Patterico's Pontifications

10/1/2017

Trump Finally Gives Hurricane Victims Exactly What They Need

Filed under: General — Patterico @ 6:02 pm



Donald Trump continues to fight the image that he is more concerned with golf than with hurricane victims. Today he continued that crusade by, um, dedicating a golf trophy to hurricane victims.

President Trump on Sunday dedicated a golf trophy to the victims of recent powerful storms that tore through Texas, Florida and Puerto Rico, all the while defending the government’s response to the disasters.

“On behalf of all of the people of Texas, and all of the people — if you look today and see what is happening, how horrible it is but we have it under really great control — Puerto Rico and the people of Florida who have really suffered over this last short period of time with the hurricanes, I want to just remember them,” the president said.

“And we’re going to dedicate this trophy to all of those people that went through so much that we love — a part of our great state, really part of our great nation,” he continued.

Trump’s remarks were made as he presented the trophy to U.S. captain Steve Strickler following the Presidents Cup golf tournament in New Jersey.

Trump continues to demonstrate his mastery of the optics of showing leadership during a tragedy.

Now watch this drive.

[Cross-posted at RedState and The Jury Talks Back.]

97 Responses to “Trump Finally Gives Hurricane Victims Exactly What They Need”

  1. I think we’ve learned this weekend here at Patterico’s that optics don’t matter when it comes to this president. Other presidents, yes. But not this one.

    Dana (023079)

  2. no matter how much Puerto Rico hates America, golf tourism will still be a part Puerto Rico’s recovery story

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  3. oops a part *of* Puerto Rico’s recovery story

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  4. i have some leftover mashed potatoes btw and i dedicated half of them to puerto rico and half of them for lunch tomorrow and i ate puerto rico’s half already

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  5. Neither does the truth, if Katrina electric boogaloo is involved,

    narciso (d1f714)

  6. This is not a matter of optics. This is Trump being a buffoon, an idiot, and an indiscriminate clod, no matter who is looking on.

    nk (dbc370)

  7. In The Tarot of Trump, the Fool is the Greatest Trump of All.

    kishnevi (871225)

  8. Ensuring that Puerto Ricans – just like folks in Texas and Florida – have assistance and relief to help mitigate the disastrous hurricanes should not be controversial, but we’re dealing with Trump here.

    Colonel Haiku (43fb26)

  9. people will remember the vile and hateful behavior of the trigglypuff mayor of San Juan and so many others long after this beautiful trophy is forgotten

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  10. “ANN ALTHOUSE: The Effort To Katrina Trump Continues Apace.”

    https://pjmedia.com/instapundit/277102/

    Colonel Haiku (43fb26)

  11. We should make some allowances, I suppose. Trump doesn’t drink so he couldn’t pop open an longneck and say: “This Bud’s for you.”

    nk (dbc370)

  12. We recall how the democrats including Obama, used Katrina as a ladder to gain the
    majority, pulling the interesting hat trick if voting mire money to the graving bridge then actual kreluef for Katrina,

    narciso (d1f714)

  13. Former Puerto Rico AG Cut Off By CNN After Accusing San Juan Mayor Of Being A Political Hack

    “The mayor of San Juan is a political hack,” Fuentes said. “She was singing the praises of the president until her political adviser, [Rep.] Luis Gutiérrez from Chicago, got there and brought her the t-shirts and said, ‘Hey you want to run for governor, if she wants to run…” at which point the CNN anchor cut him off…

    video

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  14. Fuentes is an astoundigly good surrogate, has one of the few who has left forge Ramos at a loss for words, which is nearly unpossibly

    narciso (d1f714)

  15. here’s the actual video of President Trump remembering the hurricane victims today

    it’s not particularly easy to mock if you bother to actually watch it

    i love how he has a seemingly bottomless reservoir of enthusiasm for bringing americans together

    nobody would ever call him low energy that’s for sure

    Tuesday he’ll be in Puerto Rico, and he’ll bring all of our love with him

    it will be on that day that America commits to uplifting Puerto Ricans from the sewer of hatefulness and alienation too many of them are mired in

    it will be on that day that America commits to healing

    to rebuilding

    to moving forward as one people with shared values

    with shared hopes

    and with shared prosperity

    and God Bless America

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  16. The standard move for elected heads of state is to drop whatever they are doing and rush home to fret and fret while the people who would be doing the actual heavy lifting are doing the heavy lifting.

