Trump

[Trigon]

Oh yeah, by the way, the white supremacists are now beginning to shoot at counter-protesters: https://thinkprogress.org/white-supremacist-richard-spencer-arrested-74f10096a721/

Who wants to bet that Trump will try to blame this on the counter-protesters themselves?

[Oniya]

They're not, however. Caring about the singular is important, but ultimately, caring about the whole is what matters. And it will blow up in their faces like it has done every time in the past when the world gets like this. And then those who are "smartasses" just because they're intelligent, will be right there to go "See...told you so", and then will help the world to try and correct itself again.

Well, there are two kinds of 'smartasses'.  The ones who nod sagely about their predictions, roll up their sleeves and pitch in; and the ones that say 'See, told you so... you can go fix it yourself.'  The latter can be just as bad as the ones that caused the mess in the first place.

[Sara Nilsson]

Oh yeah, by the way, the white supremacists are now beginning to shoot at counter-protesters: https://thinkprogress.org/white-supremacist-richard-spencer-arrested-74f10096a721/

Who wants to bet that Trump will try to blame this on the counter-protesters themselves?

Of course they where just defending themselves against the violent communist ANTIFA. Clearly they are in fact heroes. (/sarcasm)

[DominantPoet]

Keep in mind that the GOP has spent the last 30+ years consistently pushing for policies that do nothing but make things worse for the average American (anyone remember who presided over the 2007 economic meltdown?), and yet they still keep being voted into office. How bad do the screw-ups have to be before they finally realize that they were nothing but suckers (i.e. a nuclear war, catastrophic climate change, etc.)?

Pretty bad, apparently. :( Another civil war, nuclear winter in the US, climate change that can't be reversed (or if it can, wouldn't be cheap). That's the main problem, of course - the people who don't care until it's too late. The naysayers who go "this could never happen!". And then it does, and suddenly - everything is different. Then it's the whole "I have remorse, forgive my sins" pity party -.- Of course, like any other person who realizes the possibility is real, I very much hope it doesn't come to any of these... :(

[ReijiTabibito]

So Coulter is saying: the White House needs somebody tougher and even more determined to break the resistance to their ideas than Trump and Bannon?  ::)

Maybe a military dictator will do?

Democracy is the greatest form of government, but it is not without its flaws.  One of the things I always roll my eyes at when I hear political ads is that "I'm going to go to Washington/State Capital/Etc and I'm going to get things done."

No, you're not.  The writers of the Constitution understood government very well, and to that end, they designed our current system for gridlock.  They designed it so that it would be difficult to get things done, because they believed the only things that should get done would have broad support at the national level.  Obama had eight years in the White House, and his legacy is Obamacare.  One major thing that people can name.  It is very hard to get things through at the federal level, and that is by design.  For all of you old School House Rock people, there's the old bit about how a bill becomes law - there's far more ways that that bill can fail than it can succeed.

Democracy is slow and takes time and requires consensus.

In an age where people are screaming that the government needs to do something, and more critically do it right now, democracy has a noticeable lack of ability to get things done quickly.  A dictator, on the other hand, has no such flaw.  He has plenty of OTHER ones, but as the old saying goes, Mussolini made the trains run on time.  That's why you're seeing the lean towards more autocratic, fascistic forms of government.

That's like saying that Trump winning didn't embolden every single Republican. It did. Same thing works in reverse as well. Trump winning crushed the Dems entirely. Literally, decades from now, centuries from now, that will be a permanent mark in history for them. "Hey, remember when you guys couldn't beat out a man who was the worst possible human being in every imaginable way?"

It emboldened the Republican party because Trump shattered nearly every single obstacle placed before him, obstacles and gaffes that would have destroyed any traditional party candidate.  It made them realize that a lot of the populace were tired of being hectored and lectured to by the media, by the elites, by all those people who Trump defeated.  And in turn, they realized they could duplicate Trump's success, and that would help lead them to victory.

