Trump falsely claims nearly 3,000 Americans in Puerto Rico 'did not die'

[Nobody_Important]

Nice dodge. You didn't answer his original question. He wants to know (as do I) how "typical" is it to do this kind of calculation a year after a disaster?

Nothing about this situation is typical because Puerto Rico is not a typical place. The place got rocked by two hurricanes and it essentially destroyed the island. It's easier to immediately tell the effects of a hurricane in a place like Florida than it is Puerto Rico. It has much more infrastructure in place to support rescue efforts and help with rebuilding than Puerto Rico does.


Given the widespread loss of power and other essential needs it's not hard to imagine that the death toll was staggering. This has been an accepted number by politicians from both sides of the aisle. It's Trump who has decided to tweet out of the blue that all the dead Americans are fake and got made up by the Democrats. All of this despite a government sanctioned independent study by a highly reputable university on the hurricanes and their affects on Puerto Rico.


The whole "fake news" bullshit has always been terrible, but now we see him down playing the deaths of American Citizens and attributing it all to the Democrats. It's fucking insane.

 

[Catphish]

Based on what evidence?

My gut.

 

[Alebrije]

Its a shame the dead of human beings become a political tool.

 

[*Nightwing]

Specifically this part:

"Every president for decade's have ignored this, and failed the American citizens of Puerto Rico, what makes it worse in this case, is Trump looked these officials in the eyes, saw them salivating for the opportunity to missapropriate federal funds (hyperbole for dramatic flair, but there is zero chance someone didn't advise him of this common knowledge on the island), and handed them checks they promptly pocketed, and so far, only a few local politicians are being indicted for corruption on charges unrelated to the recovery effort."

That's not how accountability works, ackchually. It doesn't just get shunted up the chain and stop at the person you hate most, otherwise there would be no point having anyone employed below the President.

I'll try this last time, not to try and convince you or anyone, but in hopes you understand what I'm actually trying to convey which is the principals of chain of command that is what is utilized for order in the U.S.: if no one is held accountable, which in this case no one has (as previously mentioned the 2 politicians indicted were not related to hurricane Maria), then everyone up the chain of command is passively responsible.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Command_hierarchy

Under the section under sociology:

• strict accountability – those who issue orders are responsible for the consequences, not those who carry them out

It was the president whom issues the state of emergency commands and FEMA relief, as well as the dialing back of the justice dept to fight corruption, so again, the buck stops with him.
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/201...t-the-agencies-that-expose-federal-corruption


On a separate note, I don't dislike him, nor think he is the pariah the media makes him out to be, and at least in the U.S. the media has gone out of control reporting on opinions and gossip instead of actual facts, and the politics have gone so partisan and out of hand, I think it is necessary to have someone shake politics up to its core. But I am really a centrist, not by talk only, so when he done fuck up, I got to put my money where my mouth is and admit it.

 

[mneuro]

It's a dirtbag thing to say just before another major storm. That said, he probably is not technically wrong about deaths directly occurring in the storm. He deserves bad press for this tweet

 

[pramod]

Nothing about this situation is typical because Puerto Rico is not a typical place. The place got rocked by two hurricanes and it essentially destroyed the island. It's easier to immediately tell the effects of a hurricane in a place like Florida than it is Puerto Rico. It has much more infrastructure in place to support rescue efforts and help with rebuilding than Puerto Rico does.


Given the widespread loss of power and other essential needs it's not hard to imagine that the death toll was staggering. This has been an accepted number by politicians from both sides of the aisle. It's Trump who has decided to tweet out of the blue that all the dead Americans are fake and got made up by the Democrats. All of this despite a government sanctioned independent study by a highly reputable university on the hurricanes and their affects on Puerto Rico.


The whole "fake news" bullshit has always been terrible, but now we see him down playing the deaths of American Citizens and attributing it all to the Democrats. It's fucking insane.

Well thanks you answered my question. This certainly isn't a typical case. This is a deranged left so desperate they had to make up new bullshit methodologies so they can pin something on Trump.

 

[norm9]

Nice dodge. You didn't answer his original question. He wants to know (as do I) how "typical" is it to do this kind of calculation a year after a disaster?

BTW I applaud Trump for making this tweet and this point. NO one else in the media had the balls to make this point for him. I was going to make a similar thread a few days ago about this same topic about the bogus figures.

You might say trump did a heck of a job.

Well thanks you answered my question. This certainly isn't a typical case. This is a deranged left so desperate they had to make up new bullshit methodologies so they can pin something on Trump.

