Well, set aside emotion and/or hatred of the President for a second. 3 weeks is probably not enough time, but FEMA's job is not the same as the DoD's job. FEMA is supposed to be there for short term response and recovery. First responders, by definition, provide first response, not indefinite response. And FEMA's budget is much smaller than DoD's, so they will run out of resources at some point.

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Slowguy

(insert pithy phrase here...)

When is Trump's "America First" policy going to be renamed to its more accurate moniker, "White America First"

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Remember - It's important to be comfortable in your own skin... because it turns out society frowns on wearing other people's

Because when I think Houston I think only white people. Moron.

When is Trump's "America First" policy going to be renamed to its more accurate moniker, "White America First"

There are lots of black people in Houston and Florida so that doesn't hold up.

However, the fact that Puerto Ricans don't vote for President, might be the first hint as to the real problem.

Well there are a lot of ways he could have phrased things to sound the least bit empathetic. Or just kept his mouth shut. Instead we get this.

Is FEMA still in Texas and Florida?

Has FEMA ever even been in Afghanistan?

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Civilize the mind, but make savage the body.

- Chinese proverb

Isn't the DoD's job to win wars?

(only partially kidding)

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"Go yell at an M&M"

"So let me get this straight. We can spend a trillion dollars in Afghanistan and stay there for decades, but we have to pull out federal support of Puerto Rico after three weeks? "

And in other news this morning Trump pulls out of UNESCO, wants NBC's license pulled for telling fake news and Bannon tells Vanity Fair that Trump has only a 30% chance of finishing his term. Can't wait to read the dotard's tweets today.


And you're right about Afghanistan - a total money pit with no viable end game in sight.

Haha. Good luck with that.

BTW, haven’t heard much in the news about PR (I’m admittedly not much of a news consumer).

Things must be going well.

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Civilize the mind, but make savage the body.

- Chinese proverb

As of this mornings news its now only 89% without electricity or clean water. Yep, things are going well.

I'm guessing that things are going as well as the locals make them go.

I would assume, given the gravity of the situation as described by the mayor, that the entire population of the island must have just died off by now.

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Long Chile was a silly place.

At least according to her T-shirt’s.

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Civilize the mind, but make savage the body.

- Chinese proverb

So basically back to normal.

Have you been to Puerto Rico?

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Civilize the mind, but make savage the body.

- Chinese proverb

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Civilize the mind, but make savage the body.

- Chinese proverb

Yes.

No.

FEMA trailers were in New Orleans for 6 years after Katrina.

Has FEMA left PR?

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Civilize the mind, but make savage the body.

- Chinese proverb

an interesting iteration of this question is that if global warming intensifies storms or increases their frequency, at what point will the USA decide to no longer bother with rebuilding projects?

there were people arguing that new orleans was a lost cause post-katrina, or at least too expensive to fix. clearly something like new york city would continue to get rebuilt for a while, but one wonders: will miami or new orleans eventually get abandoned to its fate by the goverment? will puerto rico be the test case?

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____________________________________
https://lshtm.academia.edu/MikeCallaghan

http://howtobeswiss.blogspot.ch/

Maybe we should take the federal government out of the post disaster rebuilding altogether and let a more localized effort decide if they want to rebuild in a disaster prone area.

As a side why the hell did PR have above ground power lines, and are they now going to switch to underground or just repeat the bafoonery of restringing power lines in the air only to be blown to shit next summer?

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Civilize the mind, but make savage the body.

- Chinese proverb

http://www.cnn.com/...ines-trnd/index.html

Five times the cost.

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===============
Proud member of the MSF (Maple Syrup Mafia)

Did they factor in the cost of a whole fucking island not having power for months?

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Civilize the mind, but make savage the body.

- Chinese proverb

As a side why the hell did PR have above ground power lines, and are they now going to switch to underground or just repeat the bafoonery of restringing power lines in the air only to be blown to shit next summer?

The same thing happened in the Philippines after the 2013 typhoon. The entire electrical grid went down and there wasn't a single hydro poll standing within 100 miles of Tacloban. I was watching the hydro company put up new poles and asked them why don't they put them underground to avoid the problem going forward.

