Twit-in-chief Tweets

Posted on August 6, 2018 | 17 Comments

We all know that Californians are suffering from terrible wildfires. Thousands of buildings have been destroyed. Many have lost their lives, including firefighters, including a great-grandmother who died with her great-grandchildren. It is a tragedy.

So what did Donald Trump, president of the U.S., have to say? This:

There has been a “firestorm” of angry responses to his ignorance and callousness. I think this one is particularly apropos:

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17 responses to “Twit-in-chief Tweets”

  1. Edward C Weber (@bigskyrad) | August 6, 2018 at 5:33 pm |

    Donald Trump, in the WH only because of the Electoral College and with Russia’s help, is such an asshole megalomaniac that many of us suffer from Thesaurus Fatigue in trying to describe what a horrible human being he is.

  2. smallbluemike | August 6, 2018 at 5:36 pm |

    this idiot-in-chief, blowhard-in-chief is a global tragedy, but he is really just Ronald Reagan, Part II. The US has a lot of folks who vote but don’t engage in a lot of critical analysis. Hate-mongering and scapegoating are quite effective at turning out voters who don’t have time to think hard. Very sad.

  3. cunudiun | August 6, 2018 at 6:04 pm |

    He’s jealous they won’t let him drive the fire truck.

  4. AndyM | August 6, 2018 at 7:20 pm |

    When you have said that climate change is a Chinese conspiracy you have to either maintain that line with garbage like this or else admit to being an utter prick. No surprise which Trump chose.

  5. Doc Snow | August 6, 2018 at 7:32 pm |

    He is, as usual, regurgitating propaganda, and not even getting it right. But I suppose that’s what happens, as regurgitate is generally only about half digested.

  6. t0kodave | August 6, 2018 at 7:56 pm |

    If ignorance and hypocrisy were money DJT and the GOP could clear up the National Debt in a nanosecond.
    I hate these MFers beyond words.

  7. Richard Pauli | August 6, 2018 at 8:46 pm |

    Just a data validation request.. since I do not use twitter much – and will not subscribe to Trump tweets – do you have an original link for the text?.. because I would like to copy the text along with the link.
    Thanks

  8. Rattus Norvegicus | August 7, 2018 at 1:42 am |

    Geez, if anything that second one is worse.

    • Doc Snow | August 7, 2018 at 1:18 pm |

      As Colbert pointed out, letting rivers flow to the ocean is not diversion, it’s the way rivers work! “Diversion” would be using them “for fires, farming and everything else.”

      “…coming from the North” is just bizarre, given that for much of the state the flow is largely east-to-west. The main sort-of north-to-south case is the Colorado; unsurprisingly Mr. Trump seems to be unaware that its water is oversubscribed already, and that “Flows at the mouth of the river have steadily declined since the beginning of the 20th century, and in most years after 1960 the Colorado River has run dry before reaching the Pacific Ocean.”

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colorado_River#Discharge

      Unsurprisingly to people other than Mr. Trump, this condition has imposed serious costs in the forms both of environmental damage and financial burdens:

      Historically, the delta with its large freshwater outflow and extensive salt marshes provided an important breeding ground for aquatic species in the Gulf. Today’s desiccated delta, at only a fraction of its former size, no longer provides suitable habitat, and populations of fish, shrimp and sea mammals in the gulf have seen a dramatic decline…

      Salinity is one of the major issues and also leads to the corrosion of pipelines in agricultural and urban areas… In 1997, the USBR estimated that saline irrigation water caused crop damages exceeding $500 million in the U.S. and $100 million in Mexico. Further efforts have been made to combat the salt issue in the lower Colorado, including the construction of a desalination plant at Yuma. In 2011, the seven U.S. states agreed upon a “Plan of Implementation”, which aims to reduce salinity by 644,000 short tons (584,000 t) per year by 2030. In 2013, the Bureau of Reclamation estimated that around $32 million was spent each year to prevent around 1.2 million tons of salt from entering and damaging the Colorado River.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colorado_River#Environmental_impacts

      That’s why a tiny proportion of the water is ‘diverted’ back into the river these days, by international agreement:

      In November 2012, the U.S. and Mexico reached an agreement, known as Minute 319, permitting Mexico storage of its water allotment in U.S. reservoirs during wet years, thus increasing the efficiency with which the water can be used. In addition to renovating irrigation canals in the Mexicali Valley to reduce leakage, this will make about 45,000 acre feet (56,000,000 m3) per year available for release to the delta on average. The water will be used to provide both an annual base flow and a spring “pulse flow” to mimic the river’s original snowmelt-driven regime. The first pulse flow, an eight-week release of 105,000 acre feet (130,000,000 m3), was initiated on March 21, 2014, with the aim of revitalising 2,350 acres (950 hectares) of wetland. This pulse reached the sea on May 16, 2014, marking the first time in 16 years that any water from the Colorado flowed into the ocean, and was hailed as “an experiment of historic political and ecological significance” and a landmark in U.S.–Mexican cooperation in conservation. The pulse will be followed by the steady release of 52,000 acre feet (64,000,000 m3) over the following three years, just a small fraction of its average flow before damming.

      I’m sure the so-called president would gladly break that deal, too, since he’d be blind to the reasons for it, and has never, apparently, had any compunctions about keeping his word (or, sadly, the nation’s).

      I wish someone would tell him that southern California is naturally a desert. But then, I wish that someone could successfully tell him anything. He’s the global face of D-K syndrome, and by extension, so is today’s America.

      • louploup2 | August 10, 2018 at 4:23 am |

        “global face of D-K syndrome, and by extension, so is today’s America.”

        Good one. Unfortunately, the problem seems to infect such a large percentage of our species that governance by those with rectitude seems unlikely.

      • Doc Snow | August 10, 2018 at 2:22 pm |

        I’m increasingly hopeful that things will look a little different, in the US at least, by the second week of this November. VOTE CLIMATE!

      • snarkrates | August 10, 2018 at 3:27 pm |

        Remember, 35% of the population will continue to support the moron in chief no matter what, and another 10% will have been bought off by the tax cuts. These will be with us long after the orange one is fitted with an extra-capacious orange jumpsuit. We are at the mercy of the portion of the IQ curve 1-sigma below average.

      • Doc Snow | August 10, 2018 at 6:15 pm |

        How can I forget? But actually, I’m not so sure about the initial premise. Let prices rise at the Walmart, as could easily happen with the Chinese trade war, and I think you’d probably see that number shift.

      • snarkrates | August 11, 2018 at 11:58 am |

        Doc, the MAGA jerkwads are already saying that they’re with the orange imbecile even if it ruins them–and in some ways, the more they pay, the more he’s worth to them. At this point, backing down would be humiliating, and they’ve already demonstrated that they don’t possess that courage. They are ineducable and hence irredeemable–they are even saying they’d rather be Russian than Democrats. All we can do is wait for them to die, hope that future generations are less stupid and that there remains something for them to salvage.

        [Response: I don’t agree that they are ineducable and irredeemable. It won’t be easy to persuade them — but that just means we should work harder at it. Perhaps the most important step is to acknowledge that they’re human beings. Like us. Just my opinion.]

      • Doc Snow | August 11, 2018 at 2:00 pm |

        Snark, they don’t have to back down. All they have to do is go bowling, instead of polling, on election day. They’re happy now in part because the economy is looking good. Let that change, which is by no means improbable, and crow will be eaten.

        Just not publicly.