CNN attempts to spin a narrative, FEMA Director refuses to engage. FEMA Director Brock Long explains how the Mayor of San Juan, Puerto Rico, Carmen Yulin-Cruz has intentionally disconnected herself from the unified chain-of-command for Hurricane Maria relief efforts in favor of playing politics.

Additionally and incredibly, Mayor Yulin Cruz has never even visited the San Juan Headquarters where FEMA, Dept. of Homeland Security, Dept of Defense, National Guard, Army Corps of Engineers and PR state governors office are communicating, prioritizing and responding to the urgent needs of municipal leaders and the citizens of Puerto Rico.

Ridiculously, Mayor Yulin Cruz chooses to remain a few blocks away talking politics to media cameras instead of engaging with local, state and federal officials on recovery efforts. FUBAR.

Notice at 09:00 where Director Long specifically discusses the need for disaster response action from the local community, and how citizens should participate instead of remaining dependent on federal government.  Quickly CNN’s Fredricka Whitfield jumps in to cut him off so that CNN producers can continue selling their narrative. WATCH:

A very emotional female police officer from Puerto Rico’s police department in Guaynabo calls in to a U.S. spanish speaking radio station to tell listeners what is going on in Puerto Rico.  The police woman is very upset, crying and sobbing often, and shares how the Mayor of San Juan is politicizing the situation and not offering help.

The call and video was recorded September 28th, and highlights the corruption within government within Puerto Rico and the Municipal authority of San Juan. The video is English closed captioned (hit “CC” option) and a transcript is below:

Transcript:

Radio Announcer: What is your name?

Police Caller: I cannot give my name because I work for Puerto Rico’s Police Department. I need to pass this information out because the stuff that is being brought from the U.S. is not being distributed.  They are not allowing the Puerto Rican people to receive the donations.

Radio Announcer: What part of Puerto Rico are you calling us from right now?

Police Caller: I am right now in Guaynabo.

Radio Announcer 2: Wow.

Radio Announcer 3: But what information do you have? What have you seen?

Police Caller: The Mayor, Carmen Yulin, is not allowing anyone to distribute… We need… what Puerto Ricans need is that the U.S. armed forces come in and distribute the aid. And that they stop the governor, Rosello, and the mayor, Yulin, on doing what they are doing… It’s an abuse, it looks like communism, in our own island (sobbing)… (sobbing continues, inaudible translation due to cries)…

Police Caller (cont.): People are helping us, but they are not accepting it, they are not accepting anymore help supposedly: “they have to wait for the license, that there are no buses.” …Let me tell you something Boricuas (Puerto Ricans) are dying of hunger (crying continues) … This is a bureaucracy, everything has to be protocol, the lines are stretched. …We can only give one box of water per person (sobbing continues).  …The medics here, people are dying, the hospitals are in crisis.

Police Caller (cont.): I am embarrassed, as a Boricua to work for Puerto Rico’s police and see that we cannot do anything.  There are dozens and thousands and thousands of food and when people ask we cannot give anything away because [Mayor] Carmen Yulin says that we cannot take anything out; because everything is a soap opera, everything is a show and there have to be cameras here and there.  ….Because you know they are just looking for votes for the upcoming years.

Radio Announcer 2: Wow

Police Caller: And the governor won’t move unless there is a camera behind him; [Mayor] Carmen Yulin won’t move unless there is a camera behind her.  This is how we are living in Puerto Rico, meanwhile artists are giving money and the people of Florida are sending stuff, and I don’t know how many more people are helping because we have very limited communication, very limited, and we have no idea what’s going on outside; and the people who are sending stuff, they have to come in; they have to come to help Puerto Rico and distribute what is being wasted …because what else are we going to do?  You tell me, what are we going to do?

Radio Announcer #2: Of course the desperation..

Radio Announcer #3: We are with our hearts broken listening to you describing this situation which is heartbreaking when we know that so many people are helping …this is a police officer speaking.

