So, they want full representation, but not to have to follow the full federal laws (any pay full federal taxes).

Last year was the first time (in 5 votes since 1967) that they have clearly voted for statehood, however, there was record low voter turnout (23%) due to the party supporting keeping territory status boycotting the election (and IMO not being done in an election year), and possibly skewing the results.

2017-
97% voted yes, to statehood with only 23% turnout (78% turnout in the 2012 election).
A poll done in 2017 found that only 52% supported statehood (Although in my opinion, it was a very small sample size at 966 people)

It is trending toward statehood, but so far, it is not even clear that Puerto Ricans want it.

I believe I am impartial as I really don't care one way or the other, but this video feels like it is only telling half of a sob story, but it is a mess.

I feel, in 2020, they need a measure that ask 1 question: statehood, colony, or independent. Last time they asked it that way was 1993.

This was before the 2012 election (when weed got legal in WA & CO).

Basically @RFlagg I see it happening in one of two ways. If Republicans continue to lose elections, especially the white house, if the political fallout from the shutdown is large enough, the Republicans will lose congress as well. Republicans will either: 1) fade into history. or 2) Republicans will whip their low information voters into a frenzy, playing the tyranny card and eventually there *will* be an attempt at an armed revolt, but since it won't have any real popular support, it will fail relatively quickly but it will have the additional effect that Republicans will be blamed for any deaths caused by this revolt and there will be a huge exodus from the GOP and they will be ostracized from American society. They'll still exist of course, but they'll have the same relevance as the KKK, or the people who still think the world is flat and it's just a huge conspiracy.

2016 is going to be an important election, If Dems can still retain the white house for another 8 years, it's going to be another huge blow to the Republicans, especially when their last stated singular goal was to make Obama a 1 term president and failed.

and quite honestly, I'm not sure it will happen like I was sure Obama would get re-elected. Hilary just...shouldn't run IMO, her time is past. Elizabeth Warren would have a good shot at it. But I also think Dems need to find a new voice. Someone who, like Obama, who actually did embrace the internet and social media and used it very much to his advantage.

If you win the internet, you win the vote. They've got to keep the pressure up. Quite honestly, the 2008 and 2012 elections were easy, It was easy to get the left riled up when clueless Sarah Palin or Robot Romney were running. But I suspect the right will eventually learn from their mistake and run someone who actually is semi-relatable

I just think it's very likely Dems will get cocky and snatch defeat from the jaws of victory again. So.....don't get cocky kid.

>> ^lantern53:

why? WHY? wwhyyyyyy? *boooohooohooo*.


To quote Speechless in the Karl Rove thread:
Your tears are sweet delicious nectar.

:-]

>> ^lantern53:

Your pal Obama has spent a trillion dollars per year since he's been in office. He will do the same for the next four, because this is all he has to offer...other people's money. And when that money runs out (actually it already has) what will he offer then? The only thing left is financial collapse due to crushing debt, already happening in Europe.
But at least the gay people will be able to get married!
Good work.


Suck it Lantern. Suck it hard.
Take it all baby.

Actually, it would accomplish something.

Just like meditation does. Slows things down, puts things in perspective. Changes the mind -- from anger at losing the Presidency to some sort of acceptance.

Morgan Spurlock did a series on TV, where people would agree to go live for 30 days with folks who they hated without knowing. There was one episode where a Southern Christian man who hated Muslims agreed to spend 30 days with a young Muslim family who observed the praying five times a day thing. Terms of the deal was he had to pray, too.

What struck me most was how that praying changed this Christian fellow. They would get into heated debates, getting wound up, but then it would have to stop for the praying. And the tension would get diffused. Because a moment of calm was enforced.

And that is what I hear here. Romney is telling folks -- stop ranting and raving and hating, and take a moment for positive thoughts.

If everyone did that -- on both sides -- much much would be accomplished.

It's not about "god." It's about literally good intentions.

We need more good intentions.


>> ^Fred_Chopin:

Why is it so important to pray for Obama? What's that gonna accomplish?

There were a lot of reasons to vote for Obama. And a lot of reasons to vote AGAINST Romney.

The idea of four years of lip smacking was way, way up there on that list.

How could he not have gotten some guidance on that? And the false smile? And the stiff posture? He needed to take some Alexander Technique classes.



>> ^charliem:

Simply cant stand how often he lip-smacks when talking. Makes me cringe every time he does it.

NMA version: http://www.nma.tv/2012-election-us-obama-romney-boxing-game/ from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vN6B3NvzaBU ...

