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UPDATE October 4: The two Puerto Ricos: In downtown San Juan Starbucks is booming and even the strip club is back. But just 15 miles away there will be no power until FEBRUARY and there are still queues for food aid
Hurricane-scarred Puerto Rico has become a tale of two islands - with malls, restaurants cinemas and even a stirp club reopening in the capital while the starving poor huddle in darkness just a few miles away. The city's trendy Plaza Las Américas mall is once again a hive of activity, with residents flocking to Cheesecake Factory, Mr Pretzels and Starbucks to sip espresso and stream TV on high speed WiFi. Travel beyond the city limits however and the semblance of normality quickly fades to desperation and misery. The disparity is shockingly evident in Loiza, a coastal city to the east of San Juan and one of the island's most impoverished communities.
An Alliance Made in Heaven: The leftist mayor of San Juan and CNN - The mayor blames the Federal Government - that is, TRUMP - for failure to distribute aid already on the island! - Trump responded that the mayor wanted the government to do everything for them.
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Houston, Texas: Volunteer men organized a flotilla to save thousands of people stranded by hurricane floods.
Puerto Rico: Truck drivers go on strike demanding higher pay and refuse to distribute life-saving supplies to starving victims of hurricane. Self-organizing relief efforts almost non-existent.
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Puerto Rico is a textbook case of what can happen when an area is so ravaged by disaster that there is not even the most basic infrastructure to distribute help to those who need it. Seaports and airports mostly destroyed, roads covered in debris, and cellphone communication impossible.
And as people run out of food, water, and fuel, and hospitals are barely function or not at all due to the lack of fuel to run generators, THOUSANDS of containers full of supplies have been sitting on the docks since the hurricane because unionized drivers on strike refuse to transport them.
Why are thousands of containers still sitting there? Because Puerto Rican drivers are on strike.
As the infrastructure is getting patched up a dirty little secret the mainstream media won't tell you is that Puerto Rico unionized drivers are demanding higher pay and on strike since before Hurricane Maria struck the island. Now they expect to profit from a desperate situation. The governor issued a public plea asking them to deliver aid sitting in the docks, but there was no response.
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| Gas stations selling fuel are being looted. |
Police too are conspicuous by their absence. With numerous bands of looters roaming the island, it is dangerous to drive any sort of vehicle full of goods without police or military protection.
Gas stations that had been provisioned are being looted by criminals.
In the meantime the left-wing mayor of San Juan has been ranting hysterically on CNN and blaming the federal government for Puerto Ricans starving and dying.
VIDEO - Dishonest media call Hurricane Maria "Trump's Katrina"
More Rebel Media Videos
MEDIA and Democrats WEAPONIZED Puerto Rico's tragedy against TRUMP
The mainstream media, particularly CNN, along with Democrat politicians, have WEAPONIZED the Puerto Rican disaster. They tried to do the same thing in Texas and Florida, but they failed due to effective Federal response to the disasters.
So the media are using Puerto Rico. They did this by hiding the sad truth about this island: it is culturally different from the mainland, and so thousands of containers with food, water, and life-saving medicine are still sitting at the docks, because Puerto Rican drivers are on strike, and able bodied men have failed to organize themselves.
Police have disappeared. Looters have been busy operating since the hurricane moved on. Now the local government has resorted to a few National Guard to keep order.
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| A few National Guard patrol the streets |
Police have disappeared. Looters have been busy operating since the hurricane moved on. Now the local government has resorted to a few National Guard to keep order.
That is the reality. Lack of distribution is not Trump's fault, or alleged racism, or neglect. The Federal government has done enough, but it cannot do everything.
VIDEO - The Ugly Truth About Puerto Rico Wanting U.S. Statehood - By Stefan Molyneux
More Videos by Stefan Molyneux
Puerto Rico was a dysfunctional society long before it was hit by hurricanes.
- Island political leaders have been demanding USA statehood;
- No call for independence because that would entail taking responsibility for their debts and other shortcomings.
- They want statehood not because they love the USA, but to obtain bankruptcy protection.
- Puerto Rico has $49 BILLION in pension liabilities on top of other debts to a grand total of $129 BILLION.
- It receives over $20 BILLION in aid a year.
- Its domestic product is $100 billion.
- Half of the Puerto Rican population is on public assistance.
- Those holding jobs work mostly for the government.
- The unemployment rate is 14%.
- There are ONE THOUSAND murders a year.
