Politico has no clue how Texas works or what Texans value
Legitimizing criticism of coastal-centric political media — they have no idea how real America works
I live in Houston where we’ve just experienced the worst natural disaster in the city’s long history. Harvey caused inestimable damage and left thousands without shelter and earthly possession. There is not one person in the Greater Houston Area, in Rockport, Port Aransas, or surrounding counties that hasn’t been adversely affected by this storm.
Naturally, the national media, like Politico are using Harvey as an opportunity to malign everything great about the Lone Star State. Essentially legitimizing criticism of coastal-centric political media — they have no idea how real America works.
Monday, I blogged about the national media’s compulsion to politicize the tragedy of others, and ignorantly so. Being in the midst of disaster, watching friends and family evacuated, flooded, and stranded, the last thing anyone needs is mindless drivel from coastal elites who know nothing about the subjects they’re criticizing:
When our entire community is in the most literal sense, drowning, no one gives a damn about a political hot take. No one cares who could’ve done what differently, or who voted or didn’t vote for a garbage piece of legislation — we’re just hoping and praying we have a home tomorrow morning and for those who’ve lost, how to rebuild.
I’ve long rejected outrage culture and find it an unhealthy obsession propagated by social media. That said, watching outlets like Politico spew their ignorant trollishness all over widespread tragedy is infuriating in ways I’m not entirely sure how to articulate and haven’t experienced before now.
Twice now, Politico has published down right offensive material, first in the form of a cartoon, and second, in a speculative and baseless piece suggesting Texas’ ruggedness is a casualty of Harvey.
The Cartoon, which serves as proof that no one in coastal media pontificating on Harvey has set foot in Texas, let alone understands us (also relevant, Houston is as blue as blue can be):
And one of the dumber things I’ve read. Mind you, just before lunch Friday morning, parts of west Houston received evacuation orders, so this ordeal is far from over:
I won’t waste time ripping these to pieces, but I will offer this video as part of my thoughts on the matter:
Redneck Army saves National Guard. #thisisAmerica #HurricaneHarvey #HoustonStrong pic.twitter.com/9gZS493ZeQ
— Michael Keyes (@michaelkeyes) August 31, 2017
And this:
This is Houston. Wanna know what this line is for? Food? Water? Housing? Nope. These people are waiting in line TO VOLUNTEER. #Harvey pic.twitter.com/UxGnqSNOQN
— Michael Berry (@MichaelBerrySho) August 30, 2017
And also this:
Everyone we know in town and even as far as a four-hour drive from here have been impacted by Harvey. I cannot stress enough how unusually devastating this event has been. 53 counties (in Texas alone) and more than 15 million (at low estimates) were in Harvey’s path.
Folks, like my in-laws, who have lived in their homes for more than 40 years and never came close to taking in water, flooded.
Entire neighborhoods and communities have been destroyed. And no one is looking for help from anyone other than their support groups or less affected neighbors willing to help. Instead, every one, even those who lost everything are asking how they can help others hurt worse.
There are lines outside of open grocery stores. I stopped by one of the only stores close to us that wasn’t flooded, baby in tow. No one would let me wait in line because I had the baby with me and those in line were asking one another how they fared, what they needed, and offering help. Strangers waiting in line to buy bread, most of them dealing with ruined homes and yet, they’re asking others how they can help.
Politico and other outlets can pretend Texas is something she’s not, but it won’t make her so.
Texans are bred with healthy doses of compassion, love, loyalty, and grit coursing through our veins. It’s not something we do. It’s who we are.
I’ve never been more hopeful for our future than I am now watching raw humanity’s good-heartedness shine through the very worst of circumstances.
Follow Kemberlee on Twitter @kemberleekaye
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Comments
Texas, my Texas….
Hah. Should have looked for the lyrics first.
http://www.lsjunction.com/SONG.HTM
The third verse:
Texas, dear Texas! from tyrant grip now free,
Shines forth in splendor, your star of destiny!
Mother of heroes, we come your children true,
Proclaiming our allegiance, our faith, our love for you.
And all the craftsmen who were doing all the work of the sanctuary, each came every man from his work that he was doing. And they said Moshe: ‘The people bring much more than enough material for the work that God commanded.’ And Moshe gave an order, and they caused it to be proclaimed throughout the camp, saying: ‘Let neither man nor woman make anything else to give to the sanctuary,’ and the people stopped bringing. And the material they had was enough for all the work to make it, and to spare.
Exodus 36:4-7
The left, for the most part, is comprised with the most narcissistic of people (rich and poor) who are the most fact-deficient of egotists, and/or the most angriest and infantile of people who decided its easier to jump off the social ladder and onto the malignant George Soro’s or the public dole’s.
Politico is right in there.
