In this case I'm perfectly willing to condemn him just for the tone, because it's racist garbage. He's calling disaster relief handouts because Puerto Rico is primarily Spanish-speaking and a territory rather than a state. He didn't say anything like that regarding Houston, or Florida. But PR, hell they don't even vote in the general election.Originally Posted by wiggin
Last night as I lay in bed, looking up at the stars, I thought, “Where the hell is my ceiling?"
I think what was needed from the beginning were fuel, road clearing equipment, trucks, and drivers, more or less in that order. The fuel seems to be in supply at the port(s), but the rest has been the bottleneck. My understanding is that FEMA doesn't have trucks and relies on local national guard for those big haulers that can pass through deepish water and mud. If the Federal Govt could have done one thing to respond better in PR, I think it would have involved getting military logistics and construction assets - vehicles, machines and operators - deployed to the port(s) ASAP to get the roads cleared and the aid moving. Other than that, I can't think of what the President could have done to improve things, except maybe keep his fucking asshole mouth shut. But that's never going to happen.
The Rules
Copper- behave toward others to elicit treatment you would like (the manipulative rule)
Gold- treat others how you would like them to treat you (the self regard rule)
Platinum - treat others the way they would like to be treated (the PC rule)
He knows what he's doing. His supporters are loving his attacks on PR.
"One day, we shall die. All the other days, we shall live."
Totally agreed on tone and that he's a dick. Just a lot of the critique I've seen all week (before his latest racist rant) was essentially saying 'people are dying and Trump isn't doing enough' but I'm frankly not convinced that's the case.
"When I meet God, I am going to ask him two questions: Why relativity? And why turbulence? I really believe he will have an answer for the first." - Werner Heisenberg (maybe)
Really? Because C130s and parachutes are a dime a dozen. Why we asking for truck drivers when there are no roads? This incompetence reeks of indifference.
Faith is Hope (see Loki's sig for details)
If hindsight is 20-20, why is it so often ignored?
It took him a damn near week to give PR any attention. We should have had 20-30k troops on the way the day after it passed. Some of the first people to respond were private entities that had no connection to FEMA or their EO plans. Pitbull used his plane to rescue hospital patients. Elon is sending solar panels and batteries (congrats GGT). Carnival cancelled cruises to rescue people. Its hard to characterize the initial response as anything but poor.
Then again, my city still looks like this (taken today):
Its naive, at head in the sand levels, to think his handling of the situation is somehow different than how he publicly communicates about it.
Last edited by Ominous Gamer; 10-01-2017 at 09:23 PM.
"In a field where an overlooked bug could cost millions, you want people who will speak their minds, even if they’re sometimes obnoxious about it."
I suspect that airdrops from a C130 are actually a pretty awful way to handle this (not to mention hardly cheap or easy to scrounge spare airlift capacity). They're notoriously hard to target (a guy I know works on designing 'precision airdrop' systems for the DoD and it's damned difficult to get anything approaching accuracy), and you're limited in the types of stuff you can airdrop. The federal government has used helicopters to drop off aid/medicines/fuel to remote areas and medevac patients with emergent needs (e.g. dialysis patients who can't get access to a clinic with power). Beyond that, far more aid in terms of bulk supplies can be delivered through ground transport (albeit spotty) than through any reasonable number of airdrops.
I did some looking to see whether anyone has been suggesting that this was a solution to the relief efforts for PR and I've seen essentially zero people seriously suggesting this was a fix. The vast majority of suggestions have looked at improving logistics at the port and on the roads, which seem like an eminently reasonable solution - but it's not obvious to me that the federal government is the rate limiting step here.
I don't think Trump is handling the situation at all. But I think that FEMA and elements of the DoD are, and it's not obvious to me that any requests they have made for resources have been denied by the administration. Would 20k troops have helped the situation? Maybe, I don't know - it takes time to spin up that kind of manpower for transport to an island and there's already ~10k federal responders there, including elements of the Army Corps of Engineers, which is the group that's actually crucial for re-establishing the island's infrastructure and supply chain.It took him a damn near week to give PR any attention. We should have had 20-30k troops on the way the day after it passed. Some of the first people to respond where private entities that had no connection to FEMA or their EO plans. Pitbull used his plane to rescue hospital patients. Elon is sending solar panels and batteries (congrats GT). Carnival cancelled cruises to rescue people. Its hard to characterize the initial response as anything but poor.
Then again, my city still looks like this (taken today):
Its naive, at head in the sand levels, to think his handling of the situation is somehow different than how he publicly communicates about it.