- Many of those murders are related to the growing illicit drug trade.
- Organized crime corrupts the political system at all levels.
- Puerto Rico is tops in public corruption cases.
- School tests score show students performing below basics in math and reading.
- The average state of health is poor, with too many suffering from diabetes and assorted disabilities.
- One in three Puerto Ricans claim some kind of disability
- However there is a high level of fraud in disability diagnosis because of corruption in the medical system.
- Lack of English language skills qualifies as a disability in Puerto Rico.
Continue reading this and other related articles, and see references - More UPDATES being added
The reason for no drivers in Puerto Rico? The Teamsters Union, Frente Amplio, is refusing to move the product.
Source
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2017/09/30/puerto-rico-teamsters-union-frente-amplio-refuse-to-deliver-supplies-use-hurricane-maria-as-contract-leverage/
THOUSANDS Of Containers ROTTING At San Juan Port After STRIKING Union Drivers Allegedly REFUSE To Deliver Goods…LIBERAL Mayor Has Some Explaining To Do
https://100percentfedup.com/thousands-containers-rotting-san-juan-port-striking-union-drivers-allegedly-refuse-deliver-goodsliberal-mayor-explaining/
CNN Caught Using Fake News to Turn Puerto Rico into Trump’s ‘Katrina’
http://www.breitbart.com/texas/2017/09/27/cnn-caught-using-fake-news-turn-puerto-rico-trumps-katrina/
Social Disability Fraud in Puerto Rico
In 2006, just 36% of initial applicants in Puerto Rico were awarded benefits. In December 2010, the award rate had jumped to 69%. By 2010, nine of the top 10 U.S. ZIP Codes for workers receiving disability benefits were on the island.
Source
https://www.cato.org/blog/social-security-disability-fraud-puerto-rico
April 2015 - Washington Post - Not being able to speak English qualifies Puerto Ricans for disability payments
Hundreds of Puerto Rico’s residents qualified for federal disability benefits in recent years because they lacked fluency in English, according to government auditors.
The Social Security Administration’s inspector general questioned the policy in light of the fact that Spanish is the predominant language in the U.S. territory.
Under Social Security regulations, individuals are considered less employable in the United States if they can’t speak English, regardless of their work experience or level of education.
The inspector general noted that a nurse in Puerto Rico who speaks only Spanish could be considered “unskilled” under current Social Security standards.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/federal-eye/wp/2015/04/10/puerto-ricans-who-cant-speak-english-qualify-as-disabled-for-social-security/
Looters - VIDEO
They did not go for the food, but for cigarettes, booze, computers.
BUSTED: Anti-Trump Mayor Of San Juan Spent $20,000 In Public Funds To Bankroll Violent Protest
Carmen Yulin Cruz, the Trump-bashing, terrorist-supporting Mayor of San Juan, diverted $20,000 worth of government money to fund a violent protest against the establishment of a Federal Fiscal Board on June 25th, 2016, according to multiple local San Juan media reports.
A group named Call to Action on Puerto Rico, which is a union of Puerto Ricans living in the mainland United States, organized the demonstration and ordered its participants to adopt “rebellious and militant” behavior for the event, according to Caribbean Business.
The protests descended on San Juan’s iconic Roberto Clemente Coliseum and demanded the US government halt its plan to create a federal financial control board for Puerto Rico.
Predictably, the protest quickly turned into a riot: local media reports at the time indicated it was marked by “aggressive” behavior and ended in fights.
In September of 2016, Cruz admitted that she and the San Juan People’s Assembly had financed the violent protest to the tune of $20,000, according to Tu Noticia Puerto Rico. Puerto Rican public officials and media alike were furious at the revelation.
Senator Itzamar Pena Ramirez denounced Mayor Cruz for misusing public funds and demanded she started respecting taxpayer money. Moreover, local San Juan television could hardly believe the city’s chief elected official had the audacity to spend her constituents’ money on violent protests:
Cruz’s tenure as Mayor of San Juan has been plagued by widespread waste. For instance, this past December she paid her city government employees a staggering $9,634,913 in Christmas bonuses instead of investing in better infrastructure and/or hurricane readiness measures:
Numerous current and former Puerto Rican elected officials have accused Cruz of playing politics with Hurricane Maria relief as part of a greater liberal effort to smear President Donald Trump. Former Puerto Rico Attoney General Jose Fuentes recently called Cruz a “political hack,” and Angel Perez, the current Mayor of nearby Guaynabo, blasted Cruz for skipping FEMA meetings so she can do cable television interviews.
