Octopus Overlords

tgb wrote:Will someone just assassinate this fuck already?

tgb wrote:Will someone just assassinate this fuck already?

Kraken wrote:

tgb wrote:Will someone just assassinate this fuck already?

Martyrdom is the first step to sainthood. Be careful what you wish for.

TH: So, it seems like everybody has blasted Trump administration's response to the Puerto Rico crisis. Has that criticism been fair?

JH: No, I don’t think so. First of all, there was a fair amount of anticipatory action that is not being recognized. Amphibious ships, including the light amphibious carriers Kearsarge and Wasp and the amphibious landing ship dock Oak Hill were at sea and dispatched to Puerto Rico ahead of the hurricane’s impact.

These are large ships that have large flight decks to land and dispatch heavy-lift CH-53 helicopters to and from disaster sites. They also have big well-decks -- exposed surfaces that are lower than the fore and aft of the ship -- from which large landing craft can be dispatched to shore carrying over 150 tons of water, food and other supplies on each trip. These are actually the ideal platforms for relief operations owing to their range of assets. The ships, due to their designs to support Marine amphibious landings in war zones, also have hospitals onboard to provide medical treatment on a large scale. That these ships were in the area should be viewed as a huge positive for the administration and the Department of Defense.

TH: On the flip side, others say that sending the hospital ship Comfortwas unnecessary -- purely symbolic and possibly counterproductive -- given that the number of hospital beds was not the problem. What's your opinion?

JH: Comfort can add to the solution, but her lack of well-decks and large boats as well as her limited support of helicopter operations means that she has to go alongside a pier to be effective. In the immediate aftermath of a huge storm, pulling into a port that has not been surveyed for underwater obstacles like trees or cables or other refuse is an invitation to either put a hole your ship or foul your propellers or rudders.

That being said, there was a broad misunderstanding of the Comfort’s mission. She is not an “emergency response ship” but rather a hospital ship. She was built to accompany a large military force into a war zone as part of a buildup over time of capabilities to respond to wartime injuries. She is manned by military and civilian mariners as well as active and reserve medical personnel. It takes time to both man and equip her for sea. Given that there was no certainty where the hurricane would hit, it doesn’t make sense to have readied her prior to its impact.

It is revelatory of where the U.S. group mind is now that when the American public thinks about ships like the Comfort and Mercy, they automatically think of them as part of a civilian emergency response force rather than quietly considering the type of potential conflict that would require a hospital ship with 1,000 beds. I can tell you that when I think of those ships, I internally shudder at the thought of the type of conflict they were intended to support.

TH: Your plaudits toward the White House on all this are surprising to say the least. But where does the response still need to improve?

JH: One area in which the Trump administration could possibly lend additional assistance would be looking at a more robust activation of its assets in the Defense Department's Transportation Command to include more heavy-lift and cargo aircraft, as well as Maritime Administration shipping to move the logistics-heavy large infrastructure items on the ocean. Everything from bulldozers to transformers needs to come by ships, and it's been decades since it was really flexed to its full capacity. This would have the dual purpose of revealing any significant weaknesses in the Transportation Command assets and readiness should we need it in a military emergency down the road.

President Trump is facing growing — but still measured — criticism of the federal response to the devastation in Puerto Rico. So what does he do? Lash out at the mayor of a hurricane-ravaged city, naturally.

Trump responded Saturday morning to harsh critiques from San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulín Cruz by targeting her personally. The president accused the mayor of playing politics and succumbing to pressure from fellow Democrats to attack his administration. He also, remarkably, directly attacked her and other Puerto Rican officials' leadership.

Anybody who is surprised at this from a president who attacked a former prisoner of war for being a prisoner of war, criticized a Gold Star family and made fun of a reporter's physical disability has a short memory. This is who Trump is. He doesn't accept criticism and move on; he brings a bazooka to a knife fight — even when those wielding the knife are trying to save lives.

