Post: #1

Article:

http://thehill.com/homenews/news/337347-...statehood#

From article:

"Puerto Rico voted overwhelmingly in favor of statehood on Sunday in a referendum that begins the steps toward sending representatives to Washington, D.C.

According to the Wall Street Journal, 97 percent voted for statehood, though turnout was only about 23 percent. One and a half percent voted for independence from the United States, according to Decision Desk HQ, while 1.3 percent voted to keep the current status of a territory of the United States.

Puerto Rico will now put its "Tennessee plan" into action, meaning its governor will choose two senators and five representatives to go to Washington, D.C., to request statehood.
President Trump signaled during his presidential campaign that he is open to Puerto Rico officially becoming a state."

Post: #2

I'm cool with it if they agree to turn their shitty music down everytime they go for a drive.

Post: #3

97 percent? They've voted on this previously and were under 50%. I can't imagine how any vote could be so one sided. Does anybody have any insights on this?

Post: #4

Great! Until today the US was a nation of 50 bankrupt states; but from now on it will be a country of 51 bankrupt states. America never gets tired of winning!

Post: #5

(06-11-2017 09:37 PM)Luvianka Wrote:  Great! Until today the US was a nation of 50 bankrupt states; but from now on it will be a country of 51 bankrupt states. America never gets tired of winning!

This is going to be a hard thing to sell to the Congress and Senate when the island just imploded financially. They are in dire straights and this actually comes at the worst time for Puerto Rico. I hate to say this, but Puerto Rico runs its finances like a third world country.

Post: #6

(06-11-2017 09:49 PM)MKE-Ed Wrote:  

(06-11-2017 09:37 PM)Luvianka Wrote:  Great! Until today the US was a nation of 50 bankrupt states; but from now on it will be a country of 51 bankrupt states. America never gets tired of winning!

This is going to be a hard thing to sell to the Congress and Senate when the island just imploded financially. They are in dire straights and this actually comes at the worst time for Puerto Rico. I hate to say this, but Puerto Rico runs its finances like a third world country.

Without the US's taxpayer funded largesse it is a 3rd world country. What is interesting is that Puertoriquenos have been migrating off that Island since the 1940s yet their communities in the mainland (Bronx, Allentown, Holyoke) are hardly any better. Don't get me wrong, I love latinas and hispanics, however PR combines the worst of both worlds: low achievement and an undeserved sense of American style entitlement.

Post: #7

Aren't they just going to pad the Democrats' numbers in the Senate? Why would Trump agree, it's not like their vote currently matters, NY/NJ aren't going to flip...

Post: #8

(06-11-2017 09:37 PM)Luvianka Wrote:  Great! Until today the US was a nation of 50 bankrupt states; but from now on it will be a country of 51 bankrupt states. America never gets tired of winning!

Post: #9

Isn't this like the fat un-athletic kid begging the American football coach to let him be on the team?

Post: #10

Post: #11

Was watching some CNN program on Puerto Rico last night. There are a lot of issues that seem illogical firstly when it comes to its finances. For example, US maritime law. A Japanese container ship with cars coming from the Panama Canal en route cannot stop at Puerto Rico. It needs to go to mainland USA and then offload to a US ship and go to the iskand. Thus increasing the cost of the car. They can also vote in the presidential primaries yet cannot vote for the president in the general election.

Post: #12

It's so transparent.

Just look at what is different now compared to 2012 and you get the answer.

They want a US taxpayer funded bailout and they want to eat into the Republicans' majority in the Senate with two more Democrat Senators (is there any doubt they would be Democrat?).

Post: #13

This is only being pushed now to help turn the electoral college back to Democrats. NO OTHER REASON.

Post: #14

(06-11-2017 10:19 PM)BostonBMW Wrote:  

(06-11-2017 09:49 PM)MKE-Ed Wrote:  

(06-11-2017 09:37 PM)Luvianka Wrote:  Great! Until today the US was a nation of 50 bankrupt states; but from now on it will be a country of 51 bankrupt states. America never gets tired of winning!

This is going to be a hard thing to sell to the Congress and Senate when the island just imploded financially. They are in dire straights and this actually comes at the worst time for Puerto Rico. I hate to say this, but Puerto Rico runs its finances like a third world country.

Without the US's taxpayer funded largesse it is a 3rd world country. What is interesting is that Puertoriquenos have been migrating off that Island since the 1940s yet their communities in the mainland (Bronx, Allentown, Holyoke) are hardly any better. Don't get me wrong, I love latinas and hispanics, however PR combines the worst of both worlds: low achievement and an undeserved sense of American style entitlement.

Well you guys took it off the Spanish (illegally) so maybe you could hand it back to them.

Post: #15

(06-11-2017 09:23 PM)RoastBeefCurtains4Me Wrote:  97 percent? They've voted on this previously and were under 50%. I can't imagine how any vote could be so one sided. Does anybody have any insights on this?

Yes, I read that the proponents of the other two choices - status quo and independence - called for their supporters to boycott the election because they had some issue with how the ballot was worded or something like that. That is why the article noted the low turnout.