Trump's victory should crush the Dems.  They fielded what was supposed to be their strongest candidate, their golden girl for the past 25 years, someone who had their experience and resume tailor made for this election, and they lost to a orange blowhard whose idea of being presidential is tweeting at 3AM about how 'stupid' or 'sad' things are in this country.  So yes, they need to feel bad because this happened, and (IMO) it didn't NEED to happen.  Trump came in and like in that stupid wrestling meme, whacked them over the head and put them down on the mat.

But guess what?

They don't have to stay there.  They can get back up and come back to win again.  But if they're going to do that, they will need to re-evaluate who they are, what they stand for, and what battle lines they're going to draw.  A gal named Nina Turner went on a mainstream news show as someone on the Democratic side.  They asked her for her opinion on the Russia investigation, and her response?

"No one in Ohio, or Michigan, or Wisconsin is talking about Russia." (possible paraphrase)

The Democrats are so busy trying to win without changing their strategy - something Jon Stewart rightly castigated the Republicans for when trying to use guys like Marco Rubio and Bobby Jindal to promote their policies - when it has just been demonstrated in the most brutal fashion possible that their strategy lost.

Or as a bunch of my conservative friends say: "It's hard to worry about transgender bathrooms and what place is going to get blown up next when you're wondering about how to put food on the table."

Aang said it best: When we hit our lowest point, we are open to the greatest change.

So yes.  I hope the Democrats have been crushed by this.  I hope that they have been shattered, that everything they know has been thrown into chaos and the world has turned upside down for them.

Because if they have, if they have nowhere to go, then maybe, just maybe, they can find a new path.  They can leave behind neoconservatism and it's stupid pro-business policies and find its Teddy Roosevelt.  The man willing to stand up for the little guy.  The Democrats were for a long time the party of working people, of labor unions, of the economic institutions that made this country a powerhouse.

And they can be again.  If they have but the will for it.

The world is full of people who are, quite frankly, becoming stupider every day. We've had people growing more and more brain dead in general for years now - it's why we have things like FailArmy, why there are so many videos on the internet of people literally walking into fountains in the middle of a mall because they can't look up from their devices for two seconds. It's why videos like this show how the world is becoming.

Is it that the world is rapidly becoming dumber?

Or that our awareness of the sheer amount of stupidity in the world is increasing?

One of my progressive friends has made a point repeatedly over the various deaths of black men from police shootings - this behavior on the part of the police towards the black community has always been there, even when Jim Crow and the Old South died, it never really went AWAY...we just never heard about it because in those days, you generally didn't hear about the news outside of the local scene.  The proliferation of smartphones with inbuilt video cameras means that anyone on the street can be a journalist these days.

I don't think you would argue that the police are more racist now than they were in the Jim Crow era...but that our ability to learn of events of this nature has multiplied greatly.

As for if we ARE becoming dumber, I will point this out - it's to the best interest of those who would see an elite ruling class over a bunch of workers that the population be dumb.  Carlin put it best: "They want someone just smart enough to run the machines and do the paperwork, and just dumb enough..."  (YT George Carlin owners of America for the rest.)

People, by and large care about only themselves, and demand everything else cater to them. It's precisely why Trump did so well - he promised to be their voice. To cater to them. To feed their ignorance and support it. Why do you think people actually cheered a freaking WALL that is entirely illogical and financially irresponsible, not to mention logistically impossible? Because people are ignorant of the world, and they feed into the fearmongering they have been fed about how immigrants are "evil".

Yes.  That's the behavior of a child, of someone who lacks emotional maturity and an understanding that the world isn't fair, that you can't get everything you want, and that indeed, you can't get no satisfaction.  The solution to that is to step away from the idiot self-esteem movements and other-blaming and raise people with said emotional maturity.  To tell people that your life is your own, and you are responsible.

