The false accusations of racism and sexism against our president took a big hit today as the Governor of Puerto Rico, Wanda Vazquez, has endorsed President Trump for his 2020 re-election.

Governor Vazquez was going to surprise the media with a planned campaign event with President Trump in Central FL, which has a very high Puerto Rican population, last Friday. However, the event had to be canceled due to the president’s COVID-19 diagnosis. Governor Vazquez made the endorsement today via a television interview [SEE HERE].

While Puerto Rican nationals cannot participate in the U.S. presidential election, there are many U.S. citizens from Puerto Rico, especially in Florida.  In the aftermath of Hurricane Maria many residents of Puerto Rico moved to Florida due to the collapsed infrastructure during the emergency. This endorsement today reflects a strong showing of support for how President Trump has assisted the island.

In addition to the initial recovery funding, recently President Trump announced the largest ever FEMA grant to the island nation, almost $13 billion, in an effort to completely rebuild the roads, utilities and energy infrastructure. The administration’s approach is a smart investment in an island that has a unique set of resources for the pharmaceutical industry; including a previously trained workforce.  The announcement was typical President Trump with optimal and pragmatic policy solutions on display.

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Puerto Rico serves as a strategic economic region to recapture the Pharmaceutical industry.  Historically Puerto Rico was a hub for pharmaceutical manufacturing; however, due to poor and undependable infrastructure, an outcome of terrible management in government, combined with competitive incentives provided by alternative nations, most PR pharma operations moved to India and China.

With the Trump administration confronting Big Pharma on multiple fronts, including the need for a secure supply chain, a cost-effective approach is massive investment to repair and replace the island infrastructure.  Today the White House announces the largest FEMA grant in history as an underpinning to this strategic objective.

WHITE HOUSE – Statement from the Press Secretary on the Largest FEMA Infrastructure Grants Being Awarded to Puerto Rico.

The Trump Administration announced that the Federal Emergency Management Administration (FEMA) plans to award two of its largest grants ever for infrastructure projects in Puerto Rico.

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HPSCI ranking member Devin Nunes appears on Fox News with Maria Bartiromo to discuss the Democrats conspiracy theory about President Trump removing mailboxes.

Additionally, Devin Nunes discusses the contrast between how the FBI gave Hillary Clinton a defensive briefing based on an actual risk of foreign influence, yet the FBI did not give Donald Trump a defensive briefing based on a Russian influence conspiracy they were creating with the Clinton campaign.

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All those corrupt local Puerto Rico officials who have used U.S. disaster response aid to enrich themselves had better watch out.  President Trump has just assigned Coast Guard Rear Admiral Peter J. Brown to take charge of all U.S. efforts on the island.
Rear Admiral Brown is an excellent man with a servants heart, but he is also a very deliberate and serious man.  And this man knows the island; we have crossed paths….

[White House] President Donald J. Trump has named U.S. Coast Guard Rear Admiral Peter J. Brown of Florida as his Special Representative for Puerto Rico’s Disaster Recovery. In this capacity, Admiral Brown will coordinate United States Government efforts to build the infrastructure and resiliency of Puerto Rico.

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Updating a story we shared last night; and the latest information only makes the situation seem much worse.   To say this story is infuriating would be an understatement.
As an individual with some personal knowledge of how the recovery process works, the actions by these government officials in Puerto Rico are beyond tragic.  There are people in desperate need, and these stupid claims by officials do nothing to ameliorate ongoing suffering.  This is disgusting and heartbreaking at the same time.

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — Gov. Wanda Vázquez fired the heads of Puerto Rico’s housing and family departments Sunday in the latest fallout over the discovery of a warehouse filled with emergency supplies dating from Hurricane Maria.

The removal of Housing Secretary Fernando Gil and Department of Family Secretary Glorimar Andújar came a day after the governor fired the director of Puerto Rico’s emergency management agency.

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Folks, this is alarming.  An explosive video from Puerto Rico shows a massive warehouse of emergency hurricane relief supplies discovered highlighting emergency supplies delivered in the aftermath of hurricane Maria that were never distributed.

The warehouse was discovered after the recent earthquake, and the building suffering damage. After CTH initially saw the report, I had to go find the raw video to see just how much 2017 aid was being hidden in this warehouse; and the full video is simply stunning.  First, the report:

(VIA CBS) Puerto Rico Governor Wanda Vázquez Garced fired the island’s emergency management director on Saturday, after a video showing aid sitting unused in a warehouse went viral on social media. Some of the aid has allegedly been sitting in the warehouse since Hurricane Maria struck in 2017.
“There are thousands of people who have made sacrifices to help those in the south, and it is unforgivable that resources were kept in the warehouse,” Vázquez said in a statement.

