Ace:
If Trump doesn’t oblige them with a scandal, they’ll just invent one out of whole cloth.
Note the JournOlist style message coordination and repetition.
Article after article condemned Trump for focusing on the NFL (in tweets) instead of Puerto Rico (in tweets). Leftist after leftist also began claiming the damage in Puerto Rico would be Trump’s “Katrina,” in reference to the hurricane that devastated the Gulf Coast during President George W. Bush’s administration.The Daily Beast published an article titled “Puerto Rico has become Trump’s Katrina.” Vox writer and Gaza bridge expert Zack Beauchamp tweeted out an article from his employer and wrote that it was “hard” to read the article “without concluding that Puerto Rico is actually Trump’s Katrina.” FiveThirtyEight’s Nate Silver also noted “Some obvious parallels to Katrina here.”
…
As it turns out, it was the media ignoring Puerto Rico–not Trump.
PBS’s John Yang spoke to Puerto Rico Gov. Ricardo Rossello about the help he has received from the states. Rosselo immediately said he was “very grateful for the administration” and that “they have responded quickly.”
Read Ashe Schow’s article — the governor is pretty generous in his praise of the federal response.
Hillary Clinton got on the JournOlist #FakeNews Message Train, demanding that Trump send the hospital ship the Comfort to Puerto Rico — but Instapundit had a stinging rebuttal.
President Trump, Sec. Mattis, and DOD should send the Navy, including the USNS Comfort, to Puerto Rico now. These are American citizens. https://t.co/J2FVg4II0n
— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) September 24, 2017
https://twitter.com/instapundit/status/913045766721167361
Fat, drunk, and Not President is no way to go through life, gram-gram.
The left is going crazy that Trump is doing a better job than any liberal could have hoped to perform.
Obama pulled the same thing, today.
He claimed that he could/would have done more by now.
And then, instead of doing anything at all, he called on Americans to give him money so he could do some stuff.
I bet he helps Richard Branson rebuild if you send him money. 😉
@Nanny G: Didn’t Obama just get a major mega-million dollar advance on his next no-reader book? Why doesn’t he send 40 million or so to Puerto Rico? After all, at some point, haven’t you made enough money?
Better yet, give it all to the Clinton Foundation! That way they can be sure every nickel is used efficiently and charitably!
@Deplorable Me:
Yes but she doesnt have any more daughters to marry off in multi million dollar fashion.
Maybe there’s a difference between “lots of aid” and what is needed as quickly as possible.
‘People are starting to die’: Distribution chaos snarls effort to aid desperate Puerto Ricans
A temporary waiver of the Jones Act, which doubles the cost of shipping equipment, goods, and materials to Puerto Rico, seems obvious, given the dire emergency and the need to move as much as possible as quickly and cheaply as possible. The Trump administration won’t do it.
Puerto Rico mayor pleads for help after Hurricane Maria: “People are dying”
The simple way to avoid negative press is to quickly and efficiently do what needs to be done to deal with an unfolding catastrophe affecting 3.4 million American citizens who are without services and have had their entire transport and distribution system destroyed. Eleven U.S. Navy and Coast Guard vessels and 6 commercial barges aren’t going to be sufficient. That shouldn’t be hard to figure out.
@Greg: From your article
Heartless
The supplies there and some B most likely hired before this admin cant send a memo to get the permission to do her job. It would be nice if someone said get your ignorant, red tape ass, back home YOU’RE FIRED! Send in the Marines.
There is nothing about the old law that you cite that is stopping US relief there is time to exempt that and extend it to the US Virgin islands as well.
Trump has sent the Hospital ship USS COMFORT to Prueto Rico lets se some Hollywood wanks send in some food or something and No Al Bore,Leonardo DiCaprio or Robert Kennedy Jr to lecture them on this Global Warming/Climate Channge poppycock bull twaddle
Every US Navy ship has a fresh water converter from salt water.
Fresh water is coming into PR as fast as possible, couldn’t be shipped there from here faster or cheaper.
Every slip at the deep water port in PR is filled by a fresh ship full of goods as soon as an empty one leaves.
These bring foods, medical supplies and clothing/blankets.
There couldn’t be any more ships in that deep harbor than there are right now.
People who claim it could be done faster or better are out of their minds.