    They could be in the middle of negotiating nuclear weapons limits, but no, they have to rush back home and fret. Why? Because the media DEMANDS the spectacle, and will have harsh things to say otherwise.

    And sure, when Obama plays golf while terrorists are stalking France it’s fun to criticize, but what would you have him do? Get on the phone and micromanage?

    I’ve always thought this was totally silly. Go play golf and be rested and recharged IF you need to make command decisions. In the middle of the Cuban Missile Crisis, JFK left the all-nighter trying to figure out our response, say that someone needed to get a good night’s sleep and he figured it should be him.

    (We’ll leave aside the observation that it would be better if Trump spent the next several weeks on Quaaludes and let Pence and Kelly figure things out.)

    Or are we saying that Trump should micromanage.

    Yes, the optics of dedicating a cup are terrible, but they are most terrible when you edit them that way.

    Kevin M (752a26)

  17. Y’know, seeing as you hate Trump with the fury of a thousand suns, maybe just maybe you can’t make a dispassionate assessment of how normies view him and what he says & does.

    Like I used to say about the Democrats and Dubya Bush, if he cut his own throat on national TV, they would complain about him making a mess on the carpet.

    fred-2 (ce04f3)

  18. happyfeet seems to be trying to get back in our good graces. He’s made several solid points on this thread.

    Kevin M (752a26)

  19. the CNN Jake Tapper fake news propaganda sluts are calling plays from the exact same playbook they used in Katrina

    personally I’m not helping them

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  20. It wouldn’t work, even if the fake news were true.
    People liked New Orleans.
    Even people who had been there and knew what it was really like.
    Who likes Puerto Ricans?

    nk (dbc370)

  21. Except Obama fired the personwho told him there was a problem, general Lynn, and his bloodhound Mueller still womb let him forget it, blocked operations to rescue Katy Mueller, refused tie allow the patents to negotiate, funded militias that actually turned over at least one hostage to the caliphate, so its quite nearly the opposite.

    So the teamsters extorted their pound of flesh, after the best miming of the nagin water pool

    narciso (d1f714)

  22. Look who’s polishing the apple!

    Colonel Haiku (43fb26)

  23. happyfeet seems to be trying to get back in our good graces. He’s made several solid points on this thread.

    I’m not seeing it.

    (Literally.)

    Patterico (115b1f)

  24. thanks Mr. M

    i’m really trying to get my head around the vicious unhinged hatefulness we’re seeing from CNN and the mayor of San Juan

    someone has yet to write the piece what explains…

    not just the abrupt pivot but the bizarrely redundant non-pivoting of the pivot

    …the pivot from the failed CNN Jake Tapper fake news attempt to rally America against President Trump by creating a sense of solidarity with the anti-americanism of the NFL pedophile league

    to a phony Katrina narrative in Puerto Rico whereby Americans are expected to take a knee alongside the America-hating mayor of San Juan

    there’s literally nobody so stupid that they don’t see through this

    but so many people are happy to buy into it anyway

    pls someone to explain this

    bonus points if they can explain how the hateful rantings of the vile mayor of San Juan in any way helps puerto rico

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  25. The road ahead is great, we have seen this much consecutive damage in nearly 70 yeArs,

    narciso (d1f714)

  26. oops

    bonus points if they can explain how *amplifying* the hateful rantings of the vile mayor of San Juan in any way helps puerto rico

