[Tainari88]

Here you go Pants:

[Drlee]

MSNBC is reporting tonight that the USNS Comfort is in harbor in Puerto Rico and has been for several days. It has 800 medical professionals on board. It is currently treating 8 people. One of the DMAT team physicians has resigned because her team scheduled a "spa Day" and used the triage tents for their spa.

Meanwhile. People in Puerto Rico are dying of treatable bacterial infections. The response is a disgrace. I think we should ask Mexico to help us. We need competent leadership there. Obviously the three star general is in way over his head. He can't even get the 800 medical people on the comfort to do the DMAT spa days and leave the people of Puerto Rico to clean up their own mess.

I am absolutely disgusted by this. But it is no surprise. The republican party, my party, wants to devastate all of our health care. They are murderers.

[Tainari88]

Dr. Lee, I have never lived under illusions of decency from these corrupt freaks in the Republican party. There are few Republicans I respect. Kasich, the rep from New Mexico Susan, and a couple of others. The majority of them for me are total sellout pig politicians. That is your party. Accept the responsibility for these murderers. Racists. Pigs.

I hope they burn in hell for their existences for being dirty, disgusting, murdering Imperialists with racism and a white supremacist freak narcissist president. They are going to own all the people they will force to DIE because they put profit and their own cushioned existences above their constitutents and their own people in need in their own states. Puerto Rico needed to vote for independence long long ago. The independence Puerto Ricans were killed, gagged, jailed, intimidated and persecuted relentlessly by the USA government. They did not want to let us be an independent nation. They actively worked very hard making sure we could not break away. Now the master of the plantation has to feed the people they forced into this position and they want to RENEGE.

FUCK THEM!! I will hold all of these imperialist racist Republicans responsible for all the preventable deaths in the USA mainland and in Puerto Rico. They are directly responsible. And all of you supposedly decent Republicans had better do something about your dirtball pig Republican politicians or also have to bear the brunt of what they will do. Steve Bannon Right Wing white nationalist thinks the Prez has a 30 per cent chance of surviving his first term. If that is the case. All of you sellout Republicans deserve to be ousted. Bannon if he places his white supremacist incumbents in the seats? Will have a war on their hands. A race war and possible total breakdown of any form of equality in the USA. And you deserve it for failing to realize how your DUMB ass policies affect others all over the world. You have made your pig sty mud filled pig smelling politics and now the consequences are going to be hard to take. Rome is gonna fall. And I can guarantee you that other nations are gonna fill the vacuum. Karma is karma Dr. Lee. For everyone. Including the pig Republican murderers from the USA sellout party.

Que se jodan esos puercos! Que se vayan directo pa'l carajo con su politica imperialista sucia y puerca! And for my relatives in Puerto Rico who are statehooders and whom I have heard from finally for the first time from on the phone today....they were fucking SHOCKED by what the Republican Trump has said to them in tweets. They did not know. Now they know and they are totally shocked. And for the first time in decades they told me "Tainari, you were right. Should never have believed that the American white people think we are equals. You were right. They don't care. They never did. They only care about profits and their own nation. We are not them. They are not us. " You are gonna see a finally United Puerto Rico. And once that happens? The statehooders, the Status Quo PPD, and the PIP pro independence folks on the island? You are going to see a United Puerto Rico. All of us have one thing in common. We love Puerto Rico and we love to speak Spanish and we love our families. And if we are united? Nothing on this earth is going to keep us from working for our own benefit.

And we are not some cold Anglos Dr. Lee. Nothing about our national character is either cold or unfeeling. If we think an injustice has been committed against us? The USA is gonna pay. It will. Watch.....

[jimjam]

It boggles the mind how remarkably incompetent and lacking even the slightest trace of wisdom trump is. Puerto Rico? Simply a minor annoyance to THE GREAT MAN.

And the Trump administration seems increasingly to see this tragedy as a public relations issue, something to be spun — partly by blaming the victims — rather than as an urgent problem to be solved.

From the beginning, Donald Trump — who literally seems to think that he deserves praise for throwing a few rolls of paper towels into a crowd — has suggested that Puerto Rico is responsible for its own disaster, and he has systematically denigrated the efforts of its people to take care of one another.

