Puerto Ricans get the chance Sunday to tell the U.S. Congress which political status they believe best benefits the U.S. territory as it remains mired in an economic crisis that has triggered an exodus of islanders to the mainland.

 

Congress ultimately has to approve the outcome of Sunday’s referendum that offers voters three choices: statehood, free association/independence or the current territorial status. 

For statehood

 

Many expect statehood supporters to crowd voting centers because three of Puerto Rico’s political parties are boycotting the referendum, including the island’s main opposition party. Among those hoping Puerto Rico will become the 51st state is Pedro Pierluisi, the island’s former congressional representative.

 

“Let’s send a loud and clear message to the United States and the entire world,” he said in a statement Saturday. “And that message is that we Puerto Ricans not only want our U.S. citizenship, but we want equal treatment.”

The referendum coincides with the 100th anniversary of the United States granting U.S. citizenship to Puerto Ricans, who are barred from voting in presidential elections and have one congressional representative with limited voting powers.

 

Many believe the island’s territorial status has contributed to its 10-year economic recession, which was largely sparked by decades of heavy borrowing and the elimination of federal tax incentives. Puerto Rico is exempt from the U.S. federal income tax, but it still pays Social Security and Medicare and local taxes but receives less federal funding than U.S. states.

 

Nearly half a million Puerto Ricans have moved to the U.S. mainland in the past decade to find jobs and a more affordable cost of living as the island of 3.4 million people also struggles with a 12 percent unemployment rate. Those who remain behind have been hit with new taxes and higher utility bills on an island where food is 22 percent more expensive than the U.S. mainland and public services are 64 percent more expensive.

No statehood

 

Those who oppose statehood warn that Puerto Rico will struggle even more financially because it will be forced to pay millions of dollars in federal taxes. Many also worry the island will lose its cultural identity.

 

Sen. Eduardo Bhatia of the opposition Popular Democratic Party plans to boycott Sunday’s referendum.

 

“To not vote in a process that has not been validated by any party in Puerto Rico, or by the U.S. government or by anyone outside the New Progressive Party is to respect oneself,” he tweeted Saturday.

 

A spokesman for the U.S. Justice Department told The Associated Press that the agency has not reviewed or approved the ballot’s revised language. Federal officials in April rejected the original version, in part because it did not offer the territory’s current status as an option. The administration of Gov. Ricardo Rossello added it and sent the ballot back for review, but the department said it needed more time and asked that the vote be postponed, but it was not.

Past referendums

 

Sunday’s referendum is the fifth for Puerto Rico.

 

No clear majority emerged in the first three referendums, with voters almost evenly divided between statehood and the status quo. During the last referendum in 2012, 54 percent said they wanted a status change. Sixty-one percent who answered a second question said they favored statehood, but nearly half a million voters left that question blank, leading many to claim the results were not legitimate.

 

Thousands of Puerto Ricans already cast their vote earlier this week in the newest referendum, including inmates and those who are hospitalized.
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Former Vice President Joe Biden has encouraged onetime GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney to run for the Senate in Utah if longtime Republican incumbent Orrin Hatch decides to retire next year.

Biden made the recommendation to Romney Friday evening at the Utah resort where Romney was hosting an annual invitation-only business and politics summit.

The Biden-Romney event, like most of the discussions and speeches at the gathering, was closed to reporters. But people who were there confirmed the conversation and described it as a warm, bipartisan talk.

Romney did not give any indication he was considering a run, should Hatch, 83, decide not to run again next year, said one person in attendance, Maryland videographer Dean Dykema.

“Mitt didn’t have a chance to ask many questions because Joe pretty much took over the show,” Dykema said.

Hatch, who has been in office since 1977, has said he hasn’t decided if he’ll seek another term but he might step aside if Romney ran.

The 70-year-old former Massachusetts governor now lives in Utah, where he’s remained popular as the man who led a turnaround of the scandal-plagued 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics and as a prominent Mormon businessman and politician in a state that’s home to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

In April, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said he reached out to Romney about running for Hatch’s seat, but said he’d support the longtime senator if he decided to run again.

Hatch has said that he hopes everyone in Utah could get behind Romney and avoid a divisive primary contest like the one in 2010 that ousted his close friend, the late Utah Republican Sen. Robert Bennett. Bennett was defeated by a tea party-backed Republican, Mike Lee.

On Friday in Utah, Romney and Biden did not discuss the 2012 election where they ran on opposing tickets, but Biden did discuss the 2016 election.

He made some comments critical of President Donald Trump, but said he felt his own party and its candidate Hillary Clinton failed to connect with some key voting blocs, including millennials and those in working-class states where Biden was sent as a surrogate for the campaign.

Biden also discussed a need for bipartisanship in Congress, lamenting how Republicans and Democrats don’t sit together anymore in the Capitol dining room, and spoke of his efforts to improve cancer research, a cause he has focused on since his son, former Delaware Attorney General Beau Biden, died in 2015 of brain cancer.
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Competing protests took place in several cities across the United States Saturday between groups saying they are protesting Sharia and groups saying they are protesting discrimination against Muslims.

