Puerto Ricans cannot vote in general elections despite being U.S. citizens, but they can exert a powerful influence with relatives on the mainland. Phones across the island of 3.2 million people were ringing minutes after the speaker derided the U.S. territory Sunday night, and they still buzzed Monday.

Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris is competing with Trump to win over Puerto Rican communities in Pennsylvania and other swing states. Shortly after stand-up comic Tony Hinchcliffe said that, “I don’t know if you guys know this, but there’s literally a floating island of garbage in the middle of the ocean right now. I think it’s called Puerto Rico,” Puerto Rican reggaeton superstar Bad Bunny announced he was backing Harris.

After Sunday’s rally, a senior adviser for the Trump campain, Danielle Alvarez, said in a statement that Hinchcliffe’s joke did “not reflect the views of President Trump or the campaign.”

    • TRBoom@lemm.ee
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      Because each state is given the power to elect a president, not the voters. Puerto Rico isn’t a state so their voters aren’t represented properly.

      • Dudewitbow@lemmy.zip
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        i mean the technicallity is that washington dc isnt a state either, so the better answer is that you need to live in a region where you have representatives.

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          Dc does not have voting representatives in congress. They only get electoral votes because of the 23rd ammendment

          • grue@lemmy.world
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            The better question is “why didn’t the 23rd grant voting rights to all US citizens in all territories?”

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              Because of slavery, basically. The US couldn’t have a directly-elected president at founding because that would mean slaveholding states would get less power per person actually living there, unless they wanted to let slaves vote which of course they wouldn’t. So 3/5ths compromise, electoral college, yadda yadda yadda, and 250 years later power still is filtered through the states. So now that that’s the case, giving any new people voting rights would change the power balance between the slaveholders right and abolitionists left. So as a result, places like PR that have an abnormal amount of minorities Democratic voters tend to be unable to get Congress to grant them voting rights.

          • Dudewitbow@lemmy.zip
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            but the context of the news report is about the president, which they can vote for.

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          Also because DC and PR would most likely vote democrats it makes it harder. Most of the time when a state joined the union there was a fight.

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          Never existed in the US. Women, slaves, prisoners, permanent residents, etc… It’s always been in the hands of the rich. They just pretend to listen to the people. But as Trump has many times noted, the vote doesn’t matter. The state can send delegates with any instructions they want and the federal government can decide state delegates are not valid and exclude them. Most states have laws to follow the vote, but it’s not the federal government’s job to enforce those laws if they chose not to follow them. That would be for the people of that state to fight later.

        • nondescripthandle@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          Ask some of the 14-17 year olds working their first jobs paying tax without the ability to vote. That was never a real concern for anyone outside landowning whites.

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            While they dont pay income taxes to the IRS, they do pay customs taxes, federal commodity taxes, and federal payroll taxes (Social Security, Medicare, and Unemployment) to the IRS, which sounds alot like federal taxes to me.

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              It also feels like it’s something different because they aren’t supposed to go into the general fund, but advance payment for specific benefits

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          Well, they did. It was referred to by the Framers as a “Living Document” and they intended us to re-write it as we grew as a nation:

          "The question Whether one generation of men has a right to bind another, seems never to have been started either on this or our side of the water… (But) between society and society, or generation and generation there is no municipal obligation, no umpire but the law of nature. We seem not to have perceived that, by the law of nature, one generation is to another as one independant nation to another…

          On similar ground it may be proved that no society can make a perpetual constitution, or even a perpetual law. The earth belongs always to the living generation…

          Every constitution, then, and every law, naturally expires at the end of 19. years. If it be enforced longer, it is an act of force and not of right."

          -Tommy J.

    • 9point6@lemmy.world
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      History tells me that if the US is disenfranchising a group of people, it’s usually racism

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        https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Madison/01-10-02-0065

        There was one difficulty however of a serious nature attending an immediate choice by the people. The right of suffrage was much more diffusive in the Northern than the Southern States; and the latter could have no influence in the election on the score of the Negroes. The substitution of electors obviated this difficulty and seemed on the whole to be liable to fewest objections.

