Welcome to this throwback edition of the award-winning Best of Left podcast where we remember

the past and choose to repeat it.

Today's episode was originally published on June 15th, 2018, and we wanted to replay it

now just after our new episode detailing the myriad compounding factors that led to the

wildfire disaster on Maui, because just as the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans

was a warning, so too was the aftermath of Hurricane Maria that devastated Puerto Rico,

and understanding the patterns of disaster capitalism is the best first defense against the

immoral practices of praying on people when they are at their most vulnerable, which is absolutely

the case today in Hawaii. And by the way, I've already tried recording this intro once,

and I mistakenly referred to the immoral practices of praying on people when they're at their

most valuable, and it was probably one of the darkest Freudian slips I can recall ever making.

Sources today include democracy now, on the media, infinite earth radio, and Ture show.

A stunning new report by researchers at Harvard has revealed the death toll from Hurricane Maria

may be 70 times higher than the official count. The official death toll still stands at 64,

but the new research says the death toll is at least 4,645, and perhaps as many as 5,740.

The Harvard study was published Tuesday in the New England Journal of Medicine.

President Trump has so far not responded to the new study, but in October during a visit to

Puerto Rico, Trump boasted about the low official death count.

Now, I hate to tell you, Puerto Rico, but you've thrown our budget a little out of whack,

because we've spent a lot of money on Puerto Rico, and that's fine. We've saved a lot of lives. If you

look at the, every death is a horror, but if you look at a real catastrophe like Katrina,

and you look at the tremendous hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people that died,

...