But it's also hugely counterproductive. In three tweets, Trump has moved a simmering, somewhat-negative story for his administration to the front burner. He decided to attack a sympathetic character and turn this into a partisan political debate. Cruz is pleading for help by saying, “We are dying.” Trump essentially told her to stop complaining. He's also arguing that somebody who is in charge of saving lives is somehow more interested in politics. That's a stunning charge.

And it all shows just how much Trump still doesn't quite grasp what a crisis Puerto Rico is — both for its people and for him.

There has been anecdotal evidence that Trump doesn't quite get it. He has repeatedly misstated the size of the hurricane that hit Puerto Rico. He has repeatedly talked about what a tough state the island was in to begin with — as if to shift blame. He has talked repeatedly about how Puerto Rico is an island “in the middle of the ocean” — as if to temper expectations. He has even talked about how Puerto Rico might be made to repay the cost of its recovery. And he's decided to take a weekend at his golf club in New Jersey right now, even as the scope of the problems in Puerto Rico is growing.

Any of these could be dismissed by themselves; the totality of them — and the tweets Saturday morning — fill in a clear picture. As I argued last week, Puerto Rico threatened to expose a Trump blind spot, by virtue of its status as a U.S. territory and its proximity to other recent hurricanes. It's looking like it's now found that blind spot.

Trump may succeed in getting his base to fight back against the narrative that the Puerto Rico recovery isn't going well. And perhaps this will all result in the same political stalemate we've seen on so many Trump-related controversies, with 35 percent to 40 percent of the country standing by Trump, and most of the rest being outraged.

But that's not really the point. Most controversies are temporary and blow over. Puerto Rico is a legacy issue for Trump — something that, like Hurricane Katrina, could color views of him for years or decades to come.

The fact that Trump decided to do what he did Saturday morning suggests he doesn't get that at all. This humanitarian crisis for Puerto Rico may not wind up being a political crisis for Trump, but Trump should be doing everything in his power to prevent that. Instead, he's making excuses and paying more attention to how unfairly he's being treated.

Moliere wrote:No, Trump Didn't Botch the Puerto Rico Crisis
A Q&A with former Navy Captain Jerry Hendrix on smart preparations the White House and Pentagon made for the looming storm.

Holman wrote:A President Hillary would have taken months BECAUSE BENGEHAZMAIL!

Rip wrote:

How to tweet today:
[Drop a name]
[Call someone or something great]
[end with "Thank you!"]
[Repeat but remember to use different names.]

Love you, daddy. Don't miss your tee time again!

Rip wrote:

tgb wrote:Will someone just assassinate this fuck already?

That would be nice, I for one look forward to President Pence.

Just imagine the power he would wield in combatting unruly protesters after an assassination.

hepcat wrote:I’m sorry for your loss.

Rip wrote:Everyone everywhere deserves to die, and they will.

My dad did today. It happens.

Zaxxon wrote:

hepcat wrote:I’m sorry for your loss.

This.

Guaynabo’s mayor, Angel Perez, said in an interview with The Daily Caller that his experience with the federal government has been different from Cruz’s, in part because — unlike Cruz — he has been participating in meetings with officials from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and other federal agencies.

“My experience is different. I have been participating in different meetings at the headquarters of FEMA and our government and the help is coming in and right now my experience is different from hers. I’m receiving help from the government, we are receiving assistance from FEMA, I got people over here helping us with applications for the people that have damage in their houses. And we have here in Guaynabo, we have thousands of people that lost partially or totally their houses,” said Perez, who is a member of Puerto Rico’s New Progressive Party.

When asked about Cruz’s “genocide” statement, Perez said, “I don’t know why she is saying that. What I can tell you is my experience. She is not participating in any meetings and we had a couple already with the governors and with representation of FEMA and of HUD, of these whole federal agencies that have given us help and she’s not participating in those meetings and some mayors from her political party have been participating, so I don’t know why she is saying that. My experience is very different.”