Post: #16

They want that gov't $$

Post: #17

(06-12-2017 11:52 AM)Hypno Wrote:  

(06-11-2017 09:23 PM)RoastBeefCurtains4Me Wrote:  97 percent? They've voted on this previously and were under 50%. I can't imagine how any vote could be so one sided. Does anybody have any insights on this?

Yes, I read that the proponents of the other two choices - status quo and independence - called for their supporters to boycott the election because they had some issue with how the ballot was worded or something like that. That is why the article noted the low turnout.

Which is a perfect sign of things to come if we let PR into our union. Basically a vast majority boycotted voting for the opportunity to be accepted into one of the wealthiest and freest nations on earth. These people just made the case for us demonstrating that they do not deserve to be admitted. HELL NO do I want them to become the 51st state of the union.

Post: #18

(06-12-2017 11:17 AM)Traktor Wrote:  

(06-11-2017 10:19 PM)BostonBMW Wrote:  

(06-11-2017 09:49 PM)MKE-Ed Wrote:  

(06-11-2017 09:37 PM)Luvianka Wrote:  Great! Until today the US was a nation of 50 bankrupt states; but from now on it will be a country of 51 bankrupt states. America never gets tired of winning!

This is going to be a hard thing to sell to the Congress and Senate when the island just imploded financially. They are in dire straights and this actually comes at the worst time for Puerto Rico. I hate to say this, but Puerto Rico runs its finances like a third world country.

Without the US's taxpayer funded largesse it is a 3rd world country. What is interesting is that Puertoriquenos have been migrating off that Island since the 1940s yet their communities in the mainland (Bronx, Allentown, Holyoke) are hardly any better. Don't get me wrong, I love latinas and hispanics, however PR combines the worst of both worlds: low achievement and an undeserved sense of American style entitlement.

Well you guys took it off the Spanish (illegally) so maybe you could hand it back to them.

Except Spain won't take them back either. What happened to Independence? I am in NYC and yesterday was PR Day Parade where they were looking to honor a terrorist as the Grand Marshal until the money train stopped with the sponsors pulling back. Suddenly his status was downgraded.

U.S. Commonwealth status was the best damn thing for that Island. Despite those ubiquitous PR Flags (a derivative of the U.S. flag) plastered over car windshields and apartment windows, Puertorqiuenos know the score -- without U.S. taxpayer funded welfare both on and off the Island, they would be forced to work for their GDP.

Post: #19

Giving them commonwealth status and US Citizenship was a mistake in the first place; let's not make it worse.

From my inspection, the greatest contribution of Puerto Ricans to American life have been "The Sharks" and reminding USA Basketball that basketball-analytics work, and that inefficient volume scorers are exactly what they say on tin.

Spain: "No takesies backsies!"

Worst of all, in an alternative-universe, Puerto Rico is a country otherwise somewhat similar to the Dominican Republic, but with (on average) more heavily European-admixed girls. In our universe, we were deprived of this set-up.

Post: #20

Why did we grant the Philippines independence but keep Puerto Rico? The Philippines is in a militarily strategic location and has a strong cultural affinity with the U.S. Did people not want the relatively huge population of Filipinos coming over to the mainland and flooding America's labor markets? I was about to say, "Maybe if the Philippines had become a U.S. state, it wouldn't be such a pussy paradise today," but I think Filipinas would still have wanted to have kids with Americans, because we're so gwapo.

Post: #21

As a hardworking patriotic American I resent these fuckers thinking they can just go and reduce the number of divisors of states by half. Up until this point I was proud to live in a country with a number of states divisible by 2, 5, 10 and 25. Those are all nice pleasant American numbers, closely tied to base 10 and only half are prime.

What do we get with 51 states? 3 and 17. Are you fucking kidding me? Those are both prime as shit, and viscerally disgusting. 17 is a terrible number.

Now if we add enough states to get up to 64, that's a different story. A perfect square and power of 2 would really make me hard.

Post: #22

(06-12-2017 08:12 PM)BortimusPrime Wrote:  As a hardworking patriotic American I resent these fuckers thinking they can just go and reduce the number of divisors of states by half. Up until this point I was proud to live in a country with a number of states divisible by 2, 5, 10 and 25. Those are all nice pleasant American numbers, closely tied to base 10 and only half are prime.

What do we get with 51 states? 3 and 17. Are you fucking kidding me? Those are both prime as shit, and viscerally disgusting. 17 is a terrible number.

Now if we add enough states to get up to 64, that's a different story. A perfect square and power of 2 would really make me hard.

U fuckin w0t, m8?

10 reduces to 2x5 and 25 to 5x5 anyway.

I'd rather drop California and make 7 the only non-trivial factor.

Post: #23

Time to break up the USA anyway. Maybe this would be the impetus.

Post: #24

(06-12-2017 02:51 AM)britchard Wrote:  Isn't this like the fat un-athletic kid begging the American football coach to let him be on the team?

No. It just makes sense to make them a state. It's a US "territory" anyway with a population higher than some states in the Union. If you're going to make Hawaii and Alaska a state why not Puerto Rico considering that it's actually closer to the Continental U.S? Puerto Rican people already serve in the armed forces and are U.S. citizens and travel freely.

They should have been a state a long time ago.

Post: #25

They can use Puerto Rican labour to build the wall on the Mexican border.