At long last, Puerto Rico will get its hurricane aid

The Biden administration plans to release $1.3 billion in delayed aid for Puerto Rico’s recovery efforts after 2017’s Hurricane Maria. The aid is also meant to help protect the island against future climate disasters. The federal government will also remove Trump-era restrictions on an additional $4.9 billion in aid to Puerto Rico. The funds are part of a $20 billion package that Congress gave to the Department of Housing and Urban Development to help Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria. The New York Times reports less than 1% of the money has been disbursed.

  Democracy Now

He wanted to buy Greenland and sell Puerto Rico

More tattling too late to matter.

A lifelong Republican who describes herself as “a kid from the Cleveland, Ohio, area,” [Elaine C. Duke, then President Trump’s acting secretary of homeland security in 2017] said she supported tougher enforcement of immigration laws, as long as it was tempered by a sense of humanity that she tried to exhibit when she volunteered to teach naturalization classes. But she described an administration that is often driven by ideology instead of deliberation, values politics over policy and is dominated by a president who embraces “hate-filled, angry and divisive” language.

“We get distracted by slogans, by maybe words we heard like the president allegedly saying ‘Haiti is a shithole,’” Ms. Duke said from her home overlooking the Occoquan River about 25 minutes south of Washington. “So we get only spun up in that, and then we never get to the issue.”

[...]

She said she was especially taken aback, during the response to Hurricane Maria’s devastation of Puerto Rico, when she heard Mr. Trump raise the possibility of “divesting” or “selling” the island as it struggled to recover.

[...]

“Can we outsource the electricity? Can we can we sell the island? You know, or divest of that asset?” (She said the idea of selling Puerto Rico was never seriously considered or discussed after Mr. Trump raised it.)

[...]

Ms. Duke says she is not ready to commit to voting for Mr. Trump again.

  NYT

Which leaves open the possibility that despite her experiences, she may be ready by November 3.

“That’s a really hard question,” she said. “But given the choices, I don’t know yet.”

[...]

She said she supported the president’s efforts to tighten immigration security. But the president’s “America First” philosophy has veered toward “America Only,” she said.

She said the president and Mr. Miller were right about lax immigration laws that needed to be fixed, but she said the policy of separating families along the border — which her successor approved months after she left — was discussed, and rejected, while she was acting secretary.

[...]

Asked about Ms. Duke’s comments, Judd Deere, a White House spokesman, said that Mr. Trump “has kept his promise to the American people to reduce illegal immigration, secure the border, lower the crime rate and maintain law and order.”

“He has never wavered in his highest obligation to the American people: their safety and security,” Mr. Deere added.

Is that a response?

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

The wheels of justice

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Wow

I shouldn't be surprised, should I?

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE:



Is it any wonder she can't get a job outside the White House?

He's mad about everything so people must be punished

Go for the most vulnerable. They can't fight back.

President Trump doesn't want to give Puerto Rico any more federal money for its recovery from Hurricane Maria, White House officials have told congressional appropriators and leadership. This is because he claims, without evidence, that the island’s government is using federal disaster relief money to pay off debt.

Trump also told senior officials last month that he would like to claw back some of the federal money Congress has already set aside for Puerto Rico's disaster recovery, claiming mismanagement.

Trump won't be able to take away disaster funds that have already been set aside by Congress, and sources close to the situation tell me the White House hasn't asked Republican lawmakers to do so. But Trump could refuse to sign a future spending bill that would make more money available for Puerto Rico's recovery.

In late October, Trump grew furious after reading a Wall Street Journal article by Matt Wirz, according to five sources familiar with the president's reaction. The article said that "Puerto Rico bond prices soared ... after the federal oversight board that runs the U.S. territory’s finances released a revised fiscal plan that raises expectations for disaster funding and economic growth."

[...]

On Oct. 23, Trump falsely claimed in a tweet that Puerto Rico's "inept politicians are trying to use the massive and ridiculously high amounts of hurricane/disaster funding to pay off other obligations."

[...]

Trump's wariness about sending federal money to Puerto Rico dates back to the beginning of his administration. In early 2017, when negotiating the omnibus spending bill, Democratic congressional leaders were pushing Trump to bail out Puerto Rico's underfunded health care system that serves the island's poorest citizens.

