re: Giant natural disasters hit mostly white states (like the recent floods in the Midwest)
???
What is a "white state"? And at least since the San Francisco Earthquake of 1906 when has there been a natural disaster in the US with a death toll above 1000 like Huricane Katrina? None of those piddly little floods you mention came within an order of magnitude of that!
Re: I wish Gustave were heading for Vermont now instead of the Gulf States
OK, the term "dumb" really comes into play here: VERMONT IS NOT A COASTAL STATE! At the very least couldn't you make that Massachussetts or Delaware, states which a hurricane could possibly hit?
Don't forget, JonF-Fred's purpose in lambasting the Democratic state and local reaction to Katrina (and thereby implicitly defending the Republican federal response) is only secondary. The most important thing is to blame the people the storm impacted, i.e. blacks, who by remaining in their only homes practically invited a storm to divest and/or kill them. They had it coming to them. After all, if anyone gets away with murder in our society, it's poor urban black people. Just picture how it must have been as the flood waters rose into the lightless attics where they hid, breathing increasingly stale air...I'm sure the only thought in their minds was: "Think of all the welfare I'll get out of Whitey now!" Never mind the fact that a federal disaster area is declared every time some piddly tornado churns up half an acre of a reliably Republican state.
I just want to inform you that I tried to submit a great post that deconstructed Fred and Nathan P Origer pissant comments. But, Coates wisely deep-sixed it as it might have caused Origer to stomp his RayBans and shave his mutton chops; Fred might just have exchanged his black shirt for brown.
Me? I'm holding my breath for a hurricane to hit Vermont...
Blue trending to gray Adin, almost at ambient temperature.
Here's a piece no one cared about. Meh, whatever, probably the most enjoyable article I did during my stint at TIME. Premiered a month before I got laid-off. The nail in the coffin? Ya think?
Here's me going after Al. I didn't so much have a problem with him, as I had a problem with media acting like this dude was the go-to guy for everything black.
This was my first real story at time. I was writing for the Business section, a real change of direction for me. At any rate, it's about Wal-Mart's attempts to colonize the inner-city. As much as I enjoyed this piece, I mostly enjoyed going out to Chicago, which is a beautiful, beautiful city.
This a piece I did about the cops just outside our nation capitol, in Prince George's County, a few years back. I wanted to offer a counter to the dumb, conventional wisdom that if you paint your police force black, you could eradicate police brutality. In fact, Prince George's--one of the richest, blackest counties in the country--also had one of the most brutal police force's in the country.
The Beautiful Struggle: A Father, Two Sons, and an Unlikely Road to Manhood 
As a scientist, if there is one thing I can't stand is stupid people. I don't mean developmentally/mentally challenged individuals. I don't even mean low-information voters. I mean those among us who when faced with obvious, disingenous lies, still decide to belived the falsehood.
I was just telling a co-worker of mind that thanks to McCain/Palin, we will finally find out how clueless a large majority of American voters really are.
On November 4, 2008, America will sit down for a political aptitude test. I hope we can pass it.
Wow, talking about stupid, sorry for all those typos. Trying to type too quickly at work.
As a scientist, if there is one thing I can't stand is stupid people. I don't mean developmentally/mentally challenged individuals. I don't even mean low-information voters. I mean those among us who when faced with obvious, disingenous lies, still decide to believe the falsehood.
I was just telling a co-worker of mine that thanks to McCain/Palin, we will finally find out how clueless a large majority of American voters really are.
On November 4, 2008, America will sit down for a political aptitude test. I hope we can pass it.
Palin is meant to fire up the 23% who still think George Bush is a modern day apostle and doing a heck of a job.
Hey, Karl Rove just called me and he said that he appreciates this one, but he was hoping that you could put some pictures of Palin holding a gun or something in the next one. Please play up how she supports ID being taught alongside Evolution in Our Nation's Schools.
He says thanks.
