Puerto Ricans Thank Daddy for Post-Hurricane Help

[waauw]

I guess what ny2, Duk and BS are saying is that Trump was wrong to give aid to Puerto Rico, and that if they had their way the USG would have done nothing?

Sad that you think people's suffering is so amusing. I think what almost all civilized people are saying is that the USG should be sending aid to Puerto Rico with the same level of generosity that has been sent to Texas, and with no ass-kissing required.

Context is a very hard thing for Trump-fans. Meanwhile it took the british, the french and the dutch just one day to arrive to their colonies with help. Apparently they can cross oceans faster than Trump-fans do making the short trip from the USA to Puerto Rico.

Well the British, French, and Dutch colonies are basically just large hotels. Puerto Rico is almost the size of Ireland.

Well that is unfortunate, if only the USA had a proximity advantage.

[tzor]

First ... did you say "Daddy" ... only one person says "daddy" in regards to the President.
I finally found out Saxi's secret identity!
By the way, I love your book.

same thing

Puerto Ricans (AKA Island Mexicans)
Cubans (AKA Communist Mexicans)
Argentinos (AKA Blonde Mexicans)

they're all Mexicans

That's so totally wrong. First of all Cubans are sort of anti-Mexicans. They have the fastest Spanish dialect in the Americas. I think they can whip out an "Ave María" in under 5 seconds but it's been a while since I was doing a Rosary with the descendants of Cubans in Key West. Cuban cooking is nothing like Mexican cooking; give me a good picadillo or a ropa vieja any day.

Puerto Ricans ... don't know much but I don't think they are into the black beans and yellow rice thing.

I can't speak for Argentina. other than I've heard it was the land of cattle ranchers.

[saxitoxin]

Just heard BBC World Service interview a representative from Save the Children on the ground in San Juan and she said the U.S. government's response had been "outstanding and unprecedented." She said there is aid for the entire island available but it's all sitting in ports and hasn't been distributed since the Puerto Rican territorial government didn't put any truck drivers on standby before the hurricane and now they can't get in-touch with any because the cell system is out.

Guess Trump blackmailed Save the Children too!

[Bernie Sanders]

Saxi spreads fake news like Russia. Trump depends on his Russian buddies to continue spreading these absurd news on twitter and Face Book.

[saxitoxin]

Saxi spreads fake news like Russia. Trump depends on his Russian buddies to continue spreading these absurd news on twitter and Face Book.

Russian facebook Propaganda favored Bernie Sanders' narrative that primary was rigged

https://www.datalounge.com/thread/19706 ... was-rigged

[Symmetry]

Saxi spreads fake news like Russia. Trump depends on his Russian buddies to continue spreading these absurd news on twitter and Face Book.

Russian facebook Propaganda favored Bernie Sanders' narrative that primary was rigged

https://www.datalounge.com/thread/19706 ... was-rigged

Yup- Russia feared a Clinton presidency.

[Bernie Sanders]

Clinton said it right during the debate with Trump. Trump is Putin's puppet.

[saxitoxin]

Sometimes, when I see my neighbor, Suleiman, in the morning, I wave to him. Once I helped him move some furniture. I rarely threaten to burn his house down or rape his wife and five children.*

Therefore, I'm Suleiman's puppet!





* rarely, not never

[Dukasaur]

:lol: Damn, dude.....you forget your meds? I saw lots of your friends crying in the streets a while ago...almost picked a few off

I heard someone complaining (surprise) that PRicans dont pay federal taxes so they dont (shouldnt) get equal treatment....it is my understanding, however, that even with the federal personal income tax exclusion (on PRican generated income ONLY), that complaint doesnt fly as there is a boatload of other and US generated income / taxes that means the island contributes more to our bottom line than some states.