The main reason was money. It was going to cost hundreds of millions just to put up the poles and they were hoping to complete the job within 1 year. That's a long time to be without electricity. He said if they did it underground, the cost would be about 6x higher and it would take years. He said with new subdivisions they do underground wiring so eventually it will be done everywhere but the cost is way out of reach, particularly when they were struggling with so many things and time was the main issue. The cost to maintain the underground wiring is also far higher.

When you have hundreds of hospitals, schools and businesses without electricity, you have to move quickly.

Yeah no shit. Five times the upfront cost but the risk of the entire power grid being wiped out by one storm seems like a pretty strong reason to bite the bullet.

With all the paper towels that trump tossed out, the place should be dry by now.

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“Read the transcript.”

and thats trump fault?

Ho long is the Canadian fema staying in PR?

Ho long is the Canadian fema staying in PR?

Would FEMA be there if Puerto Ricans weren't U.S citizens?

By "Make America Great Again," I believe Trump meant "Back of the bus sucks!!!"

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_____________________
Fester from Detroit, Mi

Yes.

So FEMA is on St. Barts and Antigua and Barbuda?

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I'm beginning to think that we are much more fucked than I thought.

Robert DeNiro has it handled...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/...es-caribbean-island/

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Civilize the mind, but make savage the body.

- Chinese proverb

That's a very interesting and legitimate question. For what it's worth, Irma's impact on south Florida was kind of a case study in building codes. Everything built to Miami-Dade standards did pretty well. Older structures faired horribly.

In all seriousness? Probably not.

Yes.

FEMA is mainly a domestic department but has does some international aid. However, every Western government in the world has something similar, it's not at all unique to the U.S. The fact is Trump is simply continuing his trend of isolationism and it's not at all what the country has always stood for in terms of helping others. I know that's perfectly fine with you and the other supporters but not everyone sees it that way.

So, I was right. FEMA does assist internationally.
PR was fucked up well before the storm hit and it will continue to be fucked up long after fema, the military and President Trump depart.
Your the smart one here, what else can the president do in PR?

Oh yeah, it's brown people that live there, so white america doesn't give a shit about them.

Ps. Let me know when you get off your fat ass and land in PR to lend a helping hand.

Yes, fema and the military provided assistance to all. Most are gone now that the Brits and French have set up their resources to help.

They factored this in just like the folks in Houston and New Orleans factored in the cost of flood control (vs. not paying for adequate flood control) before their cities were flooded during hurricanes.

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"Human existence is based upon two pillars: Compassion and knowledge. Compassion without knowledge is ineffective; Knowledge without compassion is inhuman." Victor Weisskopf.

Actually New Orleans would have had adequate flood control if the Army Corps of engineers had done their jobs properly. Can't speak to Houston

I was responding to a poster who linke to an article about the cost of underground lines vs. above ground.

Nowhere in the article did it mention that the cost of power outages and rebuilding was factored in.

So the answer is a resounding no. The article I was referring to did not factor in these additional costs..

http://www.cnn.com/...ines-trnd/index.html

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Civilize the mind, but make savage the body.

- Chinese proverb

Trump is not exactly abandoning PR, he just likes to make douchbag comments.
-
WASHINGTON, DC, USA (Oct. 5, 2017) — US President Donald Trump on Wednesday, October 4, asked Congress for a bumper $29-billion package of emergency relief after Hurricane Maria slammed into Puerto Rico.
According to a White House letter, Trump asked for a package that includes $12.77 billion in disaster relief and a $16-billion bailout to keep a critical flood insurance program running.
https://search.yahoo.com/...la&hsimp=yhs-001

ps. OTOH, Trump's "inapropriate" talk has netted good results at other times, like UN member countries paying up at higher rates taking some financial initiative of their own, so maybe Trump is just trying to start a fire under the PR residents and govt...or he is just being a douchbag.

Ps. Let me know when you get off your fat ass and land in PR to lend a helping hand.

Okay. When you're done there let me know and I'll take over. Just let me know what you have done so far and I'll take it from there. I mean, surely you are there doing something or you wouldn't accuse others, right?

Why would Canada even be there? Last time I checked PR is part of the USA. Although even Cuba offered aid to the USA during Katrina.