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  27. Yes Senor Poooterico, And YOUR contribution???? Today Poooter Boy, when you could have been, WINDSURFING to PUERTO RICO’S rescue, you SNARKED like the SISSY BOY that you are. You didn’t even give out a TROPHY. You displayed your CONSERVATIVE wannabee a PLAYA BONAFIDES!! You posture and try to please your “handler” at RED STATE. POOOTER, you should meet Charlie Sykes!!!
    He’s trying desperately to please Bill Kristol……

    GUS (30b6bd)

  28. This is some funny sh*t… reminds me of Russell on “Vice Principals”.

    Colonel Haiku (43fb26)

  29. “unhinged hatefulness”
    “hateful rantings”

    You’re projecting.

    Davethulhu (3a2442)

  30. Again jfk let the clock run down to the 4th quarter, despite months of warning, in pat because his brother relied on a gru back channel who deceived him about operation anadyr.

    narciso (d1f714)

  31. How did I forget GUS on my comment blocker?

    *changes bookmark with a simple and quick edit*

    That was so easy.

    Patterico (115b1f)

  32. I see 16 of 31 comments on this thread.

    Patterico (115b1f)

  33. Ah Kevin, the media has everything dialed up to eleventy, from melanias stilettos to a tactical nuclear exchange, while covering up the menendez trial, the awan spy ring, and a host of other stories, Latin TV is even worse with a few exceptions, it makes Al jazeera seem reserved

    narciso (d1f714)

  34. Trump’s tweets about golf … before he was President.

    DRJ (d35869)

  35. They scared w out of appearing in new Orleans over bogus reports of sniper fire (which these outlets run pulitzers for) so has going to do things Sinatra style see how it goes. You turn anything over to mcconell and Ryan and its likely to end up in the labrea tar pits, sometimes you take a hit as with the unvarnished truth about charlottesville.

    narciso (d1f714)

  36. New Orleans got Bosnians?

    Pinandpuller (16b0b5)

  37. yesterday: GENOCIDE!

    today: inappropriate golf trophy dedication!

    looks like the trend’s your friend, Mr. Trump

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  38. Probably a smattering, some of those folks from the six named countries are going to Mexico, so we want have to worry about…

    narciso (d1f714)

  39. Par for the course. Nothing’s too small for Trump. Five million dollar apartment in the Trump Tower; ten cent royalty on a Trump-branded necktie at Walmart, all grist for the mill.

    nk (dbc370)

  40. 36, St. Louis, brought in by the Gephart base on the S Side of town as buffer against the diaspora that ended up in Ferguson.

    urbanleftbehind (d78434)

  41. Now as night follows day, as with Amtrak grenfell towers port Arthur we will find someone knew how fragile those powerlines were and nothing was done.

    narciso (d1f714)

  42. Par for the course…
    nk (dbc370) — 10/1/2017 @ 8:55 pm

    LOL

    Pinandpuller (16b0b5)

  43. Furthermore we discover a shymalan twist, like the candidate railing against grenfell, voted not to equip the flats with sprinklers.

    narciso (d1f714)

  44. You ever see one of those t-shirts that said, “If you can’t dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bullsh[]t”? That’s pretty much my estimate of Trump’s style of “governing”.

    nk (dbc370)

  45. Now watch this drive.

    Meh. We’ve seen the putz.

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  46. I had a graveyard shift job for a while. As I was headed home one day at 8:15AM a guy in the oncoming lane of the highway ahead of me fell asleep and crossed fairly close in front of me and hit a power pole. I pulled over and called EMS. I knew the power pole was still energized because it had snapped off a quarter of the way up and somehow the top portion had a line take a dally at the top and proceed to slowly catch fire. The wire was about 13′ above the road and some dumb trucker proceeded to try and drive under it. If you know about tractor trailers that’s not good. As I recall a THP stopped him before the fool set his rig on fire.

    Now if we could find that trucker today supposing that he didn’t die of diabetes we could totally send him to PR with his can do attitude.