The “anti-Sharia” protesters were organized by a group called ACT for America, a President Donald Trump-aligned organization that says it protects free speech and defends traditional American values.

The Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks hate groups, says ACT is the nation’s largest anti-Muslim group.

According to a Washington Post report, about three dozen ACT protesters, some dressed in fatigues and carrying American flags, gathered in downtown New York City.

Pax Hart, who organized the Manhattan rally, told a reporter that if someone feels unsafe walking around in a Muslim headscarf, “try being a conservative on a college campus.”

Among the people gathered at the anti-Sharia protest were Trump supporters; self-identified “Oath Keepers,” an anti-government group; and tidily dressed young men who identified themselves as members of the “alt-right,” a white nationalist movement.

Across the street, a few hundred people gathered with banners reading “Fascists out of NYC.” 

Police officers and barricades stood between the two groups.

More than 20 cities

Similar faceoffs took place in more than 20 cities across the nation: Harrisburg, Pennsylvania; Chicago, Illinois; Austin, Texas; and San Bernardino, California, where in 2015 a husband and wife inspired by Islamic State killed 14 people and wounded 22 others in a shooting spree.

“There are radicals out there,” an ACT for America supporter in San Bernardino, Denise Zamora, told a local television reporter. “People are saying that we’re against Muslims. No, Muslims are attacking other Muslims, and we’re bringing in these refugees that have the same ideologies.”

So far, no violence has been reported at any of the demonstrations. But the Southern Poverty Law Center has noted that ACT for America rallies tend to attract a broad range of far-right extremists and anti-government activists.

The group canceled a rally scheduled for Saturday in Batesville, Arkansas, after it was revealed that the organizer was a prominent neo-Nazi, Billy Roper.

In San Bernardino, police spokeswoman Eileen Hards told a reporter, “There’s an anti-Trump, a pro-Trump, anti-extremists, so there are a variety of messages here.

“There are so many messages going on that I’m not sure who’s who,” Hards added.
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Did President Donald Trump break the law when he allegedly asked then-FBI Director James Comey in February to stop his investigation of former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn?

The question is at the heart of a legal debate a day after Comey disclosed during closely watched congressional testimony that Trump asked him to end his investigation of Flynn’s suspected ties to Russia.

In riveting detail, Comey recounted that after a February 14 counter-intelligence briefing at the White House, Trump told him that he wanted “to talk about Mike Flynn,” saying Flynn “is a good guy” and “I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go.”

Watch: Comey on Trump‘s Word: ‘I Took It As A Direction’

The allegation raised two sets of questions: Did Trump obstruct justice when he asked for an end to the Flynn probe? And, is it an issue for the courts or Congress to decide?

Marc Kasowitz, Trump’s personal lawyer, said in a statement released after the testimony that “the president never, in form or substance, directed or suggested that Mr. Comey stop investigating anyone.”

Watch: Trump Lawyer: President ‘Never Suggested’ That Comey ‘Let Flynn Go’

Directive

Senators were at odds over the implications of Comey’s testimony. While some Democrats suggested it pointed to obstruction of justice by Trump, Republican members of the panel seized on the fact that the president did not explicitly “direct” the former FBI director to drop the Flynn investigation.

In response to a question, Comey declined to say whether he thought Trump’s conduct amounted to obstruction of justice, saying it was up to Special Counsel Robert Mueller to make that determination.

To Trump’s critics, Comey’s revelations recalled the “Nixon tapes,” secret White House recordings that former President Richard Nixon refused to release during the Watergate scandal, ultimately leading to his resignation in 1974.

Case not ironclad

But the case for obstruction of justice based on Comey’s testimony is far from ironclad, legal scholars say.

While Trump’s alleged interactions with Comey were seen by many as grossly out of line, the Comey testimony did not provide grounds for obstruction charges, these scholars say.

“The president is not facing a particularly compelling case of obstruction for prosecution at this time,” said Jonathan Turley, a professor at the George Washington University School of Law. “This is also not a record that would support impeachment.”

Louis Michael Seidman, a professor of constitutional law at Georgetown University, agreed that the case for charging Trump with obstruction of justice is not there, but he said that Comey’s firing after he refused to carry out the president’s wishes is “a serious matter.”

“No one outside the White House is contesting the fact that that is what happened, that director Comey is telling the truth,” Seidman said. “If he is telling the truth, that means the president has lied about it and that is a further indication he may not be fit to be president of the United States.”

Presidential history

No American president has ever been indicted while in office, though two, Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton, were impeached but later acquitted.

Legal scholars disagree over whether a sitting president can be prosecuted, but the White House Counsel’s office has argued against it, deciding in at least two instances not to indict a president, Seidman said.

Obstruction of justice, or interference with a legal proceeding, such as a criminal investigation, is a crime, but proving it is legally challenging. To demonstrate obstruction of justice, prosecutors must show evidence of “corrupt intent.”

“That’s a very difficult standard to meet,” Turley said.

Andy McCarthy, a former federal prosecutor and now a fellow at the conservative National Review Institute, said that as the head of the executive branch of government, Trump has “prosecutorial discretion” to end an investigation and that he “couldn’t conceivably have thought he was doing something wrong.”

