The
article below is satire. Andy Borowitz is an American comedian and New
York Times-bestselling author who satirizes the news for his column,
"The Borowitz Report."
spokesman for ISIS said on Tuesday that its leaders were “genuinely
confused” by the abundant hotel analogies in Presidential candidate
Donald Trump’s announcement speech, acknowledging that they were having a
difficult time understanding how his colorful anecdotes about running a
hotel empire translated into a strategy to defeat the terror group.
In a prepared statement, the ISIS spokesman said that
Trump’s pronouncements about such hotel-industry concerns as
air-conditioning and renting the proper-sized ballroom were creating
confusion within ISIS, as the group’s leaders struggled to determine how
any of the examples applied to them.
“We’re having a very hard time making sense of the
speech,” the ISIS spokesman said. “He talked about defeating us, but it
seemed like what he was saying was pretty specific to hotels.”
Minutes after the statement was released, Trump
responded that the fact that he had confused ISIS “means I’m already
winning the war against it.”
“In every one of my hotels, you’ve got elevators,” Trump said. “Some of them go up, some of them go down. ISIS is going down.”
United States Supreme Court. (photo: Roger L. Wollenberg/Bloomberg/Getty)
By Andy Borowitz, The New Yorker
26 June 15
The
article below is satire. Andy Borowitz is an American comedian and New
York Times-bestselling author who satirizes the news for his column,
"The Borowitz Report."
he
Supreme Court’s decision to preserve Obamacare subsidies has drawn
sharp rebukes from Republican Presidential hopefuls, who warn that the
victory for health care might eventually pave the way for similar
advances in education and the environment.
“The Supreme Court has decided, apparently, that every
American should have access to quality health care,” said Senator Ted
Cruz (R-Texas). “What if it decided to say the same thing about
education? I don’t mean to be an alarmist but, after today, I believe
that anything is possible.”
Senator Rand Paul (R-Kentucky) also blasted the Court,
telling reporters that “a government that protects health care is one
small, dangerous step away from protecting the environment.”
“The nightmare that I have long feared is now suddenly
upon us,” Paul said. “Mark my words, we are on a slippery slope toward
clean air and water.”
On the campaign trail in Iowa, the former Arkansas
governor Mike Huckabee raised another doomsday scenario, telling his
audience, “If the Court thinks people should be allowed to see a doctor
when they want, they probably also think that people should be able to
marry anyone they want. My friends, that is not what God intended when
He created America.”
Speaking from New York, candidate Donald Trump offered
his own scathing critique of the Supreme Court. “You look at them in
their robes, and you say, ‘Those robes look freaking cheap,’ ” he said.
“When I’m President, we’re getting more expensive robes.”
Plaque in honor of the male participants of the 1950 Jayuya (Puerto
Rico) Uprising. Monument located at the Cruzados' subsection, Aguilar
Ward, Mayagüez, Puerto Rico
Plaque honoring the women of the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party located
in the monument to the heroes of the Jayuya Uprising in the city of
Mayagüez
Puerto Rico had a gag law
from 1948 to 1957, and this law was in effect at the time of the
revolt. On May 21, 1948, a bill, which would be passed and signed into
law on June 10, was introduced before the Puerto Rican Senate,
which would restrain the rights of the independence and Nationalist
movements in the island. It was approved by the Puerto Rican Senate,
which at the time was controlled by the PPD and presided by Luis Muñoz Marín.[14]
The new law, also known as the "Ley de la Mordaza"
(Gag Law), made it illegal to display a Puerto Rican flag, to sing a
patriotic tune, to talk of independence, or to fight for the
independence of the island. The bill was signed into law on June 10,
1948, by the U.S.-appointed Governor of Puerto Rico, Jesús T. Piñero and became known as Ley 53 (Law 53).[15][16]
The Puerto Rican Nationalist Party is a Puerto Ricanpolitical party which was founded on September 17, 1922. Its main objective was to work for Puerto Rican Independence. The election in 1930 of Pedro Albizu Campos as its president of the Nationalist Party brought a radical change to the organization and its tactics. In the 1930s, intimidation, repression and persecution of Party members by the government, then headed by a U.S. president-appointed governor, led to the assassination of two government officials, the attempted assassination of a federal judge in Puerto Rico, and the Rio Piedras and Ponce massacres.
