By Jon Bauer
Herald staff
As the East Coast braced for the ebb and flow of Flo, the eye of the storm continued to swirl around President Trump last week.
Let’s go where only fools and TV weatherman dare and brave the winds of the week that wasn’t:
Heckuva job, Donnie: As Hurricane Florence loomed off the East Coast last week, President Trump graded his administration’s response to hurricanes Irma and Maria the year before in Puerto Rico with “A-pluses,” calling it an “incredible, unsung success.”
Officials with the Federal Emergency Management Agency credited Trump’s inflated grade for the response in Puerto Rico for convincing residents along the coast of North and South Carolina to get the heck out of there.
Paper towels are for winners: The president created more controversy when he denied that nearly 3,000 people had died in Puerto Rico as a result of the hurricanes, as has been determined by a George Washington University study. Trump, in tweets, said the toll was only six to 18 deaths while he was there and the number had been inflated “by Democrats in order to make me look as bad as possible,” implying that some victims died for other reasons, such as “old age.”
Isn’t that just like Democrats to die to make Trump look bad.
Even threw in some FEMA tents: Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Oregon, released documents last week that he claimed showed nearly $10 million had been diverted from FEMA to the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency for border enforcement.
The Homeland Security Department denied there was anything improper in the transfer of funds as the Trump administration’s immigrant detention policy clearly qualifies as a disaster.
Murder, she wrote: A Portland, Ore., woman, a self-published “romantic suspense” novelist who once wrote an essay titled, “How to Murder Your Husband,” has been arrested in the death of her husband of 27 years.
Cracking the case wasn’t difficult, Portland Police officials said; they just skipped to the end to find out whodunnit.
A different kind of fulfillment center: Amazon’s founder and CEO Jeff Bezos, who has passed Bill Gates and Warren Buffett to top Forbes’ list of billionaires, announced his plans to donate $2 billion to launch a charitable fund that will open pre-schools in low-income neighborhoods and give money to nonprofits helping homeless families.
Wonder what his critics will say now after he’s announced all this help for his poorly paid employees.
Silly ol’ bear: Firefighters in Minnesota had to use the Jaws of Life to free a black bear whose head got stuck in a 10-gallon metal milk can.
Fortunately for firefighters, the bear decided against using the Jaws of Death, once it was freed.
Gathering storm: The Seattle Storm swept the Washington Mystics in three games to win its third WNBA title last week on the strength of play by league MVP Brenna Stewart and Storm veteran Sue Bird.
Seattle fans celebrated the championship season by glumly watching the Seattle Mariners miss the playoffs again and anticipating the coming Seattle Seahawk losing streak.
Jon Bauer: jbauer@heraldnet.com.
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