The problem with the current administration is that there are more atrocities coming out of it than I have time to comment on. But I do want to say a couple more things about Puerto Rico.
First, was obvious even just days after Hurricane Maria devastated Puerto Rico that the death could would continue to climb because of conditions on the island. And, not surprisingly, the Harvard study is reporting that many people died because they lacked access to medical services.
When Trump strutted around San Juan as if he’d just won a world championship title it ought to have been his “heckufa job, Brownie” moment. The tossing of paper towels to a crowd after such massive devastation was a perfect metaphor for Trump’s incompetence. But there was so little follow up news coverage of what was happening on Puerto Rico that the point was never driven home.
And what isn’t being discussed on Fox & Friends, Trump doesn’t know about.
This week, we learned that Hurricane Maria may be the deadliest natural disaster on US soil in the past 100 years, according to a new study published in the New England Journal of Medicine. The study found that most of the estimated 4,600 deaths were because of delayed medical care.
But on cable news, the top story by a wide margin was ABC canceling Roseanne after a racist tweet from its star, Roseanne Barr. In the New York Times, Roseanne was on the front page and Puerto Rico was on A13.
This was yet another example of the media putting the Puerto Rico story on the back burner — something it’s been doing for a long time now. We analyzed the amount of airtime the major cable news networks devoted to Puerto Rico and found that after the first month, coverage has been virtually nonexistent….
I can see how an average American who is not a news junkie might have assumed that Puerto Rico was being taken care of, since few ever said anything otherwise. But it really wasn’t. And New Orleans got covered much more thoroughly.
I don’t blame reporters. I think those reporters assigned to Puerto Rico were doing their best:
Kaur: Has it been frustrating to see other stories instead dominate much of the news cycle? Have you felt like the story hasn’t gotten the attention it deserves?Sutter: I do find that frustrating. I’m not sure people on the mainland realize how severe the crisis has been — and continues to be.In March, I was reporting a story on people in a remote town, Maunabo, where people were dying because they lacked basic services like electricity. Breathing machines weren’t working. People couldn’t get medical help. There was just this cloud of despair that hung over the place.I worried that our readers might not get it — or might not care, that they’d be focused on a Trump tweet. PR is part of the United States — but it can feel like living on another planet down here. The experiences people are having, and that we’re reporting, don’t translate for many Americans.
The other surprise is that the new death estimate was not front page news and is not at the top of Google News or news aggregation sites.
What is?
Roseanne Barr’s firing over Islamophobic and racist remarks (with the racist remarks getting most of the attention rather than the Islamophobic ones).
Many on social media, as I mentioned yesterday, are flabbergasted by this inequity.
They are right to be.
Maria has turned out to be the most deadly natural disaster in U.S. history, and discovery of this ought to have been the leading news story coming out of every news outlet. But it wasn’t. And while some may opine that Puerto Rico will be an enduring stain on Trump’s legacy, It’s more like the ketchup spot between the grease splatter and the smudge where the dog threw up, and after awhile the mind numbs …
"after awhile the mind numbs … "
Yeah I can't really decide if all the chaos is some machiavellian plot designed by Stephen Miller (I'm not sure tRump is that bright) to distract from all the executive branch corruption or is it just complete disarray resulting from incompetence?
I just finished reading the 2018 <i>Report of the Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights on his mission to the United States of America</i>. http://undocs.org/A/HRC/38/33/ADD.1
Given how the USA treats its poor in general (see above link), I am not all that surprised that the US Gov't has basically abandoned the island. The navel hospital ship saga was enough to tell anyone that Puerto Rico was not of any interest to the Trump regime or apparently the US Navy, and so it just faded from the media as well.
Actually, given some very dubious "deals" in providing relief to the Commonwealth, I am sure the Trump mob wants to avoid any mention of it.
I just googled Puerto Rico and Al Jazeera. Al Jazeera seems to be providing some coverage on the island.