The whole matter with immigrants being 'evil' has to do with one specific thing - integration.  The summary for the whole debate is "They don't share our values!"  Where I grew up, we had two Indian immigrant families, living the middle of a sea of white folks.  (It's the Midwest, the only thing in more proliferation there than white people is corn.)  We had no problems with them, we said hello outside of school and got along with them at the local neighborhood 4th of July party and other such occasions.

Why?  Because even though they looked different, they acted just like us.  They worked hard at their jobs, played golf, did well in school, participated in our cultural traditions (and even invited some of us to participate in theirs!).

America is the cultural melting pot of the world, or so we're told in school growing up.  Well, if it is a melting pot, the only way that works is that all new cultures that come into it be absorbed into it, offering up its influences and traditions and becoming part of the American culture, whatever that is.  What a melting is not is this culture over here, that culture over there, a third culture in a somewhere else - a place for everything and everything in its place.  If immigrants won't integrate, the pot breaks down.

I said this was about one specific thing.  I was actually wrong.  It's about two things - integration and supremacy.  The first I already outlined, the second is simple - if you believe that you have the greatest culture in the world, that yours is the top, the pinnacle, so superior compared to everyone else...do you really have any motivation to change it?  Stewart famously said that Republicans love America, and that he hasn't any doubt of that.  (Follow up to that is usually 'they just hate half the people living in it.')  If you think your culture is perfect, that there shouldn't be any changes to it, then any outside value becomes a threat.  And that, I think, is what the fear is about.  Fear that the dominant values won't be their values, that rather than the immigrants changing to integrate, that they will have to be the ones doing the integrating.

This is precisely why the Dems should sit back and do nothing, and let this all implode and blow up in people's faces. It's like teenagers - at some point, you have to let them make their mistakes. They're not going to listen to reason, or logic, they are adamant about doing X because that's all they know - themselves. That's all they care about, until Y event happens, and they see for themselves what everyone warned them about. That's how the world is right now, unfortunately. They ignored everything about Trump before the election, when he was elected and before he took office, when he took office, and continued to ignore everything AFTER he took office. The simple fact is - they don't care. They are adamant about doing this their way because they, ironically enough from what you said, think they're right.

They're not, however. Caring about the singular is important, but ultimately, caring about the whole is what matters. And it will blow up in their faces like it has done every time in the past when the world gets like this. And then those who are "smartasses" just because they're intelligent, will be right there to go "See...told you so", and then will help the world to try and correct itself again. Until another Trump comes along because we all know how much humanity seems dead set on repeating history, just in slightly altered ways.

Well, there are two kinds of 'smartasses'.  The ones who nod sagely about their predictions, roll up their sleeves and pitch in; and the ones that say 'See, told you so... you can go fix it yourself.'  The latter can be just as bad as the ones that caused the mess in the first place.

When the Civil War was closing - hear me out, I know this may seem strange - Lincoln had a plan for the returning Southern states: "Let 'em down easy."  Yes, the whole war was a regrettable event, but we can bond over it, our shared losses, our experiences, and so Lincoln said.  "Malice toward none."  Grant similarly echoed this at Appomattox - Lee had signed the surrender papers and was leaving on Traveler, when the Union troops started to shout in triumph.  Grant silenced them, saying they were not to say a word during the surrender of arms, for "the rebels are our countrymen" and such.  (Though some of them were probably just glad they wouldn't be getting shot at anymore.)  Lee famously refused to refer to the Union army and its soldiers as 'the enemy' and used the phrase 'those people.'

Everyone had been through a terrible ordeal in the war - Lincoln recognized that, and was going to be very conciliatory to the South in the years following.

Then Booth shot him and everything went to hell: radical Republicans who blamed the South for all of the country's troubles took over Reconstruction and punished the South, quite severely, for the war and years to come after that.  In return, we got Jim Crow, segregation, the Lost Cause, a whole flare-up because the victors refused to be gracious in victory towards the defeated.