    Pinandpuller (16b0b5)

  47. It should be obvious. What we really need is another hashtag.

    Darren (b848ac)

  48. Its just a fair bet someone is hiding half the story, and the one yelling most insistently to the cameras. Where practically everyone is willing to carry their water is not the most reliable source

    narciso (d1f714)

  49. When will the no trumpeze form a herd with their comrades in congress and impeach Trump?

    mg (31009b)

  50. It won’t belong before the no trumpeze join forces with ana navaro over at cnn and try and move these p.ricans into Texas to flip it blue.

    mg (31009b)

  51. Rinos,antifa and no trumpeze
    oh my

    mg (31009b)

  52. Keep your bullet proof vest on Mr. President.

    mg (31009b)

  53. Ah Kevin, the media has everything dialed up to eleventy

    It’s pretty bad when you have to read British papers to find out what’s going on in America.

    Kevin M (752a26)

  54. Dealing with President Trump needs a roadmap.

    1. I could literally do a better job than he’s doing. The Dems keep pitching him high hanging curveballs over the center of the plate, and he hits maybe one out of ten. Patterico could probably do a better job still, as he’s probably calmer than me. This is worrisome. I know TERRIBLE executives (I worked at Atari before the crash) who would be far better at this than Trump.

    2. The news media will edit, distort and/or lie in whichever whichway is most damning in order to make Trump look bad.

    2a. Trump helps.

    3. I am far happier with the (however meager) results of this administration than I could ever be of a Democrat one. Consider that Hillary is far saner than the up & comers. Kamala Harris.

    4. I know that I will support nearly any GOP challenger in 2020.

    5. And yet, I cannot bring myself to hammer on this man. We go to war with the President we have.

    Kevin M (752a26)

  55. This wasn’t just some local club event at a Trump National Golf Club.

    It was the President’s Cup — which is in no way a reference to Trump.

    Its played every other year, and matches US professionals against Pros from Asia and the Pacific.

    The Ryder Cup is its better known counter-part, played against Pros from Europe.

    It is a big event that is played for national pride. There is no prize money — only the honor of representing your country in a manner similar to the Olympics.

    But since the event was founded in 1994, it has raised more than $38 million for PGA sponsored charities.

    But don’t let facts get in the way of casting aspersions on an event that has a worthy purpose simply because they would undercut a chance to take a swipe at Trump.

    shipwreckedcrew (56b591)

  56. Pray for bro country.

    urbanleftbehind (d78434)

  57. Pig Socks and the National Felon League

    mg (31009b)

  58. Did Jason Aldean wear a team jersey? Nobody deserves what just happened.

    urbanleftbehind (d78434)

  59. Anybody wearing pig socks for a company that won’t let you show respect for fallen police officers needs to be called out.
    Policemen should never be treated the way the National Felon League treats them.

    mg (31009b)

  60. Winning the future, is going on.

    narciso (d1f714)

  61. maybe Mayor Trigglypuff should donate her t-shirt

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  62. The mayor of San Juan told ABC’s “This Week” that she is willing to meet with the president.

    “Let us not talk about the debt, let us not talk the cost of reconstruction,” she said, urging the conversation to be about saving lives.

    good lord this nasty diseased puerto rican cow has literally no dignity

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  63. As a foreigner, Canadian, I don’t see any bad optics.

    Is the most powerful man in the world to hand out water bottles and sandwiches? Cry crocodile tears and bite his lower lip? Didn’t you lot get enough of that fakery from Bill Clinton?

    The only thing I liked about Obama was his imperturbable arrogance.

    Fred Z (05d938)

  64. optics are what people mewdle about when they’re at a loss for substantive criticism

    which is fine

    it reminds me of the optics of harvardtrash ben sasse smirking at bill maher’s n-word funnies

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  65. speaking of golfings

    here’s how ABC News propaganda slut Veronica Stracqualursi tees up the ball this morning

    This weekend would suggest that there is little or nothing exempt from the politics of division, as practiced by President Trump. Now comes a fresh test – the worst mass shooting in U.S. history, not to mention the Trump presidency, at a country-music festival in Las Vegas overnight.

