tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-87042366556024216042024-03-13T06:28:15.637-07:00Jimmy's PoliticoJimmy's Politico is a fiscal conservative's viewpoint of American and International politics and their impacts to the American people. Honesty is always the best policy...especially in today's political system!Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06168360738962673384noreply@blogger.comBlogger113125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8704236655602421604.post-34017868524318018492017-02-16T07:00:00.000-08:002017-02-16T07:00:29.620-08:00The biggest beneficiaries of the government safety net: working-class whites<br /><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-PEaXlBwj4nE/WKW3EFPGUcI/AAAAAAAAElE/pkHd56nMHYwuTOG9swqT1INZ5qlVAJIcgCLcB/s1600/poor%2Bwhite%2Bpix.jpg"><img border="0" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-PEaXlBwj4nE/WKW3EFPGUcI/AAAAAAAAElE/pkHd56nMHYwuTOG9swqT1INZ5qlVAJIcgCLcB/s640/poor%2Bwhite%2Bpix.jpg" /></a><br />(Photo Credit: Michael S. Williamson/The Washington Post)<br /><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /><br /><br />By Tracy Jan<br />The Washington Post<br /><br /><br />Working-class whites are the biggest beneficiaries of federal poverty-reduction programs, even though blacks and Hispanics have substantially higher rates of poverty, according to a new study to be released Thursday by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.<br /><br />Government assistance and tax credits lifted 6.2 million working-class whites out of poverty in 2014, more than any other racial or ethnic demographic. Half of all working-age adults without college degrees lifted out of poverty by safety-net programs are white; nearly a quarter are black and a fifth are Hispanic.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /><br />The result does not simply reflect the fact that there are more white people in the country. The percentage of otherwise poor whites lifted from poverty by government safety-net programs is higher, at 44 percent, compared to 35 percent of otherwise poor minorities, the study concluded.<br /><br />Among working-class minorities, blacks also benefit significantly from government programs, with 43 percent of otherwise poor blacks being lifted from poverty by the safety net. Only 28 percent of otherwise poor Hispanics were lifted from poverty by these programs.<br /><br />“There is a perception out there that the safety net is only for minorities. While it’s very important to minorities because they have higher poverty rates and face barriers that lead to lower earnings, it’s also quite important to whites, particularly the white working class,” said Isaac Shapiro, a senior fellow at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities and one of the report’s authors.<br /><br />The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a left-leaning think tank in Washington, analyzed working-age, non-college educated adult beneficiaries of more than a dozen government benefits, including food stamps, welfare, housing subsidies, tax credits, home energy assistance, school lunch programs, and Social Security.<br /><br />Without the government programs, 24 percent of whites were poor, compared to 43 percent of blacks and 36 percent of Hispanics. After the programs, 13 percent of whites were poor, compared to 24 percent of blacks and 26 percent of Hispanics.</span><div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /><br />The researchers did not draw a conclusion from their study as to why working class whites are disproportionately helped by government poverty reduction programs. One possibility is that white Americans are better positioned to know all the government benefits that are available to them, Shapiro said. Whites also benefit more from the Social Security system than minorities, both because they may have paid more into it and they are an older population, he said.<br /><br />Shapiro said that the low percentage of Hispanic beneficiaries reflects that the Census Bureau counts unauthorized immigrants in the poverty rate, but they are not eligible to receive most government benefits aimed at the poor.<br /><br />Working-class whites drawn to President Trump’s campaign may be particularly hard hit by the policies of the Trump <a href="http://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2016/11/9/13572172/donald-trump-white-working-class">administration and congressional Republicans</a>, Shapiro said, including the push to dismantle President Obama's health-care reform law and changing the way food stamps and <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2017/01/18/republicans-want-to-fund-medicaid-through-block-grants-thats-a-problem/?utm_term=.c72fb1ca662f">other programs for the poor are administered</a>. The safety net appears to be even more critical, he said, in states with a large share of working-class whites, including the previously blue states of Wisconsin, Iowa and Ohio that flipped to Trump in 2016.<br /><br />“A missing element of the political conversation has been the degree to which government programs are important to the working class in general, and the white working class in particular,” Shapiro said. “Many of these programs could be the subject of dramatic cuts over the next year. Rather than helping the working class address their basic needs and escape from poverty, the potential political agenda is going to push precisely in the opposite direction.”</span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06168360738962673384noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8704236655602421604.post-23134474074139421942017-02-07T10:00:00.000-08:002017-02-07T10:00:17.560-08:00Donald Trump, the Arsonist-In-Chief?<br /><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-hDOkKDW2CO4/WJn4WlRkxlI/AAAAAAAAEkk/_iFC3eCXd7kivJLLVzyzGDfJBz0c5YBHwCLcB/s1600/Trump.jpg"><img border="0" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-hDOkKDW2CO4/WJn4WlRkxlI/AAAAAAAAEkk/_iFC3eCXd7kivJLLVzyzGDfJBz0c5YBHwCLcB/s640/Trump.jpg" /></a><br /><div style="text-align: center;">
President Donald J. Trump</div>
