Ny Safidinao

Donald Trump told a large, enthusiastic Keokuk, Iowa audience that he's going to purchase the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico in order to resolve its debt crisis and rename it Puerto Trump. Trump later heatedly denied to reporters that buying Puerto Rico was a way to repair bridges with Latino voters offended by his comments about Mexican immigrants. "I love Puerto Rico," Trump told 4,000 flag-waving supporters in the early primary state of Iowa. "I go there every winter, to visit my hubcabs. "Seriously, they got the rug pulled out from under them when the idiots in Washington changed the rules of the game about how they can borrow money. "I don't need to wait until I'm elected President to fix this. I'm just buying the whole damn island right now." Reaction to Trump's plan, the details of which his advisors hurriedly released after the surprise announcement, has been mixed. "Jobs and money," Alejandro Garcia Padilla, Gove...

The first Federal Election Commission filing deadline for most of the presidential candidates is Wednesday, but some organizations have released their totals early. Below, the announced money raised by the campaigns, “super PACs” and nonprofits supporting each candidate. Money Raised So Far Millions raised by Campaign Campaign Super PAC Other Jeb Bush Bush r epublican $11.4 in 16 days $103.0 n/a Hillary Rodham Clinton Clinton d emocrat $45.0 in 79 days $15.6 – Ted Cruz Cruz r epublican $14.5 in 100 days $38.0 – Marco Rubio Rubio r epublican $12.0 in 79 days ...

Hillary Clinton's 2016 presidential campaign has, thus far, been rather light on concrete policy proposals. The first exception to that rule, somewhat surprisingly, turns out to relate to the obscure issues of Puerto Rico's treatment in federal bankruptcy code and health-care reimbursement formulas. These are not top priority issues for most voters, but they are urgent for Puerto Ricans. Clinton's plan arrives as Puerto Rico's governor has said that the island cannot pay all its debts and is trapped in a "death spiral" of recession and debt. This situation hasn't yet secured as much attention as the debt crisis in Greece, but it involves the lives of millions of US citizens, and if Congress doesn't act to do something the resulting fight is going to play out in American federal courts. Clinton offers two big ideas for how Congress could act to help rescue Puerto Rico's economy, plus a hint of larger political change in the future. Hillary Clinto...

THE BIG IDEA: — Puerto Rico’s debt crisis may soon blow up into a significant 2016 issue.  The island is poised to default on its crushing $72 billion debt. Its government wants to file for Chapter 9 municipal bankruptcy, following the path of cities like Detroit, but as a U.S. commonwealth it is barred from doing so. The island’s leaders are launching a campaign to get the law changed, using a mix of public pressure on 2016 candidates and a bipartisan lobbying blitz in D.C. But they face opposition from Wall Street, the Koch brothers’ political network and movement conservatives who think it smacks of a bailout. Puertorriqueños recognize their increasing political clout, particularly in Florida, and they promise to put it to use. In an interview on Telemundo yesterday, Puerto Rico Gov. Alejandro García Padilla. want the support of Puerto Ricans must help Puerto Rico now, not later,” he said. “Puerto Ricans decide the elections in Florida. That’s very important. By deciding the...

With Puerto Rico in a sustained economic decline and its government in arrears on debt, the exodus of its residents to the mainland is having a powerful benefit for the Democrats.  Alan Yuhas of the U.K. Guardian writes: Facing a crisis of monumental proportions at home, tens of thousands of people are fleeing a Caribbean island in search of a better life in the United States…. Unable to pay its $73bn debt, Puerto Rico has begun rationing water , closing schools and watching its healthcare system collapse and 45% of its people living in poverty. Emigration to the mainland has accelerated in recent years, activists say, and data shows that from 2003 to 2013 there was a population swing of more than 1.5 million people. “This new wave of immigration can be compared with the immigration in the 1930s and 40s,” said Edgardo González, coordinator of the Defenders of Puerto Rico, an activist group. The Great Depression and second world war spurred the so-called “ Great Migration ”, w...

ebt-ridden Puerto Rico got a bit of good news on Tuesday when the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority and its nervous creditors reportedly moved towards a deal that would permit the utility to pay bondholders more than $400 million as a down payment on its debt. As The Wall Street Journal reported, analysts feared that a default by the utility would have foreshadowed defaults by other public institutions within the commonwealth, which is saddled with about $72 billion of outstanding debt. Related: Greece and Puerto Rico May Force 2016 Candidates to Talk About U.S. Debt      Unlike Detroit and scores of other municipalities and U.S. state-affiliated authorities in fiscal trouble, Puerto Rico can’t avail itself of federal bankruptcy protection to expedite a wholesale restructuring of its debt and simultaneously deal with creditors. Under Chapter 9 of the federal bankruptcy law, only a "municipality" may file for relief -- meaning a political subdivision or public...

Never mind that Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) is an ambitious but still relatively unknown Republican from upstate New York. Thanks to her political connections, she has fans in Puerto Rico. And Puerto Ricans may be counting their friends in Washington. With an imminent debt crisis looming over the Caribbean commonwealth that threatens the U.S. municipal bond market, Puerto Rico wants its public companies protected by U.S. bankruptcy rules. Whether or not Stefanik, who at 30 is the youngest woman to ever serve in the House, has a chance to influence much of that debate, she has managed to raise more money this year from inhabitants of the U.S. territory than any other candidate or committee. That includes even the archipelago’s own non-voting delegate in Congress, Pedro Pierluisi (D-P.R.), and his challenger, according to an OpenSecrets Blog analysis of campaign data. That’s all thanks to a fundraiser held in early March at the home an insurance executive who kn...

Despite its 2012 electoral loss and recurring internal power-struggles, Puerto Rico’s pro-statehood New Progressive Party (PNP) is probably in better shape than it has ever been. Its fundraising capabilities are unmatched; its pro-statehood stance is preferred over the current Commonwealth status by a plurality of Puerto Ricans; it has controlled both legislative chambers for much of the last two-and-a-half decades; and it holds a supermajority in the Supreme Court that is guaranteed to last decades. Despite this, in previous years it has experienced serious obstacles to its ideological legitimacy. Though the statehood option garnered a seemingly whopping 61 percent in the 2012 status referendum, when factoring in the number of protested blank votes cast, results reveals that only 44 percent of the electorate supported the statehood option. Poll results from October 2011 poll showed a 41 percent with only 37 percent of the population claimed that the status issue should be resolved “u...