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Cole writes: "Trump's petulant tweet storm on Saturday accused Puerto Ricans of wanting everything done for them."

Trump speaking at the Environmental Protection Agency, with Vice President Mike Pence, EPA chief Scott Pruitt, and Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke. (photo: Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP)
Trump speaking at the Environmental Protection Agency, with Vice President Mike Pence, EPA chief Scott Pruitt, and Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke. (photo: Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP)

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Trump's Billionaire Cronies Feed at Public Trough as He Disses Puerto Rico

By Juan Cole, Informed Comment

01 October 17

 

rump�s petulant tweet storm on Saturday accused Puerto Ricans of wanting everything done for them.

He expressed these sentiments as his secretary of Health and Human Services, Tom Price, was forced to resign for flying around on expensive government airplanes or charters, costing tax payers over $1 million, even though many of these flights could have been replaced by inexpensive train rides or economy seats on civilian airliners.

So who is it again who has things done for him by the Federal government?

The whole point of the Trump cabinet is allow filthy rich groups and individuals to feed at the public trough.

Rick Perry wants artificially to use government to make consumers buy electricity generated by coal and nuclear plants. This is a way of deploying the state to benefit one narrow sliver of the wealthy, while harming everyone else.

Scott Pruitt has turned the Environmental Protection Agency upside down, using it to increase corporate profits by allowing the pollution of public spaces, including the sources of our drinking water.

In contrast, San Juan mayor Carmen Yulin Cruz has been out in the water with a bullhorn trying to find people still trapped by the flooding.

In trying to portray the 3.4 million Puerto Ricans, all of them US citizens, as welfare queens, Trump in typical fashion used a Reagan cliche so stupidly as to undermine Republican Party ideology. Reagan demeaned the working poor for resorting to the social safety net erected for that purpose. Trump attempted to use the same meme with regard to pure victims. The Puerto Ricans did not get hit by Maria because they don�t know how to save money or because they spend it frivolously. They cannot exploit the system. They are outside the system. They are drowning or dying of hunger and thirst, in part because the Trump administration watched Hurricane Maria head for Puerto Rico for five days and did not swing into action to prepare for the aftermath.


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+17 # noitall 2013-02-02 13:12
If ex-gov, from Washington, Christine Gregoir gets the nod for EPA Director, that would probably be another straw on the camel's back. She weenied out on tackling the embarrassingly low (6.5 grams per day)fish consumption rate (which determines the amount that toxin dischargers can dump into WA's waters in WA's cleanup law, presumably to avoid another hurdle from coal train efforts to ship out of Washington's coast. It doesn't look good from where I stand. This country and Canada are poised via the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP, google it) to become world energy exporters. WOE BE US. We're being kept in the dark.
 
 
+1 # pbbrodie 2013-02-02 13:32
Unfortunately, I believe this is hopeless and it will be approved.
 
 
+29 # Vardoz 2013-02-02 13:46
We must all do what we can to oppose this suicide mission that the energy companies are taking us on. Trade energy for our survival is NOT WORTH IT - we have already emailed and called our reps strongly protesting the pipeline and emailed Obama over and over at whitehouse.gov
 
 
+17 # hoodwinkednomore 2013-02-02 15:53
No Gravestone Pipeline!! We must do as Vardoz says and more...Get involved, people!
 
 
+16 # Regina 2013-02-02 17:07
Obama keeps telling us that he comprehends the science. He could demonstrate that comprehension by standing up against Keystone and their ilk. We have only one planet, and it's already teetering on the brink of irreversible damage. The moguls love their money, but what if they can never really use it again under disastrous living conditions, that they will have brought about? What does it take to get through to those empty heads that sit on deep flush pockets?
 
 
+12 # Unicorn144 2013-02-02 17:40
This is it; the tipping point for saving our planet or destroying it so some cree billionaires can make more money to invest in currency speculation in destroying the global economy and the world environment at the same time.....NO!!!
 
 
+17 # roger paul 2013-02-02 18:42
To see the environmental destruction taking palace in Alberta, Google Earth the area. The toxic waste storage "lakes" are beyond dangerous, think the waste pond from mountain top removal are bad (which they are)these ponds are even more toxic. There are over 700,000 acres of boreal forests that are being destroyed in some of the most biologically diverse forest in the world.
Once gone, gone for ever.
 
 
+12 # ghostperson 2013-02-02 20:08
How is this for a bumper sticker: "Don't poison us so Big Energy can make more money."

If Canada wants to transport dirty oil to other countries, let it pay the toxic price.

Whoever the idiots were that conceived of pumping oil so dirty that is that grinds out pipelines across our agricultural belt should be institutionaliz ed.
 
 
+2 # seeuingoa 2013-02-02 21:59
come on Kittytinyhawk and Barbara K.

Say something !

After all, you are his base so he
will listen to you.
 
 
0 # tm7devils 2013-02-03 00:20
As Ed would query:
Will the 'powers that be' make sure that the pipeline is built?

Text: Oh, Shit! for Yes,
Text: BS for No.
 
 
+2 # futhark 2013-02-03 09:21
Barack Obama has demonstrated time and again that he will say one thing on the campaign trail, then, once in office, will behave in exactly the opposite fashion on behalf of big money interests. Protest, Yes! But don't expect that this Administration will listen or respond accordingly.
 

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