The Puerto Rico Thread

Ziggurat said:
Race has nothing to do with it. White people are perfectly capable of electing corrupt and incompetent governments as well.
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Your attempt to sidetrack the issue of Trump's racism is duly noted.

Ziggurat said:
And yes, Puerto Rico's government is corrupt and incompetent. You may object to me saying that all you want to, but it will remain true. And despite all the other excuses you make, this will also remain the heart of the problem.
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You present no evidence and decline to reply to the two major issues that contributed to PR's debt, both decisions by a Congress PR has no representation in.

Name the politicians and tell us where is their money stashed?

Ziggurat said:
Tu quoque much?
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No, I'm asking for the evidence you have yet to provide, which politicians, have they gotten rich? Are they getting kickbacks?

Ziggurat said:
That's a good question. But you should be asking that of the people who borrowed it. *I* certainly didn't spend any of it.
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You imagine corruption, it fits your world view. But again, you have no evidence.

Ziggurat said:
Well, yes. Residents of Puerto Rico don't have to pay federal income tax. That's a pretty damned big tax break.
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Relevance?

Ziggurat said:
But that doesn't deprive Puerto Rico's government of any funds.
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Did you not even read my post? This suggests you didn't. Maybe if you are going to discuss the issue of PR's debt, you should.

Ziggurat said:
As for the change in the law, I find it amusing that you're upset that Congress STOPPED giving big pharma a special tax break unavailable elsewhere. It's almost like incentives matter, and lower taxes can stimulate an economy. Who would have thunk?
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Aaaannd, we're back to you trying to change the subject.
 
The Great Zaganza said:
So I had this story about mercenaries showing up in Puerto Rico in my news list.
Is there any supporting evidence of this or is it just clickbait?

https://boingboing.net/2017/10/15/katrina-rerun.html

Note: I have never heard of boingboing. I assume it's one of those things that get bumped up by clueless algorithms.
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Boing Boing has been around for quite a long time. Maybe best described as a sort of group blog it can act as a concentrator of a lot of varied and disparate topics and interests.

The articles generally have attributions and links to sources at their end (as does the one you have linked to). You can judge the probity of those primary sources for yourself.

I tend to use Twitter (not very much, I confess) as a news aggregator of sorts, and follow Boing Boing there for that purpose. It often produces some interesting pieces.

A definitely unabashed liberal lean to it, though, if you are bothered by that sort of thing.
 
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This is unconscionable.

But nobody knows how to get him there. And Sammy is not alone.

Clinics that are overwhelmed with patients and staff say they don't even know how to begin sending cases to the ship. Doctors say there's a rumor that patients have to be admitted to a central hospital before they can be transferred to the Comfort. Only 33 of the 250 beds on the Comfort -- 13% -- are being used, nearly two weeks after the ship arrived.

The hospital ship was deployed as part of the federal response to the storm and its aftermath that has left 3.4 million Americans facing power and communications outages, water and food shortages and at risk for worsening health conditions.
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Stacko said:
This is unconscionable.
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And a very good illustration of what the problem is.

We sent a hospital ship. Very good. Commendable. Costs money. People on it work very hard. Everyone gets good marks for doing a great job because everyone is working hard to do their part.

However, the procedures and policies aren't updated. There's no coordination. It's not getting used effectively.

I read today about efforts to get the grid back on line, and how hard it is because the electrical utility has no money, and the private contractor finally got a contract from the Corps of Engineers, which was tasked by FEMA, but the private contractor doesn't have the transport to move in the equipment, and they won't send their people until they have assurance that their people have housing when they get there.

Meanwhile, military helicopters are delivering bottled water.

These coordination difficulties were quite predictable on the morning after the hurricane passed by. I honestly don't want to just bash one particular politician, but, in all seriousness, there really is only one person who could have made sure to cut through the red tape and actually make this sort of inter-agency cooperation happen. He didn't do it, and he still isn't doing it.
 
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The Great Zaganza said:
So I had this story about mercenaries showing up in Puerto Rico in my news list.
Is there any supporting evidence of this or is it just clickbait?

https://boingboing.net/2017/10/15/katrina-rerun.html

Note: I have never heard of boingboing. I assume it's one of those things that get bumped up by clueless algorithms.
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Boing Boing is a reliable site.

Daily Kos and The NY Post are carrying the story as well. My guess is you'll see it on CNN and MSNBC within a day or so.

These parts from the BoingBoing article are well established:
After Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans, Erik Prince's Blackwater mercenaries flooded the city again, turning it into an "armed camp", after Brigadier Gen. Gary Jones, commander of the Louisiana National Guard’s Joint Task Force announced "This place is going to look like Little Somalia. We’re going to go out and take this city back. This will be a combat operation to get this city under control."...

Security firm Academi —known by its former name, Blackwater, which won $21 million contract with the U.S. government to provide security services during the Iraq war in 2003...

This company, described as an army of mercenaries by investigative journalist Jeremy Scahill, has changed its name three times since its founding in 1997 by a former Navy Seal Officer (United States Marine, Air and Land Teams.
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Blackwater was part of the problem in Iraq when a group of them opened fire on innocent people stuck in traffic after the mercenaries falsely believed they were being fired on. They weren't. They killed 17 civilians, IIRC. Iraq wanted to prosecute them. Low and behold it turned out they didn't fall under US military law, and GW refused to let Iraq prosecute so instead they were evicted from the country. No worries though, buddy Bush sent them to New Orleans where they acted similarly reckless with their automatic weapons.

