Puerto Rico

<p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">see hurricane</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">colony? debt crisis</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">disaster capitalism, desperation</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">austerity --> fiscal control bd unelected // flint mich emergency mgr --> pvtization aha</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></p><ul style="font-size: small; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 50px; list-style: none;"><li style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 7px; padding: 0px; list-style: square; position: relative; line-height: 1.7;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Similarly,&nbsp;</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">America counts several non-state “territories”—think Guam, Samoa, <b>Puerto Rico</b>—that don’t even get to vote for the president that it can legally send&nbsp; to war. But hey, why should we grant them statehood? It’s not as though some of them have&nbsp;<a href="https://www.equalrightsnow.org/u_s_citizens_defend_democracy_can_t_vote_for_president" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">higher military enlistment rates</a>&nbsp;than any U.S. state … oh, wait.</span></font></li></ul><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">now try pvt water?! kpfa 6/27/18</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/privatization-not-answer-grave-warnings-wall-street-vultures-circle-puerto-ricos-water-system">https://www.alternet.org/privatization-not-answer-grave-warnings-wall-street-vultures-circle-puerto-ricos-water-system</a></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">dn</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Naomi Klein: 4,645 Deaths in Puerto Rico From Hurricane Maria Were 'State-Sponsored Mass Killing'</font></p><h2 style="font-weight: normal; margin-top: 0px; line-height: 20px; margin-right: 10px; clear: both; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</h2><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></p><div><a href="https://www.alternet.org/sunday-news-shows-ignore-puerto-rico-amid-new-study-nearly-5000-people-died-result-hurricane-maria"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">
</font></a></div><div><a href="https://www.alternet.org/sunday-news-shows-ignore-puerto-rico-amid-new-study-nearly-5000-people-died-result-hurricane-maria"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.alternet.org/sunday-news-shows-ignore-puerto-rico-amid-new-study-nearly-5000-people-died-result-hurricane-maria</font></a></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.democracynow.org/2018/6/6/the_battle_for_paradise_new_intercept">https://www.democracynow.org/2018/6/6/the_battle_for_paradise_new_intercept</a></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><ul class="multipart_items" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; list-style-type: none;" helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><li style="box-sizing: border-box; list-style-type: none; margin: 22px 10px 22px 0px; font-family: TiemposHeadline, Roboto, " helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" color="color" rgb="rgb"><a class="" data-ga-action="Multipart Interview: Next Story" href="https://www.democracynow.org/2018/6/6/naomi_klein_4_645_deaths_in" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; outline: 0px; border: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">Part 1: Naomi Klein: 4,645 Deaths in Puerto Rico from Hurricane Maria Were “State-Sponsored Mass Killing”</font></a></li><li style="box-sizing: border-box; list-style-type: none; margin: 22px 10px 22px 0px; font-family: TiemposHeadline, Roboto, " helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" color="color" rgb="rgb"><a class="highlighted" data-ga-action="Multipart Interview: Next Story" href="https://www.democracynow.org/2018/6/6/the_battle_for_paradise_new_intercept" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; border: 0px; pointer-events: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">Part 2: “The Battle for Paradise”: New Intercept Doc Goes Inside Struggle over Puerto Rico’s Future</font></a></li><li style="box-sizing: border-box; list-style-type: none; margin: 22px 10px 22px 0px; font-family: TiemposHeadline, Roboto, " helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" color="color" rgb="rgb"><a class="" data-ga-action="Multipart Interview: Next Story" href="https://www.democracynow.org/2018/6/6/puerto_rico_is_a_playground_for" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; border: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">Part 3: Puerto Rico Is a “Playground for the Privileged”: Investors Move In as Homes Foreclose & Schools Close</font></a></li></ul></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;=</font></div><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">JAMA harvard 4600 kia</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://kpfa.org/episode/rising-up-with-sonali-june-1-2018/">https://kpfa.org/episode/rising-up-with-sonali-june-1-2018/</a></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">electric and schools close/pvtize charter</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.democracynow.org/2018/4/19/headlines/puerto_rico_14_million_lose_electric_power_in_island_wide_blackout">https://www.democracynow.org/2018/4/19/headlines/puerto_rico_14_million_lose_electric_power_in_island_wide_blackout</a></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-10-05/paradise-lost-as-paulson-s-puerto-rico-bet-is-blown-off-course">https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-10-05/paradise-lost-as-paulson-s-puerto-rico-bet-is-blown-off-course</a></font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 30px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit;" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Three years ago, John Paulson predicted Puerto Rico would become a tax haven for the wealthy -- the&nbsp;<a itemscope="itemscope" itemprop="StoryLink" href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-04-24/john-paulson-says-puerto-rico-to-become-singapore-of-caribbean" title="John Paulson Says Puerto Rico Will Be Singapore of Caribbean (1)" target="blank" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border-width: 0px 0px 1px; border-top-style: initial; border-right-style: initial; border-bottom-style: solid; border-left-style: initial; border-top-color: initial; border-right-color: initial; border-bottom-color: rgb(251, 142, 30); border-left-color: initial; border-image: initial; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none;">Singapore of the Caribbean</a>. He snapped up high-end hotels and other real estate, betting on what he thought would be an upswing in the island’s economy.</font></p><div class="hardwall" data-position="1" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit;" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb"><div class="softwall" data-position="1" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit;" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb"><p style="margin: 30px 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit;" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“We believe the Puerto Rican economy is at the cusp of recovery,”&nbsp;the billionaire hedge fund manager said in 2014, announcing the purchase of two San Juan hotels.</font></p><div class="hardwall" data-position="2" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit;" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb"><div class="softwall" data-position="2" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit;" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb"><p style="margin: 30px 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit;" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Paulson was gambling on a 2012 law that allows U.S. investors to pay little or no taxes if they move to the island. He expected a wave of millionaires and billionaires would help reverse years of shrinking population and sky-high unemployment.</font></p><div class="hardwall" data-position="3" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit;" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb"><div class="softwall" data-position="3" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit;" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb"><p style="margin: 30px 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit;" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Like a lot of Paulson’s recent bets, that one hasn’t turned out as planned. On Sept. 20, Hurricane Maria slammed into the island, wiping out its power grid and leaving many of its 3.4 million citizens without food, water and medicine. The Category 4 storm arrived just a few months after the commonwealth sought protection from creditors in the largest U.S. municipal insolvency.</font></p><div class="hardwall" data-position="4" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit;" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb"><div class="softwall" data-position="4" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit;" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb"><h3 style="margin: 0.77em 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Downward Slide</font></h3><p style="margin: 30px 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit;" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Paulson’s hedge fund firm,&nbsp;<a itemscope="itemscope" itemprop="StoryLink" href="https://www.bloomberg.com/quote/573991Z:US" title="Company Overview" rel="nofollow noopener" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border-width: 0px 0px 1px; border-top-style: initial; border-right-style: initial; border-bottom-style: solid; border-left-style: initial; border-top-color: initial; border-right-color: initial; border-bottom-color: rgb(251, 142, 30); border-left-color: initial; border-image: initial; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none;">Paulson & Co.</a>, has itself been on a downward slide. In 2011, it managed $38 billion, about half of which was Paulson’s own fortune built largely on a prescient bet shorting subprime mortgages. Since then assets have tumbled and performance has been hurt by&nbsp;<a itemscope="itemscope" itemprop="StoryLink" href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2013-05-08/paulson-bid-to-resurrect-reputation-hurt-by-gold-gone-bad" title="Paulson Bid to Resurrect Reputation Undermined by Gold Gone Bad" target="blank" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border-width: 0px 0px 1px; border-top-style: initial; border-right-style: initial; border-bottom-style: solid; border-left-style: initial; border-top-color: initial; border-right-color: initial; border-bottom-color: rgb(251, 142, 30); border-left-color: initial; border-image: initial; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none;">wrong-way bets</a>&nbsp;on gold, U.S. banks and pharmaceutical shares. Paulson now manages about $10 billion, almost 80 percent of it his own money.</font></p><p style="margin: 30px 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit;" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A lifelong New Yorker, Paulson considered moving to Puerto Rico in 2013 to take advantage of the tax benefits. He changed his mind citing “media attention,” though last year he said he’s still considering a move to the island.</font></p><p style="margin: 30px 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit;" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In September 2013, Paulson took a&nbsp;<a itemscope="itemscope" itemprop="StoryLink" href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/terminal/MTLFDN6TTDSF" title="Paulson’s Firm Buys Majority Interest in Puerto Rico Resort (1)" class="terminal-news-story" target="blank" rel="nofollow noopener" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border-width: 0px 0px 1px; border-top-style: initial; border-right-style: initial; border-bottom-style: solid; border-left-style: initial; border-top-color: initial; border-right-color: initial; border-bottom-color: rgb(251, 142, 30); border-left-color: initial; border-image: initial; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none;">majority stake</a>&nbsp;in the St. Regis Bahia Beach Resort and the Bahia Beach Resort & Golf Club, buying loans with a face value of $250 million at a discount of as much as 60 percent. The following March, he acquired a majority interest in the Condado Vanderbilt Hotel and the La Concha Renaissance Resort in San Juan for $260 million, including costs to complete construction of the Vanderbilt.</font></p><p style="margin: 30px 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit;" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Alberto Baco Bague, Puerto Rico’s secretary of economic development and commerce, said&nbsp;at the time that Paulson planned to invest more than $1 billion on the island. A spokesman for Paulson’s firm declined to comment on how much the billionaire has invested or what impact the hurricane and bankruptcy might have.</font></p><p style="margin: 30px 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit;" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Paulson’s firm acquired the 16-story&nbsp;<a itemscope="itemscope" itemprop="StoryLink" href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-08-15/paulson-co-adds-to-puerto-rico-real-estate-with-aig-building" title="Paulson Adds to Puerto Rico Real Estate Buying AIG Building (1)" target="blank" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border-width: 0px 0px 1px; border-top-style: initial; border-right-style: initial; border-bottom-style: solid; border-left-style: initial; border-top-color: initial; border-right-color: initial; border-bottom-color: rgb(251, 142, 30); border-left-color: initial; border-image: initial; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none;">American International Plaza</a>&nbsp;office building in San Juan’s financial district in August 2014 and has bought several parcels&nbsp;of land for future development. He also owns a vacation home at the Bahia Beach resort and an apartment.</font></p><p style="margin: 30px 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit;" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Paulson’s early Puerto Rican investments included bonds and a 7.3 percent stake in&nbsp;<a itemscope="itemscope" itemprop="StoryLink" href="https://www.bloomberg.com/quote/BPOP:US" title="Company Overview" rel="nofollow noopener" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border-width: 0px 0px 1px; border-top-style: initial; border-right-style: initial; border-bottom-style: solid; border-left-style: initial; border-top-color: initial; border-right-color: initial; border-bottom-color: rgb(251, 142, 30); border-left-color: initial; border-image: initial; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none;">Popular Inc.</a>, the island’s largest bank. He no longer owns either.</font></p><h3 style="margin: 0.77em 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">‘So Frightening’</font></h3><p style="margin: 30px 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit;" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Paulson was about to open a new San Juan hotel, the Serafina Beach Hotel, when the storm hit. It’s now slated to start operating at the end of December, according to the spokesman for Paulson’s firm. The Condado Vanderbilt isn’t taking reservations until after Nov. 1, while La Concha will open its books Oct. 15, the spokesman said. The St. Regis Bahia Beach Resort, one of the island’s most expensive hotels, is closed and won’t reopen until Dec. 1.</font></p><p style="margin: 30px 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit;" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">...</font></p><p style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></p><p style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">6 mos anniv</font></p><p style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.democracynow.org/2018/3/21/the_battle_for_paradise_naomi_klein">https://www.democracynow.org/2018/3/21/the_battle_for_paradise_naomi_klein</a></font></p><p style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">cryptocurrency, voucher, charter, 4% tax haven 2 hotels hank [paulsen?</font></p><p style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">agro-ecology food as buffer/resilience</font></p><p style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">ppl's platform ppl together gente</font></p><p style=""><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">cf wage theft:&nbsp;<a href="https://theintercept.com/2018/03/16/hurricane-harvey-disaster-recovery-wage-theft/">https://theintercept.com/2018/03/16/hurricane-harvey-disaster-recovery-wage-theft/</a></font></p><p style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></p><p style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">bannon pierce&nbsp;</font></p><p style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/02/technology/cryptocurrency-puerto-rico.html">https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/02/technology/cryptocurrency-puerto-rico.html</a></font></p><p style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></p><p style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">oscar lopez rivera in uber1</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;=</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://kpfa.org/episode/former-pr-political-prisoner-oscar-lopez-rivera-speaks/">https://kpfa.org/episode/former-pr-political-prisoner-oscar-lopez-rivera-speaks/</a></font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">says 1971 cabal, pledge loyalty to corp?</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Oscar López Rivera, one of the longest serving political prisoners in the world, imprisoned for his anti-colonial activism for Puerto Rico, is a free man. Rivera served 35 years of a 70-year sentence when President Obama commuted his term. On our show today we’ll play an interview I had with him at Pasadena City College where he spoke as part of his nationwide tour. Then, author and academic Noliwe Rooks will join us to discuss her new book, Cutting School: Privatization, Segregation, and the End of Public Education.</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></b></p><p style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></p><p style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">privatize electric preppa</font></p><p style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></p><p style="margin: 10px 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Federal Emergency Management Agency (<a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/fema" style="text-decoration-line: none; word-wrap: break-word;">FEMA</a>) will "officially shut off" food and water aid to&nbsp;<a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/puerto-rico" style="text-decoration-line: none; word-wrap: break-word;">Puerto Rico</a>four months after&nbsp;<a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/hurricane-maria" style="text-decoration-line: none; word-wrap: break-word;">Hurricane Maria</a>&nbsp;devastated the island.</font></p><p style="margin: 10px 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">"The reality is that we just need to look around. Supermarkets are open, and things are going back to normal,"</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> Alejandro De La Campa, FEMA's director in Puerto Rico, told&nbsp;<a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2018/01/29/581511023/fema-to-end-food-and-water-aid-for-puerto-rico" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; word-wrap: break-word;">NPR</a>. "If we're giving free water and food, that means that families are not going to supermarkets to buy."</span></font></p><p style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></p><p style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/economy/who-owns-puerto-ricos-debt-exactly-weve-tracked-down-10-biggest-vulture-firms">https://www.alternet.org/economy/who-owns-puerto-ricos-debt-exactly-weve-tracked-down-10-biggest-vulture-firms</a></font></p><p style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></p><p style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">whitefish co zinke kid?!</font></p><p style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">money DJT supporter, inaugural?</font></p><p style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;corrupt latin Am electric co?</font></p><p style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://kpfa.org/episode/letters-and-politics-october-30-2017/">https://kpfa.org/episode/letters-and-politics-october-30-2017/</a></font></p><p style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></p><p style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">tesla power hospital vs&nbsp;</font></p><p style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;=</font></p><p style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/whitefish-puerto-rico-grid-2501263875.html">https://www.ecowatch.com/whitefish-puerto-rico-grid-2501263875.html</a></font></p><p style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">HBC tx djt</font></p><p style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"></font></p><p style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;=</font></p><p style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/fema-san-juan-mayor-2494757627.html">https://www.ecowatch.com/fema-san-juan-mayor-2494757627.html</a></font></p><div class="headline-container" style="margin-top: 10px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><h1 class="headline h1" style="margin: 10px; padding: 0px; position: relative; line-height: 31px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">FEMA Chief Says 'We Filtered Out' San Juan Mayor After She Pleads 'We Need Water!'</font></h1></div><div id="utm_campaign" style="margin-top: 10px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="js-scroll-trigger" data-target="body" data-triggers="render-rebelbar" data-toggle-class="with-floating-shares" data-loaded="true" style="margin-top: 10px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /></span></font></p><div class="body js-expandable clearfix js-listicle-body js-update-url" data-elid="2494757627" data-headline="FEMA Chief Says 'We Filtered Out' San Juan Mayor After She Pleads 'We Need Water!'" style="margin: 10px; line-height: 24px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="body-description" style=""><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (<a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/fema" style="text-decoration-line: none;">FEMA</a>) dismissed the mayor of San Juan's vocal criticism of the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/trump-watch/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Trump</a>&nbsp;administration's&nbsp;<a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/hurricane-maria" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Hurricane Maria</a>&nbsp;relief efforts in&nbsp;<a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/puerto-rico" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Puerto Rico</a>.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"We filtered out the mayor a long time ago," FEMA administrator Brock Long said in an interview with ABC's This Week on Sunday.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"We don't have time for the political noise," he continued. "The bottom line is that we are making progress every day in conjunction with the governor."</font></p><div id="AdThrive_Content_1_desktop" class="adthrive-ad adthrive-dynamic adthrive-content" data-google-query-id="CNjB_Z7y49YCFc57AQodANgGFg" style="margin-top: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px; text-align: center; overflow-x: visible !important;"><div style="width: 1px; height: 1px; position: absolute; max-width: 100%; max-height: 100%; pointer-events: none; image-rendering: pixelated; z-index: 2147483647; background-image: url(" data:image="data:image" png="png" base64="base64" ivborw0kggoaaaansuheugaaacsaaaawbamaaacrl3iaaaaablbmveuaaad="iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAACsAAAAWBAMAAACrl3iAAAAABlBMVEUAAAD" aciwmzzwaaaaanrstlmaapidrbqaaab6surbvbjtbzgbdobacel1d="AciWmZzWAAAAAnRSTlMAApidrBQAAAB6SURBVBjTbZGBDoBACEL1D" j="j" ry2pqgrzvufuyzcq="ry2PQGrZVufuyZCq" qtzc5rhhc4tcndtdwirfj9cgqd3qx3o1czqt7mxe9woi3yp1abwbmp6qdo8j9mcsvhq2ps="qtZc5rHHc4tCndtdwiRfj9cgQd3QX3o1cZqt7mXE9WoI3yP1ABWbmP6QDO8J9McSvhQ2pS" hcp91ghphpw="hcp91gHpHpW" ocylvzcghtop2fjngkwxnqrdsr4jynr="OcYlvZcGHtop2FJngkwxnQRdsr4Jynr" s4yi6qvauay91tke8qaaaabjru5erkjggg="=" xmlns:data="data"><div id="google_ads_iframe_18190176/AdThrive_Content_1/58d2e52b44e6236dc5819ee2_0container" style="border: 0pt none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Long's comment was in regard to Mayor Carmen Yulín Cruz's tweet alleging that FEMA did not respond to a request for support after a hospital in San Juan lost power and patients needed to be transferred out.</font></div></div><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Cruz also&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/CarmenYulinCruz/status/916916509590589441" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">tweeted</a>&nbsp;over the weekend, "WE NEED WATER!"&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/CarmenYulinCruz/status/916926079029399552" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">and</a>&nbsp;"there is no help in the horizon."</font></p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-twitter_embed"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"In regards outages and the hospitals, we've built an entire 9-1-1 system," Long insisted during his interview. "We monitor the hospital system daily. So if there is a power failure at a hospital … we're actually life-lighting the ICU patients out of those hospitals."</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"But as far as the political noise, we filter that out, keep our heads down, and continue to make progress in restoring essential functions in Puerto Rico."</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Several weeks after the Sept. 20 Category 4 storm devastated the U.S. territory, only 11.7 percent of the island's electricity consumers have power, and 56.8 percent of Puerto Rico Aqueduct and Sewer Authority customers have potable water, according to FEMA's&nbsp;<a href="https://www.fema.gov/hurricane-maria" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">website</a>&nbsp;tracking the federal response to Hurricane Maria.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>FEMA was under&nbsp;<a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/fema-puerto-rico-2493700609.html" style="text-decoration-line: none;">scrutiny</a>&nbsp;last week for removing stats about Puerto Rico's electricity and water access from the website. That information returned by Friday afternoon.</b></font></p></div></div><p style=""><b><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></b></p><p style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></p><div style=""><a href="https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/leaked-memo-reveals-white-house-strategy-duck-blame-puerto-rico-catastrophe"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/leaked-memo-reveals-white-house-strategy-duck-blame-puerto-rico-catastrophe</font></a></div><div style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div style=""><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>&nbsp;memo leaked on Sunday and&nbsp;<a href="https://www.axios.com/full-text-white-houses-tom-bossert-update-on-puerto-rico-2491599603.html" rel="noopener" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">published by Axios.com</a>&nbsp;reveals that President Donald Trump’s administration is aggressively trying to shift the blame for its dismal response to Hurricane Maria and to carry out “planned hits” against the president’s critics.</b></font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Trump’s top Homeland Security advisor Tom Bossert authored the memo, which detailed the administration’s plans to “start a theme of recovery planning for the bright future that lies ahead for Puerto Rico. Planned hits, tweets, tv bookings and other work will limit the need for reactionary efforts.”</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">He continued by insisting that the Trump administration is not to blame for the fact that relief efforts did not begin in earnest until nearly a week after Hurricane Maria devastated the island.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“The storm caused these problems, not our response to it. We have pushed about as much stuff and people through a tiny hole in as short a timeframe as possible,” he wrote.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The administration’s enablers at Fox News&nbsp;<a href="https://www.rawstory.com/2017/10/i-dont-see-people-dying-foxs-geraldo-rivera-scoffs-in-the-face-of-san-juan-mayor-to-back-up-trump/" rel="noopener" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">set out early Sunday</a>&nbsp;to carry out its “hit” on San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulín Cruz, calling her a “far left” radical and complaining that commentator Geraldo Rivera and his camera crew did not actually witness people dying in the streets.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Other administration officials have sought to smear Cruz by saying she has been uncooperative with FEMA and not attended its strategy sessions, but&nbsp;<a href="https://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/09/trump-attacks-san-juan-mayor-over-hurricane-response.html" rel="noopener" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Cruz’s office said</a>&nbsp;that it has sent representatives to all meetings and has been&nbsp;<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/oct/01/carmen-yulin-cruz-mayor-puerto-rico-donald-trump" rel="noopener" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">more than cooperative</a>&nbsp;with the bumbling, bureaucratically hamstrung federal relief effort.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Trump administration went into a full court press on Sunday to congratulate itself on what an excellent job it has done in Puerto Rico, but on Sunday night, the Pentagon pricked the White House’s bubble with an&nbsp;<a href="https://www.rawstory.com/2017/10/urgent-pentagon-statement-contradicts-trump-half-of-puerto-rico-has-no-water-and-its-getting-worse/" rel="noopener" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">urgent bulletin</a>&nbsp;that half the people in the U.S. territory are still without access to clean water and the situation is steadily worsening.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">vid]</font></p></div><p style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></p><p style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/human-rights/vulture-capitalists-circle-above-puerto-rico-prey">https://www.alternet.org/human-rights/vulture-capitalists-circle-above-puerto-rico-prey</a></font></p><p style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">... M<strong style="">oyers: You’ve said that Puerto Rico was in trouble long before the hurricane.</strong></font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><strong style="">Bonilla:</strong>&nbsp;Puerto Rico’s been in an economic recession for over a decade. The great American recession that was so debated in the United States during the early Obama Administration after the collapse of the banks in the US — all of that started in Puerto Rico much earlier, and whereas the US is said to have recovered to some extent for certain populations, Puerto Rico’s recession has only deepened.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> That is in part due to the lack of a strong economic base and to tax incentives that were put in place to bring foreign — “foreign” meaning US companies — to Puerto Rico. After the crash a lot of companies left and a base of employment in Puerto Rico was gone.</span></font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">So even before this last hurricane, already Puerto Rico had huge unemployment, huge poverty rates — poverty rates that double any poverty rate in the US, even that of the poorest states of the US — and a very neglected infrastructure that was not ready for the storms.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Moyers: Donald Trump tweeted, “Texas and Florida are doing great after their hurricanes, but Puerto Rico, which was already suffering from broken infrastructure and massive debt, is in deep trouble.” And that seems to echo what you’ve just said and what you wrote in the&nbsp;<em>Washington Post</em>&nbsp;— that a state of emergency existed well before the hurricane hit.</font></strong></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong>Bonilla:</strong>&nbsp;I’m curious about that statement from Donald Trump. I wonder who in Florida and Texas is doing great and who is not. So that would be my first question. But you know, that’s for other folks to answer.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important;"><strong style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Moyers: Why was the</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> inequality in Puerto Rico so great?</span></font></strong></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><strong style="">Bonilla:</strong>&nbsp;Because there’s been an erosion of the middle class.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> And so you have a lot of people at the bottom who can’t find work, who can’t start their own businesses. Many of them depend on government assistance, but there’s also a huge number who are working poor, who live paycheck to paycheck, who are supplementing their incomes with the gig economy. Retailers like Wal-Mart offer no job security. Most of the people working for them can’t predict their shifts — their shifts change from week to week. They have to keep their schedules completely open. They are paid for part-time labor, but have to be available full time.</span></font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">And so all of this means that leading up to the storm, people already did not have enough money to prepare, to buy the supplies that they needed. Ideally, you would prepare for a storm of this nature by having a well-stocked pantry, plenty of water, lots of batteries, and if you can afford it, a generator. Also, your car would be full of gas and you would have a good amount of cash, because as can be expected and as we’re seeing now, ATMs are down. People who are just making ends meet, they don’t have the kind of money that is necessary to prepare for these storms.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">There’s a lot of talk about the island’s environmental precarity and vulnerability. It’s true that the Caribbean is on the&nbsp;<a href="https://billmoyers.com/story/mary-robinson-hurricanes-monsoons-human-rights-climate-change/" style="text-decoration-line: none;">front lines of effects from climate change</a>. But there are other forms of vulnerability, like socioeconomic vulnerability. And also a political vulnerability because Puerto Ricans don’t really have anyone in Congress advocating for them. They’re nobody’s constituents. They have no representation and no one who can leverage votes and trade deals with other states in order to get things expedited on the ground there.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Moyers: You’ve described these Caribbean societies, including Puerto Rico, as protected markets for national corporations.</font></strong></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong>Bonilla:</strong>&nbsp;Yes. If you look at the Jones Act, the only goods that can arrive in Puerto Rico have to be on US-made ships, and owned by US citizens, with a US crew flying a US flag. So this means that if the Dominican Republic wants to sell food to Puerto Rico, which it does, it has to send that food first to Jacksonville, Florida, unload it, put it on another ship that is allowed to bring it to Puerto Rico. So this makes it very difficult for Puerto Rico to engage in trade with other countries. We’re not an independent nation, so we can’t make our own trade arrangements. And that means that we have to buy mostly from the US.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important;"><strong style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Moyers: I understand the</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">&nbsp;<a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/9/27/16373484/jones-act-puerto-rico" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Jones Act</a>&nbsp;goes way back to World War I, </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">when German submarines were sinking so many American ships that Congress decreed the US maintain a shipbuilding industry second to none, with, as you say, ships carrying provisions to be owned, manned and built by America. This not only strangles Puerto Rico’s economy, but one writer called it a</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> shakedown, a mob protection racket, with Puerto Rico as a captive market.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> Puerto Ricans have to buy mainly American products and pass the higher cost on to the consumers, who are then paying higher prices. Donald Trump has&nbsp;</span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/28/us/jones-act-waived.html" target="blank" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-line: none;">temporarily suspended the Jones Act</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">, as you know.</span></font></strong></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong>Bonilla:</strong>&nbsp;That will help momentarily in terms of letting a few ships arrive and letting Puerto Ricans find more inexpensive methods of procuring the items that they need right now. A lot of us are very offended that it was only lifted for 10 days, as if you could resolve the humanitarian crisis in Puerto Rico, which is of a devastating scale — as if you could resolve that in 10 days. It’s absolutely offensive for it to be so limited. A small crumb.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">What I hope is that there are now a lot of people who have become educated about the Jones Act. Most people in the United States didn’t know anything about it before this. Maybe now there can be enough pressure to fully repeal it.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Moyers: You have described Puerto Rico and the other Caribbean societies as important economic cover for their colonial centers. What do you mean?</font></strong></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Bonilla:</strong><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;I mean that a lot of things happen in these places that aren’t supposed to happen — that’s what I mean by cover. The United States can claim to offer certain kinds of guarantees to its citizens, but those guarantees are suspended when it comes to the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico. So veterans benefits are less, guarantees of healthcare are less, guarantees of public education, all these things are reduced. And in addition, </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">wealthy people who are supposed to pay their share, they’re able to completely evade their taxes and not contribute to the national interest by setting up companies in Puerto Rico.</span></font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Moyers: So things were really made worse by tax incentives to wealthy investors. I believe Puerto Rico’s Act #22 allows wealthy investors to evade both federal and local income tax by spending a minimum of 183 nights a year on the island.</font></strong></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong>Bonilla:</strong>&nbsp;Yes, it’s true. It’s hard to comprehend, but it’s true. You have a lot of wealthy Americans who say, “Oh, this is great for us, it’s the thing that can get you out from under the US Internal Revenue Service without having to renounce your citizenship.” So they retain their American voting rights, they retain all their benefits of US citizenship, but they do not contribute anything to the US, nor do they contribute anything to Puerto Rico because they’re also not paying local taxes.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Moyers: How did Puerto Rico get its unique privilege to offer triple tax-exempt bonds?</font></strong></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong>Bonilla:</strong>&nbsp;It’s basically written into its constitution. When Congress established Puerto Rico’s civil government in 1917 it decreed that any bonds issued by its government would be free from taxation. In addition, it is written into the 1952 constitution that the repayment of any kind of public debt must take priority over financing public services. In 1952, when Puerto Rican politicians tried to convince Puerto Ricans that they were no longer a colony, and they convinced the United Nations to take Puerto Rico off the list of non-self-governing societies, this constitution was put into place and one of its founding principles was that Puerto Rico was going to be a site for US economic investment. And so you can purchase these triple tax-exempt bonds and not pay any federal tax, any tax in Puerto Rico, or any tax in the municipality in which you live. This made these bonds incredibly seductive for US. I urge everyone to read the great story in&nbsp;<em>New York Times</em>&nbsp;“<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/01/business/dealbook/the-bonds-that-broke-puerto-rico.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">The Bonds That Broke Puerto Rico</a>.”</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important;"><strong style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Moyers: Earlier this year Puerto Rico officially became the</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> largest bankruptcy case in the history of the American public bond market</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">. In another&nbsp;</span><a href="https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/912481556127780865" target="blank" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-line: none;">tweet</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Trump points out how indebted Puerto Rico is to Wall Street and the banks and reminds Puerto Ricans that it “sadly must be dealt with.” He’s acknowledging this is the first thing Puerto Rico taxpayers have to do.</span></font></strong></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong>Bonilla:</strong>&nbsp;It was so offensive. Puerto Ricans have been kicked by Irma, then kicked by Maria, and now kicked by Trump. We’re really suffering. In the middle of our humanitarian crisis, he tells us, “It’s a shame but you have to pay back that debt.” It’s clear that was a message to Wall Street not to worry, they’ll get paid back. Puerto Ricans need to worry, however.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important;"><strong style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Moyers: Something I’ve learned from you:&nbsp;</span><a href="https://periodismoinvestigativo.com/2014/05/puerto-rico-first-in-the-world-with-walgreens-and-walmart-per-square-mile/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Wal-Mart and Walgreens</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> have more stores per square mile in Puerto Rico than anywhere else in the world</span></a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">. How did that come about?</span></font></strong></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong>Bonilla:</strong>&nbsp;Wal-Mart has negotiated a series of benefits from the Puerto Rican government such as free or subsidized land to build on, subsidies for their payroll, and for the training of new employees. So they basically get to set up shop almost for free. In addition, we are a captive market. There’s not a lot of competition for them. So they’re the biggest employer, and the biggest retailer. Also, Wal-Mart USA sells to Wal-Mart Puerto Rico, at surprisingly inflated prices so that then it appears as if Wal-Mart Puerto Rico doesn’t have much profit, which means they pay very little taxes to the Puerto Rican government.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Puerto Rican government wanted to raise the taxes but Wal-Mart threatened to sue and leave and then a federal judge decided that the tax would be discriminatory because Wal-Mart was the only operator of the scale to which these taxes would apply.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Moyers: So when the government tries to raise taxes on goods brought to the island from foreign sources because those taxes would help local improvement, the companies threaten to leave?</font></strong></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong>Bonilla:</strong>&nbsp;Yes, exactly. They don’t want to pay the government any of the profits that they’re making off the Puerto Rican people.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Moyers: So does this helps explain why the infrastructure in Puerto Rico has been so long neglected — the first priority is to serve this foreign debt and tax breaks for the wealthy?</font></strong></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><strong style="">Bonilla:</strong>&nbsp;Absolutely, and it’s only going to get worse because of the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/here-s-how-promesa-aims-tackle-puerto-rico-s-debt-n601741" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">PROMESA Act</a>&nbsp;[NB: Passed by Congress to deal with the financial crisis and bankruptcy]. Some critics have dared to describe it as a kind of bailout or aid package, but that’s not so.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> There is absolutely no transfer of money from the federal government to Puerto Rico as part of the PROMESA Act. If anything, there’s an imposition of an economic burden on the Puerto Rican government which now has to pay the overhead of the PROMESA board – which is estimated to cost 200 million dollars in its first year alone – and an astronomical, unjustifiable salary of over half a million dollars a year to its manager Natalie Jaresko. This completely overpaid expensive board arrives in Puerto Rico and the first thing that they say is that everyone has to tighten their belts. There are “furloughs” of government workers, the government has to reduce its payroll by about 30 percent. Now they are going to privatize a lot of the services. The first target was the University of Puerto Rico, which they completely gutted leading to a massive strike at the university.</span></font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Moyers: And as you wrote in the&nbsp;<em><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/how-puerto-rican-hurricanes-devastate-many-and-enrich-a-few/2017/09/22/78e7500c-9e66-11e7-9083-fbfddf6804c2_story.html?utm_term=.d2a2a2fa0ed9" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Washington Post</a></em>, the PROMESA Act imposed a fiscal control board focused on the short-term austerity policies in order to restore the country’s market rating, which means lower wages and tax increases for the working poor and tax breaks and other incentives for the rich investors. Why did Congress do that?</font></strong></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong>Bonilla:</strong>&nbsp;They didn’t want to seem like they were “bailing out” quote/unquote a community of people who are not imagined to be Americans. So a lot of senators and congressmen wanted to assure their folks in their home states that the money of hardworking Americans were not going to bail out Puerto Ricans, who are not seen as “Americans.” That’s the reason. [laughs]</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Moyers: You laugh but it hurts.</font></strong></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong>Bonilla:</strong>&nbsp;Absolutely, absolutely. One must laugh to keep from crying in the face of such cynicism. And especially right now in the moment of this crisis where a lot of people are saying that Puerto Rico does not deserve the same kind of aid that US states deserve – Florida and Texas, you know — because it’s a territory. There’s also been a lot of debate about whether when you get FEMA packages, the government will do matching funds. So several folks have asked for the government to lift that requirement. The bondholders of the electric company, said, “Oh, don’t worry, we’ll let you borrow more so that you can pay the matching funds.” Clearly the only solution being imagined for Puerto Rico’s economic future is permanent and sustained indebtment.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important;"><strong style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Moyers: Well, our federal government’s own </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">financial control board</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> is saying that the island’s debt is not payable, and the governor of the island of Puerto Rico is talking about selling all utilities to private owners — electricity, water and sewers, the public transit. Will these drastic measures help the problem?</span></font></strong></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong>Bonilla:</strong>&nbsp;Absolutely not. Some have described these privatization schemes as if you are selling off your house to pay your credit card bill. So okay, you do a fire sale on your home, you pay your Visa, you pay your MasterCard, but then you have nowhere to live. Then what do you do? I think some people have been so frustrated with the kind of public services they’ve been receiving from this ever-shrinking government that they say, “Yes, okay, let’s privatize it.” But privatizing is not going to make things any better and it’s certainly not going to help Puerto Rico in the long term.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">We talked previously about inequality and about the high levels of income disparity in Puerto Rico. This means that there are very wealthy people who to a great extent don’t need public services. They have gas generators and water tanks. Some of them even have helipads. The people who need the government services are the poor. They’re the ones who are going to suffer the most. So instead of implementing progressive measures that tax the wealthy in Puerto Rico, the opposite is being done.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Moyers: Trump is tweeting that help is coming. The Fiscal Oversight Board says reconstruction projects will be accelerated, emergency funds will be flowing to the people, the checks are in the mail. Will all this emergency help produce solutions to the structural problems we’ve been talking about? Will Puerto Rico emerge with chances for an economy that works for everyone?</font></strong></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Bonilla:</strong><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;I would love to say yes. I was very closely connected to the events in Haiti, the Haitian earthquake there. And I remember how so many people talked about how we were going to rebuild</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> Haiti better, we were going to finally fix the long structural problems that that country had faced. This wasn’t to be. I recommend people&nbsp;<a href="https://velvet-film.com/my-product/assistance-mortelle/?lang=en" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">watch this movie by Raoul Peck,&nbsp;<em>Fatal Assistance</em></a>, about how all the aid that was sent to Haiti, in the end it did not help.</span></font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">One big problem is that donors want to aid small scale organizations. And there’s good reason for that. But the problem is, that when you need to rebuild something like an electricity grid or a public water system, you can’t do it in a patchy way. In Haiti, a lot of money was sent to organizations like the Red Cross that was kept for overhead and not used for what was promised. But then a lot of people, to avoid that kind of thing, would send money directly to a community that would build just one school. So you have this kind of patchy education system. You have communities that have wells that don’t connect to each other. You have roads that are built to go from one town to the church that helped build them but that doesn’t lead to a national roadway system. What you need is a systematic process of rebuilding by a government that has decided what kind of society they want to rebuild and in what way.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">If you also look at a place like New Orleans and what has happened after Katrina, we know already that in other disaster situations, the preexisting inequalities just get exacerbated. And so the folks who were already suffering the most in these places are the ones who will benefit the least from the reconstruction.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">I really fear that there’s going to be a mass exodus from Puerto Rico — basically what&nbsp;<a href="https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poet/aim%C3%A9-c%C3%A9saire" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Aimé Césaire</a>&nbsp;once described as genocide by substitution. Puerto Ricans are going to leave and FEMA workers brought in from the US are going to arrive. More wealthy investors are going to come and Puerto Rico is no longer going to belong to Puerto Ricans. It will look more and more like Hawaii. When we talk about rebuilding we have to think about why rebuild an energy sector that is not based on renewable sources when you can rebuild with solar power, for example. But we also have to think about rebuilding for whom, who is going to remain on the island and what role are they going to play in Puerto Rico’s reconstruction?</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important;"><strong style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Moyers: Have you read&nbsp;</span><a href="https://billmoyers.com/segment/naomi-klein-on-capitalism-and-climate-change/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Naomi Klein’s&nbsp;</span><em style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Disaster Capitalism?</em></a></font></strong></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Bonilla:</strong><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;Absolutely and we see it playing out. We see it playing out right now. When I was in Puerto Rico this summer – before the hurricanes – I talked to a wealth advisor at an investment center where rich Puerto Ricans go to create college funds for their kids and buy insurance and secure their retirements. She was very smart. Folks like her working in the banking industry and in investment and </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">knew that bankruptcy and fiscal austerity was coming down the pike. The story was underreported so that there wouldn’t be a bank run. But folks like her told their clients to pull their money out of Puerto Rican bonds and put it into other sources. Most of her clients, their investments are in US stocks. So she said, “They’re doing great! Since Donald Trump was elected, stocks are high.” And then she said, “<em style="">All we need now is a hurricane</em>.”</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> (Pause) This was last summer. I was naturally shocked to hear this because all I could imagine was the destruction that hurricanes bring. But of course what she was thinking about was how in a disaster the funds that flow in help precisely the kind of companies that her clients are investing in – say, Home Depot, the construction industry in the United States, wealthy contractors. She represents the kind of people who are going to benefit and profit and do very well in this post-hurricane economy at the expense of the folks who are now trapped in their homes without food, without water, without gasoline. So the suffering that people are experiencing right now could prove to be of economic benefit to a chosen few.</span></font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Moyers: The vulture capitalists, as they are sometimes called.</font></strong></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong>Bonilla:</strong>&nbsp;Absolutely. There’s no other way to talk about it, especially in a context where you literally have people dying in the hospital because there’s no energy to sustain their life-support systems.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Moyers: Most of us have a little bit of the vulture in us, so the question arises, who’s at fault when this happens? Did local politicians and local people just get too greedy or is this simply the way the Wall Street economy works – barracuda capitalism, so called? Or is what’s happening in Puerto Rico the inheritance of colonialism?</font></strong></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong>Bonilla:</strong>&nbsp;That’s an important question and something that really needs to be thought about carefully because there are so many contributors. We like to write simple articles that show simple causality, but you have wealthy folks like this investment manager, who is Puerto Rican, contributing to the situation. You have politicians — we see this in every disaster — you have politicians who are more focused on photo ops and political capital than they are really in doing what needs to be done in these moments.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">...</font></p><p style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></p><p style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">sonali 6/14/17 1/3 women sterile by J&J?</font></p><p style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">==</font></p><p style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">https://waragainstallpuertoricans.com/2016/05/03/presidential-debate-moderators-scarcely-ask-questions-about-puerto-rico/</font></p><p style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;<span style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb">=</span></font></p><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">no links img</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/vulture-fund-lobbying_us_57350001e4b077d4d6f2a374" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/vulture-fund-lobbying_us_57350001e4b077d4d6f2a374</font></a></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Harvard-trained political economist, Shapiro is the head of a consulting firm called Sonecon. That business card doesn’t do it for you? He’s got a few more in his wallet:</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Senior fellow at the Georgetown University School of Business.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Adviser to the International Monetary Fund.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Director of the Globalization Initiative at NDN, a progressive think tank.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Shapiro, a Democrat, has advised presidents and presidential candidates, and has held powerful government posts. It stands to reason, then, that when he has thoughts on public policy, he can find an outlet ready to publish them.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Recently, he’s had ideas on how the government can address the debt crisis in Puerto Rico and how it can end the conservatorship of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac by moving them into the private market. Before that, he had a take on how to deal with Argentina’s debt crisis. For all three, he produced academic-looking papers, complete with footnotes and charts.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">All three situations have one thing in common: If they were resolved the way Shapiro suggested, a variety of bets placed by a select group of the most politically powerful hedge funds would pay off in a huge way. In the case of Argentina, they mostly have. Fights over how to resolve the other two issues are still raging in Washington.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">For this article, we called Shapiro to ask on whose behalf he has been waging these intellectual battles. His answer was surprising in its honesty: He’s working with DCI Group, a political dark arts master known to be advocating on behalf of a group of powerful hedge funds that are changing how Washington works.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>
</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Shapiro, it turns out, is but one foot soldier in the hedge fund infantry.</b>&nbsp;A review of public documents, tax filings and interviews with people involved finds that in each of the three campaigns, hedge funds have enlisted the same set of lobbyists, political operatives, dark money groups and think-tank experts spanning the political spectrum.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">No single document or set of disclosures ties all of these groups together. They don’t put out joint press releases, parade themselves around Washington as part of a coalition, or chat together on conference calls. Finding the players in this game, instead, is more a process of deduction. For a group of firms and experts to be working for vulture funds on the issue of Argentine debt is normal Washington practice. (Vulture’s meaning here isn’t pejorative: it refers to an investment strategy that feeds off of assets the market has left for dead.)</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">For the exact same people and groups to be working on the next big issue that these funds care about — the Puerto Rican debt crisis — could be a coincidence. But now, the hedge funds are focused on a third issue — government-sponsored enterprise reform, which refers to the effort to establish new housing finance policy in the wake of the federal takeover of lenders Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. And it’s the same political firms and the same independent experts that are once again weighing in — coincidentally, all on the side of the hedge funds.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Maybe it’s all coincidence, but let’s run the traps either way.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The band that has gotten together for the big three hedge fund jam sessions includes some unlikely allies: There’s<b>&nbsp;DCI Group</b>, the powerhouse lobbying firm. Then there’s the<b>&nbsp;Raben Group, operatives whose specialty is working in the progressive space and lobbying Democrats</b>. There’s the American Continental Group, a bipartisan lobbying firm. There’s&nbsp;<b>60 Plus and the Center for Individual Freedom,</b>&nbsp;two groups that call themselves part of the conservative movement, but in reality are dark money groups known to run whatever campaign they’re paid to run, and that are happy to conceal the source of the funding. All these groups have roughly nothing in common, other than that they all have&nbsp;<b>united in advocacy campaigns that alternately go up against the Argentinian people, Puerto Ricans and the rest of the American public</b>.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Each of these campaigns appears to have been run by or aided by the DCI Group</b>. We say “appears” because DCI is one of Washington’s great black boxes — news articles that involve DCI routinely include a line informing readers that the organization did not respond to a request for comment. This article is no different.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Old Washington hands involved in these particular fights say that nothing they’ve seen before in politics has prepared them for the mercenary campaigns the hedge funds are now waging.</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“There’s something about this that’s almost more disturbing, because you get an issue that’s not particularly a big public issue and people can spend and spend and spend,” said a veteran policymaker who found himself on the wrong end of the hedge funds. “And I don’t know how anybody can compete with it. And then you start losing the narrative and you see groups on the left get bought out and corrupted — really corrupted. I don’t know what to do about it.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">What is being done only exacerbates the situation. Current tax policy allows hedge fund managers to pay billions less every year than competitors who don’t get the same advantage. And tax-exempt pension funds — teachers, nurses, firefighters — invest heavily in hedge funds, hoping to make up big shortfalls with risky investments. The generous tax policy leaves hedge funds flush with cash. What money they’re not stashing off shore, they’ve been spreading freely around Washington.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">They may have finally gone too far. A backlash is brewing, threatening not just their current bets, but their various tax benefits too. One senior House Republican aide who’s worked closely with the hedge funds says that members of Congress have seen enough. “I think on the Fannie stuff, they’ve hurt themselves,” he said. “We’re like, fuck em. If they’re not your friends, they’re your enemies.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>And the hedge funds may be losing a crucial progressive ally. Responding to concerns from the Hispanic advocacy community, the Raben Group dropped its work on Puerto Rico two weeks ago.&nbsp;</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>When big banks squared off against merchants such as Walmart in 2011 over the cost of debit card and credit card swipe fees, Washington saw a spending spree and a dirty campaign the likes of which it hasn’t seen since. But at least the arguments on both sides of the swipe fees issue made some rational sense.</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“This one, I feel just disgusted by it,” said one GOP Senate aide who witnessed both.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">With the hedge fund battles, a group of rich investors simply picks a side and then spends endlessly to tilt the battlefield to make sure that side wins. And in true Washington fashion, people are annoyed that the sellouts have sold low. As the same Senate GOP aide put it: “Sure, I’ll go after a few individuals, and help make Congress dysfunctional, so we can have Donald fucking Trump as our nominee, just so I can make $25,000. That’s just sad for our country.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">JONATHAN ERNST / REUTERS</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>John Paulson, billionaire head of Paulson & Co.</b>, stands to make massive profits if lobbying campaigns on Puerto Rican debt and Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac go his way.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Not everybody sells out that cheaply. The Wall Street Journal on Thursday ran a piece on the hedge-fund lobbying around reform of government-sponsored entities, or GSEs.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Last year, The Raben Group, a Washington lobbying firm, offered a minority trade association $25,000 contingent on the association signing its name to an editorial arguing that Fannie and Freddie should be recapitalized and returned to private hands, said Gary Acosta, chief executive of the National Association of Hispanic Real Estate Professionals.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“They said, ‘If you won’t say exactly what you need to say, we’re not going to sponsor you,’” Mr. Acosta said. He said the association declined the offer.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Raben Group founder Robert Raben said the firm frequently matches funding from corporations with nonprofits that share a position but doesn’t ask them to change their stance. He declined to disclose the source of the money offered to the association.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">What makes the hedge fund pressure campaign distinctive is the ambivalence, or even nihilism, that lies behind the public policy suggestions. Hedge funds want whatever policy outcome will make their leveraged bet pay off. It makes gauging the merits of a particular policy extraordinarily difficult. The targets of the campaign are largely beside the point: It’s not personal, it’s just business. Hedge funder Bill Ackman’s very public lobbying and PR campaign against Herbalife serves as the clearest example of the influence strategy deployed by hedge funds. But in that case, Ackman was only taking on a single company, so the damage to potential bystanders was limited. The same playbook applied to entire countries, a commonwealth or the housing industry itself amplifies the threat exponentially.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">This one, I feel just disgusted by it.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">And it’s not ideological, either. If a big group of hedge funds decided to short the health insurance industry, it could easily be in their interests to fund a dark money campaign on behalf of single-payer health care. If they short the big banks, they’ve now become allies with Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.).</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">It’s less far-fetched than it might seem. Today, billionaire hedge fund managers are working the halls of Congress with civil rights groups and affordable housing advocates. The progressive groups have long wanted any GSE reform to include big money to make housing more affordable for the working class. Now that the hedge funds are in the game, the groups suddenly have an additional demand: Make sure any final plan pays out the shareholders (i.e., the hedge funds) handsomely.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The hedge funds bought a mountain of Fannie Mae stock after the government took it over and declared it worthless. The funds are trying to revive the share price by pressuring the government to let Fannie keep its profit and ultimately re-privatize the company. The alliance is understandable: For years, the progressive groups have been outmatched and out-funded, and along come some billionaires willing to back their effort. All these new advocates want is for their property rights to be protected. Why not?</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“We knew we were getting in bed with people who wanted to see [Fannie Mae] pay them off,” Potomac Coalition founder Larry Parks told The Wall Street Journal for Thursday’s article. “It wasn’t anything we were so ideologically against.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>In Argentina</b>, things didn’t work out so well for the folks on the other side of the hedge funds. In 2002, Argentina bucked years of social pressure from the International Monetary Fund and defaulted on its debt. No longer would it have its public policy dictated by international lenders backed by what became known as the Washington consensus — the notion that the best way for countries to grow was to slash spending, privatize whatever they could, cut taxes and make way for business investment. After defaulting,&nbsp;<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Argentina negotiated with lenders to resolve the debt, making deals with 93 percent of its creditors. A few American hedge funds held out, and waged a guerrilla campaign to recoup 100 percent of the value of their bonds, even though they bought them for pennies.</span></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">It took 15 years, and a pressure campaign against Argentina that linked it to terrorism and other atrocities, but the hedge funds could eventually land a $5 billion-$10 billion payout.&nbsp;<b>It’s even reasonable to say the hedge funds helped bring down the Argentine government.</b>&nbsp;Along the way, they blew up the international system of credit, as negotiations between sovereign borrowers and their creditors are no longer possible without 100 percent buy-in from creditors.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>In Puerto Rico, the group of hedge funds waging the biggest lobbying campaign own debt that is first in line to be paid off in case of any calamity</b>. (That’s not to say there aren’t other hedge funds that own different sets of Puerto Rican debt lobbying so that they’re the first to be paid; more on them later.) They’re now betting that they can stop Congress from rescuing Puerto Rico by amending bankruptcy laws to allow Puerto Rico to cover its basic expenses before paying out the hedge funds.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Betting that Congress does nothing is often a smart wager. If the island government is forced to pay off creditors first, it will have to take those funds from vital programs threatening the livelihoods of people who live there.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In a trip to the commonwealth this week, Treasury Secretary Jack Lew emphasized the human impact that the hedge fund lobbying campaign is already having on Puerto Ricans. “The financial crisis is not just a question of bondholders, but a question of the lives that are being led by 3.5 million Americans who live on Puerto Rico,” Lew said during a visit to an elementary school in the heart of San Juan.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The school, Eleanor Roosevelt Elementary, looked like something out of a Third World country. Children studied in crumbling classrooms with termite-ridden walls, no air conditioning, and inadequate lighting. The only source of cooling from the 80-degree weather outside was fans and open windows. The TVs, laptops, desktop computers all appeared pointless. Teachers said that if they tried to run more than one simultaneously with another classroom, the electricity would go out. Faulty circuit breakers also mean the classroom lights stay off whenever it rains, and since it was drizzling that day, the students sat in the dark.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">On the next stop, Lew saw Centro Medico, the primary medical center for the commonwealth and the Caribbean region, and home to the third-largest Level 1 trauma center in the U.S. and its territories. The center is preparing to reduce services by July if no relief comes. Already, a lack of personnel makes it nearly impossible to keep accurate supply inventory for children being treated for cancer or receiving dialysis. “We are hanging by a thread,” explained Dr. Juan Nazario, the hospital’s executive director.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The walls in this kindergarten classroom at Eleanor Roosevelt Elementary in San Juan, Puerto Rico are crumbling due to termite infestation.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">That’s not to say that there isn’t lobbying on the other side of these issues. An entirely different group of hedge funds and investment firms want relief for Puerto Rico so that the bonds that they’ve purchased will be paid in full. Legislation that they support has received the backing of House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) and has moved through a favorable committee. On GSE reform, big banks like Bank of America and Citigroup have lobbied for legislation that would eliminate Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and replace them with a system of government insurance for bank loans. The banks employ dozens of lobbyists, but do not appear to be engaging in the kind of surreptitious campaign the hedge funds are conducting on the other side.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>Corporate lobbying is often constrained by the need to play the long game.</b>&nbsp;Sometimes a company, or an entire industry, realizes it needs to take a loss today, but will be back tomorrow to fight again<b>. That can encourage corporate actors to rely more on carrots</b>: Campaign contributions and cushy jobs are in store for staffers and members of Congress who play nice.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">But because the hedge funds are fighting over a different bet each time — Argentina today, Fannie and Freddie tomorrow — the most bang for the buck may come from a run of<b>&nbsp;negative TV ads in key congressional districts, or targeted campaigns against leading members of Congress on the wrong side.</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Or even against&nbsp;<b>staffers</b>. In the midst of the debate over how to restructure Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in early 2014, Jim Millstein was sitting down on Capitol Hill with Michael Bright, an aide to Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), who was working on the legislation. Millstein, like other hedge-fund titans lobbying on the bill, had a set of structural recommendations he thought the Senate should take up.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Millstein was worth listening to: While a top Treasury Department official, he had overseen the successful restructuring of AIG after the government bailout. But Millstein had an extra recommendation: The Fannie Mae shareholders needed to be paid out — shareholders like Millstein.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The aide told Millstein he didn’t see why shareholders, who bought Fannie stock for pennies when the government had already bailed it out, needed a windfall. The meeting turned tense.<b>&nbsp;“Don’t worry kid, you’re about to get yours,</b>” Millstein said, according to a Democratic committee staffer later briefed on the episode. Bright, reached for comment, declined to speak for this article.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">A week or so later, the conservative Free Beacon dropped a story headlined, “Banker Who Helped Crash Housing Market Helped Crafting Mortgage Reform.”</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The headline was absurd — Bright had been a low-level trader at Countrywide Financial Corp. right out of college, hardly in a position to blow up the housing market. But the facts didn’t matter. With the story in print, political operatives could now put the claim on the airwaves, and for cover source it back to the Free Beacon, a neat trick since the same operatives may well have been the ones who fed it to the Beacon. Two weeks later, the 60 Plus Association, a conservative dark money group, put out an attack ad repeating the allegation that “a former Countrywide financial executive is even helping craft the legislation.” The ad ran in North Carolina, Virginia and Idaho, targeting specific lawmakers involved in the legislation.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The aggressive tactics appear to have included ethics complaints, too. Campaign for Accountability, a watchdog founded by former employees of&nbsp;<b>Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington</b>, filed complaints against Corker, the leading Republican sponsor of housing reform legislation with Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.). The complaints, filed in November, allege Corker engaged in suspicious stock trades.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The next month, Campaign for Accountability called for a Department of Justice probe of former Obama administration officials David Stevens, Michael Berman and Jim Parrott for allegedly breaking revolving-door laws banning them from lobbying their former offices. Stevens is the former Federal Housing Administration official under Obama who left to head the Mortgage Bankers Association. Berman and Parrott both worked at the Department of Housing and Urban Development as it shaped housing policy before leaving for the private sector.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) was the leading Republican proponent of legislation to reform Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac that was opposed by the hedge funds.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">In February, National Legal and Policy Center, a conservative ethics watchdog group, filed a complaint against Stevens over the same revolving-door laws. Stevens is a leading proponent of the Warner-Corker legislation.&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Then, in March, Campaign for Accountability filed another complaint against Corker over omissions of large assets from his financial disclosure reports.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">It’s not possible to prove that hedge fund money is driving these complaints. But let’s work backward again. Campaign for Accountability is run by operatives from the group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, or CREW. Last year,<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">&nbsp;CREW took $40,000 from Herbalife, which was under assault from hedge funder Ackman. CREW pushed back, filing an ethics complaint against Ackman. When the $40,000 donation came to light, CREW promised to return it, citing the appearance of a conflict of interest.</span></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">CFA doesn’t release information on its donors. Former CREW honcho Melanie Sloan, who now does some work with CFA, said the group doesn’t take hedge fund money. But CFA itself might not even know if it takes hedge fund money: If a hedge fund gives to a foundation, which gives to a civil rights group, which then gives to CFA, it can be hard to track.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Either way, the Raben Group immediately circulated the complaints against Corker and Stevens around Washington by email. People close to Corker said they believe the ethics complaints were motivated by the hedge fund lobbying campaign. (Of course, the complaints might also have merit; in fact, both things could be true at the same time.)</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">When he was on the Hill pushing for GSE reform, Millstein had company. Michael Waldorf, with Paulson & Co., has been in the Senate to lobby on the GSE bill, as has Chris Katopis of the Association of Mortgage Investors, and Shawn Smeallie of American Continental Group, which works for DCI and Paulson, according to congressional sources.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Julie Chon, a former Democratic Banking Committee staffer, a top aide to Chairman Chris Dodd (D-Conn.), left the committee for Perry Capital Management, run by big-time Hillary Clinton donor Richard Perry. In early April, Chon organized a Clinton fundraiser that Senate banking staffers co-hosted. But at the height of the battle over Corker-Warner, she was a fixture on Capitol Hill — though she does not appear to have registered as a lobbyist.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“She wasn’t even shy that she was advocating for a payout,” said one of the former colleagues Chon lobbied in the Senate. As she’d roam the Senate halls, she’d cheerily greet staffers with a line that is such a perfect combination of talking point, banality and sarcasm that it could have been written by the creators of HBO’s “Veep.” “Just here trying to defend our property rights,” she’d repeat.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">*</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The American people, of course, are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights. Political hedge funds, though, aren’t leaving things in God’s hands alone. For that, there’s the DCI Group.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>The DCI Group most famously built its reputation doing the dirty work of the tobacco industry</b>. That long-running operation involved funding “experts” who would question the medical science around smoking, and targeting individual advocates and lawmakers. It pioneered the use of shadow groups that concealed the true source of funding for the campaign, and can be seen as a blueprint for the hedge fund campaigns.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">According to the lobbying disclosure records that do exist, DCI Group hired the Raben Group, American Continental Group and others to lobby on the Puerto Rico issue. American Continental Group is Paulson’s personal lobby shop, and also has a political intelligence arm heavily active in Argentina. Political intelligence differs from traditional lobbying in that its practitioners are not required to register their activities (thanks Eric Cantor) and it is not focused on influencing policy, but rather on learning in advance about upcoming policy changes or investigations, so that companies or hedge funds can get a jump on trades and business decisions.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">DCI also ran a lobbying campaign against the Puerto Rican government on behalf of Doral Financial, a now-bankrupt Puerto Rican bank, and BlueMountain Capital. They brought Shapiro on board and hired&nbsp;<b>Liberty International Group, a lobbying firm of former Rep. Connie Mack (R-Fla.).</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Back in 2007, DCI was instrumental in killing legislation that would have regulated Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, a doomed effort that may have prevented the lenders from melting down. It earned $2 million from Freddie Mac for its work.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>DCI was also part of American Task Force Argentina, the hedge-fund backed effort that battled Argentina over its default</b>. Raben Group’s Robert Raben and Shapiro led the task force, and Shapiro’s consulting firm was paid at least $450,000. While there are no public filings today, the group is helping run the Fannie hedge-fund operation, according to DCI managing partner Justin Peterson, who has privately talked about DCI’s work. Shapiro, too, said he was working with DCI for his housing policy work.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">All that work, even if it’s behind the scenes and unregistered, has to leave a trace. Here are two Facebook posts, one from late 2014 and another from early 2015, that have DCI organizing Fannie-related press events on the Hill for Investors Unite, a group of investors united to get a payout.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">FACEBOOK.COM</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A Facebook post by Wirestream Media shows that&nbsp;<b>DCI Group is working with Investors Unite,</b>&nbsp;an investment fund backed group lobbying on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac reform.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">FACEBOOK.COM</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A second Facebook post by Wirestream Media shows DCI Group’s involvement with Investors Unite.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>
</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Former DCI lobbyist Douglas Davenport&nbsp;</b>is also on the hedge fund payroll, registered on behalf of both American Task Force Argentina and the Puerto Rican bondholders.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The same lawyer has suited up for all three causes, too. Matthew McGill represents the hedge fund BlueMountain, which owns some $400 million worth of Puerto Rico debt. He successfully persuaded a judge to throw out a Puerto Rico law that stood in the way of the hedge funds. “Now we have a real negotiation where the bargaining power is essentially even,” McGill said afterward. BlueMountain also employed DCI Group in 2014 and 2015 on the Puerto Rico debt fight.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>McGill represents Perry Capital&nbsp;</b>in its shareholder lawsuit related to Fannie and Freddie. He participated in at least one PR event with Investors Unite, a Fannie-fighting group that DCI also represents.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">And finally — or, firstly — McGill represented NML Capital, a subsidiary of Elliott Management,</span>&nbsp;the hedge fund connected with&nbsp;<b>GOP megadonor Paul Singer,</b>&nbsp;in the lawsuit against Argentina, along with Aurelius Capital Management. That lawsuit allowed the hedge funds to extract billions from the Argentinian people. It came after the years-long slash-and-burn campaign run from the&nbsp;<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">&nbsp;American Task Force Argentina — a lobbying coalition of Covington & Burling,&nbsp;<b>DCI Group&nbsp;</b>and the Raben Group.</span></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Rob Shapiro, meanwhile, doesn’t appear on any lobbying reports or disclosures, but he was publicly attached to a pressure campaign that DCI Group ran on behalf of Doral Financial. The bank, which the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. took into receivership on Feb. 27, 2015, was suing the island government over a disputed $229 million tax refund. A website DCI Group created — Doral Puerto Rico Facts — promoted Shapiro’s study on the island’s debt problems. But it wasn’t just the bank that wanted to get the money back. Its hedge fund creditors wanted to get paid.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Who is paying who isn’t always easy to tell. Take the paper by Shapiro and Elaine Kamarck, touted as the independent views of officials from both the Obama and Clinton administrations, that comes to the conclusion that the hedge funds ought to be paid dollars for the shares of Fannie Mae they bought for pennies.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Neither Shapiro nor Kamarck are housing finance analysts or experts. Kamarck isn’t even an economist — her work is in the field of political science, studying election and turnout trends. The paper itself offers a rather stunning giveaway: The three pillars of housing finance have long been Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Ginnie Mae. In the Shapiro-Kamarck paper, Ginnie Mae is twice referred to as “Ginny Mae.” Anybody can make a mistake. But nobody with a housing policy background would do that twice.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“It would be like somebody claiming to be writing as a progressive journalist and calling it The Huffington Globe. It just gives away the game,” said one policymaker who read the paper.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">When we asked Shapiro who was funding his work on the GSEs, he said it “was sponsored by a low-income housing coalition.” The report thanks The Potomac Coalition, an African-American business and advocacy group. The Potomac Coalition’s Parks told The Wall Street Journal that his group indeed did pay for the paper, but that “Fannie and Freddie shareholders suggested the authors.” Parks added, in the Journal’s paraphrase, “the contents of the paper were drafted and negotiated by the authors, his group, shareholders and their lobbyists.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Shapiro said he hasn’t been otherwise very active in the housing policy fight. “That’s all I did, and I haven’t taken any other role and I’m very proud of that analysis because it would provide more funding for low-income housing than any program in American history,” he said.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But what about the Fix Fannie & Freddie website, which exists to promote the study?</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“I don’t have a website about fix Fannie and Freddie,” Shapiro said. “It’s not my website. That’s not true.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The website specifically says it is “sponsored by Sonecon,” which is Shapiro’s consulting firm. Just above that, it says, “About Dr. Shapiro.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">FIXFANNIEFREDDIE.COM</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The top of the Fix Fannie & Freddie website promoting Dr. Robert Shapiro’s paper on the subject.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">FIXFANNIEFREDDIE.COM</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The bottom of the Fix Fannie & Freddie website indicates it was sponsored by Dr. Robert Shapiro’s consulting firm Sonecon LLC.&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Shapiro asked for the web address so he could check it out himself. But he was having a hard time finding it, so he read it back. “F-A-N-N-Y ...”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“No, F-A-N-N-I-E,” we told him, which unlocked his path to the site with his company’s name on it.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Well, I will tell you it is not sponsored by me,” Shapiro said when he found it. He then added a new admission about the link to DCI. “But, I have worked with DCI on this. I’m not surprised that they’re promoting the study and myself and Dr. Kamarck.”</font></div></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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<a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2016/04/puerto-rico-debt-crisis-gop-attack-ads-221907"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">http://www.politico.com/story/2016/04/puerto-rico-debt-crisis-gop-attack-ads-221907</font></a>

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<font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Republican lawmakers trying to hammer out a deal to avert Puerto Rico's looming debt crisis are bristling about attack ads being aired in their home districts by a conservative group that doesn’t disclose its donors.</b></font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>The Center for Individual Freedom</b> has spent close to $2 million trying to scare off the authors of a plan to restructure the island territory's debt </span>ahead of a bill-writing session Wednesday and Thursday. The ads, which slam the deal as a bailout, <b>support the position of hedge funds that stand to lose billions if Congress allows Puerto Rico to restructure its general obligation debt.</b></font>

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<p style="font-weight: normal; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 1; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Those hedge funds declined to comment or didn’t respond to requests. The Center for Individual Freedom also did not respond.</font></p><p style="font-weight: normal; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 1; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Still, lawmakers and lobbyists are buzzing with speculation about the aggressive tactic.<b style="font-weight: bold; box-sizing: border-box;"><span class="Apple-converted-space">&nbsp;</span></b>And backers of the congressional fix say they’re <b>concerned the assault on members' conservative credentials could peel off support</b>.<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> Several of the House’s more vocal conservative iconoclasts sit on the Natural Resources panel, which has been assigned to write the bill because it has jurisdiction over territories. After a hearing Wednesday, some of those members said they wouldn't support the measure.</span></font></p><p style="font-weight: normal; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 1; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Speaker <b>Paul Ryan has expressed his support for the latest<span class="Apple-converted-space">&nbsp;</span><a href="https://t.co/5EliHRrQwC" target="_blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none;">draft</a><span class="Apple-converted-space">&nbsp;</span>of the panel’s bill, </b>which would create an oversight board that could step in to restructure debt if the commonwealth’s negotiations with creditors break down. Lawmakers said Ryan is planning to bring the bill to the floor next week after a meeting of the entire Republican caucus Friday.</font></p>

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<div class="fig-graphic" style=" box-sizing: border-box;"><a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2016/04/merrick-garland-republican-resistance-supreme-court-221902" target="_top" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition: all 0.25s ease; text-decoration: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><img src="/855d096a-927e-506a-9da3-5e6825b73a87.jpg"/></font></a></div>

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<p style="font-weight: normal; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 1; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Lawmakers are racing to come up with a solution that will allow Puerto Rico to stave off default on its $73 billion in debt before payments are due in the coming weeks. The Puerto Rican government last week enacted a payment moratorium that will likely ensure a default on $400 million due May 1 if Congress doesn’t act. The government on Monday proposed a new restructuring of its debt to bondholders, offering a modest raise in the amount it would pay per year on the majority of its outstanding debt.</font></p><p style="font-weight: normal; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 1; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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<font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Natural Resources Committee Chairman Rob Bishop, a Utah Republican, told reporters today that Puerto Rico has become the number one issue in his district due to CFIF's ads</b>.</font></p><p style="font-weight: normal; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 1; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"Who'd have thought the most pressing issue in the First District of Utah would be Puerto Rico?" Bishop said. "The commercials they're running against me have been helpful... Number one, they're over the top, and number two, they have given my phone number out there." Bishop said that's allowed his office to effectively explain the issue to constituents.</font></p><p style="font-weight: normal; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 1; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">CFIF doesn't reveal its donors but has received grants from conservative groups<b> American Action Network and Crossroads GPS</b>, according to disclosures from those organizations.</font></p><p style="font-weight: normal; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 1; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">CFIF dropped $900,000 on airtime on CNN, MSNBC and CNBC, plus more than $500,000 on D.C.-area broadcast and cable, and $86,000 on radio spots in Bishop's district, as well as those of fellow committee members Doug Lamborn (R-Colo.), Raul Labrador (R-Idaho) and Cresent Hardy (R-Nev.), according to data compiled for POLITICO by The Tracking Firm. The ads call the bill a bailout tantamount to allowing Puerto Rico to declare Chapter 9 bankruptcy that would also open the door for states to follow suit — which proponents say is untrue. The spots urge viewers and listeners to contact their representatives.</font></p><p style="font-weight: normal; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 1; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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<font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>The campaign takes the same position as hedge funds such as Aurelius Capital Management, Monarch Capital Group, Stone Lion Capital Partners, Davidson Kempner and Fundamental Advisors.</b></font></p><p style="font-weight: normal; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 1; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Monarch, Aurelius, Fundamental and Davidson Kempner declined to comment. The others didn't respond to requests for comment.</font></p><p style="font-weight: normal; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 1; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">More ads came from a group calling itself<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> Main Street Bondholders, created by the 60 Plus Association, billed as a conservative alternative to AARP. The New York Times reported that 60<b> Plus was recruited by DCI Group,</b> a Republican firm specializing in grassroots lobbying, known to critics as "AstroTurfing."</span></font></p><p style="font-weight: normal; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 1; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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<font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>DCI also hired former Rep. Connie Mack to lobby on behalf of Puerto Rico bondholders, whom he declined to name when contacted by POLITICO.</b></font></p><p style="font-weight: normal; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 1; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Gerry Scimeca, a spokesman for 60 Plus, said it has "thousands of active donors who fund our projects" and declined to elaborate. DCI Vice President Craig Stevens didn't answer requests for comment.</font>

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<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Holders of sales tax bonds, who are warring with holders of general obligation bonds over the bill, slammed the ads.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“The Main Street Bondholders group, which claims to represent retail investors despite widely reported ties to hedge funds, is misrepresenting itself to Congress and now miscasting Territories Clause legislation as Chapter 9,” Susheel Kirpalani, a lawyer at Quinn Emanuel representing a group of investors in sales tax bonds, said through a spokesperson.</font></p><p style="font-weight: normal; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 1; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Even some investment funds that hold general-obligation debt signaled frustration with the ads. Oppenheimer Funds, though a major stakeholder, distanced itself from the campaign. "OppenheimerFunds has maintained a constructive tone," spokeswoman Kimberly Weinrick said.</font></p><p style="font-weight: normal; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 1; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Alejandro Garcia Padilla, the governor of Puerto Rico, weighed in on the controversy himself on Tuesday.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“I'm wishing those ads do not affect the minds and will of the congressmen and women that need to deal with this," he said on a conference call with reporters</font>

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Read more:<span class="Apple-converted-space">&nbsp;</span><a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2016/04/puerto-rico-debt-crisis-gop-attack-ads-221907#ixzz4EQNmYuan" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition: all 0.25s ease; text-decoration: none;">http://www.politico.com/story/2016/04/puerto-rico-debt-crisis-gop-attack-ads-221907#ixzz4EQNmYuan</a><span class="Apple-converted-space">&nbsp;</span>

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