First thing this morning, Donald Trump decided it was a good idea to renew his feud with – and I can’t even believe I’m saying this – hurricane-ravaged Puerto Rico.
Sure, Puerto Ricans have suffered enough. But not enough for Trump. Because these “politically motivated ingrates” are still asking for help weeks – weeks! – after the hurricane, when everyone knows the average cleanup time for horrific natural disasters is roughly 36 hours. And so, at wit’s end with lazy Puerto Ricans, the President let them know three things:
- their infrastructure was a disaster even before the hurricane
- they are in debt
- FEMA can’t stay “forever”, where “forever” apparently means “any longer than three weeks”
Here’s the President:
There you go. Now you might be asking yourself why he would say that, seemingly out of nowhere, before dawn on a random Thursday. And the truth is, no one but Donald Trump himself knows the answer to that, although we’d wager it can probably be traced back to something he saw on the news this morning.
Well now, one of Trump’s newest enemies, San Juan Mayor Carmen YulÃn Cruz, is angry. Earlier, she tweeted this:
Yes, “shame on you,” you “hater in chief!”
Needless to say, that’s not likely to go over well with Trump and neither is the following statement Cruz released “re: POTUS Tweets”):
That right there is what you call “scathing.”
Of course she’s exactly right. And the incredulity inherent in that statement echoes the sentiments voiced by Bob Corker in the now infamous New York Times interview from Sunday. People are dropping the niceties and calling this administration what it is: a farce and a debacle.
Do note that the best thing about the statement above is that it backs Trump even further into a corner. Now he has to either double down on his criticism of an island still reeling from a historic natural disaster or else keep quiet and take his lumps. I think you know which route he’s likely to take.
Go Carmen, take his orange ass to the woodshed. If these were fundamentalist christian white folks, it’d be a different story. Dotard is supposedly the champion of all bible thumping moral christians, they bend over backward to praise him, what happened to their basic human empathy? Did they learn nothing in church…
There is not a thing more hypocritical than the religious right.
Puerto Rico was a helpless disaster before being Hurricaned twice. They had a badly deteriorated infrastructure (roads..machinery…electricity..you name it) before the disasters and because of that tens of thousands of relief cargo containers sit in port (air and sea) and wait for a path of some kind to travel on. The infrastructure was ALREADY in a shambles because they ad no money to repair and replace what they needed to.Why not??? They mired in debilitating debt for decades… I’m sure that’s someone else fault also…
So..Trump’s an idiot..but his criticisms are valid and it’s a long time past when it should have been said. It should have been said privately…but when does this blunderbuss ever act quietly or privately?
Wearing your heart on your sleeve and playing the chronic victim isn’t a substitute for having the protections in place for ones island and people. Ms Cruz is just another inept and whining politician….What a surprise.
PINELLI – I am shocked at your comments. Perhaps you should do some homework about the debt of Puerto Rico before you shoot your mouth off again.
This Mayor Cruz is anything but an inept whiner. She is personally working hard and using every possible source for assistance to help the people of San Juan. She is the mayor of one town but she has made her mission to help the entire island. She has nothing to gain personally. And she is nothing like the average politician. She takes her job very seriously. She speaks as an intelligent and informed woman. She is the primary reason people have responded and if not for her, trump and his photographer would not have gone there to take his picture. The prearranged location for trump to visit was the least damaged place on the entire island and most buildings were built from concrete blocks!
There are still locations on that island that have yet to receive one bottle of water or food or even a visit from FEMA, yes, still as of today! At the time trump showed up for less than 4 hours (he even left early!) there were 11 deaths counted so he said that was no big deal. Today they are close to 50 deaths now – drinking water from a pond is killing people – and are you ready for this one…there are 350 bodies sitting in a morgue waiting for autopsies. At least 350 dead AMERICANS.
The USS Comfort hospital ship that was sent there to help after a two week delay…is sitting off shore and has facilities for more than 100 beds — has seen only 7 patients – hundreds waiting! Why? because no one will authorize whateverthehell needs to be authorized. Stupid bureaucracy. And asswipe reinstated the Jones Act already which impedes shipments desperately needed. This Mayor makes trump look like a fool. A moron, no make that a fucking moron.