        The problem with the south, is that everything they do looks like it’s all about racism, but they actually use their virulent and brutal racism to cover more evil selfishness. They’re just monstrously racist as a hobby, corruption is their true passion.

    • Rapidcreek@lemmy.world
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      Puerto Rico is a protectorate and has its own government. Puerto Ricans can’t vote while on the island, but can vote in the US

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        Every US State has its own government, too. I don’t see that as an excuse.

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          The Constitution says that each state shall send electors to the electoral college. So Puerto Rico’s status as an unorganized territory is a bit of a blocker.

          The District of Columbia is also not a part of any state, as specified in the Constitution. However, DC explicitly got some electors in the 23rd amendment, so they can vote for President.

          Really, the idea that the United States might have overseas territories that are not on track to statehood is itself an invention of the twentieth century. (Owing to the 1898 Spanish-American war, which caused the US to take over several parts of the ex-Spanish empire).

          • grue@lemmy.world
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            Yes, I understand that that’s the reason, but a reason is not the same thing as an excuse.

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        No, that can’t be right, because half the comments here say it’s due to racism. So if a Puerto Rican moves to a US state, they still can’t vote, right?

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          No, that can’t be right, because half the comments here say it’s due to racism.

          Both those things are true, racists prevent it from becoming a state to prevent it from voting dem.

          So if a Puerto Rican moves to a US state, they still can’t vote, right?

          They can’t do this directly anymore, so they are just disenfranchised on Puerto Rico.

    • Canadian_anarchist@lemmy.ca
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      What happened “no taxation without representation” that the colonists fought for in the war of independence? Apparently it only applies to white people.

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        It was a lie from the start, it only ever applied to a few wealthy old white men who didn’t want any cuts to their profit margins after the British fought a costly war to defend them from French and Native retaliation.

        • Verat@sh.itjust.works
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          While they dont pay income taxes to the IRS, they do pay customs taxes, federal commodity taxes, and federal payroll taxes (Social Security, Medicare, and Unemployment) to the IRS, which sounds alot like federal taxes to me.

          • raef@lemmy.world
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            It also feels like it’s something different because they aren’t supposed to go into the general fund, but advance payment for specific benefits

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              But they don’t have a say in how the money is spent or whether the tax should exist. So it’s still the same issue whether it’s for a specific purpose or whether or not they benefit from it. It’s the freedom of choice that they still don’t have.

              • raef@lemmy.world
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                There is an attempt to conform to the taxation/representation issue, but it’s never going to be 100%. Non-citizens and foreign entities are going to be subject to certain taxes within the US as well. At a simple level, there’s no way avoid sales taxes. People have to pay sales tax in states they can’t vote in either

                • irotsoma@lemmy.world
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                  Sales tax is different. That pays for the infrastructure to get the goods to market, theoretically. Though admittedly that is not exactly true everywhere, the general idea of sales tax is for economic reasons, not residential.

                  And of course it’s not going to be 100%, but we’re talking about large portions of the population that were purposely excluded, e.g. women, slaves, etc., in the past, and currently lots of people of all genders and races who live in Puerto Rico, Guam, D.C, etc…

                  PR alone accounts for over 3 million adults, or about 1% of the US population, with little to no representation, most of them citizens. Wyoming only has about 580,000 people, or about 0.17% of the population, but controls 2% of the Senate, 0.23% of the house, and 0.56% of the presidential election.

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        Got it, so North Carokota, South Dakolina, and DC and Puerto Rico. I think it’s a great idea.

      • LovableSidekick@lemmy.world
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        I was gonna say it’s ridiculous to make DC a state, it’s just a city!

        Turns out more people live in DC than Wyoming or Vermont LOL. So I’m down!

        Also I’ve heard that monkey’s brains, although popular in Cantonese cuisine, are not often found there.