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  66. dirty little mayor

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  67. Somebody put a dent in my first wife’s car at the Target parking lot yesterday, too. Stupid Trump and his stupid divisiveness.

    nk (dbc370)

  68. she should have taken off the kerry\edwards bumper sticker

    mg (31009b)

  69. Not the “Nuke The Whales” sticker, you think?

    nk (dbc370)

  70. SAN JUAN MAYOR says… Puerto Rican Statehood Like ‘A Slave Becoming a Slave Owner.’

    https://pjmedia.com/trending/2017/10/02/san-juan-mayor-puerto-rican-statehood-like-a-slave-becoming-a-slave-owner/

    Colonel Haiku (43fb26)

  71. And she was distraught at the death of the wandering coma.

    narciso (d1f714)

  72. Jackalope kimmel reporting fir duty.

    narciso (d1f714)

  73. I’ll take a wild guess at what she means by “free association”. Puerto Ricans remain U.S. citizens with all the rights and privileges thereof including their spray paint-smeared fingers in the federal till, but they can behave like a sovereign nation in their domestic and foreign affairs. Like Princess Di.

    nk (dbc370)

  74. lol kimmelfilth and his emotional pleas

    he’s the pedophile kaepertwat of late night

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  75. I suggest the govt, declare p.r. a over polluted disaster and remove them all to South St. Paul.

    mg (31009b)

  76. 77, they do have meat plants there, and the Ricans love them some lechon, which might offe-… in that case Welcome Boricuas

    urbanleftbehind (52e6e0)

  77. ot
    ag sessions is a no good effing traitor refusing to investigate into obama and clinton, when trump backs the dems against the 2 amendment all hell is going to break loose. Come on trump fire this pos clinton loving pervert.

    mg (31009b)

  78. 75. Well, at least they get to appoint diplomats and send them all over the world with diplomatic immunity.

    Sammy Finkelman (30b6b6)

  79. Alabama Fudd has no business being attorney general of the U.S.A. We deserve so much better than Alabama Fudd.

    mg (31009b)

  80. In related news, the bs news story about the puerto rico teamsters going on strike that I called out in the other thread was indeed verified fake:

    http://www.snopes.com/puerto-rico-teamsters/

    Davethulhu (3a2442)

  81. 32. I see 16 of 31 comments on this thread.

    On your own website. Not exactly an endorsement of your grasp of the zeitgeist.

    JRH, Esq. (cba2d1)

  82. 82. This report only damages the reputation of snopes.com (to people who can check it out).

    There was a strike, and Puerto Rican elected officials were complicit in it because probably they owe too much to the Teamsters Union, and it was even helped along by a curfew that did not make an exception for truck deliveries, and it was settled about two days ago, and things are now moving along.

    And snopes did nothing to disprove it except to repeat other people’s propaganda, some of it pathetic. What kind of nonsense would it be to import workers from the mainland when supposedly the problem is an inability to get to work by the truck drivers in Puerto Rico. Just find them and get in contact with them! The problem was that they couldn’t get drivers to move anything but government cargo, and Donald Trump actually alluded to the strike in one of his tweets, before he went off on a riff about them wanting everything done for them.

    One way of reading this is that the International Brotherhood of Teamsters was prepared to break a strike by Frente Amplio. Snopes may be right that Frente Amplio is not affiliated with the International Brotherhood of Teamsters. That doesn’t mean it is not a truck driver’s union, which it is, or that there wasn;’t an unofficial strike.

    The conservative tree house beinbg inaccurate doesn’t mean nothing haoppened here. Somebody may have wanted that whole thing to look more American or to try to get blowback against the Teamsters.

    Snopes tried to prove there was no strike because Victor Rodriguez, President of Frente Amplio, did not officially declare there was a strike.

    Really, is that definitive?

