Jimmy Carter deserved better than to have his funeral pushed out of the headlines by a climate-change-related disaster, much less by Trump’s wild ravings about conquering Greenland.
As always, I recognize the inadequacy of a one-person weekly blog to cover an ongoing regional catastrophe, so I’m not going to try to do justice to the LA fires. And what drew my attention about Trump this week wasn’t his threats to break our treaty with Panama or turn on our NATO ally Denmark. Instead, I was struck by his quick response in using the California fires to tell defamatory lies about Governor Newsom and environmental policies in general.
The news media occasionally fact-checks Trump’s statements, but the larger story is going unreported: Previous presidents — and responsible leaders at all levels — have responded to disasters by reinforcing reliable sources of information, fighting rumor and panic, and promoting the community’s impulse to draw together. Trump does the exact opposite: To him, a disaster is an opportunity to tear us apart, not pull us together.
This is big, and I call attention to it in this week’s featured post “A Disastrous Development in Our Response to Disasters”. That should be out before 9 EST.
The weekly summary has a little about the wildfires, some coverage of the Carter funeral, Trump’s bizarre threats of conquest, his minor legal setbacks, and a few other things. I’ll aim to have that out by noon.
The Weekly Sift 
Comments
Once again, Trump proves he is completely without empathy.
Orange Chaos: Season 2 is about to start. And this time, its leading character is a convicted felon and treasonous seditionist whose only interest in what can be accomplished with the power of his office is how much retribution he can exact upon his enemies and anyone else who won’t wet his beak and kiss the ring.