But surely someone in the WH has told Trump how bad another Katrina would be on his watch. Surely someone on the JCS has told Trump the military could fix this.

So Donald would just as soon put "a total and complete shutdown of Porto Ricans entering the United States." At least until he and his advisers can "figure out what is going on." Which could take forever.

I read a very-well-argued post here the other day which convinced me that Russia is still skillfully attempting to destroy us with their Trump. Every move he makes every single day seems designed to demean and degrade the very spirit of the nation. And the puppet himself isn't bright enough to plan these moves.

I so look forward to payback. 'Russian Misery' needs to return in a vast tidal wave that forever alters their character.

undermining the USA.

Sure is working good. We have us a REAL Manchurian candidate in the White House right now.

It is the intentional destruction of the west, planned chaos, separate the US from europe,

Then all the $ goes to the oligarchs and putin gets latvia lithuania ukraine belarus estonia, and on and on..

dugin putin bannon-- the list is clear

Look up Alexander Dugin.

There are ignorant russians just as there are ignorant americans.

I have many russian friends.
this isn't any more about them than about you or I,

Russian culture, music, painting, ballet, literature is among the greatest in the world.
St Petersburg is a world treasure.
Maybe read, if you might be interested, SIEGE AND SYMPHONY, It is a stunning relating of the composing and performance of Shostakovich's 7th Symphony during the Siege of Leningrad.

The people of Leningrad, indeed all of Russia, were fighting not only the germans, but stalin as well.. It was awful.

As always, it is about the greedy, selfish, inhuman monsters who gain power. Always has been always will be.

Plus, I'm a long-time student of Russian history and culture.

I mean the Oligarchs. The Profiteers. Those who rule Russia, and who have cunningly exploited our racist half to destroy us.

I agree with you. The Russian people need our help. We shall have to free all of us, and the Oligarchs must face justice.

super...

Funny? story.
I had just landed in St Petersburg about an hour before trumper's inauguration.

As he was taking the oath of office I was watching THE IDIOT at the Mariinsky Theater. LOL

What we're all missing is a real leader with a sense of service.

and hedonist with the emotional control of a 4 year old, Trump is a sadist.

And he's a very, very destructive man. He loves leaving destruction in his wake. He loves the attention, and it validates how powerful he is.

the Jones Act -- the law that prevents other countries from bringing supplies directly to P.R., as happened with Fl and TX, he said that it was because US shippers objected. (They want all the business.)

Here is what bugs me - the USNS Comfort is being prepped to ship out to Puerto Rico in harbor at Norfol, VA. It will take four days to supply the ship and recall the crew, five to get the ship to the island.

In 2010 the Comfort was sent to Haiti from where it was berthed in Chesapeake Bay - it took FOUR DAYS to get it there with no advanced warning.

We KNEW for DAYS that Maria would hit Puerto Rico. We have known for a WEEK how badly the island was hit. Why the FUCK wasn't the ship prepped BEFORE Maria hit? It should have been ready to leave port as soon as weather conditions allowed for safe passage to PR.

Thousands of people will die because little or no advanced preparation was done. Sure, no one wanted to send out ships in the direction of a Cat 5 hurricane - but there were moves that could have been made to get supplies and aid moved in the general direction.

And this bullshit about the Jones Act - it's been a burden on Puerto Rico for years and a waiver should have been approved in anticipation of the crisis.

Here is what we are missing, TomSlick - the Republicans in power should own this fiasco and be held responsible for each and every death that has and that WILL happen because of the delay in aid. We should be pounding the fact that every time a disaster happens during a Republican presidential term people DIE because the Republicans are incompetent and do not care about people.

my US Representative. I'll be calling their offices tomorrow and Friday.

I hope people are still having these assholes on speed dial and writing them every other day. We can't let up for a minute.

And now, people are dying. Trump doesn't give a shit because they had the temerity to get hit by a hurricane while being people of color. But I care, and I know you all do.

Let's pressure these motherfuckers in DC to actually get off their asses and GOVERN. God knows, Trump sure isn't going to.

For a while I thought it was because of the election. Monday I go to talk to a cardiothoracic surgeon to decide what kind of valve replacement to get and how soon...