You know what, I gave Honest Tea a try because of the McCain bullshit. And it's great. Black forest berry is the best. It's only a little sweet and won't make your teeth hurt. Not that I give a shit, but the man has good taste.
Plus, does Sarah Palin really think it's ok to abort the convention at this late term just because Gustav makes it inconvenient to her career plans? So selfish!
I prefer Republic of Tea's Vanilla Almond, but I will do my best to cross the tea divide. (Whatever happened to the Dunkin Donuts/Starbucks thing? Are we all Starbuckers now?)
Shoutout to lamh31 for his or her excellent comments at TNR.
To Jaybird, I don't think she's even going for ID, which allows the necessary timeline. Creationism as one of many theories, and no doubt astrology in physics class and alien conspiracy theories in social studies--all points of view must be given equal time in every subject.
The Republican party and its league of cretins are reaping the whirlwind. The administration's utter failure to help millions of people along the Gulf Coast during Katrina was one of the most despicable and criminal activity ever perpetrated by the United States government upon its citizens in recent history. Over 1,800 people died after Katrina made landfall. The great majority of those people died after the hurricane passed. This administration sat on its incompetent stupid ass, and hardly watched. A great American city was destroyed and the Bush administration never cared and still doesn't as evidenced by anyone who has visited New Orleans over the past three years knows.
Katrina and the Iraq war are the legacies of the Bush administration. As I watched how the Americans in New Orleans were ignored in the hour of their greatest need will forever being burned into my soul. This election isn't about the joking, back slapping hyenas on TV. This election is about life and death.
Now these same Republicans are having their bullshit convention. Thay are being forced for political reasons to truncate their convention. But, the proof will be in the pudding. Watch how they act after the hurricane hits and passes. That's where we'll see what these criminals learned. They'll try to use a "post-partisan" strategy to quiet Obama and to cover their continued criminality. They are like serial killers; they know no other way to be.
They will use the coming hurricane for political reasons. As the next few days pass watch them. And remember Katrina.
Adin
This post makes me sad. One of the most corrosive forces in modern American politics is the idea that anyone who disagrees with you, or sits on the other side of the isle, can't possibly have a rational reason for it. So they must be dumb, or evil, or both.
If you don't understand why people think the way they do -- beyond "they must be dumb, there's no other explanation" -- then you'll have a harder time beating them, whether in an argument or an election.
Besides, idiotic and ineffective mud-slinging is par for the course in any election. Either side. People made fun of Kerry over ketchup. Bush was unfit for the presidency because he was a cheerleader. If that bothers you, don't just switch it on 'em.
Yeah, it's ridiculous stuff, but back when Bill ran for the Presidency for the first time he'd point to his command of the National Guard too*, as well as, if I'm not mistaken, some kind of low-level dealings he had with Mexico. Oh, and also a lot of Cuban refugees were sent to Fort Chafee in Arkansas in 1979; hundreds broke out, and Clinton bugged Carter about it. Didn't actually get Carter to move the refugees elsewhere, but he claimed that as experience.
"Mr. Clinton reminded his audience that he is commander of the Arkansas National Guard."
http://www.iht.com/articles/1992/09/16/camp_1.php
I think everyone is worried about the wrong things; the fact that she doesn't have foreign relations or national experience is not why McCain chose her; he is going after the people Hillary Clinton called "Hard Working, Uneducated, Invisible Americans." That is who Sarah Palin is going to appeal to in a major way. Just throwing her high school picture in an ad will show them that she looked like them and came from similar beginnings.
Don't sleep on this, it will bite Dems right in the butt.
Which isn't to say I support or buy that kind of a defense of Palin. But the fact is, governors just don't have much occupational foreign-policy experience, we often elect them to be Presidents anyway (Bush, Clinton, Reagan, Carter, FDR, Coolidge, Woodrow Wilson), disaster usually doesn't ensue because they surround themselves with hundreds of people who do foreign policy for a living; nevertheless, voters and the media cling to the experience issue, so when governors get asked about their foreign-policy experience, they're apt to point to something stupid like their command of the state National Guard, or their state's proximity to other nations. The problem's really the question, not the inevitable silly answers.