Anyway...sad that they got hurt....sad that there's so many haters.....happy in my little bubble ;o)

I don't know how you can say that. Imagine if this was your neighbourhood. Your neighbour's house is burning down. You run over there with your fire extinguisher, and demonstrate that it works with a little one-second squirt. Then, with a satisfied little smirk, you say "I might be persuaded to use the rest of it, but first you have to call up the radio station, and announce to the whole world that I have a HUGE cock and you want to suck it." Desperate, the neighbour calls the radio station and delivers the message, at which point you give the fire a few more token squirts, nowhere near enough to put out the fire, but enough that you can claim you tried.

You don't have to answer that. I'm confident you aren't the kind of person who would do that. But how can you respect a man who does that to someone else?

[saxitoxin]

:lol: Damn, dude.....you forget your meds? I saw lots of your friends crying in the streets a while ago...almost picked a few off

I heard someone complaining (surprise) that PRicans dont pay federal taxes so they dont (shouldnt) get equal treatment....it is my understanding, however, that even with the federal personal income tax exclusion (on PRican generated income ONLY), that complaint doesnt fly as there is a boatload of other and US generated income / taxes that means the island contributes more to our bottom line than some states.

Anyway...sad that they got hurt....sad that there's so many haters.....happy in my little bubble ;o)

I don't know how you can say that. Imagine if this was your neighbourhood. Your neighbour's house is burning down. You run over there with your fire extinguisher, and demonstrate that it works with a little one-second squirt. Then, with a satisfied little smirk, you say "I might be persuaded to use the rest of it, but first you have to call up the radio station, and announce to the whole world that I have a HUGE cock and you want to suck it." Desperate, the neighbour calls the radio station and delivers the message, at which point you give the fire a few more token squirts, nowhere near enough to put out the fire, but enough that you can claim you tried.

You don't have to answer that. I'm confident you aren't the kind of person who would do that. But how can you respect a man who does that to someone else?

Meanwhile, back on Planet Earth ... USNS Comfort, the largest hospital ship in the history of the world, is two days out from San Juan, the U.S. Navy has updated. This is its first civilian relief deployment in seven years. The current Commander-in-Chief and Generalissimo of the United States Navy is Donald J. Trump.

[saxitoxin]

Federal resources deployed to Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands on Daddy's orders in the first five days after landfall:

- Oil - 4.6 million barrels
- Meals - 11 million units
- Drinking Water - 10 million liters
- Roof Sheeting - 15,000 rolls
- Tarps - 70,000
- Money - $1 billion
- High-Capacity Diesel Generators for Hospitals and Critical Facilities - 500
- U.S. Department of Energy - 1 damage assessment team
- FEMA - 556 personnel in 10 Urban Search and Rescue Teams
- U.S. Army - 5,500 personnel
- U.S. Navy - 50% of all hospital ships in the fleet
- Department of Agriculture - 26 chainsaw teams
- U.S. Marshals Service - 180 Federal Marshals
- Public Health Service - 300 medical personnel

This is only slightly less than what Haiti got after 250,000 people were killed in the 2009 earthquake ... 10 people died in Puerto Rico.

THANK YOU, DADDY.

[saxitoxin]

The U.S. Army has taken over control of the island from the Puerto Rican military -

The U.S. Army will take over recovery operations in Puerto Rico, Col. Jorge Santini of Puerto Rico's National Guard state command told The Daily Beast. The announcement is expected Thursday afternoon.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/us-army-ta ... uerto-rico

President Trump was clearly disturbed by the absolute incompetence of the Puerto Rican territorial government to protect its own people and has said "You're Fired!" to the bankrupt and incompetent Puerto Rican regime. President Trump loves his brown children and will not let corrupt, pro-Clinton, colonial officials get in the way of help any more.

[KoolBak]

Yeah, dude....nowhere I've ever lived or visited has people like that...so....any more questions?

:lol: Damn, dude.....you forget your meds? I saw lots of your friends crying in the streets a while ago...almost picked a few off

I heard someone complaining (surprise) that PRicans dont pay federal taxes so they dont (shouldnt) get equal treatment....it is my understanding, however, that even with the federal personal income tax exclusion (on PRican generated income ONLY), that complaint doesnt fly as there is a boatload of other and US generated income / taxes that means the island contributes more to our bottom line than some states.

