Kentucky storms bring out the ghouls of society

Kentuckians hadn't even begun to attempt to comprehend and evaluate the damage from last weekend's deadly storms before the political opportunist ghouls emerged from their dens, seeking to exploit the tragedy and destruction for their own partisan and ideological means.

It's to be expected that the left would do this. It's their modus operandi. "Never let a crisis go to waste," after all. We saw it with the recent Michigan school shooting, and now we're seeing it here in the Bluegrass State where it hits close to home.

The piling-on comes in two pretty definable categories. The common thread is that Kentucky is a red state represented in the United States Senate by Republicans Mitch McConnell and Rand Paul, and thus deserves what happened.

The first claim is that the tornado outbreak was caused by global warming climate change and McConnell and Paul and the rest of their party members are climate deniers. And with Kentucky's status as an important coal-producing state, the storms are karma for contributing so much to harmful carbon emissions.

There's absolutely no proof that global warming climate change had anything to do with the tornado outbreak. There's a perfectly logical meteorological explanation for what happened that has nothing to do with any alleged long-term worldwide increases in temperature. There was a warm, moist airflow coming up from the south consistent with the La Nina weather pattern we're in currently. At the same time, there was a fast-moving cold air mass aloft in the atmosphere that collided with the warm southerly flow.  Warm air rises, and when it encountered that fast-moving cold air aloft, it produced discrete supercell thunderstorms due to the convection and updraft. It didn't help matters that there was a seasonal cold front behind those colliding air masses, pushing eastward. It was a recipe for disaster, and could have been much worse had there been sunshine fueling atmospheric instability.

Even the Associated Press, which has been tilting leftward for years, sent out an "explainer" trying to answer the question as to whether or not global warming climate change contributed to the severe storms. The conclusion was that there is no evidence to confirm that hypothesis. So if even an outfit as liberal as today's AP can't tie the storms to the left's cause of the day, then it's pretty obvious the left is once again trying to politicize a tragedy and try to use it to further their agenda.

The second claim is aimed more directly at Paul, and it's probably not coincidental that he's up for re-election next year. As one might expect, Paul (along with McConnell and the rest of Kentucky's federal congressional delegation) asked President Biden for a federal disaster declaration for the impacted areas. The shrill voices on the left immediately began calling Paul a hypocrite, citing his stances on past disaster relief efforts in states run by Democrats. The example most often cited was aid in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy several years ago.

Paul and other Republicans have never opposed federal aid for any natural disaster. Most of their disagreement has centered on those aid bills being larded up with unrelated pork to fund liberals' pet projects. They only opposed congressional appropriations if they were full of poison pills. They would gladly have voted for the relief bills if they were clean. (And this Kentuckian hopes that if any legislative relief bills are full of appropriations not connected to the disaster here and in nearby states, Paul and the rest vote against it, too.) In addition, Paul has long advocated for disaster relief funding to be offset by cuts in other government spending, instead of coming solely from printed and invented money. It's not hypocritical for Paul to ask for federal aid for Kentucky if he insists on the same parameters as he wanted for New Jersey and other states.

There was a little local piling-on as well. The Mayfield candle factory that was destroyed had received state incentives during the administration of former Republican Gov. Matt Bevin, and it employed prisoner labor under a work-release program partnership with the Graves County jail and a deputy jailer on duty supervising the prisoners was killed, so naturally some criticism was lobbed at the GOP as if it was somehow responsible for those people being hurt or killed. Some have even tried to link the wages paid by the candle manufacturer to the fatalities, and then they get upset when called out about it.

As more and more national leftists began echoing these sentiments, a funny thing happened. Naturally, Kentucky conservatives decried these statements, but some of the state's loudest liberal voices joined in the condemnation. They're fine with politicization of tragedies elsewhere, but they're appalled when it happens close to home. Imagine that. And some of the same Kentucky lefties who were bashing the candle factory were also complaining about the comments of those from elsewhere. There's the real hypocrisy, not any position or statement attributable to Paul.