Early this week, for example, he tweeted out a video showing a positive view of recovery efforts very much at odds with most independent reporting, and featuring remarkably few Puerto Ricans. And as The Washington Post notes, there’s a very telling piece of editing: One segment showed Forest Service workers clearing a road, but it cut off just before the official being interviewed praised local efforts: “The citizens of Puerto Rico were doing an outstanding job coming out and clearing roads to help get the aid that’s needed.”

Puerto Ricans behaving well, it seems, doesn’t fit the official story line.

[foxdemon]

https://qz.com/1094614/dominica-recovery-new-before-and-after-photos-from-hurricane-maria-show-vast-devastation/

Things are bad all over the Caribbean. The US government should recognise that this will take a year or so of funding to resolve.

But what happens if hurricanes of this intensity hit again next year?

[Tainari88]

Look Foxdemon, I happen to think the storms are part of Climate Change. They are. In our history as a recorded country or nation Puerto Rico has never been hit by two storms in a two week period from each other. Never. This is DIFFERENT.

Florida, Texas and other states and other nations are going to suffer all kinds of natural disasters. California and Hurricane Sandy and many others are going to increase in frequency and force because we are seeing the after effects of the polar ice caps melting, rising sea levels and global warming. All of this translates into natural disasters. And Mother Nature is not going to respect nationalities. It will distribute the tragedies equitably.

The same vulture hedge fund capitalists who created this horrific financial situation for Puerto Rico all will do the same thing in the states and there will be states in the red who will need to be bailed out. Why? Because the vulture capitalists don't care about nations per se. They are not nationalists. This is what people like Steve Bannon understand but they think the solution is to have a fight with them and oust them from power and replace them with pro fascist pro USA nationalists. That is not the solution. Capitalism is international in scope and they can hide and still have tremendous influence over USA internal elections. Because some of these corporations budgets outweigh entire nations GDPs. The solution has to be internationalist if there is a snowball chance in hell of being able to reign in these totally ethic absent people making money hand over fist over tragedy. Whether it be the Goldman Sachs bailout of 2008 or other things. If these people don't face the consequences with some force by organized public pressures based on decent values in many many nations? No one can stop them. And they don't care if you are white and American. They only care if they can force you to give them more profits and not have to pay the government from their profit coffers by controlling all the politicians all over the world where they do business.

I find it laughable that the USA citizens don't even understand their own reality. You have no information on places like Puerto Rico that are part of your sphere. Not even do you know US...the people you control completely? How much do you know of other nations and societies you have messed with for a long time? Probably nothing.

Your ignorance is going to cost you everything. Absolutely everything. You can't run a nation filled with people who know nothing about their own government. It is a recipe for disaster.

[Drlee]

Your ignorance is going to cost you everything. Absolutely everything. You can't run a nation filled with people who know nothing about their own government. It is a recipe for disaster.

Well you are indulging in a bit of justifiable wishful thinking but your point is good. We Americans (Puerto Ricans included) do not understand even the rudiments of international finance or economic theory. It is not taught in our schools. At best our students teach labels but that is all.

Now, the latest horror from Puerto Rico is that in the desperate search for water, some residents are getting it from Superfund sites.

https://www.theverge.com/2017/10/13/16474428/puerto-rico-hurricane-maria-superfund-site-water-shortage-epa-recovery

This week has been an absolute horror for our nation. I am convinced that Russia is behind this and will start a thread on it. Suffice it to say that we have an administration and congress that is intent on getting us into two wars, dismantling the EU and destroying what we laughingly call our "medical system". It is outrageous and yet there is little outrage.

Perhaps Puerto Rico ought to ask Russia for aid. It is awash in cash and could use some military bases nearby. Then declare "independence" and restart the clock.

I am still angered with the idiocy of my fellow conservatives. They simply lack the ability to see what is going on. Educated conservatives voted for Hillary but the collection of dullards who remain aligned with the republican party are truly a danger to themselves and others.

