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You are here: Home / Economics / C.R.E.A.M. / Update: Where to Donate to Help Puerto Rico & the Islands

Update: Where to Donate to Help Puerto Rico & the Islands

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From the AP:

The U.S. ramped up its response Monday to the humanitarian crisis in Puerto Rico, even as President Donald Trump brought up the island’s struggles before Hurricane Maria struck — including “billions of dollars” in debt to “Wall Street and the banks which, sadly, must be dealt with.”

The Trump administration has tried to blunt criticism that its response to Hurricane Maria has fallen short of its efforts in Texas and Florida after the recent hurricanes there.

Five days after the Category 4 storm slammed into Puerto Rico, many of the more than 3.4 million U.S. citizens in the territory were still without adequate food, water and fuel. Flights off the island were infrequent, communications were spotty and roads were clogged with debris. Officials said electrical power may not be fully restored for more than a month…

In Washington, officials said no armada of U.S. Navy ships was headed to the island because supplies could be carried in more efficiently by plane. The Trump administration ruled out temporarily setting aside federal restrictions on foreign ships’ transportation of cargo, saying it wasn’t needed. The government had waived those rules in Florida and Texas until last week…

Energy Department crews are working in Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands, coordinating with the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority, FEMA and a team from the New York Power Authority, among others. An eight-member team from the Western Area Power Authority, an Energy Department agency, assisted with initial damage assessments in Puerto Rico and has been redeployed to St. Thomas. A spokeswoman said additional responders would go to Puerto Rico as soon as transportation to the hurricane-ravaged island could be arranged…

Here are some donor suggestions, via commentors to yesterday’s post:

Charity Navigator has a list of Charities Providing Assistance in the Wake of Hurricane Maria

So does the Florida Association for Volunteer Action in the Carribean & the Americas: FAVACA

All Hands Volunteers has a link dedicated to US Virgin Island Hurricane Response

Commentors who’ve adopted dogs from Second Chance Animal Rescue of Puerto Rico speak up for that group’s volunteers, and the many rescues they’re sheltering.

Multiple commentors also recommended ShelterBox USA: “ShelterBox provides shelter and life-saving supplies to communities overwhelmed by disaster, including people affected by the recent Hurricanes Irma and Harvey. They are actively evaluating needs in the Caribbean after Hurricane Maria and in Mexico following recent earthquakes.”

Habitat for Humanity:

“We appreciate that you are anxious to help, but please do not self-deploy. Shelter, food and water are in limited supply and the arrival of unexpected volunteers adds to an already strained situation. Volunteers from outside the immediate area will be needed, now is just not the time.

Habitat for Humanity has trained disaster response personnel on the ground now as a part of the initial response and assessment, which includes basic cleanup work. The next phase will be to repair and rebuild. This will take months and could take years to complete. These efforts are often the most difficult as media attention tends to move on before the work has even really begun. Please don’t let timing discourage you from being a part of the hurricane recovery efforts.

In the immediate aftermath of the hurricanes, it is important to give first responders and trained disaster responders the space and resources they need for their work. But as we move into the long-term rebuilding phase, we’ll be counting on volunteers to help, just as they have so many times before. Sign up below to join our hurricane recovery volunteer registry. This will give us the ability to keep you up to date on the situation, and call on you as volunteer teams prepare to deploy…

Global Giving’s Puerto Rico & Caribbean Hurricane Relief Fund

Operation USA — “Give and it gets there”

Please add your own suggestions below — and forgive me if I missed your comment yesterday.

Reader Interactions

141Comments

  2. 2.

    Redshift

    The Trump administration ruled out temporarily setting aside federal restrictions on foreign ships’ transportation of cargo, saying it wasn’t needed. The government had waived those rules in Florida and Texas until last week…

    WTF? That sure sends a clear message that PR isn’t important, like Texas and Florida.

  3. 3.

    Tokyokie

    When I think of Habitat for Humanity, I think of Jimmy Carter. When I think of Donald Trump, I think of his scamming charities for personal gain. What a loathsome creature.

  4. 4.

    randy khan

    Hurricane Harvey hit Texas on September 25; the vote on the relief legislation was September 6, 13 days later.

    Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico on September 20, and they’re potentially not even sending the request until the 2nd week of October. smh.

  5. 5.

    Eric NNY

    This is an unacceptable response. There are many, many more things we could be doing. And the administration’s excuses that deep water ports are not available is not convincing. The US Army has assets called JLOTS to assist getting freight from the ocean to shore without a port. The administration’s failure to communicate even the faintest of clues that they have a plan are telling.

