Puerto Rico News

July 2, 2009 - Following is a portion of the testimony presented by former Puerto Rico Gov. Carlos Romero Barceló given in the U.S. House of Representatives June 24. The remainder will appear in CARIBBEAN BUSINESS July 16. As we discuss H.R. 2499, we must ask ourselves: Why are we involved in seeking congressional action to sanction a “self-determination process for the people of Puerto Rico”?

In the first place, because the vast majority of the people of Puerto Rico aren’t satisfied with the existing legal, constitutional, political and economic colonial relationship with our nation, called “Commonwealth.”

In the second place, because we, the vast majority of U.S. citizens in Puerto Rico, believe in democracy. We are tired and upset with our undemocratic colonial (or territorial, if you wish) relationship with the nation of our citizenship, where we are denied the right to vote in national elections and to be fully represented in Congress. We have been disenfranchised U.S. citizens for 92 years. It is time to end it.

In the third place, because our so-called “commonwealth” relationship with the federal government has been rejected by a majority of the voters in the last two referendums held in 1993 and 1999. Therefore, we are now being ruled by the president and Congress without the consent of the people of Puerto Rico.

In the fourth place, because we are tired of being lied to and hoodwinked by the political leaders who advocate and defend the disenfranchisement of all U.S. citizens in Puerto Rico; by those who cynically claim to believe in democracy, yet are willing to remain disenfranchised forever, as long as they don’t have to pay federal income taxes; and by those who want to participate and be treated equally in all federal programs, but don’t want to contribute to the U.S. Treasury, as do our fellow citizens in the 50 states.

H.R. 2499, like its predecessor H.R. 900, seeks to move Congress and the president into more active roles in providing the 4 million disenfranchised U.S. citizens in Puerto Rico with a process by which to achieve full sovereignty or to share the nation’s sovereignty as equal partners with the 50 states of the union.

To provide a process that will achieve a solution to Puerto Rico’s unsolved states dilemma, we must start by officially unmasking “Commonwealth” so the U.S. citizens of Puerto Rico won’t be lied to and deceived.

[Open link for full commentary.]

Thousands of Puerto Ricans lined the streets in Camden on Sunday to party and celebrate their heritage at the annual Parada San Juan Bautista.

Eight suspects were arrested, one was already in custody in an unrelated case. Two others are still on the loose.

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico - Discount carrier Spirit Airlines has reportedly acquired Air Jamaica in a government-led effort to privatize the island's money-losing national airline.

Newly released documents from Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor's service on the board of a Puerto Rican civil rights organization show the group opposed Robert Bork's nomination to the high court more than two decades ago.

I was born in Ponce, Puerto Rico but I've lived in the United States since I was four years old.

A self-described spiritual healer accidentally dropped a candle into a tub where a client was bathing in alcohol Friday, leaving her with burns over half her body, police said.

Caribbean Busniess Online - July 2, 2009: Local chapter insists both measures diminish chances of local families to acquire or refinance a home by reducing their purchasing power The Puerto Rico Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) has called for the repeal of the notary law and the new property-tax increase on nonexempt properties, urging the government to instead adopt solutions that don’t directly affect the pockets of potential and existing homebuyers.

“If you haven’t been involved in a mortgage-related transaction within the past year, you are probably unaware that last August House Bill 4454 became Law 239, which immediately made effective a new 1% fixed-rate fee on all mortgage-related transactions, making it harder for a person to acquire a home or make a residential or commercial transaction,” said local MBA President Steven Vélez.

The transaction, Vélez added, was approved by the Legislature on the last day of the ordinary session under the cover of night, without the due process of public hearings and with the strong opposition of several private-sector organizations such as the MBA, the Bankers Association and the Home Builders Association.

Concerned about the economic impact the new fixed-rate fee would have on consumers’ pockets, Vélez said the MBA left no stone unturned in its efforts to speak at all pertinent forums and alert the public. In spite of the MBA’s efforts, Law 239 was approved.

[Open link for full story in Caribbean Business Online.]

We now know the name of one of the drivers killed in a head-on crash yesterday afternoon.

DON BURK/The Times-Union Joshua Newsteder, a former pilot in the U.S. Navy, and a commerical pilot, is now hoping to start a Jacksonville-based airline that would start flying later this year from Jacksonville to Puerto Rico.

For Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor, being Puerto Rican is wrapped up in the Caribbean island's exotic cuisine.

"I FEEL so small," bleated Amelia, my 10-year-old, as she surveyed her surroundings in El Yunque National Forest in Puerto Rico.

A bullet-scarred farmhouse where the fugitive leader of a militant Puerto Rican nationalist group was killed in a shootout with FBI agents is a historical site deserving preservation, a mayor in this U.S. territory said Wednesday.

Puerto Rico vacations: Popular attractions in Puerto Rico include lush green tropical rain forest, age-old cave system, etc.

On Saturday I toured El Morro, the historic Spanish fort that overlooks the Atlantic Ocean and San Juan Harbor. It is now a ruin but it is 460 years old. The convention ended that night with a grand celebration at a beach resort.

Posted by Jose Romero

WOW!

What an amazing time I had in Puerto Rico, can't even tell you. But I will try.

I was in San Juan for the annual National Association of Hispanic Journalists convention. I spent a week working with college grads on their print stories (editing them) for publication in the convention newspaper. I worked with some outstanding professionals (now friends) and the students got a lot out of the experience though the work was long and demanding.

I didn't get to go to any workshops or professional developments sessions because of how busy I was with editing, but I did get to do some cool things away from the convention. The most fun was the two nights at the Nuyorican Cafe listening to live Salsa from a band called Combo Rican. If you love Salsa, you'll love them. Turn down your volume on this video, kind of loud in there!.

{Open link for access to original source. There are three great videos to view, More photos and more information about Puerto Rico and Jose Romero's trip.]

The law of employment discrimination today is not what it was before 10 a.m. Monday, when the Supreme Court ruled against the City of New Haven for scrapping a fire department promotional exam that appeared to favor white test-takers.

Whatever else the court’s 5-to-4 majority achieved, the result removed the breathlessly awaited case of Ricci v. DeStefano as a substantial issue in the imminent Supreme Court confirmation hearing for Judge Sonia Sotomayor.

Judge Sotomayor, famously, was one of three judges on an appellate panel who applied their federal circuit’s settled precedent to rule in New Haven’s favor. Like that decision or hate it, cheer Monday’s ruling or deplore it, one thing that is clear from reading the Supreme Court’s 89 pages of opinions in the case is that Judge Sotomayor and her colleagues played by the old rules, and the court changed them. Although “Sotomayor Reversed” was a frequent headline on the posts that spread quickly across the Web, it was actually the Supreme Court itself that shifted course.

To understand the nature of the shift requires a bit of history. Congress enacted Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the statute at issue in the Ricci case, with a simple command to employers: thou shalt not discriminate on the basis of race or other protected characteristics, including sex and religion. But the simple proved to be complicated. An employer of blue-collar workers in North Carolina, Duke Power, required a high school diploma of all job applicants, a requirement that screened out 88 percent of black men in that region at that time.

In a 1971 decision, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously that a test that was “fair in form, but discriminatory in operation” could violate Title VII even without proof that the discrimination was intentional. Congress eventually amended Title VII to codify that decision, Griggs v. Duke Power. The rule was clear: if a job requirement produced a “disparate impact,” the employer had the burden of showing that the requirement was actually necessary.

Federal agencies, in turn, stepped forward to define the statistical disparity that prompted the further inquiry. Under the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s “four-fifths rule,” a test that one racial group passed at less than 80 percent the rate of another group would place an employer in presumptive violation of Title VII.

[Open link to read full commentary in the NYT.]

Bloomberg News/Cincinnati Enquirer - June 28, 2009: While many U.S. lawmakers didn't know about the Diageo benefit when they voted for the bill, Puerto Rican officials did -- and they didn't like it.

In June 2008, U.S. Virgin Islands Governor John deJongh Jr. agreed to give London-based Diageo Plc billions of dollars in tax incentives to move its production of Captain Morgan rum from one U.S. island -- Puerto Rico -- to another, namely St. Croix.

DeJongh says he had no idea his deal would help make the world's largest liquor distiller the most unlikely beneficiary of the emergency Troubled Asset Relief Program approved by Congress just four months later.

Today, as two 56-foot-high tanks for holding fermenting molasses will soon rise from the ground on the Caribbean island of St. Croix, the extent to which dozens of nonbank companies benefited from last October's emergency financial rescue plan is just beginning to come to light.

The hurried legislation adopted by a Congress voting under the threat of sudden global economic collapse led to hidden tax breaks for firms in dozens of industries. They included builders of Nascar auto-racing tracks, restaurant chains such as Burger King Holdings Inc., movie and television producers--and London's Diageo.

"It's kind of like the magician's sleight of hand," says former House Ways and Means Committee Chairman William Thomas, R-Calif. Republican who ran the committee from 2001 to 2007 and oversaw all tax legislation. "They snuck these things in a bill that was focused on other things."

Congress inserted the tax benefits for companies other than banks in a fog of confusion and panic after the House of Representatives rejected the first attempt to fund the bank support effort urged by then President George W. Bush and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson.

[Open link for full story and related stories.]

An Australian man authorities say was arrested at a hotel in Puerto Rico with a teenage girl has been charged with federal sex offenses.

Juan Manuel Lopez stopped Montreal boxer Olivier Lontchi in the ninth round to retain the WBO junior featherweight title Saturday night.

Residents of a Puerto Rican town are vowing to fight a planned monkey-breeding facility for fear that the primates will escape and overrun their community.