To Trump people, Oniya's first category is fine.  The second is why they voted for him.

Even Michael Moore has said so - in an interview, he was asked why, when there is so much turmoil in the country, is he doing a 1 man Broadway show in New York?

"New York is the problem."  He went on to clarify that the liberal movement has gotten caught in its own bubble, and that it needs to break the bubble.

http://www.vulture.com/2017/09/the-thankless-task-of-being-michael-moore.html

That's the interview.

[DominantPoet]

I'm sure the Dems will rise back up - when whatever happens, happens. Hopefully, that's not nuclear winter, civil war, or some other such large-scale happening, but like I said before - it may very well take that. But anything else they could do past what they're already doing at this point is moot, and pointless. When Trump could literally, as he once said, shoot someone and not lose any voters, any support? What could the Dems do, what could ANYONE do to that kind of ignorant, blind support?

You can't do anything. Because at this point, people who support him, defend him, excuse him are beyond reason, and logic. Only when it rises up and bites them in their self-absorbed asses is it going to matter. So, unless the Dems actually do what they're doing now (investigating Russia ties and the like, trying to do due diligence and relying on the systems in place to prevent people like Trump from having power and abusing it) and it works out - I literally see no other way this plays out. Because justice and goodness and it's ever so slow and tedious coming about in fair and ethical ways prevails - or people are fucked.

The US has a man running it who literally said he could shoot someone and not lose voters or support, and he's pretty much proven that right. He does what he wants, when he wants, how he wants - and nothing happens. Because the checks, the regulations, the right and justified way to do things takes. so. long. You can't run an entire country like this man-child has been doing without it going horribly, horribly wrong eventually.

All he's done, the only actually bad thing that's happened to him is he's realized there are people who don't like him really, that's the only real consequence he's faced for anything. And he'll just throw rallies and surround himself with people who like him, or just blatantly lie about how great he is and pretend everyone agrees with him to get over that, like he's already been doing.

[Missy]

I'm really much more inclined to think people are too disenchanted with the obvious corruption in American politics to become properly engaged.

[TheGlyphstone]

At least as far as voting percentages go, we seem to be rather stable. In the last 40 years, we've had one election (2008) where the turnout was over 56% of the eligible population - 58.2%, specifically. The average over that 40-year period was 53.5%, and in 2016 we had a turnout of 55.5%.

Now, as to how many of those are actually engaged rather than just mechanically checking off the row of (D) or (R) down the line on the ballot, that's far harder to guess and I suspect you're right.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voter_turnout_in_the_United_States_presidential_elections

[HannibalBarca]

We can't just sit back while things blow up in the faces of Trump and his supporters.  There will be collateral damage. I'm not standing by while the children of transphobic idiots make my son's life a living hell at school, nor a hell for the non-white children in the school I teach at.  I've reached the point where I don't consider trying to convince Trump's supporters.  The cost of doing so does not justify spending the time.  No, it's more important to convince those who are still reachable, but have placed themselves on the sidelines.  Dr. King's Letter From A Birmingham Jail addresses this point, one eloquently noted several times in history, and paraphrased here by me--If you don't stand against evil, you allow it to happen.  The supporters of Trump are a minority, but a vocal one.  He's pissing off so many other people, I have to wonder if the critical mass for enough of them will be reached, and they will exercise their right to vote and pick someone--anyone--who is not Trump.  It's up to the Democrats to run someone who is not an establishment operative like Hillary Clinton.

[Missy]

Well, if there's one thing bipartisanism assures is strategic voting.

Elsewise, 60% is actually considered rather low. Although to be fair in some of those examples mandatory voting plays an undoubted role.

To be truthful though I don't think there are many Obama's or Burnie's anywhere in American politics, at least not now anyway, the future may hold some hope, but then I'd have to stop being cynical. heh. I'll believe in some one who can show me they're worth it.