  6. 6.

    rikyrah

    @Redshift:

    The Trump administration ruled out temporarily setting aside federal restrictions on foreign ships’ transportation of cargo, saying it wasn’t needed. The government had waived those rules in Florida and Texas until last week…

    Uh huh
    Uh huh

    These muthaphuckas HERE!!

  7. 7.

    chris

    Dear gods…

    2/ Trump says delivery complicated because PR's an island: "In the middle of an ocean. And it's a big ocean. It's a very big ocean."— Alexander Panetta (@Alex_Panetta) 26 September 2017

  8. 8.

    scav

    BBC is now flashing Broken News that The Orange Leader has announced he will be visiting Puerto Rico and that

    “Puerto Rico is very important to me,” he said in the White House on Tuesday, “the people are fantastic. I grew up in New York so I know many Puerto Rican people.”

  10. 10.

    rikyrah

    A REPLY from Adam last night:

    Adam L Silverman says:
    September 25, 2017 at 10:14 pm

    @Baud: This is one of two hospital, humanitarian response, disaster management, and/or emergency response ships in the fleet. The other is the USNS Mercy. They are designed for this type of thing. Also, in comparison, when the earthquake and tsunami hit Japan we sent over 120 ships as soon as we could put them afloat. Plus significant ground, amphibious, and air assets. Right now we’ve got a US Navy float of four amphibious ships with their Marine Expeditionary Unit, an Army medical company, an Army civil information support unit, some Coast Guard assets, some FEMA assets, etc. Over 3 million Americans are at risk and we’ve sent less than 10% of what we sent to aid Japan.

  11. 11.

    mouse tolliver

    Trump just had a “Heckuva job, Brownie” moment this morning. He,talks about it like he just found out today.

  13. 13.

    Geeno

    Can I just reiterate here how much I loves me my Kirsten Gillibrand – neoliberalism and all. Especially when she talks dirty to me, and drops those righteous f-bombs.

  15. 15.

    Betty Cracker

    Trump has been shamed into a visit. Good. Not that the people of Puerto Rico need another windy maelstrom to visit their island, but where the shitgibbon goes, camera crews follow.

  16. 16.

    Spanky

    Richard Cohen has a silly piece (again) in the WaPo about the Peril of Impeaching Trump. Ain’t gonna link to it, but was gratified to see the comments running about 100% against Cohen, with a good number describing him as “coward”.

  19. 19.

    rikyrah

    @Spanky:

    Richard Cohen has a silly piece (again) in the WaPo about the Peril of Impeaching Trump. Ain’t gonna link to it, but was gratified to see the comments running about 100% against Cohen, with a good number describing him as “coward”.

    He can sit his silly azz down and STFU.

    Nobody is here for his foolishness.

  23. 23.

    FlipYrWhig

    @Amir Khalid: I think it’s the opposite, though: Chris Matthews for one has this overheated notion of Trump The Builder, so they probably figure they can show the Great Builder surveying the destruction and asking supposedly savvy questions about water damage and permitting and such.

  24. 24.

    scav

    @Gin & Tonic: Do you think we can get any confirmation from Trump that water is wet? That would certainly resolve one controversial issue that not enough people know of.

  25. 25.

    Hal

    @scav:

    “Puerto Rico is very important to me,” he said in the White House on Tuesday, “the people are fantastic. I grew up in New York so I know many Puerto Rican people.”

    Is this like the time he said he was very popular with “The Blacks”?

  28. 28.

    Brachiator

    @Spanky:

    Richard Cohen has a silly piece (again) in the WaPo about the Peril of Impeaching Trump. Ain’t gonna link to it

    Why not? We’re big kids. We can take it. It’s a quick read, here: We would impeach Trump at our peril.

    And yes, it is a very silly piece, coming down to the idea that we must placate Trump’s supporters by ignoring Trump’s crimes:

    In a speech last week, Arthur Eisenberg, the legal director of the New York Civil Liberties Union, warned, “There should be no impeachment unless the case for impeachment were overwhelming.” If that were not the case, he went on, “Trump’s supporters would feel that they were deprived of their electoral victory.”

    Well, yeah, impeaching, convicting and removing a president would spoil a supporter’s day, but letting Trump stay in office if there is sufficient evidence of crimes deprives all Americans of justice.

    In the end, Cohen wants to yield to a bully:

    After she lost the election, Hillary Clinton called for reconciliation. Al Gore did the same after the Supreme Court, in a partisan vote, handed the White House to George W. Bush. I cannot imagine Trump doing the same after being removed from office. He has been a miserable winner. He would be an even worse loser.

    Those who describe Cohen as a “coward” have absolutely nailed it.