I have no doubt that PR is suffering and that we should be making all reasonable efforts to get the island up and running as quickly as possible. It is not, however, obvious to me what should be happening that isn't already - and none of the critique I've seen of Trump has been particularly specific about what should be done. The mayor of San Juan is absolutely right that conditions on the island are unacceptable, but she has not articulated (at least in anything I've read) specific actions she'd like taken that have not been already put in place. Maybe it's just a matter of degree - the US needs to send more manpower to the island. But it's just as possible that the rate limiting step is elsewhere.
I'm not defending Trump's rhetoric or even his actions - I am simply saying that I don't know if the response is lackluster or more or less what you'd expect given the scale of the devastation - there is no obvious glaring lack of initiative/support by FEMA. I'm sure we'll get a better feel for things in the next weeks and months to come.
"When I meet God, I am going to ask him two questions: Why relativity? And why turbulence? I really believe he will have an answer for the first." - Werner Heisenberg (maybe)
and yet the Jones Act waiver is only for 10 days. No need to wait weeks or months. Hell, it took him a week after the hurricane before he managed to get around to that.
"In a field where an overlooked bug could cost millions, you want people who will speak their minds, even if they’re sometimes obnoxious about it."
There are no roads. Building roads takes time. Dropping water purifiers, generators, food, fuel, toilet paper, soap ... well you got gravity on your side. And probably cheaper than trying to make the roads passable in time to save people. Trump people should really take this more seriously than they appear to be doing. Lots of brown people coming to MAGA.
Faith is Hope (see Loki's sig for details)
If hindsight is 20-20, why is it so often ignored?
I don't think shipping to the island is the bottleneck. The Jones act should be permanently ditched as an uncompetitive subsidy, but it's not the problem here.
"When I meet God, I am going to ask him two questions: Why relativity? And why turbulence? I really believe he will have an answer for the first." - Werner Heisenberg (maybe)
I am not an expert on the provision of humanitarian aid, but airdrops are generally not used in all but the most desperate of situations, and even then their utility is often limited at best.
The roads don't need to be built, they just need to be cleared - and selecting a drop site is probably far from easy for most of the communities in need. Not an easy task to get the roads cleared, no, but the volume of goods you can move by truck is always going to be way higher (and far more precise) than airdropping some goods and hoping they land somewhere people can get them. And dropping enough to help the 3.5 million people on the island (or, say, the 50% of those who are far enough away from the port to be in trouble) is essentially infeasible. They have done small, targeted airborne deliveries of supplies (often fuel) for facilities that absolutely need to stay running - e.g. hospitals - as well as evacuating people who are similarly high risk. That seems like an eminently reasonable use of air assets (in addition to the supplies being flown into the airport for distribution).
I could be wrong - maybe the PR government and FEMA are begging the administration to use massive airdrops of supplies and Trump is saying 'let those brownies die!'. But it doesn't seem like that's the case given the interviews I've heard and read from people in both organizations. The only thing that might appreciably help is more help in getting the infrastructure up and running again - power, water, port facilities, roads, trucks/drivers, etc. I know they're getting help on this, I don't have any sense of the magnitude of the help and whether adding more manpower would speed anything up.
"When I meet God, I am going to ask him two questions: Why relativity? And why turbulence? I really believe he will have an answer for the first." - Werner Heisenberg (maybe)
Not only that but of course clearing roads is precisely what is needed not just to help in this situation but to return life to normal afterwards.
http://www.politico.com/story/2017/1...latives-243395
DOJ releases overruled memos finding it illegal for presidents to appoint relatives
Someone wasn't paying attention to which FOIA requests needed denied
"In a field where an overlooked bug could cost millions, you want people who will speak their minds, even if they’re sometimes obnoxious about it."
The First Ladies of numerous Presidents have sat on such commissions and panels though, both before and after the '67 law. Not saying other family members are allowed but there is apparently leeway for wives.http://www.politico.com/story/2017/1...latives-243395
DOJ releases overruled memos finding it illegal for presidents to appoint relatives
Someone wasn't paying attention to which FOIA requests needed denied
Last night as I lay in bed, looking up at the stars, I thought, “Where the hell is my ceiling?"
Aren't the military engineers there doing precisely that already? As much as the President is an arsehole, the general body of governance like the military professionals etc know what they're doing even without the Presidents input.
Agreed that the President simply should STFU.
