Tag: Puerto Rico

Invasion of the ugly Americans: Maskless tourists reportedly defy COVID precautions in Puerto Rico

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The stereotype of “ugly Americans” who are blatantly disrespectful of people in the places that they visit serves as a guidebook on how not to behave when one is away from the continental United States. And according to an article published by The Guardian this week, the U.S. territory of Puerto Rico is being inundated with stereotypical ugly Americans.

Of course, Puerto Ricans are themselves Americans — but that doesn’t mean they can avoid the ugly habits of their fellow citizens indulging in a vacation.

Reporter Coral Murphy Marcos reports that Puerto Rico has experienced a surge in tourism recently, explaining, “The combination of U.S. residents wanting to escape cold weather, cheap flight tickets and easing restrictions on the island has been bringing tourists en masse.” And Brad Dean, CEO of Discover Puerto Rico, told The Guardian, “We are certainly seeing the effects of increased traveler confidence coinciding with vaccine distribution in the U.S.” Continue reading.

San Juan Mayor Says ‘No One’ in Puerto Rico Has Received a COVID-19 Stimulus Check

The mayor of San Juan, Puerto Rico, has alleged that none of the island’s eligible residents have received their expected stimulus payments from the federal government.

In an appearance on MSNBC on Saturday, Carmen Yulin Cruz, the mayor of the U.S. territory’s capital city, said the island has not yet benefited from one of the U.S. government’s signature responses to the COVID-19 pandemic: stimulus checks that are intended to put up to $1,200 into the hands of many Americans.

Cruz said that the island has been struggling to get resources to the people who need them most and has insufficient equipment and tests to check its residents for the virus. She also said the island has struggled to deliver $500 payments promised by the governor, new requests for food stamps and over 130,000 pending unemployment requests. Cruz and other mayors have had to rely on religious and community leaders to hand out food to citizens in need, she said. Continue reading.

Trump Attaches Severe Restrictions to Puerto Rico’s Long-Delayed Disaster Aid

New York Times logoDays after the island was hit by a 5.9-magnitude earthquake, the White House released billions in aid but placed limits on how it can be spent.

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration imposed severe restrictions on Wednesday on billions of dollars in emergency relief to Puerto Rico, including blocking spending on the island’s electrical grid and suspending its $15-an-hour minimum wage for federally funded relief work.

The nearly $16 billion in funding, released while Puerto Ricans still sleep on the streets for fear of aftershocks from last week’s earthquake, is part of $20 billion that Congress allocated for disaster recovery and preparation more than a year ago, in response to the commonwealth being hit by back-to-back hurricanes in 2017.

The Department of Housing and Urban Development had released only $1.5 billion of the congressional relief, citing concerns about political corruption. Of that, only $5 million has been spent. Continue reading.

Trump to lift hold on $8.2B in Puerto Rico disaster aid

The Department of Housing and Urban Development will allow Puerto Rico to access more than $8 billion in blocked disaster aid funding, ending a monthslong hold by the Trump administration, according to people familiar with the matter.

Puerto Rico, which suffered devastating losses from Hurricanes Irma and Maria in 2017, has received just $1.5 billion of the roughly $20 billion in congressionally authorized disaster funds that HUD is supposed to administer. The delay in receiving the additional funds had incensed both U.S. lawmakers and commonwealth officials.

The island will be able to access the latest tranche — $8.2 billion in disaster mitigation money — once a Federal Register notice is published outlining the grant agreement and how the money can be used. HUD blew past the legal deadline to publish the funding notice in September, saying it needed to ensure financial safeguards were put in place in light of recent political unrest on the island. Continue reading.

To pay for Trump’s wall, a hurricane-wrecked base in Puerto Rico loses funding

Washington Post logoSALINAS, Puerto Rico — When Hurricane Maria struck Puerto Rico two years ago, it smashed through the National Guard training base here, sending the plaques that Maj. Gen. José J. Reyes gathered over his U.S. Army career into the howl of an unforgiving wind.

The base, known as Camp Santiago, emerged from the storm much like the rest of the island: damaged, shocked and determined to recover against dim economic odds.

So when Reyes helped secure $331.5 million for the base from the Pentagon’s treasured construction budget, officials thought Maria’s clouds had come with a silver lining.

View the complete September 19 article by Paul Sonne on The Washington Post website here.