Maybe after I am recovered I will have enough energy to help with the elections next year!

financially crippling copay.

Jokes aside, my best to you, because heart surgery is no joke at all. Best to you and your family.

And don't worry - others will pick up the slack.

Hey.............................others...............................?????????????


Do you read me? Let's pick it up!

Thank goodness! I'm a little concerned but from the reaction of my cardiologist not getting the valve replacement is not really an option. I've had a bunch of operations over the last sixteen years, including both knees replaced in 2012. No complications from any of them so I'm hoping the heart surgery goes as easily.

My Mom at 86 was diagnosed with the same problem so it is probably genetic and congenital. Mom refused minimally invasive valve replacement - she has never had an operation and didn't want one at that age. She's now 96 so I guess she made the right choice.

I know there will be lots out there calling, including my sister. And as soon as I can I will call - right now I'm concentrating on getting better so I can fight Trump!

We landed something like one plane every twenty seconds, 24 hours a day, every day for a year. If they weren't Spanish speaking and brown-skinned, we would have moved Heaven and Earth to get Puerto Rico every possible thing it needs.

I make bitter angry jokes about it, but conservatives really do view them not as Americans or even human beings, but as filthy Island Mexicans.

They ARE Americans. They are our brothers and sisters, and they are dying in misery because this white nationalist asshole in the White House won't let a few foreign ships carry relief cargos.

Can anyone say...

MASSIVE

CIVIL

DISOBEDIENCE

?????????

The rebirth of a huge civil rights movement.

I'm in.

It ramped up as they worked out logistical methods to stack aircraft before landings and then unload aircraft quickly on the ground, distributing the material over a small area with good transportation systems. It started slow; they landed more in the first day in San Juan than they did in the first week of the Berlin airlift.

And that was with a decent airport and good logistics in Berlin, not a hurricane-wracked airport. And still they had a plane crash or two. Then it was for the cause. Now it would be considered grounds for impeachment.

The tempo of flights into PR picked up greatly in the last couple of days. They got the radar up and running.

smaller and confined to flying a narrow corridor.

Should be circling waiting to land on the Puerto Rico airport, and they should be lined up waiting to take off. It's about 1500 miles from Tyndall Air Force Base in Fla, the C130's have a range of 2,160 miles. No excuse.

(I was once in the unit) than could easily manage the flights/sea lifts, etc. and distributions on the island

So... WTF?

NATO in Norfolk.

Trump is an immature, vengeful asshole. Marco Rubio wiped the floor with him during last year's republican primary. Trump is immature and soulless enough to hold that defeat against the whole country.

Disasters like this produce frequent reports for him to read or be briefed on. Despite the drama on the ground, the reports aren't all that exciting, but they do contain a lot of important information. In particular, they contain information on what they need to get the job done and how that compares to what they actually have. And if there is a mismatch between those two things, the President is supposed to bark out orders to his staff to get extra resources to the places they need to be.

But Trump doesn't read. Or listen. Or know how to do math. Or have enough staff. Or know he is supposed to be able to do all of that.

I am so bloody pissed off about Puerto Rico I can barely speak. The networks are so damn busy analyzing a bloody Republican primary in Alabama that they don't have time to speak one word about Puerto Rico. Trump gets up and brags about what a wonderful job HE is doing and nobody bothers to call him on it. This from a guy who probably didn't even know the Puerto Rico was a) an island and b) was part of the USA, and c) that Puerto Ricans are US Citizens by birth until somebody cued him in on it recently.

And the truth that nobody dares speak is that the reason that Puerto Rico is not getting aid like Florida or the Houston area is because the population isn't white!!!! So Trump doesn't give a shit! They aren't neo-Nazis, or White Supremacists, or (even worse) they can't vote for him, so he doesn't give a shit. He wouldn't even think about them if his advisors hadn't bullied him into talking about them. He rants about how far in debt Puerto Rico is, and never mentions that HE defaulted on $25 million in municipal bonds when he declared bankruptcy on his golf course that he built with Puerto Rican money. And Congress is going to adjourn on Friday without bothering to pass an aid bill. They got one for Texas, and one for Florida, but the GOP can't be bothered to pass a bill for Puerto Rico.

