Puerto Rican Statehood

The editorial I chose is from the Washington Times and is about the possibility of making Puerto Rico an official state. It describes the bill currently under review in the house and provides the details of the possibility of putting statehood up for election for Puerto Ricans. The Democrats want it to become a state because it is largley democratic, but the people have recently voted to stay a commonwealth. The democrats have proposed a tricky vote to make the people of Puerto Rico and all former residents vote for remaining a commonwealth vs. statehood, independence, or a hybrid. The vote will be commonwealth vs. everything else and if commonwealth loses then the vote will be statehood vs, an unpopular option to force the people of PR to make itself a state. I think this is a very clever plan because the democrats want more power in congresss and the representatives of PR would help them gain such power since it would likely be a democratic state. It is unconstitutional because they are tricking the pople of the island into being a pawn for the democratic party. It isnt fair and if it passes in the House then the recent election to prevent a cloture vote will allow republicans to filibuster the bill.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/feb/26/puerto-rican-run/

Editorial !

The editorial I chose pertains to the issue of cover-ups and security in the United States under Obama and Bush. The article is about the court cases of two men of arab heritage that were seized and even tortured. These court cases are in question because they were dropped by the American court system and brought to light under the British court system. The men were detained at airports and, under the security system put in by President Bush, were sent to the countries they had been born in to be tortured and later sent to Guantanamo Bay. The editorial claims that Obama has not done anything to fix the abuses of the Bush Administration and claims that it needs to install some credibility to the system and to the Obama reputation. I think that Obama does need to fix the security problems because they are basically racist. Bush implemented a system that profiles people who look to be from the Middle East. Two middle eastern men that were citizens of develpoed western nations were tortured and imprisoned because of harsh regulations and misinformation. The current system needs to change because America does not need to look like a racist anymore. These two stories of foreigners on American soil being kidnapped is very Saddamesque.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/15/opinion/15mon1.html?ref=global-home