Despite new law, Trump administration has not given Puerto Rico emergency food stamp aid

Washington Post logoThe Trump administration has not yet given Puerto Rico $600 million in food stamp aid more than two weeks after the president signed the emergency funding into law, according to federal and territory officials.

Puerto Rico does not expect to be able to spend the emergency food stamp funding until September, most likely, six months after food stamp cuts began for the more than 1 million island residents who rely on the program, said Glorimar Andújar Matos, executive director of the Departamento de la Familia, the Puerto Rico government agency that administers the program.

While the reason for it was not immediately clear, the unexpected delay to Puerto Rico’s food stamp aid reflects the ongoing dysfunction in securing the release of federal funding for the U.S. territory that is still struggling to recover from Hurricane Maria in fall 2017.

View the complete June 24 article by Jeff Stein and Arelis R. Hernández on The Washington Post website here.

Disaster relief talks stalled by Trump feud with Puerto Rico

Senate negotiators say a deal on disaster relief is unlikely this week as President Trump refuses to agree to more funding for Puerto Rico in the midst of a feud with public officials on the island.

Trump’s beef with Puerto Rico has put Senate Republicans from Midwestern and Southern states in a tough spot, because they say farmers in their home states need assistance immediately.

Instead of fast action, however, the standoff is going to stretch into next week. That gives lawmakers only a few days to reach a deal before Congress is scheduled to start a two-week recess on April 15.

View the complete April 4 article by Alexander Bolton on The Hill website here.

Trump hits out at ‘crazed and incompetent’ Puerto Rican leaders after disaster bill fails

President Trump on March 28 defended his administration’s assistance to Puerto Rico, saying he has taken care of the island more than “any man ever.” (Reuters)

Hours after the Senate voted down a disaster relief package that Democrats argued didn’t include enough money to help storm-ravaged Puerto Rico, President Trump took to Twitter on Monday night to lash out at the opposition party and the island’s leaders.

Trump, who has reportedly said in private that he doesn’t want “another single dollar” going to Puerto Rico in the wake of Hurricane Maria, again complained about funding for the island and called San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulín Cruz, a frequent critic, “crazed and incompetent.”

“The Democrats today killed a Bill that would have provided great relief to Farmers and yet more money to Puerto Rico despite the fact that Puerto Rico has already been scheduled to receive more hurricane relief funding than any ‘place’ in history,” Trump tweeted around 11 p.m. “The people of Puerto Rico are GREAT, but the politicians are incompetent or corrupt.”

View the complete March 2 article by Tim Elfrink on The Washington Post website here.

‘Oh my god! My brain doesn’t go that dark!’: MSNBC’s Nicolle Wallace loses when her guest guesses the motives behind Trump’s ‘politics of cruelty’

Credit: MSNBC screen grab

On MSNBC’s “Deadline: White House,” host Nicolle Wallace and her guests discussed the administration’s bizarre and disturbing (not to mention politically inept) decisions to go after aid to Puerto Rico, funding for the Special Olympics, and endorsement of the conclusion that the courts should invalidate the entirety of Obamacare.

The panel observed that, in light of the relatively good news this week from Attorney General Bill Barr saying that Special Counsel Robert Mueller will not bring a charge of conspiring with the Russian government against anyone in President Donald Trump’s orbit, these moves look particularly ill-timed and self-destructive. Bloomberg editor Tim O’Brien noted that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is well-suited to weaponize these issues against Republicans. Continue reading “‘Oh my god! My brain doesn’t go that dark!’: MSNBC’s Nicolle Wallace loses when her guest guesses the motives behind Trump’s ‘politics of cruelty’”

Trump complains to senators that Puerto Rico is getting too much hurricane relief funding

President Trump complained in a private lunch Tuesday with Senate Republicans about the amount of disaster aid designated for Puerto Rico, as lawmakers prepare for a standoff over funds for the island that is still struggling to recover in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria, according to officials familiar with the meeting.

Trump’s remarks came during an hour-long, freewheeling soliloquy at the Capitol with Senate Republicans where he boasted about the end of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s investigation, encouraged Republicans to take up another legislative effort on health care and mocked Democrats over the Green New Deal.

Trump’s decision to use the occasion to send a message about funding for Puerto Rico underscores his continuing push to limit aid to the island.

View the complete March 26 article by Seung Min Kim, Josh Dawsey and Paul Kane on The Washington Post website here.