The Puerto Rico Statehood Referendum -- A Total Sham

So, I was randomly interested in Puerto Rico and its territorial status and was browsing around on Wikipedia on the subject.

It didn't take long to put the pieces together. There is clearly a Democratic agenda to expedite the transition of Puerto Rico to statehood.

First, let's examine the differences between the 2008 and 2012 Democratic Platforms in regards to Puerto Rico.

2008:We believe that the people of Puerto Rico have the right to the political status of their choice, obtained through a fair, neutral, and democratic process of self-determination. The White House and Congress will work with all groups in Puerto Rico to enable the question of Puerto Rico's status to be resolved during the next four years.

2012: As President Obama said when he became the first President to visit Puerto Rico and address its people in 50 years, Boricuas every day help write the American story. Puerto Ricans have been proud American citizens for almost 100 years. During that time, the people of Puerto Rico have developed strong political, economic, social, and cultural ties to the United States. The political status of Puerto Rico remains an issue of overwhelming importance, but lack of resolution about status has held the island back. It is time for Puerto Rico to take the next step in the history of its status and its relationship to the rest of the United States. The White House Task Force Report on Puerto Rico has taken important and historic steps regarding status. We commit to moving resolution of the status issue forward with the goal of resolving it expeditiously. If local efforts in Puerto Rico to resolve the status issue do not provide a clear result in the short term, the President should support, and Congress should enact, self-executing legislation that specifies in advance for the people of Puerto Rico a set of clear status options, such as those recommended in the White House Task Force Report on Puerto Rico, which the United States is politically committed to fulfilling. The economic success of Puerto Rico is intimately linked to a swift resolution of the status question, as well as consistent, focused efforts on improving the lives of the people of Puerto Rico. We have made great progress for Puerto Rico over the past four years, including a sharp, historic increase in Medicaid funding for the people of Puerto Rico and fair and equitable inclusion in the Recovery Act and the Affordable Care Act. Going forward, we will continue working toward fair and equitable participation for Puerto Rico in federal programs. We support increased efforts by the federal government to improve public safety in Puerto Rico and the United States Virgin Islands, with a particular emphasis on efforts to combat drug trafficking and crime throughout our Caribbean border. In addition, consistent with the task force report, we will continue to work on improving Puerto Rico's economic status by promoting job creation, education, health care, clean energy, and economic development on the Island.

That's quite the "new and improved" statement, wouldn't you say? Everything I bolded should make it quite clear that the DNC means business. Puerto Rico is on the agenda. It is time for it to be a nice "equitable" (a word used twice) member of the U.S. that gets just as much welfare as everyone else. In fact, as the 2012 platform statement brags about, thanks to Obama Puerto Rico basically already does get the full compliment of welfare. So now it's time for Puerto Rico to repay the favor.

And of course they package it all in nice "democratic" propaganda, where the will of the Puerto Rico public, clearly expressed, should be honored by the U.S. government. Except their referendum was a total sham, and it's a really obvious one.

Why? Because they held two referendums, not one.

How obvious can you get? They had two referendums on the same subject on the same day (election day 11/6). The first referendum was a simple YES/NO on whether to maintain the current territorial status of Puerto Rico. A yes vote meant the current status of Commonwealth was favored while a no vote favored a different option. The results:

No 943,094 54.00%
Yes 803,407 46.00%
TOTAL 1,824,129

So no won. Fair enough. The second referendum was on three alternative options: statehood, free association, and independence. Statehood won with a large majority:

Statehood 809,652 44.61%
Free Assoc 441,505 24.33%
Independence 73,362 4.04%
Blank 472,674 26.04%
TOTAL 1,814,957

Of course all the media will really tell us is that Statehood got the majority by almost a 2-1 ratio. Thus the will of the Puerto Rico people has been strongly expressed and Congress should give serious consideration to resolving this issue of "overwhelming importance".

Have you already spotted how massive a scam this is? Let's look at this rationally:

-- 803,000 voted to maintain Commonwealth status
-- 809,000 voted for Statehood.

Now look a little more deeply:

-- Vote totals almost exactly the same (1.81 mil vs. 1.82)
-- 803,000 wanted to maintain Commonwealth but only 472,000 blank votes on ref #2
-- That means that 331,000 people who actually wanted to maintain Commonwealth status ended up voting for one of the 3 options allowed in ref #2
-- There was only a 6,000 vote difference between maintaining Commonwealth status and some other option

So there's the scam. Maintaining Commonwealth status clearly would have won if there had only been one referendum. The referendum was unnecessarily split and this scam was likely concocted by the Democrats bent on tightening their control of our "Republic".

Simply put, adopting Puerto Rico virtually guarantees the Democrats control of all branches for the foreseeable future.

Why? Puerto Rico would be the poorest state per capita in the Union by a longshot. According to Wikipedia, Puerto Rico has a GDP per capita 25% lower than the current lowest in the Union. It would be THE welfare state. And we all know who the vast majority of people will vote for in a welfare state.

That's more votes in the electoral college. That's 5 extra House seats. That's 2 extra Senators. That's the end of the two party system.

[link to en.wikipedia.org]