Oh, oh. Another Canadian who thinks no other country in the world helps other countries...On behalf of dvfmfidc,


Ps. Let me know when you get off your fat ass and land in PR to lend a helping hand.

That's largely because educated people do that sort of cost/benefit analysis. The problem is that educated does not always mean intelligent. Often times the two are inversely related.

I deal with highly educated morons almost every day.

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Civilize the mind, but make savage the body.

- Chinese proverb

It could be that he's trying to start a fire under them. Or it could be that he just thinks that Puerto Ricans are second class citizens , third class citizens , Citizens Bulk-rate.

I haven't read anything about him threatening to pull out of Houston and Florida where the real Americans live.

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How does Danny Hart sit down with balls that big?

You also haven't heard the Mayor of Houston or people in Florida whining about how the federal government hasn't done enough for them, all while failing to get their internal political crap out of the way to allow for work to proceed.

Let's be honest. PR was suffering from poor governance and debt issues (some of which were not entirely of their own making) before the hurricanes. And it seems that their local politicians haven't been able to set aside local bickering to get the job done in recovery. The federal government is spending a ton of money and effort in PR, and pretty much what they've gotten in return is bitching and complaining.

We're not going to pull FEMA out of PR any time soon, and the President's tweet obviously didn't present a good optic, but let's not get carried away with the racism and third-rate citizens crap, without acknowledging that PR itself is standing in the way of a lot of the solutions they are complaining about.

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Slowguy

(insert pithy phrase here...)

C'mon now, I called them Citizens bulk-rate.

I know he won't pull out. But you know he wants to.

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How does Danny Hart sit down with balls that big?

Yea, you're probably right...

"Let's be honest. PR was suffering from poor governance and debt issues (some of which were not entirely of their own making) before the hurricanes."


They had not really benefited by their union with the USA. The whole thing was set up to turn them into debt slaves to the mainland. That's why they were already on the verge of bankruptcy before the hurricane. Even Cuba is now better off despite an almost sixty year long embargo.

Well except for the whole freedom and liberties thing. BTW did you see the article about the Brazilian court calling the Cuban doctor diplomacy program modern day slavery? Viva Cuba

Glad to see you took the bait (again). But economically, I was reading an article not long ago that Cuba and PR were fairly much on par.

And that matters why when there are such disparities in things like freedom of speech?

Well its not the Brazilian court calling the Cuban doctors "slaves", its actually the Cuban doctors themselves speaking out because the Cuban government is taking 25% of their salary while they are working in Brazil. Cuba sends doctors all over the third world to work in understaffed areas. That's a more humanitarian approach than dropping bombs I suppose and a lot more likely to win friends. The doctors haven't been treated particularly well in Brazil BTW, where racism has been quite rampant.:

https://www.pri.org/...ban-doctors-brazil-0

How about linking to a non-socialist news source? The NYT article did not portray Cuba in the same wonderful light. The words banishment and things like threats of reprisals against children in Cuba were mentioned though.

But wait...don't the LR Trumpsters always tell us that NYT is a socialist news source. I read an article in the UK's "the Guardian", which is fairly conservative, that said about the same thing as the url I posted.

I read a variety of news sources. I'm just saying the crown jewel of Cuba you tout so frequently may have a few issues like threatening children.

They don't threaten children in Cuba, they eat them when they are still babies. (pink font)

Good to know you like joking about human rights abuses.

Imagine if the power was still out in Florida or Texas. Clearly second class citizens.

http://abcnews.go.com/...on-deadline-51814512

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===============
Proud member of the MSF (Maple Syrup Mafia)

I mean Flint still doesnt have drinkable water.

Well the explaination is right there in the first sentence...


Union
Local officials
Federal officials
Promises.

See the problem?

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Civilize the mind, but make savage the body.

- Chinese proverb

Trump???

Trump???[/quote]
He would fall under the category of federal official, would he not?

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Civilize the mind, but make savage the body.

- Chinese proverb

"But union leaders criticized private brigades, saying they were taking too long to help restore power and questioning the multimillion dollar contracts they have obtained from the U.S. government."

Definitely Trumps fault.