Listen to FEMA man in charge, Brock Long:
http://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2017/09/26/fema-director-response-puerto-rico-sot-nr.cnn
Why are we not seeing anything in the LSM about the International Red Cross, Samaritan’s Purse or any of the other charities that are already in Puerto Rico, along with normal everyday Americans that have gone there to volunteer? Why are we not reading/hearing stories of how Puerto Ricans are helping out other Puerto Ricans via the police, fire departments and normal everyday citizens? Why?
Take a look at Puerto Rico and then compare it with Texas in the immediate aftermath of a hurricane. What’s the difference? Why the difference?? Perhaps the fact that Puerto Rico, run by DEMOCRATS, is BROKE and has been broke for some time now and just didn’t spend the money to protect their infrastructure. It’s not like Puerto Rico has never been hit by a hurricane before so they didn’t know what to do.
I feel sorry for those who have lost everything (so that is why I have donated to their cause) but they can lay this at the feet of their national leaders. Not the U.S. that will wind up paying to rebuild the whole thing.
Puerto Rico’s deep water container ship terminal is at San Juan, but there are 10 other seaports located around the perimeter of the island. Ponce and Mayagüez are the 2nd and 3rd busiest commercial seaports, after San Juan. The rest handle only small cargo ships and private boats.
@Nanny G:
There. I fixed it.
@retire05, #9:
Do take a look. Puerto Rico is an island, and the entire island is stricken. Assistance and supplies can’t pour across a state or county line from the outside by truck, train, or automobile. This situation can’t be likened to that in Texas or Florida. Politics doesn’t have anything to do with it. It’s a matter of geography. A temporary Jones Act waiver could be very helpful. It’s been done in the past, and has bipartisan support. A lot of building materials are going to have to be shipped as quickly as possible in the months ahead.
@Greg:
Damn sure does, Greggie Goebbels. If a tornado took out half of Illinois, do you think that state would have the money to start doing relief before the feds could get it to them? The simple answer for you, a simpleton, is NO
Texas started dumping money from it’s rainy day fund into relief immediately before the feds could even get in their cars. Sure, it’ll be paid back, but you don’t write a check you can’t cover.
So which is it? Help is slow because of geography or help is slow because……….Trump? You can’t have it both ways, although you always try because that’s how you Socialists are.
Your anger blocks your mental clarity. What do you not understand about the simple fact that being completely surrounded by hundreds of miles of ocean creates a different set of physical circumstances? Illinois is not an island.
@Greg: Slow down, the question was is it Trumps fault or because it is an island.
I have been to PR once and was not impressed with the international airport we flew into, I cant imagine what it was like after a terrible hurricane.
http://www.europac.com/commentaries/how_socialism_destroyed_puerto_rico_and_how_capitalism_can_save_it
@Greg:
The territory’s infrastructure has gone neglected for years, and in July its power company defaulted on a debt-restructuring deal. When Hurricane Irma skirted Puerto Rico this month, more than 1 million people were left without power, and many of them could remain in the dark for months, officials have said.
Maria could wreak a lot more damage.
“If Irma shook us up a little bit and gave us a rude awakening as to just how precarious the situation was, something like a Category 5 storm will have us without power for a time that is unimaginable,” said Philipe Schoene Roura, executive editor of the San Juan-based newspaper Caribbean Business.
His newspaper published an article in early September in which the head of the power utility said a strong storm could keep the the island in the dark for weeks.
Edwin Melendez, director of the Center for Puerto Rican Studies at Hunter College in New York, said such widespread outages would affect millions of people and deal double blows to communities in the island’s mountainous interior whose water systems depend on electricity. Two sectors of the Puerto Rican economy that have shown signs of life, tourism and agriculture, would
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/bankrupt-puerto-rico-faces-direct-hit-hurricane-maria-n802431
Nah, Greggie Goebbels, being run into the ground by Democrat leadership doesn’t have anything to do with the ability to respond to emergency situations, like turning the lights back on or getting water, that depends on electricity, to Puerto Ricans.
You are an idiot.
@retire05, #16:
When a million or more Puerto Ricans come stateside because the island isn’t provided with adequate emergency and reconstruction assistance, we’ll see who the idiot turns out to be. The moment they set foot on the mainland, they become fully eligible to vote in national elections. I suggest Texas might be a good place for a Spanish-speaking citizen to take up residence.