LawBeefaroni wrote:It's very possible that meetings are going well, that federal agencies are cooperating and providing resources and that San Jaun is still a complete diaster.


The mayor has criticized the administration for all their back-patting and painting the situation as going "great". Her criticism could be justified in light of what she's seeing at ground level.

Trump's Twitter drivel just illustrates his ignorance of the situation and his complete inability to lead. He's more concerned about snapping back at perceived insults than about saving lives of US citizens.

Oh, and of course about dropping more thinly veiled racist dig whistles in there. "They want everything to be done for them.". Fuck right off, small man.

Rip wrote:My dad did today. It happens.

The head of the National Guard on Tuesday said there has been no delay in federal help to Puerto Rico despite claims from lawmakers that the territory was not receiving adequate help.

Gen. Joseph Lengyel said he has not seen any political posturing that would deny or slow aid to the U.S. territory, which has been hit by two powerful Category 5 storms in the past month that killed at least 16 people and knocked out power on the entire island.

Puerto Rico’s nearly 3.5 million residents are now living without electricity, and Lengyel expects it will be “more than a month” until electricity is fully restored.

“We want to make sure they have everything they need. We’re very in touch with the folks in Puerto Rico,” Lengyel told reporters on a flight back from St. Croix. He traveled to the island Monday to meet with government officials and assess the damage.
“The National Guard Puerto Rico, we have the capacity to send them if they need them,” he said.

When asked if he’s seen any slowing of resources sent to the island, Lengyel replied “I wouldn’t say I’ve seen any of that.”

“The process that we’ve seen as responders with [Federal Emergency Management Agency administrator Brock Long], the White House, all of it has been exactly the same from Hurricane Harvey, Irma and Maria,” he said.

Harvey hit Texas and Louisiana in late August.

Lengyel added that restoration on the islands is hindered by the presence of significantly fewer forces than in the continental United States, with additional troops who must be flown in instead of driven.

Puerto Rico has only 1,375 Guard troops to help on an island with a population of nearly 3.5 million.

About 1,200 troops are in the Virgin Islands.

Lengyel told reporters another 1,000 to 1,500 troops are expected to be in the Virgin Islands in the coming days, but he has yet to assess numbers for Puerto Rico.

He said he will know more after a trip to Puerto Rico scheduled for Wednesday.

What Trump is doing -- in his attacks on Yulin Cruz and the media -- is trying to divide the country as a way to deflect blame for his administration's performance.

"They" are lazy and want everything done for them. "They" are being nasty because Democrats told them to. "They" aren't rooting for our first responders. "They" are trying to convince people that our soldiers aren't doing a good job.

Trump's willingness to divide, to turn every situation in which he is questioned or criticized into an "us" vs "them" is well documented by now. The 2016 election was an 18-month master class in how to divide the country for your own political gain. Trump's handling of the white supremacist violence in Charlottesville, Virginia, and his deliberate decision to pick a fight with (mostly black) NFL players over the national anthem illustrate that same perpetual need to divide.

That default divisiveness makes Trump different than every person who has held the office before him. For the 43 previous presidents, their ultimate goal was to find ways to remind people in the country of our common humanity, to take the high road, to appeal to our better angels. Many of them missed that mark -- often badly -- but it was always their North Star.

It is not for Trump. Not close. For Trump, the lone goal is winning at all costs.

Kraken wrote:This column from that fake news site CNN nailed it:

It is not for Trump. Not close. For Trump, the lone goal is winning at all costs.

Rip wrote:Wow, I had no idea the place had become so bad even before the hurricane.

http://nypost.com/2017/09/30/inept-puer ... ption-ceo/

GreenGoo wrote:At no point has Drumpf suggested investing money in American infrastructure, or figuring out how to pay for it.

The Meal wrote:

GreenGoo wrote:At no point has Drumpf suggested investing money in American infrastructure, or figuring out how to pay for it.