  29. 29.

    mouse tolliver

    @FlipYrWhig: Tweety needs to talk to Donnie Deutch who is actually familiar with Trump’s business. He described it as “rinky dink”. Just a branding operation with his kids, a couple of lawyers and his secretary Rona.

  30. 30.

    Mnemosyne

    If, like me, you are a drone at a corporation that is giant and evil, they probably have some kind of matching donations program where the company will match what you donate dollar-for-dollar up to a certain amount. The GEC I work for is pretty flexible and has (literally) hundreds of approved organizations, so my main problem is going to be narrowing down to one or two places to send my dollars.

  31. 31.

    Mike in NC

    As a fat cat NYC real estate developer and con artist, there can be no doubt that Trump has a great deal of affection for Puerto Ricans. Almost as much as the racists I used to meet on Long Island who had all sorts of clever disparaging terms for them.

  32. 32.

    Amir Khalid

    @Brachiator:
    It seems unlikely that someone like Eisenberg was arguing against impeachment itself. I think he was reminding his audience that if you come at the king, you better not miss.

  33. 33.

    The Moar You Know

    Hurricane Harvey hit Texas on September 25; the vote on the relief legislation was September 6, 13 days later.

    Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico on September 20, and they’re potentially not even sending the request until the 2nd week of October.

    @randy khan: I really hope the people of Puerto Rico take a good hard look at how they’ve been treated by the US Government during this crisis, and keep it in mind the next time they have a statehood referendum. IMO they really need to drop that idea for good and figure out how to make a go of it themselves, independently.

  34. 34.

    Elizabelle

    @Mike in NC: It was not a racist term, I think, but I love how some idjit on Jay Leno’s “Jaywalking” segment — talk to the man on the street — guessed that islanders were called “Puerto Racoons.”

    Or maybe that is what the jaywalker overheard, and it’s of dubious etymology ….

  35. 35.

    Tim C.

    It’s also time for statehood. Now. This should be a major political push for team blue. It’s smart on a ton of levels and it’s the kind of thing that will be hard for REpublicans to block without even seeming more racist. We lose, we get the status quo, we win and we’ve done what’s right and get some more voters and seats we need in the House and Senate.

  36. 36.

    rikyrah

    @Brachiator:

    In a speech last week, Arthur Eisenberg, the legal director of the New York Civil Liberties Union, warned, “There should be no impeachment unless the case for impeachment were overwhelming.” If that were not the case, he went on, “Trump’s supporters would feel that they were deprived of their electoral victory.”

    As if I give a shyt.

  37. 37.

    bemused

    Just talked to family member about donations. Their son-in-law has family in Puerto Rico and she plans to donate to One America Appeal and you can specify your donation go to helping Puerto Rico or the other islands. The Hill had an article about One America Appeal and Presidents GW Bush, Bush Sr, Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama are involved.

  38. 38.

    Elizabelle

    @rikyrah: FWIW, it’s going to have to be overwhelming to even get it through our Republican-heavy political system.

    These are not Nixon era Republicans. These are weirder and more awful types.

    ETA: If there’s an impeachment, I want the whole GOP chain of command and Capitol Hill leaders to go down. Sweep them out of the executive branch. Give it to the Democrats, who won the popular vote.

    It’s my fantasy. We will see, depending on what Mueller and his crew discovers. If they find crime upon crime while they’re investigating, bring it all out.

  39. 39.

    The Moar You Know

    @Brachiator: Cohen is a coward. That being said, Eisenberg is dead-bang correct:

    In a speech last week, Arthur Eisenberg, the legal director of the New York Civil Liberties Union, warned, “There should be no impeachment unless the case for impeachment were overwhelming.”

    If Dems can’t walk into Congress with a majority of the House and 2/3 of the Senate ready to convict then it should not be done. At all. A vindicated Trump – i.e. not guilty or no sentence – would truly be the worst-case outcome.

  40. 40.

    JimV

    Thanks for this post. It’s the first time I’ve donated through Charity Navigator. It seems like a good way to go.

  41. 41.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Brachiator: I’ve seen others worrying that Mike Pence would be worse in policy terms than Trump, and more effective.

    And that may well be so. But Pence’s direct danger to the republic is lower. Nor would he come through a Trump impeachment politically untouched; it might well take him down as well, and would certainly reduce his power as President.

    More importantly, regardless of who ends up as President, the principle needs to be enforced that you don’t get away with this shit.

  42. 42.

    hedgehog the occasional commenter

    @rikyrah: This, times infinity. I have no fucks to give about the Mango Menace’s fans. They made a bad hire, and should be held to account for it.

