October, 11 2017, 03:30pm EDT
Nurses Demand Congress Act to Avert Further Public Health Calamity in Puerto Rico
In a letter to all members of Congress today, National Nurses United, whose disaster relief organization has placed 50 volunteer RNs on the ground in Puerto Rico, is pressing Congress to "take immediate action to prevent a further public health calamity in Puerto Rico".
WASHINGTON
In a letter to all members of Congress today, National Nurses United, whose disaster relief organization has placed 50 volunteer RNs on the ground in Puerto Rico, is pressing Congress to "take immediate action to prevent a further public health calamity in Puerto Rico".
"The response to the crisis in Puerto Rico from the U.S. federal government has been unacceptable for the wealthiest country in the world," wrote NNU RN Co-Presidents Deborah Burger and Jean Ross, citing eyewitness accounts by RNs on the ground, and the ongoing crisis of lack of water, food, and other emergencies faced by the island's 3.5 million residents.
Among conditions our RNs witness, NNU notes, are:
- People standing in line for hours in blistering heat waiting for desperately needed water and food, only to finally see federal disaster officials bringing paperwork "to collect data" rather than supplying critical supplies.
- Residents continuing to live in houses with roofs blown off and soaked interiors where there is dangerous black mold growing that creates respiratory distress and illness.
- Major areas away from urban centers where residents still have received no provisions, have no running water and no electricity.
- A breakout of leptospirosis, a dangerous bacterial disease that has already claimed lives.
- Numerous communities without clean water that are at risk of the outbreak of water-borne illness epidemics.
- Further, NNU notes a glaring disparity between the federal response to Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico and the response to Hurricanes Harvey and Irma in Texas and Florida. "The people of Puerto Rico are counting on your leadership to survive," wrote Burger and Ross.
Specifically, they called for:
- Congress to exercise its oversight authority to ensure the expeditious functioning and efficacy of FEMA and other U.S. relief efforts on the ground. Citing shipping containers filled with food, water, and medicine that sit undistributed in the San Juan port, FEMA and the U.S. armed forces should greatly expand the use of air drops of water, food, and medicine. Human and financial resources must be deployed to overcome the bottlenecks that are keeping help from reaching those most in need, which range from a lack of communication to blocked roads to a shortage of vehicles and drivers to make deliveries.
- The Department of Defense to supply greater technological and logistics support to Puerto Rico, immediately provide generators for hospitals and other essential infrastructure, install temporary telecommunications connections in remote areas, and deploy boots on the ground to help clear roads and deliver humanitarian aid.
- Cancellation of all Puerto Rican public debt by Congress: prioritize the lives of Puerto Ricans over debt payments to Wall Street. The cancellation of Puerto Rico's public debt would free up millions of dollars for both short and long-term recovery efforts.
Making matters worse, NNU added, it was reported today that $5 billion of a supplemental relief package has been earmarked as "a loan" that Puerto Rico must pay back, "an unconscionable gift to the banks at the expense of the people in Puerto Rico facing calamity," Burger said.
"Congress's emergency supplemental appropriations bill for Puerto Rico must fully fund the immediate recovery efforts in Puerto Rico, invest in critical infrastructure such as the electric grid and roads, and grant all Puerto Ricans immediate eligibility for Medicaid and ensure that the federal government provides equitable healthcare funding to make sure that each person in Puerto Rico receive the care they need in the midst of this public health crisis," wrote Burger and Ross.
Fully three weeks after Hurricane Maria devastated Puerto Rico, RN volunteers have described dire conditions and countless number of residents still in desperate need for assistance amid a federal relief effort that has failed to reach many people in need.
NNU's RN Response Network dispatched 50 volunteer RNs to Puerto Rico a week ago, part of an AFL-CIO multi-union deployment. The RNs have been sending in frequent reports about the devastation and ongoing crisis that remains at a perilous stage.