Anyway...sad that they got hurt....sad that there's so many haters.....happy in my little bubble ;o)

I don't know how you can say that. Imagine if this was your neighbourhood. Your neighbour's house is burning down. You run over there with your fire extinguisher, and demonstrate that it works with a little one-second squirt. Then, with a satisfied little smirk, you say "I might be persuaded to use the rest of it, but first you have to call up the radio station, and announce to the whole world that I have a HUGE cock and you want to suck it." Desperate, the neighbour calls the radio station and delivers the message, at which point you give the fire a few more token squirts, nowhere near enough to put out the fire, but enough that you can claim you tried.

You don't have to answer that. I'm confident you aren't the kind of person who would do that. But how can you respect a man who does that to someone else?

[mrswdk]

KB did not agree with Duk. Trump is blackmailing KB!

[Dukasaur]

Okay, I'll try not to get so wound up about it. Some poor bastard forced to sell his soul and grovel is not exactly unusual in politics, I suppose. It just seemed to me to be a new low for the modern Caligula to make aid to so many suffering people contingent upon his fat ass getting properly kissed. Maybe one twist of the kaleidoscope and it's just business as usual.

[mrswdk]

Okay, I'll try not to get so wound up about it. Some poor bastard forced to sell his soul and grovel is not exactly unusual in politics, I suppose. It just seemed to me to be a new low for the modern Caligula to make aid to so many suffering people contingent upon his fat ass getting properly kissed. Maybe one twist of the kaleidoscope and it's just business as usual.

A few years back China offered to help fund new telecomms infrastructure in Liberia. The Obama administration's response to that offer was to state that if Liberia accepted Chinese funding, the US Navy would stop protecting Liberia's coast from pirates. The US was the only country providing such protection at that time. In the end the Liberian government gave in and turned down China's offer of support.

If these claims about Trump demanding a 'thank you' for his aid are true, I'd say that's actually an improvement. Obama would probably have sailed the aid ships to within 50km of Puerto Rico, parked them, then demanded Puerto Rico severe all business ties with Russia if they wanted any of that aid.

[saxitoxin]

It just seemed to me to be a new low for the modern Caligula to make aid to so many suffering people contingent upon his fat ass getting properly kissed.

Any opinion on the news that the skeleton of a two-headed, fire-breathing dinosaur has been discovered in Zambia that could, in fact, be the origin of the mythology of dragons?

[patches70]

Okay, I'll try not to get so wound up about it. Some poor bastard forced to sell his soul and grovel is not exactly unusual in politics, I suppose. It just seemed to me to be a new low for the modern Caligula to make aid to so many suffering people contingent upon his fat ass getting properly kissed. Maybe one twist of the kaleidoscope and it's just business as usual.

Do you have something like a source, or evidence of said asskissing? Or is this in your imagination?

I have not heard a word about Trump demanding PR governor being required to grovel for aid. It may be true, but until I actually see some proof, not someone's imagination or "interpretation" (which is subjective at best), then I have to chalk this claim up to hallucinations.

On a side note, disaster happens. It can come at any time and it's always bad. It's made even worse when disaster strikes and you are already billions of dollars in debt.

It's like the poor slob who lives paycheck to paycheck and still can't make ends meet and his car breaks down, water heater dies and roof starts leaking on the same day. The poor bastard has no resources what so ever to address any of these problems and it just makes things worse. If he's relying on the government to step in and save his ass all this trouble, the poor slob is in for a rude awakening.
Emergency funds, people, if you don't have one start building one. This applies for individuals and States. Get out of debt, stay out of debt, it's one of the wisest things one can do.
The best time to prepare for disaster is to prepare long before it inevitably arrives.