        • frezik@midwest.social
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          But it doesn’t have an airport. Or a car dealership. There’s a car dealership a few blocks from the Capitol building, but it doesn’t have one.

          (This was an actual argument from the GOP on the floor of Congress.)

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            “The Constitution doesn’t say a state has to have an airport or a car dealership.”

            “WeLL It ShOuLd! We DoN’t WaNt sHiThOlE sTaTeS!!1!!”

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          IIRC if DC became a state, only specific federal buildings, such as the white house, scotus & the capitol buildings would remain as a territory (due to the constitution), but, because of a amendment to the us constitution giving DC the same amount of voters _(members of the electoral college)_for the president as the lowest-representation (essentially always 3), which only citizens living inside the area would be allowed to vote for, only the citizens of white house would be able to vote for 3 whole electors.

          I might be incirrect, as I am not a US citizen, but I’ve seen this mentioned somewhere long ago

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            If DC were converted to a state, presumably this would be changed so there would be no district. The federal buildings would just be buildings in that state.

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            I’m not sure if that’s right or not, but there’s been some loopholes around DC’s status before. For example, all members of Congress are considered city alders for DC. In practice, they delegate that to local elected officials and everything works like a normal US city.

            Same trick here. Delegate those EC votes to follow the popular vote of the city.

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          If we combined Montana, Nebraska, Wyoming, and both Dakotas into one mega state, they’d have about the population of South Carolina.

          But somehow they get 17 electoral votes to SCs 9 and 10 senators to California’s 2.

          So I vote for Monomskakota!

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          As a GA resident right across the river from SC, I understand that sentiment. SC sucks. Those bastards stole our city name and our fuckin baseball team.

        • horse_battery_staple@lemmy.world
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          But think about all the food down there in SC, y’all can claim it. Maybe they’ll take some of the empathy and intersectional community minded mutual aid networks y’all got and we can all be a little fatter and happier.

          Plus, we all get more papusas and salpicon!

    • Schadrach@lemmy.sdf.org
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      Puerto Rico periodically votes on whether or not to pursue becoming a state, becoming a state doesn’t win except in one vote that was specifically a non-binding vote on the topic and that had much lower turnout than other votes on the idea.

      DC was literally created specifically to not be a state, so that no state held the seat of the federal government.

      • frezik@midwest.social
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        It doesn’t, and the reasons for being that way are long in the past. The originally US wanted to avoid any state having the capitol at a time when states were more independent entities than they are now. People weren’t really meant to live there at all. Politicians and there staff would travel in from the surrounding areas. Of course, it’s evolved way past that, and the citizens of DC deserve the full representation of statehood.

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      Edit: my information was out of date

      Tell the Puerto Ricans that, we’re waiting on them reaching 51% in favor.

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        They reached a majority vote in favor of statehood in the 2020 referendum. We’re waiting on Congress. There’s supposed to be another vote in this general election.

        Make them a state, or give them independence. The will of the people of Puerto Rico should decide, but the current status is untenable.

        • pyre@lemmy.world
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          they should be a state. if they become independent the US will fuck them over forever.

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            Well, they’d be thrown in with the rest of islands of the Caribbean on that one. That’s something that should change regardless.

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              yeah but it won’t. if they become a state they get a voice. if they become independent they will get devastated by the US just like Haiti. and a lot of other countries.

    • pyre@lemmy.world
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      the nation that started as a rebellion on this is doing the same thing to its own citizens? that’s like building the land of the free using slave labor!

  • EndOfLine@lemmy.world
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    After Sunday’s rally, a senior adviser for the Trump campain, Danielle Alvarez, said in a statement that Hinchcliffe’s joke did “not reflect the views of President Trump or the campaign.”

    His “set” absolutely reflects the views of Trump and his campaign. That is why he felt comfortable saying those things.

    It’s not like the racism of Tony Hinchcliffe was a secret that he kept carefully hidden from public view which caught the organizers by surprise. It took me about a minute of searching who this guy was before landing on the Tony Hinchcliffe Wikipedia page which covers his racist performance in Austin just 3 years ago.

