Tag: Hurricane Dorian

These 7 details from the damning Sharpiegate report show it was a dark omen of Trump’s destructive potential

AlterNet logoWhile it was dismissed by some as an overhyped media obsession, the presidential scandal that has come to be known as “Sharpiegate” was, in fact, an early warning sign of the truly catastrophic potential of Donald Trump.

The story arose out of Hurricane Dorian, which began its deliberate march up toward the East Coast of the United States in late August and early September of 2019. It ravaged the Bahamas, and officials feared the damage it could inflict stateside. But then came a Trump tweet on Sept. 1, and later comments to reporters, in which he warned that Alabama was in the storm’s path. He said it was among the states “most likely be hit (much) harder than anticipated.”

This wasn’t true, and his false claim set off a series of troubling events. Most infamously, he later showed a weather forecast map that appeared to have been altered with a Sharpie to falsely extend the storm’s path into Alabama — a truly absurd and ridiculous spectacle that earned the president widespread derision. But his tweet also led to the NOAA’s National Weather Service office in Birmingham to tweet out contradictory information, telling readers: “Alabama will NOT see any impacts from #Dorian.” That tweet sparked fury within the administration, and the Commerce Department later rebuked the office in a contentious statement. Continue reading.

Trump Has a Problem as the Coronavirus Threatens the U.S.: His Credibility

New York Times logoEven his allies worry that President Trump has undermined his ability to appear presidential in a moment of national emergency.

For years, experts have warned that Mr. Trump has been squandering the credibility he could need in a moment of national emergency, like a terrorist attack or a public health crisis.

Now, as the coronavirus races across the globe and has begun to threaten the United States, Mr. Trump could face a moment of reckoning. Maintaining a calm and orderly response during an epidemic, in which countless lives could be at stake, requires that the president be a reliable public messenger. Continue reading.

Trump pushed staff to deal with NOAA tweet that contradicted his inaccurate Alabama hurricane claim, officials say

Washington Post logoLawmakers, Commerce Department launch investigations into NOAA’s decision to back the president over forecasters.

President Trump told his staff that the nation’s leading weather forecasting agency needed to correct a statement that contradicted a tweet the president had sent wrongly claiming that Hurricane Dorian threatened Alabama, senior administration officials said.

That led White House acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney to call Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross to tell him to fix the issue, according to the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk publicly about the issue. Trump had complained for several days that forecasters from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration contradicted his Sept. 1 Alabama tweet, the officials said.

Mulvaney then called Ross, who was traveling in Greece, and told him that the agency needed to fix things immediately, the officials said. Mulvaney did not instruct Ross to threaten any firings or offer punitive actions. But Ross then called NOAA acting administrator Neil Jacobs, the officials said. That led to an unusual, unsigned statement from NOAA released on Sept. 6 that backed Trump’s false claim about Alabama and admonished the National Weather Service’s Birmingham, Ala., division for speaking “in absolute terms” that there would not be “any” impacts from Dorian in the state. The Weather Service is an arm of NOAA, which is an agency within the Commerce Department. The New York Times first reported some elements of the White House involvement.

View the complete September 11 article by Andrew Freedman, Josh Dawsey, Juliet Eilperin and Jason Samenow on The Washington Post website here.

NOAA leader, in Alabama speech, says ‘weather shouldn’t be a partisan issue’

Washington Post logoAmid a controversy over his agency’s response to President Trump’s tweet, Neil Jacobs assures the audience full of meteorologists that no one’s job is at risk.

HUNTSVILLE, Alabama — The acting administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Neil Jacobs, defended his agency at a major weather industry conference on Tuesday morning in an emotional speech, as controversy swirls over how agency officials responded to President Trump’s inaccurate claim on Sept. 1 that Alabama “would most likely be hit (much) harder than anticipated” by Hurricane Dorian.

Jacobs defended the agency’s unusual, unsigned statement released on Sept. 6, which backed Trump’s false claim about Alabama and admonished the Weather Service’s Birmingham division for speaking “in absolute terms.”

“I have the utmost respect for what you do because I understand how difficult numerical weather prediction is, and how even more complicated conveying risk to the public is. The purpose of the NOAA statement was to clarify the technical aspects of the potential impacts of Dorian,” Jacobs said. “What it did not say, however, is that we understand and fully support the good intent of the Birmingham weather office, which was to calm fears and support public safety.”

View the complete September 10 article by Kate Harrison Belz and Andrew Freedman on The Washington Post website here.

NOAA disavows National Weather Service tweet that contradicted Trump

The Hill logoThe National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) released a statement Friday evening disavowing a days-old tweet from the National Weather Service that contradicted President Trump over the reach of Hurricane Dorian.

The NOAA statement, which was unsigned and posted to the agency’s website on Friday, said that the “Birmingham National Weather Service’s Sunday morning tweet spoke in absolute terms that were inconsistent with probabilities from the best forecast products available at the time.”

“From Wednesday, August 28, through Monday, September 2, the information provided by NOAA and the National Hurricane Center to President Trump and the wider public demonstrated that tropical-storm-force winds from Hurricane Dorian could impact Alabama,” the NOAA statement reads.

View the complete September 6 article by Justine Coleman on The Hill website here.

NOTE:  As the government continues to collapse under the Trump abuses, we, the American people become more in a position of risk. If we can’t trust information coming from the scientists at organizations like NOAA, how can we know what we need to do to keep our families, our businesses and ourselves safe?

The short arc of a Sharpie captures the long arc of Trump

The Trumpification of a deadly hurricane turned a forgettable flub into an unforgettable presidential feud.

The tone of the entire Trump presidency was captured this week with the simple swipe of a black Sharpie.

An ill-timed, inaccurate but well-intentioned Twitter warning from President Donald Trump at the start of the week extended into a five-day presidential feud by Thursday, transforming a forgettable fact check of his words into an epic storm of attacks as the president repeatedly doubled down and dug in.

Trump’s latest move of promulgating false information, blaming the media for the coverage of it and then subsequently turning that controversy into a seemingly pointless multiday story reminded current and former White House aides, advisers and Trump allies of all the times in business and government he has leaned on the same playbook of never, ever backing down: whether it was the value of his real estate business or the crowd size at his inauguration or his statements about Chinese tariffs.

View the complete September 5 article by Nancy Cook on the Politico website here.

Democrats question Trump’s motives as Hurricane Dorian targets Florida

President’s decision to cancel Poland trip caught some aides off guard as polls turn bleak

President Donald Trump contends he canceled a diplomatic trip to Poland so he could monitor Hurricane Dorian as it churns toward Florida, but Democrats see political motives for the storm tracker in chief. And Trump started Friday clearly focused on other matters.

He claimed he was staying stateside “to ensure that all resources of the federal government are focused on the arriving storm,” and White House aides were eager to cast the president as laser-focused on the hurricane — even though his decision, yet again, caught some off guard.

One official earlier Thursday said Trump still planned to leave for Poland on Saturday and return on Monday, noting there is little any chief executive can do until a hurricane has passed. That official later said Trump’s decision came after a briefing with new information.

View the complete August 30 article by John T. Bennett on The Roll Call website here.