{"id":25086,"date":"2017-09-29T23:59:42","date_gmt":"2017-09-29T23:59:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=25086"},"modified":"2017-09-29T23:59:42","modified_gmt":"2017-09-29T23:59:42","slug":"no-good-news-to-be-found-in-puerto-rico","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=25086","title":{"rendered":"No ‘good news’ to be found in Puerto Rico"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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The acting head of the Homeland Security Department has stepped in it … bigly.<\/em><\/p>\n

Acting Homeland Security Secretary Elaine Duke sought to put a positive spin on the Trump administration’s response to the Puerto Rico tragedy caused by Hurricane Maria. The she said the magic words.<\/p>\n

“I know that it is really a good news story in terms of our ability to reach people and the limited number of deaths that have taken place in such a devastating hurricane,” Duke said.<\/p>\n

The magic words are contained in that sentence: good news story.<\/em><\/p>\n

No ‘good news’ to be found<\/a><\/p>\n

That ignited San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulin Cruz, who’s been battling against a growing humanitarian crisis in her city and throughout the island.\u00a0“Well, maybe from where she’s standing it’s a good news story,” she said. “When you’re drinking from a creek it’s not a good news story. When you don’t have food for a baby it’s not a good news story. When you have to pull people down from their buildings, because \u2014 I’m sorry, but that really upsets me and frustrates me.”<\/p>\n

Cruz went on:\u00a0“Dammit, this is not a good news story. This is a people-are-dying story. This is a life-or-death story. This is there’s-a-truckload-of-stuff-that-cannot-be-taken-to-people story. This is a story of devastation that continues to worsen because people are not getting food and water \u2014 if I could scream it a lot more louder. It is not a good news story when people are dying, when they don’t have dialysis, when their generators aren’t working and their generators aren’t providing for them. Where is there good news here?”<\/p>\n

I’m not going to call for Duke’s head on a platter, although her remarks do have a “heck of a job, Brownie” feel to them, alluding to President Bush’s ill-considered compliment to then-FEMA director Michael Brown’s response to the Hurricane Katrina tragedy in New Orleans in 2005.<\/p>\n

I just wish Duke hadn’t used the “good news story” phrase. She does seem to mirror the self-congratulatory tone being struck by Donald J. Trump, who keeps alluding to the “fantastic job” his emergency response team is doing, along with the local first responders in Puerto Rico.<\/p>\n

What the citizens who live in Puerto Rico want to hear is that their country — the United States of America — is committed fully to helping them. They don’t want to hear about “good news,” or that the president’s team is doing a “fantastic” job.<\/p>\n

They want relief. They want to know the president is focused exclusively on helping an island comprising 3.5 million U.S. citizens who are stricken. They are suffering.<\/p>\n

They are Americans in trouble<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n

Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The acting head of the Homeland Security Department has stepped in it … bigly. Acting Homeland Security Secretary Elaine Duke sought to put a positive spin on the Trump administration’s response to the Puerto Rico tragedy caused by Hurricane Maria. The she said the magic words. “I know that it is really a good news … Continue reading No ‘good news’ to be found in Puerto Rico<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[1353,1424,7330,7331,7336],"class_list":["post-25086","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-national-news","tag-department-of-homeland-security","tag-donald-trump","tag-hurricane-maria","tag-puerto-rico","tag-san-juan-pr"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25086","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=25086"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25086\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25089,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25086\/revisions\/25089"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=25086"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=25086"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=25086"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}