(Editor's Note: The following opinion column does not constitute an endorsement of any political party, or candidate, on the part of Newsmax.)
There is much ado this week about comedian Tony Hinchcliffe’s joke about Puerto Rico being "a floating island of trash" — a remark which set mainstream media ablaze to make accusations of a racist Republican rally at Madison Square Garden.
However, exactly zero reporters in the mainstream media have bothered to report on the trashy situation in Puerto Rico and investigate what the devil is happening on the tiny island.
As the saying goes, the devil is always in the details.
If the media had bothered to investigate, they would have found that Puerto Rico does have a trash crisis of astronomical proportions — and that the President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris White House knew about it.
Records show that in the months leading up to 2022, environmental experts engaged the Biden-Harris White House to sound the alarm about a "landfill crisis" on the island, specifically issues surrounding lack of government enforcement and the safety of landfill sites.
The concerns involved at least 22 landfill sites which were unlined, leaving waste to literally seep into the soil and water in Puerto Rico.
The knowledge of this dilemma went far beyond the local island jurisdiction.
President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris’ administration specifically knew about the trash pileup.
In fact, the Biden-Harris administration’s own Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) commissioned the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to conduct a study about Puerto Rico’s trash crisis.
They discovered that if local Puerto Rican government officials didn’t get their dump sites under control, the island would run out of space in two to four years.
That was approximately two years ago, so Hinchcliffe’s comedic timing was spot on.
Time is, indeed, ticking for the island.
In 2022, a Federal court also ordered government leaders in Puerto Rico to take "immediate action to address several . . . issues" including poor operation of the island’s trash landfills, lack of government controls, uncovered waste, and inadequate management of contaminated liquids that posed risk of leaching into the soil on the island and harming the health of citizens.
Simply put, comedian Hinchcliffe was right over the target: Puerto Rico’s trash is out of control.
But wait! There’s more!
In February 2024, the Biden-Harris administration engaged both the EPA and Merrick Garland’s Department of Justice (DOJ) to enter into a settlement agreement with Puerto Rico over "environmental and public health risks" at the landfills. The settlement required at least one municipality "to deal with contaminated liquid, known as leachate."
To be fair, the Biden-Harris White House and their numerous agencies deserve kudos for trying to resolve the trash problem.
However, given this publicly available information, it seems awfully disingenuous for the Harris campaign to act as if Hinchcliffe was denigrating the island.
Obviously, the White House knew of Puerto Rico’s trash crisis.
So, why throw President Donald Trump, his campaign, and the comedian under the bus? Simple answer: the Harris campaign is worried about the election.
As for the media, they could have found the information about Puerto Rico’s trash crisis with a simple Google search.
The problem is, they didn’t want to find it.
That’s why American trust of mainstream media is now the lowest it’s been in 50 years, according to Gallup Poll.
The fact it took a conservative comedian to bring to light the public health issue speaks volumes about the lack of integrity in both media and the Harris campaign.
If liberals cared so much about our abuelas in Puerto Rico, this would have been a bigger issue long before the final week of the campaign — they wouldn’t be using it to pander to Latino voters as they always do in a last-ditch effort to win an election.
The fact that the Biden-Harris White House and their Democrat friends actually knew about Puerto Rico’s crisis — yet tried to trash Trump anyway — makes Democrats rightfully the butt of the joke.
Jennifer Kerns is host of "All-American Radio with Jennifer Kerns" on Salem Radio’s AM 970 The Answer in New York City and New Jersey, as well as WGMD Radio in Virginia, Delaware, and Maryland. She previously served as spokeswoman for the California Republican Party, TV producer at FOX News, and writer/researcher for one of the "most-watched Presidential debates in history."
© 2024 Newsmax. All rights reserved.