You want to see and hear for yourself? http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow/watch/maddow-bad-leadership-turned-puerto-rico-crisis-into-catastrophe-1070939715852?cid=eml_mra_20171012
IM WITH PINELLI!!!!
Puerto Rico is not a STATE!!! They are a US Comonwealth. Title 48 of the United States Code. Puerto Rico’s economic woes stem from its inability to become self sufficient and self sustainable throughout history. It’s highly politicized public which tends to change “whenever a political party gains power” as well as its highly inefficient local government has accrued a public debt equal to 68% of its gross domestic product.
Let’s put the blame where it deserves and stop all the POLITICAL CORRECTNESS!!!
I am going to address this to no one in particular. This has nothing to do with political correctness. The citizens of Puerto Rico are Americans. They pay taxes. They serve in U.S. military. America provides emergency services to countries all over this planet. This island is a very popular tourist destination – there are at least 34 golf resorts located there. Clearly tourist trade will suffer immensely which will only add to the lack of business income which will have no paychecks for employees who will not be able to pay their monthly bills nor buy food or gasoline or medications and health treatments. This incredible and horrible situation will only get worse and people will continue to die as a result. 90% of this island has no electricity since this storm hit on Sept 20th, 22 days or 3 weeks ago! Even before this storm, 45% lived in poverty. Unemployment rate about 12%. NOW more jobs will not be available due to so many businesses being closed. Population is about 3.5 million I think. The deliveries of food stuff comes in bundles of a couple hundred thousand, when it gets there. So, do the math, 3.3 million do not get any of that food. Ships must deliver everything and due to the Jones Act that trump waived for about a week and has now reinstated it eliminates all but US Ships. The USS Comfort hospital ship finally was sent 2 weeks late, now sits offshore but has not received authority to do anything and cannot until the order is dispatched — even the service personnel and doctors on that ship are frustrated and want to help, but cannot. The management of this recovery is absolutely lacking from the U.S./FEMA. The few roads that are clear were done by hand by the island residents. Don’t think for a second these people are sitting there waiting to be helped – that is a baldfaced lie! I will add a link you can watch and see for yourself the condition and needs of these people. I will attach another link with easy to understand the debt issue.
THESE ARE AMERICAN CITIZENS. The reason trump does not care is because they cannot vote. Warning: hundreds of thousands of them will be moving onto the mainland, here, where you live and they will be voting. Guess who they will not be voting for. So if any of you want to turn your back and ignore the disaster and let them starve and die and can still look at yourself knowing you let this happen, then you are a disgusting human being. It warms my heart to know that many wealthy people and corporations are responding to the needs and doing more than a share to help while our pathetic inhuman president sits and watches and allows this to happen. It boggles my mind when I read some mean and ignorant comments from Americans. If you won’t help and don’t care, then just shut the hell up. Shame on you.
http://money.cnn.com/2016/05/12/investing/puerto-rico-debt-crisis/index.html
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow/watch/maddow-bad-leadership-turned-puerto-rico-crisis-into-catastrophe-1070939715852?cid=eml_mra_20171012
IF THIS ONE DOES NOT MAKE YOU MAD AS HELL, THEN YOU MUST BE DEAD!
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow/watch/doctor-quits-puerto-rico-medical-relief-team-over-spa-day-1072301123804
To further the TRUTH please read this column from NY Times. The trip to Puerto Rico by trump was 100% staged to make him look like some saint – a complete fabrication. He arrived at a location of homes built only from concrete. He was to stay only 4 hours and even left early. HIS photographer made a video of federal workers clearing a road and one was interviewed; when the tape was edited for public viewing, it was cut to remove his compliment to the residents for all the work they did to clear that road! This is the same visit you saw on TV for days – trump throwing paper towels to the people, like it was all fun and games – how many people are smiling in that crowd? Other than trump.
He is a complete disgrace. The manipulation to show him in a good light for the media to present to all of us as an example of his good work and to discredit the Mayor Cruz and anyone else who had negative comments, also known as THE TRUTH, is absolutely criminal. This was detrimental to the recovery of Puerto Rico – anyone who saw this and took this as fact is being misled and Puerto Rico continues to suffer terribly. That is criminal and he is responsible for it – done at his order to show him as a good guy which of course is a complete lie.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/12/opinion/trump-tweets-puerto-rico.html