

SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
To donate by check, phone, or other method, see our More Ways to Give page.


Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.

President Donald Trump tours Paradise, Calif., with Gov.-elect Gavin Newsom, California Gov. Jerry Brown, Paradise Mayor Jody Jones, and FEMA Administrator Brock Long, right, during a visit to a neighborhood impacted by the wildfires, Saturday, Nov. 17, 2018. (Photo: Evan Vucci/AP)
As California works to recover from the deadliest and most destructive wildfire season in its recorded history, President Donald Trump declared in a tweet on Wednesday that he has "ordered" the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to cut off federal funding unless the state's officials "get their act together."
Misspelling the word "forest" twice in the same tweet, Trump wrote: "Billions of dollars are sent to the State of California for Forrest [sic] fires that, with proper Forrest [sic] Management, would never happen. Unless they get their act together, which is unlikely, I have ordered FEMA to send no more money. It is a disgraceful situation in lives and money!"
Likely recognizing his spelling errors, Trump quickly deleted the tweet and re-uploaded another with the correct spelling. Here's a screengrab of the initial tweet:

Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) declared that Trump's tweet "deserves a 5-star award for idiocy."
"The state owns three percent of the forests in California," Merkley noted. "No matter how many people with rakes they deploy, forests are going to burn because of longer, hotter summers due to climate chaos."
Trump's latest Twitter outburst toward California came as the state's newly elected Democrat Gov. Gavin Newsom proposed an additional $105 million in spending to prevent, counter, and recover from wildfires.
"Weird how we're all told it's beyond the bounds of propriety to talk about impeaching a president who capriciously threatens to cut off disaster aid to the country's largest state immediately after its worst wildfire season in history," Simon Maloy, a senior writer at Media Matters for America, added in response to Trump's tweet.
Dear Common Dreams reader, It’s been nearly 30 years since I co-founded Common Dreams with my late wife, Lina Newhouser. We had the radical notion that journalism should serve the public good, not corporate profits. It was clear to us from the outset what it would take to build such a project. No paid advertisements. No corporate sponsors. No millionaire publisher telling us what to think or do. Many people said we wouldn't last a year, but we proved those doubters wrong. Together with a tremendous team of journalists and dedicated staff, we built an independent media outlet free from the constraints of profits and corporate control. Our mission has always been simple: To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good. Building Common Dreams was not easy. Our survival was never guaranteed. When you take on the most powerful forces—Wall Street greed, fossil fuel industry destruction, Big Tech lobbyists, and uber-rich oligarchs who have spent billions upon billions rigging the economy and democracy in their favor—the only bulwark you have is supporters who believe in your work. But here’s the urgent message from me today. It's never been this bad out there. And it's never been this hard to keep us going. At the very moment Common Dreams is most needed, the threats we face are intensifying. We need your support now more than ever. We don't accept corporate advertising and never will. We don't have a paywall because we don't think people should be blocked from critical news based on their ability to pay. Everything we do is funded by the donations of readers like you. When everyone does the little they can afford, we are strong. But if that support retreats or dries up, so do we. Will you donate now to make sure Common Dreams not only survives but thrives? —Craig Brown, Co-founder |
As California works to recover from the deadliest and most destructive wildfire season in its recorded history, President Donald Trump declared in a tweet on Wednesday that he has "ordered" the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to cut off federal funding unless the state's officials "get their act together."
Misspelling the word "forest" twice in the same tweet, Trump wrote: "Billions of dollars are sent to the State of California for Forrest [sic] fires that, with proper Forrest [sic] Management, would never happen. Unless they get their act together, which is unlikely, I have ordered FEMA to send no more money. It is a disgraceful situation in lives and money!"
Likely recognizing his spelling errors, Trump quickly deleted the tweet and re-uploaded another with the correct spelling. Here's a screengrab of the initial tweet:

Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) declared that Trump's tweet "deserves a 5-star award for idiocy."
"The state owns three percent of the forests in California," Merkley noted. "No matter how many people with rakes they deploy, forests are going to burn because of longer, hotter summers due to climate chaos."
Trump's latest Twitter outburst toward California came as the state's newly elected Democrat Gov. Gavin Newsom proposed an additional $105 million in spending to prevent, counter, and recover from wildfires.
"Weird how we're all told it's beyond the bounds of propriety to talk about impeaching a president who capriciously threatens to cut off disaster aid to the country's largest state immediately after its worst wildfire season in history," Simon Maloy, a senior writer at Media Matters for America, added in response to Trump's tweet.
As California works to recover from the deadliest and most destructive wildfire season in its recorded history, President Donald Trump declared in a tweet on Wednesday that he has "ordered" the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to cut off federal funding unless the state's officials "get their act together."
Misspelling the word "forest" twice in the same tweet, Trump wrote: "Billions of dollars are sent to the State of California for Forrest [sic] fires that, with proper Forrest [sic] Management, would never happen. Unless they get their act together, which is unlikely, I have ordered FEMA to send no more money. It is a disgraceful situation in lives and money!"
Likely recognizing his spelling errors, Trump quickly deleted the tweet and re-uploaded another with the correct spelling. Here's a screengrab of the initial tweet:

Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) declared that Trump's tweet "deserves a 5-star award for idiocy."
"The state owns three percent of the forests in California," Merkley noted. "No matter how many people with rakes they deploy, forests are going to burn because of longer, hotter summers due to climate chaos."
Trump's latest Twitter outburst toward California came as the state's newly elected Democrat Gov. Gavin Newsom proposed an additional $105 million in spending to prevent, counter, and recover from wildfires.
"Weird how we're all told it's beyond the bounds of propriety to talk about impeaching a president who capriciously threatens to cut off disaster aid to the country's largest state immediately after its worst wildfire season in history," Simon Maloy, a senior writer at Media Matters for America, added in response to Trump's tweet.