[Dukasaur]

Apparently, the Biff didn't get his cheeks kissed quite enough, and is holding out for more.

https://www.voanews.com/a/trump-touts-puerto-rico-relief-effort-as-critics-fault-washington-response/4049945.html

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/puerto-rico-trump-slow-response-hurricane-maria-us-never-cared-about-country-a7968656.html

"Trump’s response to Puerto Rico’s Hurricane Maria: slow, unenthusiastic and mean"
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/news-columns-blogs/andres-oppenheimer/article175537031.html

Amidst growing criticism, Trump grudgingly agreed to waive the Jones Act, more than a week after the disaster:
http://abcnews.go.com/US/trump-tweets-fema-amazing-great-job-puerto-rico/story?id=50170044

Trump administration Homeland Security officials also faced a backlash over their response to a request to waive the Jones Act, a near-century-old law that requires all goods shipped to the island travel on vessels owned and operated by Americans.

Officials in Puerto Rico claimed the law was hindering aid and eight members of Congress sent a letter to the Department of Homeland Security asking for the waiver to be granted, as was the case in Texas and Florida following Hurricanes Harvey and Irma.

Following a request from the governor of Puerto Rico, Trump said his administration was "thinking about" waiving the law on Wednesday.

Ret. Lt. Gen. Russel Honore, who was called in to turn around the response to Hurricane Katrina by then-President George W. Bush, said the delay in issuing the waiver for Puerto Rico was "a crying damn shame," in an interview on CNN that same day.

On Thursday, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders announced the waiver was being granted at Gov. Rossello's request.

[saxitoxin]

Officials in Puerto Rico claimed the law was hindering aid and eight members of Congress sent a letter to the Department of Homeland Security asking for the waiver to be granted

Trump was also blackmailing 527 of the 535 members of Congress! The conspiracy grows deeper!

[Dukasaur]

Officials in Puerto Rico claimed the law was hindering aid and eight members of Congress sent a letter to the Department of Homeland Security asking for the waiver to be granted

Trump was also blackmailing 527 of the 535 members of Congress! The conspiracy grows deeper!

You have zero credibility on this or any other issue. Only four leaders for whom you create these smarmy fanboy threads -- Qaddafi, Assad, Putin, and Trump. So you like your dictators, the more cruel and nasty and unscrupulous the better. Some kind of S&M fetish, I guess, but I'm not here to play psychiatrist.

[patches70]

Duke, all your articles are different people's opinions and perceptions. There isn't anything in there where Trump demanded the PR governor grovel before him to receive aid. That is merely your take on it.

In reality it's called Bureaucracy. For instance, the US military anticipated PR's need for help and had a hospital ship standing by but it couldn't be sent until FEMA made an official request. That's bureaucracy. It's not that the US military wanted to make PR grovel first, but the rules say they had to wait, and so they had to wait.

No amount of speed will be good enough when a disaster hits like this. It won't be quick enough for those who died, it won't be quick enough for those who lost their homes, it's just impossible. It's natural for people to feel this way BTW, I'm not criticizing. When you are in desperate situation help never arrives quick enough. That's just how it is. Now add bureaucracy to the mix and it just gets worse. The US loved it's bureaucracy long before Trump ever got elected. So he's a natural target to criticize.

So criticize away, it ain't gonna help anyone any quicker. It sucks to be in a position getting through a natural disaster and it's going to be a long time before things get "back to normal". That's just a consequence of things like hurricanes that destroy your island. Bureaucracy works in counter to common sense. Common sense would have dictated that the hospital ship set sail immediately, but it can't because all the proper "i's" and "t's" have to be dotted and crossed. And that takes time. Something that is always and always will be too precious little of.

But by all means, play the movie in your head that makes the most sense to you. If you see the movie of life as Trump forcing the PR governor to grovel to get help then so be it. Unfortunately life isn't so simple as that.

Just remember, when people say "we need a federal agency to coordinate responses to disasters" all you are doing is creating another layer of bureaucracy to have to slog through. We are very good at making these things to the extent that the Bureaucracy is expanding to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy.

[Dukasaur]

Duke, all your articles are different people's opinions and perceptions. There isn't anything in there where Trump demanded the PR governor grovel before him to receive aid. That is merely your take on it.

