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posted by n1 on Monday June 12 2017, @09:49AM   Printer-friendly
from the join-the-club dept.

According to Fox News:

Puerto Rico's governor announced that the U.S. territory has overwhelmingly chosen statehood in a nonbinding referendum Sunday held amid a deep economic crisis that has sparked an exodus of islanders to the U.S. mainland.

Nearly half a million votes were cast for statehood, more than 7,600 for free association/independence and nearly 6,700 for independence, according to preliminary results. The participation rate was just 23 percent with roughly 2.26 million registered voters, leading opponents to question the validity of a vote that several parties had boycotted.

Also covered by AP.


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  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by kaszz on Monday June 12 2017, @10:04AM (16 children)

    by kaszz (4211) on Monday June 12 2017, @10:04AM (#524242) Journal

    Puerto Rico is likely to vote Democrat. Trump is not a democrat and will so likely block any annexing as that would skew election results.

    Interesting anyway how a small island with a great deal of autonomy manages to botch their own region such that they have to vote away their autonomy to make life workable.

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  • (Score: 2, Interesting) by khallow on Monday June 12 2017, @10:22AM (14 children)

    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Monday June 12 2017, @10:22AM (#524250) Journal

    Interesting anyway how a small island with a great deal of autonomy manages to botch their own region such that they have to vote away their autonomy to make life workable.

    As a state, they'd have significant representation in US Congress. I believe that would result in much more autonomy than as a US territory, though I doubt that would fix their problems.

    Trump is not a democrat and will so likely block any annexing as that would skew election results.

    It'd take years for any such thing to happen even in the best of cases. Trump may or may not have staying power, but he's not going to be an obstacle forever. Eventually a democrat will return to power and the conditions for entering the union could take place then.

    And Puerto Rico was annexed in 1898.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 12 2017, @10:46AM (2 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 12 2017, @10:46AM (#524261)

      Eventually a democrat will return to power

      Lol. The democrat party as the other major player in national politics is finished.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 12 2017, @11:04AM (1 child)

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 12 2017, @11:04AM (#524269)

        I'm sure there are some bookies out there who would love to take your money.

        • (Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 12 2017, @11:29AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 12 2017, @11:29AM (#524278)

          I tried but they're all still busy wiping the egg off their faces from last November.

    • (Score: 4, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 12 2017, @12:51PM (9 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 12 2017, @12:51PM (#524342)

      John Oliver (Yeah Yeah, leftist whore and all.) did an excellent piece on exactly what is wrong with the current handling of Puerto Rico, how they got into so much debt, and how one little change in some legislation back in the 60s or 70s helped bring the current crisis around.

      Put simply they accrue debt in a way that even if other parties default, and get out of it because of US laws, Puerto Rico can still be held accountable, and unable to divest their debt through normal means that all US states recieved access to, white still having many of the financial burdens associated with being a US state, just without many of the benefits.

      I am sure someone else can provide a link, or a better discussion of the issues relating to it.

      For all of its lip service to the opposite, the US sure does have a lot of unfavorably treated colonies.

      • (Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 12 2017, @01:03PM (4 children)

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 12 2017, @01:03PM (#524355)

        John Oliver (Yeah Yeah, leftist whore and all.) did an excellent piece

        Stopped reading right there. How people in this country can get their "news" from bombastic comedians and actually delude themselves into thinking they are informed is beyond me. It reminds me of how people take perverse pride in "I just don't know computers. Tee hee". In following this drivel, you feed your idiotic grandiosity by actually uninforming yourself.

        • (Score: 4, Insightful) by AthanasiusKircher on Monday June 12 2017, @03:24PM (1 child)

          by AthanasiusKircher (5291) on Monday June 12 2017, @03:24PM (#524441) Journal

          I probably shouldn't bother replying to such a post, but I think it's worth noting that the VAST majority of people are unwilling to sit down and watch or read a long news piece on a "boring" topic.

          Thus ALL "investigative reporting" shows or segments (from "60 minutes" and Frontline to TED talks) find ways of holding your attention if they're going to do a 10+ minute piece on something. Typically, they're based on "shock and awe" kind of reporting -- showing you something so surprising periodically that you keep watching. When there's gross injustice, this is often easy -- just keep "shocking" viewers every 5 minutes with some new revelation of something horrible. Often there's "human interest" elements, too, either around the injustices or just telling personal stories that are emotional in some way.

          Basically, let's face it: news is entertainment. Long segments are structured to be entertaining and to keep audience attention. Even long journalistic pieces in stuff like The New Yorker and The Atlantic often follow a structure like this. "Just the facts" gets boring unless you keep shocking or emotionally engaging the reader/viewer.

          So then you have folks like John Oliver. Rather than just employing a bunch of journalistic tricks to keep you interested, he includes comedy. You may or may not like that comedy. You may or may not like his political views. (And I frequently disagree with him in the details.) But just because he includes comedy doesn't mean he can't address "serious" issues at the same time. Sure, he applies the "shock and awe" and "emotional human interest" elements periodically too, just not exclusively to keep you entertained. Rather than putting up yet another video of an abused puppy under Policy X, he'll change it up and make a joke on Policy X periodically instead.

