God’s Retribution or….

Whenever some natural disaster hits a blue state, there are always a litany of social conservatives – the Huckabee faction – who will explain that God is punishing folks who support GLTB rights (like same sex marriage), pro-choice movements and other causes that are unpopular with this religious right. That Hurricane Katrina, one of the worst such tropical storms in history, slammed into Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama – states that are red, red, red – wreaking havoc and that some of the worst tornadoes have decimated regions in Oklahoma, Texas and Kansas – where ‘red’ blossoms loud and clear – are usually overlooked. But federal aid was always forthcoming in for these devastated areas. Strong liberal support in Congress for disaster relief to these red states was quick and strong.

But back in 2012, when Superstorm Sandy trashed the mid-Atlantic, the notion of FEMA/federal aid to this decimated region was deeply offensive to a whole lot of the GOP representatives in Congress. While they publicly belittled the proposed aide to the stricken region as so much “pork,” privately they wanted to teach those decimated blue states as lesson, punishing liberals by withholding federal assistance to those who had lost their homes and businesses in this horrific natural disaster.

The GOP was on the verge of succeeding to deny federal aid to these blue states, having the votes to block the relevant bill, when New Jersey Republican Governor Chris Christie reached towards his Wall Street donors to contact these GOP miscreant Congress-folks to let them know if they abandoned New Jersey and the other mid-Atlantic states in this quest for disaster relief, there would be a wholesale reexamination of Wall Street campaign support for those GOP stalwarts responsible for denying the federal assistance. Reluctantly, after an unnecessarily long and tortuous road, the relief legislation passed. Barely.

Back on January 29, 2013, the Huffington Post published this piece concerning those GOP Senators who still voted against this Superstorm Sandy aid package: When the Senate passed the long-delayed $50.5 billion Hurricane Sandy relief package Monday, 36 Republicans voted against the bill. But of the 32 no-votes from Senators who are not brand-new members, at least 31 came from Republicans who had previously supported emergency aid efforts following disasters in their own states.

While opponents complained that the bill contained too much unrelated “pork,” each of the 30 of them who had been present earlier this month when the Senate passed the much-smaller $9 billion Sandy relief bill also voted no. All five top members of the Senate Republican leadership voted no on both.

Most incredible among the no voters were Senators Kelly Ayotte (R-NH) and Pat Toomey (R-PA). Those two had not just backed disaster aid in the past — they actually sought disaster aid for their own states for relief from Hurricane Sandy. And Sen. John Boozman (R-AR) endorsed disaster relief for snow storms damages in Arkansas just four days before casting his “nay” vote.

The “hypocritical” list includes:

1. Kelly Ayotte (R-NH): Requested disaster aid after Hurricane Sandy.
2. John Barrasso (R-WY), Republican Policy Committee Chair: Requested disaster aid after flooding.
3. Roy Blunt (R-MO), Republican Conference Vice Chair: Demanded the Senate be called back from recess to pass disaster aid during a drought and boasts: “When a disaster surpasses the ability of states and communities to rebuild, Senator Blunt believes the federal government should prioritize spending to help the people whose lives and livelihoods are impacted. During his time in the Senate, he has fought tirelessly to ensure that Missouri gets its fair share of those federal resources specifically dedicated to disaster recovery.”
4. John Boozman (R-AR): Requested disaster aid after snow storms in January 2013.
5. Richard Burr (R-NC): Requested disaster aid after severe storms.
6. Saxby Chambliss (R-GA): Requested disaster aid after flooding.
7. Dan Coats (R-IN): Requested disaster aid after tornadoes.
8. Tom Coburn (R-OK): Requested disaster aid after winter storms and for extreme drought.
9. Bob Corker (R-TN): Requested disaster aid after flooding and asked for supplemental emergency flood relief.
10. John Cornyn (R-TX), Republican Minority Whip: Demanded drought relief aid and requested disaster aid for wildfires.
11. Mike Crapo (R-ID): Boasted of obtaining a FEMA fire safety grant and pushed for a bill providing emergency drought relief.
12. Mike Enzi (R-WY): Requested disaster relief after flooding.
13. Lindsey Graham (R-SC): Requested disaster relief after freezing and boasted of obtaining emergency drought relief.
14. Chuck Grassley (R-IA): Requested disaster relief after severe hail storms.
15. Orrin Hatch (R-UT): Requested disaster relief after flooding.
16. James Inhofe (R-OK): Boasted of obtaining disaster relief after severe storms and drought.
17. Johnny Isakson (R-GA): Requested disaster aid after flooding.
18. Mike Johanns (R-NE): Requested disaster relief after flooding and blasted Democrats for “inaction on disaster relief” for drought and wildfires.
19. Ron Johnson (R-WI): Requested disaster relief after a blizzard.
20. Mark Kirk (R-IL): Appealed after FEMA denied assistance following severe storms and tornadoes.
21. Mike Lee (R-UT): After calling federal disaster relief unconstitutional, endorsed relief aid after flooding in Utah.
22. John McCain (R-AZ): Endorsed disaster relief after flooding.
23. Mitch McConnell (R-KY), Republican Minority Leader: Requested disaster relief during a drought and after tornadoes.
24. Jerry Moran (R-KS): Requested disaster relief after tornadoes.
25. Rand Paul (R-KY): Requested disaster relief during a drought and after tornadoes.
26. Rob Portman (R-OH): Endorsed disaster relief during a drought and after storms.
27. Pat Roberts (R-KS): Boasted of obtaining disaster relief after drought and wildfires and criticized the Bush administration for inadequate emergency relief after a blizzard.
28. Marco Rubio (R-FL): Requested disaster relief after severe freezing.
29. Jeff Sessions (R-AL): Requested disaster relief after tornadoes and during a drought.
30. John Thune (R-SD), Republican Conference Chair: Requested disaster relief after flooding and snow storms.
31. Pat Toomey (R-PA): Requested disaster relief for Hurricane Sandy before it even hit landfall.

