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Post by Deleted on Oct 7, 2017 21:44:52 GMT -5
Our President had a hard-hitting in-depth chat with Mike Huckabee about the Puerto Rican disaster.
Take it away, gentlemen...
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Post by michaelw on Oct 7, 2017 23:04:37 GMT -5
I heard the towels were so good they absorbed every ounce of flooding throughout the whole island.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 7, 2017 23:11:05 GMT -5
I heard the towels were so good they absorbed every ounce of flooding throughout the whole island. I know, right? And all our no-fun past presidents did for victims was hug them. /photo/1
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Post by robeiae on Oct 8, 2017 6:28:42 GMT -5
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Post by Deleted on Oct 8, 2017 8:27:23 GMT -5
1) That's Texas and Florida (you know, red states that voted for him, full of "real" Americans). He sucked completely with regard to Puerto Rico.
2) The meme is satire, and IMO it does capture his general cluelessness in dealing with victims.
Trump did so many things wrong in Puerto Rico it wasn't funny. My favorite was praising them for having few casualties, unlike a "real disaster like Katrina."
Of course, they haven't been able to do a real count, so they don't even know how many casualties they have. The whole island is more or less wiped out and without power, lots of people lost everything they had and were desperate for food, water, and basic medical supplies for a shamefully long time.
And in the face of it, he's still talking about his fucking crowd sizes. Throwing paper towels at them and talking about how much fun he and the victims had. They. Lost. Everything.
It's a meme, and I'm certain Trump hugged some people (at least in Texas and Florida). But I don't see the meme as trying to portray his not hugging people -- it's satire of how oblivious he was, particularly in Puerto Rico.
Can you imagine ANY former president talking about his crowd sizes and people cheering for him under those circumstances? Telling those people that their devastation was messing with his budget plans? And all the other god-awful things he's said with regard to Puerto Rico?
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Post by Deleted on Oct 8, 2017 8:32:39 GMT -5
Similarly, I'm pretty sure Jesus isn't in the GOP and never did this.
But, you know, satire.
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Post by robeiae on Oct 8, 2017 9:05:26 GMT -5
Can you imagine ANY former president talking about his crowd sizes and people cheering for him under those circumstances? Telling those people that their devastation was messing with his budget plans? And all the other god-awful things he's said with regard to Puerto Rico? No. Because Trump doesn't have the skill set for the job, doesn't have the temperament, doesn't have the diplomatic skills, etc. He's an ass. Nonetheless, the meme is a lie. It may be clever to some extent, but cleverness doesn't equal truth. And it would appear that for a lot of people, meme-sharing is the extent of their political acumen. As to Trump and Puerto Rico specifically, he's said a lot things that he shouldn't have, got into a bone-headed back and forth with San Juan's mayor, and so forth. But I disagree that he--and by extension the government--has done things wrong in Puerto Rico. It's still a mess, to be sure. But that mess is almost wholly a consequence of the decades before, of failures by Puerto Rico's government and of the federal government, as well. If someone else was President, I think there would be no appreciable difference in the situation. Many of the people bitching about the government's response now would be excusing it under a different admin for the same--and correct, imo--reasons many are excusing it under the Trump admin (and many of those excusing Trump now would be criticizing a different admin, to be sure). One of the absolutely dumbest complaints out there was that Trump didn't go to Puerto Rico immediately after the hurricane hit. Given the situation in that moment, a Presidential visit--with all that it required--would have been exceedingly foolish, imo. Yet, that didn't stop people--many of whom should have known better--from bitching about this.
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Post by robeiae on Oct 8, 2017 9:06:21 GMT -5
Similarly, I'm pretty sure Jesus isn't in the GOP and never did this. But, you know, satire. Yes, I do know satire. I also know stupid. The two are not mutually exclusive.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 8, 2017 9:17:24 GMT -5
I disagree with you on where satire ends and stupidity begins.
I also disagree with you on Trump's handling of Puerto Rico. If the situation in Puerto Rico were precisely the same, but it were a red pro-Trump state, He'd have been airlifting supplies, help, and equipment over there much more quickly and in vastly greater amounts. It was not at all just a matter of "oh, they were in bad shape anyway."
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Post by robeiae on Oct 8, 2017 9:40:46 GMT -5
The problem with supplies in Puerto Rico is mostly a function of distribution on the island itself, hampered both by the destruction of the hurricane and the pitiful state of infrastructure on the island. Its fun to imagine that anything can happen with a snap of the fingers, but it's just not realistic.
You know, FP&L had like 30,000 people, pulled from power companies all over the country, staged and waiting throughout South Florida, people who would not only restore power but also clear debris. And even with all of that, there were people down here who went weeks without power. And this in a region where much of the power infrastructure had seen drastic improvements across the last several decades.
Puerto Rico was in a sorry state--from the standpoint of infrastructure--long before this hurricane. Interior communities--some with good-sized populations--had barely serviceable roads and power lines that looked like they'd been untouched since 1960 (I know this because I've been there, just as I've been in the most devastated areas of South Florida, Saint Martin, and the Turks and Caicos after bad hurricanes). And the fact of the matter is that there is no way to service large portions of the island in the aftermath; there was no time to bring in all the equipment necessary, no place to stage it regardless, and no way to be sure it could even be used (unlike in Florida). But Puerto Rico also isn't Saint Martin, where the entire population has easy access to a port location (there's not a place on the island where you can't walk to one of the two main ports a few hours, at most). Puerto Rico is 100 times larger than St. Martin, for point of info.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 8, 2017 9:53:57 GMT -5
Yes, the infrastructure was in bad shape. Yes, there were and are distribution issues. Yes, the scale of devastation is huge.