[...]

Congress took steps to keep disaster relief funds from being used to pay down the island's debt, and as Bloomberg reported at the time, "neither the island's leaders — nor the board installed by the U.S. to oversee its budget — are proposing using disaster recovery aid to directly pay off bondholders or other lenders."

[...]

Trump has told aides he believes too much federal money has already gone to Puerto Rico — more than $6 billion for Hurricane Maria so far, according to FEMA.

[...]

In comparison, per the NYT, "when Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast in 2005, Congress approved $10 billion for the Federal Emergency Management Agency four days later, and another $50 billion six days later. The federal government is still spending money on Katrina assistance, more than 12 years after the storm’s landfall."

  Axios

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Un...be...lievable

He's doubling down on this.  What a horrible idiot.  And so is Geraldo.







Does he think there was a cut off date beyond which any deaths could no longer be called a result of the hurricane, no matter whether conditions brought about by the hurricane contributed to them?  Does he think if you're in a horrible automobile crash and spend several months hospitalized before you actually die that your death was not due to an automobile accident?  A stabbing or shooting victim who lives for a while before dying?  How quickly do you have to die to attribute a first cause to cancer?  AIDS?

Is he really that stupid?  Or does he just know his base is?



UPDATE:



UPDATE:







Even I remember that.

FEMA actually decided this was their best answer

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

He probably believes his own bullshit

He's not even a good autocrat.  He spends way too much time whining.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE:



And they were brown people, so perhaps that's really why he grades himself A+.

Incredible success

UPDATE 9/13:  FEMA responds.

One of the best jobs ever done

In response to an earlier letter from [Sen. Elizabeth] Warren, Brock Long, director of FEMA, wrote on Aug. 14 that as of July 30, his agency had received 2,431 requests for funeral assistance from Puerto Ricans related to the hurricane — they approved just 75 of them, meaning 97% have either been rejected or have not received a decision almost a year after Maria hit the island.

  Buzzfeed

From the man who brought paper toweling to Puerto Rico

Yes, we remember from Hurricane Maria, the ocean is big water.










...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE:

FEMA's Puerto Rico response: it gets worse

Remember the Zinke compatriot who got (and later lost) a contract for the electrical rebuilding in Puerto Rico, even though it was a 2-man company? Well, you ain't heard nothin' yet.

In November, the Associated Press revealed that the agency paid a single firm $30 million for emergency tarps and plastic sheeting — none of which was ever delivered.

And on Tuesday, the New York Times reported that FEMA handed off responsibility for providing Puerto Rico with much of its emergency food aid to “Tiffany Brown, an Atlanta entrepreneur with no experience in large-scale disaster relief and at least five canceled government contracts in her past.” The agency struck a $156 million contract with Brown, which required her to deliver 30 million meals to hungry Puerto Ricans.

  NY Magazine

And Tiffany did Zinke's buddy one better: she only has one employee. Herself.

By the time 18.5 million meals were due, Tribute had delivered only 50,000. And FEMA inspectors discovered a problem: The food had been packaged separately from the pouches used to heat them. FEMA’s solicitation required “self-heating meals.”

…FEMA insists no Puerto Ricans missed a meal as a result of the failed agreement with Tribute. FEMA relied on other suppliers that provided “ample” food and water for distribution, said William Booher, an agency spokesman.

Like maybe chef José Andrés who provided more than three million meals through his own largesse and personally went to the island to cook?

Days before Hurricane Maria made landfall, the White House learned that a Category 4 storm was likely to hit the island, and that the territory’s electrical grid was unlikely to survive such an onslaught.

The federal government had time to deploy satellite phones to the island, to avoid the communications blackout that isolated remote areas from the territory’s government. It could have delivered reserves of food, fuel, and water in advance of the storm, allowing local officials to spread those vital resources throughout the territory before Maria lay waste to much of its trucking infrastructure. Instead, the president did almost nothing in the lead-up to the storm — and went on a four-day golf vacation in its immediate aftermath.

[...]

When the president visited Puerto Rico, he told the island’s residents that they should be very proud of the government’s response — because it had spared them from suffering a “real catastrophe like Katrina.” He (and Congress) proceeded to provide the catastrophically indebted island with $4.9 billion in loans — instead of no-strings-attached aid — and then pushed through a $1.5 trillion tax-cut package, which includes provisions that directly undermine Puerto Rico’s manufacturing sector.