@retire05: Keep in mind, all liberals care about is having someone to blame, not solving or preventing problems.
@Deplorable Me, #18:
Would this be an example of liberal blame-placing?
Where was it that I placed blame, anyway? What I said was that we need a broader and more determined response than we’ve thus far shown. Which is true. Without it, we’ll have only seen the beginning of a catastrophe.
@Greg:
Before you make yourself look any more foolish, please… PLEASE… take a brief look at the actual topic at hand. You seem to think pointing out the genesis of the disaster which your left wing media is trying to turn into a blame-a-thon of Trump is blame itself. It is fact; your blame is the fantasy.
@retire05: Giving the electricity away to its municipalities and some private businesses for free, left no money for improvements or maintenance a real mess with government appointees running it.
Aguadilla had 19 city-owned restaurants and a city-owned hotel, a water park billed as biggest in the Caribbean, a minor-league baseball stadium bathed in floodlights and a waterfront studded with dancing fountains and glimmering streetlights.
Socialistic cozy, higher taxes on the public, who dont get their electric for free. The idea may have worked in the 40s but cities expand
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/02/business/dealbook/puerto-rico-power-authoritys-debt-is-rooted-in-free-electricity.
@Greg:
No………….what you actually said was:
You, in your radical leftist way, were indicating that you think the Trump administration is not doing all it could be doing because…………………Trump. Then you wind off into lala land with “geography”.
Now, I realize you’re not the brightest bulb, but having a failed economy doesn’t allow Puerto Rico to prepare for such a hurricane because they are broke and over $70 billion in debt as of 2105. You chose to ignore that after Irma, 1/3 of the nation was without electricity. And why was that? No money for electric infrastructure upkeep and repair.
Give it up, Greggie Goebbels. You are grasping for straws to blame Trump.
@retire05, #22:
Maybe you should give it up—unless, of course, you’re doing dry ironic comedy, and no one gets that you’re joking. This, from Forbes, September 26, 2016: The Texas Borrowing Binge: What’s Another $30 Billion In Local Debt?
I’m not sure why you think debt level has something to do with the devastation done to an island by a Category 4 hurricane to begin with. Most likely you don’t either. You’re just reacting in your normal, intensely hostile fashion.
Puerto Rico’s Governor:
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/devastated-puerto-rico-needs-unprecedented-aid-says-governor/
Catch that????
It is CONGRESS the gov has issues with.
Not Trump or his Admin.
One of the things FEMA is helping with is the clearing of roadways that prevent most of the ports from being used in the aid effort:
Also on FEMA’s twitter:
10k+ federal staff are on the ground in PR/USVI assisting with search & rescue, restoring power, & moving commodities”; “86 generators in PR & St. Thomas with 186+”; “@USCG continues hurricane #Maria response with 13 cutters, 10 aircraft, partners @fema @USNavy @prffa”; “today, 2,500+ National Guard members are responding in the U.S. Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico to support relief efforts. 200 gas stations have been refueled.
@Greg:
Because it does. And I didn’t mention the “local” debt of towns in Puerto Rico, just its national debt. You do understand the difference, don’t you? Maybe not. You’re not real bright and can only respond by proffering something you read on some left wing web site.
All communications on the island are down, shipping containers sit on the dock from the first hurricane that hit, no truckdrivers, blocked and still flooded roads. PR had to be given satelite phones to be distributed or send a messenger.Lines form for gas and at ATMs. 0 preparedness, none not one Major politician in that country deserves re-election. You cant go to plan B if there is no plan A, Guess it was ,The mainland will take care of us, we dont need any plan.
Did DiCaprio offer up his private jet?
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2017/09/27/fema-administrator-brock-long-explains-puerto-rico-recovery-issues/
As FEMA Director Brock Long outlines in this interview, albeit with diplomatic nuance, the Puerto Rican municipal government system has essentially collapsed.
Government and public sector workers are not showing up to work, and the U.S. military is having to try and fill the roles of local officials within society.
Puerto Ricans are currently showing no capacity to care for themselves, their neighbors, or take action as individual communities to help their own recovery.