You know what though: I think the single biggest factor in the failure of Americans politics is not the system itself per se (though it's an undoubted failure at this point in desperate need of reform before it will be of any constructive worth at all), but the fact that the average citizen lacks the education to be able to be an effective voter. In a true democracy (where "true democracy" describes a concept which can be found to be in congruence with our values as a democratic society) the voters themselves are ultimately an organ of the government; they may not be the same as some other organs of government, but their functionality, or dysfunctionality, defines the effectiveness and health of the system itself. The American Public Educational System (as it was prior to the DeVos dumbfuckery) is designed to provide young adults with the necessary basic tools to enter the workforce with a basic knowledge needed to accomplish tasks in a blue collar workplace or to attend an institution of higher education. What isn't considered is a study of political sciences, mind you the specific leanings of opinions of individuals is irrelevant to this education, political science majors are not defined by their specific leanings toward conservatism or liberalism, but by their knowledge of the history, trends, structure and function of governments in practice and in theory; but the average American is expected to cast their votes every couple of years in a state of absolute ignorance as to the nature and consequences or their decisions within the framework of the system. The average American assumes the election for President is the most important election in the land and makes no account for the fact that election for the legislature (which everyone knows is responsible for debate, writing and passage of the law) might actually be in important, after all does not the law have a fundamental impact on the daily lives of every American citizen? The average American voter is utterly ignorant to the fact that there are political scientists who have posited that beauracracies draw their power from the ignorance of their citizens as to the workings of government; do not the politicians of this nation employ, very effectively, a variety of less than honest tactics to manipulate voters from soundbites (of varying degrees of accuracy) to smear campaigns of questionable validity? Almost all Americans have no idea as to the root of the term "gerrymandering" (nor, more importantly, the functional format under which gerrymandering is executed to accomplish its perverse aim) the average American may as well just go "der der" as soon as one utilizes the term "Democrat Republican Party"; much less do they know anything but the very broadest concept of checks and balances. Those who are ignorant of history are doomed to repeat it and Americas understanding and education leaves its citizens in a state of blissful ignorance; so the system fails.

[TheGlyphstone]

Indeed, by worldwide standards our participation in democracy is shameful. I only brought it up to point out that if Americans are feeling disenfranchised and not voting, it's not a recent phenomenon caused by (perception of)/corruption in politics.

[Missy]

You're probably right, I project too much of my idealism and dissatisfaction on the community at large.

[Trigon]

Recent release regarding the Trump-Russia dossier, which may complicate the Russian collusion narrative: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/24/us/politics/clinton-dnc-russia-dossier.html

I had always been skeptical over the influence that Russia had, if any at all, over the election outcome. This recent revelation over its funding sources may land the DNC in considerable trouble come 2018...

[Valerian]

http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/357068-san-juan-mayor-calls-to-void-contract-awarded-to-tiny-montana

Whitefish Energy last week signed a $300 million contract to help overhaul the island's grid following Hurricane Maria. The company is only two years old and had just two employees when Puerto Rico’s utility, PREPA, signed the contract. It is based in the Montana home town of Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke.

San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulín Cruz told Yahoo News in an interview published Wednesday that the contract is “alarming."

“The contract should be voided right away and a proper process which is clear, transparent, legal, moral and ethical should take place,” she continued.

It was a no-bid contract and Whitefish appears to be subcontracting nearly everything since they themselves have so few personnel.  And according to this article, the company's CEO is friends with Interior Secretary Zinke and another partner in the firm is a major donor to Trump and various conservative super PACs.  To top it all off, it's highly unusual to hire a company for this sort of work at all -- normally repairs after natural disasters are handled through mutual aid agreements among utility companies, which is how damage on the US mainland is generally repaired after hurricanes.  Rather than simply requesting assistance from utility companies with experience in these matters, a $300 million contract was handed to one tiny firm without any discussion or oversight.

[Mithlomwen]

Senators Flake and Corker blast Trump in separate speeches.