And was anybody surprised?

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Deconstructing Puerto Rico

NPR reported on Monday that FEMA will “officially shut off” emergency food and water aid to Puerto Rico on January 31, more than four months after Hurricane Maria devastated the island. According to Puerto Rico’s official status site, 97% of the island has water and 92% has access to a supermarket. “The reality is that we just need to look around,” FEMA Caribbean Area Division director Alejandro De La Campa told NPR. “Supermarkets are open, and things are going back to normal.”

  Splinter News

Really? This is not normal:

Over 450,000 Puerto Ricans still lack power, which the Washington Post called the “longest power outage in modern U.S. history” in a recent report on how the outage is affecting hundreds of schools. Officials have said that they don’t expect power to be fully restored across the island until May.

3,000 Puerto Ricans are still living in hotels across the mainland United States. The island’s housing market, already in rough shape, is on the edge of a meltdown, with up to a third of all homeowners facing foreclosures.

[...]

Last month, National Resources Defense Council attorney Mekela Panditharatne wrote an op-ed in the Washington Post that took on FEMA’s estimate that 95 percent of the island had access to potable water. “That just isn’t possible,” she wrote. “We put out a report in May showing that in 2015, 99.5 percent of Puerto Ricans — virtually all residents — were served by water sources that violated the Safe Drinking Water Act.”

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Now you have another reason to stay healthy

If it's not enough for you that Puerto Ricans (who are still not able to recover on their own from Hurricane Maria) are our American brothers and sisters, I hope you don't have to have an operation.

Dr. Gottlieb says the F.D.A. is watching the supply of about 30 drugs that are made on the island, in addition to medical devices. Most companies are still running on diesel generators, and manufacturers that have been able to connect to the power grid are still encountering an unpredictable supply of electricity, he said.

[...]

Dr. Gottlieb said some companies had gotten down to a 24-hour supply of diesel fuel, and representatives for the medical-device industry had said some generators were beginning to break down, requiring emergency repair.

[...]

Now, hospital pharmacists across the country are racing to find alternatives (to saline drip bags) — which themselves are becoming scarce — after Hurricane Maria halted production at the factory in Puerto Rico where Baxter, the manufacturer, makes the product.

[...]

The impact has rippled throughout the clinic’s normal operations. Alternatives, such as injecting some drugs into an IV — known as an “IV push” — take more time for nurses, which divert them from attending to other needs. And the method is not appropriate for some drugs. “This has repercussions,” Mr. Knoer said.

[...]

Some device and supply companies have already begun limiting shipments of certain items from the island, ranging from mesh for repairing hernias to surgical scalpels and tools used in orthopedic surgery.

[...]

The bag shortage is the most significant to be directly linked to the effects of the hurricane but others are likely to follow. In addition to creating a humanitarian crisis on the island, the storm knocked out production at the Puerto Rican factories that make vital drugs, medical devices and medical supplies that are used around the world.

[...]

In a recent interview, Dr. Gottlieb said he was worried that if conditions don’t improve, more shortages — of both drugs and medical devices — might follow by early next year.

  NYT

Meanwhile in Puerto Rico

FEMA "meals" in Puerto Rico

Answering that question about Puerto Rico's deaths

The pace of deaths quickened on Puerto Rico immediately after Hurricane Maria — well beyond the number of deaths officially attributed to the Category 4 storm.

Officials in the U.S. territory on Wednesday reported the island had an average of 82 deaths a day in the two weeks before Maria hit Sept. 20. The average increased to 117 deaths a day through the rest of the month, but the rate then fell below usual in October.

[...]

Wanda Llovet, director of the Demographic Register, said a total of 2,838 deaths were reported for September, a 20 percent increase from the 2,366 deaths reported for the same month in 2016 and up from 2,242 in September 2015.

But, she said, the number of deaths last month totaled 2,119, which was down about 10 percent from 2,353 in October 2016 and 2,379 in October 2015.

  TPM

??  The hurricane hit Puerto Rico on September 20. 