      • Mog_fanatic@lemmy.world
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        This was my thought. Like I find it VERY hard to believe his set wasn’t at least somewhat vetted beforehand. I cannot imagine they’d just let a comedian go up there and have absolutely no idea what he was going to talk about. That just seems like a total dumbass move so maybe it’s possible with Trump

        • bamfic@lemmy.world
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          Plausible deniability, a term coined by reagan’s minions to protect him from being impeached like nixon. It worked, ollie north took the fall

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          I cannot imagine they’d just let a comedian go up there and have absolutely no idea what he was going to talk about

          Have you listened to, or read, any of Trump’s word salad?

  • LovableSidekick@lemmy.world
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    I can just hear those MAGA morons smugly chuckling, “What can they do LOL they can’t even vote, fuck 'em!”

    No, fuck you.

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    I look forward to the inevitable exit polls showing just how much Nazi Fest 2024 sank the GröpenFührer/Cöuchfücker ticket.

    Come on, sanity! You can do it!

    • Tiefling IRL@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      I have no faith left in this country, he shouldn’t even have gotten this far. I fully expect this to somehow raise his popularity, followed by a glowing endorsement from WaPp and Eric Adams

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        The sad thing is that you may be right. I am quite sure that the separation of blue and red states will happen in my lifetime, and that it will be generally a good idea. Persecution of the outgroup will intensify, but there will be charities and support groups who help people leave the red states. Anyway, such persecution is already bad, even with a federal gov to try to keep things in check.

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    I saw a video of the ‘comedy’ that was said about Puerto Rico and I am honestly just fucking baffled as to why they hate them that much? I guess all they need to be to be hated is just be browner than they are.

    Also how come the issue of Trump’s disgusting behavior during Hurricane Maria and his refusal to fully help them beyond a stupid stunt that had him throw a paper towel at someone’s face.

      • mitchty@lemmy.sdf.org
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        Man when I went to pr for a quick vacation the amount of people asking about passports floored me. I was like it’s a us territory how have you not learnt that in school?

        Also I got lots of local pr Spanish slang, they’re chill peeps and mofongo is the best. I think they should get statehood they’re bigger in population than the state I grew up in and it would be nice to shake up us politics with more senate seats.

          • mitchty@lemmy.sdf.org
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            Amen to that! I was worried I’d get fat in pr, but ended up losing weight. Maybe I should move…

          • ElCrusher@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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            The last time there was a plebiscite in 2020, voting on whether to become a state or not, the outcome was for statehood by 52.34%.

              • ElCrusher@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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                It hasn’t moved forward because Congress has to approve it. Just because Puerto Rico wants to be a state doesn’t mean they’ll be instantly let into the Union. Here’s a link to the voting results. Its in Spanish since it’s from the biggest newspaper on the island.

          • mitchty@lemmy.sdf.org
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            It’s not forced, every state was a territory and chose to become a state. That’s the prescribed way for this to go. Why do we want to change that now? Part of statehood also changes things like federal aid etc as you’ll now be paying federal taxes but a part of this representation involves all this extra.

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              I’m not suggesting we change it. Puerto Rico has held votes on whether to become a state, and traditionally voted no. That’s all the reason I need to let them stay a territory.

              I’m not opposed to them becoming a state if they want, another commenter told.me the latest vote was ‘yes’ by a narrow margin so who knows what will happen next.

      • unphazed@lemmy.world
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        The GOP controllers aren’t the racists though. They’re rich, and puppets to the wealthy. In order to remain in positions of power, they create an enemy, in the form of bigotry and racism. Their sheep are racists. This is why though I trust very few politicians, I trust the Dems more atm because they are not using hatred and violence.

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      I was thinking the guy is an idiot and meant to say Cuba but I have no idea. This is the first time I’ve ever heard anybody talk crap about Puerto Rico and it made no sense.

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        I assumed he meant to say Haiti, which is still awful, but at least it would have kind of made sense…poorly.

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        Trump has a bad record with Puerto Rico, hes shit on them a few times and blocked aid when they were hit with a hurricane during his admin

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      They’re brown AND their country has a very Spanish sounding name. I can hear <insert drunk uncle> talking about it now: “any sumbitches from a place called PWER-TOE REEE-KO ain’t Mexicans just as much as any sand n*****s from Saudi Arabia ain’t AY-RABS!”

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    No. This is NOT shaping the race. VOTE

    This changes nothing not a single Trump voter changed their minds. The Trump Puerto Ricans agree with this. They just think it’s the ‘others’ fault.

    VOTE

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    I’ve never understood the whole Puerto Rico situation. Your country was built on the rage of having taxation without representation. Why is it that Puerto Rico isn’t allowed to participate in your elections despite being US citizens?

    • this@sh.itjust.works
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      Because our system is broken af designed and manipulated by powerful rich rascists who don’t want to give up control.

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      They don’t pay federal income tax (but they do pay other federal taxes, like payroll taxes including social security).

    • mkwt@lemmy.world
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      It’s really racism. But if you want the legalistic explanation, here it is…

      The United States started out with 13 states that were all ex-British territories on the Eastern seaboard of North America. There are now 50 states. Every state after the first 13 got its statehood by first being a territory, adopting a state Constitution at a constitutional convention, and then getting that Constitution approved by US Congress, and so being “admitted to the Union.”

      Under the Constitution, only states (and Washington DC) participate in the electoral college. The concept of non-state “territory” did not necessarily exist when that part was written, because there were only the original 13, and the Louisiana purchase wasn’t done until later.

      [Washington DC is a very special “district” that is not a state and not a territory.]

      Puerto Rico has stayed at the territory stage since it was acquired in the Spanish-American war (started 1898). Why? Well, mostly racism. There have also been some popular votes in Puerto Rico, with very mixed results. In the currently evenly split political climate, getting any new state admitted is probably impossible (as it was before the civil war).

      There’s also some undercurrent that maybe the US is kinda uncomfortable holding on to these overseas islands (which are mostly connected to the same Spanish-American war). Philippines became an independent country. On the other hand, Hawaii got statehood in 1959 (but there was a whole racist history there of white colonization).

      • Cruxifux@feddit.nl
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        25 days ago

        Yeah this is kind of the answer I was looking for. I didn’t really ask the question properly tho. Thanks.

    • raef@lemmy.world
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      25 days ago

      Because they don’t tax them. Puerto Rico doesn’t pay federal taxes

      • Verat@sh.itjust.works
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        25 days ago

        While they dont pay income taxes to the IRS, they do pay customs taxes, federal commodity taxes, and federal payroll taxes (Social Security, Medicare, and Unemployment) to the IRS, which sounds alot like federal taxes to me.

        • raef@lemmy.world
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          25 days ago

          It also feels like it’s something different because they aren’t supposed to go into the general fund, but advance payment for specific benefits

  • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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    25 days ago

    After Sunday’s rally, a senior adviser for the Trump campain, Danielle Alvarez, said in a statement that Hinchcliffe’s joke did “not reflect the views of President Trump or the campaign.”

    “All the stuff about you people being vermin that poison the blood of America, though, we meant that.”

    • frezik@midwest.social
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      25 days ago

      What an incredibly stupid thing for them to say. This was an official election rally, and they 100% vetted every joke before he went out there. If they didn’t, they’re incompetent. So either way, their own weak ass defense is damning.

  • InverseParallax@lemmy.world
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    25 days ago

    https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Madison/01-10-02-0065

    There was one difficulty however of a serious nature attending an immediate choice by the people. The right of suffrage was much more diffusive in the Northern than the Southern States; and the latter could have no influence in the election on the score of the Negroes. The substitution of electors obviated this difficulty and seemed on the whole to be liable to fewest objections.

    The electoral college was purely designed to let southerners use their slaves for votes. Letting Puerto Ricans vote doesn’t help Southerners cheat.

  • Queen HawlSera@lemm.ee
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    25 days ago

    Reminder: The only reason Puerto Ricans cannot vote is because Republicans refuse to recognize it as a state, and they do that because they don’t want brown people to vote, and they don’t want brown people to vote because they don’t want them to exist.

    • VindictiveJudge@lemmy.world
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      25 days ago

      As much as I hate the GOP, Puerto Rico has never attempted to apply for statehood. Their referendums on the subject have never shown a large enough amount of support for them to try a real vote. They’re typically around a 50-50 split.

      • Crozekiel@lemmy.zip
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        25 days ago

        State or not I think its pretty ridiculous that they are american citizens but can’t vote for president of the united states… People living in DC get to vote and aren’t living in a state.

        • skuzz@discuss.tchncs.de
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          25 days ago

          But they choose to not. One of those cake and eat it too scenarios.

          A territory like them is eligible for Federal money from various programs, while not having to pay Federal income tax. If they became a state, they’d then have to pay income tax, lose benefit of the free program money, but be allowed to vote.

          If you don’t want to fully commit to the whole package and are milking the advantages of being a territory, should you really get a right to choose how the package that is being taxed and giving you free money is steered?

          (Oversimplification, of course.)

          If I were a member of a territory, I don’t really know where my thoughts would land.

          However, as one that is taxed, it seems that allowing the untaxed to choose our taxed destiny would be disingenuous.

          • Crozekiel@lemmy.zip
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            23 days ago

            You make it sound like Puerto Rico is some tax haven where they don’t pay the federal government anything, but Puerto Rico pays more in total federal taxes than 6 US states.

        • mitchty@lemmy.sdf.org
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          25 days ago

          Only citizens residing in a state for the majority of the year can vote for federal elections. Basically you need a senator to vote federally. Hawaii and all other states were the same way when they too were territories. All PR needs to do is vote for statehood and then I guess the political shitshow starts as well as flag redesign.

          • Crozekiel@lemmy.zip
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            25 days ago

            Except we made an exception for citizens that reside in Washington DC. They have no representative in the senate, but were given 3 electoral college votes for president and vice president.

            So we totally can (and have) extended the right to vote to citizens living outside one of the 50 states to vote, we just won’t for Puerto Rico. :(

          • wolfpack86@lemmy.world
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            24 days ago

            You aren’t correct. https://www.fvap.gov/citizen-voter/voting-residence

            You generally need to have established residency in a state at some point in your life, but there is zero requirement to spend any time there if you live abroad in order to retain your voting rights. Several states allow children who have been born overseas the right to vote at their parents last US address.

            However, because Puerto Rico is part of the United States, residents there (even if you retired there after living in New York your entire life) fall under the rules for Puerto Rico.

            So, you can live in Mexico as a US Citizen, permanently, and retain voting rights in your last state… Or you can live in Puerto Rico and lose the ability to vote for president.

      • smeenz@lemmy.nz
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        25 days ago

        What are the main reasons they have for not voting in favour of statehood?

    • NotBillMurray@lemmy.world
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      24 days ago

      Hear me out here, turn Puerto Rico into a state and combine both north and south Dakota into a new state called “One big Dakota”. We wouldn’t even need to change the flag, and the population of one big Dakota might break 5 digits.

  • robocall@lemmy.world
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    24 days ago

    Why is it that an American citizen living in, for example, France or any foreign country can vote but Americans in Puerto Rico can not?

  • kent_eh@lemmy.ca
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    25 days ago

    After Sunday’s rally, a senior adviser for the Trump campain, Danielle Alvarez, said in a statement that Hinchcliffe’s joke did “not reflect the views of President Trump or the campaign.”

    Your team knew exactly who he is and you specifically invited him to be part of your event.

    • CileTheSane@lemmy.ca
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      25 days ago

      The Trump team also asked him to remove the word C*** from his set before he went on and he agreed.

      The Trump team reviewed his set before he went on and did not have issues with Puerto Rico comments.