President Sharpie

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

Trump’s lies about Alabama and Hurricane Dorian are no laughing matter

It is understandable that people laugh at this. There is an inherent hilarity in the doctored map alone, its black Sharpie-d bubble emerging from just north of Jacksonville and curving around the Florida panhandle only to ensure that some slice of Alabama would be jeopardized by this newly enhanced path of Hurricane Dorian. Watching a sitting president display this, proudly and like a school project, on top of the Resolute Desk inside the Oval Office on Wednesday was one of the more surreal moments I’ve experienced observing American politics — and not just as a journalist. It is difficult to consider anything quite so ridiculous, in the literal sense of the word.

After the online mockery commenced, the late-night hosts got to work. It is difficult to fault them for doing their jobs, especially since so much truth is found in comedy. “Erratic, slow, powerful and destructive. It’s like looking in a mirror,” Stephen Colbert said, imitating Trump while also noting that his Sharpie stunt was actually a federal crime. “He really must think we’re a bunch of idiots,” Jimmy Kimmel remarked. “I bet he thinks, ‘Hey, they let me be president. Let’s see what other dumb crap they’ll go for.’” Trevor Noah asked a more existential question: “Did he draw with a Sharpie? What is life right now?”

Noah feigned surprise that Trump could even find Alabama on a map. But as we learned with George W. Bush, mocking the president’s stupidity and intellectual laziness has a different resonance when the hurricane comes. This isn’t Trump trying to get away with one of his personal fictions or bits of braggadocio. It is simply not funny when anyone, let alone the president, lies about something this serious.

Dorian, now a Category 1 hurricane, had already hit the U.S. Virgin Islands last week and lashed Puerto Rico a bit as it went by. On Wednesday, it made landfall Thursday on North Carolina’s Outer Banks. Winds of up to 100 miles per hour hit the tourist destination before Dorian moved back out to sea. South Carolina also had to contend with two tornadoes that spun off from the hurricane. As Charleston’s streets flooded, its police department felt compelled to post on Twitter, “Remember, TURN AROUND, DON’T DROWN.” We have yet to get any confirmation on American casualties outside of the six Florida deaths already reported. But government officials in the Bahamas — which were hit when Dorian was a Category 5 hurricane, the strongest there is — are now reporting at least 30 deaths and expect the final totals will be “staggering.”

People have died and remain under threat, here in the United States and in allied nations that need our help and resources. Yet this cretin of a president remains fixated not merely on having media battles with his enemies in the press and wherever else while lives are at stake.

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/political-commentary/trump-hurricane-dorian-sharpie-map-881285/

[Eliot Rosewater]

1. The only thing worse than a black president is a successful one, and that is why

the right supports a nazi fascist lying piece of traitorous shit, they want to destroy Obama.

And they have all but eliminated his legacy, even though it harms them the most.

[Stuart G]

2. k and r..no text