Whitefish contract cancelled

Whitefish Energy Holdings says it is “very disappointed” that authorities in Puerto Rico have canceled its $300 million contract to help rebuild the U.S. island’s electricity system.

  TPM

How did PR authorities cancel a contract unless they were a party to it? And if they were a party to it, why didn't they realize how bad a contract it was? And, do they have a replacement?

While government officials in Washington and San Juan have argued over how a company from Whitefish, Mont., with connections to the secretary of the interior but only two full-time employees secured an emergency contract that requires the work of thousands of people, the majority of Puerto Rico is still without electricity, nearly six weeks after Hurricane Maria knocked down thousands of poles and lines.

[...]

Gov. Ricardo A. Rosselló announced on Sunday that he had asked the power authority’s board — which he appoints — to cancel the contract with Whitefish Energy Holdings, two days after FEMA issued a strongly worded statement criticizing the deal. FEMA said it had “significant concerns” and warned that it might refuse to cover the costs of the contract if it was found to be improper.

  NYT

Sounds to me like the governor might have been "colluding" with Secretary Zinke and his friends at Whitefish ... kickbacks, anyone?

Mr. Rosselló said he had asked for a federal investigation of the contract award process, and for the power authority to appoint a trustee to review contract bidding. He stressed that no wrongdoing had been discovered, but he said that the contract had become a “distraction” and that attention had to be refocused on restoring service.

Yeah, right.

“I am making this determination because it is in the best interest of the people of Puerto Rico,” Mr. Rosselló said at a news conference.

He misspelled "got caught". And it doesn't look like it was Rosselló alone.

The chief executive of the power authority, Ricardo Ramos, defended the contract, which he awarded.

Appears the people of Puerto Rico have some governmental house-cleaning to take care of when elections roll around.

Mr. Ramos said Whitefish had recently requested security protection because people had started throwing rocks and bottles at the company’s crews on the island, in the belief that the contract had been awarded corruptly.

[...]

He said the power authority had already paid Whitefish or been billed about $20.8 million for work done so far, and would have to reimburse the company for the cost of returning helicopters, trucks and other equipment from Puerto Rico to the United States. He said that work that was already in progress would be completed by Whitefish.

So, not a total loss to the crooks.

Mr. Ramos said he would send a letter to the electric company board asking for a resolution formally ending the contract, and that the board would meet Monday or Tuesday to address the matter. The cancellation would take effect 30 days after a resolution is adopted.

Meanwhile, the people are left without electricity. Mr. Ramos and Governor Rosselló will, of course, have generators if needed, but I'm sure theirs were among the very first homes to get electricity restored.

Of course the US Army Corps of Engineers is on the island, apparently not in great enough numbers. Aren't there any out-of-work electricians in the US to bring on board? Oh, wait. The US government would have to pay them.

Death in Puerto Rico

The Puerto Rican government told BuzzFeed News Friday that it allowed 911 bodies to be cremated since Hurricane Maria made landfall, and that not one of them were physically examined by a government medical examiner to determine if it should be included in the official death toll.

Every one of the 911 died of "natural causes" not related to the devastating storm, said Karixia Ortiz Serrano, a spokesperson for the Department of Public Safety who is also speaking for the Institute of Forensic Sciences — which is in charge of confirming hurricane deaths. The "natural causes" designations were made by reviewing records, not actually examining the bodies, she said.

  Buzzfeed

I guess the question would then be: how many people normally die of "natural causes" in a month in Puerto Rico?  Alas, this article doesn't address that.

“These reports are extremely troubling — they provide even more reason to be concerned about the accuracy of the information we’re receiving," Sen. Elizabeth Warren, a Democrat from Massachusetts, told BuzzFeed News. "The Trump Administration needs to cooperate with Puerto Rican authorities and provide all the necessary resources to ensure the death toll is accurately counted.”

Like that's gonna happen.

Without guidance, different funeral home and crematorium directors told BuzzFeed News they had vastly different ideas of what they considered hurricane-related deaths. Some said they counted heart attacks and people who died for lack of oxygen because there was no power, while others said they counted those as "natural deaths."

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE 11/9:

Answering the question about how many people die per month...I'm still not sure if this helps.

But wait! There's more!

Gee, I wonder why Mayor Cruz objected to this company?

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.