Posts
This
sort of distribution clusterfuck is usually ascribed to socialism but
this is the epitome of "free market" capitalism- the United
States.
Meanwhile
communist Cuba has its shit together and can look after its citizens.
I
shall add more to this as it comes to hand.
3,000 shipping containers packed with food water & medicine waiting on wharf waiting for truck drivers
DavidBegnaud was live at the Port in San Juan Puerto Rico reporting that
there is 3,000 shipping containers packed with food,water, &
medicine that have been sitting at the port in Puerto Rico since
Saturday!
https://twitter.com/W7VOA/status/913149751918518273
FCC Status Report > https://www.fcc.gov/document/hurricane-maria-communications-status-report-sept-27
Democracy Now!
One week after Hurricane Maria devastated Puerto Rico, President Donald Trump says he will visit the island next Tuesday, even as most of the 3.5 million U.S. citizens who live there remain in the dark, without access to power, clean water, food and fuel. Facing withering criticism, Trump held a press conference Tuesday and denied he has neglected the disaster. His administration also denied a request from several members of Congress to waive shipping restrictions to help get gasoline and other supplies to Puerto Rico as it recovers, even though the Department of Homeland Security waived the Jones Act twice in the last month following hurricanes Harvey and Irma, which hit the mainland United States. We speak with Democracy Now! co-host Juan González and with former New York State Assemblyman Nelson Denis, who wrote about the Jones Act in The New York Times this week in a piece headlined "The Law Strangling Puerto Rico." His book is called "War Against All Puerto Ricans: Revolution and Terror in America’s Colony."
It was suggested to me yesterday on Facebook that,because it came from Killary Clinton,it is a bad idea.
FCC Status Report > https://www.fcc.gov/document/hurricane-maria-communications-status-report-sept-27
San Juan hospital generator ran out of diesel fuel
Trump refuses to save hurricane victims in Puerto Rico because shipping tycoons don’t want it
Trump
refuses to waive an obscure, century-old maritime law in order to
help hurricane victims because, in his words, the "shipping
industry" would not be happy.
Share blue Media,
27
September,2017
The
devastation in Puerto Rico in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria is one
of the worst natural disasters this year. The storm flooded
and completely
destroyed towns,
leaving 3 million Americans without power or cell service for days,
and over
1 million without water.
Even the hospitals are
struggling to keep their lights on.
But
Donald Trump has offered them very little in the way of help or even
sympathy.
In
fact, he is refusing to do everything in his power to help out of
concern for “the shipping industry.”
When
pressed by reporters for an explanation of why he has refused to
waive the Merchant Marine Act of 1920, popularly known as the Jones
Act, which is making it impossible for several ships to deliver
supplies to the island, Trump gave the most stunningly
insensitive answer imaginable.
“Well,
we’re thinking about that,” Trump said, “but we have a lot of
shippers and a lot of people that work in the shipping industry that
don’t want the Jones Act lifted.”
The
Jones Act severely restricts the movement of foreign vessels between
the mainland and U.S. territories. Since Saturday, 3,000 shipping
containers of food, water, and medical supplies have been sitting
unused at port in Puerto Rico, brought by foreign ships, and the
Jones Act prohibits them from being unloaded.
But
Trump’s Department of Homeland Security refused to grant a shipping
waiver for these vessels — even though it did issue a waiver after
hurricanes Harvey and Irma, to help devastated Americans on the
mainland — a situation Sen. John McCain has blasted as
“unacceptable.”
Trump’s
entire response to Hurricane Maria has been unacceptable. One of his
first public statements on Puerto Rico was to criticize them for
their debt crisis, which is largely the fault of federal tax law and
corporate exploitation and has nothing to do with their need for
disaster relief. Distracted by his feud with the NFL, he only sent a
naval vessel to the island after being guilted into it by Hillary
Clinton, and defended himself by saying that the Atlantic is a “very
big ocean.”
Quite
aside from the insanity of Trump literally saying that shipping
industry executives’ profits matter more than the lives of American
citizens in a disaster area, his explanation does not even make
sense. Even if Trump did not want to repeal the Jones Act, he could
still issue a waiver for this specific situation.
For
good measure, Trump is also restricting a bipartisan group of
lawmakers from traveling to Puerto Rico, all but cutting off the
island from anything that that would bring outside help or attention.
