On the bright side, we have another reason to be best buddies with Saudi Arabia » « Do we need another reason to mourn Tom Petty?

Pressure rising…rising…rising

Good god, our president is in Puerto Rico and he opened his mouth, and this came out:

The bit at the beginning in which he jokes about having to spend money on their island, You have thrown our budget a little out of whack, because we’ve spent a lot of money on Puerto Rico and that’s fine, is bad enough. But listen to the whole thing, and what came next is even more nauseating.

…if you look at a real catastrophe like Katrina, and you look at the tremendous…hundreds and hundreds of people that died, and if you look at what happened here with a storm that was totally overpowering, nobody has ever seen…what is your death count here? 17, 16, 16 people certified, 16 people versus in the thousands, you can be very proud of all of your people…

He’s comparing it to a real catastrophe like Katrina, and justifying his belittling attitude with a fucking body count. Hey, Puerto Rico, what are you complaining about? We spent money on you, and you’ve only got 16 dead (so far), compared to something really bad.

This president is going to kill me. Only question is whether it’s going to be explosive exanguination when my blood pressure blows the top of my head off, or nuclear apoplexy.

On the bright side, we have another reason to be best buddies with Saudi Arabia » « Do we need another reason to mourn Tom Petty?

Comments

  1. blf says

    That “16 dead” is only the known count. All(?) the morgues are full, but due to lack of power and other issues, the bodies within haven’t been counted, Hurricane Maria’s death toll in Puerto Rico is higher than official count, experts say:

    […]
    The dead are at the hospital morgues, which are at capacity and in remote places where the government has yet to go. In many cases, families are unaware of the deaths. The government’s Demographic Registry is responsible for certifying deaths so bodies can be removed by funeral homes, many of which are not operating because of lack of resources.
    […]

  3. madtom1999 says

    There is a post going round about how a certain golf club developer from the US managed to get a $30 million dollar loan from the Puerto Rican Government to develop his golf course and , after pocketing $600,000 himself declared bankcruptcy. You’ll never guess who that thieving shit is.

  4. chigau (違う) says

    Trump doesn’t know where Puerto Rico is, he just got on the plane.
    They could have flown him to Alaska and he wouldn’t have noticed.

  5. blf says

    There is a post going round about how a certain golf club developer from the US managed to get a $30 million dollar loan from the Puerto Rican Government to develop his golf course and, after pocketing $600,000 himself declared bankcruptcy.

    If that is what the uncited “post” is saying, it’s misleading on several points (Did President Trump add $33 million to Puerto Rico’s debt by bankrupting a golf course there?): The roughly $30m was bonds not a loan; to be used to pay off earlier bonds not associated with hair furor; and the golf course was already developed (and failing) by the time he “invested” in it; his “investment” — which mostly just seems to have been leasing his name — was in an attempt to turn around the failing project.

    Yes, he did pocket $600K from the deal. His son Eric claimed — this seems quite dubious — that they made many millions of dollars on it, and, more plausibly, they “never invested a dime.”

  6. cartomancer says

    Trump’s callousness and insensitivity here are pretty awful. But we knew he was an appalling human being already.

    The truest test of how appalling his regime is going to be towards Puerto Rico is what they’re going to do about the island’s massive debts – the result of years of Wall Street exploitation and cynical capitalistic greed. The place was in no condition to pay them back before the disaster struck – it might never be in such a condition. Were there a shred of human decency in the Trump administration they would make the Wall Street vultures take the hit and write off the debts completely.

  8. What a Maroon, living up to the 'nym says

    Saad @ 2,
    Because the only people who are in a position to do anything legal about him right now are the spineless Republicans in Congress or the chickenshit Cabinet.

  10. blf says

    The Granuiad is reporting Mayor Cruz is, unsurprisingly and very justifiably, annoyed at hair furor and his fantasies (06:53 mark†, Grauniad edits in {curly braces}):

    Cruz described two extremely dissimilar meetings with White House staff. One was for the cameras, she said, in which Trump held court among various officials, praised many of them, and compared the catastrophe favorably to hurricane Katrina in 2005. You can be very proud, only sixteen instead of thousands {killed} in Katrina the president says. Sixteen versus literally thousands.