  45. 45.

    satby

    Just signed up to go when Habitat is ready for volunteers. If any other Juicers are interested, we can put together a team to go to a build. Best meet-up ever!

  46. 46.

    Doug R

    @Geeno: I think we should have a site rule that anyone using the “word” neoliberal must provide a definition that is not circular with citations.

  51. 51.

    MJS

    @Brachiator: I’m pretty sure there is an appropriate response to this:

    “Trump’s supporters would feel that they were deprived of their electoral victory”

    A response which originated with Trump’s very own supporters.

    All together now, “Fuck Your Feelings”.

  52. 52.

    satby

    @Elizabelle: yeah, I bet a lot of us have the skills and the gumption. My skills are low level in house stuff, strictly a spackle and paint gal, but I also am a decent carpenter’s apprentice.

  55. 55.

    Doug R

    @The Moar You Know: No. Bill Clinton had great poll numbers when the house tried to impeach. trump is Starting in the 30s, it’s not getting much higher Ever. Stop being so afraid of the his racist chickenshit supporters. They’re already softening on him.

  56. 56.

    bemused

    @Betty Cracker:

    I expect the self-proclaimed germaphobe to bring a lot of hand sanitizer. No doubt, a disaster zone with suffering people who have no or little water and food is one of the last places he would choose to be.

  60. 60.

    Sab

    @The Moar You Know: How would that help? Small independent island in the Caribbean with few resources and fewer international ties. They are US citizens. 300 million citizens should care what happens. If only a tiny fraction care, it’s more than they have as independents.

  62. 62.

    germy

    September 25, 2017:
    Trey Gowdy, Republican chairman of the House Oversight Committee and persistent Clinton email server critic, joins Democrats in asking that the administration disclose the use of a private server personal email address by Kushner and any other White House aide for government business. The New York Times reports that at least five other aides did so.

  63. 63.

    M31

    @Brachiator:

    “Trump’s supporters would feel that they were deprived of their electoral victory.”

    insert pic of trump electors with T-shirts saying “fuck your feelings” here

  65. 65.

    rikyrah

    The Evil never sleeps with these muthaphuckas:

    Republicans agree to raise bottom tax rate, double standard deduction

    Top White House and GOP leaders have agreed to raise the lowest individual tax rate from 10 to 12 percent, paired with doubling the standard deduction, 5 senior Republicans tell us.

    Why this matters: Trump intends to sell the proposal tomorrow as a populist “tax cut.” But as recently as yesterday top Republicans on Capitol Hill were nervous as they got word that Trump wasn’t entirely thrilled with the product that had been hashed out in immense secrecy for weeks (with two members of his administration, Gary Cohn and Steven Mnuchin, working with GOP leaders.)

    Late last night Republicans close to the process felt more confident that Trump had come around to supporting the framework — despite his misgivings about the corporate rate not being low enough and about the political risks of raising the lowest rate (even though many more people will now pay no tax because of the increased deduction, meaning they can accurately call it a tax cut for the middle class as well as for the wealthy.)

    Big picture details: Republicans plan to collapse the number of brackets from seven to three. The standard deduction would almost double to $12,000 for a single filer and $24,000 for married couples, meaning Trump can accurately argue that many more low income earners would pay no tax under his plan. As we previously reported, the top tax bracket would fall from 39.6% to 35%.
    Yes, but: Trump won’t go into great detail when he talks about the tax plan tomorrow in Indiana, leaving plenty of negotiating room for the tax-writing committees in the House and Senate. As of yesterday morning Trump hadn’t signed off on the final product, and as with all policy announcements involving Trump, Republican Hill leaders will be holding their breaths to some extent until the president actually utters the words. Speaking with conservative groups at the White House yesterday Trump, reassured them of his commitment when he gushed about the “tax cut” he was planning to unveil.

  66. 66.

    Elizabelle

    @The Moar You Know:

    A vindicated Trump – i.e. not guilty or no sentence – would truly be the worst-case outcome.

    I think that may be one of the reasons Obama did not go after the Wall Street villains so hard; concern over what the John (Roger B Taney) Roberts Supreme Court would have done with convictions on appeal, since these villains had bottomless pockets.

    You don’t want horrible practices enshrined into law.

  68. 68.

    rikyrah

    HEALTH CARE
    GOP already eyeing next chance to revive Obamacare repeal
    Senate Republicans are discussing whether to use their next budget reconciliation measure to target the health law.
    By SEUNG MIN KIM, JENNIFER HABERKORN and BURGESS EVERETT 09/25/2017 07:31 PM EDT

    The supposedly hard deadline at the end of the month to repeal Obamacare might not be so hard after all.