Not
since Hurricane Katrina has an American natural disaster been handled
with less competence or less regard for the lives of fellow citizens.
Trump’s comment about “the shipping industry” was shocking only
in its brazenness — the fact that he has this little empathy for
Americans in Puerto Rico tallies with every known Trumpian instinct.
But it is still a stain on our leadership at a time when we need it
most.
Profits vs. Puerto Rican Lives: Trump Admin Blocks Aid from Reaching Devastated Island
Democracy Now!
One week after Hurricane Maria devastated Puerto Rico, President Donald Trump says he will visit the island next Tuesday, even as most of the 3.5 million U.S. citizens who live there remain in the dark, without access to power, clean water, food and fuel. Facing withering criticism, Trump held a press conference Tuesday and denied he has neglected the disaster. His administration also denied a request from several members of Congress to waive shipping restrictions to help get gasoline and other supplies to Puerto Rico as it recovers, even though the Department of Homeland Security waived the Jones Act twice in the last month following hurricanes Harvey and Irma, which hit the mainland United States. We speak with Democracy Now! co-host Juan González and with former New York State Assemblyman Nelson Denis, who wrote about the Jones Act in The New York Times this week in a piece headlined "The Law Strangling Puerto Rico." His book is called "War Against All Puerto Ricans: Revolution and Terror in America’s Colony."
It was suggested to me yesterday on Facebook that,because it came from Killary Clinton,it is a bad idea.
USNS Comfort hospital ship, supposedly 'on the way,' is set to deploy Friday
When
it finally dawned on Donald Trump Tuesday that his "tremendous"
leadership on the Puerto Rico response was turning into a crisis, the
White House quickly deployed the Department of Homeland Security
chief and FEMA director Tuesday afternoon to assure Americans
everything was under control.
That's
when FEMA head Brock Long explained how difficult getting relief to
the island was but promised that the federal government was on it.
The unique circumstances, he said, are "requiring us to push
forward a lot of resources, including the USS Comfort which is on the
way."
Or
not, writes Steve Sternberg of US News & World Report of the
Comfort hospital ship:
The
mammoth ship was docked Tuesday in its home port of Norfolk,
Virginia, with a minimal crew, requiring up to five days to stock up
and get underway. When reached by phone Tuesday afternoon, the
commanding officer of the ship's hospital, Capt. Kevin D. Buckley,
said, "The Comfort is ready to go, if the call comes."
Now
that the orders have arrived, the goal is to stock the ship with
personnel, food, water and medical supplies within 96 hours and get
underway Friday. "There's a whole slew of equipment that has to
be brought on board to accommodate the mission, primarily medical
supplies," says the ship's spokesman, Bill Mesta, of the
Military Sealift Command, the civilian maritime agency that runs the
ship, while the Navy commands its hospital facility.
If
you're wondering how this compares to other disaster response
mobilizations—not well. Here's a comparison to the urgency with
which the ship was dispatched following Haiti's earthquake in 2010.
Haiti's
earthquake occurred on January 12, 2010. The next day, the ship was
ordered to prepare to depart. Four days later, the Comfort — which
had been on shore power for painting and repairs — was fully
stocked with food, linens and enough medical gear to supply the
ship's 10 operating rooms and set off from Baltimore and passed under
the Chesapeake Bay Bridge en route to Haiti.
This
isn't simply an exercise in harping on the semantics of Brock Long.
Donald Trump devoted the entirety of his limited intellectual
capacity this weekend to pouring salt on the festering wounds of
America's culture wars when he should have been thinking about saving
American lives in Puerto Rico.
That’s
what the popular vote loser was doing while the woman who won the
popular vote was already anticipating a crisis in the making Sunday
morning and urging Trump and other administration officials to deploy
the hospital ship.
There is video footage for which it is best to go to the original
There is video footage for which it is best to go to the original
Tearful Mayor in Puerto Rico Warns People Are Dying Because FEMA 'Chain of Command' Isn't Giving 'Marching Orders'
President
Donald Trump may have thanked her for her kind words about FEMA, but
he didn't hear all of them. San Juan, Puerto Rico mayor Carmen Yulín
Cruz says FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) employees are
good people who really want to help but they are waiting for their
"marching orders," and assessing the life-or-death
situation in the capital city of 400,000 devastated by Hurricane
Maria.
