Leaked White House Memo Details Puerto Rico Spin: The Storm Caused These Problems, Not Our Response

[mucifer]

The memo:

I recommend that today and tomorrow we use the general theme of supporting the governor and standing with the people of Puerto Rico to get them food, water, shelter and emergency medical care. Monday and Tuesday we can pivot hopefully to a theme of stabilizing as we address temporary housing and sustaining the flow of commodities and basic government services, including temporary power. After that we focus on restoration of basic services throughout next week and next weekend. Then we start a theme of recovery planning for the bright future that lies ahead for Puerto Rico. Planned hits, tweets, tv bookings and other work will limit the need for reactionary efforts.

The storm caused these problems, not our response to it. We have pushed about as much stuff and people through a tiny hole in as short a timeframe as possible.

From the article:

Meanwhile, it didn’t take my colleague AJ Vicens long to find a town in Puerto Rico entirely cut off from the help Bossert asserts is making such a difference on the island.

“You are the first person to come here,” a woman told him. According to residents Vicens interviewed, none of the 10,000 federal workers on the island had made it to Ciales, just 45 minutes from San Juan, by the time he got there yesterday. People in the town described a scene of utter desperation. (Follow Vicens on Twitter for regular updates from the island.)

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/10/leaked-white-house-memo-details-puerto-rico-spin-the-storm-caused-these-problems-not-our-response-1/

[mcar]

1. It's all spin to them

People are suffering, dying and all they care about is the image.

[Rhiannon12866]

2. Exactly!

[tymorial]

10. Fucking bastards.

[iluvtennis]

23. +1

[Petrushka]

17. After reading about the "spin" and the "upbeat 'themes'" in Bossert's memo . . .

. . . it seemed unthinkable the President would ignore Bossert's "positive PR strategy" . . . but . . . that's what the author of that Mother Jones human interest article ends up saying, viz:

"But President Donald Trump appears to be ignoring whatever positive PR strategy his adviser Bossert is going with, instead tweeting on Sunday morning that only 'Fake News' and 'politically motivated ingrates' were criticizing his administration’s response."


As you said, mcar, "It's all spin to them. People are suffering, dying and all they care about is the image." IMO, it's all spin to Mother Jones too.

[Dark n Stormy Knight]

22. Never was spin more necessary to keep the citizenry from

outright revolt.

[oberliner]

3. They executed that spin precisely

Mission accomplished, I guess.

[anneboleyn]

6. Brock Long, Trump's FEMA appointee, recited ALL of this almost verbatim on Chris Wallace's show

I posted a link to it in an earlier thread. He must be so proud of himself that he was able to memorize the talking points since you know he doesn't have "time for that" political stuff while FEMA is so busy.

[rockfordfile]

20. Trump's Katrina . Americans get it The Republicans/Trump just didn't give a shit

[procon]

4. So, the Trump administration is planning on running a con to deceive Americans.

This idiot, Bossert, is more interested in the political spin than on any real disaster response. He says they will restore food, water, housing, power and medical care within the week. That's their "theme" anyway, so pay no attention that they haven't managed to do any of that yet... and its day 12 now. Then Bossert thinks he can just coordinate a heavy PR schedule of softsoap the interviews to whitewash the real situation and tout "the bright future that lies ahead for Puerto Rico".

Trump thinks a good lie will mask the problems and silence his critics, but the biggest disaster Americans face isn't another hurricane, or a crazy man in North Korea, it's Trump.

[anneboleyn]

7. They have already been lying -- using vague phrasing, unchecked assertions, playing down

the suffering. The head of FEMA was on fox claiming that most of the grocery stores and pharmacies are back up and running, which is total bullshit. They are also wildly downplaying the suffering and number of dead (they are claiming that sixteen died -- nothing like Katrina (!) -- I imagine the real number is much higher) These people are disgusting. Frankly I think this is far worse than what we saw with Bush (I don't want to downplay the horrors of Katrina by any means but this is fucking evil)

[Still In Wisconsin]

15. Of course they're running a con.

It's all they fucking know how to do.

