Puerto Rico is bankrupt

[boutons_deux]

Trash and his Best People maintain their record of absolute perfection

White House Places All Blame for 'Astonishingly Corrupt' Whitefish Contract on Puerto Rico

https://www.commondreams.org/news/20...ct-puerto-rico

[boutons_deux]

Texas Macho Man Cowboy cosplay secessionists whining for $10Bs from the Feds (blue states)

Abbott presses Congress for an extra $61 billion to rebuild after Harvey

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott flew to Washington to press the case for an additional $61 billion in federal disaster recovery money to rebuild public infrastructure after Hurricane Harvey’s devastation.

https://www.texastribune.org/2017/10/31/texas-needs-61b-more-feds-rebuild-after-harvey-sharps-says/

There's a sentiment among Houston Harvey victims, racist to the bone, that the Feds should help TX, but not help PR.

If Abbott stands for anything, it's for hypocrisy.

[Pavlov]

Texas Mach Man Cowboy cosplay secessionists whining for $10Bs from the Feds (blue states)

Abbott presses Congress for an extra $61 billion to rebuild after Harvey

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott flew to Washington to press the case for an additional $61 billion in federal disaster recovery money to rebuild public infrastructure after Hurricane Harvey’s devastation.

https://www.texastribune.org/2017/10/31/texas-needs-61b-more-feds-rebuild-after-harvey-sharps-says/

There's a sentiment among Houston Harvey victims, racist to the bone, that the Feds should help TX, but not help PR.

If Abbott stands for anything, it's for hypocrisy.

Cash the $61 billion check -- THEN we secede!

[Blake]

Lol

[boutons_deux]

The Lineman Got $63 an Hour. The Utility Was Billed $319 an Hour.

The small energy outfit from Montana that won a $300 million contract to help rebuild Puerto Rico’s tattered power grid had few employees of its own, so it did what the Puerto Rican authorities could have done: It turned to Florida for workers.

For their trouble, the six electrical workers from Kissimmee are earning $42 an hour, plus overtime.

The senior power linemen from Lakeland are earning $63 an hour working in Puerto Rico, the Florida utility said.

Their 40 co-workers from Jacksonville, also linemen, are making up to $100 earning double time, public records show.

But the Montana company that hired the workers, Whitefish Energy Holdings, had a contract that allowed it to bill the Puerto Rican public power company, known as Prepa,

$319 an hour for linemen, a rate that industry experts said was far above the norm even for emergency work — and almost 17 times the average salary of their counterparts in Puerto Rico.
A spokesman for Whitefish, Chris Chiames, defended the costs, saying that “simply looking at the rate differential does not take into account

Whitefish’s overhead costs,”

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/12/u...er=rss&emc=rss

[boutons_deux]

Predatory Capitalists gonna PR schools like they ed NOLA schools

Making Puerto Rico the New New Orleans – Steal the Schools and Give Them to Big Business to Run For Profit

Charter school backers can’t help it.

They see a bunch of black or brown kids displaced by a natural disaster and they have to swoop in to help…

Help themselves, that is.

They did it in 2005 to New Orleans schools after Hurricane Katrina. Now they want to do it again in Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria.

A dozen years ago in Louisiana, that meant stealing almost the entire New Orleans public school system in the aftermath of Katrina.

About 90 percent of the city’s 126 schools were given to the Louisiana Recovery School District, which turned them all into charter schools.

In effect, Louisiana state officials elected by the white majority stole control from local school boards elected by the city’s black majority.

More than 7,000 teachers most of whom were people of color and had been displaced by the hurricane found themselves replaced by mostly white teachers brought in from other parts of the country.

Now, more than 10 years later,

the New Orleans experiment has been shown to be a failure.

Scores on standardized tests have improved (kinda), but the curriculum has narrowed,

teacher turnover has doubled,

disadvantaged and special education students have even fewer resources

while schools fight over high achieving children,

students spend hours being bused to schools far from their homes,

communities have been erased, and

parents have less control over how their own tax dollars are spent.

That is what Keleher and others want to

repeat in Puerto Rico – wrest control away from the public and give it to big business all wrapped up in a bow.