          There are varying degrees of "infotainment," and I agree that Oliver's schtick can be annoying at times. And it's sad that he has to "trick" people into paying attention to important issues. But it doesn't follow that his segments can't be informative. I vaguely remember watching the Puerto Rico debt piece he did, and he pretty much covered a lot of stuff that you'd find, say, in the Wikipedia article [wikipedia.org] on it. But how many people are going to go read the Wikipedia article on Puerto Rican debt just randomly? (And yes, I know Wikipedia isn't the greatest source either, but I was looking for a quick site with an overview of major concerns on this issue; there are plenty of other internet resources, though people are even LESS likely to independently go seeking information out there.)

          • (Score: 1) by oakgrove on Tuesday June 13 2017, @04:53AM

            by oakgrove (5864) on Tuesday June 13 2017, @04:53AM (#524791)

            You wrote all that shit just to prove the GP's point. *slow clap*

        • (Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Monday June 12 2017, @04:27PM (1 child)

          by Azuma Hazuki (5086) on Monday June 12 2017, @04:27PM (#524474) Journal

          When a country is in this level of political decline, only its fools and jesters dare to tell the truth. I can tell you Oliver is a more reliable source of news than Fox.

          --
          I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 12 2017, @01:05PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 12 2017, @01:05PM (#524357)

        Yes they are the territorial equivalent of a college student. And as such are given credit where no one else would be able to: "You have no job, no work history, no employable skills but you want $120K? OK sign here!"

      • (Score: 2, Informative) by isj on Monday June 12 2017, @03:41PM

        by isj (5249) on Monday June 12 2017, @03:41PM (#524445) Homepage

        [John Oliver / Last Week Tonight on Puerto Rico]
        I am sure someone else can provide a link,

        Here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tt-mpuR_QHQ [youtube.com]

        It is worth watching.

      • (Score: 5, Informative) by AthanasiusKircher on Monday June 12 2017, @03:47PM (1 child)

        by AthanasiusKircher (5291) on Monday June 12 2017, @03:47PM (#524448) Journal

        Yes, the Puerto Rican debt debacle.

        Basically, for much of the late 20th century, Puerto Rico was inexplicably exempted from random U.S. tax laws, which both made it very lucrative to business there and strongly encouraged investors to buy into PR municipal bonds. Then, in 1984, for reasons unknown to anyone in Congress today, Strom Thurmond introduced a measure that specifically removed backruptcy protection to PR from U.S. law; it was buried in a much larger bill that apparently no one noticed. Then beginning in 1996, the U.S. began removing various tax exemptions for PR over a 10-year-period, causing businesses to flee the island and the economy to falter. The government responded to the economic crisis by selling more bonds (which still had huge tax exemptions), and Wall Street investors ate them up like candy.

        Now add in one more element: the PR Constitution (which required approval from Congress, because of its territorial status) states that municipal bonds take precedence in their payment over ANY other government expenditure, including essential services.

        So, for the past decade, PR has entered a bizarre spiral of debt where it can't attract businesses anymore because it lost its exemptions, it can't restructure the debt or declare bankruptcy because for some weird reason it was specifically exempted by Congress from doing so, and it can't guarantee adequate funds for emergency services, public utilities, schools, etc. until it pays off its bond debts. When it appeals to relief from Congress just for restructuring (not a bailout), Wall Street lobbyists for investors who don't want to lose profits from bonds start calling Congressmen and running TV ads.

        Obviously a lot of mismanagement happened in Puerto Rico, BUT a lot of this has also been exacerbated by bizarre exemptions/incentives and shifts in U.S. policy regarding the island. Last year, there was a deal of sorts [wikipedia.org] approved by the federal government which can help with debt structuring, though various aspects of it are controversial.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 12 2017, @09:24PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 12 2017, @09:24PM (#524666)

          Yet another scam perpetrated by an elected official. Of course it was done to Puerto Rico, they are the red headed step child of the US that no one pays attention to. If this was any other state you can bet a lot of things would be reversed or fixed. Yay wallstreet scamming the public! Capitalism without the capital!

    • (Score: 2) by EvilSS on Monday June 12 2017, @04:06PM

      by EvilSS (1456) Subscriber Badge on Monday June 12 2017, @04:06PM (#524461)
      And as a state they will also have to start paying federal personal income tax, which they currently do not have to pay as citizens of a US territory.
  • (Score: 2) by VLM on Monday June 12 2017, @12:05PM

    by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Monday June 12 2017, @12:05PM (#524301)

    Some of that is minor case of Trump Derangement Syndrome in that you have to get past Congress first

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Admission_to_the_Union [wikipedia.org]

    In the case of PR, given that it is PR, I could see the situation going to the Supreme Court regardless who's prez or who's running congress, so essentially you'll have to get past all three branches.