The cities of Gary, Indiana, and Memphis, Tennessee, are both facing prolonged power outages thanks to recent storms, and it seems the Democrats have found a new talking point to use to attack President Trump and Republicans. We'll start with Gary, first. The city has now gone nearly two weeks without power.

Pennsylvania Rep. Malcolm Kenyatta called it a "disgrace."

But he's leaving out some important facts. First, on August 14-15, NIPSCO crews who were working to restore power were shot at by assailants. That paused work, which only resumed with security details. President Trump declared an emergency after the storms, and FEMA will assist. FEMA supports a wider emergency response; utilities are responsible for power restoration.

Here's who runs Gary, by the way.

And someone who lived in Gary explained the situation further.

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The post reads:

- infrastructure is poorly maintained; untrimmed trees are making access to power lines difficult; damaged streets and sidewalks; abandoned buildings everywhere 

- city leadership has been hopelessly lazy and corrupt for decades; many like the new mayor but he has clearly not prepared the city for emergency

Our senior citizen uncle is there and refuses to leave his home because he knows if he leaves there will be nothing to come back to. Everyone there is at the mercy of the criminals, the weather and a chronically incompetent local government. It may also interest you to know that Gary is considered the bluest city in America with nearly total Democrat support. I’m not one to defend the power companies. NIPSCO has their own issues. But the reason Gary is still offline is because most of the people there keep voting for more of the same at every turn. The city has everything it needs to be a great city. It’s on Lake Michigan, has incredible architecture and is just 30 miles from Chicago. It lost a lot of revenue when the steel mills closed but there has never been a good reason for its failure decade after decade. It’s poor leadership and a disengaged population. It’s not racism. It’s apathy and thievery

Memphis, Tennessee, is the other city facing a prolonged outage. It lost power on Saturday night and may not have power restored until Thursday.

State Rep. Justin Pearson, who has repeatedly made a fool out of himself over things like gun control, blamed the outage on racism, too.

Memphis Light, Gas and Water (MLGW) is responsible for utilities and owned by the City of Memphis.

Of the 13 members of the Memphis City Council, seven are black. Are they racist?

While the Memphis City Council is technically non-partisan, the majority identify as Democrats. So this tracks.

It's always someone else's fault.

That's (D)ifferent. Several years ago, this writer's neighborhood went without power for several days following storms. She ended up staying in a hotel and lost lots of refrigerated and frozen food thanks to that storm.

Which is ironic, because leftists will often say bad weather in red states is God's punishment for not taking climate change seriously. Now it's racism.

Keep the framing in mind, too. Less than 24 hours after the storm, Pearson was demanding power be restored and blaming it on racism. 

By 7:25 PM on Sunday night, MLGW said it had already restored power to 70,000 customers.

So that means most Memphis residents had power restored within a day.

But Democrats never let a crisis go to waste.