Not content with just stealing from real US States, the lottery targets Puerto Rico now

Let's preface this by discussing what Puerto Rico actually is. I sometimes think about how Puerto Rico actually IS the United States, but it also kind of isn't. They are not a state, their votes for national elections don't count, and they don't have representation in national governance in the USA. So what the hell are they exactly?

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Puerto Rico is an "unincorporated territory" of the United States which means that the US owns it, but they are not allowed to participate in the governance of the USA. Maybe we already had enough states and decided nah, 50 is enough or something. They use the US dollar as currency, are subject to the federal laws that are instructed by the USA, but they are not allowed to influence said laws. I'm pretty sure that the USA fought a little war against the British for precisely this sort of thing, didn't they?

They do have their own governance though and the US kind of stays out of their affairs. They have an attache of sorts in congress but this is purely ceremonial, I'd imagine that nobody really gives a rip what that person has to say.

I've never been to Puerto Rico but since 1917, anyone that is born there can travel freely to and from the United States mainland. There is no Puerto Rican passport. They are US citizens. It is a strange situation honestly. If this sounds like an odd situation to you just know that there are 14 other territories just like Puerto Rico and you have probably heard of some of them such as Guam, and the US Virgin Islands. Oh there is also American Samoa and good gravy that is a long ways from here.

I think most of these territories are for military benefit and Puerto Rico in particular was at least in part a sort of advantageous position boxing in Cuba. That's just my brain working overtime though, there is no official explanation for this and Puerto Rico for the most part is a desperately poor country.

The point of all this is though that just because a people are poor, doesn't mean you shouldn't steal what little money they have from them and put it right back into the pockets of the already wealthy and just like they do on the mainland USA, the Puerto Rican lottery is shuffled in-between genuine news articles for the sake of advertising disguised as news.

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Yahoo news is a pretty funny news aggregate. Right around 2015 (I wonder why that specific date? hmmmmm) Yahoo went full-bias to the left and was simply a collection of mostly propaganda stories that were anti-conservative. When conservatives started raiding the comment section to fact-check or simply to troll the Yahoo bias, Yahoo responded by shutting down the comments sections. Yahoo has been failing as a company in a general sense since the turn of the century/millennium and I guess after a while they started to realize that being entirely one-sided wasn't working out for them. Lately, they have been a bit more "fair" (if there is such a thing in political news these days) and have been featuring a more balanced array of viewpoints. But to supplement this whatever-the-hell-is-going-on-over-there, they have also incorporated fake news articles that appear between genuine ones.

They are very clearly ads but I mean they are clear to me and probably most of you. But to the average person they must not be, because they wouldn't bother with them otherwise.

The Puerto Rican Lottery results and how to get involved is regularly featured between articles about finance or puff pieces about celebrities and I think that putting a lottery advertisement directly next to an "article" about what sort of shoes Taylor Swift is wearing is probably a likely place for the sort of person that would play the lottery.

Now if this was some sort of rogue, enquirer-style news article I wouldn't be surprised, but these ads for the lottery are coming at the hands of USA Today which to me, at least in some point in the past, was a somewhat respectable news organization. I guess everyone is pursuing just whatever they can as news organizations seriously struggle to remain profitable in the world of ever-dying news organization. I say let them fail. I hope almost all of them go down the drain on both the right and the left.

The average monthly salary in Puerto Rico is around $2000 a month which probably doesn't sound so bad if you are from a developing nation, but the problem with this low level of income is that all US citizens are able to purchase and own properties in Puerto Rico unrestricted. You need no permit, no nothing, and this is what a lot of wealthy Americans do. They go over there and buy up luxurious properties and drive up property prices, pricing locals out of the market entirely.

In other nations, foreign ownership would be heavily restricted or just outright not allowed, but because of the US's unique relationship with Puerto Rico, there are no such restrictions. The politicians in PR don't care, they are part of the ruling class as well.

The fake news stories about the lottery are upsetting to me because these are intentionally targeting the most vulnerable and poor people of the world. They are sold a dream that for almost anyone that gets involved in it, is definitely not going to come true and at least in the USA (and Puerto Rico) if you actually DO manage to win a pile of money, the US Federal government is immediately going to confiscate 30-50 percent of it in taxes. It is such a ridiculous racket.

If you are poor, if you are middle-class, if you are simply alive, you shouldn't be playing the lottery. It makes me angry that advertising of gambling is heavily restricted or outright banned, but if it is the government themselves that are the owners of the gambling, they can do whatever they want.

Rules for thee, not for me!