Just yesterday I spoke to a man with an obvious medical condition, in his 50's, wearing a MAGA hat. He was adamant that "nobody will raise my rates on medical insurance". Raise his rates? They are not going to cover him at all if the ACA goes away. And with major cuts in Medicaid he is unlikely to get care from the state. He is a danger to himself. He simply does not realize that events are in train to deprive him of the ability to get coverage at all once the pre-existing condition coverage mandated in the PPACA is dropped.

We have a racist party in power in the US. It is not officially racist but it relies on racism for its very existence. It has deliberately drawn congressional boundaries along racial lines. Openly done it and admitted that it has. It has created the ability to control government seats by excluding minorities from representation. And it is defending this practice before the Supreme Court as I write this. A Supreme Court it stackedin their favor in the most disreputable way.

So into this climate comes Puerto Rico; a place about which most Americans quite literally never think. A place with a relationship to our government that most Americans do not even understand. People with absolutely no political power at the federal level relying on the "good graces" of a political party that wants to deport just about everyone who looks like them and speaks their language. A party that is completely focused on a very few districts in a very few places and that has already shown that it considers ALL minorities the opposition. And this is true if one looks at voting data. Minorities ARE the republican opposition almost to the man.

Just look at the conservatives on this site. Not one of them rises to defend Puerto Rico. They are not ashamed of their racism. They have couched it in terms of crime, guns, immigration and moral hazard. Their prosperity gospel religious leaders feed them the "if God wanted "them" (minorities) to be rich he would reward them for their "good works".

I am afraid that the story of Puerto Rico aid is pretty much over. Do not expect much more than the poor effort you see now. There is a general in charge. That gives mainlanders a warm fuzzy though he appears to be in way over his head. (Or afraid to ask for what he really needs.) The president has already declared the mission a "great success". Fox News, where most so-called conservatives get their only news when they get any at all, is not raising the red flag. And in the midst of this humanitarian crisis, the administration is focused on Puerto Rico's debt problem.

I am so sorry to say it but 'you' have got what you are going to get Tinari88. It is a disgrace. The few of us remaining in the Republican party who actually have a modicum of compassion and a rudimentary knowledge of the real situation simply huddle at the back of meetings and discuss this using bigger words than the rest of the meeting can understand. Someday we will get our voice back. Maybe not in my time but someday. I fear there is at least a decade or two of this yet to continue.

IMO the best hope for Puerto Rico is independence. Dump the US and the debt and tough it out. You are going to have to tough it out anyway so no time like the present.

[foxdemon]

Look Foxdemon, I happen to think the storms are part of Climate Change. They are. In our history as a recorded country or nation Puerto Rico has never been hit by two storms in a two week period from each other. Never. This is DIFFERENT.

Quite possibly that is the case. So the storms will be back, if not next year, then a year or two after. The people can’t keep rebuilding only to get it all knocked down again.

We need to be realistic.

Firstly, the new infrastructure has to be built to a standard that can withstand repeated storms of this magnitude.

Secondly, it might be the case that a significant number of the people will need to migrate from the Caribbean to mainland America. Climate migration is going to be a thing. If the storms keep coming back before full recovery, then people are going to have to move.

I find it laughable that the USA citizens don't even understand their own reality. You have no information on places like Puerto Rico that are part of your sphere. Not even do you know US...the people you control completely? How much do you know of other nations and societies you have messed with for a long time? Probably nothing.

Your ignorance is going to cost you everything. Absolutely everything. You can't run a nation filled with people who know nothing about their own government. It is a recipe for disaster.

Who me? But, but..I am not American.


@Drlee This is not the time to cut Puerto Rico lose. It isn’t responsible to wait for a disaster then let them go. It would look like America would prefer to grant independence rather than foot the bill to fix things up.

[Tainari88]

IMO the best hope for Puerto Rico is independence. Dump the US and the debt and tough it out. You are going to have to tough it out anyway so no time like the present.

