12. Puerto Rico, PROMESA and US-Latin America Debt Geopolitics
Starring:
Connie Mack IV —
South Florida House Rep,
2005 – 2013, Chairman of the Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere.
Lost Senate bid, then became a lobbyist.
James K. Glassman —
George W. Bush State Department, George W. Bush Institute, senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI). There’s a current FOMBPR member who’s an AEI fellow, Andrew G. Biggs.
Justin Peterson —
DCI Group, current FOMBPR member
(and who probably merits a separate post of his own)
This post is not so much about the current conditions of Puerto Rico in 2023, almost 7 years under the abhorrent and bipartisan passage of PROMESA (U.S. PUBLIC LAW 114–187—JUNE 30, 2016), but to continue the analyses of false premises used in the public media campaign that was the origin story of PROMESA.
It’s essential to understand the real origins of this law, so as to properly mobilize to get rid of the corrupt Financial Oversight Management Board, aka the FOMBPR or “La Junta”. Reversing the looting of public resources and the anti-worker agenda the FOMBPR is executing, without transparency and accountability, is a matter of urgency, of life and death for Puerto Ricans.
On Wednesday, July 30, 2014, a curious hearing took place in Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere of the US House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee. It is a key to understanding the vulture hedge fund lobbying mechanics used to demand the imposition of the FOMBPR.
Initially, different groups of large bondholders, mutual funds, and hedge funds, were trying to prevent any access to bankruptcy. When preventing that started to seem politically unlikely, they sought to hijack the process so that creditors had complete control, which is how the creditor demand for a fiscal control board entered the chat.
The quote below is the first major public utterance, as far as I know, that proposes a financial control board. It’s very cynical to say that imposing an undemocratic board to impose austerity will bring prosperity. The board prevented a full audit, and commissioned a fake audit, because that was not in the interest of creditors.
“For the protection of our own taxpayers in the United States who could end up holding the bag, the U.S. should perform a full audit and set up a financial control board with authority over borrowing, hiring, firing, and contracts such as the boards that succeeded in New York and the District of Columbia. If the United States and other countries had been tougher with Argentina, its dangerously seductive model would have been rendered unattractive. Now the U.S. has a chance to rectify matters by guiding Puerto Rico to the prosperity that its people deserve.”
— James Glassman
In general, the majority of discussions about Puerto Rico in US media, but also in local Puerto Rico media, tend to focus on the US-Puerto Rico colonial “relationship” purely in domestic terms. That type of navel-gazing framing misses that the US government does NOT see its colonial domination of Puerto Rico in domestic terms.
When the US Supreme Court Insular Cases phrase “foreign in a domestic sense” is referenced, it’s usually to highlight it as a racist oxymoron — which it is. But geographically and legally, the US does not consider Puerto Rico part of the US. This was established very early on in the first SCOTUS Insular Case Downes v Bidwell (1901). This discussion pops-up periodically, US liberals insisting “Puerto Rico is part of the US” when the US government has legally said over and over again, that “Puerto Rico belongs to the US.” It is not part of the US, it is an unincorporated territory, a POSSESSION. (See Insular Cases post for more.)
The name itself, the Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere of the House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee, should clue any savvy reader into the Monroe Doctrine nature of this committee. That Puerto Rico was brought up vigorously in this committee hearing, 2 years before the actual passage of PROMESA indicates the Puerto Rico debt “crisis” caused by ODIOUS COLONIAL DEBT should be viewed as a classic US-Latin America Monroe Doctrine issue. More specifically, it should be viewed as US “Theodore Roosevelt's Corollary” to the Monroe Doctrine issue, AKA “The big stick” doctrine, "speak softly and carry a big stick; you will go far.” This means the US is the self-appointed arbiter of US and European investor disputes against Latin American countries, not to protect those countries, but to protect its own interests and investments.
On paper, “The Monroe Doctrine is a United States foreign policy position that opposes European colonialism in the Western Hemisphere. It holds that any intervention in the political affairs of the Americas by foreign powers is a potentially hostile act against the United States.”
Left: Newspaper editorial cartoon from 1912 about the Monroe Doctrine, Minneapolis Journal. Uncle Sam stakes his claim in the Western Hemisphere in a political cartoon outlining the basic tenets of the Monroe Doctrine. / Wikimedia / Creative Commons
Right: The Big Stick in the Caribbean Sea Caricature on Theodore Roosevelt, 1904, William Allen Rogers.