Keleher’s administration, the Education Secretary has

pledged to lay off massive amounts of teachers and permanently close more schools – even schools that are structurally sound.

“Keleher is using the crisis as an opportunity

to close hundreds of public schools,

lay off senior teachers and

privatize public education,”

says Mercedes Martinez, President of the Federacion de Maestros of Puerto Rico, an island teachers union.

https://www.commondreams.org/views/2...g-business-run

Disaster Capitalism, Capitalists ing everybody and everything for profit.

[boutons_deux]

the predatory vampire squid of (colonial) capitalism gonna PR hard and deep (they ain't white, don't speak English, aren't Real Americans, so 'em)

Exploiting tragedy, heartless Republicans seek to privatize Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria

Donald Trump thinks that everything that has happened in Puerto Rico is the fault of the Puerto Rican people.

Republicans are following suit in the blame game, heaping lots of shame and blame on Puerto Rico while also trying to promote big business in the post-hurricane recovery.

One of the appointed officials overseeing Puerto Rico’s government said last week that he hoped the island would finally accept

a range of austerity measures

after Hurricane Maria,

likening the island to “the alcoholic who hits rock bottom and says, ‘OK, we’re bankrupt now, and we really got to change the way we’re doing things.'”

This gem of a comment comparing a disease (as classified by the American Medical Association) to a natural disaster came from

Andrew Biggs, a Republican who is a member of PROMESA—

the financial oversight and management board for Puerto Rico established in 2016 under the Puerto Rico Oversight, Management and Economic Stability Act.

Apparently Biggs shares Trump’s views that everything that has happened in Puerto Rico is the fault of the people living there and not the fact that they are a colony of the United States.

Biggs is a resident scholar, he was full of this bigotry and conservative ideology masquerading as thoughtful analysis.

Biggs discussed what he described as the structural barriers for Puerto Rico’s recovery:

minimum wage laws,
labor rules requiring just-cause termination,
paid sick days for employees,
paternity leave, and
overtime pay.

Even a planned Christmas bonus for employees is problematic, he noted.

The labor rules that govern Puerto Rico, Biggs said, are part of an “inherited political culture” from its time as a Spanish colony, which must be reshaped to ensure an economy recovery.

“The reality is, the government doesn’t want to do these things,” he said of labor changes. “If you let them not do them, they won’t do them.”

The AEI scholar argued that

any additional financial aid from Congress should be contingent on revamping and repealing the island’s welfare and labor regulations.

Puerto Rico wasn’t allowed to elect its own governor until 1947,

experienced forced sterilization of women on the island, and

how Congress has given tax breaks to companies operating in Puerto Rico and

have allowed for predatory investors to buy up debt and live extremely well on the island

while people (nearly 50 percent) remain living below the poverty line.

As Belen Fernandez in Al Jazeera wrote in August, after these kinds of abuses by the US government dating back to 1898, “Now, we are told Puerto Rico is a "commonwealth"—which certainly sounds a lot more civilised than the other C-word.”

Instead of helping people who have lost everything, Republicans are talking about privatizing the island’s schools. And they want to push this as a good time for the island to use natural gas.

Two senior lawmakers viewed as close to the fracking industry, Reps. Glenn Thompson, R-Penn., and Doug Lamborn, R-Colo., used a hearing to call for the island to revamp its energy needs through natural gas.

“We need to look at environmental regulation waivers” to implement energy policy on the island, Lamborn added.

Make no mistake—Republicans are incredibly greedy and inhumane.

They will use this tragedy as an opportunity to squeeze every little drop from Puerto Rico and they will withhold vital support from the island until they get their way.

None of this is about helping US citizens.

It’s about punishing them and making a buck.

And if that’s not full proof that Puerto Rico is a colony, nothing is.

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/201...tail=emaildkre

[boutons_deux]

From an email

"Hedge-fund billionaire Seth Klarman owns $911 million of Puerto Rico’s debt. And he thinks it’s time for the island to pay up.

Klarman is demanding the island pay up.

Puerto Rican lawyer and politician, Iván Rivera Reyes, says the COFINA bonds that Klarman’s firm owns were a “creation of Wall Street financial whizzes” to take advantage of the island’s precarious economic situation."

