You Can Tell a Lot by How Dems and Conservatives React to a Storm (posted 10/3/22)

I am happy to report that Ian’s path spared our town any serious damage.  We were only out of power for a couple of hours, and had only a little rain and a half-day of gusty winds.  I spent part of Friday and Saturday picking up downed palm fronds, Spanish moss and small branches and making multiple pick-up runs to the dump with them.

Between the brief power loss and the cleanup, I didn’t respond to those of you commented on my Thursday column.  But your good wishes and the kind words about my storm-distracted commentary were an excellent picker-upper to read when our power came back on.  

CO nation continues to be a shining outpost among the vast swaths of our country that seem determined to stagger, Biden-like, into error and hostility, so thank you all! 

However, I do have a couple of corrections and a clarification from that last column.

As Larry Garrett pointed out, the deceased congresswoman (Jackie Walorski) whom Brandon expected to show up at his press conference was actually a Republican.  I had misidentified her as a Dem.  (Which is arguably less serious than misidentifying her as a living person. But I’m no president, so…)

Also, the Dem Rhode Island senate candidate who recorded herself twerking upside down was not actually a narwhal.  Although if you’ve seen the video – and I cannot stress enough how much you should NOT – she was, to be fair, at least narwhal-adjacent. 

My clarification involves pointing out that entertaining but troll-y Milton Pinsky’s calling me out for wrongly saying that Dem-run cities have higher crime stats is a big swing and a miss. Mr. Pinsky said – among other wrong things – that “crime rates are actually down in NYC.” 

I point you to the NYPD site https://www1.nyc.gov/site, which reports that the “overall index crime in NYC increased by 31%” year over year to this June, and that “six of the seven major categories saw increases” between 30-41%.  And that’s not accounting for the decreased reporting of crimes by a demoralized and frightened public.

Pinsky also fantasizes that conservative red-state policies allowing law-abiding citizens to protect themselves with guns (per our obsolete old constitution, with its crinkly yellowed paper and high-falutin’ but graceful verbiage) somehow increases the number of non-conservative criminals committing gun crimes in big blue cities.

I don’t know how to respond to that assertion.

Oh wait, yes I do.  In the words of Dr. Evil, “How about no!”

As you might guess, the hurricane is still on my mind.  Reading some of the coverage of the storm provided even more insight into our two main parties’ approaches to governance.

The MSM and leftist pols managed to look at an enormous natural catastrophe that threatened the lives and property of millions of people, and saw two of their favorite obsessions: global warming, and racism. 

One lefty after another delivered one sermon after another about how our capitalist system and our internal combustion engines have angered Gaia, and the result is that we are having more storms – and more intense storms – than ever in all of recorded history. 

These assertions are either data-free, or data-light.  They don’t mention that “all of recorded history” amounts to about 5 minutes of geological time, or that accounts of the frequency, size or strength of hurricanes do not exist from the time the earth cooled until about 1500. 

Or that accounts of the same from 1500 to around 1900 consisted of some folklore, diary entries and a few newspaper accounts citing the number of wooden buildings and boats and docks destroyed, and people killed.  

Even if you look at the EPA’s own records of hurricanes from 1880 – 2020, there is no evidence that hurricanes have been more frequent.  And most stats on the increasing amount of storm damage being done over time is completely explained by the increasing numbers of people and buildings along the coast.  

But still.  Just trust them when they say that if we all get electric cars and solar panels, and elect leftists, there will never be another hurricane again.

Because: science.

“How could they possibly find racism in a hurricane, Martin?” you are not asking, because you’ve watched lefties find racism in roads, and food, and inanimate objects, and barely animate objects (like Que Mala Harris), and everything else in the world.

In an interview a day after Ian struck Florida, our vice president (yes, you’re a racist if you don’t think she’s brilliant) said about natural disasters in general, “It is our lowest income communities and our communities of color that are most impacted by these extreme conditions and impacted by issues that are not of their own making.”

You cannot make this stuff up.

There is an old parody of a headline that the New York Times would print in the face of a disaster:  “Meteor to Strike Earth and Destroy All Life – Women and Minorities Hardest Hit.” 

That’s supposed to be a joke.  But it’s how Kamala Harris – and many in the leftist intelligentsia — actually think. 

As if dark skin attracts high winds, and a person like Lizzie Warren doesn’t have to fear storm surges, because her paleface privilege makes her naturally buoyant. (#wemustneverstopmockingher)

Compare the leftist advice when a hurricane is looming – “Separate your recyclables and hate white folks, and you’ll be safe!” – to the example set by Ron DeSantis.

He was competent and in control, marshalling the resources of his state, preparing for landfall and the aftermath, and following all good-governance best practices.  

Which irritated the MSM to no end, since they had already worked themselves into a Toobin-esque state of anticipation, and pre-written a bunch of stories about how DeSantis had failed the challenge, and the terrible storm response was all his fault.

My favorite part of his approach came on Friday, when he sent a clear message on the subject of post-storm crime.  “We want to make sure we’re maintaining law and order.  Don’t even think about looting.”  He warned potential predators that Florida is a second amendment state, and that “you never know what may be lurking [in] somebody’s home.”

Yes!  Yes, yes, 1000 times yes!  If the simpering Dem castrati running CA, Seattle, Portland, Minneapolis, Kenosha, Chicago etc. had taken this tack, half the country wouldn’t have been terrorized in 2020, and since. 

Anyone who preys on people who have been traumatized by a disaster is the lowest of the low, and deserves a large caliber greeting from their would-be prey.   And that’s not an eccentric, out-lying position unique to DeSantis. 

You can look through social media and find hundreds of examples of signs and painted-on-plywood messages on the theme of, “You loot, we shoot!” or “Loot here, die here!” 

My personal favorite was one from Lee County: “Try to Loot.  I Will Eat Your Face”

Just in case you forgot that Florida Man has both firearms AND bath salts, I guess.

So… do you feel lucky, punk?  If so, prepare to get gut-shot, and then de-faced!

Of course the MSM – who had only just pulled down their gender non-binary one-sies after Italy elected a conservative lady prime minister – yanked them right back up over their heads again, and started wailing. 

They blamed the enthusiasm for ballistically ventilating looters on… wait for it…

Global Warming! 

No, wait a minute.  It was the other one…

Racism! 

Joy(less) Reid, host of the unwatched MSNBC show “I Can’t Reid,” tweeted that encouraging people to shoot looters sounds just like something a racist segregationist would say.

Correction: My crack research staff tells me that Reid’s tv show is called “The ReidOut.”  Honest mistake.

But Reid really did make that argument: if you are willing to shoot criminals who break into your damaged house and try to steal what little personal possessions you have left, you’re an evil bigot.

Apparently none of the lefty spelunkers-for-racism have the self-awareness to realize that there is a word to describe someone who assumes that scumbag predatory looters are naturally going to be black or brown people.

And that word is: racist.   Avennati/ Joy “Bull Connor” Reid, 2024!