Theodore Roosevelt's Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine (1905) “In his annual messages to Congress in 1904 and 1905, President Theodore Roosevelt expanded the Monroe Doctrine. The corollary stated that not only were the nations of the Western Hemisphere not open to colonization by European powers, but that the United States had the responsibility to preserve order and protect life and property in those countries.”
What this really means is protecting US “investor” property, US creditors’ rights, regardless of how that property was acquired, if the purchases, contracts or investments were illegal in the first place. Creditors’ absolute rights are the foundation of odious debt.
This is still the mentality of Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere of the House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee to this day. This hearing is closely related to How Doral Bank led to the Puerto Rico Junta.
Connie Mack IV (Cornelius Harvey McGillicuddy IV) is a nepotism politician and lobbyist from Fort Myers, South Florida. “He is the former U.S. Representative for Florida's 14th congressional district, serving from 2005 to 2013. A Republican, he ran for the U.S. Senate in 2012, losing to Democrat Bill Nelson. He is the son of former Republican U.S. Senator Connie Mack III and the great-grandson of baseball manager Connie Mack.”
Mack IV is a hardliner on Latin America, working very closely with James K. Glassman and Justin Peterson. A short list of Connie Mack IV’s “accomplishments”:
Called on G.W. Bush admin to add Venezuela to US list of state sponsors of terrorism. (2008)
Introduced a resolution calling for Venezuela to be designated a state sponsor of terrorism w/ fellow Florida anti-Castro politician Cuban-American Illeana Ros-Lehtinen. (2011)
Introduced a resolution attacking the government of Ecuador and its president at the time, Rafael Correa. (2011-2012)
Lobbying:
Committee to Free Venezuela (2012)
Doral Financial Bank, through Liberty International Group (2014)
American Task Force Argentina through Mack Strategies (2014-2016)
Hedge fund BlueMountain Capital Management, through Liberty International Group (BlueMountain is now Assured Investment Management, a rebranding of BlueMountain and Assured Guaranty, both involved in Puerto Rico’s bond debt.) (2015)
Bondholders of Puerto Rico through Mack Strategies (2016)
“In March 2014, he (Connie Mack IV) registered to become a lobbyist for American Task Force Argentina. As of September 2014, he was an executive vice president of public relations firm Levick as well as a registered lobbyist for Levick, Doral Financial and Las Vegas Sands.”
On June 28, 2014, Governor García Padilla signs into law the Puerto Rico Public Corporation Debt Enforcement and Recovery Act (Ley de Quiebra Criolla) passed by the Puerto Rico legislature. The Recovery Act was immediately met with lawsuits Puerto Rico v. Franklin California Tax-Free Trust; Acosta-Febo v. Franklin California Tax-Free Trust. BlueMountain Capital Management, LLC v. Garcia-Padilla was consolidated with the 2 former cases.
When the July 30, 2014 hearing occurs at the Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere where James K. Glassman appears, Connie Mack is already lobbying for American Task Force Argentina, and soon to be lobbyist for Doral Financial Bank, if he isn’t already.
The lawsuits in federal court reached the US Supreme Court. SCOTUS oral arguments won’t take place until March 22, 2016, as the lawsuits worked their way up through the federal court system.
James K. Glassman
"Ambassador Glassman served as Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs from 2008-09, leading the government-wide strategic communications effort. During 2007-08, he was Chairman of the U.S. Broadcasting Board of Governors, which oversees Voice of America and other government-sponsored TV, radio, and Internet broadcasting. He was confirmed unanimously by the U.S. Senate for both his government positions.From 1996 to 2017, he was a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, where he specialized in Internet policy. From 2009 to 2013, he served as the Founding Executive Director of the George W. Bush Institute, the policy arm of the Bush Presidential Center in Dallas. He recently ended a three-year term as a member of the Investor Advisory Committee of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.”
Wider context on this hearing in 2014:
Obama wins re-election in 2012, but Dems control Senate, but GOP controls House
A few months later, GOP gains Senate
Hillary Clinton is Secretary of State 2009-2013
John Kerry is Secretary of State 2013-2017
PNP-GOP Luis Fortuño loses Puerto Rico governorship (2009-2013)
PPD-DEM Alejandro García Padilla is Puerto Rico governor (2013-2017)
Other notable events in Latin America:
Fraudulent US regime change op against President Dilma Roussef in Brazil, Operation Car Wash (Lava Jato) begins (2014)
A day before this House hearing, on July 29, 2014, a series of “American Future Fund” ads came out in US media. This is a coordinated attack. You DO NOT have to be a fan of the PR Commonwealth Party (PPD) or of this governor to see what’s going on here. Nobody seriously believes the former PPD governor Alejandro García Padilla is even remotely a socialist, because he is not. The fact that he cancelled a phony “refund” that Doral Financial Bank claimed it was owed, a bank that had been caught in malfeasance, is not “socialism.” But that’s what this ad campaign was claiming.