Two reports from yesterday are continuing testimony:
"Today our team traveled into the center of island into the mountain towns of Utuado. These towns are isolated that relief efforts have not made it into these areas. It was due to impassable roads. But the local community cleared most of the roads. People said we were the first relief group to come into the area. But she is unable to get out. And they're having a hard time getting food and water. Yes, her son is staying with her. He cares for her but is also sick. They're struggling to get basics such as food, water and medicine." - Roxanna Garcia, RN
"Yesterday we went to Utuado, a town up in the center of the island. We stopped many times along the way to educate people on water safety. It's a mountain community with small pueblos all over, many cut off since Maria by fallen bridges and blocked roads. We stopped in the center of town at the National Guard. They had lists of all the areas that had been seen by medical groups. We went to an area that nobody had visited where roads were recently opened. People are somehow surviving with the food and medicine they had on hand. They have received NO provisions. There is no running water and no electricity. Nobody is aware of the risks of drinking untreated water. We went house-to-house teaching families and asking that they spread the word. We also provided urgent care where we could. These communities are at great risk of water born illness epidemics. They need clean water that is safe to drink! There is a public health crisis coming to Puerto Rico that we could prevent with proper supplies and support from the US government. These conditions would not be tolerated in the 50 states. It is outrageous that we are leaving our fellow Americans with essentially no aid. Many more will die if we don't step up." - Erin Carrera, RN
See earlier RNRN reports at:
https://www.nationalnursesunited.org/press/entry/nurse-volunteers-in-puerto-rico-call-for-escalation-of-relief-efforts/
https://www.nationalnursesunited.org/press/entry/nurses-in-puerto-rico-warn-dire-conditions-slow-relief-posing-urgent-crisis/
Fully three weeks after Hurricane Maria devastated Puerto Rico, RN volunteers have described dire conditions and countless number of residents still in desperate need for assistance amid a federal relief effort that has failed to reach many people in need.
NNU's RN Response Network dispatched 50 volunteer RNs to Puerto Rico a week ago, part of an AFL-CIO multi-union deployment. The RNs have been sending in frequent reports about the devastation and ongoing crisis that remains at a perilous stage.
Two reports from yesterday are continuing testimony:
"Today our team traveled into the center of island into the mountain towns of Utuado. These towns are isolated that relief efforts have not made it into these areas. It was due to impassable roads. But the local community cleared most of the roads. People said we were the first relief group to come into the area. But she is unable to get out. And they're having a hard time getting food and water. Yes, her son is staying with her. He cares for her but is also sick. They're struggling to get basics such as food, water and medicine." - Roxanna Garcia, RN
"Yesterday we went to Utuado, a town up in the center of the island. We stopped many times along the way to educate people on water safety. It's a mountain community with small pueblos all over, many cut off since Maria by fallen bridges and blocked roads. We stopped in the center of town at the National Guard. They had lists of all the areas that had been seen by medical groups. We went to an area that nobody had visited where roads were recently opened. People are somehow surviving with the food and medicine they had on hand. They have received NO provisions. There is no running water and no electricity. Nobody is aware of the risks of drinking untreated water. We went house-to-house teaching families and asking that they spread the word. We also provided urgent care where we could. These communities are at great risk of water born illness epidemics. They need clean water that is safe to drink! There is a public health crisis coming to Puerto Rico that we could prevent with proper supplies and support from the US government. These conditions would not be tolerated in the 50 states. It is outrageous that we are leaving our fellow Americans with essentially no aid. Many more will die if we don't step up." - Erin Carrera, RN
See earlier RNRN reports at:
https://www.nationalnursesunited.org/press/entry/nurse-volunteers-in-puerto-rico-call-for-escalation-of-relief-efforts/
https://www.nationalnursesunited.org/press/entry/nurses-in-puerto-rico-warn-dire-conditions-slow-relief-posing-urgent-crisis/
National Nurses United, with close to 185,000 members in every state, is the largest union and professional association of registered nurses in US history.