    This meeting, Cruz said, “was a public relations situation” that did not get to the problems on the island.

    “We tend to judge human crises by the number of people who die instantly,” she said. “So of course when you say Katrina there were thousands, that doesn’t convey the message that people are dying on a continuum because they don’t have dialysis, they don’t have healthcare, they’re drinking out of creeks.”

    […]

    Cruz praised other federal officials in the Trump administration, saying that after the president’s remarks she and four other mayors spoke at length with officials from the budget office, small business administration, and other agencies.

    “There was a disconnect between what they were hearing and what was really happening,” Cruz said, calling this second meeting “productive”.

    She stressed the logistics involved in recovery, especially with communications and roads still in disarray, if not inaccessible, around much of the island.

    “We need robust centers of distribution, a robust supply chain that is not only robust but also consistent,” she said, adding that too often, “you get one pallet of water today you don’t get five for the next week.”

    […]

    The two meetings, she said, were “totally disconnected”. Cruz described one as “Alice in Wonderland” and the other as “back to reality”.

    […]

      † That time, 06:63, is utterly weird. It seems to be a new way for the Grauniad to earn its nickname, not only do they excessively typo, they now also bork time itself. This is not the first time I’ve noticed mis-timed live blog entries.

  11. Larry says

    The Orange Turd sees this as a one-off thing. Send some money, dedicate a golf trophy, fly in, pontificate on how great he is, and fly out. Bada-bing, bada-boom, all done. That tiny mind simply cannot comprehend that repairing this will take years and billions of dollars and that, all the while, people are suffering and people are dying. Meanwhile, he’s off to his next golf game.

  12. logicalcat says

    Calling it now. That the “only 116 dead people” line is being said so that when the real tally shows up being higher than 16 he can dismiss it as fake news.

  13. emergence says

    logicalcat @12

    I really fucking hope you’re wrong about that. Once Trump starts denying people’s deaths, we’ve officially hit the point of no return.

    Also, “only 116 dead people” is a fitting, if unfortunately optimistic typo.

  14. says

    (One completely tangential point about the towel tossing to hurricane survivors: Because he is a TREMENDOUS ASSHOLE, he throws them in the way that makes them most difficult to catch and most likely to hit people trying to catch them in the face.)

  18. blf says

    The official death count in Puerto Rico is now 34, and expected to rise considerably, Hurricane death toll in Puerto Rico more than doubles to 34, governor says. The governor’s current guess at the damage is $90bn.

    The USNS Comfort arrived in San Juan yesterday,

    (The following is from the Political Madness All the Time thread here at poopyhead’s…)

    According to this opinion column, Trump came to Puerto Rico like an emperor: with pomp and little sympathy, the only part of Puerto Rico hair furor visited — which is where he threw stuff at people — is one of the wealthiest communities on the island:

    […]
    During a ‘press conference’ at the Luis Muñiz Air National Guard Base in San Juan — in which he took no questions from the press — Trump praised the director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, military commanders and half-dozen members of his Cabinet, who accompanied him to Puerto Rico.

    He reserved nothing, not one word of encouragement and empathy for the Puerto Rican people, who are the ones that have shouldered the brunt of this tragedy all by themselves.

    […]

    [… A]fter his pompous speech, Trump was taken to see the devastation in one of the wealthiest municipalities of the whole island: Guaynabo. Even in forgotten, neglected Puerto Rico, Trump reminds us that there is a pecking order — and its the rich and powerful living in gated communities who come before all others.

    And what did Trump do in Guaynabo? He threw out rolls of paper towel and bags of rice to the well-heeled Puerto Ricans. It was a pathetic performance, and deeply offensive, especially as people in the interior of the island have next to nothing.

    […]

  19. ck, the Irate Lump says

    One question: Are we sure that “joke” is really a joke and not a threat or promise of retribution for messing up his budget? I could easily see them demanding ever harsher austerity measures on the island, and forcing them to sell off any national parks or public properties as a result of this “relief”. Trump’s earlier remarks on Puerto Rico’s debts would tie into this cleanly.

  20. methuseus says

    Please, PZ, don’t have a heart attack or aneurysm due to Trump. You’re a much more valuable personality. Although I can’t promise I won’t have an aneurysm either.