Yikes. So there aren't 3000 dead people in PR?

 

[Nobody_Important]

Yikes. So there aren't 3000 dead people in PR?

No man didn't you hear? Thats all a hoax by the Crooked Dems! All those grieving families are just faking it. Probably paid by the Clinton's or Soros!



(It's fucking mind boggling that sentence makes sense in today's world)

 

[pramod]

A million people died in Syria. So is that Obama's fault? Why didn't he save them?

 

[matt404au]

My gut.

Fair enough, at least you're honest.

 

[norm9]

No man didn't you hear? Thats all a hoax by the Crooked Dems! All those grieving families are just faking it. Probably paid by the Clinton's or Soros!



(It's fucking mind boggling that sentence makes sense in today's world)

When you have even jellyfish politicians like Ryan saying there's no reason to dispute the numbers...

A million people died in Syria. So is that Obama's fault? Why didn't he save them?

lol.

 

[Nobody_Important]

When you have even jellyfish politicians like Ryan saying there's no reason to dispute the numbers...

Yeah idk wtf he gains here. Literally nobody was talking about that death toll aside from a passing mention due to Florence.


Trump is the fucking KING of unforced errors.

 

[matt404au]

I'll try this last time, not to try and convince you or anyone, but in hopes you understand what I'm actually trying to convey which is the principals of chain of command that is what is utilized for order in the U.S.: if no one is held accountable, which in this case no one has (as previously mentioned the 2 politicians indicted were not related to hurricane Maria), then everyone up the chain of command is passively responsible.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Command_hierarchy

Under the section under sociology:

• strict accountability – those who issue orders are responsible for the consequences, not those who carry them out

It was the president whom issues the state of emergency commands and FEMA relief, as well as the dialing back of the justice dept to fight corruption, so again, the buck stops with him.
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/201...t-the-agencies-that-expose-federal-corruption


On a separate note, I don't dislike him, nor think he is the pariah the media makes him out to be, and at least in the U.S. the media has gone out of control reporting on opinions and gossip instead of actual facts, and the politics have gone so partisan and out of hand, I think it is necessary to have someone shake politics up to its core. But I am really a centrist, not by talk only, so when he done fuck up, I got to put my money where my mouth is and admit it.

It's like you did a cursory google search of accountability and are making it up as you go along. The people who should be held accountable in this instance are the local officials who failed to maintain infrastructure and distribute aid. Trump's job as president was to providing said aid (which he did) and funding to improve infrastructure, but the latter does not happen in a year. There are different levels of accountability throughout an organisation but you seem to just be attributing all of it to the guy at the top. That's not how it works.

 

[matt404au]

You might say trump did a heck of a job.


Yikes. So there aren't 3000 dead people in PR?

This appeal to emotion is at a level akin to "won't somebody think of the children?". You're overlooking a whole lotta context and details.

 

[norm9]

It's like you did a cursory google search of accountability and are making it up as you go along. The people who should be held accountable in this instance are the local officials who failed to maintain infrastructure and distribute aid. Trump's job as president was to providing said aid (which he did) and funding to improve infrastructure, but the latter does not happen in a year. There are different levels of accountability throughout an organisation but you seem to just be attributing all of it to the guy at the top. That's not how it works.

This appeal to emotion is at a level akin to "won't somebody think of the children?". You're overlooking a whole lotta context and details.

Facts. Not emotion. 3000 dead Puerto Ricans.

 

[matt404au]

Facts. Not emotion. 3000 dead Puerto Ricans.

Re: the tweet: you're going to have to specify which level of leadership. There are many levels of leadership throughout any corporation or government, from basic supervisory positions all the way up to CEO/president. In this case, the local leadership within Puerto Rico was the root cause of the problem.

The emotional part is throwing out "but there's 3000 dead Puerto Ricans!" as a trump card to overrule any critical thought or discussion.

 

[norm9]

Re: the tweet: you're going to have to specify which level of leadership. There are many levels of leadership throughout any corporation or government, from basic supervisory positions all the way up to CEO/president. In this case, the local leadership within Puerto Rico was the root cause of the problem.

President of the United States.

Catholic priests diddling kids? I blame the pope.
Helping Puerto Rico and making sure they're taken care in a disaster? I blame the president.

ETA- How you going to contradict the president on leadership? You saying he's wrong?

One final thing- It took Trump FIVE days to mention Puerto Rico. So, no he doesn't care about Puerto Rico, which if you didn't know, is surrounded by water, big water, ocean water.

