Jen Soriano's blog

Puerto Rican Elections: Geography, Drugs and the Broken Status Quo

Thu, 2012-11-08
Jen Soriano

The late Mexican dictator Porfirio Díaz famously said that it was Mexico’s misfortune to be “so far from God, so close to the United States.” Puerto Rico’s new governor elect, Alejandro García Padilla, believes it’s Puerto Rico’s good 

Photo:Reuters

fortune to be so close to God (he thanked God personally for his election victory) and so close to the United States. But the biggest problem facing García Padilla over the next four years has everything to do with how close Puerto Rico is to the United States.

García Padilla is part of the “status quo” party (the Partido Popular Democratico or PPD http://www.ppdpr.net/), which believes that the current commonwealth status gives Puerto Rico the best of both worlds: U.S. citizenship for Puerto Ricans and federal benefits like food stamps, along with freedom from federal income tax and some latitude for self-government.

SOTU 2012: Behind Obama’s Clean Energy Shout Out to the DoD

Jen Soriano

During the state of the Union Address on Tuesday, Obama shouted out the DoD as a clean energy partner.

“I’m proud to announce that the Department of Defense, working with us, the world’s largest consumer of energy, will make one of the largest commitments to clean energy in history -– with the Navy purchasing enough capacity to power a quarter of a million homes a year.”

Murdochalypse Now

Jen Soriano

Q - What do you call a media empire that has been deliberately used to shape public opinion in favor of the Iraq, Afghanistan and now Libyan wars?

A - A Weapon of Mass Destruction

Shadow Units: FBI Joint Terrorism Task Forces

Jen Soriano

To resist the landslide of attacks on our eroding civil liberties in the US, we've got to know more about the intelligence and security complex that has us active political types in their sites.

But first, a little perspective on just how sprawling a system it is that we're facing.

Former director of national intelligence Admiral Dennis C. Blair told the Washington Post: "After 9/11, when we decided to attack violent extremism, we did as we so often do in this country," he said. "The attitude was, if it's worth doing, it's probably worth overdoing."

Syndicate content