Ny Safidinao

Strangled by an economic recession imposed by the United States, the Caribbean island is plagued by a mass exodus... Programme information Producer: WILD ANGLE PRODUCTIONS Country: France Year: 2016 Reasons for Anger

On Friday, Congressman Alan Grayson filed legislation Friday that calls for a Constitutional amendment that would give the Puerto Rican people the right to vote for President, and provide the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico with electors in the Electoral College. “Three and a half million Americans in Puerto Rico have no say in who serves as President of the United States,” Grayson said in his floor speech “Women and African Americans were once denied this same basic voting right. Now it’s American citizens who reside in Puerto Rico who suffer this disenfranchisement.” Grayson added that the solution is not unlike the District of Columbia when they were granted electors to the Electoral College, with passage of the 23rd Amendment to the Constitution. Like Puerto Rico now, the District of Columbia was not, and is not a state. The firebrand progressive is in his final weeks in office after losing a bid for Senate earlier this year. State Senator Darren Soto, a Puerto Rican will succee...

The last time Democrats awoke to find themselves completely marginalized, the year was 2004, and George W. Bush had just  been reelected , along with pretty much every other Republican in creation. Almost immediately, the party’s top donors and strategists settled on an explanation. They decided that they were losing because they lacked the campaign “infrastructure” the right commanded (think tanks, media watchdogs, voter files, etc.), and they immediately set about trying to build one. From that effort, hundreds of millions of dollars later, came groups like the Center for American Progress, which quickly became the party’s premier think tank; Media Matters, which now rules a small empire of rapid-response groups; and a company called Catalist, one of several new repositories for data on Democratic voters. (I wrote  a book  on all this, by the way, which seems like eons ago.) All these organizations were humming along at full capacity by the time Hillary Clinton w...

The island of Puerto Rico has long been held up in a seemingly endless debate over whether or not it should become the 51st state of the union, remain its course as a territory or free association, or obtain outright independence. The discussion traditionally heats up towards the end of each election cycle, with this previous election being no different. The incoming pro-statehood governor, Ricardo Rosselló championed himself as the last governor of the colony; smear campaigns painted his opponent as separatist and anti-American; and a mysterious PAC appeared seemingly out of nowhere in previous weeks to promote statehood. Finally, Rosselló vowed to initiate special elections as part of his “Plan Tennessee” to vote for federal senators and representatives; promising that statehood was right around the corner. Statehood is further away than ever but politicians still find ways to squeeze out political capital from promises of increased federal funding and prosperity. The statehood op...

Republican operatives spent four years warning that the party needed to diversify — or risk a blowout at the ballot box. Donald Trump spent the campaign trafficking in divisive racial rhetoric — and he won anyway. Now, those who pushed for a more inclusive GOP fear that their party will absorb the wrong takeaways from Trump’s win, and that the momentum behind efforts to expand the Republican tent to include more minorities and young people has evaporated. “I am very concerned we will take the wrong lessons from this,” said Whit Ayres, a veteran GOP pollster. “Trump showed Republicans could squeeze out one more presidential victory by appealing primarily to white voters, especially against a historically unpopular Democratic nominee. But counting on winning the Electoral College while losing the popular vote is not a strategy for long-term success in the new America.” Trump’s coalition included people who spanned the wealth, education, gender and age spectrums, unified by one them...

The national flag bearing 50 stars representing each state could soon need a makeover. Voters in Puerto Rico and Washington, D.C., are pushing for Congress to recognize 52 states after residents there signaled this week that they wanted statehood. Puerto Ricans elected Ricardo Rossello, from the pro-statehood New Progressive Party, governor Tuesday with 41.76 percent of the votes.  He said Wednesday  he hopes President-elect Donald Trump will back statehood for the Caribbean island, the oldest U.S. colony in the world. Puerto Ricans are already U.S. citizens but they can not vote in presidential elections and have no voting powers in Congress unless they become residents of a state. "Having a Republican House, a Republican Senate and a Republican president, there's no excuse for not carrying it out," said Rossello. Statehood for Puerto Rico is general unpopular in Congress, especially with the island now  struggling to pay off $72...