Alarmingly, a Puerto Rican police officer recently called in to a New York City Hispanic language radio station and accused Cruz of deliberately withholding food and supplies as part of a publicity stunt, describing how “Carmen Yulin won’t move unless there is a camera behind her.”
At the time of the violent protest Cruz sponsored, Puerto Rico was saddled with enormous debt and plagued by gross financial mismanagement, as it often is. As a result, it was desperate for economic reform, and looking for solutions to its runaway spending problems.
President Obama ended up signing a Puerto Rico rescue bill four days after the Mayor’s violent protest, establishing the fiscal board and bailing out the island’s struggling economy.
Despite receiving this massive slush fund from US taxpayers, Puerto Rico ended up throwing in the towel on May 3rd, 2017, filing for US Municipal Bankruptcy in an attempt to address its whopping $73 billion public debt.
Stay tuned for more.
SOURCE - GOT NEWS
http://gotnews.com/busted-anti-trump-mayor-san-juan-spent-20000-public-funds-bankroll-violent-protest/
How the Democrats Set Up Puerto Rico for Disaster
By Daniel Greenfield
We’ve seen this show before.
When there’s a national disaster, neighborhoods have been reduced to rubble, shelters are filled with crying families, and a Republican is in the White House, the Democrats jump into action.
Not to help, but to make political capital from a disaster that they helped cause.
After Hurricane Katrina, the media shrieked that survivors inside the New Orleans Superdome were murdering each other. But there actually wasn’t a single murder in the Superdome. And no, NBC’s Brian Williams, never saw any corpses floating past the Ritz-Carlton.
When there’s a national disaster, neighborhoods have been reduced to rubble, shelters are filled with crying families, and a Republican is in the White House, the Democrats jump into action.
Not to help, but to make political capital from a disaster that they helped cause.
After Hurricane Katrina, the media shrieked that survivors inside the New Orleans Superdome were murdering each other. But there actually wasn’t a single murder in the Superdome. And no, NBC’s Brian Williams, never saw any corpses floating past the Ritz-Carlton.
The media exaggerated and lied.
New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin was all over the news shouting, “Get off your asses” and accusing the Bush administration of “spinning” while “people are dying”. The dirty Democrat demanded more resources while claiming that everything that the Federal government was doing wasn’t good enough. He called for Greyhound buses, when there were plenty of school buses in New Orleans that weren’t being used.
Much of the disaster was actually Nagin’s fault. And Ray Nagin has been convicted of his crimes.
Puerto Rico is the new New Orleans. San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulin Cruz is the new Nagin.
While media types claim that there’s a cholera outbreak in Puerto Rico (there isn’t), Yulin Cruz hops from CNN to MSNBC to accuse, demand aid, taunt Trump and throw around claims of “genocide”.
New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin was all over the news shouting, “Get off your asses” and accusing the Bush administration of “spinning” while “people are dying”. The dirty Democrat demanded more resources while claiming that everything that the Federal government was doing wasn’t good enough. He called for Greyhound buses, when there were plenty of school buses in New Orleans that weren’t being used.
Much of the disaster was actually Nagin’s fault. And Ray Nagin has been convicted of his crimes.
Puerto Rico is the new New Orleans. San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulin Cruz is the new Nagin.
While media types claim that there’s a cholera outbreak in Puerto Rico (there isn’t), Yulin Cruz hops from CNN to MSNBC to accuse, demand aid, taunt Trump and throw around claims of “genocide”.
There has been no shortage of Federal aid to Puerto Rico. There are tons of supplies sitting and rotting. There are 10,000 shipping containers in a San Juan port alone. The dysfunctional local authorities were having trouble finding the drivers to deliver them.
The Governor of Puerto Rico has said that he doesn’t need more supplies. He needs drivers. And, currently, only 20% of the truck drivers are reporting for work. Meanwhile fuel trucks can’t travel because of a curfew.
Is that Trump’s fault?Local relief is the job of local authorities. It is not President Trump’s job to dispatch truck drivers to Puerto Rico.
The White House has, by the admission of local authorities, filled every aid request. According to FEMA, 11,800 Federal personnel are on the ground in Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. FEMA personnel have helped 843 people and entered thousands of buildings.