I think if trucks, drivers, heavy equipment and operators were there in sufficient supply, then there would not be a road-clearing and supply-hauling bottleneck. As for the president's input, I'm under the impression the military wouldn't just go respond to a hurricane all on its own. Someone has to order them, and Trump being the (god help us all) Commander in Chief, then yeah, he has to have input. And it could be that they did send troops down, engineers, whatever, but maybe not enough trucks and drivers, you know? And if Trump did order the military to go to PR and make everything work, likely with that level of give-a-shit factor, then maybe it's some general or clerk or whoever the fuck that didn't think to go heavy on the logistics support. But however things have gone wrong, in the end, it's the President's fault. At least it has been in the past. This fucker doesn't take responsibility for anything - never has.
EDIT: Now that I really think about it, I don't have any reason to believe the response to Puerto Rico's need has, in fact, been inadequate - at least in the way the response to New Orleans was. I've heard some people complaining in Puerto Rico, specifically the mayor of San Juan, along with Trump's inexcusable response, which became the story, and I've heard discussion about what the problem is with getting aid out of the port(s) and into the country side, but I don't have any real reason to believe the government has been fucking up.
Is it negligent and incompetent to not have anticipated/ or underestimated the level of need for trucking/ road clearing out of the port city (s)? Or maybe the level of need was anticipated, but the necessary resources were simply not available outside the timing they arrived. And how bad was the miss? I don't have any idea, really.
Last edited by EyeKhan; 10-03-2017 at 05:50 PM.
The Rules
Copper- behave toward others to elicit treatment you would like (the manipulative rule)
Gold- treat others how you would like them to treat you (the self regard rule)
Platinum - treat others the way they would like to be treated (the PC rule)
Doesn't the link specifically refer to Mrs Carter? Wasn't she First Lady or was it a different Mrs Carter?
Yes. Bearing that advisory in mind, President Carter made his wife the "Honorary Chairwoman who just happened to end up doing all the work associated with being the chair of the committee."
Last night as I lay in bed, looking up at the stars, I thought, “Where the hell is my ceiling?"
In our EOC its called "have chainsaw, will travel"
Quickest way to recover after a disaster is man power and the supplies needed for them. Its one of the biggest lessons we learned (recovery wise) from Andrew. Yet our military only sent 2 ships in those first 6 days after Maria made landfall.
"In a field where an overlooked bug could cost millions, you want people who will speak their minds, even if they’re sometimes obnoxious about it."
That sounds bad, but it doesn't mean that much unless you understand what kind of ships they were -say, how big- what was in them, and what their mission was... I don't mean to argue the government did it right, I just found myself condemning the hurricane response without knowing if there's something to condemn yet. And that's a mistake.
The Rules
Copper- behave toward others to elicit treatment you would like (the manipulative rule)
Gold- treat others how you would like them to treat you (the self regard rule)
Platinum - treat others the way they would like to be treated (the PC rule)
and I really wish I had the names of the two ships that were sent. but it was a weak enough response that the military sent 10 additional ships and the USNS Comfort when people starting asking where the support was. It was 8 days after landfall before command sent in a General to oversee matters and he himself has admitted that not enough troops or equipment were deployed to deal with the devastation.
but hey, according to Trump this isn't a "real catastrophe"
Last edited by Ominous Gamer; 10-03-2017 at 08:38 PM.
"In a field where an overlooked bug could cost millions, you want people who will speak their minds, even if they’re sometimes obnoxious about it."
I don't know where it was coming from, but the Comfort arrived in Puerto Rico a few hours ago, 13 days after landfall.
"In a field where an overlooked bug could cost millions, you want people who will speak their minds, even if they’re sometimes obnoxious about it."
I would imagine in this sort of situation the President would be told by his staff "this is the plan" to which he says "go ahead".
I highly doubt he is coming up with the plans or turning down the advice of his Generals etc
Virginia, it was dispatched on Friday.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/usns-co...r-puerto-rico/
good god, why does this fool not have a 24/7 handler?
Twitter Link
"In a field where an overlooked bug could cost millions, you want people who will speak their minds, even if they’re sometimes obnoxious about it."
I... what the fuck is he thinking?
He was thinking "this will make liberals cry".
When the sky above us fell
We descended into hell
Into kingdom come
He was thinking "swish swish alley-oop swish swish"
"In a field where an overlooked bug could cost millions, you want people who will speak their minds, even if they’re sometimes obnoxious about it."
Trump has compared what happened in PR with "a real tragedy like Katrina"
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-c...alflow_twitter
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