As for unmarked uniforms, that is common. I saw (and talked to) armed men in army gear with no ID showing at an Iraq war protest rally here in Seattle a few years back. They refused to say who they were but they were clearly operating along with the police. It's very disconcerting.

Worth remembering, Erik Prince was suspiciously in the Seychelles talking to Russians about that back door communication channel with Trump. Prince denied that was the reason he was there.

Prince is Betsy DeVos' brother. They are all Evangelicals and that was part of their connection to GW. They are also backed by the Mercers, another billionaire family paying for government influence. The Mercers are even more as much like John Birchers as the Kochs are.
 
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Meadmaker said:
The Vegas gunman seems to have pushed Puerto Rico out of the headlines. And of course how can the American people be expected to pay attention to a humanitarian situation when there's an ongoing national anthem crisis?
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The fact that it is pushed out of the headlines should have very little to do with the actual relief and restoration efforts going on in Puerto Rico.


The people on the ground are, by all accounts, working very hard, but either there aren't enough of them or they aren't being used effectively. The outcomes just aren't acceptable.
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Or maybe the destruction was so great that these outcomes are good for this stage.
 
Meadmaker said:
Nor is it the fault of the people who currently don't have clean water.


Well, to be fair, it is a democracy, so there is a certain level of blame that belongs to the citizens, but that's kind of a long term issue, as opposed to a rather more short term problem which is that 40% of the people still don't have access to a drinking water supply that we in the 21st century would consider a minimum level for civilization.

I just can't see how anyone can look at the outcome in Puerto Rico and give the US government a passing grade on the response.
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As of now I don't think we really have enough information to pass judgement on the response. Do you know how long it may take to repair the infrastructure for the water supply? I don't.
 
eeyore1954 said:
As of now I don't think we really have enough information to pass judgement on the response. Do you know how long it may take to repair the infrastructure for the water supply? I don't.
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"A hurricane hit 3 million of our citizens almost a month ago and they are still without basic necessities."

What more information do you need exactly?

"Buuut it's hard!"

Bull. This is America. We put a man on the moon. During WWII single factories making planes and boats had the output of medium sized countries. We don't get the play the "Not sure if we can pull this off or not card."

Getting food, water, emergency supplies, medical care, and basic utilities to 3 million of our citizens isn't something we should accept a loss on.
 
eeyore1954 said:
As of now I don't think we really have enough information to pass judgement on the response.
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Unfortunately we do know. I can't blame FEMA. The curent FEMA director, Craig Fugate, has had experience with a number of hurricanes and is supported by both parties. He started as a firefighter and paramedic and has 30 years experience in emergency management. He seems to know what he is doing.

The blame lies squarely with Trump.
 
JoeBentley said:
"A hurricane hit 3 million of our citizens almost a month ago and they are still without basic necessities."

What more information do you need exactly?

"Buuut it's hard!"

Bull. This is America. We put a man on the moon. During WWII single factories making planes and boats had the output of medium sized countries. We don't get the play the "Not sure if we can pull this off or not card."

Getting food, water, emergency supplies, medical care, and basic utilities to 3 million of our citizens isn't something we should accept a loss on.
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This.

I am absolutely confident that the US military has the capability to string a wire 35 miles over a mountain in less than a week. I am absolutely confident that we have the capability to transport 200 utility trucks, and their crews, to an island in less than a week, and have Spartan, but serviceable, accommodations waiting for them when they get there. What do you think? If you pay these guys overtime pay, they won't sleep on cots in a GP large for three weeks?

And it would be totally unreasonable to expect to get to every mountain village in a month, so maybe some people will have to be relocated temporarily, but 40% of the population still doesn't have drinking water. Call it an argument from incredulity if you wish, but I simply don't believe that it was impossible to do better.

Meaning no insult to FEMA, but they aren't equipped to do the job, because that isn't what they do for a living. This situation needed an unconventional response. It got a very large conventional response.
 
Meadmaker said:
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I read today about efforts to get the grid back on line, and how hard it is because the electrical utility has no money, and the private contractor finally got a contract from the Corps of Engineers, which was tasked by FEMA, but the private contractor doesn't have the transport to move in the equipment, and they won't send their people until they have assurance that their people have housing when they get there.

<snip>
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Latest update via Mrs. qg's home healthcare PT with a son in PR.

Still no electricity at their B&B ... three miles north of San Juan.

What makes your post a bit poignant is that they are managing to keep the B&B operating at least a little bit via generator, which her son has to sleep next to so that he can keep it running all night for fans, etc. for the guests they still have.

He'd probably love to house some of those workers. Might even give them a bargain on rates.
 
Things are still bad in Puerto Rico. This from a couple of days ago:

Four weeks after Hurricane Maria, packing winds of up to 155 miles an hour, knocked out power to the entire island, 80 percent of Puerto Rico still does not have electricity. Some residents have not had power for 45 days — since Hurricane Irma brushed by after Labor Day.
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https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/19/us/puerto-rico-electricity-power.html

Why isn't the Trump Administration being criticised continually about this - and why are they allowed to give themselves A+ and 10/10 grades ?
 
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