Mayor
Yulín Cruz is blasting the Trump administration's red tape, telling
CBS News they want her to write memos. The San Juan mayor has
literally been knocking on doors herself and saving lives.
"We
are having a humanitarian crisis here, and we're doing all we can.
The worse fear is that we cannot get to people in time," she
says. "Two people died yesterday, because there was no diesel"
at the local hospital. "There's no diesel, there's no life
support system."
"Help
needs to get into people's hands. Now."
"The
FEMA employees want to do it. They do," she says. "But the
chain of command is just sucking everything up."
She
warns that FEMA is spending time assessing and not doing anything.
"If
you don't 'do,' hundreds of lives will be lost."
The
mayor also took a swing at President Trump for his tweets Monday
night about Puerto Rico's debt crisis.
"This
is a time for action. Let's not talk about the debt. The fricking
debt."
"We
need to get our shit together because people are dying," she
told CBS News. "It's life or death."
"Every
moment we spend just not getting the help we're supposed to get,
people are starting to die," Yulín Cruz said.
She
notes that Health and Human Services employees are on the ground and
"ready to help but they didn't get any marching orders."
She's asking for someone to "structure the logistics."
"There
are people who have had no food and no water for 14 days."
CBS'
David Begnaud posted a longer clip, in which Mayor Yulín Cruz
says, "I don't give a crap about who is running the show. Who
ever is running the show needs to get the help out of the logistics
meeting, and into people's hands."
And
she says FEMA is still assessing, six days after the hurricane.
"The
other day I was told, 'You need to write a memo.'"
Begnaud
on camera referred to this tweet from FEMA Administrator Brock Long:
While media hasn't focused on #Maria, Fema and its partners have. 10,000 federal staff working to meet @ricardorosselloresponse goals. twitter.com/ricardorossell…
Amnd
Begnaud's response:
While media hasn't focused on #Maria, Fema and its partners have. 10,000 federal staff working to meet @ricardorosselloresponse goals. twitter.com/ricardorossell…
CNN's
David Wright posted some of her remarks from a different inrterview:
President
Trump has announced he is visiting Puerto Rico on Tuesday
Mayor of San Juan, Puerto Rico shares harrowing details of rescue missions: "Our bodies are so tired, but our souls are so full of strength"
WATCH:
TRUMP JUST ADMITTED THE REAL REASON HE’S NOT TAKING ACTION TO HELP
PUERTO RICO
27
September,2017
The
consequences of President Trump’s unforgivable bungling of the
Puerto Rico’s hurricane recovery efforts worsen by the day – and
he still appears to be purposefully allowing the situation to
deteriorate.
The
White House still hasn’t waived the Jones Act for the island of
Puerto Rico, trade restrictions that are keeping foreign ships from
depositing desperately needed aid supplies to the island, where 1.5
million Americans are without clean drinking water.
Maddening.
3,000 shipping containers packed with food water & medicene have been sitting at the port in Puerto Rico since Saturday
smh, this is one of the reasons why aid is piling up the the ports instead of being distributed in Puerto Rico
While Trump is already congratulating himself for his response to the Puerto Rican crisis, thousands of shipments of relief supplies are stuck on the docks, thanks to the Jones Act.
But when pressed on the issue, Trump made his real priorities clear: “We’re thinking about that, but we have a lot of shippers and a lot of people that work in the shipping industry that don’t want the Jones Act lifted.”
Trump just admitted he’s putting the needs of the wealthy owners of shipping companies ahead of millions of American citizens – even though he already issued a waiver for Hurricanes Harvey and Irma.
While he said he’s “considering” a waiver for the island, his decision to not send a request for more FEMA resources until the second week of October speaks volumes.
The needless suffering of the Puerto Rican people is a terrifying glimpse into what’s in store for the American people under Donald Trump.
The President of the United States is fiddling on Twitter while millions of American Latino citizens struggle to find food, water, and shelter – and his tweets, referencing the “power grid” and Wall Street, are obvious indicators of where his real priorities lie – in forcing Puerto Rico to privatize their power grid and to let his buddies on Wall Street loot the island.
This is without a doubt his Hurricane Katrina, and it sets a disturbing precedent for what we can expect from our ignorant, selfish, do-nothing president in the future.
Source: verifiedpolitics.com
The reporter who brought us the news of the 30,000 shipping containers reports from Puerto Rico
The reporter who brought us the news of the 30,000 shipping containers reports from Puerto Rico
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