In the interests of intellectual honesty, it's not only liberals that attempted to use the deadly storms for their own purposes. A few right-wingers did too. There were instances of critics of Gov. Andy Beshear musing that if someone who had tested positive for the Wuhan Chinese virus was killed in the tornado, they'd be listed as having died from the virus. That's just as unacceptable as what liberals did and deserves to be called out.

Kentucky is hurting, specifically the western third of the state. Towns like Mayfield, Dawson Springs (the hometown of the governor's family), Bowling Green, and others have been devastated. The main tornado tracked well more than 200 miles from northeastern Arkansas, across the bootheel of Missouri and northwestern Tennessee, before entering Kentucky and leaving a swath of destruction nearly to Louisville. Other tornadoes, including the Bowling Green twister, were spawned separately. The storms struck after sunset, but videos of the storm that tore Mayfield to shreds have surfaced showing a huge wedge tornado reminiscent of those seen out on the Great Plains in the spring.

Our state needs prayers, and it also needs material and financial assistance. Private and corporate donations so far have been overwhelming, with some aid stations already reporting they have more supplies than they need. It will be a long process as officials assess damage, families bury their loved ones, and communities rebuild. Grabbing on to this horror story and trying to use it to advance a political agenda is abhorrent and unhelpful. Shame on those who try to use this sad event -- or any tragedy, for that matter -- for their own ideological purposes. The "somebody's gotta do SOMETHING!!!" mentality, rooted in emotion, never results in good public policy.

If you believe in global warming climate change, or think Rand Paul is hypocritical for wanting federal disaster aid for Kentucky, do the world a favor and keep your opinions to yourself until we at least get a chance to lay our dead to rest and begin the slow process of recovering and rebuilding.

The pretend defenders of our rights

Liberals are quick to proclaim themselves as the staunch defenders of individual liberties, and accuse conservatives of trying to take away fundamental rights from vulnerable citizens. Yet evidence and practice shows the exact opposite to be true. Leftists detest our basic freedoms and the way we exercise them.

The First and Second amendments are the cornerstones of the American republic. The left's hatred for firearm ownership rights is documented on a daily basis. So, too, is libs' disdain for religion. Remember, this is the same absurd mindset that equates erecting a nativity scene on the courthouse lawn to the government establishing an official religion.

The most recent freedoms to come under assault from the left are speech and press freedoms. There's a growing move to silence dissenting voices and leave only one approved narrative standing. It's one symptom of the "cancel culture" that seeks to have only one conforming viewpoint to which everyone must adhere.

One of the leaders of this movement is someone named Nandini Jammi. She first rose to notoriety as part of the Twitter account "Sleeping Giants," which took on the cause of trying to get advertisers to quit spending money with right-leaning outlets. She's since moved on to her own undertaking called "Check My Ads," which does the same thing. They're out to silence and deplatform conservative outlets.

Chief among their recent targets are the Post-Millenniai and Breitbart Web sites, as well as Dan Bongino's multiple endeavors. That last attempt is where she's running into issues.

Bongino is a former New York City police officer and Secret Service agent who was on the presidential protective detail for Barack Obama. He's run unsuccessfully for Congress before becoming a best-selling author and a media personality. He's a frequent participant on Fox News Channel panels, a former regular substitute host on nationally-syndicated radio shows, and now has prominent Web presences as well as being an investor in a number of startup Internet outlets designed to compete with or augment censorship-happy YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter.