I applaud both of them for stating what a lot of people are thinking, and hopefully this will have a ripple effect and make more people less afraid to come forward and denounce the man (I use that term loosely) currently in office. 

[Various]

Senators Flake and Corker blast Trump in separate speeches.

I applaud both of them for stating what a lot of people are thinking, and hopefully this will have a ripple effect and make more people less afraid to come forward and denounce the man (I use that term loosely) currently in office.

It's easy to have a spine when you won't face the consequences of basic human decency from your proudly assholeish base.

[Trigon]

It's easy to have a spine when you won't face the consequences of basic human decency from your proudly assholeish base.

Indeed. The bar has been set so low that the mainstream media is conflating speech with moral sincerity.

On a somewhat amusing note, we have Trump claiming that the account of the soldier's widow he recently insulted must be wrong because he has "ONE OF THE GREATEST MEMORIES OF ALL TIME!!!1": http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2017/10/25/trump_says_myeshia_johnson_s_recollection_is_wrong_and_he_has_one_of_the.html

[WindFish]

Senators Flake and Corker blast Trump in separate speeches.

I applaud both of them for stating what a lot of people are thinking, and hopefully this will have a ripple effect and make more people less afraid to come forward and denounce the man (I use that term loosely) currently in office.

While it's nice to see sitting Republicans speak out against the vileness of Trump, it is easy for them to do so when they have nothing to lose. If they really want to stick it to Trump, how about voting against his harmful policies when they go up for a vote? That would mean more than their words.

[Valerian]

In the continuing saga of the tiny Whitefish Energy that somehow miraculously got the contract to repair Puerto Rico's power grid, they've now started arguing with the mayor of San Juan on Twitter, because that's what everyone does these days.

Earlier Wednesday, Whitefish tweeted, "We share the mayor's frustration with the situation on Puerto Rico, but her comments are misplaced.”

"If @WhitefishEnergy feels that asking for transparency is "misplaced", what are they afraid we will find," Cruz tweeted.

Whitefish Energy fired back, writing, "We've got 44 linemen rebuilding power lines in your city & 40 more men just arrived. Do you want us to send them back or keep working?"

The response only added fuel to the fire as Cruz questioned the company's motives.

"They are threatening not to do their job which frankly is quite irregular for a company hired to the work for the public sector," she said.

Whitefish finally issued an apology on Wednesday night, saying its earlier comments "did not represent who we are and how important this work is to help Puerto Rico's recovery."

The tweet has since been deleted but there are still screenshots of it around.

That company has workers making $300-400 per hour there, which according to a quick Google search is approximately six to eight times higher than the usual hourly wage for a lineman.  And they're wasting time feuding with someone who's just trying to make sure that the citizens she's supposed to help can have electricity again.

[ReijiTabibito]

Random question about this Whitefish Energy thing.  Who precisely is paying them at the current moment?  From the information I have available, it sounds like PREPA - which is a state-level organization - was the one who signed it.  It also sounds like a major reason that Whitefish won the contract is that they required no upfront payment, which for PR is key because their economy is not exactly in what I would call sterling shape.

That said, Cruz is more than welcome to complain on Twitter about the contract being signed - as is so often done these days - but for her to insist that the contract be voided because it doesn't live up to her standards is not her call to make.  PREPA, being a state-level organization, is accountable to the governor of the island.  If he wants to void the contract, that's his prerogative, not hers.

If you guys remember a couple of years ago, Roy Moore of Alabama (yes, the guy running for the Senate seat, same man) got in a huge kerfluffe because of his defiance of SCOTUS' ruling on gay marriage.  This was after a similar incident back in '03 where he refused to take down the Ten Commandments from the courtroom, which cost him his job as an Alabama court judge at the time, but a decade later was named the Chief Justice of the Alabama Supreme Court.  Both times, the same general reasoning was used - you can't allow the hierarchy of government to be subverted: state governments do not have the right to override the federal government.