    With their latest attempt to dismantle the health law on track to fail this week, GOP senators are already raising the prospect of going after it again with the same powerful tools that currently let them pass legislation with just 50 votes.

    There is nothing to suggest Obamacare repeal would get any easier in the coming months and doing so may significantly hobble the Republican majority’s other chief legislative priority: tax reform. But facing a floundering repeal push, wrath from the base and a frustrated President Donald Trump, Republicans may have no other choice but to keep pushing to uproot the law.

    “We’ve got to do both,” Senate Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) said of tackling both Obamacare repeal and tax reform next year. “They’re complicated by necessity. So I don’t think that takes away the complications. But I think we’re supposed to be able to handle complications.”

    Hatch added, however: “If it’s used to screw everything up, I’m not for that.”

    Here’s how it could be done: While the Senate parliamentarian has ruled that the repeal push under fiscal 2017 must die after Sept. 30, Republicans could provide reconciliation instructions for both health care and tax reform in the fiscal 2018 budget resolution that Congress must pass to again unlock the fast-track procedural powers. That might entail some procedural hurdles, but one GOP aide said Monday that because the Finance Committee has jurisdiction over about 95 percent of health care policy, “it’s not like we couldn’t slip it in anyway.”

  72. 72.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @Elizabelle:
    That is a factor in why he did not go after Bush and Cheney, certainly. The odds were higher the Supreme Court would use that to make Republican abuses legal and encouraged than that Bush/Cheney would be punished. That’s a result much worse than ‘they got away with it this time.’

    For Wall Street, there just wasn’t that much to prosecute. Some crimes were committed on the side that were prosecuted, but the shit that crashed our economy was 100% legal. All those lies should be fraud, but thanks to forty years of deregulation aren’t. Even the worst stuff on the side, like the robo-signing, isn’t criminally illegal, it just raised questions about ownership.

  73. 73.

    TenguPhule

    @Spanky:

    Richard Cohen has a silly piece (again) in the WaPo about the Peril of Impeaching Trump. Ain’t gonna link to it, but was gratified to see the comments running about 100% against Cohen, with a good number describing him as “coward”.

    He has a single digit Tumbrel reservation.

  74. 74.

    Geeno

    @Doug R: Snarking about that – KG is the greatest, but that’s what the Bros are gonna call her, because politicians in NY have to deal with Wall Street..

  75. 75.

    Steeplejack

    [. . .] supplies could be carried in more efficiently by plane.

    This sounds screwy to me. Some expert commenter can probably run the actual numbers, but it would take a huge number of flights to bring in the cargo that a single container ship could carry.

    This really hit me because I went over the Chesapeake Bay Bridge on Sunday as a loaded container ship was passing beneath, and it was amazing how many containers were stacked on deck.

    . . . Okay, I got curious and got on the Google, and now I know a surprising amount—but still only a little—about modern container shipping.

    A standard 40' intermodal container (about the size of a semi trailer) has a volume of 67.5 cubic meters and can carry a maximum load of about 26,200 kilograms. An ultra-large modern container ship can carry as many as 5,000 of these! The older Panamax class—so-called because its size and shallow draft allow it to transit the Panama Canal—can carry about 2,500 containers. Presumably Puerto Rican ports (once cleared of debris) could handle that.

    In comparison, a Boeing 777 cargo jet can carry about 102,000 kg, a Boeing 747 about 110,000 kg. So each could carry the rough equivalent of about four 40' containers (by weight). It would take a hell of a lot of flights to equal the capacity of a single container ship.

    Air transport does have the advantage of speed, of course. And the big issue with container ships is that they require a specialized facility with (undamaged) cranes, etc., to unload the cargo, and that requires working electricity. With air cargo, worst case, you can pretty much drag the pallets out of the plane and deploy/​unpack them without a lot of special equipment.

    Okay, well, that was interesting, and hopefully some big brains are on the case. No doubt it will take a combined approach to solve the problem. I just don’t buy that it’s automatically “more efficient” to use air freight without hearing some more detail. With this administration I’m always on the alert for facile “explanations” that turn out to be bullshit.

  76. 76.

    TenguPhule

    @Elizabelle:

    You don’t want horrible practices enshrined into law.

    That bird has already flown, been shot down, grilled on a hot plate and is now just bones.

    Not prosecuting evil was what got us to this point.

    Fighting and losing legally will at least make clear what the remaining options are instead of this uncertainty about whether we still have any laws worth upholding.

  79. 79.

    Fenix

    @satby:

    Just signed up to go when Habitat is ready for volunteers. If any other Juicers are interested, we can put together a team to go to a build. Best meet-up ever!