Dr. Lee, I already figured out independence is the only way out for us. I knew that since I could pick up a book on our history and read it. My mother was the president of the Puerto Rican Independence Party in New York City from 1970-1972. At that time it represented the same group in the Bronx that the now Puerto Rican guy New York State Senator Gustavo Rivera represents now. But for the PIP. She worked closely with Ruben Berrios Martinez who was the head of the PIP for a long time. Ruben Berrios is this guy:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rub%C3%A9n_Berr%C3%ADos


So where has this gotten us? Arrests, cancer, jailings and no progress politically. Because it is really about FEAR. A long time ago Ruben Berrios Martinez stated that when he was younger he used to talk to Puerto Ricans thinking a logical, well thought out plan and a great sense of ethnic pride and need to be our own nation with control of our own destiny was enough to turn the tide. Over the years? He realized that politics is really about FEAR. Fear of losing money, jobs, changing things and fear of the unknown. Also fear of jail and the USA coming in and murdering everyone for being people who wanted to live free and be their own bosses. It is ironic that a nation who has 'land of the free and home of the brave' really hate other nations and people who want to live in a free land and who are BRAVE in facing a nation who is many times more powerful and has more money and more military might by far and stand up to them....and yet they (The USA) can't tolerate dissent from their own controlling Imperial agenda.

The USA has turned into King George in 1776. They have betrayed their own principles. Sam Clemens (Mark Twain) warned that if the USA acquired colonial territories that the sickness of English colonialism would corrupt the foundation of American democracy. I think the writer of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn was right. The USA betrayed its own principles a long time ago. Dr. Lee I am an athropologist and I studied ancient and dead civilizations. All of them wound up betraying their own principles, abusing their privileges and exploiting to excess their natural resources and they wound up losing it all in the process. And none of them thought they were going to die off. Why? Because they all believed their success (the elites in their societies) were above the law and they did not have to abide by their own set of principles. You betray your principles? You lose it all. That is what I learned digging up old pieces of history out of ancient civs. That is how you lose it all. Hubris, arrogance, lack of respect for others and for the rules of dealing with the environment you live in.

[Drlee]

That is how you lose it all. Hubris, arrogance, lack of respect for others and for the rules of dealing with the environment you live in.

Too true. Just because people lose respect for what they have does not mean that other people will not still desire it. The US has already surrendered much of what it had and is surrendering more every day. We saw monumentally stupid people fall for the "trust me I am really rich" line. "I just love the uneducated". Oh Lord what have they done.

In another thread a so-called conservative blamed the problem with education in the US on integrating the schools. Then he staunchly maintained he was not racist. How can you deal with such stupidity? What does one offer in the face of such a lack of intelligence and education?

The die has already been cast I fear. They sneaked up on us while we were busy carping about abortion, gay marriage and kneeling during the national anthem. It is fait accompli.

[Stormsmith]

Don't give up hope. Trump might inspire the next FDR. Not Saunders, someone smarter.

[Tainari88]

Dr Lee. I think the USA is going to be losing its grip on many problems all over the world. You got a dude there Trump man who is filled with hubris and a lack of true statesmanship and leadership abilities. He still thinks he is on the "Apprentice" show or something. He doesn't see a difference between TV crap and dealing with complex stuff. He doesn't get that he is a figurehead and that the presidency in the USA is about complexity and that he can't really do whatever he wants to do.

Nixon famously said something (and I paraphrase) "It is hard controlling the beast." He was talking about all the realities of power and what it means in politics. People who are in the highest rungs of power are master manipulators, and are innate compromise prone people. They can't be radicals. In order to change a society for the better the reality is you need a large mass of popular pressure. And that usually means blood is running in the streets first. In the 1960's it was an era of incredible social, economic and political upheaval. And there were presidential assassinations, cover ups, conspiracies, mass protests, clashes for power and wars. That usually is an opening stage for change.

Rarely has there been true and sustained change without some heads being blown off, mass protests and ugly repression and back and forth in tense confrontations. That has been the pattern forever for human political institutions. Forever.

And I think human beings have not changed their DNA in the last 15, 000 years that much. The Power of Myth and hubris and a bunch of false crap is the order of day. Here in the USA. In Europe and in many places. After all we are all one species. With a shared history. And a shared love of fighting it out for power. When will we learn a better way? I hope soon. We are running out of time.

[jimjam]

Don't give up hope. Trump might inspire the next FDR. Not Saunders, someone smarter.

That is my hope. That out of the ruins and stench left behind, America will have learned a lesson. This is, of course, not guaranteed. Trump is playing with a fire that he cannot be aware of. We will see.