[anneboleyn]

5. I posted Brock Long's spin earlier (head of FEMA, Trump appointee). It's "their fault" as they

had all sorts of problems and we just couldn't fix those (even though we weren't really trying)...blah blah...of course Trump and his absolute incompetence is NEVER a problem.

[Hortensis]

8. People who believe only what they want to are easy suckers. I read about

a town only about 20 minutes normally from San Juan that was cut off by destroyed roads had had no aid of any kind as of some time Saturday. They were getting on so far by helping each other, but only at the most basic level, and no critical medical emergencies had arisen yet.

If this were Wisconsin in February... Phoenix in August, or right now...

Or any large city any time, or rural area that would be at the bottom of relief priorities, perhaps similarly unreachable. I've realized from this that a person in the middle of any city of millions, or in the country like us, would do well to regard himself as as good as on an island because the problem of distributing water and food, and livable temperatures, to everyone in any situation before their lives are endangered is enormous.

Relief needs to be in place before, but many disasters are not so obliging as to give a week's warning. And, my god, do we need well functioning government. In this era when almost no one grows his own food and very few have fresh water within walking distance, regardless of how clean, it is in for all of us a matter of life and death.

[pangaia]

19. I wonder if San Francisco or Seattle would get much help in a disaster...

Or Ithaca... or Madison, WI

[Hortensis]

21. BIG point! Assuming an event was isolated there, they'd get lots, regardless of

whether Obama or Trump were president. But HOW LONG would it take to get to them even at best?

Besides the problems of huge, concentrated populations, well over a hundred million Americans now live in areas considered mostly uninhabitable or dangerous to health before HVAC and antibiotics. And many modern, sealed houses have no secondary power or heat source so they become unlivable in both high heat and strong cold.

Depending on climate and health, people can start dying of hypothermia within hours, of dehydration within a day. Imagine commuters between Phoenix and desert subdivisions when a high-altitude nuc took out their cars' electronics -- today, and it's not even terribly hot for there. How many would have enough water in their cars to wait to sustain them while they walked to shelter, how would those with enough to carry carry it, and what's waiting at home? How many would wait for help that didn't come before starting walking?

Heat normally takes frail people first (and healthy people who feel they have to keep working outside during heat waves in places like India). But I read that after about 4 days of continued unlivable high temperatures, such as during the heat dome that sat over Chicago several years ago, the heat will start interfering with the function of body systems of previously healthy people and will kill if it continues.

And, of course, killer cold...

We're all living on a knife edge these days and don't know it, but the answer's simple. None of those in PR who have even two weeks of critical supplies at home are standing in those lines. Not for themselves, anyway. This needs to become the norm.

[sinkingfeeling]

9. Remember when America couldn't be stopped by logistics? Taking care of

hundreds of thousands in Vietnam, landing on the moon, planning the Berlin airlift, etc.

[B Stieg]

11. Send Geraldo Rivera to Ciales n/t

[DK504]

12. When is the media going to go to these little towns

with their satellites and show what is really happening? Show that FEMA is no where to be found and people have no food, no water, no shelter or basic medical care. Why haven't any of them gone 45 minutes outside of San Juan in any direction to show what is happening?

[Volaris]

13. Becaus then they would have no food, no water, no shelter or basic medical care.

And if you're White in Trump's America, let alone an educated professional, you know as well as I that that ain't never gonna happen.

[SonofDonald]

14. The moment that these asshats start talking

About how wonnderful things are going in PR the newscasters should hold this memo up to the camera and start reading it out loud.

Every fucking time.

There will be parties in the streets when dumpf is removed from office, at least out in front of my house there will be.

[SonofDonald]

16. Of course you see that this memo has

Absolutely zero mention of actually doing anything to help.

Just patting themselves on the back again, what a bunch of foul smelling shits they are.

[calimary]

18. The buck stops over there somewhere.