The Dictatorship
What Puerto Rico’s new governor can learn from Bad Bunny
Six days after Puerto Rico’s outdated infrastructure and colonial politics led to islandwide blackoutsBad Bunny gave the island and the diaspora a massive and beautiful gift: “DEBÍ TiRAR MÁS FOToS” (“I Should’ve Taken More Photos”), which he calls his “most Puerto Rican” album ever. Released Jan. 5, DtMF is currently Billboard’s top streaming album.
As if that weren’t enough, on Monday Bad Bunny handed out another gift when he announced his first-ever residency in Puerto Rico. He’s now the island’s cultural and political pulse, the beating heart of a new generation impatient for change. The title of his residency is “No me quiero ir de aquí,” or “I do not want to leave here.” Tickets for the first nine shows are only open to residents of Puerto Rico and can only be bought in person. Those sales started Wednesday. Tickets for the remaining shows will be available for online pre-sale next week.
The title of his residency is “No me quiero ir de aquí,” or “I do not want to leave here.”
“Tourists come here to enjoy the beautiful places, and then they leave, and they don’t have to deal with the problems that Puerto Ricans have to deal with day to day,” the 30-year-old Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio (Bad Bunny’s birth name) told Time magazine in an interview about DtMF. “Translating that analogy to a romance, there are also people who arrive to share [memories with you] and only see the best part of you, the most beautiful part of you. And they leave. They couldn’t see that part of each one of us: the defects, the trauma, the worries, the pains, the wounds of the past. It’s like they were a tourist in your life.”
There’s a deep understanding in Bad Bunny’s music, a feeling that his art offers a vision for all Puerto Ricans, on the island or in the diaspora. Tracks like “Nueva Yol,” a definitive tribute to New York City’s Puerto Rican population, and “La Mudanza” drip with Puerto Rican pride.
“I SHOULD TAKE MORE PHOTOS is more than just a means of liberating the hips; it arrives amid a broader narrative of the island’s struggle for sovereignty, rooted in compounded centuries of Spanish, then American, colonization,” Tatiana Lee Rodríguez wrote in Pitchfork.
She’s right. It’s not just an album. It’s a statement about Puerto Rican unity. A reminder that Puerto Rico won’t be erased, pushed aside or disrespected, no matter how many “garbage” jokes get told by Trump-loving insult comics. This is Puerto Rico’s future, and Bad Bunny is at the forefront, ensuring the island’s identity is never lost.
This “love letter to Puerto Rico,” as one headline about the album puts it, isn’t just entertainment. Working with Jorell Meléndez-Badillo of the University of Wisconsin-Madison and author of “Puerto Rico: A National History,” Bad Bunny includes 17 mini-history lessons about the island, one for each song.
“[Bad Bunny] was really interested in having that sort of historical component, so people were not only listening to the songs on YouTube, but learning their history while they do so,” Meléndez-Badillo told the Los Angeles Times.
Unlike the island’s governor, Bad Bunny is the serious one right now. He’s using his music to bring attention to Puerto Rico’s problems
On the same day Bad Bunny brought the house down in a New York City subway station and on “The Tonight Show” with Jimmy Fallon, Puerto Rico Gov. Jennifer Gonzalez-Columbus”https://x.com/Jenniffer/status/1878908449331032169″ target=”_blank”>was flaunting a letter she wrote to President-elect Donald Trump about Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro. Maduro, who was responding to Trump’s musings about annexing Greenland, Canada and Panama, suggested that Brazil should “liberate” Puerto Rico from the U.S. González-Colón looked silly for appearing to take Maduro’s “threat” seriously.
The contrast is clear. Unlike the island’s governor, Bad Bunny is the serious one right now. He’s using his music to bring attention to Puerto Rico’s problems: blackouts, displacement, gentrification and a distrust of a political system many see as corrupt and ineffective. He is using his platform to uplift Puerto Rico. Republican González-Colón, who favors statehood and is hoping to convince Trump to pay attention, is not. She’s touted the fact that a congratulatory letter to her from Trump was read at her swearing-in ceremony for governor; even so, despite her desperation to curry favor with the president-elect, don’t expect Trump to entertain demands for Puerto Rican statehood.
Bad Bunny has been a longtime critic of González-Colón and her pro-statehood New Progressive Party (PNP), and has paid for political billboards against her and her party. During one of the gubernatorial debates, Bad Bunny, who has millions of social media followers, made a post calling González-Colón a “liar.”