When will we learn a better way? I hope soon. We are running out of time.

It is my sense that we will run out of time. The quest for power that is genetically hard wired into humans will lay waste to this paradise called earth. The earth's population when I was born was 2,500,000,000. Today it is 7,600,000,000. This is all you need to know.

[foxdemon]

@Tainari88 The USA is losing it’s grip. So what? America doesn’t need global hegemony. It is a very fortunate nation with the world’s greatest expanse of agricultural land, and it is very distant from rival nations. Predictions for 2050 are USA in third place. That is among what 180 or so nations. It still looks pretty good.

The Americans need to sort themselves out and get over the power thing. What is needed is a responsible conservatism. At present American conservatism is as bubbleheaded as Western leftie PC nonsense. Possibly because they share in common the liberal thinking that is the foundation of Western ideological hegemony. American conservatives like @Drlee want to find their why back to where they were before. Giving up on empire is no easy thing.

Despondency, looking back to past glory, blaming others...this is not what America needs. They need to pull up their socks and stride boldly into the future.

Now, I’m sure you will take a critical view of my opinions. But Dr Lee and similar Americans are not bad people. I think we should be encouraging them to get up and make a go of it. Least those that aren’t so good get to have all the say.

[Rich]

I would like to discuss what is the future of the USA with its colonial possessions and territories and how undemocratic the USA has become?

Yeah right, you who thinks that Puerto Rico should be independent, when 4 Puerto Ricans in a thousand bothered to vote for independence in the last referendum. You show your total contempt for the wishes of the people of Puerto Rico. So weak is the PR independence movement that they have ot resort to trying to get White people to force independence on Puerto Ricans against their wishes.

I feel sympathy for all the decent Puerto Ricans who voted for statehood, unfortunately there are too many parasites in Puerto Rico who want to avoid the taxes and responsibilities of Statehood. Puerto Rico would soon get statehood if the majority voted for it.

[Drlee]

Puerto Rico would soon get statehood if the majority voted for it.

Though I am sympathetic to your concerns about some Puerto Ricans realizing that they stand to gain very little from statehood I think the above is preposterous.

There is absolutely no way, short of a filibuster proof democratic majority in the Senate that this can happen. The republicans would sacrifice children and cast bones to stop it. Create two certain democratic senate seats? Never.

That is if you could get the territory to adapt a form of government in the first place that complies with all of our constitutional requirements. I don't really know about that in detail.

Unless we have a democratic president and unassailable majority in both houses, Puerto Rico will never be a state.

[Tainari88]

Yeah right, you who thinks that Puerto Rico should be independent, when 4 Puerto Ricans in a thousand bothered to vote for independence in the last referendum. You show your total contempt for the wishes of the people of Puerto Rico. So weak is the PR independence movement that they have ot resort to trying to get White people to force independence on Puerto Ricans against their wishes.

I feel sympathy for all the decent Puerto Ricans who voted for statehood, unfortunately there are too many parasites in Puerto Rico who want to avoid the taxes and responsibilities of Statehood. Puerto Rico would soon get statehood if the majority voted for it.

You lack political analysis in a very fundamental way. Why do you think Puerto Ricans are statutory citizens of the USA and not constitutional citizens? You should study the insular cases. Puerto Ricans brought the lack of voting rights as USA citizens all the way to the SCOTUS to 'test' what status we actually have? You honestly believe that the USA gov't who did not even respect majority popular votes on the mainland---are going to respect a popular vote for statehood in Puerto Rico?

Study this case--Balzac versus Porto Rico. That is one of the earliest cases. The SCOTUS and other courts (all federal ones), uses that legal precedent to deny Puerto Ricans the same rights as constitutionally guaranteed citizens. You need to ask yourself why the American Court system is doing this in the first place? Puerto Ricans have asked for binding referendums. Legally binding referendums on status. The congress refuses to grant them. Ask yourself WHY??

Next, if you studied the Puerto Rican independence movement it was basically dismantled by the USA. Why would they do that? If they truly believe in a democracy? Munoz Rivera and Munoz Marin. Both Luis MR and Luis MM (father and son) were involved in the PPD who was the majority party through the 40's and the 50's and sixties too. They were pro autonomy party. Study their relationship to the Roosevelt administration.