    Yes, would love to!

  81. 81.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @rikyrah:
    Passing an Obamacare repeal gets even harder for them in an election year, and they barely got it past the House and it (knock on wood) is dying in the Senate. I suspect they’ll just put ‘tax reform’ in the reconciliation instructions in some way that lets them drastically lower the rich’s taxes without attacking Medicaid, Medicare, or Social Security. The whole GOP would reliably vote for that.

  82. 82.

    Stan

    @Geeno:

    Can I just reiterate here how much I loves me my Kirsten Gillibrand

    Fellow New Yorker here and can I just say, respectfully, I can’t stand her? She’s the same old opportunist most of them are. She comes straight out of the Weed-O’Connell-Corning machine.

  83. 83.

    Stan

    @Tim C.:

    It’s also time for statehood. Now.

    Yes. Two more D senators and a fair deal for Puerto Rico, at long last.

    While we’re at it, statehood for DC.

  84. 84.

    Miss Bianca

    @Spanky: I read that. Didn’t progress to the comments because I found the whole article contemptible, but glad to hear that other readers cleaned Cohen’s clock for him.

  86. 86.

    TomatoQueen

    Apparently, the most studied macaques anywhere in the world are on a tiny island off PR. They are cared for by staff living on the next biggest island, who at present are reduced to rowing supplies over, as a dock survived the storm. Some staff have nowhere to live and some are still unaccounted-for. Here’s the gofundme link: gofundme.com/helpcayo, and the Atlantic piece, with a monkey pic. theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/09/the-uncertain-fate-of-puerto-ricos-monkey-island/541080/

  88. 88.

    Yutsano

    @Frankensteinbeck: That’s still them walking away from Koch’s sweet sweet cash. Those greedy fuckers want it all, and they expect their purchase to be completed on their schedule. If the Senate can’t produce, the Kochs can go out and (try to) get another Senate that will.

    @Major Major Major Major:

    Part of the plan is certainly to wait for McCain to die.

    It makes Senator Sinema a higher priority. At least make it a wash.

    (fixed because memory is rubbish)

  91. 91.

    catclub

    @The Moar You Know:

    Hurricane Harvey hit Texas on September 25; the vote on the relief legislation was September 6, 13 days later.

    The dates listed say the vote was 19 days before the event. Advance planning!

    I suspect August was dropped on its head somewhere.

  94. 94.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @Yutsano:
    The Kochs can make all the noise they want. They’re the ones who will fall in line if 2018 doesn’t get them what they want. Even during the primaries their power is limited, and in the general election what are they going to do? Sit it out and let Democrats win? Support Democrats? Ha!

  96. 96.

    catclub

    @Steeplejack:

    And the big issue with container ships is that they require a specialized facility with (undamaged) cranes, etc., to unload the cargo,

    Ships that go to undeveloped ports have their own cranes for lifting containers onto the dock.

  97. 97.

    rikyrah

    Alabama Is the First Battle in the War of Republican Oligarchs
    by Nancy LeTourneau
    September 26, 2017

    Last Friday, Trump traveled to Alabama to stump for Luther Strange, who is running against Roy Moore to be the Republican nominee that will face Democrat Doug Jones in a special election to fill Jeff Sessions’s Senate seat. As Steve Benen pointed out, it wasn’t exactly a ringing endorsement. The president actually talked about the fact that he might have made a mistake in backing Strange.

    Oh. So the president has endorsed Strange, but he’s not sure if that was the right move; Trump is principally concerned about his own image; and if Strange loses the primary runoff, the president will enthusiastically back his rival in the general election.

    Last night, on the eve of the runoff, Steve Bannon showed no such hesitation in his speech at a rally for Moore. The former White House chief strategist went out of his way to support Trump, saying “We did not come here to defy Donald Trump, we came here to praise and honor him,” which sounded creepy as hell to me. Bannon also didn’t say a word about Democrats or Doug Jones. Instead, his ire was all reserved for the Senate majority leader and those who have supported the Strange campaign.

    ………………………

    While Bannon hit all of his regular so-called “populist” memes, this Republican primary is actually the opening battle in the war between the oligarchs who want to control the GOP.

    As Republican leaders fret over a possible loss of control of the Senate due to Bannon’s actions, they fail to notice that Bannon is not playing a short-term game for GOP majorities in Congress. Bannon’s game is one for control of the Republican Party writ large.