=============

vampire squid vulture capitalism.

Klarman probably thinks US govt will cover PR's debt, but US govt helped create PR's debt.

The Capitalists' storm will up PR much worse than the hurricanes, for decades. Ask Greece.

[RandomGuy]

I live in PR and as you know Irma and Maria have caused great devastation. As a person who is actually living the SHTF scenario due to the aftermath of these hurricanes, I have to say that prepping and actually living through it doesn't compare to the expectations we had.
Today is day #49 after hurricane Maria and 61 days after Irma. There is still no power, water comes and goes every few days, but it's not safe to drink. The CDC is recommending we boil and treat with bleach for personal hygiene, sanitation and for consumption.
Power will take a couple of months to be back. Maybe between April and May. Just in time for the next hurricane season. Water depends on electrical power. Right now we have generators pumping water. They're alternating days of service between the communities. But if that generator breaks or collapses, bye bye water.
Supermarkets carry very low supplies because they're running on generators too. Prices have rocket to the sky on most basic items including bottled water. Hard to find baby items and basic items.
There's debris every where. Rats have made debris and water sources their home, contaminating it. People are dying because of water contamination with rat's urine.
Most banks have had to close again because their generators have collapsed. So you can't access cash either. Most of the businesses are closed or open very limited hours due to the same situation.
Relief that's being sent from all over the states is taking way to long to arrive and to be distributed. We still have lots of communities that can't be accessed since the hurricane hit us.
Phone signal comes and goes. Actually I have signal since Saturday night but it's not constant.
In my personal case most of my supplies are gone. Lost more than half during the impact and have used what was left. I have a family of six including two babies (1&2 years old). But I'm grateful because we're alive and the knowledge acquired has helped us survive this nightmare.
I've been collecting rainwater for personal hygiene, cooking, drinking and hand washing clothes. I'm boiling the water as a precaution. Cooking with wood, solar oven and a Dutch oven.

[RandomGuy]

i thought i would share a moment from my time in puerto rico
we did a remote mission into a mountain town called morovis, with a local puerto rico aid group, they brought water cooked meals, including freshly slaughter young cows which one of the aid group donated, one of the residents let us use her covered patio area to set up as small clinic, we didn't see tons of patients, but those we did were extremely thankful,i hiked a steep rowdy road to see a diabetic with an infected foot , family did a great job caring for him, when we went to leave the entire community wanted to take photos with us, the elderly small woman who let us use her patio thanked each of us, she stood less than 5 feet, she came to me took my face in her hands ,and said" you are all gods angels. thank you for coming and taking care of our people", that moment will live with me for the rest of my life

Another first hand account.

[boutons_deux]

Remember PR? Still being ED OVER by Repug FEMA

Puerto Rico: urgently needed tarps delayed by failed $30m Fema contract

Fema paid a newly created Florida company for tarps to help the thousands of people left homeless after Hurricane Maria, but the company couldn’t deliver

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/nov/28/puerto-rico-urgently-needed-tarps-delayed-by-failed-30m-fema-contract?CMP=share_btn_fb

[RandomGuy]

Remember PR? Still being ED OVER by Repug FEMA

Puerto Rico: urgently needed tarps delayed by failed $30m Fema contract

Fema paid a newly created Florida company for tarps to help the thousands of people left homeless after Hurricane Maria, but the company couldn’t deliver

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/nov/28/puerto-rico-urgently-needed-tarps-delayed-by-failed-30m-fema-contract?CMP=share_btn_fb

[boutons_deux]

New data shows hurricane deaths in Puerto Rico could be 20 times higher than the government claims

Puerto Rican officials say only 55 people died from the storm. Researchers estimate more than 1,000 people did.

They found that in September 2017 — the month that Maria hit — there were 518 more deaths than the recent historical average for September and 567 more deaths in October 2017 than the recent historical average for October.

That’s a total of 1,085 deaths likely linked to the hurricane.

And given that widespread power outages have continued into November, the number of indirect deaths from the hurricane is probably higher still.

The finding supports reports from several media outlets, including Vox, CNN, and BuzzFeed, that found hundreds of hurricane-related deaths that were not included in the official count.

