{"id":403325,"date":"2019-04-18T20:04:16","date_gmt":"2019-04-18T19:04:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/a-political-stalemate-over-puerto-rico-is-leaving-us-disaster-funding-in-limbo\/"},"modified":"2019-04-18T20:04:16","modified_gmt":"2019-04-18T19:04:16","slug":"a-political-stalemate-over-puerto-rico-is-leaving-us-disaster-funding-in-limbo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/a-political-stalemate-over-puerto-rico-is-leaving-us-disaster-funding-in-limbo\/","title":{"rendered":"A Political Stalemate Over Puerto Rico Is Leaving US Disaster Funding in Limbo"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p>Senate Democrats recently blocked<span> <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.com\/story\/2019\/04\/09\/disaster-relief-legislation-congress-1335771\">US$13.5 billion<\/a><span> <\/span>in relief for Americans whose lives were disrupted by hurricanes, tornadoes, wildfires, flooding and other natural disasters. The objections had to do with Puerto Rico.<\/p>\n<p>In addition to aid for Kansas, Missouri, Iowa and Nebraska, this bill included $600 million to cover six months\u2019 worth of nutritional assistance requested by Puerto Rican Gov. Ricardo Rossell\u00f3. But Democrats refused to back the bill because it lacked funds that would<span> <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/news\/articles\/2019-04-01\/democrats-block-disaster-relief-bill-over-funds-for-puerto-rico\">protect the island from floods<\/a><span> <\/span>and<span> <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.warren.senate.gov\/oversight\/letters\/warren-colleagues-seek-update-from-fema-army-corps-on-power-restoration-efforts-in-puerto-rico\">rebuild its electrical grid<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The result is an impasse between a Congress that wants to assist a U.S. territory in distress and a hostile White House. As the daughter of Puerto Ricans who moved to the mainland and a<span> <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/liberalarts.utexas.edu\/iupra\/research\/index.php\">policy analyst of racial inequities<\/a>, I\u2019m concerned that the Trump administration\u2019s neglect of Puerto Rico is<span> <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/theconversation.com\/is-racial-bias-driving-trumps-neglect-of-puerto-rico-85662\">based in racial bias<\/a>.<\/p>\n<div class=\"truth-post-content-high  inline-callout-container\" id=\"truth-534706758\">\n<div class=\"truth-post-content-high\" id=\"truth-351975230\">\n<aside class=\" callout inline-callout callout--subscribe callout--dark\" id=\"truth-1919761030\">\n<h2>Stay in the loop<\/h2>\n<p>Never miss the news and analysis you care about.<\/p>\n<\/aside>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<h2>Complaints<\/h2>\n<p>President Donald Trump has<span> <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/theconversation.com\/is-racial-bias-driving-trumps-neglect-of-puerto-rico-85662\">vocally opposed<\/a><span> <\/span>disaster relief for Puerto Ricans almost since Hurricane Maria made landfall in September 2017. Within two weeks of that storm, which<span> <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/theconversation.com\/death-count-debates-overshadow-the-real-story-hurricane-maria-was-partly-a-human-made-disaster-102465\">killed an estimated 3,000 people<\/a>, Trump accused Puerto Ricans in a series of tweets of wanting \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/thehill.com\/homenews\/administration\/353216-trump-criticizes-san-juan-mayors-poor-leadership-during-puerto-rico\">everything to be done for them<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Not much has changed. Since January 2019, Trump has reportedly dismissed the need for emergency food aid on the island as \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.buzzfeednews.com\/article\/nidhiprakash\/trump-food-stamps-puerto-rico-shutdown\">excessive and unnecessary<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Rossell\u00f3 responded by urging Trump to stop treating Puerto Ricans as \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2019\/03\/28\/politics\/ricardo-rossell-donald-trump-puerto-rico-funding\/index.html\">second-class<\/a>\u201d U.S. citizens. He seems to have reached a breaking point after avoiding being critical of the president. When CNN asked if he felt working with Trump was like \u201cdealing with a bully,\u201d Rossell\u00f3 replied, \u201cIf the bully gets close, I\u2019ll punch the bully in the mouth.\u201d<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-lang=\"en\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Puerto Rico Gov. Ricardo Rossell\u00f3 warns the White House: \u201cIf the bully gets close, I\u2019ll punch the bully in the mouth\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/GwodetRfPx\">https:\/\/t.co\/GwodetRfPx<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/JoSlRnjUiG\">pic.twitter.com\/JoSlRnjUiG<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 CNN Politics (@CNNPolitics) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/CNNPolitics\/status\/1111293619313541120?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">March 28, 2019<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<h2>Part&#8230;<\/h2>\n<\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/truthout.org\/articles\/a-political-stalemate-over-puerto-rico-is-leaving-us-disaster-funding-in-limbo\/\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Senate Democrats recently blocked US$13.5 billion in relief for Americans whose lives were disrupted by hurricanes, tornadoes, wildfires, flooding and other natural disasters. The objections had to do with Puerto Rico. In addition to aid for Kansas, Missouri, Iowa and Nebraska, this bill included $600 million to cover six months\u2019 worth of nutritional assistance requested [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-403325","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/403325","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=403325"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/403325\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=403325"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=403325"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=403325"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}