 

[matt404au]

President of the United States.

Catholic priests diddling kids? I blame the pope.
Helping Puerto Rico and making sure they're taken care in a disaster? I blame the president.

ETA- How you going to contradict the president on leadership? You saying he's wrong?

Can you define "helping", because apart from personally flying down there to move water from A to B and upgrade pipe networks, I'm not sure how else he could have "helped".

 

[*Nightwing]

It's like you did a cursory google search of accountability and are making it up as you go along. The people who should be held accountable in this instance are the local officials who failed to maintain infrastructure and distribute aid. Trump's job as president was to providing said aid (which he did) and funding to improve infrastructure, but the latter does not happen in a year. There are different levels of accountability throughout an organisation but you seem to just be attributing all of it to the guy at the top. That's not how it works.

Thanks for taking the time to read my posts and debate with me, I sincerely appreciate it, but I don't waste my time and am tiered of finding 3 different ways of repeating the same thing with provided links and American law. Good day to you sir

 

[pramod]

Why only 3000 though? Those are rookie numbers.
Why stop at one year?
It's a bit disappointing they didn't take this all the way.

Why not take every area that has been hit by a disaster and calculate the difference in population between now and Trump's election. I'm sure they can pump up that number to a couple of millions.

 

[matt404au]

Thanks for taking the time to read my posts and debate with me, I sincerely appreciate it, but I don't waste my time and am tiered of finding 3 different ways of repeating the same thing with provided links and American law. Good day to you sir

Haha, you can feign taking the high road all you like but you provided some incredibly basic arguments and didn’t directly address any of my points. It’s obvious you’ve never been in a corporate or government leadership position as your understanding of accountability is very limited.

 

[norm9]

Why only 3000 though? Those are rookie numbers.
Why stop at one year?
It's a bit disappointing they didn't take this all the way.

Why not take every area that has been hit by a disaster and calculate the difference in population between now and Trump's election. I'm sure they can pump up that number to a couple of millions.

What are you going on about? So you're disputing the number dead? The numbers that have been verified?

Are you saying only 8-16 died? Or only 8-16 died that day?

Or are you saying that the experts are all wrong about the numbers?

Or all the experts also part of the deep state plot to undermine trump at every turn?

Is Rick Scott part of the deep state too since he seems to believe the numbers?

What about DeSantis? Is he deep state too?

How deep does the rabbit hole go in America trying to make trump look bad?

 

[pramod]

Rick Scott and the others are typical gutless Republicans. They are afraid to stand up to typical leftist attacks and smearing. I can't really blame them since the leftist media propaganda machine is extremely powerful.

The fact that Trump has the balls to defy the overwhelming media attacks will only make his supporters love him even more. He is speaking for them. Like I said thanks to Trump's tweet I didn't have to make a thread on this, he did the work for me.

 

[Nobody_Important]

Rick Scott and the others are typical gutless Republicans. They are afraid to stand up to typical leftist attacks and smearing. I can't really blame them since the leftist media propaganda machine is extremely powerful.

Wait wait wait.

Government sanctioned independent studies are now "leftist attacks and smear campaigns"? And agreeing with them is now "gutless"?



What? lol

 

[pramod]

Sanctioned by whom? The famously corrupt Puerto Rican government who is desperate to shift blame to someone else for their failures?

Puerto Rico failed their own people, not Trump.

 

[Nobody_Important]

Sanctioned by whom? The famously corrupt Puerto Rican government who is desperate to shift blame to someone else for their failures?

Puerto Rico failed their own people, not Trump.

Wow. Okay lol


Are you being serious now or are you trolling? Because there is a fairly large hole in that argument that you seem to be missing.

 

[Baraka in the White House]

It's crazy how absolutely nothing is ever, ever Trump's fault.

 

[138]

It's crazy how absolutely nothing is ever, ever Trump's fault.

That mean Lib'ral Media just won't leave him alone!

 

[TheSadRanger]

I've read the George Washington report and some of it's findings are a little dubious lacking specifics about the direct links on the death certificates. Lack of medication can certainly be a fair criticism, restoring power and deaths to heat are fair but that was largely a circumstance out of anybodys control despite FEMA delivering a record number of generators. Restoring Puerto Rico's power was no easy task. Much of the islands power demand was in San Juan in the north, while the main plant was in Aguirre at the south end of the island. Transmission lines between the two were mostly completely destroyed and new poles were needed and in high demand because of other hurricane affected areas in the states.