But Mayor Yulin Cruz keeps singing from Nagin’s old hymnal about old people being trapped and massive death tolls. But where are the 1,500 employees of San Juan’s police department? Why can’t San Juan find municipal employees who can drive a truck or evacuate the elderly?
Yulin Cruz found the time to appear on every single cable news program, but has yet to visit a FEMA center. She poses against a backdrop of massive amounts of aid, which the local authorities can’t seem to distribute, but they did find the time to print out a “We are all dying” t-shirt for her to wear while chatting with Anderson Cooper on CNN.
Cruz is a member of the Partido Popular Democratico which is affiliated with the Democrats.
Despite being exposed to plenty of storms, Puerto Rico was obviously unprepared for the disaster, in all the ways that count, like having a Plan B for when the cell towers stop working. Like New Orleans, much of which is below sea level, the authorities had no viable plan to deal with an inevitable disaster.
But Mayor Yulin Cruz keeps singing from Nagin’s old hymnal about old people being trapped and massive death tolls. But where are the 1,500 employees of San Juan’s police department? Why can’t San Juan find municipal employees who can drive a truck or evacuate the elderly?
Yulin Cruz found the time to appear on every single cable news program, but has yet to visit a FEMA center. She poses against a backdrop of massive amounts of aid, which the local authorities can’t seem to distribute, but they did find the time to print out a “We are all dying” t-shirt for her to wear while chatting with Anderson Cooper on CNN.
Cruz is a member of the Partido Popular Democratico which is affiliated with the Democrats.
Despite being exposed to plenty of storms, Puerto Rico was obviously unprepared for the disaster, in all the ways that count, like having a Plan B for when the cell towers stop working. Like New Orleans, much of which is below sea level, the authorities had no viable plan to deal with an inevitable disaster.
The PPD had one agenda. And that agenda was fighting “austerity”, not preparing for the day when the lights go out.
When Hurricane Georges hit Puerto Rico in 1998, 100% of electrical services were disrupted. Roads and bridges were destroyed. Utility workers actually had to be flown in from outside to handle repairs. (The media was much less interested in Georges because a Clinton was in the White House.)
But a FEMA audit found questionable costs and no useful lessons were learned from the disaster.
In 2004, Tropical Storm Jeanne hit Puerto Rico and all the power went out. Governor Sila Calderon, the Dem politico, who had also served as Mayor of San Juan, was back to warning that there was no water or power. Two years earlier, Caldreon had pressured the United States to leave Vieques.
In 2004, Tropical Storm Jeanne hit Puerto Rico and all the power went out. Governor Sila Calderon, the Dem politico, who had also served as Mayor of San Juan, was back to warning that there was no water or power. Two years earlier, Caldreon had pressured the United States to leave Vieques.
A referendum showed 70% Puerto Rican support for withdrawal. As a result, Roosevelt Roads Naval Station was closed.Calderon and the PPD claimed that the abandoned base would become an international airport. Instead it’s an eyesore. And there are no more Navy bases in Puerto Rico. That makes it harder to ship supplies.
But the PPD has come full circle from “US Out of Vieques” to “Why the Hell Aren’t You in Vieques?”
"I cannot fathom the thought that the greatest nation in the world cannot figure out the logistics for a small island,” Mayor Yulin Cruz rants. But it’s Puerto Rico that hasn’t figured out its own logistics.
It’s deep in debt and yet it’s completely unprepared every time a storm arrives.
President Trump dispatched vessels to Puerto Rico before the hurricane. These included the Kearsarge; one of the Navy’s big powerhouses. The USS Kearsarge Amphibious Ready Group had delivered 44,000 pounds of supplies and conducted 144 airlifts. It’s operating from Roosevelt Roads, which would have had a stable Naval presence if it wasn’t for the PPD and the left’s Vieques protests.
But the PPD has come full circle from “US Out of Vieques” to “Why the Hell Aren’t You in Vieques?”
"I cannot fathom the thought that the greatest nation in the world cannot figure out the logistics for a small island,” Mayor Yulin Cruz rants. But it’s Puerto Rico that hasn’t figured out its own logistics.
It’s deep in debt and yet it’s completely unprepared every time a storm arrives.
President Trump dispatched vessels to Puerto Rico before the hurricane. These included the Kearsarge; one of the Navy’s big powerhouses. The USS Kearsarge Amphibious Ready Group had delivered 44,000 pounds of supplies and conducted 144 airlifts. It’s operating from Roosevelt Roads, which would have had a stable Naval presence if it wasn’t for the PPD and the left’s Vieques protests.