    Here is how Snopes quotes part of a WAPA TV interview with Victor Rodriguez:

    Ramos: Are you telling me that truck drivers are not reporting to work because of a law?

    Rodriguez: No, we’re doing what we need to do.

    Ramos: But you just said that because of a law –

    Rodriguez: No, excuse me, the truckers are going to work, and I expect truck drivers in the country to keep working with the people, who made it possible for us to use the roads.

    The claim is that the truck drivers are helping with other, more important, forms of relief so they can’t drive trucks from the port.

    That back and forth sounds very much like there was double talk going on here.

    Snopes claims that Frente Amplio called off a strike three weeks before, because of Hurricane Irma, which maybe they did.

    Snopes says there actually is a Teamsters Union Local in Puerto Rico: Local 901. Well, perhaps maybe then they are fighting with the other union. OK, it’s not the Teamsters.

    The agreement, however, doesn’t solve all problems. The San Juan area is now getting supplies, but there are places that are not. To that end, the U.S. government has been positioning supplies in the municipalities and at the hospitals.

    Sammy Finkelman (30b6b6)

  83. here we go

    here’s the sort of fascist anti-american propaganda CNN Jake Tapper fake news and the dirty slut mayor of San Juan were aiming to foster

    “Oxfam has monitored the response in Puerto Rico closely, and we are outraged at the slow and inadequate response the US Government has mounted in Puerto Rico. Clean water, food, fuel, electricity, and health care are in desperately short supply and quickly dwindling, and we’re hearing excuses and criticism from the administration instead of a cohesive and compassionate response. The US has more than enough resources to mobilize an emergency response but has failed to do so in a swift and robust manner. Oxfam rarely responds to humanitarian emergencies in the US and other wealthy countries, but as the situation in Puerto Rico worsens and the federal government’s response continues to falter, Oxfam has decided to step in to lend our expertise in dealing with some of the world’s most catastrophic disasters.”

    […]

    Oxfam will join forces with Puerto Rican leaders to appeal to Congress and other federal agencies in Washington to dedicate resources to the response and remove barriers that are keeping aid out, and to commit to long-term support to help Puerto Rico build back better. We’ll also engage policy makers about the roles inequality and climate change are playing.

    In addition, Oxfam has sent a team to San Juan to assess a targeted and effective response. We are currently determining how best this response could benefit from our expertise, such as meeting the needs of rural communities who face increasing risks of disease like cholera without clean water, providing shelter and meeting other immediate needs. Oxfam will channel vital resources and give technical support to the right people on the front lines, including the local government and local organizations that were there as this emergency struck and that will be there for the long road to recovery. Oxfam believes partnerships with local leaders result in an effective and sustainable response that best supports the affected communities, and we have used it to great success all around the world, and in the United States in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

    i guess this what failmerica deserves for spending billions of dollars and sending its useless ineffectual John McCain navy into treacherous cargo ship infested waters

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  84. link

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  85. @nk:Not the “Nuke The Whales” sticker, you think?

    Gotta nuke somethin.

    Frederick (64d4e1)

  86. Sammy’s on it, Cthulhu 🐙🐙🐙 fuhgeboudit!

    Colonel Haiku (43fb26)

  87. @84

    What kind of nonsense would it be to import workers from the mainland when supposedly the problem is an inability to get to work by the truck drivers in Puerto Rico. Just find them and get in contact with them! The problem was that they couldn’t get drivers to move anything but government cargo, and Donald Trump actually alluded to the strike in one of his tweets, before he went off on a riff about them wanting everything done for them.

    If you read the article originally quoted by conservative treehouse, the reason that a lot of drivers were missing was because they were unable to get to the port. “Just find them and get in contact with them” is easier said than done.

    In any event, where’s your proof that there’s a strike? Everything originates from the conservative treehouse article, which deceives because it omits important information, and also mis-translates the TV interview. What would the point be in having a strike without a declaration? Has there ever been such a thing?