There are thousands of tons of relief supplies sitting in ports, 3,000 full containers, with the U.S. army ready to help load up Puerto Rican trucks for local delivery. However, the municipal governments and local transportation officials are not lifting a finger to get these supplies into their communities.
The ports are backlogged with ample supplies and fuel while the Puerto Rican government does nothing to transport them.
@DrJohn:
No, but Sean Penn is probably down there bailing water out of a boat.
@DrJohn: Send DiCaprio, Gore, Obama and Hillary all down there to continue to blame the weather on global warming. Their combined hot air will dry the terrain out in a couple of hours.
Hey what judge on the 9th circuit will block this?
http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/352822-sanders-jones-act-has-been-lifted
@Greg:
Done, as soon as it was possible.
Remember how long it took Obama to waive the Jones Act during the Deepwater Horizon disaster? He wouldn’t do it, so more ships cold come in and help stop the spread of the oil, because the unions told him not to. Now you hypocritical liberals try to fault Trump because it wasn’t the first thing he did.
@retire05, #25:
I’m aware that Puerto Rico doesn’t have a “national debt” any more than does the state of Texas—which apparently you are not. Perhaps you should devote more time to informing yourself, and less to being hateful and angry. Just a suggestion, of course. Some people understand that anger and hatred devour one from the inside out; other’s don’t figure it out, and surrender themselves to the process. In either case, we make ourselves what we are.
Trump Waives Jones Act for Puerto Rico, Easing Hurricane Aid Shipments
There we go. He figured out the right thing, and did it. I applaud his decision.
The Law Strangling Puerto Rico
The Jones Act is a tremendous burden on the island of Puerto Rico and its economy, even in the best of times.
@Nanny G: Yeah, send him some money so he can inflate his bank account. Over 100 million Slick and Hill raised for Haiti is still sitting in his bank account. When you’re draft dodging, you have time to figure out those swindles.
@Greg: 5
If there is, and I were offered ‘lots of aid’ or ‘what is needed’ I’d take ‘lots of aid’.
@retire05: You hit it on the head Retire, the difference is as you said. Texas and Florida run by Repubs, Puerto Rico run (using that term loosely) by Dimocrats. Every thing I can find on the news says that all the relief it’s possible to get in there is getting in there. Poor little Dims, looking so hard to find something to blame on Donald. It really chaps them that the Puerto Rican government has said that Trump has done all he could possibly have done to help. Everything staged ( as much as it could be) before the storm. Sorry crybabies, you’re gonna have to find some other issue to try to pass off lies about.
@Greg:
See, you try long enough, you finally get something right. Although, in your case, I’m sure that was accidental.
You do understand that I’m only talking about the after effects of the storm, the situation as it existed when the storm got there, as in, no preparation at all, is ALL politics. Specifically Dimocrat politics. Somebody probably had their hand in the cookie jar.
@Greg: Do you realize the aid is there and there was no plan to distribute it no trucks nothing, do the federales have to ship the semi-trucks and drivers and hand it out too ?There is aid from the first hurricane still unloaded on the docks, there are only so many containers that will fit. Hint Fema and ACOE are trying to deliver generators and get electricity back to hospitals, and restore water service, seems with the government they have they would be better off with total Marshal law.
@Greg: 33
That’s something you would sure know about
@kitt, #39:
Trucks and drivers are there, but the entire transport system was brought to a halt. How do you distribute fuel to restart that system when the fuel distribution system itself has collapsed? Drivers can’t get to work. They can’t be called to be informed what to do. People are struggling to get their families the most basic necessities. Half of the people on the island don’t even have ready access to drinking water.
This isn’t a result of a lack of reasonable planning. It’s a matter of being on an isolated island, and having a natural disaster so extensive and comprehensive that your plans simply don’t work.
To quote candidate Trump, “Wrong!”
FEMA has announced there are 14 days worth of fuel on the island right now.
Truck drivers who live there are sitting at home getting breakfast, lunch and dinner delivered to their doors by US Nat’l Guardsman.
They simply refuse to go to work.
As a result, US guardsman, FEMA and Army Corp Engineers have to do their own jobs PLUS that of the PR’ans who are, Katrina-like sitting and waiting.
