Trump implied that the mayor, who just one day ago was on television literally pleading for aid for her stricken island, warning that without help, the story of Puerto Rico could be one of genocide, only stopped praising him because the Democratic Party told her to.
He implied that Puerto Ricans – American citizens all – are too lazy and dependent to help themselves, and “want everything to be done for them” by the federal government.
Fresh off his war with black professional athletes, in which he tried to impugn their patriotism and wrapped his repugnant self in the flag (five Vietnam deferments not withstanding) he tried to twist the San Juan mayor’s urgent pleas into an attack on the military and first responders.
Main problem with electrical power on the island is not the power plants themselves. Those are largely intact. The real problem is that electricity was carried on above-ground lines and pretty much all of those were wiped out by Hurricane Maria. The airport in San Juan is having a hard time accommodating all of the airplanes that want to land and unload supplies, so loading up a plane and flying it to the island is not the bottleneck that's preventing supplies from getting in. Perhaps the most serious problem is that
Aid is flowing into the U.S. territory, but many of the supplies are hung up in distribution centers, such as San Juan, due to difficulties in transportation. So while life is, albeit slowly, getting back to normal in places, more remote regions of the island have seen little in the way of relief, or even contact.Fresh water is hard to get to. Cellphones are useless because most of the towers that carry cell signals are knocked out. Farms are a mess.
Without a working electrical grid, Puerto Ricans have had to turn to gas-powered electric generators for energy. But it’s very, very difficult to get fuel on the island. NPR reports on people waiting for six-plus hours in lines for gas. Other stations are completely out of fuel and have been for days.
Speaking of the President's reading matter, his son, Donald Trump Jr., also appears to go to some really fringe-y sites for his daily information. Fox News:
Donald Trump Jr. tweeting a headline that reads, “Leaked Descriptions of Infamous ‘Russia Ads’ Derail Collusion Narrative ‘They Show Support For Clinton.’”Media Matters describes Don Jrs. quote as coming from the far-right fringe blog Zero Hedge.
A truly astonishing confession was made concerning the latest attempt to repeal the ACA/Obamacare. Senator Lindsay Graham (R-SC) was one of the point people on the repeal effort. He was asked why he supported such an awful replacement plan that violated every single criteria that President Trump had said should apply to it during the campaign and immediately after winning. Graham said he thought there were other people who were experts who could be trusted to work out a decent plan. He was simply taking it on faith that his colleagues knew what they were talking about. What was truly amazing was to see a late night talk show host, Jimmy Kimmel, take on a Senator, Bill Cassidy (R-LA), and to then see that he and his people had done their homework whereas the Senator had to resort to lying and misleading. The bill was deservedly voted down.
It's been heartening to see the Special Counsel Robert Mueller making progress. He's assembled a team of 16 attorneys, only 14 of whom have been publicly identified. I wish him the very best and hope he makes a successful case. Of course, the GOP won't vote to impeach under pretty much any circumstances and the Democrats want the really scandalous information to come out a month or so before the 2018 midterm election (Of course, my being a Democrat means I fully agree with that). But we can always hope.