Wednesday, July 30, 2014
Ambassador James K. Glassman
Visiting Fellow, American Enterprise Institute
Former U.S. Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs
Committee on Foreign Affairs
Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere
A Hearing on “Building Prosperity in Latin America: Investor Confidence in the Rule of Law”
Subcommittee Hearing: Building Prosperity in Latin America: Investor Confidence… (video)
THERE WERE 4 FLORIDA MEMBERS ON THIS SUBCOMMITTEE
James K. Glassman: “One visible case involves a bank called Doral which overpaid its taxes a decade ago and then entered into a series of agreements with Puerto Rico’s Treasury Department for refunds. Suddenly, in May, the government declared that deal null and void. Rather than imitating Argentina, Puerto Rico needs to cut its budget, reduce taxes, institute economic policies that encourage investment, rescind its Recovery Act, restore the rule of law and negotiate faithfully with creditors.”
The first version of PROMESA was introduced April 12, 2016 in the House Natural Resources Committee. The House Natural Resources Committee is where policy directly affecting US colonies (Puerto Rico, Guam, American Samoa, Northern Mariana Islands, and the US Virgin Islands) usually comes out from.
The SCOTUS ruling striking down the Ley de Quiebra Criolla came out on June 13, 2016. “Holding: Section 903(1) of the Bankruptcy Code, which pre-empts state bankruptcy laws that enable insolvent municipalities to restructure their debts over the objections of creditors and instead requires municipalities to restructure such debts under Chapter 9 of the federal Bankruptcy Code, pre-empts the Puerto Rico Public Corporation Debt Enforcement and Recovery Act, which was enacted to enable the commonwealth’s public utilities to implement a recovery or restructuring plan for their debt.
Judgment: Affirmed, 5-2, in an opinion by Justice Thomas on June 13, 2016. Justice Sotomayor filed a dissenting opinion, in which Justice Ginsburg joined. Justice Alito took no part in the consideration or decision.”
I reiterate the fully bipartisan nature of the passage of PROMESA, in which the final vote had more House Democrats voting for this conservative bill than Republicans, even though the idea of La Junta (FOMBPR) was, at least publicly, Republican in origin. For more details on the more immediate lead-up and passage of this law, see the PROMESA post.
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES (IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER 2007-2023)
2007
Fox News and Rep. Connie Mack vs. Joe Kennedy and Venezuelan Heating oil
In the lead segment on Your World today
February 12, 2007
2008
Add Venezuela to List of State Sponsors of Terrorism (Rep. Connie Mack)
by Fla. GOP Rep. Connie Mack
March 6, 2008
Venezuela Dismisses U.S. State Department Report on Terrorism as “Political”
Venezuela Analysis
May 1, 2008
“Republican Party members of the U.S. House Representatives, such as Connie Mack and Illeana Ros-Lehtinen, had sponsored a resolution urging the State Department to declare Venezuela a sponsor of terrorism”
Marco Rubio (left), Connie Mack (center) and Illeana Ros-Lehtinen (right)
2009
Playing the ‘Anti-Semitism’ Card Against Venezuela
By Eric Wingerter and Justin Delacour
September 3, 2009
“The U.S. press tends to portray left-leaning Latin American governments as hotbeds of anti-Semitism. In the case of Venezuela, this storyline has been promoted in three key ways: (1) attributing anti-Semitic acts or statements by private citizens to the government, (2) conflating legitimate criticism of Israeli policy with anti-Semitism, and (3) relying on press statements by U.S.-based Jewish organizations at the expense of Venezuelan Jewish organizations.”
“In May, Representative Connie Mack (R-Fla.) introduced a House resolution condemning the Venezuelan government as anti-Semitic in response to the synagogue break-in.”