“I am a vegetarian, but I would eat rabbit,” González-Colón told her supportersas the PNP characterized Bad Bunny as the poster boy of radical leftism.
A kind of reggaeton Bob Dylan, Bad Bunny has won Puerto Ricans’ hearts because he prioritizes them and their interests.
González-Colón won the gubernatorial race with just 39% of the vote. At the same time, in Puerto Rico’s election for U.S. president — which is only symbolic because colonized people’s votes don’t count — Kamala Harris won 73% of the vote to Trump’s 27%. González-Colón catering to Trump and antagonizing the world’s most famous Puerto Rican are unlikely to win her the hearts of people on the island or the diaspora.
A kind of reggaeton Bob Dylan, Bad Bunny has won Puerto Ricans’ hearts because he prioritizes them and their interests above everybody else. The politicians haven’t always done that. But after decades of U.S. colonialism, an attitude like Bad Bunny’s must be taken by anyone serious about the island’s liberation.
Julio Ricardo Varela is an award-winning journalist and the founder of The Latino Newsletter.
Thirty-eight thousand people packed Fenway on Wednesday night — the biggest crowd in a decade. The Red Sox lost. Such a Red Sox thing to do, but as I’ve always said to my long-suffering Sox friends, baseball season doesn’t really begin until after the All-Star break. This year’s Red Sox team proved that again, with a dismal spring and early summer. But a historic run in July put them back in the pennant race.
Baseball is life. A long season. Head down. Learn from your mistakes. Burn the bridge behind you. Win the next tonight. Take the next series. And then focus on the game after that.
As I told my daughter as she went off to college, don’t get overwhelmed at everything coming at you at once. Eat the elephant one bite at a time.
The Sox play the Blue Jays tonight. Tomorrow doesn’t matter. One bite at a time.
Here are some fun events you can have a taste of this weekend:
In Queens, MoMA PS1’s “Warm Up” returns today, the courtyard dance party that’s been a summer institution in Long Island City for more than two decades. Six Fridays, all summer long.
In Newport, the Folk Festival takes over Fort Adams this weekend, with three days of music at the grounds that gave us Bob Dylan’s historic move of going electric and Joni Mitchell’s return to the stage. An American original since 1959, and it still sells out for a reason.
In the nation’s capital, Poet’s Homecoming wraps this weekend with its “Big Old Kids Party”: part poetry brunch, part indie wellness fair, all of it free.
In Chicago, Double Dutch Fest takes over South Shore all weekend with jump-rope workshops, breakdancing and old-school lawn games. Seasoned or still learning the ropes, everyone’s welcome.
In New Orleans, the X Games take over the Caesars Superdome for the first-ever XGL Championship. Three days of skateboarding, BMX and Moto X, with Metro Boomin and JID closing out the nights.
Out west, it’s San Francisco Marathon weekend. Check the route map, whether you’re running, cheering or just trying to cross the street. I pray for the runners’ joints that Lombard Street is not on the route.
In Miami, the county is holding its final Adopt-A-Tree event tomorrow at FIU’s Biscayne Bay campus — firebush, pigeon plum, cinnamon bark, all free, all yours.
And wherever you are, it’s National Tequila Day. If life hands you lemons, skip the lemonade. Add salt and tequila. Here are 10 cocktails to shake up at home.
MAILBAG
Do you believe that this administration will move forward with ground troops in Iran where we will experience another Vietnam war?
— Paul C., New Bedford, Massachusetts
Paul, there is no way to predict exactly what this president will do. But everyone close to him is certain that he will not commit ground troops to Iran.
When you look at his approval rating on the war, and especially the economy, the last thing Republicans want Donald Trump to do is double down. The sight of more Americans coming home in coffins is a tragedy this country does not want to endure. That said, the president has few good options and no one can predict exactly how this will end.
Please explain where we get all these billions of dollars Trump is spending like a drunken sailor, while taking food and healthcare away from Americans. I worry we are borrowing it and paying a very high interest rate.
—Linda K., Spring Grove, Illinois
Linda, more Americans need to be concerned about the issue you have raised here.
The national debt is about to hit $40 trillion. When I entered Congress a generation ago, it was at $4 trillion. That was even too much for the members who came into the House of Representatives with me.
We fought hard over our first few years to balance the budget for the first time in a generation. We went on to balance it for four years in a row.
That is the only time it has happened in 100 years.