Police Caller: I’ve been for one hour and a half just trying to download an application because the phones that they give to us I cannot use them as a police officer due to security measures.  But I need to speak for the people because the people are suffering.  Because I, as a cop, and other partners are seeing it.   A lot of people have been posting videos (sobbing – inaudible)  …and no-one is paying attention.

Radio Announcer #3: We are truly sorry for this situation, we did not know that..

Police Caller:  If Cuba and Venezuela want to help and we are grateful for that; and that the government denies their help, the government denies Cuba’s help. …That they reject Venezuela’s help, …Look for God’s sake!  Tell me how is that possible, we need help.

Radio Announcer #3: We are going to send this message out so that it gets to where it needs to get to…

Police Caller:  We want the U.S. to come in, that the strongest forces come in and take the governor out, he is not doing anything, he is just going around and around, …and everyone is like: “oh, look how nice, the governor, he is going in the mud, he is going in the water”, And where is it?  Pardon the expression: WHERE IS THE FOOD?

Police Caller (cont.):  Look, grab the food, grab the sausage can and take it to the families! Stop the show! The governor is just doing a show, is all a show.  There are many mayors that are suffering because they cannot do anything for their people.

Radio Announcer #2: What are they doing with the food? Is it being kept in storage because they are not allowing to give it out?

Police Caller: They are not doing anything, and they tell the harbors (ports) that they cannot bring stuff anymore.  If the U.S. government doesn’t get involved they will finish us.  We are going to end up worse.  …Worse than Cuba, Africa, or worse than Haiti.  We are living in an era that you don’t want to see, people are desperate.  The gasoline, people are already killing each other. Not to rob you, they are doing it so they can be the firsts to get food and take it to their families.

Police Caller (cont.): Do you know what it is when a woman approaches me and tells me “I don’t have any more.” “I don’t know what else to give my kids because I don’t have anymore.” “Water and crackers”!

Radio Announcer #1: Sweetie, thank you for calling us and using this medium to denounce this situation; and good thing that it was you who explained this so that people don’t think that we are making up stuff; because this has nothing to do with politics. This is a very serious situation.

Police Caller: Very Serious (sobbing continues)

Audio/video cuts off

The Weaponized Administrative State is Protecting Itself

A report from Reuters highlights the DOJ and FBI refusing to hand over documents related to the Steele Dossier on candidate Donald Trump, and the FBI (Via James Comey) involvement in assembling the content therein.   However, the lede is buried in paragraph four of the article.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Justice Department and the FBI are resisting demands from a Republican lawmaker to hand over documents about a former British spy’s dossier on purported Russian support for Donald Trump’s 2016 election campaign, because the FBI has its own open criminal investigation, officials said.

The U.S. House of Representatives Intelligence Committee issued subpoenas in August seeking “any and all documents” about both agencies’ dealings with former MI6 officer Christopher Steele, according to a letter seen by Reuters from committee chairman Devin Nunes, a Trump supporter.

Steele compiled the so-called Trump dossier, which Trump was told by FBI director James Comey contained salacious material about the businessman-turned president. Trump and his associates have said the dossier’s contents were false.

Law enforcement and congressional officials said that the Justice Department and the FBI were reluctant to comply with the demand for documents as the FBI had its own probe, under the supervision of Special Counsel Robert Mueller, into U.S. allegations of Russian meddling in the 2016 campaign to tilt the November election in Trump’s favor. (read more)

This is genuinely much more alarming that might initially appear on first review.  In essence the FBI is protecting itself from inquiry into unlawful conduct of the FBI.

People often talk about ‘conflict of interest’ in matters of personal or organizational conduct when the investigative apparatus itself is a participating entity into the originating issue. However, the FBI refusing to allow investigative oversight into actions taken by the FBI takes ‘conflicted interest’ concerns into stratospheric levels.

If the issue was simply a one-time request by the FBI to delay inquiry it might not hold the same level of consequence it does right now.