    It’s clear that Mercer has no small amount of envy for the Koch brothers, the billionaire siblings whose will has largely shaped the GOP agenda as the party became ever more dependent on the political infrastructure built by the Kochs and the donor network they have cultivated over the course of decades. No longer insurgents, the Kochs and their political beneficiaries have become part of the GOP establishment…

    Bannon and his patron Mercer, it seems, are willing to take their chances on the possible loss of the GOP’s narrow Senate majority if the gambit places Mercer in the kingmaker’s seat, supplanting the Koch brothers in that role.

  98. 98.

    Yutsano

    @Frankensteinbeck:

    Even during the primaries their power is limited

    Unless they throw a primary component with their considerable pockets behind him/her. Outside money can buy a lot of adds plus the Kochs know how to work the bundler game. It’s pretty much what they’re threatening now, just not out and out stating it.

    And according to Gardner they’re not alone. A lot of wallets have gone shut.

  99. 99.

    TenguPhule

    THIS IS NOT NORMAL

    In a speech to the oil industry, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke claimed that nearly a third of his staff is disloyal to Trump, saying that workers in Washington are reluctant to relax regulations to permit increased mining for coal and drilling for natural gas and oil on public land.

    Zinke promised a “huge” change by restructuring staff positions and possibly shifting decision-making positions in the Bureau of Land Management and the Bureau of Reclamation from Washington to points out West in the speech Monday to the National Petroleum Council of oil and gas executives, first reported by the Associated Press.

    “I got 30 percent of the crew that’s not loyal to the flag,” the news agency reported the secretary as saying. Zinke, a former Navy SEAL, fell back on military jargon to show how he intended to bring them in line, saying it’s necessary to “push the generals where the fight is.”

    The speech was Zinke’s latest effort to instill fear in his staff. He told a Senate panel in June that he wanted to strip 4,000 employees from the Interior Department — about 8 percent of the full-time staff — as part of meeting Trump’s proposed budget cuts. Attrition, reassignments and buyouts would be employed to achieve his goal, Zinke said.

    If that didn’t work, he said, layoffs could follow. That same month, Zinke ordered the reassignments of 50 Senior Executive Service employees, forcing many into jobs for which they had little experience and that were in different locations. At least one executive, a U.S. Fish and Wildlife director stationed in Atlanta, quit.

    Zinke is a fucking facist and a traitor to the Republic he swore to serve.

  102. 102.

    Steeplejack

    @catclub:

    Good point. I did not know that.

    Actually, I’m delighted at least one person read that comment. I felt like I was getting a little obsessed.

  103. 103.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @Yutsano:
    By 2018’s reconciliation votes, most of that will be decided. They have to start early for that stuff, and let’s face it, even in the Republican primary base, Deathcare is overwhelmingly unpopular. It dying this year helps Republicans in their primary next year. The Koch chance to control the vote with threats will end in four days.

    EDIT – My god, they must be having screaming fits. They’re just barely under the line for their dream of giving themselves giant tax cuts, fucking the poor hard, and showing the uppity black man his place.

  108. 108.

    Elizabelle

    Take it away, Jennifer Rubin, WaPost. I swear, she’s gonna be here, one of these days.

    Did Trump just figure out that Puerto Ricans are Americans?

    In contrast to the all-hands-on-deck response to hurricanes in Texas and Florida, President Trump has been shockingly inert when it comes to Puerto Rico’s and the U.S. Virgin Islands’s devastation in the wake of Hurricane Maria — which appears far more serious and potentially long-lasting than the damage visited by hurricanes Harvey and Irma.

    …. Here the image may be of Trump shouting about NFL players at a political rally in Alabama, or a screen shot of his obsessive tweets and insults about athletes standing (or not) during the national anthem. His neglect of the Spanish-speaking American territory will be labeled racist, and he surely has provided ample evidence of his lack of concern for anyone but his own base of primarily white males.

    Someone at the White House apparently caught on. Today, the administration hurriedly announced that Trump would be visiting Puerto Rico — next Tuesday. ….

    Trump cares only about what’s in front of his nose and what’s on Fox News (which has been wall-to-wall NFL-protest coverage). His obsession is divisive culture wars, not governance — and the latter is what matters in moments of true crisis. One can imagine he had no real appreciation for the depth of the suffering wrought by Maria, nor political reason that the non-voting islands would warrant his attention. He better focus fast, utilize every resource imaginable and stop engaging in divisive nonsense in lieu of responding to a third natural disaster.

    (1) I’d have preferred “impotent” to “inert”, but even Trump can understand this column.

    (2) Fox News is wall to wall on the football protests. LOL.

    (3) Third natural disaster of 2017; along with the electoral one.

  117. 117.

    Shalimar

    @FlipYrWhig: That is a weird thing for Chris Matthews to believe. He should know better. Trump has been running a brand licensing business for the last 20+ years. IIRC, Don, Jr. And Ivanka oversaw the renovation of the old D.C. post office, but Trump himself hasn’t built anything since his mid-90s financial collapse.