Trump actually campaigned (lol campaign promises — though US voters fall for that trick time and again from both sides) on massive infrastructure spending. It was one of the appealing (the only appealing?) planks in his platform.

President Trump's "$1 trillion infrastructure plan” isn't $1 trillion and it isn't a plan. It's a $200 billion plan to have a plan that hasn't advanced beyond that stage for six months now.

The administration, though, has decided that this is “infrastructure week,” so this bare outline of an actual proposal is getting touted as if it's something that required more than five minutes of thought. Which is to say that it's not that different from the rest of Trump's agenda: bullet points that seem more appropriate for a tweet than for anything else.

Now, the funny thing is how long it's taken the administration to come up with even this minimal level of detail and how much infighting it caused within Trump's often-fractious White House.

Originally, Trump's campaign had proposed giving out $137 billion worth of tax breaks that would supposedly pay for themselves and get the private sector to spend $1 trillion on toll roads and the like. But that seemed to change when Trump's ideological consigliere, Stephen K. Bannon, talked up a “trillion dollar infrastructure plan” that would take advantage of the fact that “negative interest rates throughout the world” meant it was the “greatest opportunity to rebuild everything” from “shipyards” to “ironworks” and “get them all jacked up.” It would, Bannon explained, “be as exciting as the 1930s.”

Trump's top economic adviser Gary Cohn, though, worried that the deficit-spending this implied would hurt the economy as much as it helped by forcing the Federal Reserve to raise rates, and, as a result, sending the dollar up. So instead of saying that the government would spend $1 trillion on roads and bridges and waterways itself, the Trump team said it would commit $200 billion over the next decade and offer as-of-yet unspecified incentives to get corporations to invest the other $800 billion. But even this was too much for Trump's austerian budget director Mick Mulvaney, who put together their latest plan to partially offset this $200 billion surge in infrastructure spending with a $95 billion cut in the years after that.

Trump's infrastructure plan, then, has gone from being builder-friendly to populist to Wall Street-approved and now tea party-inspired. Although that's only true to the extent that it's real, which isn't clear at all. Indeed, when it comes to tax reform, Mulvaney has staked out the rather unusual position for a budget director that he “wouldn't take what's in the budget as indicative of what our proposals are.” Perhaps that's the case with infrastructure as well? Who knows.

Donald Trump’s infrastructure guru spent part of Sept. 26 at a conference in Washington promoting the president’s $1 trillion plan to rebuild the nation’s crumbling roads, bridges and airports relying in part on public-private partnerships. The same day, across town, Trump was telling lawmakers that those kinds of deals don’t work.

The president’s apparent change of heart on what’s been an important pillar of his economic plan left key constituents of the infrastructure initiative reeling.

Trump’s remarks, relayed by three lawmakers after a closed meeting with Republicans and Democrats on the House Ways and Means Committee, raised new questions about how the plan would be financed, and whether the president was instead considering increasing federal funding for building projects -- a prospect made harder by the large tax cut the administration proposed Wednesday.

Democratic lawmakers welcomed the potential opening for more federal spending, while deficit hawks bristled. Both sides, though, are still struggling to interpret Trump’s apparent turnaround.

"On behalf of all of the people of Texas, and all of the people -- if you look today and see what is happening, how horrible it is but we have it under really great control -- Puerto Rico and the people of Florida who have really suffered over this last short period of time with the hurricanes, I want to just remember them," the president said.

"And we're going to dedicate this trophy to all of those people that went through so much that we love -- a part of our great state, really part of our great nation," he continued.

The Meal wrote:Sorry for your loss, Rip.

GreenGoo wrote:At no point has Drumpf suggested investing money in American infrastructure, or figuring out how to pay for it.

Trump actually campaigned (lol campaign promises — though US voters fall for that trick time and again from both sides) on massive infrastructure spending. It was one of the appealing (the only appealing?) planks in his platform.