Bongino has also become the unofficial successor to the late Rush Limbaugh on the radio. While Clay Travis and Buck Sexton were tabbed to be the official replacements for Limbaugh's nationwide syndicated show on his Excellence in Broadcasting Network, Bongino launched a competing show in the noon-3 p.m. Eastern Time slot before Limbaugh's permanent successors were announced. Many of the stations that carried Limbaugh's show opted for Bongino's Cumulus-distributed offering over the Travis-Sexton program. While Bongino realizes that Limbaugh was a one-of-a-kind talent, he's rapidly showing he's the rightful heir to the daytime talk radio throne. He offers no-nonsense, hard-hitting commentary that calls it like it is, and is learning to mix humor into the programming just as Limbaugh did in his successful formula. He doesn't suffer liberal fools as gladly as did Limbaugh, though, and is more likely to put liberal callers in their place than to humor them as Limbaugh did.

That Cumulus affiliation is important. It denotes just how out of her league Jammi is in dealing with Bongino. Bongino is a cancer survivor who's at risk of recurrence. On advice of his doctors, he's been vaccinated against the Wuhan Chinese virus. (And he caught the virus around Thanksgiving despite his having had the shot.) Yet he opposes any kind of vaccine mandate requirements, be they from the government or from employers. He thinks individuals should make their own decisions based on their own best information. Cumulus issued an edict requiring all its employees to be vaccinated, and at least two local radio station hosts at Cumulus-owned stations -- friends of Bongino -- were fired for noncompliance. Bongino has threatened to take his syndicated show off the air unless Cumulus rescinds that requirement. His show was off the air for more than a week earlier in the fall, and the negotiations are still ongoing, but his willingness to end his show on principle shows just how much integrity he has.

He's fighting back against Jammi and her censorship efforts in a way that her other targets haven't. He calls her out on the radio, in his podcasts, and on his social media outlets. He's exposed her falsehoods numerous times, yet she keeps coming back for more.

Although she will occasionally fire a shot at Tucker Carlson, two prominent conservative broadcasters she hasn't taken aim at are Sean Hannity and the Mark Levin. Levin is quick to threaten those who engage in behavior such as Jammi's with tortious interference lawsuits, and they usually back down. Maybe that's what Bongino needs to do. If Jammi is attempting to mess with Bongino's finances, maybe she needs to learn an expensive lesson of her own.

People like Jammi are quick to brand conservative commentators and outlets as liars, purveyors of misinformation, racists, antisemitic, and other pejoratives, but they can never provide proof. She would never agree to confront Bongino or Carlson or Andy Ngo and challenge them on a specific statement and try to prove them wrong. She merely tries to silence them or to remove their outlets.

The answer to free speech with which you disagree is not less speech. It's more speech. Censorship is never the solution. If you have a problem with what someone is saying, then offer an alternative viewpoint. If you think they've uttered a falsehood, provide what you perceive to be the truth and offer the facts to back it up. There's a marketplace of ideas enshrined in the American Constitution for a reason. Our founders envisioned a society where the populace would debate competing subjects and topics and compare the relative merits of each.

We're at a point now where liberal orthodoxy is worshiped as truth and other viewpoints are not permitted. You're not allowed to have valid questions about the electoral process, skepticism about the safety and efficacy of the Chinese virus vaccine, to say or think that the government overreacted with its lockdowns and other limitations, to think that abortion is the taking of an innocent human life, or hold and express any conservative thought.

They don't want to hear what you have to say and then correct you if you're wrong. They want to put forth their views, then silence any dissent. Variation from the approved narrative is not permitted.

The Second Amendment has withstood attacks for years, and no doubt will withstand the coming assault arising from the Michigan school shooting. Likewise, the First Amendment has stood strong against those who wish to control speech, publication, protest, or religion in the United States. Jammi and her cohorts are on the wrong side of history and on the wrong side of the American way. They must be made to pay a price for their anti-freedom stances.

More nonsensical outrage from the nonsensical left

Recently, the teenage daughter of a member of Congress got her first vehicle. The proud parents posted on social media a family photo of them standing around the vehicle, with a huge red bow atop the new car, symbolizing an early Christmas present.