In reality it's called Bureaucracy. For instance, the US military anticipated PR's need for help and had a hospital ship standing by but it couldn't be sent until FEMA made an official request. That's bureaucracy. It's not that the US military wanted to make PR grovel first, but the rules say they had to wait, and so they had to wait.

No amount of speed will be good enough when a disaster hits like this. It won't be quick enough for those who died, it won't be quick enough for those who lost their homes, it's just impossible. It's natural for people to feel this way BTW, I'm not criticizing. When you are in desperate situation help never arrives quick enough. That's just how it is. Now add bureaucracy to the mix and it just gets worse. The US loved it's bureaucracy long before Trump ever got elected. So he's a natural target to criticize.

So criticize away, it ain't gonna help anyone any quicker. It sucks to be in a position getting through a natural disaster and it's going to be a long time before things get "back to normal". That's just a consequence of things like hurricanes that destroy your island. Bureaucracy works in counter to common sense. Common sense would have dictated that the hospital ship set sail immediately, but it can't because all the proper "i's" and "t's" have to be dotted and crossed. And that takes time. Something that is always and always will be too precious little of.

But by all means, play the movie in your head that makes the most sense to you. If you see the movie of life as Trump forcing the PR governor to grovel to get help then so be it. Unfortunately life isn't so simple as that.

Just remember, when people say "we need a federal agency to coordinate responses to disasters" all you are doing is creating another layer of bureaucracy to have to slog through. We are very good at making these things to the extent that the Bureaucracy is expanding to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy.

Posting links does not necessarily imply agreement with 100% of their content. I was only presenting a variety of viewpoints that all lead to the same conclusion -- Biff's half-hearted response to giving aid to America's largest non-state possession was slow, miserly, and cynical.

Quite frankly, I don't think you need FEMA at all. For smaller emergencies, local agencies are best placed to decide what needs to be done; all they really need is cash. For really severe emergencies, the military should be able to deploy military transports to help move in supplies, military medics and field hospitals, etc. You could also do well with more privatization. The Canadian government quite often just throws a huge pile of cash at the Red Cross and says, "here, you worry about what to do next." It's not perfect, but it works.

As for the forced ass-kissing, you're right: I don't have a shred of proof. But a lifetime of observing Realpolitik in action has made me a pretty good judge of these things. And honestly, can you suggest another reason why someone would suddenly jump up and lavish hyperbolic praise on someone else who hadn't anything to deserve it?

[saxitoxin]

You have zero credibility on this or any other issue.

Despite being asked four times, you still haven't provided one iota of proof that anyone is being blackmailed. As far as we know, this is an acid flashback you had.

You sound like someone convinced there's a UFO coverup that's so obvious no evidence is required.

Only four leaders for whom you create these smarmy fanboy threads -- Qaddafi, Assad, Putin, and Trump. So you like your dictators, the more cruel and nasty and unscrupulous the better. Some kind of S&M fetish, I guess, but I'm not here to play psychiatrist.

While you continue to rant and howl about Puerto Ricans having to spend a week without electricity and eating pre-packaged foods - like thousands of people do every weekend when they go camping - Libyans are entering their sixth year of enduring mass rapes, murder, and abject poverty; things unknown in that country during 42 years of the Green Movement until the woman President Donald J. Trump defeated in a lawful and orderly process unleashed herself on them like a Menopausal Tornado.

If you're against Trump, you support Clinton. If you support Clinton, you support the Libyan militias, rape squads, Israel, and ISIS.

[saxitoxin]

Gaza has spent more than a year getting exactly four hours of electricity every day. Palestinians in Gaza wished they lived somewhere that had 50% full electricity with the remaining 50% estimated to have full power within a week. Indeed, a place where - after a few more days of repairs - they could legally get on an airplane or boat and leave if they wanted; that wasn't surrounded by an Army preventing them from leaving at gunpoint.

When is the last time Dukasaur spent even one post in concern for Gaza? The crocodile tears he's crying, as he brays in support of his favorite white sociopaths, are enormous.