But when you combine this intentional action by Robert Mueller to block oversight into the potentially illegal action of a rogue agency with the previous actions within the DOJ as they relate to the IRS targeting, well, what you get is a stunning picture of a weaponized FBI apparatus attempting to avoid accountability.

A reminder on the IRS and FBI collusion, and the refusal of the DOJ to prosecute the IRS officials engaged in illegal targeting:

(Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton made the following statement regarding the  Department of Justice’s decision not to bring charges against Lois Lerner, former director of the Exempt Organizations Unit of the IRS, whose own emails place her at the heart of the politicization of the IRS for the targeting of conservative groups:

I have zero confidence that the Justice Department did an adequate review of the IRS scandal. In fact, we’re still fighting the Justice Department and the IRS for records about this very scandal. Today’s decision comes as no surprise considering that the FBI collaborated with the IRS and is unlikely to investigate or prosecute itself. President Trump should order a complete review of the whole issue. Meanwhile, we await accountability for IRS Commissioner Koskinen, who still serves and should be drummed out of office.

Judicial Watch released 294 pages of FBI “302” documents revealing top Washington IRS officials, including Lois Lerner and Holly Paz, knew the agency was specifically targeting “Tea Party” and other conservative organizations two full years before disclosing it to Congress and the public.  An FBI 302 document contains detailed narratives of FBI agent investigations.  The Obama Justice Department and FBI investigations into the Obama IRS scandal resulted in no criminal charges.

The FBI 302 documents confirm the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) 2013 report that said, “Senior IRS officials knew that agents were targeting conservative groups for special scrutiny as early as 2011.” Lerner did not reveal the targeting until May 2013, in response to a planted question at an American Bar Association conference.  The new documents reveal that then-acting IRS Commissioner Steven Miller actually wrote Lerner’s response: “They used names like Tea Party or Patriots and they selected cases simply because the applications had those names in the title. That was wrong, that was absolutely incorrect, insensitive, and inappropriate.” (read more)

In October 2015 the DOJ announced it was dropping the investigation into the IRS, Lois Lerner, and the unlawful sharing of taxpayer data in the IRS targeting investigation surrounding True The Vote et al.

In essence, not only did the DOJ drop an investigation into the IRS – it also dropped an investigation into itself.  The DOJ, via FBI, was part of the entire IRS targeting enterprise.  Yeah, there’s a massive conflict there.

CTH stumbled onto the DOJ trail of evidence back in June 2014 when we reviewed one of very few disclosures given by Lois Lerner’s attorney William Taylor III. In a moment of clarity, which was not caught by the interviewer, William Taylor responded to questioning by stating that his client, Lois Lerner, was merely responding to a request from the Department of Justice, when she sent confidential tax files to the DOJ.

Taylor said Lerner didn’t know and sent them because Justice requested the documents: “She [understood] the donor information on Schedule B had been removed. In some cases, we later learned, it may not have been.” (link)

Lois Lerner sent the DOJ 1.1 million pages of 501(c)(4) tax filing data. Including a very specific set of “33 Schedule B attachment files”. The Schedule B’s were specific to Large Conservative 501(c)(4) groups operating and organized to oppose the agenda of President Obama.

The Schedule B’s include the donor lists of specific people and sub-groups attached to the 501(c)(4).

In essence the donor group or names of every person who supported the larger conservative group.  These would have been “the opponents” President Obama outlined in the controversial “citizens united” Supreme Court decision.

For obvious reasons it is illegal to distribute that taxpayer data. It is primarily illegal because such information could be used to create a list of people in opposition to the executive branch; that is exactly what happened.

Lois Lerner sent the data to the DOJ just before 2010 mid-terms.  The DOJ hid the connection for three years and did not admit the submission until 2013 when congress was about to find out through one of their IRS subpoenas.

The DOJ then claimed it was some form of miscommunication, merely a mistake. The DOJ claimed they did not expect to get the Schedule B information, and therefore never noticed it until the House investigation began.

