When Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico, President Trump approved a major disaster declaration a day faster than Biden did for the island after Hurricane Fiona hit. Trump’s alacrity went unrewarded when local Democrats and the media blamed him for the hurricane.
CNN, which has been much slower to provide coverage of Fiona on the island, flew Anderson Cooper out there to wade uncomfortably around and do interviews with leftist politicians wearing custom-printed, “Help Us, We Are Dying” t-shirts in between posing for glamor shots.
Instead, Cooper is currently promoting a podcast with leftist hack Stephen Colbert.
The dramatic difference in coverage can be summed up with two Reuters headlines, five years apart, “Puerto Ricans say Trump’s disaster response was too slow” and “Puerto Rico power grid no match for Fiona; residents unsurprised.”
The New York Times went even further blaming President Trump for Puerto Rico’s power grid going down in 2022. According to the leftist paper, the number one reason that the island’s power is down is because “the Trump administration also placed restrictions on portions of the island’s aid out of concerns that the money would be mismanaged or squandered.”
There was indeed massive fraud with multiple officials, including Julia Keleher, the former Secretary of Education for Puerto Rico, the head of Puerto Rico’s Association of Certified Public Accountants, and multiple FEMA officials, getting busted.
Among those arrested was Ahsha Nateef Tribble: Obama’s Senior Director for Response and an interim Deputy Homeland Security Advisor. Obama’s girl pled guilty this May, but the media has not seen fit to cover the minor matter of an Obama NSC official going down or to mention it in relation to the latest disaster in Puerto Rico: this time taking place on Biden’s watch.
Instead, Biden is being praised for lifting anti-corruption restrictions while promising to pour more money into Puerto Rico. The influx of money will only further feed the corruption without actually benefiting ordinary people. There’s plenty of history that makes that all too clear.
Every time there’s a major storm, Puerto Rico’s power grid goes down. That’s been the case long before Trump’s presidential run. Even without storms, the LA Times reported that under Obama, island residents “were suffering power outages at rates four to five times higher than average U.S. customers”. Puerto Rico’s electric grid is ancient, its public utility was broken and its linemen had moved to America. Also the island is notorious for its culture of corruption.
Somehow that became Trump’s fault. And in 2022, it is still somehow his fault.
After trying to blame Trump for restricting funds to fight corruption, the New York Times is forced to admit that the island government isn’t spending the money that it has. Bloomberg notes that, “Of the $21 billion that FEMA has designated for public assistance projects overall in Puerto Rico, only 2% has been spent.” Much as during the aftermath of Hurricane Maria when aid was left sitting in warehouses, what Puerto Rico has isn’t even being used by the local government.
But when the media isn’t blaming Trump, it’s blaming global warming or privatization. Even though it was the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority (PREPA):, the bankrupt public utility whose defunct equipment, missing employees and general dysfunction had led to the original massive outrage during Hurricane Maria, resulting in overdue privatization.
The one man the media isn’t blaming is Joe Biden. Much as the media didn’t blame Bill Clinton or Obama for the hurricanes that happened on their watch or the resulting consequences. When a hurricane hits Puerto Rico while a Republican is in office, it’s his fault. But when a hurricane hits during a Democrat’s term, then it’s obviously due to either climate change or a Republican.
Even though Biden took a day longer than Trump to approve disaster relief, media coverage has emphasized how much he cares about Puerto Rico. After Maria, the media claimed, with no evidence, that Trump was bigoted toward Puerto Ricans and that his neglect was killing them.
After earthquakes in 2020, the media doubled down on the narrative with CNN headlining its coverage, “Trump stays publicly silent on Puerto Rican earthquakes but has signed emergency declaration”. Democrats rushed to capitalize on the disaster, including Joe Biden who stated, “It’s unconscionable that so much of the hard work of disaster recovery continues to be left undone. We’ve got to deliver concrete support for Puerto Rico now before more lives are lost.”
Now that Biden is in office, the work remains undone. But somehow it’s not his fault.
At a press conference, Biden promised, “We’ll do everything, everything we can to meet the urgent needs you have and we know they’re real and they’re significant. And we’re there. And I know, bad joke, ‘I’m from the federal government and I’m here to help.’ But we really are.”
The federal government has been coming to Puerto Rico to help for generations. It hasn’t helped. After tens of billions of dollars in aid, the island is no better off than it was before.
In 2017, it was asking for $94 billion in aid. That’s all the more startling when you consider that Puerto Rico’s current population is only a little over 3 million. That would have been over $30,000 per person. Even the billions allocated to it come out to about $7,000 per person.
Not that the average Puerto Rican will ever see any of that money.