External audits had also found that PREPA had left the grid in a run down state. PREPA had filed for bankruptcy in 2014. Although there's an argument that the grid would have been obliterated no matter what it's state, either way the U.S Army Corps of Engineers faced major hurdles. Some poles for transmissions lines had to be individually installed with delivery from helicopter due to geography. Heavy equipment cranes often times got stuck or sank through the still damp mud. There are mountains between San Juan and Aguirre.

VICE did a pretty good story on this a while back.


So is Trump technically wrong for questioning it? Maybe, maybe not.

 

[Arkage]

As our country prepares for a natural disaster (granted, it just got downgraded to a Category 2) it really shows our media's priorities to wave around how Trump handled the last hurricane. Sure brings our disaster-relief teams together. Sure brings our citizens together.

Also, he's disagreeing with the estimate. Do your job journalists and either verify the estimate (proving him wrong) or find out that it's actually lower (proving him right). The fact that the president disagrees with an estimate is not newsworthy. Media is so incompetent. They can't even chase down stories any more.

This is "fake news".

Trump is denying a 42 page statistical study done by a university and a plethora of experts in a wide variety of fields dealing with natural disasters, populations, etc. A journalist simply has to point to the study and say "read this" to prove him wrong. And Trump will never produce a valid argument to counter it, because he isn't in the business of producing arguments. He's in the business of making conspiratorial propositions that work to his personal advantage, regardless of whether they map onto reality (see: crowd size).

A President denying the mortality rate of his own citizenry to cover his own ego is pretty fucked up.

I've read the George Washington report and some of it's findings are a little dubious lacking specifics about the direct links on the death certificates. Lack of medication can certainly be a fair criticism, restoring power and deaths to heat are fair but that was largely a circumstance out of anybodys control despite FEMA delivering a record number of generators. Restoring Puerto Rico's power was no easy task. Much of the islands power demand was in San Juan in the north, while the main plant was in Aguirre at the south end of the island. Transmission lines between the two were mostly completely destroyed and new poles were needed and in high demand because of other hurricane affected areas in the states.

External audits had also found that PREPA had left the grid in a run down state. PREPA had filed for bankruptcy in 2014. Although there's an argument that the grid would have been obliterated no matter what it's state, either way the U.S Army Corps of Engineers faced major hurdles. Some poles for transmissions lines had to be individually installed with delivery from helicopter due to geography. Heavy equipment cranes often times got stuck or sank through the still damp mud. There are mountains between San Juan and Aguirre.

VICE did a pretty good story on this a while back.


So is Trump technically wrong for questioning it? Maybe, maybe not.

You seem to be changing the argument. The study was never "Trump should've done more and didn't." The study says "around 3,000 people died, the DoH didn't do much to clarify or open communications about the real mortality rate, and the PR gov't was also lacking substantial coordination/communication" to which Trump responded "this is Democrat propaganda" with literally nothing to back up such an absurd conspiratorial assertion. Trump is wrong for questioning it because his line of questioning is absurd. All he wants to do is score some political points to soothe his ego, as always, feeding that neverending "us vs them" tribal dynamic loop that his fanbase requires to thrive. So now instead of talking about what needs to be done to prevent such a catastrophe again, which the paper also addresses extensively, we are sucked back into the "colleges are liberal propaganda machines!" tin foil hat garbage bin.

 

[dragonfart28]

DON'T CALL HIM HITLER

We've known since day 1.

 

[Baraka in the White House]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/poli...187f427e253_story.html?utm_term=.c10d5a683835

Trump thoroughly mischaracterized how the death toll of 2,975 was tallied in the study, conducted by George Washington University.

GWU researchers did not, contrary to his claim, attribute any specific individual’s death to Maria. Given the methodology, there was not an opportunity to misclassify someone who died of old age, as Trump suggested.

Rather, the study looked at the number of deaths from September 2017 to February 2018 and compared that total with what would have been expected based on historical patterns. The researchers factored in many variables, including the departure of hundreds of thousands of island residents in the aftermath of Maria.

Had the GWU researchers done what Trump claimed they did — attributing any death to Maria — the six-month death toll from the hurricane would have been 16,608.

Carlos Santos-Burgoa, principal investigator of the GWU study and a professor in the Department of Global Health, said he and his colleagues were unbiased in their work.