Tired of that $2.6 Million Program that Teaches Chinese Prostitutes to Drink?

by John Ransom


Liberty is about a lot of things; it’s a deep topic. But at its core liberty can be summed up in one simple and reciprocal concept. That concept is respect.

You know the 2010 last election was about many things, but it was mostly about respect.

It was about starting to restore the respect that people have in government, by getting the government to restore the respect that they show to you…by taking liberty seriously.

If you are like me, you think that many of our elected officials from both the right and the left truly believe that what they think of you is much more important than what you think of them.

If you’re like me you’re tired of a trillion dollars in so-called stimulus spending that went to mob-connected asphalt contractors rather than the pockets of working families who own businesses and pay taxes and do all the working and dreaming in this country.

If you’re like me, you’re tired of a $2.6 million program that teaches Chinese prostitutes to drink more responsibly while unemployment soars across the country.

If you’re like me, you're tired of an arrogant federal government which pays out $47 billion in fraudulent claims in Medicare every year while they lecture the rest of us about healthcare economics.

If you are like me, you’re tired of the US Postal service wasting $30 million on a program that pays 1100 employees to do nothing. Yes, today, the US Post Office sat 1100 employees in empty rooms, as they do every day, and literally paid them to do nothing. They can’t play cards; they can’t watch TV, in fact they can’t do anything at all. To the tune of $30 million per year.


Yet this very same federal government comes to us now and proposes to manage our healthcare, our retirement, the education of our children, the auto industry, the oil industry, pharmaceuticals, the mortgage industry and lectures the American people that they are under-regulated.

If you’re a middle American like me, from the grassroots, I bet you know someone who owns their own business; if you’re like me you probably know someone who has paid employees of that business on time every week, but hasn’t been able to pay themselves a dime. Yet these very same people who provide half the new jobs in our economy, who have lost money over the last few years, still owe the government tens of thousands of dollars in taxes every year. People wonder where our jobs have gone? They’ve been crushed by a system that doesn’t honor job creation; by a system that doesn’t honor liberty; a system that gives no respect.

And if you are like most of the voters I speak to, you are tired of insiders from Washington and Wall Street on both sides of the aisle, and their wasteful spending schemes that don’t even propose to solve the very issues facing Main Street and working families.

Let’s suppose global warming is real; I don’t think it is, but let’s say it's so for the sake of argument. Show me please how the Renewable Electricity Standard-- which will cost American families $1800 per year-- please show me how it’s going to lower the earth’s temperature. They can’t because the Renewable Electricity Standard wasn’t created to combat global warming and it won’t lower the earth’s temperature.

Ok, so let’s suppose the issue is carbon emission; that carbon is really bad and we have to get it out of our atmosphere. Show me please how the Renewable Electricity Standard is going to reduce the amount of carbon in our atmosphere. They can’t. It wasn’t designed to do that and it won’t do that.

The government doesn't write legislation with solutions in mind, but rather with power and control of your very lives. And it is inside of your lives where you will wrestle back that control.

I’m often reminded that it’s with readers just like you where many of the seminal events of our country happened. It’s in rooms just like you’re in right now that a small group of patriots in Massachusetts planned the Boston Tea Party; it’s in groups just like you are a part of today that was born the Mayflower Compact; it’s in the free association of our citizens, for the common good and with common respect, that the greatness and goodness of our country will always be found.

And as long as people like you, freely associate for the common good and meet in respect, our country will always remain both great and good.

But ordinary people are paying attention, actually reading the Constitution; people are actually asking questions about the 10th Amendment, asking: What kind of power does Washington really have over us?

Unfortunately, there aren’t enough people who have been awakened to that yet, that’s why readers like you are so important. Each individual reading this is so incredibly important because the job you have this year as a citizen has never, ever, ever been more important. The 2012 election is going to determine what it’s like to live in this country for a long time. It’s going to be people just like you, having conversation just like this, in rooms across America that are going to make a difference.

This is the chance to turn the tide. The chance we have today is to bury that last vestiges of big government in our country; to reclaim our liberty from a new deal and replace it with a true deal.

I’ve been very fortunate because over the last half dozen years I’ve been able to travel all around the country working with grassroots activists just like you. I understand, I think, better than elected officials, what makes the grassroots so special. It's you and your ability to communicate.

We have all these new tools available for citizens to communicate that just a few years ago we didn’t have. A few years ago readers wouldn’t have been as energized and as informed because we didn’t have the ability to communicate as we do now. We have been so fractured and fragmented all around the country and around the nation that we feel like we can’t do anything, that Washington is so big and out of touch that we can’t do anything.

In fact, that couldn’t be farther from the truth. Now is the time we really do have the opportunity. For the first time in our history ordinary citizens have the ability to communicate with one another over the heads of the media in publications like Townhall. We are networked on social media sites, like Facebook and Twitter that expose us to thousands of people for free.

But when I was growing up there were three TV stations and two newspapers in every town that decided what the news was. There were probably a dozen people in any town that picked our news for us.

Those days are over.

This election isn’t about voting for the next person standing in a long line of elites who will rule over us; it’s about what kind of country we want to be in the future.

It’s about preserving the American dream right here right now. Because when they mess with our liberty, they really mess with our ability to dream.

I believe that the ability to dream is worth handing down to our kids.

I believe that it’s our dreams that makes us the most dynamic country in the world.

It’s the dream that brings jobs and prosperity to the US.

It’s a dream that treats promises like they really matter.

And it’s the dreams that are the promise of America.

Because when politicians treat the promises they campaign on like they matter, when they are held accountable to those pledges-- by us-- we will restore the respect they owe us.

Congratulations! Your comment has just received enough votes from the community to earn you 1 Power Point. Thank you for your quality contribution to VideoSift.

>> ^Fletch:

"Santorum streak"... hehe.

ewww

>> ^quantumushroom:

The deliberate Uncertainty created by this corrupt regime is fking everything up. There's two trillion dollars in the hands of the people that is parked (you read that right, two TRILLION) waiting for two events: the Supreme Court's decision on obamacare and the election.

For the sake of argument, let's say your basic point is right and uncertainty about government is the only reason that $2 trillion is "parked," and the people who actually control what's done with that money bear zero responsibility for the damage their choices are wreaking on the economy.

Even if I, for the sake of argument only, stipulate all that as true, why does only Obama bear responsibility for that uncertainty? Using your own logic, if Republicans put the well-being of the country before their own ambition, they would restore certainty by a) dropping their suit against the ACA, and b) letting Obama run unopposed in the 2012 election.

Certainly that would restore "certainty" to the markets.

Now, if what you really meant was that the so-called "job creators" are intentionally fucking over the economy in order to a) put pressure on the SCOTUS to rule against the ACA, and b) try to get a Republican into the White House, why is Obama the villain in your story? Clearly if that's the case, then these people formerly known as job creators are actually terrorists who deserve to be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.
>> ^quantumushroom:
It's certainly true that certain companies legally pay no taxes, and they grease the palms of BOTH parties. But why do these companies (as well as everyone else) NEED lobbyists? Because the government is too big and too powerful.

Right, if it weren't for the government, corporations would be free to collect their own taxes from people, and make their own laws directly without any need to go through the pretense of democratic process.

You know, Utopia!

Again, even if I accept your basic premise, your logic is still flawed. If I bribe a bank security guard to look the other way while I rob his bank, the right response to that is to say "that bank should be more careful about who it hires" not "the entire practice of banking should be abolished."

Same for you and government -- if you don't like corporations buying influence in our government, you should be trying to find a way to limit their opportunities to do so (like campaign finance reform), or voting for people who are a lot less cozy with business than the people you like to vote for.

As for "make government smaller," that's no solution. All that does is create a power vacuum, one corporations step in to fill themselves. It doesn't level the playing field, it tilts it even more towards the people who already run things now.

If you're interested in getting out from under the thumb of people with too much power, you need to focus your sights on trying to reduce income and wealth disparity, and help try to return us to a more egalitarian society, rather than going out and trying to help the rich and powerful fuck us all over.

http://videosift.com/video/V-for-Vendetta-Are-You-Like-a-Crazy-Person

I have seen the results of other people testing it. Again, the scientific method intrinsically tests it for me, so I don't have to spend my life doing it.

I don't know that nuclear reactors actually work, I can't really test it because I don't have one available, but I think they do work, because I can see the results of them. Saying I have "faith" that they work, is misrepresenting what is actually going on.

>> ^longde:

The point is you haven't tested the results and the evidence.
It doesn't matter why or how or by what mechanism you have faith; you still have faith. Somehow, though, your faith is of more quality than someone else's. You reasoned out your faith, so it's OK.
"Assumption"? Let's not play semantics, here.>> ^gwiz665:
This is demonstrably false. "Taken on faith" is a huge misrepresentation.
We do not have faith in spite of the evidence, we have "faith" in the evidence. We can actually check up on it, we can even test them ourselves. If the results don't add up, one of our axioms (the stuff "taken on faith") might be false.
The entire scientific method rests on the fact that we can TEST our hypotheses, theories and the like.
I did a post on this earlier http://videosift.com/video/Penn-Jill
ette-An-Atheists-Guide-to-the-2012-Election?loadcomm=1#comment-1353716
Assumption is not the same as faith.
>> ^longde:
Whatever. Even atheists have faith. At least the ones that claim adherence to science.
Unless one has reproduced all scientific results and math proofs over the past hundreds of years, the efficacy of science and the honesty of scientists are taken on faith. This from an atheist trained as a physicist/engineer. There is nothing I have read about the scientific method that claims infallibility, but listening to alot of scientists (who should know better) and laymen atheists you would think it does.
edit: upvote for the discussion>> ^gwiz665:
Faith is the cancer of the mind, religion is just the outcome. The very essence of faith is to limit your curiosity, your search for knowledge and your very mind. I cannot abide by this.
I especially cannot abide by it when it is in people of power, like politicians.
It saddens me that smart, intellectual people are afflicted by this cancer, because it is such a damn shame that all they say have to be double-checked, because you cannot be sure whether it is actually founded in reason or in faith.
Faith has no value to me. Faith got us nowhere, reason got us to the stars.

The point is you personally haven't tested the results and the evidence.

It doesn't matter why or how or by what mechanism you have faith; you still have faith. Somehow, though, your faith is of more quality than someone else's. You reasoned out your faith, so it's OK.

"Assumption"? Let's not play semantics, here.>> ^gwiz665:

This is demonstrably false. "Taken on faith" is a huge misrepresentation.
We do not have faith in spite of the evidence, we have "faith" in the evidence. We can actually check up on it, we can even test them ourselves. If the results don't add up, one of our axioms (the stuff "taken on faith") might be false.
The entire scientific method rests on the fact that we can TEST our hypotheses, theories and the like.
I did a post on this earlier http://videosift.com/video/Penn-Jill
ette-An-Atheists-Guide-to-the-2012-Election?loadcomm=1#comment-1353716
Assumption is not the same as faith.
>> ^longde:
Whatever. Even atheists have faith. At least the ones that claim adherence to science.
Unless one has reproduced all scientific results and math proofs over the past hundreds of years, the efficacy of science and the honesty of scientists are taken on faith. This from an atheist trained as a physicist/engineer. There is nothing I have read about the scientific method that claims infallibility, but listening to alot of scientists (who should know better) and laymen atheists you would think it does.
edit: upvote for the discussion>> ^gwiz665:
Faith is the cancer of the mind, religion is just the outcome. The very essence of faith is to limit your curiosity, your search for knowledge and your very mind. I cannot abide by this.
I especially cannot abide by it when it is in people of power, like politicians.
It saddens me that smart, intellectual people are afflicted by this cancer, because it is such a damn shame that all they say have to be double-checked, because you cannot be sure whether it is actually founded in reason or in faith.
Faith has no value to me. Faith got us nowhere, reason got us to the stars.

This is demonstrably false. "Taken on faith" is a huge misrepresentation.

We do not have faith in spite of the evidence, we have "faith" in the evidence. We can actually check up on it, we can even test them ourselves. If the results don't add up, one of our axioms (the stuff "taken on faith") might be false.

The entire scientific method rests on the fact that we can TEST our hypotheses, theories and the like.

I did a post on this earlier http://videosift.com/video/Penn-Jillette-An-Atheists-Guide-to-the-2012-Election?loadcomm=1#comment-1353716

Assumption is not the same as faith.

>> ^longde:

Whatever. Even atheists have faith. At least the ones that claim adherence to science.
Unless one has reproduced all scientific results and math proofs over the past hundreds of years, the efficacy of science and the honesty of scientists are taken on faith. This from an atheist trained as a physicist/engineer. There is nothing I have read about the scientific method that claims infallibility, but listening to alot of scientists (who should know better) and laymen atheists you would think it does.
edit: upvote for the discussion>> ^gwiz665:
Faith is the cancer of the mind, religion is just the outcome. The very essence of faith is to limit your curiosity, your search for knowledge and your very mind. I cannot abide by this.
I especially cannot abide by it when it is in people of power, like politicians.
It saddens me that smart, intellectual people are afflicted by this cancer, because it is such a damn shame that all they say have to be double-checked, because you cannot be sure whether it is actually founded in reason or in faith.
Faith has no value to me. Faith got us nowhere, reason got us to the stars.