Instead of telling the truth about that, Puerto Rico’s current state is always Trump’s fault. And will remain his fault until another Republican sets foot in the Oval Office and pulls up a chair.
Much like the inner cities, it’s easier to throw around accusations of bigotry than to reckon with what is actually wrong. And that’s convenient because Democrats profit financially and politically from Puerto Rico’s disasters. The worse things get on the island, the better the odds of winning Florida. Feeding corruption just makes things worse for Puerto Ricans and better for Dems.
Puerto Rico’s real problem isn’t Hurricane Maria or Hurricane Fiona, it’s Hurricane Biden.
400 years of Spanish rule apparently inculcated a culture of corruption and incompetence.
Yeah, the only good thing the Spaniards ever accomplished was ejecting the moslems. I notice they became a lot like them in the process.
Laid back and lazy basically, just like most Arabs and government employed Californian leftists.
LOL. And incompetent and violent. Contrast Latin America with Canada and the USA.
The Renaissance and the Age of Enlightenment did not effect all European countries equally. Some European countries like Russia were not effected at all, the Renaissance barely touched the Russians that’s why Marxism, another form of unreason and mysticism, easily took hold there.
“This is why, so far, Communism has been unable to win out in the West. Unlike the Russians, we have not been steeped enough in religion — in faith, sacrifice, humility, and, therefore, servility. We are still too rational, too this-worldly, and too individualistic to submit to naked tyranny. We are still being protected by the fading remnants of our Enlightenment heritage.” – Leonard Peikoff.
The degree that European countries rebelled against Christianity was the degree that the people of those countries embraced reason and logic and became modern and dynamic. The countries that did not rebel against Christianity but remained firmly in its death-grip of mysticism, supernaturalism, superstition, fatalism, and magical thinking, remained more fatalistic, slothful, and prostrated by the religious mentality.
What Winston Churchill said of Islam was also true of Christianity when Christianity ruled the West during the one-thousand years of the Christian Dark Ages, “How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries! Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy. The effects are apparent in many countries. Improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce, and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live.”
Churchill will always be smarter than you.
Oh Joy, the wonders of hearing an ignorant, superstitious imbecile who thinks they are oh so rational lecture about periods and places that they know little about.
Let’s break this nonsense down.
> The Renaissance and the Age of Enlightenment did not effect all European countries equally.
Correct, and the Iberian Duo were among the least affected of all. Though even then it is often overstated, especially since Spain dominated the Renaissance world and had active global influence, including to Italy and the Habsburg co-dynasts in a very cosmopolitan (often violently so), reformation-wracked, and Enlightenment center Germany.
> Some European countries like Russia were not effected at all,
This is manifestly stupid on its face. Russia was one of the least affected- though more due to logistical limits than actual desire- but it was actively influenced by both, including by design. By the 15th century Russian rulers (especially the lords of Moscow) were actively contracting out to the best and brightest Western technicians, thinkers, and architects, which is why landmarks ranging from the Moscow Kremlin to St. Basil’s Cathedral (the building just about everybody thinks of when they imagine Russia, Moscow, or “The Kremlin”) have design hallmarks imported straight from the birthplace of the Renaissance. In particular those Onion Domes on the Churches.
By the Age of Enlightenment Russia’s aristocracy and literati were literate, politically activist, and in the throes of enlightenment idealism, as underlined by the twin giants of Yekaterina the Great (HERSELF BORN A GERMAN) and Elizaveta, who ruled as archtypical “Enlightened Autocrats” with Yekaterina even considering far reaching things such as the abolition of serfdom before a lot of reality broke in.
The idea that Russia was a medieval backwater utterly untouched by the tides of modernity has always been a myth, and a painfully obvious one to those of us who have researched history or archeology. But it’s convenient for you because it lets you idealize the Renaissance and Enlightenment Eras even more than they deserve, ignore their Medieval background, and mis-diagnose “where Russia went wrong” in a way that is flattering to your biases.
> the Renaissance barely touched the Russians that’s why Marxism, another form of unreason and mysticism, easily took hold there.
Ah yes, once again we get into the superstitious explanation of “unreason and mysticism” as a catch-all explanation for everything that went wrong, conveniently tied to the supposed lack of exposure to the Renaissance and Enlightenment.
But there’s a problem with this. MARXISM- AND MARX AND ENGELS THEMSELVES- ORIGINATED IN *GERMANY* AND EASILY TOOK HOLD THERE, to the point where they were BARELY held at bay (and indeed even then usually by the German Imperial government making concessions and melding its position with that of the Marxists).