However, Lois Lerner’s attorney, William Taylor, is clearly refuting such deniability.   He said it was not a mistake, it was his client, Lois Lerner, fulfilling a specific request.

Hence, it became obvious, the House Oversight Committee was actually investigating only ONE aspect of the overall scheme. The larger scheme is actually within the investigating body, the DOJ itself, and where they came up with the idea.

Which brings us back to the conflict of interest issue:  How can the DOJ conduct an investigation into unlawful aspects of the IRS targeting of specific 501(c)(4) groups, when the DOJ was the initiating body for the illegality they were  seeking to investigate?

See the problem?

There’s a pattern here.

Today in their intentional refusal of the FBI/DOJ to release records of their involvement with the “Steele Dossier”, Robert Mueller is following a pattern of FBI and DOJ action to hide the unlawful behavior of FBI and DOJ leadership.

And Attorney General Jeff Sessions is doing what?…

**Authors Note** The writer of this article is a healthy person of stable psychological disposition with no intent, propensity or disposition toward self-harm; nor does the author participate in dangerous or generally at risk behaviors.  All scheduled vehicle maintenance is up to date, nothing is askew, and there are no surrounding environmental dangers which would -in the customary function of life- present any extraordinary risk to the author.

The Dallas Cowboys, together with team owner Jerry Jones, take a collective knee at the start of the Monday Night Football game to display their unity with… well, something probably.  Stick a fork in the financial future of the NFL, it’s done; finished.

The only thing that was saving the NFL from full organizational collapse was the advent of Fantasy Football Leagues and the subsequent betting and fan-based league play therein.

Never underestimate the inability of any business organization to inoculate itself with idiot resistant policies once they enter the arena of identity politics.  It has always been thus:

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There is something profoundly hilarious in the face of team owner Jerry Jones looking so smug, as if he’s figured out how to navigate this insufferable financial minefield. He didn’t. Now watch the slow-motion financial implosion… that smugly look will change quickly as he watches his organizational bank account drain.  Which is faster than the knee he promised to never take. By Thanksgiving; you’ll see. Bigly.

I’m sorry, but I just can’t stop laughing. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.

Against the backdrop of a revised set of administration rules on visa issuance and restricted nationalities; and considering the previously argued ‘Trump travel ban’ guidelines expired Sunday; the Supreme Court has cancelled their hearing of arguments in opposition to the former travel restrictions and visa guidance.

(Via Associated Press) – 1:40 p.m. – The Supreme Court has canceled arguments set for Oct. 10 in the dispute over President Donald Trump’s travel ban, after Trump rolled out a new policy Sunday.

The unsigned order from the justices Monday asks both sides to weigh in by Oct. 5 about what to do with the case.

The court had been ready to hear argument about the legality of a 90-day ban on travelers from six mostly Muslim countries and a 120-day ban on refugees from around the world.

The ban expired Sunday and was replaced by a new policy that affects eight counties and has no expiration date.  Those countries are Chad, Iran, Libya, North Korea, Somalia, Syria, Venezuela and Yemen.  Chad, North Korea and Venezuela were not covered by the earlier ban. (link)

In addition both Chad and Venezuela are pushing back against Homeland Security guidance that led to their inclusion on the revised travel restrictions:

♦Chad’s government says it learned “with astonishment” of the decision by the U.S. government that its country is on a list whose nationals will be prohibited from entering the United States.

A government statement Monday said the government expresses its incomprehension about the “official reasons for this decision; which contrasts with Chad’s constant efforts and commitments in the fight against terrorism at regional and global levels.”

Chad’s government called for a better appreciation of the situation and for Trump to reconsider the decision which it says “undermines the image of Chad and the good relations between the two countries.” (LINK)

♦Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro (nee-koh-LAHS’ mah-DOO’-roh) says the Trump administration’s decision to include Venezuelan officials on a travel ban is a form of “political and psychological terrorism.”