    Davethulhu (fab944)

  88. the reason that a lot of drivers were missing was because they were unable to get to the port

    so what are the sluts at oxfam gonna do to get the drivers to the port that we haven’t done?

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  89. Is Oxfam like Foxkin?

    Pinandpuller (16b0b5)

  90. “The tears of a squid… that’s what Sammy did”

    Colonel Haiku (43fb26)

  91. No he didn’t. There was either a strike before the hurricane, or one planned, but it was called off. There is no indication anywhere other than a deceptive wingnut website that there’s a strike going on.

    In other Trump messaging news, have this bit of dialogue:

    Trump: And a lot of people got to see the real Coast Guard during this incredible trouble. Would you like to say something on behalf of your men and women?

    Air Force representative: Sir, I’m representing the Air Force.

    Trump: No, I know that.

    Davethulhu (fab944)

  92. Davethulhu @ 10/3/2017 @ 4:26 pm, no link? You don’t even dare say where you are getting that bit of dialogue? Then it didn’t happen, and you either made it up or you got it from a leftist wing nut site that loves to slander Trump.

    Trump clearly doesn’t care about the optics. We just finished with 8 years of a guy who was an odd mix of caring only about shaping the narrative and not needing to care about the optics. With Bush, the LHMFM would do things such as show split screens showing him on the golf course on one side, caskets arriving at Dover AFB on the other. Bush finally gave up golf. They never did that to Obama. Whatever else anyone thinks of Trump he’s smart enough to know the media will shift from the soft-focus butt-kissing court toady Obama mode to the false narrative “Bush personally caused the levees so he could drown the black people of New Orleans following Katrina” mode.

    And Trump doesn’t care as he owes nothing to the LHMFM.

    The Obama administration routinely issued statements about how ready they were for various contingencies, such as this one.

    https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2012/09/10/readout-president-s-meeting-senior-administration-officials-our-prepared

    Yup, Obama’s WH said they they had reviewed their security posture and had made the necessary adjustments to respond to contingencies at home and abroad the day before the eleventh anniversary of 9/11. Then s**t hit the fan on the eleventh anniversary of 9/11 in Benghazi and it turned out nobody had reviewed anything or had done anything to prepare. They just issued a press release saying they had and as far as Obama was/is concerned saying he did something is just as good as actually doing it.

    In contrast the Trump administration had actually planned to respond to hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and Maria and had actually moved the chess pieces around on the board so they were in a position to respond. The Amphibious Assault Ship USS Kearsarge (LHD-3) and the Dock Landing Ship USS Oak Hill (LSD-51) were already in the area as the Navy had already to detached them from the Texas coastline where they were assisting with Harvey to the vicinity of PR/USVI when Irma threatened. So they were actually standing by off of PR, just outside the path of Maria, as the hurricane struck the island. The Kearsarge ARG was shortly joined by the USS Wasp (LHD-1). These were the ships that PR needed, not the USNS Comfort.

    The USNS Comfort actually doesn’t provide much capability in these disaster relief/humanitarian assistance situations. She carries cargo, of course, but it’s really limited to ship’s stores and medical supplies for her own consumption. She and her sister ship Mercy have no facilities to handle landing craft, no cargo handling capabilities to speak of, and extremely limited helo handling capabilities. By design. Dedicated hospital ships (designated T-AH, The T prefix indicating a civilian crewed non-commissioned ship owned by a counntry’s navy or other wise by the government) is protected under international law; it is a war crime to fire upon one, But only as long as they don’t carry offensive weapons (defensive personal weapons are allowed). If hospital ship is capable of embarking a helo det flown by warfare qualified aircrew then the ship is now armed. Even if the the helos themselves have no weapons. Just the fact that warfare-qualified naval personnel have been assigned to her changes her status.