And ANYBODY who has studied Germany during the Renaissance and Enlightenment Eras will understand how profound and far-reaching the influence of both on German culture, history, and thought were. Indeed, one could make a good argument that their aftershocks helped contribute to the ravages of the Reformation and the “unreason and mysticism” accompanying parts of that (Looking at you Muenster Anabaptist Communist Dictatorship).
The reason Marxism took hold in Russia has less to do with supposed unreason and mysticism in Russia (though it didn’t help) or the relatively shallow inroads the Renaissance, Reformation, and Enlightenment made, and more due to the fact that the Marxists had the power to take over and consolidate power due to a bunch of reasons. Part of this was due to happenstance (such as the outcome of WWI), but a lot of it is due to the fundamental weakness of the kinds of social institutions and divisions of power that- DRUMROLL_ Feudalism and the Medieval Era (unintentionally) spread in much of the Latin West and to a lesser extent the Orthodox Balkans.
While Western Europe was ravaged by lords warring with each other, their lieges, Free Cities, Free Peasants, the Church Authorities, and so forth- thus splitting power and having a number of beneficent effects- Russia was influenced by the one-two-punches of the Greco-Roman ideology of the Roman Empire and Dominate-era Absolutism* without the kind of moderation present from other entities (the Roman Citizenry, Equites, Consuls, Senate, etc), and the Mongol Empire. Both of which utterly crushed all competing powers and provided the justification to keep them down.
Which is why you saw a series of strongman, autocratic rulers ranging from Tver to Kyiv to Novgorod (just look at Alexander Nevasky’s rule), but which ultimately saw the lords of Moscow come to power, fuse the ideas of Absolute Roman Imperial Authority with the Autocracy of the Great Mongol Khagans, and expand.
Which meant that society was utterly centralized on the state and dependent on the whims of its powers. And that meant that when the state weakened or collapsed (as it did in WWI), it was vulnerable to just about anybody who came up.
This is a more complicated story than “Hurr Russia didn’t have Renaissance” and isn’t even close to the full story (for instance, I won’t even deny the importance of unreason and mysticism in Russian history or that of others, or that it helped Marxism make inroads). But it’s a hell of a lot more true to the actual history than your cliches and ironically points to some of the benefits from having the land cut into ribbons of mutually antagonistic fiefdoms and free centers and religious institutions all wrangling with each other: it’s competitive and it avoids having a single point of failure for an entire civilization.
* I ALSO note that the Later Eastern Roman (“Byzantine”) Empire was- in addition to being a Greco-Latin Quasi-Absolute Monarchy with heavy Theocratic Overtones, with the Church being another government entity- the place where the living tradition of Greek and Latin scholarship and record keeping (including the likes of Aristotle, Socrates, and so forth) remained most alive and intact. Which is another stake through the heart of the Reducto ad Aristotle that Objectivists like yourself have made about Aristotle being the font of all advancement in the West.
> “This is why, so far, Communism has been unable to win out in the West. Unlike the Russians, we have not been steeped enough in religion — in faith, sacrifice, humility, and, therefore, servility. We are still too rational, too this-worldly, and too individualistic to submit to naked tyranny. We are still being protected by the fading remnants of our Enlightenment heritage.” – Leonard Peikoff.
Again, this is why Peikoff is fundamentally not a serious scholar. It’s also at this point in time that I’d note that the other epicenters of totalitarian tyrannical ideology in the late 19th and early/mid 20th century (outside of Russia) were…. Germany, Italy, and China.
The former two of which were the engines of the Renaissance and the first spurts of the Enlightenment Era. And which nevertheless saw resurgences in the idea of the all-powerful, “progressive” state ordering society, socialism, and national collectivism, in spite of and/or BECAUSE of said Renaissance and Enlightenment traditions.
Which is also why the likes of most Marxists and what would later become apostates from Marxism such as Hitler, Mussolini, D’Annunzio, and so forth were proud, fierce modernists.
Oh, don’t get me wrong; I can lecture PLENTY about the bad, bad things in the Latin Medieval West and talk about the “joys” of Simony, Heresy Trials with death as the consequence, and umpteen religious prosecutions. Which is why I still identify a great deal with the Reformation and Enlightenment.
But I’m not stupid, naive, or (ironically enough) dogmatic enough to assume that collectivist totalitarianism emerges from- of all things- LACK of exposure to modernity, the Renaissance, the Reformation, etc.
Because apparently neither you nor Peikoff have ever heard of- let alone READ- either Ezra Pound or his muse, Dante Alighieri. Ironic considering both are seminal literary and cultural figures in the West and the latter’s Divine Comedy (especially Inferno) is world-famous, but eh.