The statehood PNP party in Puerto Rico was not founded until 1968. And Puerto Ricans did not start that party Rich. No Puerto Ricans were the founder of the statehood party. Why not? Study that. Figure it out. You don't know a lot about Puerto Rican internal politics because you believe a bunch of propaganda bullshit that are balls of smoke created by the USA gov't to cover up their colonial crap ideas in front of the decolonization committee of the United Nations that asked the USA why it held colonies that weren't allowed to vote or have their own representation in Washington DC.

You are going to have work a lot harder than you are in figuring out Puerto Rican political issues. You are failing. I give you an "F" grade. Trump likes to give grades...I give you an "F" on what you know about Puerto Rican politics.

Start with insular cases and go from there:

I am going to give it to you:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balzac_v._Porto_Rico

Let me highlight what the issue is with Puerto Rican voting rights. because you are under the illusion that the USA runs all of its 'territories' the same way as they do their states. And even the states now are in danger of having elections where the majority of the voters vote for someone but that person doesn't get the seat. Why? Can you figure it out Rich?

This is what they said:

Balzac v. Porto Rico, 258 U.S. 298 (1922), was a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States held that certain provisions of the U.S. Constitution did not apply to territories not incorporated into the union

Jesús M. Balzac edited the newspaper El Baluarte. Balzac wrote an article referring indirectly to the colonial governor at the time, Arthur Yager; the article was considered libelous by the authorities.[1] Pursuant to the Jones Act of 1917, which granted Puerto Ricans American citizenship among other guarantees, Balzac sought jury trial under the Sixth Amendment. In denying the request for jury trial, the Supreme Court of Puerto Rico relied on two 1918 decisions by the United States Supreme Court: People v. Tapia, 245 U.S. 639 (1918), and People v. Muratti, also at 245 U.S. 639 (1918). These two per curiam decisions cited the earlier Insular Cases and held that provisions of the Bill of Rights were inapplicable to Puerto Rico even after the passage of the Jones Act.

The unanimous opinion of the Court was delivered by Chief Justice Taft. He argued that although the Jones Act had granted citizenship to Puerto Ricans, it had not incorporated Puerto Rico into the Union. Although Puerto Rico had been under the control of the United States since the end of the Spanish–American War in 1898, the territory had not been designated for ultimate statehood, and Congress could determine which parts of the Constitution would apply. Taft distinguished Puerto Rico from the territory in the Alaska purchase, acquired from Russia in 1867, which had been held to be incorporated in Rasmussen v. United States. Thus, particular constitutional provisions were applied based on location, rather than on citizenship.

Taft's grounds for denying jury trial specifically echoed earlier Insular Cases reasoning. He argued that because Puerto Rico had been governed by Spanish civil law for four hundred years before American acquisition, the inhabitants would be unprepared for jury service. Taft argued that locals should be able to determine their own laws:

Congress has thought that a people like the Filipinos, or the Porto Ricans, trained to a complete judicial system which knows no juries, living in compact and ancient communities, with definitely formed customs and political conceptions, should be permitted themselves to determine how far they wish to adopt this institution of Anglo-Saxon origin, and when.

— 258 U.S. 298, 310
Toward the end of the opinion, the court uses "language that would lead to perpetual litigation in an effort to clarify the rights of the American citizens of Puerto Rico:"[2]

The guaranties of certain fundamental personal rights declared in the Constitution, as, for instance, that no person could be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law, had from the beginning full application in the Philippines and Porto Rico, and, as this guaranty is one of the must fruitful in causing litigation in our own country, provision was naturally made for similar controversy in Porto Rico.

— 258 U.S. 298, 312–313
The court leaves unresolved the exact "personal rights" that were so "fundamental" that they would extend to American citizens in Puerto Rico.

Tell me Rich why would the SCOTUS who til this very day still uses this ancient obsolete statute and law in place when Puerto Ricans challenge it in court? Can you answer for me why that would happen? One of them is that Puerto Ricans and others like the US Virgin Islands, Guam, etc Including American Samoa that has the WORST damn deal in the world in the acquired possessions statutes I have ever seen in my life. They literally are people without a fucking right to ANYTHING. They are not even USA citizens, and they are not nationals and they are LIMBO people without any rights or any privileges under any law in the USA. But the Samoans serve in the USA military in great numbers versus their actual population.