Speaking of all that – and the public dole – there’s this pathetic a-hole:
Obama the most expensive ex-president for taxpayers:
http://nypost.com/2017/09/01/obamas-the-most-expensive-ex-president-for-taxpayers/
There is no rationale for spending any money on an ex-president.
No ex-president has ever been assassinated, and even if one were, it would have zero effect on the country, so they do not need ongoing secret service protection.
An ex-president no longer has official duties for the country, so there is no reason to fund offices or staff for them.
I’d even go so far as to argue they shouldn’t be given a pension.
Agree with UnCivilServant, particularly now that they make millions upon leaving office with speeches and book deals.
They can pay their own expenses.
Especially not a low-life like obama – he should be paying us back:
Obamas’ Cost of Living in the White House: $1.4 Billion a Year!
https://townhall.com/tipsheet/katiepavlich/2013/03/11/obamas-cost-of-living-in-the-white-house-14-billion-a-year-n1530802
Ego. Why do they have bodyguards for mayors or even governors? Let them walk around the citizenry without for a while.
Bet you’d see a bit fewer attempts at gun control.
Yeah, if Reagan had been packing, he could have fought off Hinckley. Oh, wait, Reagan only did that in the movies. It is you fools who thought he did it for real.
I mostly agree. No need to fund office, etc. lei them work out of their :Presidential Library”. Same for pension, they seem to make out like bandits, no need to keep paying them.
The one issue is Secret Service protection – they do know a lot of classified stuff, and you don’t want them kidnapped for it. maybe protection for 10 years or so?
Satire?
They have no idea about Christianity, either.
Tomorrow, my wife heads down to Houston as part of a Colorado Southern Baptist Disaster Relief team. They’ll be staying at and using the kitchen at one of the Second Baptist Church locations (not sure which one, yet). They’ll also be using one or two of their “mass feeding” trailers to provide something like 2-3K meals a day – free for the recipients. They plan to be down there for months, with teams rotating off and being replaced every 1-2 weeks.
Lots of other states (each state has its own organization) are sending SBDR teams as well, and those that are not able to put together entire teams are sending volunteers to join up with states that can. Note the word “volunteers.” And they all pay their own way. Donated funds are used to purchase food and equipment, not to pay people (unlike certain other organizations I know).
This is just one of the things that Christianity is all about. Don’t expect a Leftie to understand. And though the Baptists don’t advertise like the Red Cross, you can learn more and / or donate to the Colorado SBDR here ( http://saturatecolorado.com/dr/ ).
Topcat have you seen all those MSM reports screeching about how the Europeans donate so much more to charities – such as those working in the 3rd world?
Guess what!
The Leftists won’t count any Christian organizations’ donations and works in that list.
Talk about Cooking the Books!
If they donate to their own church, total it up but put an asterisk next to it.
You really don’t know much, do you? Many, if not most, churches support outreach and relief programs to provide food, supplies, and personnel to assist disaster victims. So what’s the point of your snarky-10-year-old-on-Mommy’s-computer comment about an asterisk?
Most churches spend the bulk of their money on their edifices and staff. They spend most of their energy on trying to propagate their beliefs. They spend some of their money on quasi-political activities. A few of them build soup kitchens or run missions that offer assistance along with proselytizing.
If you want to claim that they are primarily involved in charitable activities, you are grossly overstating how their funds are used. I have seen enough anecdotal evidence to know that what you claim is BS – self-serving BS. Ever heard the term ‘window dressing’?
Churches of Scientology Respond to Hurricane Harvey Do you think they are doing good works in Houston or do you only belief the religion you ascribe to?
Scientology is not a religion at all. It’s a moneymaking scam that uses the name religion only to get out of paying tax and to take advantage of the constitutional protection.
Actually no. What those reports show is that European governments give more to foreign aid than the US government. They don’t count private donations at all.
Oh, and speaking of cartoons, F Charlie Hebdo. They deserved what happened to them. (That doesn’t make the murderers right, it just means God guided them to the right victims.)
Actually, they just highlight one of the many differences between Christians and Muslims. Suffice it to say that Christians and Muslims do not behave in the same manner. I’ll leave it at that.
you reallt are a dummy –
you’re NO different then the muzzie hoard.
you don’t like the cartoons, TOO BAD, that is what FREEDOM looks like.
you want to persuade not kill and blame the victim for the crime.
Freedom means they get to publish their opinion of Texans and I get to publish my opinion of them. If they think Texans are neo-nazis who deserve to drown, then I think they’re bigots who deserve to be gunned down.
You freaked out last week when I suggested the antifa thug who sucker-punched a guy should get turned out in jail, but you think it’s OK for a cartoonist to get murdered because he offends someone?
Prison rape is never an appropriate subject for jokes. It is disgusting and inexcusable, and you saw the owner’s view that it is not acceptable on his blog.