It’s also telling that Ezra Pound- American Poet of Fascism- demonizes his opponents- who he identifies (anachronistically as “Guelphs”) – in much the same way you condescendingly do, condemning organized religion as mere superstition, the feudal patchwork (with its bad violent strife and good concept of rights) as anarchy and clueless localism, and above all a betrayal of the great Greco-Roman Past.
> The degree that European countries rebelled against Christianity was the degree that the people of those countries embraced reason and logic and became modern and dynamic.
This is the effects of Brain on Randianism.
It takes a real brainlet to look at the emergence of Marxism and see it as NOT a “rebellion against Christianity.” It also takes a real brainlet to argue that the likes of Bosnia-Herzogovina and Albania (where people quite literally rebelled against Christianity by playing between different sects and ultimately converting to Islam altogether) “embraced reason and logic and became modern and dynamic” in comparison to such backwaters as France, Germany, Britain, and Italy.
And yet here we are. Because for all your posturing to the contrary, your knowledge of history, philosophy, and literature is as deep and wide as a rain drop.
> The countries that did not rebel against Christianity but remained firmly in its death-grip of mysticism, supernaturalism, superstition, fatalism, and magical thinking, remained more fatalistic, slothful, and prostrated by the religious mentality.
Again: Italy, France, Spain, Denmark, Germany, the UK, the Netherlands, Belgium, Poland….
Shall I go on?
There are plenty of failures or half-baked cases in that list, but also plenty of success stories.
But pointing that out would undermine your narrative. Your article of irrational, unthinking faith.
> What Winston Churchill said of Islam was also true of Christianity when Christianity ruled the West during the one-thousand years of the Christian Dark Ages,
Ah yes, the idiocy of the “One Thousand Years of the Christian Dark Ages.”
Ok, let’s try this again: WHEN were the brackets for the One Thousand Years of the “Christian Dark Ages?” (I’m not picky, they don’t have to be exact to the year or even the decade. But give some actual outlines. Unless you wanna be a complete fucking idiot and claim that 1476 was part of the Dark Ages. In which case my job is already done.)
And what made them specifically “Christian” rather than more broadly dark, given the societal collapse and upheaval that far outreached the spread of Christianity?
I await in baited breath for the explanation.
And I can say plenty bad about Medieval Europe and Medieval Christian theology. Indeed, I can probably give a more damning indictment of it than you can since I actually know a thing or two about it. But that doesn’t mean I’m dumb enough to think that an entire thousand years following the fall of Rome was a Dark Age.
All this “aid” will be channelled through the U.N. and most of it will stay within its corrupt system.
The UNDP’s main measure of success is how much money it spends. When I pointed this out to their program management it didn’t go well for me and I was replaced with a fat consultant.
The reason they consider spending money equates to success is the ENORMOUS bureaucracy, behind which corruption is easy to hide but they don’t want to see it.
All this “aid” will be channelled through the U.N. and most of it will stay within its corrupt system.
The UNDP’s main measure of success is how much money it spends. When I pointed this out to their program management it didn’t go well for me and I was replaced with a consultant.
The reason they consider spending money equates to success is the ENORMOUS bureaucracy, behind which corruption is easy to hide but they don’t want to see it.
I am wondering what words are being censored today.
Don’t refer to Somalis as animals. That’s a no no.
Unfair to animals.
I often wonder why all of the “colonialism kills” rhetoric is focused on the British Empire and never on the Spanish? Could it be because Spain and Germany were allies during WWII,
and the left today is very(!!!!) Nazi-like in their pursuit of power? Seems to me a whole lotta “brown” people, or “POCs”, died so that the Spaniards could expand their influence around the world and no one seems to care all that much. Help me out here, I’m too lazy today to do a deep dive into the subject. 🙂
Good points. I often wonder about that.
America used to be a British colony so the oikophobic left hates the former British colonialism, which improved every place it had, but excuses the barbaric and genocidal former colonialism of Spain, which has left nothing but dysfunctional shit-holes in Latin America and the Caribbean. Lefties hate their own culture and heritage.
Thanks,
Improve society=BAD
Demolish society=GOOD
I suppose I should have just applied Occam’s Razor.
Todays democrat in a nutshell.
Global Warming is caused by wrongful utterances.
Until we tame that First Amendment nonsense, and round up the mouthy troublemakers, things are bound to worsen.
Trust me on this.
One of the problems, besides the corruption, is that even if PR had 20 uninterrupted years of no hurricanes or even tropical storms, their electrical infrastructure would be decrepit. They do not appropriate any money for its upgrade, ever. They only wait until the next hurricane and then whine and cry with their hands out. Then when they are declared a disaster, the same people who stole the money before are stealing it again and the infrastructure never gets upgraded.