“Therefore, it would be impossible to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that he acted corruptly,” McCarthy said.

Though Trump’s true motivation remains unknown, “it’s perfectly plausible that the president was feeling sympathetic to his former aide who had just resigned and was facing a torrent of criticism,” Turley said.

Congressional actions

The U.S. Constitution allows Congress to remove a president from office for “treason, bribery or other high crimes and misdemeanors” through impeachment proceedings in the House of Representatives and a trial in the Senate.

While it is easier to bring an article of impeachment on obstruction charges, the allegation of crimes must be far more detailed than what has been alleged about Trump, Turley said.

In the Nixon case, he noted, the first article of impeachment in the House of Representatives listed obstruction of justice but included “nine separate but rather detailed crimes.”

In the Clinton impeachment case, the House of Representatives dropped an article on obstruction of justice, said Turley, who testified before the House in favor of impeachment.

With Republicans in control of Congress, the prospects of their impeachment of their party leader appear slim. But Turley said impeachment is not always brought for purely political reasons.

In Watergate, he noted that Republicans abandoned Nixon in favor of his impeachment. And today, congressional Republicans are “actively supporting the investigation of Donald Trump,” he said.
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Marches against Islamic law were planned Saturday in more than two dozen cities across the United States, but scholars and others say the protesters are stoking unfounded fears and promoting a distorted and prejudiced view of the religion. 

 

The group organizing the rallies, ACT for America, claims Shariah “is incompatible with Western democracy and the freedoms it affords.” 

What is Shariah?

But most Muslims don’t want to replace U.S. law with Islamic law, known as Shariah, and only “radical extremist groups” would call for that, said Liyakat Takim, a professor of Islamic studies at McMaster University in the Canadian city of Hamilton, Ontario. 

 

Shariah, Takim said, refers to guidelines or principles — how Muslims should live. “Fiqh” refers to jurisprudence, or specific laws. The values embedded in Shariah do not change and are shared among Muslims, he said, while fiqh is open to interpretation and change, and in fact differs among Islamic sects and communities. 

 

“In the public domain, Muslims are not required or expected to impose their laws on the country in which they live as the minority,” Takim said, adding there has never been an understanding “that the same laws would be applicable at all times in all places.” 

 

“The Quran allows slavery, so does the Old Testament. That doesn’t mean we allow it today, too,” he said. “Laws are amenable to change.” 

The marches come amid a rise in reports of anti-Muslim incidents in the U.S., including arson attacks and vandalism at mosques, harassment of women wearing Muslim head coverings and bullying of Muslim schoolchildren. 

State laws, far-right groups

But while there is little likelihood that Shariah would ever supplant U.S. law, some states have moved to insulate themselves against the possibility. 

 

Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, Louisiana, Kansas, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Dakota and Tennessee have enacted laws prohibiting the use of foreign law in state courts, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. 

 

In Idaho a Republican lawmaker earlier this year introduced a measure aimed at preventing Shariah from being applied, though an Idaho judge has never based a ruling on Islamic law. 

Two far-right groups, the Oath Keepers and the Three Percenters, are to provide security at some of the anti-Shariah demonstrations, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, which monitors hate groups. 

 

ACT for America has chapters around the country and says it is focused on fighting terrorism and promoting national security. It says it condemns bias against religious groups and is “proud to stand shoulder to shoulder with peaceful Western Muslims as well as peaceful Muslims worldwide.” 

 

Counter-marches, freedom of speech

On Saturday counter-demonstrations were planned by opponents who called the events anti-Muslim. 

Rep. Debbie Dingell, a Michigan Democrat who says her district has the largest population of Muslims in the U.S., said the marchers “will be total failures on Saturday because we will be united against them.” 

 

Freedom of speech has become a contentious issue surrounding the marches, apparently the first simultaneous anti-Shariah rallies held across the U.S. 

Portland rally moved

 

A march had been planned for Portland, but an organizer moved it to Seattle after Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler called on the federal government to deny a permit. Wheeler said the rally would exacerbate tensions after two men were stabbed to death in May on a commuter train while protecting two teenage girls from a man casting anti-Muslim slurs. 

 

The organizer said “inflammatory comments” by Wheeler put participants at risk of violence. The American Civil Liberties Union of Oregon scolded Wheeler, saying trying to deny a permit without imminent threat of violence amounted to unconstitutional government censorship. 

 

Seattle was one of the cities where a counter-march was planned. Aneelah Afzali, who heads a Seattle-area group that works against discrimination and hate crimes, said she will also be putting up an “ask a Muslim booth” so people can ask questions directly about Islam, and dispel any misconceptions. 

 

“We want to counter (the anti-Shariah march) and keep it as positive as possible, and educate people about what Islam teaches,” Afzali said in a phone interview. 
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In America, June is Gay Pride Month. It’s a time of festivals and parades throughout the country. But this year is different. The parades this year promise to be more protest than celebration, with participants concerned that their hard-won civil rights may be curtailed by the Trump administration. In Los Angeles, VOA Russian’s Genia Dulot caught up with the grand marshal of this year’s protest, activist Alexei Romanoff.
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