2011
El aspirante al Senado, ultraderechista Connie Mack tendrá que responder por sus errores
(Far-right Senate candidate Connie Mack will have to answer for his mistakes)
Por Jean-Guy Allard
February 12, 2011
“Hijo del fallecido Senador Connie Mack III (McGillicuddy), un padrino de la Ley Torricelli contra Cuba, y nieto de un pelotero famoso, Mack IV recogió el escaño de Fort Myers, Florida, cuando el anterior representante Porter Goss fue nombrado jefe de la CIA. En 2010, fue reelegido por un margen infinitesimal.” (“The son of the late Senator Connie Mack III (McGillicuddy), a godfather of the Torricelli Act against Cuba, and the grandson of a famous baseball player, Mack IV picked up the Fort Myers, Florida seat when former Representative Porter Goss was named head of the CIA. In 2010, he was re-elected by an infinitesimal margin.”)
US Congressman Connie Mack Requested US Government Overthrow Venezuela's Chavez
Venezuela Analysis
Apr 4, 2011
“Last Thursday US Congressman Connie Mack requested the Executive branch of his country “put an end” to the government of the President of Venezuela, Hugo Chávez. …. The congressman was accused in November 2010 by the Bolivian President Evo Morales of making a public call for the assassination of President Chavez, during an meeting of the extreme right in the US.”
Venezuelan Government Counters U.S Congressman’s “Terrorism” Allegations
By Rachael Boothroyd, Venezuela Analysis
June 29, 2011
"The “Venezuelan National Assembly and the Foreign Relations Ministry rejected U.S. Congressman Connie Mack’s claims that Venezuela was a “state sponsor of terrorism”.
Minister of Foreign Relations Nicolas Maduro also stated on Friday that Mack’s comments were “repugnant”.
“Unfortunately the Foreign Relations Committee for the House of Representatives is in the hands of a crazy fascist belonging to the U.S. extreme right-wing...A declining imperial power, like the U.S., with people of extreme opinions such as those, cannot dictate to Venezuelans who we can have relations with and who we cannot,” said Maduro.”
The “Committee to Free Venezuela” ran a 30-minute documentary featuring Connie Mack in May 2011
2012
Connie Mack Chief of Staff Was Paid by Foreign Lobbying Interests, Anti-Chavez Groups dedicated to creating conflict between the Latin America left and the United States are likely cheering Mack's alarmism.
By Zaid Jilani
July 13, 2012
“In this time period, he (Connie Mack’s chief of staff Jeffery Cohen) received $368,000 from Direct Impact, an elections and astroturf firm, $25,000 from GEB International, which is dedicated to “electing world leaders around the globe” (although it keeps its client list confidential), $35,000 from the anti-Chavez Committee to Free Venezuela Foundation, and $5,000 from the Committee for Action Against Chavez.”
Mack staff tied to anti-Chávez group
By John Bresnahan
July 25, 2012
(Staffers names are Jeff Cohen, Scott Henderson, and Craig Engle.)
“For years in the House and in his current bid for Senate, Florida GOP Rep. Connie Mack has attacked Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez with a zeal possibly unmatched in Congress. Chávez, the congressman says, is a “thugocrat” and serious national security threat to the United States. …. a trio of Mack staffers worked with a secretive nonprofit group whose sole purpose appears to be promoting the congressman’s crusade against Chávez. It’s not clear who provided the $150,000 used to bankroll the group, which apparently did little else than produce a 30-minute documentary that aired on a Houston TV station and consisted almost entirely of a Mack speech bashing Chávez.”
“The Committee to Free Venezuela Foundation, a nonprofit group, was founded in Aug. 2010 in Delaware. The organization is “dedicated to educating the American public and policymakers about the dangers posed by Venezuela’s Socialist Dictator Hugo Chávez,” according to its Internal Revenue Service filings.”
“The Committee to Free Venezuela raised $150,000, but as a 501(c)(4) nonprofit organization, it was not required to disclose the source of that funding.”
“The Committee to Free Venezuela ran a 30-minute documentary featuring Mack in May 2011 on KRIV-TV in Houston, which had initially balked at showing it. After the group issued a public statement blasting KRIV for its decision, the TV station backed down and ran the documentary. Houston is home to the U.S. headquarters of Citgo, the Venezuelan government-owned oil giant.”
“In October 2010, Chávez nationalized a fertilizer plant owned in part by a company controlled by prominent conservative donors David and Charles Koch.”
“Mack, as chairman of the Western Hemisphere Subcommittee of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, has frequently targeted Chávez in both speeches and legislative initiatives.”
