Puerto Rico 10-3-2017

3, October 2017                           Puerto Rico

Puerto Rico was hit with a devastating double whammy. Hurricane Maria and a president asleep at the wheel who reacted with anger and meanness at having his golf game disturbed by the “mayday calls” from the San Juan mayor. Trump tweeted with racially inflected insults accusing the islanders of being lazy and “wanting everything to be done for them rather than helping themselves.”

After visiting the island, retired Army Lieutenant General Honoré, who led the military response to Hurricane Katrina, estimated that about 7 critical days had been squandered by the sluggish Trump administration. It took 8 days to suspend the archaic Jones Act - a relic of World War 1. An exasperated Honore’ said: “We’ve got to get rid of that dumb-ass Jones Act that benefits shipping tycoons in New York and Miami, while driving up costs for Puerto Ricans.” He thought the devastation was so horrendous, that perhaps the best course of action would be to move the children off the island to the mainland. Smarting under the withering criticism of his lackadaisical response, Trump reached down into his rich lexicon heaping praise for his “amazing and wonderful response.”

Buoyed by his self-importance, determined to be a swaggering “John Wayne” or “make my day” Clint Eastwood he instructed Rexx Tillerson to halt his peaceful overtures with North Korea accelerating the demise of our Goldilocks planet.