Howls of outrage from the left were immediate. How dare they be so insensitive, releasing such a photo so soon after the tragedy in which someone ran over and killed six people at a parade in Waukesha, Wis.? How shameless and tone-deaf could someone be to openly mock the victims of that senseless violence? How could a prominent elected official show such a lack of respect?

What, you're saying that this event didn't happen? No one got their knickers in a twist over a picture of a family with a car? And it would be ridiculous if anyone did get upset about it?

Well, you're right. It didn't happen. There was no family picture of a U.S. representative's kid with a new car. And there was no fictional outrage about this fictional event. But something that did happen was just as nonsensical as this hypothetical example would have been. Protests are continuing over Kentucky Congressman Thomas Massie's photo with members of his family holding guns while standing around a Christmas tree. They think that Massie's photo is somehow insulting to the victims of the recent Oxford, Mich. school shooting.

In fact, substitute "Wisconsin parade" for "Michigan school," "car" for "gun," and "American Automobile Association" for "National Rifle Association" and see how utterly illogical and asinine it sounds when discussing the tragedy that happened in Michigan.

Guns, like cars, are inanimate objects. They're incapable of acting on their own. They're neutral devices. They are tools that can be used for good or bad purposes, depending on the intent of the user.

There was nothing insensitive or disrespectful about Massie's photo. It had nothing to do with what happened in Michigan. His picture has exactly the same connection to that event as a car ad on television has to what happened in Wisconsin.

This is part of the problem we have today. Intellectual honesty is sorely lacking among those of a certain political viewpoint. If you point out the inconsistencies in their arguments, they accuse you of deflecting, "whataboutism," or any of several other scary-sounding acts to try to escape their own lack of reasoning.

The same people who complain about Donald Trump's lecherous behavior with women voted not only for Bill Clinton twice, but for the woman who accepted and enabled his behavior for her own political means. Those who complained about Matt Bevin being a "carpetbagger" voted for Brereton Jones for Kentucky governor in 1992. They criticize those who voted against certifying the 2020 Electoral College results using perfectly valid legal and constitutional procedures, or those who participated in a peaceful First Amendment-protected political rally and protest, and lump them into the same category as the lawbreakers who illegally entered the Capitol on Jan. 6.

Truth is, nothing Massie says or does is OK with his critics. His independent streak gets him scorn not only from liberals, but fellow GOP members as well. It's not uncommon to hear complaints about him from establishment Republicans,  conservative tea party adherents, Trump-supporting populists, or other subgroups on the right, depending on the topic. And he certainly doesn't shy away or back down from the notoriety. If he's feeling especially froggy, he'll mark his social media posts with the #SassyWithMassie hashtag. He knows the backlash will be coming, and he seems to relish it.

But while Massie's Christmas greeting photo is the specific incident that's called attention to this topic, it's not the main subject of this treatise. The usual gun control arguments were being made by the expected voices before the young shooter's parents had even been arrested for their role in the crime.

A gun did not cause these deaths, just as a car was not responsible for the deaths in Wisconsin. The blame in Michigan lies in many places: obviously the student, but also his parents who provided him the gun and missed so many warning signs, and the school that failed to adequately remove the threat other than asking the parents to take him home.

Normal life can't come to a stop anytime there's a tragedy, even a preventable one. No one asked hunters or target shooters to not fire their weapons for a period of time after the Michigan shooting. Society didn't demand that vehicle ads be taken off the air, parades be canceled, or car traffic come to a stop for a designated mourning period after the Wisconsin parade. If we view every event through the lens of what's been in the news recently, then society will grind to a halt because everything can be associated with some not-so-pleasant event if you stretch it hard enough. If there's been a high-profile drowning, would it be improper for a politician to post photos of their children swimming? If there's a plane crash, is it in bad taste to take a picture of an airplane you're boarding? At what point does the nuttery end?

Tom Massie, and millions of other Americans, believe in the Second Amendment and celebrate the right to keep and bear arms as an essential part of America's past, present, and future. To link his actions in any way to the Michigan shooting is just more ridiculousness.