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/11/29/16623926/puerto-rico-death-toll-hurricane-maria-count

[boutons_deux]

Months After Storm, Puerto Rico Stares Down Another Blow: The Tax Bill

The final legislation negotiated by the House and Senate would treat mainland companies in Puerto Rico, a United States commonwealth, as it does those in foreign countries, and

impose a 12.5 percent tax on income they receive from intellectual property.

The bankrupt Puerto Rican government, which lobbied intensely for special tax treatment, fears that the bill could endanger crucial industries and thousands of jobs on the island.

“This is really a devastating blow for Puerto Rico, in our greatest time of need,” Gov. Ricardo A. Rosselló said on Friday.

Mainland companies — mostly in medical manufacturing — make up about a third of Puerto Rico’s tax base, and directly or indirectly employ about 250,000 Americans, according to the Rosselló administration.

The tax on intellectual property, which includes patents and design rights, would make Puerto Rico less attractive for business,

compared with foreign countries that offer lower tax rates for manufacturers,

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/16/u...er=rss&emc=rss

[boutons_deux]

Report slams local, US hurricane response in Puerto Rico

"There was a failure of leadership and a failure to appreciate the magnitude of the situation and the need for extraordinary action by U.S. officials,"

Eric Schwartz, the group's president and a former U.S. assistant secretary of state for population, refugees and migration, said in a phone interview.

"These people are our fellow Americans. The response of the federal authorities should have been and should be much stronger than it was and much stronger than it is."

Officials with the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency did not return a request for comment Sunday.

Puerto Rico is still struggling to recover from the Sept. 20 storm that killed dozens of people and caused up to an estimated $95 billion in damage during a 12-hour rampage across the island with winds of up to 154 mph.

Power generation is currently at 69 percent of normal, and 5 percent of utility customers still don't have water service.

Nearly 600 people remain in shelters, and more than 130,000 have left for the U.S. mainland.

http://abcnews.go.com/International/...-rico-51847896

[boutons_deux]

A tax bill written by Disaster Shock Capitalists who are swooping into buy up everything cheap, including schools

The GOP’s Tax Bill Kicks Puerto Rico When It’s Down

The island is getting slapped with new taxes as it drowns in debt and tries to recover from a catastrophic hurricane

As the U.S. island struggles to climb out of a $70 billion debt crisis and recover from the devastation of Hurricane Maria,

House Republicans voted Tuesday to impose a 12.5 percent tax on intellectual property income made by U.S. companies operating on the island and

a minimum 10 percent tax on their profits in Puerto Rico. The Senate passed the measure early Wednesday.

That means that businesses with operations in Puerto Rico will pay higher taxes than their counterparts on the U.S. mainland, which puts industries and jobs on the island at risk.

The provision, tucked into the GOP’s tax reform bill, was

intended to stop American companies from dodging federal taxes by shifting their profits overseas.

But because the U.S. tax code treats Puerto Rico as a foreign territory, business operations on the island will get hit.

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry...gEmail__122017

[boutons_deux]

Sin Luz

Life Without Power

https://www.washingtonpost.com/graph...=.3ebd929aa27d

[boutons_deux]

Things in Puerto Rico continue to worsen as police chief resigns amid increased killings

Things appear to be getting worse by the day in Puerto Rico.

Of course, if you weren’t on the island you wouldn’t know that, given that the media has pretty much forgotten about this massive humanitarian crisis.

Wednesday marked 112 days since Hurricane Maria made landfall and, to date, only 55 percent of the island has power restored.

Food, gas and medical supplies remain scarce with no answers as to when full power and services will be restored.

the police chief resigned amid controversy and an increase in the murder rate.

Puerto Rico's first female police chief resigned Monday amid a e in killings while thousands of officers continue to call in sick to protest the lack of overtime pay.

The island's governor said retired military officer Mic e Hernandez was stepping down after one year of overseeing one of the largest police departments under U.S. jurisdiction. [...]

Puerto Rico had recorded 23 killings as of Sunday, compared with nine in the same period last year, police spokesman Carlos Rivera told The Associated Press.

This year's killings have occurred across the U.S. territory and include a triple homicide in recent days, he said.