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♦Puerto Rico has a long history of public corruption and abuse of federal funds.  Back in 2015 ten government officials in Puerto Rico were arrested for corruption, bribery, honest services wire fraud, extortion and various schemes related to giving payments to friends and family via federal contracts. [LINK]  This is the typical corruption PR is known for.
♦A few weeks ago (June 28) the FBI, Public Corruption Unit, posted a notification of an ongoing corruption probe and provided a tip-line for leads related to bribery and/or corruption of public officials. [LINK]  This probe is connected to the billions of dollars U.S. taxpayers have provided to Puerto Rico for recovery after hurricane Maria (2017).

So much money is poured into the island that hundreds of local and regional officials seized the opportunity to indulge their friends and family with funds from recovery accounts.  This is the widespread corruption President Trump previously drew attention to.  This overt and in-the-open corruption is why Nancy Pelosi took the entire Democrat caucus to Puerto Rico in January for a vacation with her favorite lobbyists.  Everyone in/around PR knows this corruption is the norm, not the exception.
Today, six more people were indicted under new federal charges, including two government officials: Julia Keleher, who served as Puerto Rico’s education secretary until April; and Ángela Ávila-Marrero, who was the executive director of the Puerto Rico Health Insurance Administration until late June. They are variously charged with wire fraud, money laundering and conspiracy, according to the 32-count indictment.

WASHINGTON – […] The federal indictment says the former officials illegally directed federal funding to politically connected contractors. The arrests come about a month after Congress approved a controversial disaster aid bill that earmarked additional funding for Puerto Rico’s recovery from Hurricane Maria in 2017, which were tied up in part because President Trump called Puerto Rico’s officials “incompetent or corrupt.”

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A Texas senate seat flipped from democrat to republican this week for the first time in 139 years.  Republican Pete Flores, a former game warden, defeated former Democratic Congressman Pete Gallego in a senate district covering around 800,000 border residents.  Because the district is 73 percent African-American and Hispanic, the republican victory has gained a little bit of attention [SEE HERE].

Many of the articles citing the republican victory point to the strong campaigning by Pete Flores, and then jump to highlight the possibilities represented by this large district victory.  All of that is true.  However, the one important aspect missing within all political analysis is a failure to recognize that Latino votes are *not* monolithic.
A Puerto Rican Hispanic is to a Mexican Hispanic as a New Yorker is to a Montanan.  While it is true culturally the Puerto Rican base is favorable to democrats, the South American and Cuban vote is not politically analogous.  Nor is the Mexican voting bloc identifiable with either PR, Cuban or South American. Each group is NOT interchangeable; and each group has its own cultures and identities that are not in line with Democrat Socialism – actually, far from it.
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Representative Louis Gutierrez (D-IL) is a long-time Marxist in congress who is an open-border activist.  Representative Gutierrez has previously requested illegal aliens to cross the Southern U.S. border and target any border patrol official possible.
As a militant immigration activist Mr. Gutierrez has also supported MS-13 gang strikes in the U.S. and advocated for illegal aliens to register to vote to influence U.S. elections.  He generally keeps his most visible vitriol reserved for Spanish-speaking audiences.

Gutierrez surprised many people today with a report he will not seek reelection this year for his Chicago district. Gutierrez owns a home in Puerto Rico so there’s a possibility the opportunity for unaccountable federal recovery money flowing into PR might be too enticing to pass up. An opportunity exists to make millions from the inherent political corruption in the island.  Regardless, there’s also a financial lobbying angle available.

CHICAGO – Signaling the end to a quarter century career in Congress, Rep. Luis Gutierrez will announce Tuesday that he will not seek re-election, Democratic sources tell the Chicago Sun-Times.

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Earlier this afternoon President Donald Trump met with Governor Ricardo Rossello of Puerto Rico in the oval office.

[Raw Transcript – Not Yet finalized]  President Trump – “It’s great to have the governor of Puerto Rico with us and we have gotten to know each other extremely well over the last couple of weeks. And I can tell you, you are a hard working governor. It’s a tough situation. So much has to be rebuilt, even from before.
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