Puerto Rico Governor-elect Ricardo Rossello said Thursday that he wants a transparent transition after meeting with outgoing Gov. Alejandro Garcia Padilla in their first get-together to discuss the transfer of power. "We want the government's situation to be known," said Rossello, with the pro-statehood New Progressive Party, or PNP, and who on Tuesday won the island's gubernatorial election with 41.76 percent of the vote, according to figures released by the state election commission. Rossello said that in his conversation with Garcia Padilla he asked the governor to order the state agency chiefs and fiscal and debt advisers to place at the disposal of his team all relevant information they possess about the island's economic status. "Between (Friday) and Saturday, there will be technical meetings - between the two teams - on the fiscal issue," said the governor-elect, after insisting that the aim is transparency and that there is no intention to...

Ricardo Rosselló, a pro-statehood candidate for Puerto Rico governor, won Tuesday, after campaigning on a pledge to turn the economically troubled U.S. territory into the 51st state during his term. Rosselló of the New Progressive Party had nearly 42 percent, or 566,000 votes, when his main opponent, David Bernier, conceded defeat with more than 70 percent of precincts reporting. Bernier had more than 527,000 votes or 39 percent. "I'm honored Puerto Rico gave me an opportunity. ... We will establish a quality of life that will allow (Puerto Ricans) to return to the land where they were born," the 37-year-old Rosselló said of the more than 200,000 islanders who have left to the U.S. mainland during its economic crisis. Rosselló, a scientist and the son of a former governor who also sought statehood for Puerto Rico, argues that barring island residents from voting for president deprives 3.5 million people of their full rights. He also says statehood would boost an ec...

There's an important political contest some 1,150 miles south of Florida: Voters in Puerto Rico will choose their next governor amid a year that saw a worsening of the island's financial situation that led to the implementation of a fiscal control board by the U.S. Congress. Polls show the candidate advocating for statehood, Ricardo Rosselló, is ahead in the race, which could fuel a push to examine whether the island should become the 51st state. In a  recent interview  with the Associated Press, Roselló said that "the fact that we don't participate equally democratically or otherwise limits our capacity to progress." Puerto Ricans who live in the island vote for governor and those who live in the U.S. vote in the presidential election; they can't do both. In the island, the two main parties are the pro-statehood PNP — the Partido Nuevo Progresista (New Progressive Party) and the PPD — Partido Popular Democrático (Popular Democratic Party), which advo...

The current associate vice president of the Puerto Rico Statehood Students Association is the son of former secretary of state Kenneth McClintock. The Puerto Rico Statehood Students Association was founded by Kenneth McClintock, then a law student at Tulane University, and former governor Luis Fortuño, then an undergrad at Georgetown. McClintock’s son is a Georgetown undergrad. The Puerto Rico Statehood Students Association is a non-profit that organizes university students in the U.S. and Puerto Rico in the interest of bringing statehood to the U.S. colony. The current Resident Commissioner of Puerto Rico, Pedro Pierluisi, himself a Tulane alumnus, was a founding member of the association. Francisco Cimadevilla, a former financial consultant under Pedro Rosselló’s governmental administration, was also a founding member. In order to bring statehood to Puerto Rico, first you have to go study in the states and found something. Pedro Rosselló completed his undergraduate degr...

ORLANDO, Fla. — Ramon Troche Pacheco, 77, said that like his father before him, he favors Democratic candidates. So, on November 8, he will vote for Hillary Clinton. But for the U.S. Senate race, he will vote for Republican incumbent Marco Rubio. "Rubio is my boy. He is mi gente (my people). He is Latino - mi raza," Troche Pacheco said in Spanish, while looking over the food displayed at Melao Bakery, a popular restaurant that serves a wide array of traditional Puerto Rican dishes and sweets. Puerto Ricans like Troche Pacheco are part of a mass exodus of islanders moving to the U.S. mainland, spurred by the effects of the island's massive debt crisis. For the past five years he and his wife have been frequently going between Orlando and Puerto Rico. But he said that on his next trip he will sell what is left of his island properties and live permanently in the U.S. Borícuas, as they are also known, are the fastest growing group in Florida and are transforming the ...