2014
Connie Mack registers to lobby
by Kevin Bogardus
March 14, 2014
Lobbying Firm Profile: Liberty International Group 2015
BlueMountain Capital
Bank fights Puerto Rico in D.C. A big bank is fighting Puerto Rico — in Washington.
By Anna Palmer
September 24, 2014
Doral Lleva Su Disputa a Washington
Por Luisa García Pelatti
September 25, 2014
Former Fla. congressman Connie Mack IV joins crisis PR firm Levick
By Catherine Ho
September 28, 2014
Doral Financial Taps Lobbyists, Politicians to Recover Tax Refund
By Matt Wirz and Aaron Kuriloff
Oct. 1, 2014
2015
The Right Medicine for Ailing Puerto Rico
By James K. Glassman
May 12, 2015
Lobbying Firm Profile: Liberty International Group 2015
BlueMountain Capital
James K. Glassman
“In 2016, he left Public Affairs Engagement and started his own firm, Glassman Enterprises, LLC, based in Washington, D.C., with an array of clients that include pharmaceutical firms, manufacturers and non-profits.
Nobel laureate Paul Krugman argued on his faculty website that the book contained basic arithmetic errors and was "very silly".”
2016
Hedge fund Blue Mountain Capital was featured negatively in this documentary:
Hedge Funds Bringing Poverty And Suffering To Places Like Puerto Rico
BRAVE NEW FILMS (BNF)
Jun 10, 2016
2017
Return of the Monroe Doctrine: Making Latin America Irate Again
By Max Paul Friedman
February 2, 2017
2018
How Hedge Funds (Secretly) Get Their Way in Washington
Fake grass roots. An inflatable rat. Testimony with hidden ties. Billionaires are using DCI Group to make their bets pay off—while keeping the public in the dark.
By Zachary Mider and Ben Elgin
January 25, 2018
“With swept-back silver hair and a prestigious résumé, James K. Glassman cuts the classic figure of a Washington wise man. He’s a former undersecretary of State, think-tank founder, and best-selling author, with a considered opinion on just about any Beltway issue. In July 2014, when a House subcommittee held a hearing on Latin American economies, its members asked Glassman to speak first. “Thank you, Mr. Chairman,” he said, and began to testify: “A stable and prosperous Latin America is critical, not just to Latin Americans themselves, but to all of us here in the United States. …
Glassman never mentioned it in his testimony, but records show he was then working for an affiliate of DCI Group—a Washington public affairs firm whose client list meshed perfectly with his talking points. One DCI client, a $25 billion hedge fund, was feuding with Argentina. Another was suing Puerto Rico.
Bloomberg Businessweek identified six major influence campaigns waged on behalf of investors in a particular stock or bond since 2006. DCI, it turns out, coordinated all six.
As Glassman championed more hedge fund campaigns, his advocacy sometimes clashed with his own previous views. In a memo he gave lawmakers at the 2014 Latin America hearing, he recommended that Puerto Rico be allowed to declare bankruptcy. But he insisted the island’s electric utility shouldn’t; at the time, DCI was representing BlueMountain Capital Management, an owner of the utility’s bonds. A year later, he reversed himself, declaring that a Puerto Rico bankruptcy would be a “disaster.” Not long after, DCI started a campaign for bondholders that would lose value in such a bankruptcy. (In his statement, Glassman said that “we all strive for consistency, but the facts on the ground in Puerto Rico changed.”)
Los tentáculos de DCI
Por José A. Delgado, El Nuevo Día
20 de agosto de 2018
(One of the best accounts in Spanish of the DCI Group lobbying campaign against Puerto Rico.)
”Poco antes, en julio de 2014, con el apoyo del cabildero y ex congresista republicano Connie Mack, colocaron a James Glassman – del grupo de estudio conservador American Enterprise Institute (AEI) y ex funcionario del gobierno de George W. Bush-, como testigo de una audiencia de un subcomité de la Comisión de Relaciones Exteriores de la Cámara baja federal sobre la crisis de deuda de Argentina. Mack fue miembro de esa comisión.
(Shortly before, in July 2014, with the support of lobbyist and former Republican congressman Connie Mack, they placed James Glassman – from the conservative American Enterprise Institute (AEI) study group and former George W. Bush government official – as a witness of a hearing of a subcommittee of the Foreign Relations Committee of the federal lower House on the debt crisis in Argentina. Mack had been a member of that committee.)
