I wrote last night about how it seemed that Mitt Romney was planning on using Hurricane Sandy to camouflage a political event today in Ohio (and similar ones in WI for Paul Ryan). It turns out I was right. Reporters on the scene of the “charity” event are horrified by the politickig they’re seeing. They’re even apparently giving out anti-Obama t-shirts at the “non-partisan” charity relief rally.

Here are a few of their tweets this morning from the event.

USA Today reporter Jackie Kucinich:

CNN’s Jonathan Karl. And note the tshirt the woman has – it’s clear she didn’t wear it to the rally. They appear to be giving our anti-Obama t-shirts at the non-partisan disaster relief rally. Incredible:

Politico’s James Hohman concurs – it’s a campaign party with music and everything!

And here’s NPR’s Ari Shapiro:

The Washington Post’s Philip Rucker seems equally confused:

More from CNN’s Jonathan Karl:

Don’t take the reporters’ words for it – the Romney campaign is now calling today’s event a “Victory Rally.”

I warned last night that Mitt Romney was planning on using Hurricane Sandy as an opportunity to get around his promise to not hold any political events today, by holding fake Hurricane “relief” events in states that didn’t even get hurricaned like Ohio and Wisconsin, but which do happen to be important swing states.

And they did just that.

While Mitt Romney is infamous for his flip-flops, and the lack of value to his “word,” he also has a growing infamy for using human tragedy as political opportunity. You’ll recall that in the 47% video, Romney said that he would keep his eyes open for an “opportunity” like the Iran Hostage Crisis – he actually called that crisis an “opportunity” – that he could use to help his campaign.

And Romney’s campaign admitted that they saw the murder of Ambassador Chris Stevens in Benghazi as yet another “opportunity” for their campaign.

More from Michael Barbaro, a NYT reporter at the not-really-a-relief event:

So it should be little surprise that the Romney campaign is holding a Hurricane Sandy relief event that not only is more about Mitt Romney’s ambition than the hurricane, but in fact will actually impede and hinder ongoing disaster relief efforts. You do not collect goods for disaster relief. It actually sets the relief organizers back when they have to deal with donated goods. The Red Cross tells you on their Web site not to do it, it hurts. So what does Romney do? He keeps collecting goods as donations even though yesterday everyone said “don’t do it, it hurts disaster relief.”

And I quote from the Red Cross Web site:

Unfortunately, due to logistical constraints the Red Cross does not accept or solicit individual donations or collections of items. Items such as collected food, used clothing and shoes must be sorted, cleaned, repackaged and transported which impedes the valuable resources of money, time, and personnel.

A report just came in that Romney just did a photo opp filling relief boxes. Doing exactly what you’re not supposed to do, doing something that will actually hurt relief efforts. And he’s doing it. And he knows better. But he doesn’t care, because this event – this presidential race – never was about helping people, it was about helping Mitt Romney’s ambition.

This is probably why Mitt Romney wants to close FEMA. He thinks private bake sales are more than enough of a response to one of the largest natural disasters in American history.

In the same way that his vice presidential nominee, Paul Ryan, thinks spending 7 minutes in a closed soup kitchen, cleaning already-clean dishes, is a sufficient response to the economic crisis.

Oh, and next time you decide to use the suffering of millions of Americans for your own personal gain, skip the music. And if you have to have music, check the lyrics first, unless this was intentional, which is even worse: