arsenette
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Post by arsenette on Nov 7, 2012 2:05:45 GMT -5
It's been going for my entire lifetime.. the thought of redefining our association with the USA. It's a bitterly contested fight in the Island and the votes always correspond with the Presidential Election of the USA so it always goes under the radar. To give you an example.. we don't travel to Puerto Rico during election time because of the crime rate. It's not as simple as Republican/Democrat in Puerto Rico. It's far more complicated with HUGE implications to your life and the future of this island nation (yes I said Nation). Today though there's a legit possibility that they might get it though. In the past each vote was split almost right down the middle but for now (only half the reporting is in) it's in the 60%+ range. Obviously for me (Rambling Rican) it's a personal thing to follow this but if it does succeed it will affect everything here in the USA. Everything from funding (Social, Defense, etc.), Congressional Votes, another state in the Electoral map, and the list goes on. Heck.. even people are bitching about how the USA flag is going to look like shoving another star on it Here's an article on it that had the 60+% range: www.chron.com/news/world/article/Puerto-Rico-votes-on-US-ties-and-chooses-governor-4012422.phpThe two-part referendum first asked voters if they wanted to change Puerto Rico's 114-year relationship with the United States. A second question gave voters three alternatives if they wanted a change: become a U.S. state, gain independence, or have a "sovereign free association," a designation that would give more autonomy for the territory of 4 million people.
With 243 of 1,643 precincts reporting late Tuesday, 75,188 voters, or 53 percent, said they did not want to continue under the current political status. Forty-seven percent, or 67,304 voters, supported the status quo.
On the second question, 65 percent favored statehood, followed by 31 percent for sovereign free association and 4 percent for independence. *********************** EDIT: Posting the link to the vote (that seems to be updated as precincts are covered) www.ceepur.org/REYDI_NocheDelEvento/index.html#en/default/CONDICION_POLITICA_TERRITORIAL_ACTUAL_ISLA.xmlInteresting development as I typed this: The first question was if you want to change the status and THAT is the part most people are not reporting on: 53.99% are saying NO to keeping status (with 95% reporting) with 46.01% saying YES to accepting current status. This proves outright that Puerto Rico is still split and therefore no clear mandate. I'm waiting until I see what Congress is going to do. In the recent past (Alaska and Hawaii) both came into the Union with landslide votes (well above 75%) so I'm curious how Congress will handle 54%. Being barely half with the other half vehemently opposing I don't see this happening. For those who are interested in this stuff there was an article explaining the process (written in July) hpronline.org/united-states/puerto-rico-and-its-precedents/White house page on Puerto Rico: www.whitehouse.gov/administration/eop/iga/puerto-rico
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Anshin
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Post by Anshin on Nov 7, 2012 2:27:25 GMT -5
I don't know too much about the politics of Puerto Rico, but I am going to say that I support a move to induct the nation as a US state.
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arsenette
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Post by arsenette on Nov 7, 2012 2:31:50 GMT -5
Edit (had to revise due to misinterpretation of question): I'm biased myself and would have voted "yes" with the rest of my family but seems the rest of the nation is resoundingly going with "no". HOWEVER.. the no is comprised of Statehood AND Independence (which we know are opposite ends of the spectrum). I misinterpreted this convoluted question.. I thought it was "yes and no" with changing status.. but it was "NO" combined with 2 opposite points of view while "yes" in keeping status.. which sounds studid and misleading. Seems everyone was looking at the 2nd question that only becomes valid if the first question if statehood was a high margin. Right now "no" in current status is winning but it's incredibly misleading. This is the same crap Clinton tried to do twice during his presidency putting misleading questions on the ballot. Back then everyone was so pissed off at him they all put "none of the above".. The opposing (and now leading party) was told to not vote on the 2nd question since it was considered irrelevant. The 2nd question didn't even have a status quo answer which is the main focus of the leading party and that was not even included in the ballot. To give you an example.. Both Alaska and Hawaii passed the 75% margin that Congress wanted to keep the peace in each of those territories. Anything lower than that can cause a civil war. Right now a 54/46 split is not a clear mandate that Obama already has gone on record in asking. In the past Congress has demanded over 75%. None have been met. As for further understanding someone put it on twitter. Nope, the current status (SI) Got 46 percent of the vote. Change (NO) got 53% but statehood is 60% out of 53% therefore 30% YES won 46% no other option won as much. You can't say NO won because the 53% number is Independence + Statehood votes exactly the NO option isn't a status like the Yes option, the No is simply a gateway to the non-territorial options you can't have a simulatenous Statehood + Independence YES got 831,284 votes, clearly more than statehood
And lastly.. the Governor of Puerto Rico didn't go to the PNP (Statehood Party) but actually to the "Popular" party so that was the critical difference: www.ceepur.org/REYDI_NocheDelEvento/index.html#en/default/GOBERNADOR_ISLA.xmlresultados.puertoricodecide.com/2012/elecciones/gobernador.aspx?papeleta=estatalTo simplify it .. it's the job of the governor to bring the matter to congress about a vote for statehood anyway.. so all of this is pretty much moot with a split vote between the referendum and the governorship. Further discontent that the current party (Popular what you would call the status quo) was not represented in the referendum...
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arsenette
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Post by arsenette on Nov 7, 2012 6:54:50 GMT -5
Spent the last few hours listening to Puerto Rican Politics and just short of a holy war is being declared by the losing party. The losing party (PNP - statehood party) of the governorship is vowing to take the results of the referendum to Washington during their lame duck session. There's a number of problems with it. The question was rigged by not allowing the other party (Popular - incoming governor) an actual representative question. Shades of the Clinton two plebiscites are coming back in full force where the voters voted out the PNP and voted "none of the above". The "No" was a combined effort of 2 opposing parties and only those who answered "no" had a chance at answering the 2nd question (which had the 61% statehood). I doubt Congress will even listen to it given the fragility of the PR Politics and how razor thin the margin is even with this current governorship (less an 1%) and the fact that almost half the country did not want to change status. It took the statehood and Independence party to partner-up to doctor the 54% which does not satisfy the super-majority needed for statehood in this country. Again.. if they do this it will be defeated in Congress but I do expect some political theater in the next month as the outgoing governor will do a mad scramble to take this to Congress before he's booted out of office. Passing Popcorn ya'll..
Got off the phone with some of my family.. there is much screaming and freaking out about the rigged vote. It's all over the news.. but the outgoing gov will try to take it to congress. I really doubt Congress will honor a vote where 46% of the population opposes the change.
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Post by thatoneuser on Nov 7, 2012 12:38:10 GMT -5
CNN article: www.cnn.com/2012/11/07/politics/election-puerto-rico/index.htmlCombining the two votes: Current status - 46% Statehood - 33% Sovereign free association - 17% Independence - 2% Yes I realize that is only 96%. My point is, less than 1/3 of Puerto Ricans actually approve of statehood so I am confident the measure will fail in Congress.
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arsenette
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Post by arsenette on Nov 8, 2012 0:49:17 GMT -5
Exactly. I remember all of last night talking to my fellow Puerto Ricans on the other side (the Statehood) who have always been surprisingly honest about the situation and they were trying to tell everyone outside of the media that the number was actually 33%. They want to win fair and square and they acknowledged the fishiness of last night's vote leaving more than half the country out of the ballot. I am happy about that CNN article because it actually understood the complexity of the problem. The fact that the Popular party was voted back into office in not only the Governorship but almost as important the mayor of San Juan (long story but this is huge..) was a clear indication of the split in the country. Given past history with other statehood votes sent to the Congress of the USA.. I doubt this will go further. Maybe one day.. but not right now. The country is divided on the issue and has been for all of my life. P.S. New article from AP: www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hLsBqt8B2LWU_5fxdinssiagaZBg?docId=8ca22c65109b42bab34c1fc8e651519dBut Tuesday's vote comes with an asterisk and an imposing political reality: The island remains bitterly divided over its relationship to the United States and many question the validity of this week's referendum.
Nearly a half million voters chose to leave a portion of the ballot blank. And voters also ousted the pro-statehood governor, eliminating one of the main advocates for a cause that would need the approval of the U.S. Congress.
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arsenette
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Post by arsenette on Jan 3, 2017 12:13:49 GMT -5
Yes this is resurrecting an old thread, however it is relevant to this discussion since this vote will be taken into account (and I expect similar results). Here's the current news - AP Article "Puerto Rico's new gov promises immediate push for statehood" This time though I think it might work (to get another vote) given the dire straights the island is in right now. The economic impact though to the USA will be huuuuuuuge... so I expect a pretty big fight in Congress about Puerto Rico. However, it's obvious none of the idiots on the island can run it effectively. USA won't just make them independent and fend for themselves (Independence Party never got more than 12%) and besides the island is just too dependent on the USA for it to survive on it's own. Staying status quo is not working (and haven't for years even though I supported that measure for literally all of my life), but statehood brings up an interesting dilemma. Several times Congress has allowed the island to vote whether or not they wanted to drop the Commonwealth Status and either be fully absorbed into the USA, keep the current status or let go entirely. There are no real political parties like Republican or Democrat. The whole island is pretty left leaning so it's different flavors of liberal. Democrats would probably want the island to turn into a state so they can have another set of electoral votes, however the financial crisis that is going on now will make that a tough sell in Congress to approve. The other is the language (the island speaks Spanish with very little English assimilation). I expect this to be brought up as soon as possible and given how they have already defaulted financially on an epic scale.. this is going to be something to watch. If Congress approves this, I expect a massive bailout to save the island's infrastructure which already has started to collapse under the weight of the debt incurred from decades of corruption.
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Post by Cosmic Castaway on Jan 6, 2017 18:07:46 GMT -5
For shallow reasons, this born and raised Puerto Rican has always thought until now that PR should be a state always. I think it's amazing that politics never really meant anything to me and it took listening right now to an Immortal Technique album that challenges everything I ever believed in and drove the point home that PR should rule itself when other political artists never really got me thinking outside the box. Sorry if I am rambling, I usually don't speak my mind out of fear of it being challenged and/or persecuted. Also, if this doesn't really have anything to do with what the main issue at hand is, I apologize in advance. I just felt this thread to be a necessary place to vent my frustrations.
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arsenette
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Post by arsenette on Jan 6, 2017 18:12:47 GMT -5
Nah I think it's relevant. My family was evenly split three ways. Half were PNP half were Popular and a small vocal minority were Independentista. I was Popular literally my whole life. I personally wish we could throw all of them out and start over but that's just not going to happen. I mean.. for a place literally the size of south Jersey where I live now.. how the hell can you get $30 BILLION dollars in debt? Sadly the island is so dependent on others to survive they don't have the means to take care of themselves. While it's a pipe dream to govern themselves, history.. especially recent history has proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that none are capable of doing it risking the whole island to become a Cuban colony.
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Post by gtoneko on Mar 17, 2017 11:16:39 GMT -5
Sorry for bringing this back up, but there's a vid on YouTube from Last Week Tonight that talks about Puerto Rico for their debt that was a topic from 10 months ago. Wanting to be careful about linking the vid, so I didn't for now, but in a way, it's relevant for how the talk/discussion about having Puerto Rico as a state is something that even I'm split on with how in some cases, it should, but other cases, they're fine as is.
I just know that with the way things are going for now, it's going to be a rocky future, not just for Puerto Rico, but for the US in general.
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arsenette
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Post by arsenette on Mar 17, 2017 20:27:23 GMT -5
I don't see why you can't link it given that it is relevant to what we are talking about. It's a messy situation that everyone in PR has gotten themselves into. It's really bad. They are losing about 30,000 residents a month.. most moving to the USA or other Spanish speaking nations.
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Post by gtoneko on Mar 17, 2017 21:51:30 GMT -5
Since you've given the ok, here's the link above. Thankfully, the show Last Week Tonight likes to be as thorough as possible overall.
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arsenette
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Post by arsenette on Mar 18, 2017 2:18:43 GMT -5
I appreciate this video. Yeah it's comic and boorish but if that helps people understand how utterly effed they are right now it's worth a watch. Thanks for linking it! To be honest I was crying at the end.
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Post by gtoneko on Mar 19, 2017 3:36:56 GMT -5
I appreciate this video. Yeah it's comic and boorish but if that helps people understand how utterly effed they are right now it's worth a watch. Thanks for linking it! To be honest I was crying at the end. Overall, this show is the kind that helps makes sense for a "layman" of what's happening in our country (and the Dalai Lama) like how Carl Sagan used to help with the field of science.
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arsenette
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Post by arsenette on Mar 19, 2017 5:19:57 GMT -5
I appreciate this video. Yeah it's comic and boorish but if that helps people understand how utterly effed they are right now it's worth a watch. Thanks for linking it! To be honest I was crying at the end. Overall, this show is the kind that helps makes sense for a "layman" of what's happening in our country (and the Dalai Lama) like how Carl Sagan used to help with the field of science. Scary part is that it is only a fraction of wtf is going on there. Still though, this explains a lot and in a way that others that normally wouldn't care might actually take another look. One way or the other this affects every US Citizen and that's not even touching the statehood issue.
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arsenette
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Post by arsenette on May 4, 2017 11:54:17 GMT -5
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Post by RiderLeangle on Jun 9, 2017 17:16:38 GMT -5
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arsenette
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Post by arsenette on Jun 9, 2017 19:56:10 GMT -5
Geez another.. though I don't doubt it coming from the Rosello family which has been doing this every time any of them gets into office.. The sad part is that you get a lot of murders from disputes because of politics on a normal election cycle.. these bring out the worst in people. It's horrifying. On top of that they lost 750,000 residents to the US in the past few years.. that's 1/4 their total population. So the ones that are left are desperate and frustrated. I don't see any good coming out of another non-binding referendum.. /bangsheadonwall
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Post by RiderLeangle on Jun 9, 2017 20:12:36 GMT -5
Honestly what they should be doing is trying to solve their economic problems instead of just leaving them, trying to get statehood for the money and just leaving everyone pissed off and causing more people to leave...
I'm not sure what people there or from there feel on the issue, but thinking of the big picture they really need to fix their economic issues first before even trying to be a state, since all they'd be doing is putting a huge burden on the rest of the country and even if a local vote managed to pass for once it's not likely to really go anywhere federally. Just my personal 2 cents, feel free to disagree
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arsenette
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Post by arsenette on Jun 10, 2017 6:33:03 GMT -5
Honestly what they should be doing is trying to solve their economic problems instead of just leaving them, trying to get statehood for the money and just leaving everyone pissed off and causing more people to leave... I'm not sure what people there or from there feel on the issue, but thinking of the big picture they really need to fix their economic issues first before even trying to be a state, since all they'd be doing is putting a huge burden on the rest of the country and even if a local vote managed to pass for once it's not likely to really go anywhere federally. Just my personal 2 cents, feel free to disagree I agree with that. The entire nation though has been turned into a welfare state. Locally they are just trying to survive. My Mom just got back from there (was visiting family for 2 weeks) and most of the time they didn't have electricity and even lost water at some point. Luckily her generation (and mine actually) know how to live under those conditions and cope. We learned how to live without it given that back then it was common to lose water and electricity during hurricanes. So when they lost power they immediately went to backup mode. Most of my family on the island are farmers so they can sustain their own food as well and water drops from the sky and they learn to collect it for future use. The current generation learned to be dependent on government and don't know how to live within those constraints. So they rely on looting and violence in these desperate times. Those who used to live in the cities and lost most of their wealth and livelihood fled to the USA where they could actually have a productive life. The ones left are either retired or under/unemployed. The government officials are too busy trying to save their jobs instead of actually working to fix the problem. I read the article you posted and was shocked that the number is actually much higher that they are in debt.. 70+ billion? I thought it was 17... HOW THE HELL DO YOU LOSE THAT KIND OF MONEY??? So no they won't "learn" to save money. You don't go that far in debt overnight... this is decades of corruption. All 3 parties are at fault here. You know what the new "incentive" is to keep people on the island? I was shaking my head when I heard it from my Mom.. "take over the farms the others abandoned and learn to be a farmer!".. They are desperate to keep the millennials on the island to try to jump start the economy offering them some money if they sell their crops.. so far they are rejecting that notion since most have never worked a blue collar job in their lives, it won't solve the problem and they are also invoking property theft... the government is doing nothing to curb spending, stabilizing essential services like hospitals and law enforcement.. TBH they need to get rid of the current politicians and start over. This is already a crisis and rapidly reaching epidemic.
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