    The problem with PR isn’t a lack of hospital beds, which is the only advantage the Comfort has over a Wasp-class LHD. The Comfort has 1000 dedicated hospital beds while the LHD has 600. And that really isn’t an advantage as I’ll explain shortly. The problem PR is having is incompetent Democrats. Decades upon decades of incompetent Democrats who allowed their infrastructure to fall apart long before Maria came in for the kill. For instance for years Puerto Rico was experiencing power outages at three times the rate of the national average. At least one electrical utility industry consultant warned the PR government years ago that their power grid was antiquated and had essentially run out of gas years ago and the Pr government anything about it. The roads were already crumbling before Maria made them impassable.

    So the amphibious units’ embarked helo detachments, currently a mix of MH-53 heavy lift helos and H-60 utility helos that can carry supplies to otherwise unreachable points in the interior of the island and their embarked landing craft (air cushioned land craft or LCACs can carry 75 tons of cargo 300nm at 35 knots) that can reach hard hit coastal towns that are also cut off are far more valuable than the 400 bed advantage the Comfort has over a single Wasp-class LHD. But there are two of them off of PR. All amphibs have robust medical facilities because they’re intended to stand off shore and support the USMC’s amphibious assaults. That means the Navy goes and picks up wounded Marines and brings them back to their ships. I don’t know how many dedicated beds the Oak Hill has in her medical department but since she embarks 500 Marines I would conservatively estimate at least 100. So combined they provide 300 more beds than the Comfort. And they aren’t taking up valuable space pierside like the Comfort is.

    If the problem was a lack of hospital beds then you could easily augment the amphibs’ medical departments with detachments of shore-based Navy, Air Force, and Army medical personnel or even US Public Health Service personnel, send the embarked Marines and Navy SeaBees ashore to live in their tent cities, and use those berthing spaces as hospital wards. The Wasp LHDs can each embark approximately 1900 Marines/Seabees, and the Oak Hill 500. That’s a lot of beds. The Comfort can’t compete with that. But frankly the better solution is to simply to deploy field hospitals. That’s precisely what we did when aiding with disaster recovery efforts after the Christmas Day Tsunami in 2004.

    Frankly if I were President I would have told Hillary! and every other liberal idiot demanding he send the Comfort to pack sand. I would have told Hillary! in particular that her tweeting out her demand to do so simply demonstrated her incredible ignorance and underscored the fact that anybody that clueless was unfit to be the CinC. And instead I would have sent more useful ships in the MSC’s inventory than the T-AH. I would have sent as many T-AKEs as I could get my hands on. These are dry cargo ships. Their entire mission is the get their massive amounts of cargo ashore whether there are functioning port facilities or not. For that purpose they embark a helo detachment consisting of either two H-60s or two Aerospatiale Pumas. A capability the Comfort does not have, and that means the T-AKEs can deliver that cargo exactly where it’s most needed and where trucks can’t reach.

    All in all the Trump administration’s planning and execution of their response to Maria has been very good. Not flawless, but than what ever is? It’s early in Trump’s administration and he’s already doing better at handling a disaster than Obama ever could at any point in his two-term administration. Recall the BP oil spill. I knew there was an emergency action plan already written. The National Oil and Hazardous Substances Pollution Contingency Plan had been around for decades. But it was clear that nobody in Obama’s Freshman Dorm Administration was aware of that. They were making it up as they went along and so incompetently it was almost comical. Toward the end of his second term Obama and his horde of juveniles graduated from being merely being unable to respond to disasters to creating them themselves, if you recall the Gold King debacle when his EPA tried to poison people in at least three Western states and on the Navajo reservation.

    Steve57 (0b1dac)

  93. Also, if you read my posts, you’ll see that I haven’t at any point criticized the Maria response, which I agree was probably about as good as could be expected. I’m only truth-checking people who are trying to slander the people of Puerto Rico with deception and out-right lies. I’m not sure why they’re driven to this sort of thing, perhaps they’re compensating for Trump’s personal response, which has been ham-handed and tin-eared as usual.

    Davethulhu (3a2442)

  94. Puerto Rico suffers the storm of the century and pisses away any and all goodwill in less than two weeks

    that’s something really very special

    happyfeet (28a91b)


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