Not one of the opponents has co-sponsored Sen. Harry Reid’s (D-NV) “Extreme Weather Prevention and Resilience Act” which would encourage Congress to “prepare and protect communities from extreme weather, sea-level rise, drought, flooding, wildfire, and other changing conditions exacerbated by carbon pollution” and “reducing pollution, promoting the use of clean energy sources, and improving energy efficiency.”

ThinkProgrss previously reported that at least 37 House Republicans who opposed Sandy relief had also supported disaster aid for their home states.

Gee, I’m seeing a couple of presidential candidates on that list. And now it seems that God has elected to decimate South Carolina (and a tad in North Carolina) with massive rain spinning off Hurricane Joaquin sitting over the Caribbean. The uber-red state, South Carolina, was hit particularly hard. As of this writing: “Swollen dams also remained a threat. Authorities were monitoring 62 [dams] across the state, [GOP Governor Nikki] Haley said, and 13 had failed. She pushed back against criticism that authorities had failed to properly prepare dam infrastructure, pointing out that the floods were a one-in-1,000-year event.

“The death toll from the historic floods rose to 19 Wednesday — 17 in South Carolina and two in North Carolina…An evacuation order for about 1,000 homes close to the Beaver Dam, near Columbia, was lifted [October 7^th] morning after authorities and locals worked through the nights to stabilize the dam after a sinkhole formed nearby.

“Distributing safe drinking water continued to be a challenge. In the region around Columbia, as many as 40,000 homes lacked water, although some service was restored Tuesday. Mayor Steve Benjamin said 375,000 water customers will likely have to boil their water before drinking or cooking for ‘quite some time.’”NBCNews.com, October 7^th. Roads were closed. Many South Carolinians had lost everything.

Indeed, these same GOP legislators have consistently opposed the substantially additional funding required to expand, repair and reinforce the failing infrastructure that we see repeatedly across the land. Many also deny the impact of such mega-weather disasters as being remotely related to man-induced climate change, refusing to address fossil fuel restrictions, and instead relying on their mythology of 100-year or 1000-year events… events we seem to be having every year these days.

And how the worm turns: “[South Carolina GOP Senator and presidential candidate Lindsey] Graham [number 13 on the above list], who argued against federal aid for New York and New Jersey after Hurricane Sandy in 2012, said that the government should provide ‘whatever it costs’ in his state to help with damage from Hurricane Joaquin. With the extent of the damage unclear, other candidates might also have to decide whether to favor federal aid for a crucial early voting state and risk being seen as skirting their fiscally conservative principles.” New York Times, October 7^th. I wonder if blue state representatives should make statements that God is punishing red states for their opposition to GLTB rights and pro-choice policies. Probably not, because then they would look as stupid and vindictive as that list of hypocrites above.

 I’m Peter Dekom, and I am always shocked that the greatest lack of Christian charity in the United States seems to come from Bible-Belt conservatives.