Military personnel are busy clearing roads. But the question is why can’t Puerto Rico do it?
And what was President Trump supposed to do about it? Was he supposed to magically ensure that Puerto Rico would be better prepared when its own authorities and Obama Inc. had failed to do so?
After Superstorm Sandy, the media flipped the script and turned its disaster coverage into a reelection commercial for Barack Obama. But the reality on the ground was a completely inept response. FEMA proved useless. Its centers shut down due to snow. Biker gangs, the local equivalent of the Cajun Navy, were much more useful. Obama took a photo op hug with a victim and then ignored her pleas for help.
And what was President Trump supposed to do about it? Was he supposed to magically ensure that Puerto Rico would be better prepared when its own authorities and Obama Inc. had failed to do so?
After Superstorm Sandy, the media flipped the script and turned its disaster coverage into a reelection commercial for Barack Obama. But the reality on the ground was a completely inept response. FEMA proved useless. Its centers shut down due to snow. Biker gangs, the local equivalent of the Cajun Navy, were much more useful. Obama took a photo op hug with a victim and then ignored her pleas for help.
But that too was business as usual.
The media has struggled to, in its own words, turn the latest disaster into Trump’s Katrina. They pivoted from initially ignoring the hurricane (just as they usually do) to accusing Trump of ignoring it. They pounded away at the Jones Act, and when that was waived, are berating Trump for not “caring enough”.
But this disaster is their puppy.
The Democrats have held the White House for eight years. If the disaster is a Federal problem, they had eight years to fix it.
They didn’t.
Governor Ricardo Rossello was an Obama delegate. He taped an ad for Hillary Clinton. Mayor Yulin Cruz is on the left. But, just like New Orleans, the local authorities somehow escape all the blame.
Trump didn’t make Puerto Rico dysfunctional. Puerto Rico has yet to come up with a functional response to a storm. And some of its dysfunctional politicians gleefully tour cable news denouncing Trump while ignoring their own people even as they exploit their suffering.
New Orleans, Houston and Puerto Rico share a common pattern. The left runs an area into the ground. And then when disaster strikes, it lashes out at a Republican in the White House. When local authorities fail to evacuate, when they don’t have a viable disaster plan, when they don’t use available resources, it’s Bush’s fault or it’s Trump’s fault. But it’s never the fault of the Democrats. Nothing ever is.
It’s the job of local authorities to deal with a disaster. The Federal government is only supposed to step in when local resources are overwhelmed. But in Puerto Rico, there seem to be no local resources.
Even expecting truck drivers to pick up supplies from the port is expecting too much.
That’s not President Trump’s fault. If you want someone to blame, talk to the angry leftist wearing her “We are all dying” t-shirt on CNN. Maybe the same driver who delivered her shirt and her news crew, can take the time to deliver some supplies to all the dying people.
Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center, is a New York writer focusing on radical Islam.
Source:
http://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/268026/how-democrats-set-puerto-rico-disaster-daniel-greenfield Source:
VIA http://israelagainstterror.blogspot.ca/2017/10/how-democrats-set-up-puerto-rico-for.html
The two Puerto Ricos: In downtown San Juan Starbucks is booming and even the strip club is back.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4949922/Strippers-San-Juan-darkness-rest-Puerto-Rico.html
Looting of gas stations and other stores (in Spanish)
https://www.elnuevodia.com/noticias/seguridad/nota/hurtansobre300000enmercanciadeunagasolinera-2362126/
Puerto Rico governor begging truck drivers to help transport food
https://www.cbsnews.com/videos/puerto-rico-governor-asking-truck-drivers-to-help-transport-food/
Puerto Rico's Governor Dismantles Media Attacks on Trump's Response to Hurricanes Irma and Maria
https://pjmedia.com/trending/2017/09/25/puerto-ricos-governor-dismantles-media-attacks-trumps-response-hurricane-irma/
National Guard now patrolling - not enough of them - Article in Spanish
https://www.elnuevodia.com/noticias/seguridad/nota/asignan200oficialesdelaguardianacionalparadarapoyoenlaisla-2362121/
Containers sitting at the docks - Article in Spanish
https://www.elnuevodia.com/noticias/locales/nota/milesdevagonesconmercanciapermanecenenlosmuelles-2360301/
For latest news of Puerto Rico in Spanish
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