I judge the Hebdo cartoonists by their own standards. I celebrate their murder, because they celebrate the deaths of innocent Texans. The fact that they hate Islam doesn’t affect that one way or the other.
Like much of what you say, that makes no sense whatsoever.
Perhaps you’re too stupid to understand that a terrible crime can at the same time be justice. This doesn’t absolve the criminal.
“He saw a skull floating on the water, and said to it: You were drowned because you drowned others, and in the end those who drowned you will drown.”
“You destruction-bound Babylona, praised is the one who pays you your deserts, as you have dealt to us; praised is the one who will seize your babies and smash them against a rock.”
So what was it, a DUI?
Celebrate it. Who cares?
So Hitler, Stalin, Lenin, Saddam Husssein, Pol Pot and Mao all get gang-raped in a cell block, that’s not funny? That’d be hilarious!
No, it’s not. Rape is never funny.
I guess god guided them to the right victims in Waco, too. How about in Charleston, SC?
God appreciates you telling the rest of us his judgment. Just hope, for your sake, that you are right.
When His judgment is easily seen, it’s appropriate to point it out.
Like I said, thanks for enlightening the rest of us. Clearly you are the chosen one.
It’s obvious to any normal person.
“He saw a skull floating on the water, and said to it: You were drowned because you drowned others, and in the end those who drowned you will drown.”
You are not a normal person based on your claims that you can see the signs of which killings are ordained by god and the fact that even people on this site denigrate you. Arguing with a religious zealot is a fools errand. I have been foolish.
Interesting thought from the Mishnah, Milhouse. Thanks.
You led me to look it up and investigate.
I found this site that had some interesting thoughts on Hillel’s statement and different interpretations/applications:
http://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/91921/jewish/The-Case-of-the-Floating-Skull.htm
“Oh, and speaking of cartoons, F Charlie Hebdo.”
Agree on that.
The storm’s most lasting legacy might be the end of the Lone Star State’s rugged individualism.
“Individualism” doesn’t mean you blow off assistance after a rare emergency. It means you don’t depend on somebody else propping you up every damn day.
It also means you don’t demand it as a right.
Except if you’ve been taxed to the bone every time someone else has been in trouble, and suddenly when you’re in trouble they say hey, you’re the individualist, so we won’t help you. Fine. Refund every penny you’ve taken for relief of other people’s disasters, plus all the pork you tacked on, plus interest, and pledge never to demand anything of Texans again for other people’s disasters, and then you can keep your aid.
The Northeast and West Coast are net contributors to the Federal Government. So don’t cry to hard about being ‘taxed to the bone’. No one is listening.
No, they’re not. You’re repeating the common leftist fallacy of counting federal money spent in a state as a gift to that state.
Your wrong.
The “studies” you are referring to all explicitly make that the measure of how much benefit a state gets for the taxes its citizens pay. So no, I’m not wrong, I’m precisely right.
“Politico has no clue how Texas works…”
Maybe they do and they realize Texas is a huge threat to the narrative. ALL of the “groups” who supposedly hate each other working as one team to help fellow human beings.
So the left does what the left knows how to do: Attack and Lie! We should expect anything different from them?
Send them a user manual – and not from Amazon. (No renewal of Amazon Prime till is sells the Washington Post.)
Lone Star; a History of Texas and the Texans
https://www.abebooks.com/book-search/title/lone-star-a-history-of-texas-and-the-texans/first-edition/
Coast Guard rescues 17
Texas National Guard rescues 1000
Really which government was most useful during this disaster? I really wish the “journalists” would move to their utopia (Venezuela) and leave the rest of us alone to live our lives.
And tens of thousands rescued by people not sent by any level of government.
Exactly! Cajun Navy Rescues 2500; Houstonians rescue an additional 2500+. Cajun Navy then proceeded to move on to Beaumont and continue rescuing people. Americans helping other Americans, not waiting on the government!
That happened in Sandy, too. But give yourself a big pat on the back and then put your hand out like everyone else.
Taxed to the bone – my arse.
YellowSnake
“Taxed to the bone – my arse.”
Only when you finally go to prison.
Who, What, When, Where, Why?
Thanks for the update. Glad you’re safe
Yay Texas!!!
Politico only cares about clicks and for it’s own narrow minded clique. Did y’all know that setting aside more green space development would’ve mitigated flooding in Houston? Oh, of course no one mentioned green space after the disaster at Sandy Hook.
Recall the racist cartoons depicting Condoleezza Rice as an ignorant, barefoot Mammy? Danzinger? Was that the name of the artist?
They fight with brass knuckles and we play the victim after getting our teeth busted.
The GOPe has no idea how an opposition party works, so why rag on Politio for not understanding how Texas works?
…but we know the GOPe knows exactly what they are doing in screwing us and the nation.
Politico has no clue how
Texasanything works…FIFY
God Bless Texas. Glad you and KC are OK.