Once again, Trump comes to California and gives a lecture on forest management. This from a guy who, I guarantee, has never been in a forest in his life. He thinks that California just needs to hire a few Mexicans with leaf blowers.
“We can agree to disagree on the politics,” said Newsom, “but one thing is fundamental: 57% of the land in this state is federal and 3% is state forests.”
The governor’s statistics are, indeed, correct according to U.S. Forest Service data. What’s more, 21 of the fires currently burning are on federal land, including the largest fire ever recorded in California. That raises questions about Trump’s repeated claims that the state is not doing enough on brush clearance.
Again he told the story of talking to a “world leader” from a “forest nation” about forest management and how California is doing it all wrong. When is someone going to remind him that he believes that all unnamed sources are fake news?
Oh no, unnamed and anonymous sources are just fine as long as they support his narrative. How many times have we heard him say, “Many people are saying I’m doing a great job,” or “People are saying I was right on that issue,” or “They’re saying I did what was needed when it was needed,” or similar? No indication of who “many people,” etc., are; they are unspecified and anonymous.
But when journalists, especially mainstream media journalists, use anonymous and unspecified sources, they are not to be trusted. After all, if they are telling the truth, they should have nothing to hide; and their sources should not be afraid to be identified, so their bona fides can be checked out.
In short, to Trump and his followers, if Trump uses anonymous sources, they’re trustworthy; if a journalist uses anonymous sources that are contrary to his narrative, they’re not.
David Legates, a longtime climate change skeptic, has been appointed by the Trump administration to help run the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the federal agency charged with producing “much of the climate research funded” by the government, The Washington Post reports.