Under the leadership of Albizu Campos, the party abandoned the
electoral process in favor of direct armed conflict as means to gain
independence from the United States. By the late 1940s, a more US-friendly party, the Popular Democratic Party of Puerto Rico, had gained an overwhelming number of seats in the legislature and, in 1948, it passed "Puerto Rico's Gag Law",
which attempted to suppress the Nationalist Party and similar
opposition. The Puerto Rican police arrested many Nationalist Party
members under this law, some of whom were sentenced to lengthy prison
terms. With a new political status pending for Puerto Rico as a
Commonwealth, Albizu Campos ordered armed uprisings in several Puerto
Rican towns to occur on October 30, 1950. In an related effort, two
Nationalists also attempted to assassinate US President Harry S. Truman on November 1, 1950, in an effort to call international attention to issues related to Puerto Rico's political status, but the attempt failed. The last major armed event by the Nationalists occurred in 1954 at the US House of Representatives when four party members shot and wounded five Congressmen. After Albizu Campos's death in 1965, the party dissolved into
factions and members joined other parties, but some continue to follow
the party's ideals in one form or another, often informally or ad hoc, to this day.[1]
Charles Herbert Alen, the first sugar baron of Puerto Rico
After four hundred years of colonial domination under the Spanish Empire, Puerto Rico finally received its sovereignty in 1898 through a Carta de Autonomía (Charter of Autonomy). This Charter of Autonomy was signed by Spanish Prime Minister Práxedes Mateo Sagasta and ratified by the Spanish Cortes.[2] Despite this, just a few months later, the United States claimed ownership of the island as part of the Treaty of Paris which concluded the Spanish–American War. Opponents to the colonial government argued that the profits
generated by this arrangement were one-sided enormous for the United
States.[3] When the war ended, U.S. President McKinley appointed Charles Herbert Allen as the first civilian governor of Puerto Rico.
Though Allen had a business background, his financial administration of
Puerto Rico was strikingly unsound. By ignoring the appropriation
requests of the Puerto Rican House of Delegates, refusing to make any municipal, agricultural or small business loans, building roads at double the old costs, and leaving 85% of the school-age population
without schools. Instead of making these infrastructure and education
investments, Allen raided the Puerto Rican treasury and his
administration re-directed the insular budget to no-bid contracts for U.S. businessmen, railroad subsidies for U.S.-owned sugar plantations, and high salaries for U.S. bureaucrats in the island government.[4][5] Allen's financial acumen improved considerably when he returned to the U.S., and resumed his own personal business
interests. In 1901, Allen resigned as governor and installed himself as
president of the largest sugar-refining company in the world, the American Sugar Refining Company. This company was later renamed as the Domino Sugar company. In effect, Charles Allen leveraged his governorship of Puerto Rico into a controlling interest over the entire Puerto Rican economy.[6] In 1914, the Puerto Rican House of Delegates voted unanimously for
independence from the United States. In 1917, the US Congress passed an
act by which it granted citizenship to Puerto Rican residents, although
this was overwhelmingly opposed by the island's political leaders.
Critics said the US was simply interested in increasing the size of its
conscription pool for soldiers for World War I.[7]
Pres. Roosevelt wielding his big stick in the Caribbean
By 1930, over 40 percent of all the arable land in Puerto Rico had been converted into sugar plantations,
which were entirely owned by Domino Sugar Company and U.S. banking
interests. These bank syndicates also owned the entire coastal railroad,
and the San Juan international seaport.[6] This land grab was not limited to Puerto Rico. By 1930 the United Fruit Company owned over one million acres of land in Guatemala, Honduras, Colombia, Panama, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Mexico and Cuba.[8] By 1940, in Honduras alone, the United Fruit Company owned 50 percent of all private land in the entire country.[8]
In Guatemala, the United Fruit Company owned 75 percent of all private
land by 1942 - plus most of Guatemala's roads, power stations and phone
lines, the only Pacific seaport, and every mile of railroad.[9] The U.S. government supported all these economic exploits, and provided military "persuasion" whenever necessary.[8]
The origins of the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party date to 1917, when a
group of Union Party members in Ponce, dissatisfied with the attitude
of the Union Party of Puerto Rico towards the "granting" of U.S.