@Nanny G, #42:
I know the character of Puerto Rico’s people from having lived there. I used to call the island home. I recently had an email from a friend in San Juan, who was able to contact me through a VA computer. She said it was very difficult for her to get to work from her home, both of which are in the metropolitan area. Forget about getting to isolated, outlying areas. From there, she was sent to the local VA hospital to provide outreach services to veterans. She said the hospital is struggling just to get enough diesel fuel to keep the emergency generators running. Without power at the hospital, people die. At home, she was sharing her food and water with elderly neighbors who had none. People aren’t sitting on their posteriors, waiting for room service to bring them meals. They’re living in the middle of a catastrophe. Anyone caught up in the same situation would be having much the same problems.
When you’re talking about the National Guard, that includes Puerto Rico’s own. The Army includes those at Puerto Rico’s own Fort Buchanan.
There’s something seriously wrong with the world view many components of the conservative media are pitching. This frequently seems to include victimizing the victims, implying or directly stating that they’re somehow at fault for their own difficulties. There seems to be a pattern to who’s considered a deserving victim or an undeserving victim. This seems to have to do with the us vs. them divisions that are also strongly promoted, but just as strongly denied whenever they’re pointed out. That really could come under the heading of Fake Narratives.
@Greg: The count of ready to be unloaded and distributed cargo containers is now 9 to 10thousand as you noted there are 10 ports the governor needs to delegate authority or resign to marshal law. All the islands in the Atlantic have at one time or another been hit by a hurricane and in an era of superior technology should be able to plan the basics for disasters. Not all those ports are deepwater. As governor he should have basic logistics outlined, and inform those delivering supplies, get shortwave they have those that can be run by hand cranking them.
You may have seen one in Nam.
No one is blaming the victims here, its those elected in PR that we are blaming for incompetence.
http://www.worldportsource.com/ports/PRI.php
Delegate authority to who? The problem isn’t the Governor’s office. The problem is the extent of the catastrophe, which some people don’t seem to fully grasp.
No End In Sight For Puerto Rico Relief Effort After Hurricane Maria | NBC Nightly News
@Greg: He cant do it all, they must have a form of territory senate, find experts in electrical, water, roads dammit there should have been some emergency planning, and logistical planning could you imagine if the GOV of TX or FL had no planning? Do you think they did not? Imagine the Aid for TX just piling up in one area and not being given out.
Yes the entire island is in ruins, babies need milk, people need medicine and water its sitting on the dock. With more to be delivered.
But the title of the post, it isnt Trumps fault and ignoramus bashers should pull their heads outta there.
If another storm hits and its washed out to sea will that be Trumps fault too?
@Greg:
Well, yes, it mostly is.
FEMA directions tell states that they must be prepared to take care of themselves for [at least] 72 hours. So where was the emergency plan for Puerto Rico? Why wasn’t the governor holed up in some command center, making sure emergency communications, if only hand cranked short wave systems, were in place.
What was PR’s emergency plan? Call Washington, D.C.? It’s not like PR has never been hit by a Cat 4 before; it has. PR is the same failure New Orleans was. No proper emergency plan put into place, no leadership, no contingency plan. New Orleans leadership should have known that a hurricane of the magnitude of Katrina would threaten the levy systems. PR should have known that a Cat 4 was always apossibility and they would be cut off from the rest of the world.
But look at it this way; due to poor governance, PR will be all shiny and new when it is rebuilt by mainland tax payers. And they’ll still be billions in debt and still have the same rotten Democrats leading them.
@Greg: Perhaps some here are misunderstanding your position; are you saying the Trump administration is doing all it can but, due to the extent of the catastrophe, the situation is not improving rapidly enough?
J. J. Barea of the Dallas Mavericks, a Puerto Rico native, is contributing his own money, time and labor to send supplies and equipment. Besides him, what other celebrities are contributing as much?
@Greg: The problem is the governor’s office, occupied by dumbocraps. he thought he had turned over command to ‘someone else’.
TV coverage shows that buildings in PR are built w/o foundations, often of substandard materials, even corrugated metal laid on top as a “roof.”
No wonder the entire island is a ruin.
If there are over 10 ports, there are none with completely clear roads leading to people in need.
Their own homes are blocking the roads.
It’s got to be bulldozed off before help can come faster.
One of the amazing things is the slant of the news programs.
If you believe them, well, you’d be a certain poster here. 😉