Puerto Rico Needs To Clean Up Government And Hurricane Damage

Here’s something most of us didn’t know until yesterday: Joe Biden, who, as a teenaged lifeguard cowed Corn Pop into submission and dazzled African American kids with the blond hairs on his legs, actually grew up in a Puerto Rican neighborhood in Delaware.

Wait. I thought he grew up in Scranton, PA.

Whatever. 

Biden’s like Zelig, the main character in Woody Allen’s 1983 “mockumentary” of the same name, about a character whose talent it to try to look and act like everyone he meets.

And like, Zelig, Biden is a phony.

You can hardly blame the president for jetting off to Puerto Rico - pity he couldn’t squeeze in a trip to our southern border while he was at it - to pander and grandstand to the population that was just hit with yet another catastrophic hurricane.

After all, just last week, a series of polls from Pennsylvania showed Dr. Mehmet Oz closing the gap with crazy hoodie man John Fetterman. They key to the shift? Hispanic voters breaking for the Republican.

That trend is happening around the country, by the way.

Don’t take my word for it. Newsweek, hardly a right-wing news source, reports that after months of lagging by double digits in the polls, the race was in a statistical dead heat in several polls and Oz was “not only competitive, but he’s surging.”

According to those polls, the shift came largely from Oz's increasing popularity among independents as well as the Black and Hispanic voter base that helped President Joe Biden to a 1.2 percent victory in the state in the 2020 presidential election.

And voila, just like that Biden was practically Puerto Rican himself.

“I was sort of raised in a Puerto Rican community back home,” he blathered. 

He’s Sorta Rican, I guess.

While on the island Biden promised to shower the territory with all the money it needs to rebuild infrastructure and recover from the storms.

That’s great. Puerto Rico is part of the U.S. and we need to help the island recover. Problem is Puerto Rico is governed by corruptocrats and aid often becomes a private feast for crooked politicians.

In August, for instance, the former governor of Puerto Rico, Wanda Vazquez, was indicted on charges of conspiracy, federal program bribery and honest services wire fraud,

In May, National Public Radio - again about as far left as a news outlet can be - reported on an alarming rash of arrests of Puerto Rican public officials by the FBI and Justice Department in what was described as a “ballooning scandal.”

Almost all of the charges, NPR reported, arose out of irregularities with officials “asking for money in exchange for government contracts.”

When he was president Donald Trump received heavy criticism for his contentious relationship with the territory, as he held up aid money, demanding accountability and accusing leadership of misusing funds.

Biden’s doing the opposite, throwing money at the island. Of course, this is the president’s answer to everything from Ukraine to student debt. Open the public coffers, buy votes and pretend the resulting inflation is not his fault.

There has to be a happy medium. Aid needs to go to Puerto Rico. But it needs to be accompanied by strict oversight and demands for government reform.