His foreign ministry issued a statement Monday saying that the travel restrictions violate the values of the United Nations charter and international law and are part of a continuing effort by the U.S. to oust Maduro from power.

The ministry said it is considering “all necessary measures” to defend Venezuela’s sovereignty and national interest. (LINK)

Puerto Rico has been devastated by Hurricane Maria.  CTH can confirm there is almost no communication with the majority of those impacted by the devastating impact of Hurricane Maria.   Local officials are using satellite phones to gain residents the ability to contact their friends and family in the U.S. mainland. Critical infrastructure has been severely compromised.  Cell phone service is sporadic to non-existent.

Adding to and amplifying the problem was a general dependency on government assistance, by a large portion of the population, for basic needs prior to the storm.  The comfort of dependency has now worsened the desperation of the people on the island.

(Via Fox News) A humanitarian crisis grew Saturday in Puerto Rico as towns were left without fresh water, fuel, power or phone service following Hurricane Maria’s devastating passage across the island.

A group of anxious mayors arrived in the capital to meet with Gov. Ricardo Rossello to present a long list of items they urgently need. The north coastal town of Manati had run out of fuel and fresh water, Mayor Jose Sanchez Gonzalez said.

“Hysteria is starting to spread. The hospital is about to collapse. It’s at capacity,” he said, crying. “We need someone to help us immediately.”

The death toll from Maria in Puerto Rico was at least 10, including two police officers who drowned in floodwaters in the western town of Aguada. That number was expected to climb as officials from remote towns continued to check in with officials in San Juan.

Authorities in the town of Vega Alta on the north coast said they had been unable to reach an entire neighborhood called Fatima, and were particularly worried about residents of a nursing home.

“I need to get there today,” Mayor Oscar Santiago told The Associated Press. “Not tomorrow, today.”

Rossello said Maria would clearly cost more than the last major storm to wallop the island, Hurricane George in September 1998. “This is without a doubt the biggest catastrophe in modern history for Puerto Rico,” he said.

A dam upstream of the towns of Quebradillas and Isabela in northwest Puerto Rico was cracked but had not burst by Saturday afternoon as the water continued to pour out of rain-swollen Lake Guajataca. Federal officials said Friday that 70,000 people, the number who live in the surrounding area, would have to be evacuated. But Javier Jimenez, mayor of the nearby town of San Sebastian, said he believed the number was far smaller.

Secretary of Public Affairs Ramon Rosario said about 300 families were in harm’s way.

The governor said there is “significant damage” to the dam and authorities believe it could give way at any moment. “We don’t know how long it’s going to hold. The integrity of the structure has been compromised in a significant way,” Rossello said.  (read more)

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The U.S. military is the tip of the spear in attempting to get aid and supplies to the residents in coordination with FEMA and emergency officials.  CTH had numerous conversations today with teams trying to get as much into the island as possible.

The leadership of the 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU) and Expeditionary Strike Group 2, met with key leaders with Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the Puerto Rico National Guard to plan and coordinate for Hurricane Maria response efforts in Puerto Rico. The Department of Defense (DoD) is supporting FEMA, the lead federal agency, in helping those affected by Hurricane Maria to minimize suffering and is one component of the overall whole-of-government response effort. (U.S. Marine Corps video by Cpl. Adam D. Edwards)

Round three of NAFTA begins this weekend in Canada.  According to a leaked possible itinerary obtained by Reuters the auto-sector “rules of origin” will be discussed on Tuesday or Wednesday.

The auto sector rules of origin have been exploited by China to send auto manufacturing parts into Mexico, including massive electronic components, where they are assembled and shipped into the U.S. under NAFTA.  This trade maneuver is an exploitation, a back-door per se’, of the NAFTA agreement by China which Secretary Ross and USTR Robert Lighthizer are committed to stopping.

Secretary Wilbur Ross explains in this recent CNBC interview. WATCH: