Miami columnist pummels 'irresponsible lunatic’ Rush Limbaugh for calling Irma a ‘liberal plot’

In a scathing opinion piece for the Miami Herald, Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Leonard Pitts Jr,. tore into Palm Beach resident Rush Limbaugh for calling Hurricane Irma a "liberal hoax."

"Limbaugh’s lunacy reflects right-wing orthodoxy, which favors doing nothing in response to climate change on the theory it’s all an expensive boondoggle designed to victimize innocent oil and gas companies," Pitts wrote in the Miami Herald. "So you get Trump pulling the country out of the Paris climate accord and Florida Gov. Rick Scott forbidding his team to even use the term 'climate change.'"

Limbaugh has since evacuated his South Florida home. Fellow climate change denier Ann Coulter has also been forced to evacuate.

Pitts noted that financial considerations appear to motivate what science Republicans ignore.

"Where the health of our planet is concerned, Republicans essentially ask us to make a wager that science is wrong," Pitts noted. "Mind you, no one had trouble accepting science as authoritative last month when it predicted to the very minute a solar eclipse that darkened a great swath of America."

"So conservatives pretend science is somehow suspect when it says the planet is warming because of fossil fuels. And we should accept it as just — What? Coincidence? — that the fossil fuels industry donated $55.1 million to the Republicans in 2016 alone?" he wondered.

Pitts suggested following the money to understand Republican motivations.

"That money is a wager against our one and only planet," Pitts argued. "Is that dangerous, delusional, and irresponsible? You bet your life."

"No, actually, they do," Pitts concluded.