My heart goes out to Puerto Rico in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria (with donation links

This thread deserves a bump.

Months After Storm, Puerto Rico Stares Down Another Blow: The Tax Bill

The final legislation negotiated by the House and Senate would treat mainland companies in Puerto Rico, a United States commonwealth, as it does those in foreign countries, and impose a 12.5 percent tax on income they receive from intellectual property. The bankrupt Puerto Rican government, which lobbied intensely for special tax treatment, fears that the bill could endanger crucial industries and thousands of jobs on the island.
“A lot of companies are going to look at the numbers and decide that, under the circumstances, it’s better to leave,” he said. “The issue is not Puerto Rico versus the mainland: It’s really Puerto Rico versus its competitiveness with other foreign jurisdictions.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/16/us/tax-bill-puerto-rico.html

Bump!

bump

Always bump for awareness!
My heart goes out to those whoe are lsot, and those who have lost

"For tourists, the tourist areas are good and safe.

But locals in semi-remote areas... not so much.

Someone we were talking to from the States said today: "Haven't heard much about Puerto Rico in the news lately. I assume everything is back to normal".

For people that live here ... It is not anywhere near "back to normal".

Most people still do not have electricity. Our area has been 105 days in the dark with no guess on when it will be back.

You can't imagine how frustrating/ depressing/ tiring it is just to get through a day.

We sometimes have water, but they haven't said it is ok to drink without boiling it first.

So everyday - for 105 days so far - people here need to boil water to drink. We have to carry rainwater in to flush the toilets. We have no refrigeration, so we eat canned food and peanut butter every day. Spend $20 a day on gas for generator, just so we don't have to sit in the dark and can cook.

You have to go out almost daily for gas or food or supplies, laundromat, etc. And you risk your life at every intersection without traffic lights or street lights.

All of this on top of trying to live your daily life - go to work, kids to school, take care of house etc, etc.

Of course that is if you were lucky enough not to have your house or roof ripped apart in the storm.

FEMA told our neighbor it would be another 6 months for them to provide a tarp for his roof. And it's been 3 months already. Who can live without a roof for 9 months? I can't imagine how hard their life is right now.

And then to read how US government officials think things are ok here.

WE ARE NOT OK."

As people splurge and gorge themselves during this sale, take a moment to reflect on what others do not have this holiday season.

"Puerto Rico’s apagón, or “super blackout,” is the longest and largest major power outage in modern U.S. history"

I can't believe it's still going on

For every $15-20 you spend on the sale, consider donating $1-5 for hurricane relief.

Hey, guess what? This shit continues. Everyone has forgotten about it, but PR still suffers.

https://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/puerto-rico-crisis/four-months-after-maria-military-veterans-still-mission-puerto-rico-n839686

https://www.npr.org/2018/01/19/579196353/after-four-months-without-power-a-puerto-rico-town-strings-its-own-lines

Ron Perlman
@perlmutations
Just arrived in Puerto Rico to shoot Season 3 Of Startup. The hotel I like is unavailable cuz FEMA has taken all the rooms. So they can have a front row seat to watch people suffer and die. Cuz Trump won’t give them a dime!

https://mobile.twitter.com/perlmutations/status/951494655715303424

https://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/puerto-ricans-still-lack-power-months-after-hurricane-maria

http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/answering-puerto-rico-cries-article-1.3754134

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/congress/us-withholds-hurricane-emergency-loan-sought-by-puerto-rico/2018/01/17/dee19eb6-fbcd-11e7-9b5d-bbf0da31214d_story.html

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/hope-fear-as-puerto-rico-moves-to-privatize-power-company/2018/01/23/014d81b4-fffb-11e7-86b9-8908743c79dd_story.html

https://www.jamesbeard.org/blog/op-ed-feeding-puerto-rico-in-the-wake-of-the-storm

Let’s be honest. This emergency state grinds on because, as a country, we do not treat Puerto Rico with the respect for its integrity and prosperity that we grant to all our citizens.

http://www.wbur.org/cognoscenti/2018/01/23/puerto-rico-oxfam-abby-maxman

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This needs a bump, fingers crossed for PR.

Thank you for all the updates. Terrible situation.

FEMA To End Food And Water Aid For Puerto Rico

https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2018/01/29/581511023/fema-to-end-food-and-water-aid-for-puerto-rico

bump with lies 🤦

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https://nytimes.com/2018/02/06/us/fema-contract-puerto-rico.html

FEMA Contract Called for 30 Million Meals for Puerto Ricans. 50,000 Were Delivered.
Four months after Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico, a picture is emerging of the contracts awarded in the earliest days of the crisis. And examples like the Tribute contract are causing lawmakers to raise questions about FEMA’s handling of the disaster and whether the agency was adequately prepared to respond.

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2018/02/trumps-failure-in-puerto-rico-was-even-worse-than-we-knew.html

This revelation about FEMA’s less-than-stellar taste in contractors is only the latest testament to the gross negligence of the Trump administration’s response to Puerto Rico’s hurricane crisis — a negligence that predates the crisis itself. Days before Hurricane Maria made landfall, the White House learned that a Category 4 storm was likely to hit the island, and that the territory’s electrical grid was unlikely to survive such an onslaught.
The federal government had time to deploy satellite phones to the island, to avoid the communications blackout that isolated remote areas from the territory’s government. It could have delivered reserves of food, fuel, and water in advance of the storm, allowing local officials to spread those vital resources throughout the territory before Maria lay waste to much of its trucking infrastructure. Instead, the president did almost nothing in the lead-up to the storm — and went on a four-day golf vacation in its immediate aftermath.

jesus fucking christ, FEMA

A disaster-response company misled Puerto Rico officials to win a $133 million rebuilding contract and the deal should be canceled, an independent review board found Tuesday. The panel that oversees Housing Department contracts found flaws in the winning bid from Utica, New York-based Adjusters International Inc., which pledged to handle 75,000 potential home rehabs, according to a copy of the decision obtained from AECOM, the world’s biggest engineering firm and a competing bidder.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-02-13/puerto-rico-review-finds-133-million-contract-improperly-given

bump and it would be the 78th birthdayday for puerto rican actor raul julia

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