by Nathaniel Smith, Politics: A View from West Chester, 10/31/12

Washington, 30 October 2012

The extensive damage from hurricane Sandy is the fault of East Coast residents, two Republican candidates for Senate said today, and therefore assistance from FEMA is not warranted.

“Sandy wasn’t a legitimate hurricane,” Missouri candidate for US Senate Todd Akin said in a press release, “It kept bouncing back between a hurricane and a tropical storm. You can’t even tell from the name if it’s a boy or a girl hurricane. The victims were fooled by it, that’s all; they should have been more careful.”

“And as for that so-called flooding,” Akin added, “Legitimate coastal towns have a mechanism that shuts that whole thing down in their streets and keeps the flow of water from reaching where it can do damage.”

Republican Senate candidate Richard Mourdock from Indiana took a loftier tone. “These things are beyond human comprehension,” he said. “Whatever her origin, Sandy was something God intended to come into our lives. It is wrong for East Coast residents to come whining to the government the morning after to ask for help.”

“That Sandy is such a slut,” added conservative commentator Rush Limbaugh. “That storm was no fluke.”

Meanwhile, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney stated that disaster relief should depend on the states that undergo the disasters. “Why should anyone have to pay for someone else’s disaster?” he asked rhetorically. “And if the state can’t take care of it, let the private sector take over. But even more, it’s the individual’s personal responsibility to control things like hurricanes.”

Romney’s running mate Paul Ryan reiterated his long-standing position that the government should not do anything that benefits the American people without taking away something of equal value that benefits the American people. “What do they think,” he said, “That this is a government of the people, by the people, for the people?”