Incomprehensible now as it was in 2012, Republican members of the House and Senate - many representing disaster-prone coastal and Gulf Coast districts and states - for months, with winter fast approaching, withheld federal Hurricane Sandy emergency funding, for contemptible political gain (budget offsets).
Without precedent - with lives and property entirely destroyed on an enormous scale - Congressional Republicans held disaster-stricken northeastern Americans hostage to their political agenda. This, alone, should have disqualified legislators from office, presidential hopeful Lindsey Graham included.
Senator Graham's South Carolina is
devastated, a result of unprecedented, epic flooding. Will he again seek budget offsets - maybe another swipe at defunding Planned Parenthood - before legislating federal disaster relief for his home state? Will South Carolina Representatives Mick Mulvaney or Joe Wilson, again? North Carolina's Virginia Foxx? Highly unlikely.
Such craven abuse of power is cold-blooded monstrous. As a nation, if we can't help all our own in dire times like these without political strings attached, the fraud that is 'American exceptionalism' is again laid bare.
Ours are times when climate extremes of all varieties - droughts and fires included - and their increasingly disastrous effects, are the new norm. Yet the governor (Rick Scott), a former governor (Jeb Bush) and a senator (Marco Rubio) - the latter two Republican presidential candidates - from America's-climate-change-ground-zero Florida remain staunch climate change deniers, even as increasing portions of their state, on sunny days, now flood regularly, resulting from the moon and tides' combined effects on the increasingly swollen sea.
Climate change denial - withholding emergency relief for political gain - should be absolute disqualifiers for elected and appointed office. Period.
The Constitution provides for 'promotion of the general Welfare' and 'insuring domestic Tranquility.' Oath of Office mandates 'supporting this Constitution.' Aren't these Republicans in violation of their Oath?