citizenship, formed the "Asociación Nacionalista de Ponce" (Ponce
Nationalist Association). Among its founders were Dr. Guillermo
Salazar, Rafael Matos Bernier, J. A. Gonzalez, and Julio Cesar
Fernandez. These men also founded the newspaper El Nacionalista.[10] The Puerto Rican Nationalist Party was formed as a direct response to the American colonial government. In 1919, José Coll y Cuchí, a member of the Union Party of Puerto Rico,
felt that the Union Party was not doing enough for the cause of Puerto
Rican independence. Coll y Cuchí and some followers left to form the
Nationalist Association of Puerto Rico in San Juan.
Under Coll y Cuchí's presidency, the party convinced the Puerto Rican
Legislative Assembly to approve an Act that would permit the transfer of
the remains of the Puerto Rican patriot, Ramón Emeterio Betances, from Paris, France, to Puerto Rico.
Don Pedro Albizu Campos
The Legislative Assembly appointed Alfonso Lastra Charriez as its
emissary since he had French heritage and spoke the language fluently.
Betances' remains arrived in San Juan on August 5, 1920. A funeral
caravan organized by the Nationalist Association transferred the remains
from San Juan to the town of Cabo Rojo, where his ashes were interred by his monument. By the 1920s, two other pro-independence organizations had formed on the Island: the Nationalist Youth and the Independence Association of Puerto Rico. The Independence Association was founded by José S. Alegría, Eugenio Font Suárez and Leopoldo Figueroa
in 1920. On September 17, 1922, these three political organizations
joined forces and formed the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party. Coll y
Cuchi was elected president and José S. Alegría (father of Ricardo Alegría) vice-president. In 1924, Dr. Pedro Albizu Campos
joined the party and was named vice-president. By 1930, disagreements
between Coll y Cuchi and Albizu Campos as to how the party should be
run, led the former and his followers to leave and return to the Union
Party. Alegría was named Nationalist Party president in 1928 and held
that position until 1930. On May 11, 1930, Dr. Pedro Albizu Campos was
elected president of the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party. Under Albizu Campos's leadership during the years of the Great Depression, the party became the largest independence movement
in Puerto Rico. By the mid-1930s, after disappointing electoral results
and strong repression by the territorial police authorities,
culminating in the October 1935 Río Piedras massacre,
Albizu Campos announced in December 1935 that the Nationalist Party
would withdraw from electoral participation while the United States kept
control. He advocated direct, violent revolution.[citation needed] The Puerto Rican Nationalist Party maintained that, as a matter of
international law, the Treaty of Paris following the Spanish–American
War could not have empowered the Spanish to "give" to the US what was no
longer theirs.[6] In the mid-1930s, the party staged some protests that developed as celebrated incidents because of police overreaction: the Rio Piedras[11] and Ponce massacres, in which government forces fired on some who were unarmed civilians.[12][13]
Nationalist Party partisans were involved in a variety of dramatic and violent confrontations during the 1930-50s:
In the 1930s, the party organized the official youth organization the "Cadets of the Republic" (Cadets of the Republic), headed by Raimundo Díaz Pacheco and the "Hijas de la Libertad" (Daughters of Freedom), the women's branch in which Julia de Burgos served as Secretary General.
On April 6, 1932, Nationalist partisans marched into the Capitol building in San Juan to protest a legislative proposal to establish the current Puerto Rican flag as the official flag of the insular government. Nationalists preferred the emblem used during the Grito de Lares. A melée
ensued in the building, and one partisan fell to his death from a
second floor interior balcony. The protest was condemned by the
legislators Rafael Martínez Nadal and Santiago Iglesias; and endorsed by others, including the future leader of the statehood party, Manuel García Méndez.
The Ponce Massacre.
Police open fire on unarmed marchers and bystanders on Palm Sunday. The
19 dead included a 7-year-old girl, who was shot in the back.