How come you have not heard about these 'insular cases' Rich? Is it because you believe all that SHIT the USA gov't feeds you and you like a leming believe it? Answer me that one? :D

Rich, the congress stated that Puerto Rico is not allowed to determine if it wants statehood. So how is that democracy? If the congress of the USA decided to change those laws? It would have to grant statehood to all of the unincorporated territories. All of them. Why would that be a problem for the USA gov't? Think Rich. You are going to have to think.

I want you to finally think about this with some seriousness. Why would the SCOTUS say 'statehood wasn't in the cards for Puerto Rico and that is why you can't be treated like a state with the full protection of the bill of rights." So---what is the congress' plans for places like Puerto Rico if statehood is not in the cards? And why found a political party that is not founded by Puerto Ricans themselves (THE PNP) if statehood was not in the cards? Why on earth would they do that if they know it is not going to be granted to them through the courts?

[Pants-of-dog]

Okay, so the video is as follows:

It seems like a talk show, and the host has invited an economist by the name of Dr. Rosario Rivera. Dr. Rivera then goes on to break down the numbers of money that go to and from PR and the USA.

She uses the year 2008-2009 because this is the year for which she has all the numbers for a comprehensive analysis.

The first seems to be federal payments for infrastructure and to federal departments in PR. This is approximately $2,704,000.

The second amount seems to be unilateral payments from the US to individuals, such as welfare payments, Medicaid, etc. About 37% of the families in PR receive something, and it works out to about $125 per family receiving said payments. This is approximately $1,923,000.

The running total is 4,627,000$ from the US to PR.

The next amount is basically tax returns, or amounts paid by individual Puerto Ricans that is then returned to them if they file a tax return and it is determined they get some of this money back. So, while it is a payment from the US to PR, it is money that the PR people earned, paid to the US and get back. So, this is $8,902,000.

The running total is 13,530,000$ from the US to PR.

They then look at money that goes from PR to the US.

Now, PR buys a lot of stuff from the USA. This amounts to $22,600,000 each year.

PR is home to many multinationals that send their profits out of the country. This anounts to $34,000,000.

Apparently, there is a law that states that all products shippped between PR and the Us must be transported by a specific US merchant fleet. So when PR wants to send something to the US, it has to pay the US. This amounts to $1,500,000.

So, the total amount paid to PR from the US is $4,627,000.

The total amount paid to the US from the PR is $71,650,000.

[Tainari88]

The total amount paid to the US from the PR is $71,650,000.

Yes Pants of Dog. That is correct. Jesus Rivera via Rosario Rivera economist with a PhD specializing in Puerto Rican economic data stated that.

Rich thinks we are not ready for the 'responsibility' of 'taxes' and so on...because we are welfare leeches.

This is the crap of smoke balls that the USA mainland folks live under. Why? Because the USA gov't doesn't want to be called out for what it is. They live off of us. Not we of them. Why hold on to territories if you can't get more out of them than what you are putting in? The reason for having slavery in the USA was to get more juice out of the slave than what you are putting in. The reason for keeping us as an unincorporated territory was to profit, get some good useful cannon fodder out of our unemployed youth for wars for the Empire, and to have the entire island for military bases every time the USA got an itch to invade Panama, Central America, and to keep an eye on those pesky Cubans. Fidel Castro the perpetual thorn in the side.....sticking his middle finger in the Empire from 90 miles away.

The PNP was a solution to fears about losing Puerto Rico to socialists and democratic types that might fall into the clutches of the Domino effect of falling socialists...like Chilean ex prez on September 11th 1973 en el palacio de la moneda in Santiago Chile. Got to fear those freaks. They want to control their own economies. Got to make sure that doesn't happen. Corporations first, send in the troops next to cement the control of the area. It is the American formula.

[Pants-of-dog]

A lot of people in the US have no idea how the US has enforced capitalism at gunpoint in Latin America despite the wishes of the populace.