(240) 235-2000LATEST NEWS
Billionaire Palantir Co-Founder Pushes Return of Public Hangings as Part of 'Masculine Leadership' Initiative
"Immaturity masquerading as strength is the defining personal characteristic of our age," said one critic in response.
Dec 07, 2025
Venture capitalist Joe Lonsdale, a co-founder of data platform company Palantir, is calling for the return of public hangings as part of a broader push to restore what he describes as "masculine leadership" to the US.
In a statement posted on X Friday, Lonsdale said that he supported changing the so-called "three strikes" anti-crime law to ensure that anyone who is convicted of three violent crimes gets publicly executed, rather than simply sent to prison for life.
"If I’m in charge later, we won’t just have a three strikes law," he wrote. "We will quickly try and hang men after three violent crimes. And yes, we will do it in public to deter others."
Lonsdale then added that "our society needs balance," and said that "it's time to bring back masculine leadership to protect our most vulnerable."
Lonsdale's views on public hangings being necessary to restore "masculine leadership" drew swift criticism.
Gil Durán, a journalist who documents the increasingly authoritarian politics of Silicon Valley in his newsletter "The Nerd Reich," argued in a Saturday post that Lonsdale's call for public hangings showed that US tech elites are "entering a more dangerous and desperate phase of radicalization."
"For months, Peter Thiel guru Curtis Yarvin has been squawking about the need for more severe measures to cement Trump's authoritarian rule," Durán explained. "Peter Thiel is ranting about the Antichrist in a global tour. And now Lonsdale—a Thiel protégé—is fantasizing about a future in which he will have the power to unleash state violence at mass scale."
Taulby Edmondson, an adjunct professor of history, religion, and culture at Virginia Tech, wrote in a post on Bluesky that the rhetoric Lonsdale uses to justify the return of public hangings has even darker intonations than calls for state-backed violence.
"A point of nuance here: 'masculine leadership to protect our most vulnerable' is how lynch mobs are described, not state-sanctioned executions," he observed.
Theoretical physicist Sean Carroll argued that Lonsdale's remarks were symbolic of a kind of performative masculinity that has infected US culture.
"Immaturity masquerading as strength is the defining personal characteristic of our age," he wrote.
Tech entrepreneur Anil Dash warned Lonsdale that his call for public hangings could have unintended consequences for members of the Silicon Valley elite.
"Well, Joe, Mark Zuckerberg has sole control over Facebook, which directly enabled the Rohingya genocide," he wrote. "So let’s have the conversation."
And Columbia Journalism School professor Bill Grueskin noted that Lonsdale has been a major backer of the University of Austin, an unaccredited liberal arts college that has been pitched as an alternative to left-wing university education with the goal of preparing "thoughtful and ethical innovators, builders, leaders, public servants and citizens through open inquiry and civil discourse."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Hegseth Defends Boat Bombings as New Details Further Undermine Administration's Justifications
The boat targeted in the infamous September 2 "double-tap" strike was not even headed for the US, Adm. Frank Bradley revealed to lawmakers.
Dec 07, 2025
US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Saturday defended the Trump administration's policy of bombing suspected drug-trafficking vessels even as new details further undermined the administration's stated justifications for the policy.
According to the Guardian, Hegseth told a gathering at the Ronald Reagan presidential library that the boat bombings, which so far have killed at least 87 people, are necessary to protect Americans from illegal drugs being shipped to the US.
"If you’re working for a designated terrorist organization and you bring drugs to this country in a boat, we will find you and we will sink you," Hegseth said. "Let there be no doubt about it."
However, leaked details about a classified briefing delivered to lawmakers last week by Adm. Frank Bradley about a September 2 boat strike cast new doubts on Hegseth's justifications.