Today, the Republican Party keeps giving tax cuts to billionaires and trillionaires, passing out corporate welfare breaks to multinational corporations, spending your tax dollars on bloated and outdated weapons programs, and are now paying more of your tax dollars for interest on the U.S. debt than for America’s national defense. Because of the GOP’s failure, this is an existential crisis that needs to be addressed at once by both political parties in Washington, D.C.
Because gifts to the president require Congress’ approval, does that mean that next year’s Congress can take away the plane and other excessive gifts in the future?
— Mike B., Arlington, Texas
If Democrats take control of Congress, they need to work first on issues involving affordability. But they also must look at their options and address the unprecedented grift and corruption that has taken place in the first two years of the Trump administration. The plane from Qatar should be at the top of the list, but they should also work to pass legislation that will stop all future presidents, and their families from benefiting financially because of their positions of power in Washington, D.C.
Not only have many of these sleazy schemes warped American foreign policybut they have also undermined citizens’ confidence in their own government.
That must change.
You and Roger Bennett complained about how the U.S. doesn’t have a good men’s soccer team. We have had amazing women’s soccer teams. What are we doing right with women’s soccer that could be applied to men’s soccer as far as training up the young?
— Carol P., Denver, Colorado
Carol, that is a great question, and neither Roger nor I have the answer. It is something we’ve been discussing since the end of the 2010 World Cup, and we agree that one of the biggest problems is our approach to developing players.
In Europe, talented, young soccer players are paid to join an organization and develop their game. In America, parents usually pay tens of thousands of dollars — and travel long distances — to have their sons participate in a higher level of competition.
The goal for most young players in the U.S. is to make a college soccer team and have their education paid for by colleges like Tufts, Pepperdine, or Dartmouth. In Europe, young players train with the goal of joining clubs like Real Madrid, Bayern Munich, and Liverpool.
By the time they reached the World Cup, the gap becomes painfully obvious. That said, this U.S.A. squad was easily the best I’ve seen. They should have gone further in the tournament, but their exciting run got tangled up in politics. And yes, like manyI blame Donald Trump’s clumsy intervention in the red card controversy with getting our players off their game during the first half of the Belgium match.
We’ll get ‘em next time.
Former Rep. Joe Scarborough, R-Fla., is co-host of MS NOW’s “Morning Joe” alongside Mika Brzezinski — a show that Time magazine calls “revolutionary.” In addition to his career in television, Joe is a two-time New York Times best-selling author. His most recent book is “The Right Path: From Ike to Reagan, How Republicans Once Mastered Politics — and Can Again.”
The Dictatorship
Friday’s Campaign Round-Up, 7.24.26: Mark Sanford launches comeback bid in South Carolina
Today’s installment of campaign-related news items from across the country.
* In South Carolina’s Republican Senate primarythe late Sen. Lindsey Graham’s younger sister, Darline Graham, is an appointed incumbent seeking a full term with President Donald Trump’s blessing, but she hasn’t cleared the GOP field ahead of the state’s Aug. 11 special primary.
Reps. Russell Fry and Ralph Norman have launched campaigns for the seat, and this week, a third high-profile contender threw his hat into the ring: Former South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford joined the race Thursday afternoon.
Sanford brings one of the more unusual resumes of any politician in the country. He served a few terms in Congress in the late 1990s, before serving two terms as South Carolina’s governor — a tenure that included the infamous “Appalachian Trail” sex scandal. The Republican nevertheless returned to Congress for six more years before losing in a GOP primary in which he was accused of being insufficiently loyal to Trump.
Sanford then lost an ill-fated 2020 presidential campaign, before launching a congressional comeback bid earlier this year, which only lasted a few weeks. Now, evidently, the South Carolinian is launching yet another comeback bid.
* In Georgiaa new bipartisan poll from AARP found Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff with a relatively comfortable lead over Republican Rep. Mike Collins, 52% to 43%.
* Speaking of the Peach Statethe same AARP poll found former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms with a smaller lead over Republican Rick Jackson, 48% to 46%, in Georgia’s gubernatorial race.
* In Michigan’s closely watched U.S. Senate raceformer Republican Rep. Mike Rogers held a recent private call with supporters in which he said his candidacy will be in “pretty good shape” if Democrats nominate former public health official Abdul El-Sayed in an Aug. 4 primary. “I think we’ll do well if he in fact is the nominee,” Rogers added.
* In Florida’s gubernatorial raceRepublican Rep. Byron Donalds just received a major financial boost from billionaire megadonor Ken Griffin, who’s investing $10 million in support of the congressman’s candidacy.
