Fire & Brimstone: Sheldon Whitehouse Talks About The Weather

This is a couple days old, and he's already semi-apologized, but this Sheldon Whitehouse rant in the Well of the Senate is one for the ages:



Here's a summary:

Whitehouse spent 15 minutes chastising GOP senators and justified his remarks by alluding to states that seek federal assistance in the wake of natural disasters. 

“So, you may have a question for me,” Whitehouse said. “Why do you care? Why do you, Sheldon Whitehouse, Democrat of Rhode Island, care if we Republicans run off the climate cliff like a bunch of proverbial lemmings and disgrace ourselves? I’ll tell you why. We’re stuck in this together. We are stuck in this together. When cyclones tear up Oklahoma and hurricanes swamp Alabama and wildfires scorch Texas, you come to us, the rest of the country, for billions of dollars to recover. And the damage that your polluters and deniers are doing doesn’t just hit Oklahoma and Alabama and Texas. It hits Rhode Island with floods and storms. It hits Oregon with acidified seas, it hits Montana with dying forests. So, like it or not, we’re in this together.” 

Whitehouse went on to condemn the current Republican position on global warming, citing economic, environmental and diplomatic damages. 

“You drag America with you to your fate,” he continued. “So, I want this future: I want a Republican Party that has returned to its senses and is strong and a worthy adversary in a strong America that has done right by its people and the world. That’s what I want. I don’t want this future. I don’t want a Republican Party disgraced, that let its extremists run off the cliff, and an America suffering from grave economic and environmental and diplomatic damage because we failed, because we didn’t wake up and do our duty to our people, and because we didn’t lead the world. I do not want that future. But that’s where we’re headed. So I will keep reaching out and calling out, ever hopeful that you will wake up before it is too late.”

In other words, you darn Republicans are destroying the world with your capitalism and your Climate Change Denial, and now you are coming to ask for tornado disaster relief? Good day, sir! 

All of this on the day a tornado destroyed Moore, OK and at a time when the death toll was being reported as much higher than it turned out to be (including erroneous reports of dozens of children killed). One imagines Sen. Whitehouse's staff getting ready to contact "Moore parents" and offer to fly them to DC on Air Force One to lobby for a carbon tax. 

Now it's easy enough to say, Jesus, what a nut; but that the guy's a US Senator! Someone had to vote for him. Plus, he's got that dumb "Time To Wake Up!" poster next to him, so he must have thought he was reflecting his constituents' heartfelt beliefs. 

The boring truth, of course, is that "we" have been dealing with tornadoes since the first Conestoga wagons crossed the Great Plains. The Moore tornado, as bad as it was, was not nearly as deadly as the worst ever, which killed hundreds. And, tornadoes are certainly not caused by "global warming" or whatever else the poli-sci majors who are GW's greatest proponents might believe. 

Whitehouse clearly believes not only that GW is real and that it is killing us; but also thinks that Republicans should be punished in some way for "causing" GW. His idea, I guess, is to withhold disaster relief. (and big spending libs have pulled out the green eyeshades when disaster has struck Texas, Tennassee, and even Staten Island). Or maybe they could double the number of IRS agents in OK. Whatever it might be, it's clear that a lot of liberals would like to see conservatives suffer for their sins (that sin being conservatism).