This is downright frightening. For almost four months, Puerto Ricans have been without stable sources of food, electricity, water and medicine.

Schools are operating without power.

There is a mass exodus of people leaving the island.

We still don’t know exactly how many people have died because of the storm and the government says it’s 64, though other data suggests it’s over 1,000.

And now police officers are not showing up to work because they aren’t being paid and there is a e in killings.

This is the stuff of fictional dystopian movies and books—except it’s real life and Puerto Ricans are suffering and dying.

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/201...tail=emaildkre

Amazing how Trash's deep empathy for his fellow citizens has failed.

[boutons_deux]

Trash gives himself 10 over 10 for his PR recovery

112 days after Maria, a school's lights get turned on

https://www.facebook.com/NowThisPoli...5650245858425/

[boutons_deux]

White supremacist Repug colonial rulers inflict more oppression on brown/black non-English speaking US citizens.

FEMA and US Treasury decide to 'help' Puerto Rico by withholding a billion-dollar emergency loan

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/201...tail=emaildkre

Are the Repug Feds loaning, or giving, recovery funds toTX ?

[boutons_deux]

FEMA Contractor Failed To Deliver Millions Of Meals To Puerto Rico: Lawmakers

Democrats say do ents show a company contracted to bring 30 million meals to the island delivered just 50,000.

Democrats on the House Oversight Committee cited records that showed the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)

awarded a nearly $156 million contract

to a one-person company

that delivered just 50,000 of the expected 30 million meals.

The lawmakers said do ents showed the company,

Atlanta-based Tribute Contracting, had a history of problems handling smaller government contracts worth less than $100,000 and

had been barred from government work until 2019.

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry...gEmail__020718

Repug MISgovernance, what's not to ridicule?

typifies what it's like to be non-white and non-English-speaking American in white supremacist Repug AmeriKKKa

[boutons_deux]

As FEMA ends its temporary housing program, displaced Puerto Rican families face homelessness

the priorities of those in leadership and in the administration.

In the case of assisting Puerto Ricans in the months after Hurricane Maria,

the government and FEMA seem to have no problem abruptly ending food aidand rendering thousands of families on the mainland homeless—

even after a botched recovery effort and the hiring of several corrupt contractors.
the funding for nearly 4,000 displaced Puerto Rican families who have been provided with temporary shelter expires in March.News that the program was ending came as a swift blow. Some families got less than 24 hours notice that they had to vacate the hotel.

Democrat Dannel Malloy, doesn’t understand why the federal government is abandoning people in this way at a time of great need.

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/201...e-homelessness

They're brown, their Catholic, they don't speak English, so Trash and his racist xenophobes so " 'em"

[boutons_deux]

Trash gets 9/10 for ing over American Puerto Ricans

Treasury cuts $4.7B disaster relief loan to $2B

https://www.yahoo.com/news/puerto-rico-treasury-cuts-5b-185158570.html

W Buffett just pocketed $29B in cut taxes

[boutons_deux]

Months Before Winning $300 Million Puerto Rico Contract, Whitefish Energy Was On Shaky Financial Grounds

In newly obtained emails, local officials questioned the company’s finances as it sought to build a transformer manufacturing plant near Whitefish, Montana.

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry...gEmail__031318

I'm pretty sure, Repugs being corrupt, grafty sonsof es, stinky Zinke had a hand in giving his hometown boys the PR contract.

[boutons_deux]

Trash and his FEMA are ing LYING


Harvard study estimates thousands died in Puerto Rico due to Hurricane Maria

At least 4,645 people died

as a result of Hurricane Maria and its devastation across Puerto Rico last year,

according to a new Harvard study released Tuesday, an estimate that far exceeds the

official government death toll, which stands at 64.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/harvard-study-estimates-thousands-died-in-puerto-rico-due-to-hurricane-maria/2018/05/29/1a82503a-6070-11e8-a4a4-c070ef53f315_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.5f 8e7cc40f2e&wpisrc=nl_most&wpmm=1

"Y'all are poor, brown, Catholic, non-English-speaking, not real Americans, so you.

The oligarchy needs $Ts more wealth than you PRs need help.

We're the White Mail Protestant Nativist Supremacy. This is how we roll."