No one, including me, said it could be fixed with a snap of the fingers or anything like it. (Not ok to exaggerate with memes to make a point, but fine to do it with my words?)
I stand by my statement that Trump could have acted faster, with more resources and needless to say, with vastly more sensitivity -- and would have done so, had he and his administration regarded Puerto Ricans as real Americans.
For that matter, it was pretty clear this storm was coming and was likely to devastate the island -- I was hearing about it for days. He could have been marshalling a plan.
Really? You think he did as good of a job as he could, under the circumstances? We will never agree on that.
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Post by robeiae on Oct 8, 2017 20:03:47 GMT -5
Stand by whatever you desire, but you're not bringing anything to the table in that regard, just your feeling--based on your dislike of Trump, it would seem--that a different President would have made a significant difference. How? How could a different President have made the containers full of supplies for Puerto Rico get distributed across the island, without truck drivers and with most roads in impassible conditions? How could a different President have made Puerto Rico's power grid get up and running faster, with the resources on the island? How could a different President have made it possible to fly into San Juan any earlier, with no radar and damaged runways? Don't forget, FEMA and the Armed Forces (and national guards) were pretty heavily engaged, in Texas and Florida. It's not like they were just waitin' around for something to do.
Is it possible that someone else could have done better, to some degree? Sure. It's also possible that someone else could have done worse, could have--for instance--flown to the island on an F-16 to make a triumphant photo-op, thus causing all kinds of additional problems.
Back to back to back disasters are not an easy thing to deal with, especially when the last happens on an island, well away from the mainland that has piss-poor infrastructure. Trump continues to act like a royal schmuck, imo. He continues to do dishonor to the office he holds, imo. But that's mostly because he's an obnoxious, self-involved shit. The responses to these hurricanes has been quite good, imo. Whether or not Trump deserves credit in this regard is a fair question, I think, because there are a lot of people doing a lot of work with no input from the Whitehouse. The most critical things Trump needed to do, he did: releasing funds and bringing all of the agencies he needed to bring in. So I'm not seeing much to criticize him for when it comes to the actual response of the Feds as a whole. His personal response, like the stupidity that pours from his mouth? Yeah, he's terrible.
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Post by Christine on Oct 8, 2017 21:09:04 GMT -5
Trump doesn't give a fuck about brown people, other than not missing an opportunity to make an appearance so he can claim they all love him. The president in a nutshell. I am at a loss as to why anyone would bother defending his actions at all. Yes, Puerto Rico has poor infrastructure and massive debt. No, it's not Trump's fault, but Puerto Rico is our own Greece in the Caribbean, and so, maybe Trump could, I dunno, do something about it, being the best ever deal-making swamp-draining money-making never-before-seen greatest President of the United States? If only he wasn't so busy getting photographed while tossing out paper towels and reaping the easy accolades from his prayer-sending devotees.
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Post by Amadan on Oct 8, 2017 21:22:05 GMT -5
Back to back to back disasters are not an easy thing to deal with, especially when the last happens on an island, well away from the mainland that has piss-poor infrastructure. Trump continues to act like a royal schmuck, imo. He continues to do dishonor to the office he holds, imo. But that's mostly because he's an obnoxious, self-involved shit. The responses to these hurricanes has been quite good, imo. Whether or not Trump deserves credit in this regard is a fair question, I think, because there are a lot of people doing a lot of work with no input from the Whitehouse. The most critical things Trump needed to do, he did: releasing funds and bringing all of the agencies he needed to bring in. So I'm not seeing much to criticize him for when it comes to the actual response of the Feds as a whole. His personal response, like the stupidity that pours from his mouth? Yeah, he's terrible. Other than directing FEMA and other agencies to go do what they're supposed to do, you're right, there is not much else Trump could have personally done, except for one of the things which is his primary job as Chief Executive, which is to give directions and communicate them. This isn't just a matter of bad "optics," it's a failure of leadership. It's Trump failing to be Presidential. So in that sense, yes, any other President would have done better even if all any other President would have done is address the Puerto Rican people in a way that made them think the President was on the job and paying attention without being a patronizing clown.
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Post by Don on Oct 9, 2017 5:24:36 GMT -5
Back to back to back disasters are not an easy thing to deal with, especially when the last happens on an island, well away from the mainland that has piss-poor infrastructure. Trump continues to act like a royal schmuck, imo. He continues to do dishonor to the office he holds, imo. But that's mostly because he's an obnoxious, self-involved shit. The responses to these hurricanes has been quite good, imo. Whether or not Trump deserves credit in this regard is a fair question, I think, because there are a lot of people doing a lot of work with no input from the Whitehouse. The most critical things Trump needed to do, he did: releasing funds and bringing all of the agencies he needed to bring in. So I'm not seeing much to criticize him for when it comes to the actual response of the Feds as a whole. His personal response, like the stupidity that pours from his mouth? Yeah, he's terrible. Other than directing FEMA and other agencies to go do what they're supposed to do, you're right, there is not much else Trump could have personally done, except for one of the things which is his primary job as Chief Executive, which is to give directions and communicate them. This isn't just a matter of bad "optics," it's a failure of leadership. It's Trump failing to be Presidential. So in that sense, yes, any other President would have done better even if all any other President would have done is address the Puerto Rican people in a way that made them think the President was on the job and paying attention without being a patronizing clown. IOW, he did a crappy job of sending thoughts and prayers.
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