To me, this is more or less the same, just with the scales changed.  Cruz is a strictly local figure, whereas PREPA is a step up.

Cruz also opened up this whole circular firing squad by intimating something that has no demonstrable evidence (or at least that I've heard) at this point in time - that somehow this is a case of government nepotism because the company A: is based in the Interior Secretary's hometown, and the CEO is a friend of his; B: is just a couple of years old; and C: has only two employees.

B and C have literally nothing to do with the whole idea of this contract being awarded because of nepotism.  And additionally on C, you'd be surprised at how small some contractor companies can be.  I know a guy who works for such a company - his office has a grand total of eight employees because while they get awarded the contracts, they farm out the work to firms who specialize in the sort of work that needs to be done.

A?  A may have something to it.  But I would like to see evidence before I go randomly charging people with things they may or may not have done.

As for the 'threatening not to do their job,' Whitefish accepted the contract.  Unless there's some binding clause in there that says Whitefish must complete the repairs or has a minimum timeframe for which they'll work - or some similar language - they are more than within their right to rescind the contract and say 'no thanks.'  The question was most likely rhetorical anyways, as I would not see a company backing out on a contract worth $3.7 million for what are more or less petty reasons.  That, and if they backed out, Cruz would probably capitalize and say something like "SEE! I told you they were up to something shady!"  Given that people will think badly of them either way, it's not a surprise that they'd choose to stay - at least that way they're getting paid.

[Ket]

that somehow this is a case of government nepotism because the company A: is based in the Interior Secretary's hometown, and the CEO is a friend of his; B: is just a couple of years old; and C: has only two employees.

If you cannot see nepotism in the first two alone, I think you may need to reacquaint yourself with the meaning of the word.

[ReijiTabibito]

Nepotism: (n) The practice of showing preference towards one's family members or friends in economic or employment terms.

I see the possibility of it.  But possibility is not probability.  If I have a friend who works in an auto body shop, and I know he does good work and doesn't gouge people for his services, is it nepotism for when someone I know talks about their car needing some work after an accident to recommend my friend's shop?

Show me the evidence.  Show me where it becomes clear beyond reasonable doubt that their friendship was the deciding factor in this particular contractual arrangement.

Or are we just presuming people's guilt based on their past relationships, now?

[Iniquitous]

I will tell you what stinks about this Whitefish and Cobra contracts.  They were picked outside of the normal bidding process - and from everything that I have read, that is because they are going to try and use FEMA emergency grants to pay for the services since PR is broke.   If they went through the normal bidding process to get experienced companies to rebuild their power grid they would have had to wait for FEMA to approve PR for long term grants.  Since they have signed these contracts without the bidding process, they can use emergency grants to pay them.

Sadly, there is no guarantee that these two companies can actually handle the job they have been contracted for.

[Scott]

I will tell you what stinks about this Whitefish and Cobra contracts.  They were picked outside of the normal bidding process - and from everything that I have read, that is because they are going to try and use FEMA emergency grants to pay for the services since PR is broke.   If they went through the normal bidding process to get experienced companies to rebuild their power grid they would have had to wait for FEMA to approve PR for long term grants.  Since they have signed these contracts without the bidding process, they can use emergency grants to pay them.

Sadly, there is no guarantee that these two companies can actually handle the job they have been contracted for.

So lets talk about a timeline for a normal government bidding process while those people are sitting in the dark. Willing to give them a break and say 8 weeks minimum, if they act fast lol.

[Iniquitous]

I would think in a situation like Puerto Rico, the bidding process would be escalated so that a company could get in there asap.  One of the other things that I read said that this Whitefish company got the contract because they weren't demanding any money upfront - which Puerto Rico doesn't have any money to put up.  Either way, something smells fishy with this tiny company getting the contract - and it still remains to be seen if they can actually handle the job since this company has never handled this kind of situation before.