Glassman debe haber sido el primero en solicitar en una audiencia pública del Congreso el nombramiento en Puerto Rico de una “junta administrativa federal, similar a las que tuvieron a su cargo los asuntos del Distrito de Columbia entre 1995 y 2001”.
(Glassman must have been the first to request, in a public congressional hearing, the appointment in Puerto Rico of a "federal administrative board, similar to those that were in charge of the affairs of the District of Columbia between 1995 and 2001.")
Para diciembre de 2014, cuando Doral parecía que ganaría su caso, el principal abogado de Doral, Matthew McGill, en un foro en Wall Street, advirtió además de lo difícil que le resultaba a los abogados estadounidenses tener que ir a litigar “en las cortes en que se habla en español en Puerto Rico”, como si el idioma vernáculo de la Isla representara una disminución del estado de derecho.
(By December 2014, when Doral seemed likely to win its case, Doral's top lawyer, Matthew McGill, in a forum on Wall Street, also warned how difficult it was for US lawyers having to go to litigate "in the courts in Puerto Rico in which Spanish is spoken”, as if the vernacular language of the Island represented a diminution of the rule of law.)
The Andrade trial: Deception, forgery, and corruption
by Former Rep. Connie Mack IV (R-Fla.), Opinion Contributor -
August 31, 2018
"Americans are being illegally detained around the globe in places like Iran, Turkey, Venezuela, and now Colombia. It should concern all Americans – home and abroad – that once leaving our country they too could be subject to politically motivated charges. A stark example of such abuse is the case of Mr. Luis F. Andrade – an American citizen – who left his Senior Partner position in McKinsey & company, to serve as the head of the infrastructure agency in the government of his parents’ home country of Colombia, in an altruistic attempt to help that nation move forward."
Luis Andrade
Director, McKinsey & Company
McKinsey: Puerto Rico Bondholder and Fiscal Board’s Lead Adviser
Luis J. Valentín Ortiz, Centro de Periodismo Investigativo
December 13, 2018
(McKinsey is the main consultant to the US-Congress-imposed “Puerto Rico Financial Oversight Management Board.” McKinsey was found to have conflicts of interest, but there were no consequences, as there is zero oversight on the Oversight Board.)
“The world's largest financial consulting firm leads the operations of Puerto Rico’s federally appointed Fiscal Control Board, as evidenced by emails obtained by the Center for Investigative Journalism. McKinsey also owns Puerto Rico bonds and is subject of various investigations, including one commissioned by the entity imposed by the federal PROMESA law. Through a subsidiary, McKinsey also owns Puerto Rico bonds.”
2019
Former Congressman lobbied for return of American citizen wrapped up in Colombian corruption case
By Raymond Arke
April 1, 2019
“Andrade, a former senior partner at the influential McKinsey & Company consulting firm, was held for months under house arrest in Colombia after being accused by Colombian officials in one of the country’s biggest bribery cases.”
2020
Ex-Florida Rep. Connie Mack joins campaign to free Colombia’s Uribe
By Julian Pecquet, Foreign Lobby Report
September 10, 2020
“Mack is now part of the “leadership” of the “Free Uribe” movement, an advocacy campaign spearheaded by the DCI Group. Uribe hired the Republican firm last month for $40,000 to help fight years-old allegations of ties to right-wing paramilitary groups responsible for several massacres in the country’s war against left-wing militants.”
Inside the scramble for power in the board controlling Puerto Rico’s Financial Future
With Trump on the way out, a late appointment has a history of working for the very debt holders trying to secure a payoff.
Alleen Brown, Ryan Grim, The Intercept
December 22 2020
“As Puerto Ricans fled the island over the past several years, escaping the misery of Hurricane Maria and its economic fallout, Democrats hoped to cash in at the ballot box. But Puerto Ricans broadly dashed those hopes, voting in sizable numbers for Republicans. One driver of this dynamic was Puerto Ricans’ displeasure with the legislation that created the fiscal control board; it became a stand-in for Puerto Ricans’ anger at the rapacious treatment they’ve received. The bill was bipartisan but was signed into law by President Barack Obama in 2016 and has come to be associated with Democrats.”
2022
US-backed Moro Secretly Tried To Prevent Dilma’s 2014 Re-Election
By BRASILWIRE
February 3, 2022
2023
For an excellent summary of the Argentina debt trap situation:
How a US debt trap in Argentina is fueling inflation, dollarization, far right
Ben Norton, Geopolitical Economy Report
May 30, 2023