“We stand by the science underlying our study. It is rigorous. It’s state-of-the-art. We collected the data from the official sources. Everything can be validated,” he said. “We didn’t receive any pressure from anybody to go this way or that way. We wouldn’t do it. We are professionals of public health.”​

Quote Rep

Trump lied, period. This is not debatable.

 

[Corderlain]

So the 3000 number is based on a computer estimate and not confirmed fatalities. Can someone give me hard evidence 3000 people died?

 

[HenkDV]

A million people died in Syria. So is that Obama's fault? Why didn't he save them?

Bwhahahaha
Is this the deflection?

 

[DeepEnigma]

DON'T CALL HIM HITLER

We've known since day 1.

Hitler was unanimously loved by his people (and party), that's why these comments are the dumbest shit that comes out of the mental extreme left.

But keep stripping words of their meaning throwing Nazi in the mix too while you're at it, that way optics become so blinded and desensitized you won't see the real monsters when they come.

If I remember correctly, some on the left wanted to abolish the presidential term cap so Obama could be permanent. That is more in line with a dictator than abiding by the term length system.

 

[Musky_Cheese]

And I am still no closer to knowing how many actually died.

Edit: go read here https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-...hecking-death-toll-estimates-hurricane-maria/

 

[HenkDV]

Hitler was unanimously loved by his people (and party), that's why these comments are the dumbest shit that comes out of the mental extreme left.

But keep stripping words of their meaning throwing Nazi in the mix too while you're at it, that way optics become so blinded and desensitized you won't see the real monsters when they come.

If I remember correctly, some on the left wanted to abolish the presidential term cap so Obama could be permanent. That is more in line with a dictator than abiding by the term length system.

Universally loved? He didn't even get enough votes to win the election.

 

[DeepEnigma]

Universally loved? He didn't even get enough votes to win the election.

When he obtained power, he won the German people over. You cannot say the same for Trump.

Again, the comparison is the most tone deaf shit one can come up with, and it is also rather telling of the psyche of the person attempting to engage in discourse who parrots it.

 

[Whataburger]

Hitler blamed less things on the Jews than Trump does on everybody that disagrees with him as well...
/ss

 

[DeepEnigma]

Hitler blamed less things on the Jews than Trump does on everybody that disagrees with him as well...
/ss

Nobody in the partisan parties likes Trump on either side. Hitler he is not.

The fact that neither party likes him, is telling on how he has shaken up those political "gangs". The Joker Card.

 

[HenkDV]

When he obtained power, he won the German people over. You cannot say the same for Trump.

Again, the comparison is the most tone deaf shit one can come up with, and it is also rather telling of the psyche of the person attempting to engage in discourse who parrots it.

That's why he's the Mango Mussolini

 

[DeepEnigma]

That's why he's the Mango Mussolini

Not a huge fan of mangoes. Give me a frozen papaya and banana smoothie fosho!

 

[Whataburger]

Nobody in the partisan parties likes Trump on either side. Hitler he is not.

The fact that neither party likes him, is telling on how he has shaken up those political "gangs". The Joker Card.

 

[DeepEnigma]

Considering that Batman was the embodiment of the establishment, this does not look so bad.

 

[HenkDV]

Not a huge fan of mangoes. Give me a frozen papaya and banana smoothie fosho!

No disagreements here

 

[7echnicolor]

Sanctioned by whom? The famously corrupt Puerto Rican government who is desperate to shift blame to someone else for their failures?

Puerto Rico failed their own people, not Trump.

Wow, this is a horrifyingly detached post. Seek help.

 

[Nobody_Important]

Wow, this is a horrifyingly detached post. Seek help.

Not to mention a pointless argument. It doesn't really matter who sanctioned the study so long as the study is done by a reliable source and its George Washington University. Its not like it was done by some crack house community college lol

 

[Corderlain]

Wow, this is a horrifyingly detached post. Seek help.

Classic example of feels before reals. We're talking about the validity of a study and you're on Mars thinking we're dismissing people's deaths.

 

[7echnicolor]

Actually, because of the type of territory Puerto Rico is, the federal government is more responsible for it than if it were just an a normal state.

Hope this helps.

Classic example of feels before reals. We're talking about the validity of a study and you're on Mars thinking we're dismissing people's deaths.

Hey, would you mind quoting where I said he was dismissing people’s deaths? I also have no idea who the fuck you are so why would I be responding to your posts when I clearly didn’t quote you? That’s some feels before reals, lol.

 

[rokkerkory]

PR government is corrupt? HAHAHA

Look at all the convictions and guilty pleas from the Trump admin so far. Look at the resignations... hilarious.