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Out of touch Kamala Harris tweets ‘America is moving again’ as hundreds stranded on I-95

January 5, 2022 | | Print Article

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Much like with comedy, timing is everything in politics and just as Vice President Kamala Harris is awkward in most other things she embarks on, the timing of a tweet about America “moving again” proved to be disastrous, reinforcing the belief held by many that elitist politicians live in a protected bubble insulated form the trappings of the real world.

Harris took to Twitter on Tuesday to randomly promote the $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill — perhaps because there haven’t been many reasons for the Biden administration to celebrate lately — posting a tweet about “getting people moving” as hundreds of motorists sat stranded on Virginia’s Interstate 95 due to a winter storm.

“Because of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, America is moving again. That’s what infrastructure is all about: getting people moving,” Harris tweeted.

A severe snowstorm hit the region on Monday afternoon bringing traffic to a standstill on a 50-mile stretch of I-95, stranding motorists in their cars overnight in freezing temperatures. With desperate motorists sitting for hours with no help in sight, the ill-timed tweet from Harris went over like a ton of manure.

Somewhat ironically, Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., was one of those stranded motorists sitting on the frozen interstate highway.

“I started my normal 2 hour drive to DC at 1pm yesterday. 19 hours later, I’m still not near the Capitol,” Kaine tweeted just a few hours before Harris posted her tweet. “My office is in touch with @VaDOT to see how we can help other Virginians in this situation. Please stay safe everyone.”

Authorities closed I-95 remains northbound and southbound between Exits 104 and 152 leading up to the Washington, D.C., metro area, according to Fox News, as the state of Virginia scrambled to help those stranded in their vehicles. Some motorists complained that the roadway was not closed earlier.

“They let you go right into the mess,” one father told Fox News Digital. “And once you got into that mess, there was no turning back.”

“We know many travelers have been stuck on Interstate 95 in our region for extraordinary periods of time over the past 24 hours, in some cases since Monday morning. This is unprecedented, and we continue to steadily move stopped trucks to make progress toward restoring lanes,” Marcie Parker, an engineer with the Virginia Department of Transportation’s Fredericksburg district, said in a statement.

It would seem that Harris would have had some clue of the calamity unfolding practically outside her window.

Adding to the catastrophe, an Amtrak train heading through Virginia was stranded on the tracks for almost 40 grueling hours without food or toilets, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported.

“All we’ve been told is there are trees on the tracks preventing us from moving forward,” Sean Thornton said. “Nobody has eaten for about 20 hours and the toilets in coach are completely backed up. The snack bar sold out of food yesterday. Passengers have been banned from leaving the train.”

The train did eventually get moving about four hours after Harris posted her tweet.

Social media users seemed to be somewhat stunned that a politician, in this case the vice president of the United States, could be so tone-deaf.

Here’s a sampling of some of the responses to the story from Twitter:

Tom Tillison
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