The serious problem is that the next such tragedy may occur on the mainland or Alaska; and the Trump Administration won't do any more than he did for Puerto Rico. The news media has undercovered this tragedy; but, covering the most inept and corrupt U.S. Administration EVER has got to be exhausting. It's exhausting for those of us watching it. I have had another thought on the Republicans and Trump's continued trashing of the FBI. God forbid that it never happen. But, what if one of these Republicans had his/her child/ren kidnapped. Who handles kidnappings? The FBI. Still, I believe the FBI agents would just do their jobs as they usually do. I am a retired Federal Government employee. I retired earlier than I had planned because I had a horrible stupidvisor, and, decided to retire and go back home to Washington State. However, if I had been working on November 8, 2016, I would have filled out my retirement papers on November 9, 2016. And, retirement day would have been for November 10, 2016. I had 37 years of Federal service. Now, I am happily retired hope all Republicans are happy. They will rue the day they won this election. I hope I will be around to see it.
Bonnie,
Thanks for your service. 🙂
I thought the Dumbaya years could never be topped for incompetence and disaster.
WRONG!
I can't take it.
Thanks a lot, you "Homeland" MF's .
The level of callousness is just mind boggling. That you have a US "president" tossing paper towels as if he's at a sporting event, in the wake of the worst natural disaster in US history. But also, that you have a media so driven by ratings that it chases every errant utterance from Trump rather than focus on the disaster in Puerto Rico so that the world knows the people there are not fine, that there weren't "just 64 deaths" and what it says about our government that the island's debt was waived in their faces as a justification for the slow walking and ultimate cessation of humanitarian aid.
And consider this fact: Per Forbes, there are 540 billionaires in the United States, with a combined net worth of $2.399 trillion, according to our 2016 list of the world's richest people. That's more billionaires and more combined net worth than any other nation in the world. This was in 2016, and the GOP tax cut lavished another trillion on them since then.
That people died on Puerto Rico but for lack of electricity and access to medical care should shame us all.
My comment was grabbed by the twit filter.
How apropriate…
I forget details that would make it searchable, but there was a documentary made about the Ethiopian famine of the 1980s, which focused on a team of public relations people, who, over a year and a half, were struggling to get media attention on behalf of the victims and bring the famine into public consciousness.
What they saw was that only at the point that there was literally Cecile B DeMille devastation that could be photographed so as to have the impact of a scene from Sparticus, did anyone even give 30 seconds of attention to it.
I strongly believe that by solving problems experienced by homeless people after Hurricanes, intervening and deflecting needless famines, Americans could pull themselves out of this period of confusion and be invigorated and happy. We so badly need to fix something, accomplish something wholesome, and to base the value of it on the common good and the happiness that comes of solving problems and helping others. Make America Great Again and America First are both based upon the dishonest and corrupt assumption that either is possible by exercising selfishness.
Presumably the crisis isn't over? I'm wondering if this might be the sort of thing where protests or letter writing campaigns might make a difference. It occurs to me that I haven't heard much about that sort of thing either, and I follow lefty twitter closely enough that I would have if it were much of a thing.
Eric Schmidt: pretty much all I've read about the Ethiopian famine is the section in "The State of Africa," by Martin Meredith. I just reread the relevant passage in the Google Books preview, and it says that the famine was the largely the result of the army destroying or requisitioning crops, combined with some local droughts, and that Mengistu blocked both relief for victims and media access.
https://books.google.com/books?id=1pizmqizePEC&pg=PA334&lpg=PA334&dq="using+scorched-earth+tactics,+the+army+destroyed+grain+stores+and+houses"&source=bl&ots=3TjsR1mOvb&sig=eFiLWZW8OAnSRdWK6kIIYw9CRME&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjxgZ7H0rbbAhUpuVkKHXtDC2gQ6AEIJzAA#v=onepage&q="using%20scorched-earth%20tactics%2C%20the%20army%20destroyed%20grain%20stores%20and%20houses"&f=false
Yes, much blame to spread around. But have no fears, that is why the orange tRump (fitting name if you look at his mouth) tossed out those paper towels.
And I am sure they were all made by Koch Industries paper interests.
The daily and deadly distractions from the orange-faced anus mouth let other repugs get away with a lot of crap!
Also, speaking of famines that don't get much publicity: "UN warns 18.4 million Yemenis are expected to starve to death by end of the year"