On October 24, 1935, a confrontation with police at University of Puerto Rico campus in Río Piedras resulted in the deaths of 4 Nationalist partisans and one policeman. The event is known as the Río Piedras massacre.
This and other events led the party to announce on December 12, 1935, a
boycott of all elections held while Puerto Rico remained part of the
United States.
On February 23, 1936, in San Juan, two Nationalists assassinated the
Insular Police Chief and ex-U.S. Marine officer, E. Francis Riggs. The
Nationalist perpetrators, Hiram Rosado and Elías Beauchamp, were
arrested, transported to police headquarters, and killed within hours
without trial. No policeman was ever tried or indicted for their deaths.[14]
On March 21, 1937, the Nationalist Party organized a peaceful march in the southern city of Ponce. At the last moment, the permit was withdrawn, and the Insular Police[15] (a force "somewhat resembling the National Guard of the typical U.S. state" and which answered to the U.S.-appointed governor Blanton Winship)[16] were arrayed against the marchers. They opened fire upon what a U.S. Congressman and others reported were unarmed[17] and defenseless[18] cadets and bystanders alike,[19][20] killing 19 and badly wounding over 200 more.[21]
Many of these unarmed people were shot in the back while trying to run away - including a 7-year old girl, who died as a result.[22][23] An ACLU report declared it a massacre[24] and it has since been known as the Ponce Massacre.
The march had been organized to commemorate the ending of slavery in
Puerto Rico by the governing Spanish National Assembly in 1873, and to
protest the incarceration by the U.S. government of nationalist leader Pedro Albizu Campos.[25] Soon thereafter, the Puerto Rican government arrested the leadership of the Nationalist party, including Pedro Albizu Campos. In two trials, they were convicted of conspiracy to overthrow the government of the United States.
A government investigation into the incident drew few conclusions. A
second, independent investigation ordered by the US Commission for
Civil Rights (May 5, 1937) led by Arthur Garfield Hays (a member of the ACLU)
with Fulgencio Piñero, Emilio Belaval, Jose Davila Rice, Antonio Ayuyo
Valdivieso, Manuel Diaz Garcia, and Franscisco M. Zeno, concluded that
the events on March 21constituted a massacre. The report harshly
criticized the repressive tactics and massive civil rights violations by
the administration of Governor Blanton Winship.[26]
External video
and view a portion of the Albizu Documentary Trailer made in English here.
You may watch newsreel scenes of the Ponce Massacrehere
On July 25, 1938, the municipality of Ponce organized celebrations
to commemorate the American landing in 1898. This included a military
parade and speeches by Governor Blanton Winship,
Senate president Rafael Martínez Nadal, and others. When Winship rose
to speak, shots were fired at him, slaying police Colonel Luis Irizarry,
who was seated next to the governor. The Nationalist Interim President
M. Medina Ramírez repudiated the shooting and denied any involvement in
it, but numerous Nationalists were arrested and convicted of
participating in the shooting. Winship worked to repress the
Nationalists. Jaime Benitez, a student at the University of Chicago at the time, wrote a letter to President Franklin D. Roosevelt which in part read as follows:
"The point I am to make is that the Governor [Winship] himself
through his military approach to things has helped keep Puerto Rico in a
unnecessary state of turmoil. He seems to think that the political
problem of Puerto Rico limits itself to a fight between himself and the
Nationalists, that no holds are barred in that fight and that everybody
else should keep out. As a matter of fact he has played the Nationalist
game and they have played his.[27]
Soon afterward, two Nationalist partisans, among them Raimundo Díaz Pacheco, attempted to assassinate Robert Cooper,
judge of the Federal Court in Puerto Rico. On May 12, 1939, Winship was
summarily removed from his post as Governor by President Roosevelt.[28]
On June 10, 1948, the U.S.-appointed governor of Puerto Rico, Jesús T. Piñero, under pressure from the United States,[29] signed the "Ley de la Mordaza" (Gag Law). The law was passed in the Puerto Rican legislature on May 21, 1948, in which the Popular Democratic Party held all but one seat. Its president was Luis Muñoz Marín. Officially known as Law 53, the 1948 Gag Law made it illegal to display the Puerto Rican flag, sing patriotic songs, talk about independence, or fight for the liberation of the island. It resembled the anti-communist Smith Law passed in the United States.[30]
Albizu Campos ordered Nationalist uprisings to take place on October
30, 1950 (they had originally been planned for 1952, when Commonwealth
status was expected.) These involved a dozen or so skirmishes throughout
the island.
The first battle of the Nationalist uprisings occurred in the early hours of October 29, in barrio Macaná of Peñuelas.
The police surrounded the house of the mother of Melitón Muñiz, the
president of the Peñuelas Nationalist Party, under the pretext that he
was storing weapons for a Nationalist revolt. Without warning, the
police fired on the Nationalists and a firefight ensued, resulting in
the death of two Nationalists and wounding of six police officers.[31]
In the Jayuya Uprising, led by Nationalist leader Blanca Canales, a police station and post office were burned. The town was held by the Nationalists for three days.[32] The Utuado Uprising culminated in the Utuado Massacre by the local police, in which five Nationalists were executed. The San Juan Nationalist revolt was a Nationalist attempt to enter the Governor's mansion, La Fortaleza, in order to attack then-governor Luis Muñoz Marín.
The hour-long shootout resulted in the death of four Nationalists:
Domingo Hiraldo Resto, Carlos Hiraldo Resto, Manuel Torres Medina and
Raimundo Díaz Pacheco. Three guards were also seriously wounded.
Hipólito Miranda Díaz, killed in the Arecibo incident
Various other shootouts took place throughout island - including those at Mayagüez, Naranjito, Arecibo, and Ponce,
where Antonio Alicea, Jose Miguel Alicea, Francisco Campos (Albizu
Campos's nephew), Osvaldo Perez Martinez and Ramon Pedrosa Rivera were
arrested and accused of the murder of police corporal Aurelio Miranda
during the revolt. Raul de Jesus was accused of violating the Insular
Firearms Law.[33] On October 31, police officers and National Guardsmen surrounded Salón Boricua, a barbershop in Santurce. Believing that a group of Nationalists were inside the shop, they opened fire. The only person in the shop was Campos barber Vidal Santiago Díaz.
Santiago Díaz, who fought alone against the attackers for three hours,
received five wounds, including one in the head. The battle was
transmitted "live" via the radio airwaves to the public in general.[34] On November 1, 1950, Griselio Torresola and Óscar Collazo unsuccessfully attempted to assassinate U.S. President Harry S. Truman, who was staying at the Blair House in Washington, D.C. Truman supported development of a constitution for Puerto Rico and
the 1952 status referendum on it; 82% of the voters approved the
constitution. The US Congress also approved the constitution. On March 1, 1954, Lolita Lebrón together with fellow Nationalists Rafael Cancel Miranda, Irving Flores and Andrés Figueroa Cordero attackedthe U.S. House of Representatives
in Washington, D.C. The group opened fire with automatic pistols. Some
30 shots were fired (mostly by Cancel, according to his account),
wounding five lawmakers. One of the congressmen, Representative Alvin
Bentley from Michigan, was seriously wounded. Upon her arrest, Lebrón
yelled "I did not come to kill anyone, I came to die for Puerto Rico!" On November 18, 1955, a non-violent splinter group of nationalists calling themselves La Quinta Columna
(The 5th Column) broke away from the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party due
to not supporting the ideas and thoughts of Albizu Campos, as to a
Puerto Rico relationship with Spain as its Mother country and their
nationalistic love for Puerto Rico as their Motherland.[citation needed] The other reason for the splinter group was due to the violence that took place in the 1950s.[citation needed] This splinter group would later become known in 1968 as El Movimiento Indio Taino de Boriken
(The Taino Indian Movement of Puerto Rico) which was primarily made up
of the children of the Puerto Rican Nationalists whom would come to
establish the indigenous grassroots civil rights movement in Puerto
Rico.[citation needed]
Although less active, the Nationalist Party continues to exist as an organization and an ideology.
As recently as 2013 they made a public demonstration of their
pro-Independence commitment, by dramatically protesting a speech from
the Governor of Puerto Rico.[35] The New York Junta is an autonomous organ of the party that recognizes, and is recognized by, the National Junta in Puerto Rico.[36] In 2006 and in representation of the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party, Jose Castillo spoke before the United Nations Special Committee on Decolonization
and said that the Nationalist Party..."had appeared in the past to
denounce colonialism in Puerto Rico and hoped the Special Committee
would show its commitment to the island’s struggle for
self-determination, so that it could join the United Nations in its own
right... The Special Committee and its resolutions on Puerto Rico were
indispensable instruments." Castillo "called upon the United States
Government to assure the Puerto Rican people of their right to
self-determination and human rights and immediately cease the
persecution, arrests, and murders perpetrated against independence
fighters. Vieques peace activists must be freed immediately, and the
FBI’s electronic surveillance and continued harassment of independence
fighters must be stopped. The United States must also end its actions
against basic human rights while fully implementing the United Nations
resolution calling for a constituent assembly to begin decolonization."
Castillo added that "Puerto Rico had its own national identity...Since
its 1898 invasion, the United States had tried to destroy the
nationality of Puerto Rican people. It kept Puerto Rico in isolation,
maintaining it as private corporation from which it earned billions a
year...exploitation had made foreigners richer and the Puerto Rican
people poorer. The fact that Puerto Rico was the last territory in the
world could not be hidden. Violation of rights there would cease only
once it was a free and independent nation. The United States must
provide compensation for what it had done to Puerto Rico’s land and
people."[37]
Thomas Aitken, Jr.; Luis Munoz Marin: Poet in the Fortress, pp. 60–61; Signet Books/New American Library, 1965
Manuel Maldonado-Denis; Puerto Rico: A Socio-Historic Interpretation, pp. 70–76; Random House, 1972
Ribes Tovar et al., p.122–144
Manuel Maldonado-Denis; Puerto Rico: A Socio-Historic Interpretation, pp. 65–82; Random House, 1972
Rich Cohen; The Fish That Ate the Whale; pub. Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2012; pp. 146-150
Rich Cohen; The Fish That Ate the Whale; pub. Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2012; p. 174
Neysa Rodriguez Deynes, Rafael J. Torres Torres and Carlos Aneiro Perez. Breviario sobre la Historia de Ponce y sus Principales Lugares de Interes. San Juan, Puerto Rico: Model Offset Printing. 1991. Page 63.
Rovira, "Remember the 1950 Uprising of October 30: Puerto Rico"
Victor Villanueva, "Colonial Memory and the Crime of Rhetoric: Pedro Albizu Campos" . Washington State University,Program in American Studies. Common Reading Assignment. Also in College English,
Volume 71, Number 6. July 2009. National Council of Teachers of
English. (Also appearing as “Colonial Research: A Preamble to a Case
Study” in "Beyond the Archives: Research as a Lived Process", Gesa
Kirsch and Liz Rohan, editors. Southern Illinois University Press.) Page
636. Retrieved 21 October 2012.
Manuel Maldonado-Denis; Puerto Rico: A Socio-Historic Interpretation, Random House, 1972
Five Years of Tyranny, Speech before the U.S. House of Representatives. The entire speech is contained in the Congressional Record
of August 14, 1939. It is reported in the Cong. Rec., and various other
publications elsewhere, that among those shot in their backs was a
7-year-old girl, Georgina Maldonado, who "was shot in the back while
running to a nearby church."
Geneva Perez holds a photograph of her husband,
Gabriel. Ms. Perez has been unable to call or visit her husband, who is
an inmate at Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora, N.Y.
Clinton Correctional Facility has not allowed visitors since two men
escaped a week ago, prompting concerns from family members about how
life has changed on the inside.
“We keep calling the prison and they don’t tell us anything,” Ms. Perez said.
In
the best of times, Ms. Perez’s life is isolated. She works two jobs and
the five-hour bus trip to Clinton, near the Canadian border, eats up
much of her free time. Her husband’s case does not invoke sympathy.
Friends wonder why she has to go every weekend.
Comments