* As if gubernatorial nominee Victor Marx weren’t already one of the nation’s most controversial statewide candidates, the Colorado Secretary of State’s office is now seeking penalties against the candidate for accepting illegal campaign contributions.
* And as MS NOW’s Jordan Rubin explained this week“A new court ruling approving Tennessee’s congressional map that dilutes Black voting power is the latest example of how the Supreme Court’s GOP-appointed majority is helping Republicans win elections.”
Steve Benen is a producer for “The Rachel Maddow Show,” the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He’s also the bestselling author of “Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans’ War on the Recent Past.”
President Donald Trump has been trying to get E. Jean Carroll to return the $5 million (plus interest) that she finally received this month from the case in which a jury found him liable for sexual abuse and defamation. Trump argued for clawing back the funds because he has a pending rehearing petition at the Supreme Court, where he’s again trying to convince the justices to take up his appeal in the case that resulted in that jury award.
After the justices declined to review his initial petition in June, the federal judge in New York who presided over the case ordered the funds released to Carroll earlier this month. Trump’s attempt to halt the judge’s order is pending in a federal appeals court.
But the Supreme Court just signaled that it could soon issue an order that brings a truly final resolution to the matter.
The Supreme Court docket shows that, on Thursday, the court “distributed” Trump’s rehearing petition to the justices, which is a routine step before they decide whether to grant or deny review. Though the court is on a summer recess before the next term starts in October, the justices publish order lists over the summer that mainly contain petition denials. They issued such a list earlier this week.
According to the court calendarthe next list is scheduled for release on Aug. 17, so we could see action on Trump’s rehearing petition then.
That action would most likely be a denial.
As the trial judge noted in his July 8 ruling rejecting further delay, successful Supreme Court rehearing petitions are “rare birds.” On that note, Carroll’s lawyers said thatas far as they knew, only once in the last 75 years has the court agreed to straight up reconsider its denial of a petition, and that was in the landmark case of Boumediene v. Bush about the rights of Guantanamo Bay detainees. They said more recent reconsiderations — the latest one being in 2018 — involved the justices sending cases back to lower courts for further review, rather than the justices taking up full review themselves.
“If successful petitions for rehearing are ‘rare birds,’” then Trump’s pending rehearing petition “cannot possibly get off the ground,” Carroll’s lawyers said in their opposition to Trump’s claw-back motion in the circuit court.
We may learn Aug. 17 whether the justices agree. They haven’t requested a response from Carroll and, under court rulesthey won’t grant a rehearing petition without first doing so, unless there are “extraordinary circumstances.” It’s unclear what those circumstances would be here.
In the meantime, we could hear before that from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit on Trump’s motion to force Carroll to return the funds. The long-shot nature of his Supreme Court rehearing petition is only one of her arguments against that temporary relief in the circuit court, another one being that a prior stipulation between the parties said that she gets the money upon the denial of Trump’s petition, which already happened in June, not his rehearing petition.
Whatever happens with his circuit motion and high court rehearing petition, there will still be the separate matter of his appeal in the other case Carroll won against him that resulted in an $83.3 million defamation award. Unlike the $5 million case, that one stems from Trump’s defamation of Carroll while he was president (during his first term), and he is pressing claims of presidential immunity in that appeal. One of his lawyers said he will be filing that new petition by July 28.
In the pending rehearing petition, Trump said his forthcoming petition in the $83.3 million case gives the justices a good reason to reconsider the $5 million case denial, because he said his presidential acts were wrongly used as evidence against him in the $5 million case, too. Therefore, he argued in the rehearing petition, resolution of his forthcoming $83.3 million petition will “bear on the proper disposition” of the $5 million case because of the Supreme Court’s 2024 presidential immunity rulingin Trump’s favor, which curbed the use of official presidential acts as evidence to impose liability for other conduct.
Of course, the justices knew about the forthcoming petition in the $83.3 million case when they rejected his $5 million petition in June. So it’s unclear what new information has come to light that would warrant reconsideration. But we should learn soon enough, possibly Aug. 17, whether the court will finally put an end to the litigation in the $5 million case, though that would still leave open the question of how the litigation over the much larger award will conclude. We might not know whether the justices are interested in reviewing that second case until the fall, at least. Even if they deny Trump’s rehearing petition in the first case, they would still be free to review the second one.
Jordan Rubin is the Deadline: Legal Blog writer. He was a prosecutor for the New York County District Attorney’s Office in Manhattan and is the author of “Bizarro,” a book about the secret war on synthetic drugs. Before he joined MS NOW, he was a legal reporter for Bloomberg Law.
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