**Written by Doug Powers

The line between “provocative” and “outright douchey” was crossed again yesterday, and rumor has it the backfire could be heard as far away as the International Space Station:

Politico deleted a tweet on Wednesday with a cartoon showing a victim of Hurricane Harvey being rescued by a federal emergency responder.

Drawn by Matt Wuerker, a Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist, the cartoon shows a person in a Confederate flag shirt being rescued from a flooded house with a secessionist sign. A “Don’t Tread on Me” flag is also pictured.

A rescuer in the cartoon points out that the federal government sent the helicopter to rescue people from their flooded homes.

Politico should mark this down in their ledger as an in-kind donation to Trump’s re-election campaign:

Worship at the altar of Big Government or be mocked during a natural disaster, because progressive compassion, dammit!

The cartoonist said he intended to mock the Texas secession movement, so now I’ll await his cartoon mocking the California secession movement the next time that state asks for federal aid.

**Written by Doug Powers

Twitter @ThePowersThatBe