DrafterX wrote:The federal agency that monitors hurricanes said Friday that Hurricane Dorian could have impacted Alabama, backing claims by President Trump that he was right to tweet a warning over the weekend about the storm affecting the state.
In an unsigned statement, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) said that "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 advisories in question were dated from Wednesday, Aug. 28 to Monday, Sept. 2, the agency said.
Film at 11...
So... let's address this. It really does deserve more attention.
First, lets pick up where we left off, with trump still blaming the Fake News and Democrats for people mocking him for his sharpie skills....
On friday, he tweets (not a re-tweet, so either someone on his staff spent the time to make this, or downloaded it from 8chan or some other place) a video of himself making various expressions, interspersed with clips of CNN identifying Alabama as a potential target for hurricane Dorian.
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1170089069105340416
Now, enterprising people have determined the date of the CNN clips to be from Wed, 28Aug. Note again, trump's tweet about alabama was Sun 1Sep... so he's literally bragging about using 4 or 5 day old data on a hurricane....
Let that sink in. The president, who gets updates multiple times a day on an approaching hurricane... is bragging that he was as accurate as a news station was 4-5 days earlier. AND he wasted resources to put together a video to do that bragging.
Additionally on Friday, an unattributed statement was made by NOAA which says in full:
"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. This is clearly demonstrated in Hurricane Advisories #15 through #41, which can be viewed at the following link.
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."
This is very similar to the statement by the homeland security advisor. They're not willing to fully commit, they say "tropical storm force winds"... by the time frame they are discussing, there is no expectation that the hurricane itself will move towards Alabama. But they are willing to provide some cover (as I pointed out in prior posts, there was a 5% chance that winds of 39mph will hit some edge of Alabama by 1Sep. )...
This statement, of course then draws blowback from the actual workers at NOAA. As the president of the NWS union tweeted:
"Let me assure you the hard working employees of the NWS had nothing to do with the utterly disgusting and disingenuous tweet sent out by NOAA management tonight,"
This has drawn a lot of speculation that the NOAA statement was drafted and released by the trump appointed head of NOAA.
More amusingly, after the Birmingham NWS had contradicted trump's 01Sep tweet, an email was apparently sent to all staff from upper officials at NOAA whihc reads:
"only stick with official National Hurricane Center forecasts if questions arise from some national level social media posts which hit the news this afternoon."
And, because the great Alabama Hurricane that never was Saga of 2019 just won't end.... trumpenfurher continues to tweet about it. On Saturday he tweeted the following:
"The Failing New York Times stated, in an article written by Obama flunky Peter Baker (who lovingly wrote Obama book),”Even after the President forecast the storm to include Alabama.” THIS IS NOT TRUE. I said, VERY EARLY ON, that it MAY EVEN hit Alabama. A BIG DIFFERENCE.....
...FAKE NEWS. I would like very much to stop referring to this ridiculous story, but the LameStream Media just won’t let it alone. They always have to have the last word, even though they know they are defrauding & deceiving the public. The public knows that the Media is corrupt!"
He's blaming the media for not letting it drop. When he won't stop tweeting stupid and contradictory things about it.
Here he's claiming that it was only very early on that he said it "may" hit Alabama. Well, I will let you judge his truthfullness on that, as it could have to do with your interpretation of the words "most likely" and "(much) harder". He could wiggle out on this, as "harder than expected" when the expected is nearly 0.... but his timing is ridiculous, as I pointed out he was tweeting days old information at best.
Then, AGAIN, because it's the fake news that won't let it drop... he retweets that idiotic video where he brags about having 4-5day old data.
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1170089069105340416
Then... because our country cannot possibly get any dumber, and our president cannot let something dumb like this drop.... he tweets ANOTHER video, made by a group @som3thingwicked, which apparently likes to use a bunch of white nationalist memes interspersed with their posts.... so I'm super glad our president listens to them..
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1170546650651271169
In this video, they imply that the entire dumb sharpie drawing on the map was done to distract CNN, like a cat with a laser pointer.
Yes.... the president is now openly saying he is being an idiot so we don't pay attention to something else he's doing (presumably something worse than being an idiot)....