CNN reported on Friday that Bradley told lawmakers that the boat taken out by the September 2 attack was not even headed toward the US, but was going "to link up with another, larger vessel that was bound for Suriname," a small nation in the northeast of South America.
While Bradley acknowledged that the boat was not heading toward the US, he told lawmakers that the strike on it was justified because the drugs it was carrying could have theoretically wound up in the US at some point.
Additionally, NBC News reported on Saturday that Bradley told lawmakers that Hegseth had ordered all 11 men who were on the boat targeted by the September 2 strike to be killed because "they were on an internal list of narco-terrorists who US intelligence and military officials determined could be lethally targeted."
This is relevant because the US military launched a second strike during the September 2 operation to kill two men who had survived the initial strike on their vessel, which many legal experts consider to be either a war crime or an act of murder under domestic law.
Rep. Jim Himes (D-Conn.), the ranking member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, watched video of the September 2 double-tap attack last week, and he described the footage as “one of the most troubling things I’ve seen in my time in public service.”
“Any American who sees the video that I saw will see its military attacking shipwrecked sailors,” Himes explained. “Now, there’s a whole set of contextual items that the admiral explained. Yes, they were carrying drugs. They were not in position to continue their mission in any way... People will someday see this video and they will see that that video shows, if you don’t have the broader context, an attack on shipwrecked sailors.”
While there has been much discussion about the legality of the September 2 double-tap strike in recent days, some critics have warned that fixating on this particular aspect of the administration's policy risks taking the focus off the illegality of the boat-bombing campaign as a whole.
Daphne Eviatar, director for security and human rights for Amnesty International USA, said on Friday that the entire boat-bombing campaign has been "illegal under both domestic and international law."
"All of them constitute murder because none of the victims, whether or not they were smuggling illegal narcotics, posed an imminent threat to life," she said. "Congress must take action now to stop the US military from murdering more people in the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Leaked Memo Shows Pam Bondi Wants List of 'Domestic Terrorism' Groups Who Express 'Anti-American Sentiment'
"Millions of Americans like you and I could be the target," warned journalist Ken Klippenstein of the new memo.
Dec 07, 2025
A leaked memo written by US Attorney General Pam Bondi directs the Department of Justice to compile a list of potential "domestic terrorism" organizations that espouse "extreme viewpoints on immigration, radical gender ideology, and anti-American sentiment."
The memo, which was obtained by journalist Ken Klippenstein, expands upon National Security Presidential Memorandum-7 (NSPM-7), a directive signed by President Donald Trump in late September that demanded a "national strategy to investigate and disrupt networks, entities, and organizations that foment political violence so that law enforcement can intervene in criminal conspiracies before they result in violent political acts."
The new Bondi memo instructs law enforcement agencies to refer "suspected" domestic terrorism cases to the Joint Terrorism Task Forces (JTTFs), which will then undertake an "exhaustive investigation contemplated by NSPM-7" that will incorporate "a focused strategy to root out all culpable participants—including organizers and funders—in all domestic terrorism activities."
The memo identifies the "domestic terrorism threat" as organizations that use "violence or the threat of violence" to advance political goals such as "opposition to law and immigration enforcement; extreme views in favor of mass migration and open borders; adherence to radical gender ideology, anti-Americanism, anti-capitalism, or anti-Christianity; support for the overthrow of the United States Government; hostility towards traditional views on family, religion, and morality."
Commenting on the significance of the memo, Klippenstein criticized mainstream media organizations for largely ignoring the implications of NSPM-7, which was drafted and signed in the wake of the murder of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk.
"For months, major media outlets have largely blown off the story of NSPM-7, thinking it was all just Trump bluster and too crazy to be serious," he wrote. "But a memo like this one shows you that the administration is absolutely taking this seriously—even if the media are not—and is actively working to operationalize NSPM-7."
Klippenstein also warned that NSPM-7 appeared to be the start of a new "war on terrorism," but "only this time, millions of Americans like you and I could be the target."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular