President Trump said he wants to help Puerto Rico deal with its debt (though his administration immediately U-turned on this). The territory has been devastated by multiple hurricanes and a long-running economic crisis. But while disaster aid and debt relief would be very good for Puerto Rico, what it really needs in the long-run is statehood. Here’s why.
Continue reading “If Donald Trump Wants to Help Puerto Rico, He Should Help It Become a State”
About 92% of Catalans who voted in the recent referendum backed independence, on a turnout of just 42%. The thing is, if you’re against Catalan independence, it would be odd to participate in this referendum because the Spanish state–the entity you recognize as sovereign–declared the referendum illegal. An independence referendum that has the backing of the regional authority but not the national authority can only deliver a divisive result. Much of the international media has put the blame for this on the Spanish–why wouldn’t Spain just recognize the right of the Catalans to self-determination and permit the referendum, like the UK did for Scotland? But these arguments make a lot of assumptions about self-determination that build in pro-independence biases. If Spain were to allow a Catalan independence referendum even though in the view of the Spanish government such a referendum is against the interests of the Spanish people as a whole, Spain would already be effectively conceding the question about which the referendum is meant to decide.
Continue reading “Catalonia: Folks Don’t Understand How Serious the Debate Over Sovereignty Is”
Catalonia is holding an independence referendum on October 1st. The referendum is not sanctioned by the Spanish government. Many are inclined to support the Catalan cause, particularly on the left. After all, the left tends to sympathize with minority and regional groups that seem culturally marginalized, and the Spanish government–led by the austerity-promoting Mariano Rajoy–feels icky. When Catalans portray themselves as plucky upstarts taking on a corrupt and indifferent Madrid bureaucracy, it’s easy to see the appeal. But this isn’t really about Catalonia versus Madrid–it’s about Catalonia versus Andalusia.
Continue reading “The Left-Wing Case Against Catalan Independence”
Single payer healthcare seems to be getting more popular. More people are becoming aware of the advantages of single payer. A majority of Americans now say that the government has a responsibility to make sure all Americans have healthcare coverage, and more than half of that majority now think the best way to do it is single payer:
The current push for single payer does however have a lot in common with another political movement–the Republican effort to repeal and replace Obamacare.
Continue reading “What the Single Payer Movement Can Learn From “Repeal and Replace””
A few excerpts have leaked from Hillary Clinton’s forthcoming book, What Happened. They contain a series of attacks on Bernie Sanders and his supporters. You can find lots of people criticizing Clinton for re-litigating the primaries, but today I want to draw attention to just how bad Clinton’s arguments are.
Benjamin Studebaker 