President Pyro Threatens To Withhold FEMA Money Because California Too Lazy To Rake Forests
We're back on the bloody rakes again. California is on fire, and President Bigly Science is threatening to withhold federal disaster funds because apparently it is the Golden State's "fault" that dry wood is flammable.
"I see again, the forest fires are starting. They're starting again in California," he ranted at a campaign event yesterday in Old Forge, Pennsylvania. "And I said, you've got to clean your floors. You've got to clean your forests."
If that sounds annoyingly familiar, it's because this is the third episode of #Rakegate, a series we should really try to get canceled this fall!
Back in November of 2018, Finnish President Saul Niniisto mumbled something sympathetic about "taking care of our forests," and Trump hallucinated an entire monologue about Finns dutifully raking the woodlands.
"He called it a forest nation," Trump blarbled to reporters at the time, "and they spent a lot of time on raking and cleaning and doing things, and they don't have any problem."
"I was watching the firemen the other day, and they were raking areas. They were raking areas!" he elaborated for Fox's Chris Wallace. "They're raking trees, little trees like this — nut trees, little bushes, that you could see are totally dry. Weeds! And they're raking them. They're on fire."
Well, someone's climbing all of that little nut bush. But anyway!
Last year it was the same, with Trump threatening to withhold FEMA assistance because California was too lazy to do the yard work like he told them to.
..Every year, as the fire’s rage & California burns, it is the same thing-and then he comes to the Federal Governme… https://t.co/aKLld8oOVX— Donald J. Trump (@Donald J. Trump) 1572790318.0
Except, whoopsie, former DHS employee Miles Taylor just published an op-ed in the Washington Post this week saying that Trump repeatedly tried to withhold disaster relief money from California "because he was so rageful that people in the state of California didn't support him."
There's also the annoying fact that huge swaths of California's forestland is federally owned and thus raking duty is the responsibility of the Trump administration.
But no matter, because now it is Rake Rant Hour again, with the president threatening to punish citizens of a blue state for not taking his sage landscaping advice.
I see again the forest fires are starting. They're starting again in California. I said 'you've gotta clean your floors, you've gotta clean your forests.' They have many, many years of leaves and broken trees. And they're like, like so flammable. You touch them and it goes up. I've been telling them this now for three years, but they don't want to listen. The environment. The environment. But they have massive fires again in California. Maybe we're gonna have to make them pay for it because they don't listen to us.
We say 'you've gotta get rid of the leaves, you've gotta get rid of the debris, you've gotta get rid of the fallen trees.' You know, when a tree falls, after thirteen to fourteen months, it becomes extremely dry. You look at some of these fires, they don't really catch where the trees are growing because they're wet. The water's pouring up the tree. And they just don't want to listen. They mocked us when I said that. You got to clean your floors. Just an expression.
Mind you, this was in the same speech where he mocked Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez for being A IDIOT about ENVIRONMENT: "She's the designer of the Green New Deal. She knows nothing about the environment. She probably never studied. Ask her, how many hours have you taken on the environment." And then he spent several minutes expounding on his dislike of sharks, and claimed to know better than every pollster in the country, insisting that "right now, we are leading in so many polls that they refuse to put out."
So take it from the Pyromaniac in Chief, kids. Only rakes can prevent Forest Fires. Only rakes!
Oh, sorry, we mean FUCKING VOTE.
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Liz Dye lives in Baltimore with her wonderful husband and a houseful of teenagers. When she isn't being mad about a thing on the internet, she's hiding in plain sight in the carpool line. She's the one wearing yoga pants glaring at her phone.