And the God Dammed MSM can't be bothered to even talk about it! Lets talk about Roger Stone, let's talk about Roy Moore, but for God's sake, let's not talk about a couple of million thousand American citizens who have no food, no water, no gasoline, no insulin, and are begging for help. No, we can't talk about that. Might not get as good ratings as some football player taking a knee!

OK, rant over. I have to go puke and mourn the country that I used to know. I don't know how we as Americans are going to recover from this horrible person.

See my post below.
Food, fuel, etc is stranded by lack of drivers.
More drivers are needed. Planeloads of them!!!

and reiterated what the mayor said last night...there is bureaucratic BS as well as chaos with assigning people jobs, etc. Stuff is just sitting there and FEMA people have their hands tied. They should get some organizational leadership from someplace like the military.

the problem is not enough people to drive them into the outlying regions of the country. There is even a large supply of fuel that has already been delivered. It seems as though the biggest need today is manpower that can navigate PR & i imagine be bi-lingual. We need to be sending planeloads of people as well as goods now.

Only 20% of drivers have reported for work so far.

There are more MOS 88M (truck drivers) in the Army Reserve and National Guard than could ever be used. There are fleets of heavy trucks and fuel trucks sitting in motor pools unused.

The USAF and Navy has the lift capacity to move those drivers and trucks to Puerto Rico.

If there was any will to solve this problem, it would be done.

I never thought of it; my first thought was supplies. But according to what he said and news reports I've read, planeloads of drivers is what they need now. On MSNBC just this morning the Gov is saying just that. He says he has been in touch with the DOD, hopefully to get exactly those men and women you mention.

I imagine it took awhile for that crude idiot/ serial liar to learn Puerto Rico was a US Territory.

the don does not want to be reminded of bankruptcy.

So they are on their own.

when his golf course went bankrupt, stiffing municipal bonds and teacher pensions.
The mistake a lot of us make is overanalyzing Trump. Florida and Texas voted for Trump, Puerto Rico voted for Rubio. Trump holds a grudge.

Just like his attacks on the NFL, he wanted to buy the Buffalo Bills a couple of years ago and the league nixed the deal.

You've got it right. There is no-one in charge.

Yeah, he said that. Island -- in the ocean -- surrounded by water -- too hard to get to.

Like he doesn't command the US Navy and the US Air Force.

I lost it when I heard him say that yesterday.

First, most USAR and National Guard units are not sitting in a readiness posture that allows them to be activated in a couple days.

For most USAR units the minimum standard for a no-warning mobilization is 2 weeks to leave their Reserve Center and head to a mobilization station. And even that is a stretch in capabilities. Most NG units are the same. When you hear about NG units deployed fast to a disaster those are ones that were designated by that state to be on a higher state of readiness for that and had taken steps to keep that posture.

The heavy lift capability of the Air Force is actually pretty small compared to what it had been. When I was doing logistics on Afghanistan the majority of the supplies that came in to use were not flown on US military aircraft but on civilian contracted planes- a whole lot of the Russian and Ukrainian. The Air Force couldn't handle the demand.

There are about 180 C-17s in the Air Force inventory. About 40 of them will be unavailable at any given time for maintenance reasons. Of those 140 left probably 100 are tasked right now with supporting current military deployments and movements of supplies in and out of Iraq and Afghanistan and other locations.

That leaves about 40 left that must support this mission plus all other airlift needs of the US Military globally.

That said, the gap probably isn't in airlift. You can't just airlift supplies and dump them on the flight line, there has to be distribution in place on the ground to manage that. And right now that seems to be the logjam. Until that is straightened out it will be a choke point. Until that is straightened out it is where the focus needs to be. And that will be officials in PR with the local government there taking the lead and managing that portion as they are the ones who know the people, the locations and the needs.

That simple

Trump's ego can't stand bruising. He will make people pay.

It's sickening.

so why would anyone care about PR?

Then only good news is that the plumber who just came to my house moved here from Puerto Rico, so Florida might turn island blue in the next year or two.