  120. 120.

    Mnemosyne

    I hope you guys all appreciate how much I’m restraining myself with all of this talk about Nuyoricans and hurricanes.

  122. 122.

    Elizabelle

    @schrodingers_cat: Sorry. But it’s what I think of Ms. Haberman and Mr. Thrush. Do they have non- knob-polishing journos on the political desk? No one comes to mind. Other beats, some good writers. But something’s horribly wrong with their DC press corpse types.

  125. 125.

    schrodingers_cat

    Even in the liberal western Mass which voted for Hillz over T easily by over a 10% margin, I have heard people say the most blatantly racist things about Puerto Ricans. There are several towns in the area with a substantial PR population.

  127. 127.

    Mnemosyne

    @Elizabelle:

    He’s on vacation in Austria, but he was promoting a supply flight that his dad organized (his dad is still pretty big in NYC politics) and he’s working on a song for a fundraising effort. While he’s on vacation in Europe.

  130. 130.

    Geeno

    @Stan: You are, of course, entitled to your opinion, but I disagree. I think she’s really grown since her appointment to the Senate.

  135. 135.

    TomatoQueen

    From SSA’s Acting Commissioner in email to all hands just now:
    “A Message to All SSA and DDS Employees

    Subject: Hurricane Maria Update

    When Hurricane Maria swept across the Caribbean, it devastated Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. We continue to work to account for our hundreds of employees in more than a dozen offices on these islands. However, because communications are an ongoing issue, we still cannot reach about half of our offices or managers. Please keep our colleagues in Operations, ODAR, the Puerto Rico DDS, OIG, and OGC in your thoughts and prayers.

    All of our offices remain closed, severely impairing our ability to deliver service. Limited power, spotty telecommunications, and extreme gas shortages will further impair recovery efforts.

    On Friday, we put our Cycle 4 payments in the mail. In Puerto Rico, the postal offices remain closed. All payments destined for Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands will be sent via express mail as soon as the United States Postal Service can get a plane into San Juan. The New York Region is prepared to send a team to Puerto Rico when it is safe to do so.

    I will keep you updated on the status of our employees and offices in the affected areas. Recovery efforts are just beginning, but know that we are doing everything possible to reach and account for all SSA staff and restore our critical services to those in need.”

    We take a lot of pride in getting the checks out to recipients on time no matter what. One lesson learned from Katrina was that people need their damn money yesterday, so there was a heavy push to get electronic payments to as many people as could be convinced to enroll.

  136. 136.

    SancerreRules

    Looooong time lurker here. Thank you to all for keeping my sanity during these ugly times… especially you, Betty Cracker. You make me laugh on the worst days.

    I just returned from a girlfriend trip in PR. We flew out 24 hours before they closed the airport. We’ve been in touch with the manager of our rental to see how everyone is faring. He’s started a gofundme page with a friend in Miami called Ayuda Mi Isla (Help My Island). 100% of the proceeds will be used for supplies for shelters, hospitals, people in need. Please consider giving. He’s very trustworthy and very competent. The people there have the most amazing spirit but they are in dire need of our help.

  137. 137.

    J R in WV

    @TomatoQueen:

    I never even thought of this. No one is going to get any pension check, insurance check, postcard, nothing. When Harvey hit Houston, we all thought that was bad. Then Florida, thought that was bad.

    But Puerto Rico is apocalyptic destruction – everything looks gone. It’s an order of magnitude worse than Houston, which was only partially destroyed. If it’s your house, you feel totally destroyed, but it isn’t everyone in Houston. I see numbers like 90,000 homes, in a city with a population around 6,000,000 !!!

    Puerto Rico has 3 million people and I don’t see any houses not torn up beyond all recognition.

    I donated to the One America campaign, which is chaired by the former Presidents of the US, and which provides 100% pass through of donations. It also allows you to pick which hurricane recovery effort your donation is to apply to, and I selected Maria, so Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands. It was not easy for me to see how to designate my donation destination, it’s the purple bar that turns out to be a drop-down with the three natural disasters so far this year.

  141. 141.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Doug R:

    trump is Starting in the 30s, it’s not getting much higher Ever.

    40s, actually–it’s already gotten higher. Trump’s support level has been slowly rising since around Hurricane Harvey. I assume that’s because the storms pushed the awfulness of Trump to the background for a while, and he went a couple of weeks without a really major fail. Now we’ve got several landing around the same time, and he’s getting bad press over Maria in Puerto Rico, so that may change.

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