Trump in Puerto Rico: A narcissist's tour de force

[spanone]

(CNN)Finally lumbering into a devastated Puerto Rico aboard Air Force One, almost two weeks after Hurricane Maria made landfall, President Trump came face-to-face with the kind of reality he can't deflect with anger and derision. A world waited to see if in a crisis, an unscripted Trump would rise to the occasion. He did not.

Upon arriving, Trump sat with a group of government officials and began praising his own administration. Like Snow White's evil stepmother who demanded the mirror remind her that she is "the fairest of them all," he then asked Rep. Jenniffer González-Colón to join in the fawning and flattering.

"I watched the other day," said the TV-addicted President, "and she was saying such nice things about all of the people who have worked so hard. Jenniffer, do you think you can say a little bit of what you said about us today?" He quickly added, "It's not about me," but of course it was.

As everyone knows, the only way to deal with the President is with praise, indulgence and political pats on the head. Thus it was that González-Colón and all those who spoke to the President gave him the verbal thumbs-up even as the 3.5 million people of Puerto Rico entered their third week of suffering as many still lacked electricity, secure supplies of food and reliable clean water.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/10/03/opinions/trump-in-puerto-rico-narcissists-tour-de-force-opinion-dantonio/index.html

[Motley13]

1. God knows what an ass he'll make of himself in LV tomorrow.

[Hortensis]

2. NO expectation Rump could rise to anything but his usual idiocy. The governor

Last edited Tue Oct 3, 2017, 11:52 PM - Edit history (1)

of PR's no idiot, though. Interestingly, he has his PhD. in biomedical engineering. In any case, Gov. Rossello's been schmoozing and flattering Rump from the beginning, a sensible and responsible approach under the circumstances. His party is described as conservative and wants statehood for PR, though supposedly members vote both Pub and Dem in federal elections, and he's described in one thing as centrist socially.

The official death count is currently -- whoops, edited to 34 (from 45, fingers live their own life now and then), as just announced by gov. Rossello.

This Miami Herald article suggests much higher numbers, with hospital morgues full, though no indication what will be attributable to Maria:

When Pesquera was asked why the government insists on keeping the death toll at 16 nearly two weeks after the hurricane — and following multiple reports of additional victims — he said they have not added additional victims to the official list because death certificates from deaths that occurred during those days have yet to be released. Nor has it been possible to analyze the information to determine which were natural deaths and which were deaths related to Hurricane Maria, he said.

“I’m not saying it has not happened, I’m saying we can only certify what we know,” Pesquera said. “When that information arrives, we will validate it. I’m not going to hide any numbers. I’m not going to hide any data.”. Like so many other services in Puerto Rico in the storm’s aftermath, the death registry system completely collapsed. Without the death certificates, the corpses could not be removed from hospital morgues.

Secretary Rodríguez-Mercado told the CPI last week that some employees had returned to work to begin emptying out hospital morgues. On Friday, a CPI source said that only 22 of the 42 Demographic Registrar’s offices were open and employees were certifying the deceased manually because, as with most of the island, they still did not have electricity or computer systems.

The source estimated that last week they certified more than 250 deaths. Still unknown is how many of these deaths will ultimately be attributed to Hurricane Maria. Meanwhile, Pesquera urged citizens with relatives who were still missing to go to their City Hall or their nearest police station to report it. As of Monday, the police had 29 people reported missing in the regions of San Juan, Arecibo, Caguas, Carolina, Utuado, Ponce and Mayagüez.

http://www.miamiherald.com/news/weather/hurricane/article176670706.html