I was just thinking, relative to the experience issue, McCain's new slogan should be, "I know you are, but what am I?"
If anyone doubts that is the ploy, watch Pawlenty from this morning MTP with Brokaw. Schoolyard logic. Check it at 2:00 and then at 3:35. Brokaw makes the case that Obama is tested via the campaign, but watch Pawlenty sling the question back at 3:35. "In fairness to Gov. Palin, let's do the same analysis for Obama . . ."
I think it is a big mistake to consider Palin to be "dumb," and suspect that is part of the rationale behind the selection. she gave an interview to Maria Bartiromo for CNBC, and on the subject of energy, she is very conversant. Yes, she advocates the "drill here, drill now" philosophy, but she does so in a way that will appeal to Mr. and Mrs. NASCAR, and even more so with creationist/pro-life NASCAR Gimme CHEAP Gas crowd.
According to the tease on Meet the Press this morning, Palin also had some apparently biting comments about Joe Biden's support of the bankruptcy legislation that was passed recently.
The video is well worth a look.
http://www.cnbc.com/id/15840232?video=836384597
donovong,
Oh yeah! That was a hardball interview! Man, some serious grilling by that CNBC lady. And she parried it so well.
Whatever. She may very well be smart, but that video was right-wing propaganda. Once again, it was drill drill drill as the solution to get us off foreign oil. Give me a break!
"This administration sat on its incompetent stupid ass, and hardly watched. A great American city was destroyed and the Bush administration never cared"
This is such bullshit. Gross incompetence at the state, local, and individual level led to the majority of those deaths, and in the wake of Katrina the Bush administration heaped money and resources on New Orleans. New Orleans residents had five days warning to get out of dodge -- that's enough time to walk out of the danger zone if you had to. Ray Nagin let hundreds of school buses sit idle instead of using them to evacuate his residents. Giant natural disasters hit mostly white states (like the recent floods in the Midwest) and no one cares. I wish Gustave were heading for Vermont now instead of the Gulf States, so we would have to hear these ridiculous accusations and have Republicans trip over themselves to get New Orleans residents do the sorts of things that Iowa residents do on their own in the face of disaster.
Also, Donovang, I don't think Ta-Nehisi was all saying Palin was smart. He was just saying that all of the Republicans' defenses of McCain's pick assumed that we were a nation of six year olds.
Sadly, maybe they're right.
grrr... that should have been: "I don't think Ta-Nehisi was at all saying that Palin was not smart."
I hit post instead of preview, again proving that I am dumb.
I wonder if McCain has better judgement than a third grader. If you pick a newcomer to the scene, don't you expect that person to undergo some serious scrutiny? Has anyone been nominated to VP who was under investigation? I mean, doesn't someone in the McCain campaign monitor TPM-- which would have given you the Cliff Notes version of troopergate?
As I said in the Ambinder free for all blog-- all this stuff, troopergate and support for Buchanan, etc. may blow over-- but in two months? And what about the cumulative effect of all this stuff?
This is like drafting a NBA/NFL/MLB player with character and legal issues-- it may be justified in later rounds-- but with the first pick in the draft?
To clear things up, I think TNC is calling the pick brazenly cynical. In that, with this pick, we think you're dumb enough to fall for it.
Its not the pick, but the shout outs (and successive booing) to Geraldine Ferraro and Hillary Clinton. If that's not a cynical reach, I don't know what is.
In fact, on the results of that alone, I think McCain was in a much better position yesterday morning than he is today.
br:
It was not my intention to provide any sort of defense for Palin, nor to endorse her interview as a sparkling example of political genius. However, it would be a serious mistake to write her off as a doofus because she has some, "ahem," controversial beliefs on religion, evolution or reproductive rights.
