The United States of Dumb and Dumber

It's hard to figure out who's dumber - the president of the United States or James "Ooker" Eskridge, the mayor of Tangier Island, Virginia in Chesapeake Bay.

The island boasts that its people voted 87% for Donald Trump last November. They're true believers or, as I tend to call them, Gullibillies.

Ooker went on CNN to plead with Donald Trump for help as his island, home to a minuscule population of 450, is hit by the triple whammy of subsidence, sea level rise and coastal erosion.

Mayor Eskridge was out on the water when he got word that his president wanted to have a word. When Eskridge got on the line, Trump's message was "don't worry, be happy."

"He[Trump] said not to worry about sea-level rise," Eskridge said. "He said, 'Your island has been there for hundreds of years, and I believe your island will be there for hundreds more.'"

And that's good enough for Mayor Ooker Eskridge. Besides, his problem is erosion, not sea level rise. Apples and oranges, right?

"The sea level rise, I just don't see it," Eskridge said. "The reason we're focused on erosion is because we can see it. Erosion will take us away long before sea level rise will."
Still, he'd like the feds to pony up $30 million for a nice sea wall. That's thirty million of real free enterprise, capitalist money, not thirty million dollars of that socialism money.

Of course what Ooker doesn't get is that he's the poster boy for a bunch of communities up and down America's eastern seaboard where sea level rise is inflicting both inundation and erosion, just as it is on Tangier Island. And, if Congress gives Ooker $30-million it will have to cut cheques for a lot more for many other communities along the east coast.