My point was that, given her performance in that interview, the expectation that she will implode upon contact with Joe Biden (as has been predicted elsewhere), or that she will fail to impress the folks who voted for Bush (twice!) is a huge mistake.
I can hear it now: Holy shit, honey! She's purty, carries a goddam gun, hunts, fishes, believes in the righteous truth of Jeebus and the creation, and kicked Joe Biden's ass to boot!!
It's a mistake to think that anyone votes for the smarter of the two candidates. Don't make me quote Mencken. But hey, look at this way - If you went for the "above-average intelligence" demographic, you'd end up with a minority, right?
"This is such bullshit. Gross incompetence at the state, local, and individual level led to the majority of those deaths, and in the wake of Katrina the Bush administration heaped money and resources on New Orleans."
Thank-you, Fred! Thank-you a million times over.
Re: Gross incompetence at the state, local, and individual level led to the majority of those deaths
Sure-- but you cannot leave out gross incomptence at the federal level either. There's plenty of blame to go around, and a large blame-flop was dumped right in the Oval Office too. (And recall Harry Truman: the buck stops WHERE?)
Re: New Orleans residents had five days warning to get out of dodge -- that's enough time to walk out of the danger zone if you had to.
Actually, FEMA planning was ambiguous on this: after Floyd turned half the Southeast into a parking lot back in 1999, stagnding hurricane plans de-emphasized long-distance evacuation and instead urged short-distance evacuation to high ground and shelters. Which is (or should be) good enough for most regions, even Florida, where flood zones are narrow enough that, in principle, one should be able to evacuate on foot if necessary, Porblem is, the whole of New Orleans is a evacuation zone. And worse, the shelters were not supplied. And no provisions were made for car-less people or disabled people or people with pets. Sorry but all of those issues should have been addressed at the federal level and they weren't. The current evacuation shows that such planning is indeed possible so the Bush administration doesd not get off on an argument of "Oh, none of it was possible!"
Meanwhile, George W Bush, in a weird imitation of Nero and his lyre during the Great Fire of Rome, was off trying to play a guitar on stage when Katrina was flooding New Orleans. That's the second disaster during which he did something wildly inappropriate.
Re: Giant natural disasters hit mostly white states (like the recent floods in the Midwest)
???
What is a "white state"? And at least since the San Francisco Earthquake of 1906 when has there been a natural disaster in the US with a death toll above 1000 like Huricane Katrina? None of those piddly little floods you mention came within an order of magnitude of that!
Re: I wish Gustave were heading for Vermont now instead of the Gulf States
OK, the term "dumb" really comes into play here: VERMONT IS NOT A COASTAL STATE! At the very least couldn't you make that Massachussetts or Delaware, states which a hurricane could possibly hit?
Don't forget, JonF-Fred's purpose in lambasting the Democratic state and local reaction to Katrina (and thereby implicitly defending the Republican federal response) is only secondary. The most important thing is to blame the people the storm impacted, i.e. blacks, who by remaining in their only homes practically invited a storm to divest and/or kill them. They had it coming to them. After all, if anyone gets away with murder in our society, it's poor urban black people. Just picture how it must have been as the flood waters rose into the lightless attics where they hid, breathing increasingly stale air...I'm sure the only thought in their minds was: "Think of all the welfare I'll get out of Whitey now!" Never mind the fact that a federal disaster area is declared every time some piddly tornado churns up half an acre of a reliably Republican state.
I just want to inform you that I tried to submit a great post that deconstructed Fred and Nathan P Origer pissant comments. But, Coates wisely deep-sixed it as it might have caused Origer to stomp his RayBans and shave his mutton chops; Fred might just have exchanged his black shirt for brown.
Me? I'm holding my breath for a hurricane to hit Vermont...
Blue trending to gray Adin, almost at ambient temperature.