<br /><br />By Michael D'Antonio<br />CNN<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">President for just two weeks, Donald Trump is courting a constitutional crisis over his ban on travelers from seven Muslim-majority countries<a href="http://edition.cnn.com/2017/02/06/opinions/trump-travel-ban-is-a-gift-to-isis-miliband-opinion/index.html">.</a><br /></span><div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">He has spooked allies around the world, fired the acting attorney general, feuded with Arnold Schwarzenegger over TV ratings and inspired millions to protest in the streets.<br /><br />Remarkably, Trump has managed to create all this excitement, drama and chaos with little effort.The spree of irresponsibility has involved both putting his signature on hastily drafted documents and firing off words in public or on Twitter.<br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Trump's tweet about the <a href="http://edition.cnn.com/2017/02/04/opinions/donald-trumps-most-bone-chilling-tweet-obeidallah-opinion/">"</a> <a href="http://edition.cnn.com/2017/02/04/opinions/donald-trumps-most-bone-chilling-tweet-obeidallah-opinion/">so-called" judge</a></span> <span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">who stopped his anti-immigrant/anti-refugee order, for example, was uniquely impulsive for a modern President.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">After each of these moves, Trump has then stood back and watched the world struggle to respond.The easiest way to understand why Trump does all this might be to call it political arson.<br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The analogy isn't perfect, but consider how Trump and a skeleton White House crew have used multiple incendiary actions to create a sense of emergency, while expressing little concern for those who are affected.<br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">This is precisely how an arsonist disturbs the peace. With a flick of a match, he sets a destructive fire and then thrills to the reactions.<br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Likewise, the nation and the world are reacting in the way of a city besieged by a fire-setter. Fear and confusion reign and, before an effective response develops, it seem as though stability will never return.<br /><br /><b><u>The Arsonist Mentality</u></b><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Experts writing in the <a href="http://jaapl.org/content/40/3/355">Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law</a> note that pyromania is a "disorder of impulse" afflicting people whose moods are out of sync with their objective reality. If it is not stopped and addressed -- either by the criminal justice system or mental health intervention -- the arsonist's behavior becomes a chronic problem. This is why communities under an arsonist's attack will be plagued by one fire after another.<br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Does Donald Trump fit the arsonist profile? His impulsiveness has been evident throughout his life. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">As a boy he was so out of control that his parents sent him away to military school for discipline. In business, a big humiliating bankruptcy wasn't enough to stop his risk-taking. He went on to suffer three more. Instead of one headline-grabbing public divorce he had two.<br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">In his campaign for President, he could not control his provocative behavior. When violence loomed at his rallies <a href="http://edition.cnn.com/videos/politics/2016/03/12/donald-trump-rallies-violence-protests-mashup-lv.cnn">he used his microphone to encourage it</a>. In debates and campaign speeches he torched his rivals with a stream of personal insults and distortions (such as repeating unsubstantiated claims from the National Enquirer that <a href="http://edition.cnn.com/videos/politics/2016/05/03/donald-trump-rafael-cruz-lee-harvey-oswald-accusation-newday.cnn">Ted Cruz's father helped killed JFK</a>) never seen in a modern major party candidate.<br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Trump set fire to the GOP, happily burning down the structure for his own benefit.<br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">As President, Trump's behavior has frequently contradicted the mood of what was going on around him. At his inauguration he didn't celebrate with a positive vision of the country, but instead described a nation on the brink of dystopia. A prayer breakfast became a forum for boasting. At a visit to the Central Intelligence Agency he complained about the press.<br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Were Trump alone in his impulsive and dark-minded condition he might have been contained by sober advisers. Instead, he has been aided mainly by an adviser, Stephen Bannon, who is committed to upending the political order and rose to prominence as head of a website that dispenses bigoted messages.<br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Apparently the most influential man in Trump's orbit, Bannon has no experience in public service and has likened himself, and his followers, to <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/pb/news/the-fix/wp/2017/02/02/stephen-bannons-apparent-references-to-anti-immigrant-know-nothing-party-dont-seem-so-coincidental-anymore/?outputType=accessibility&nid=menu_nav_accessibilityforscreenreader">"know-nothing vulgarians."</a><br /><br /><b><u>The Arson Dynamic</u></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><b><u><br /></u></b>Although arsonists frequently plead not guilty by reason of insanity, they rarely win this argument. This is because they are not generally considered to be delusional or otherwise separated from reality.<br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Simply put, they know what they are doing, and they know that it is wrong, but the compulsion is too strong and the thrill of the crime is too great. This issue was settled in <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=BvpC_hgHLoIC&pg=PA109&lpg=PA109&dq=arsonists+feel+thrill&source=bl&ots=pkQ-7GJ_Sh&sig=smMt5JfdDN9-qYqJ6oEI5xYjMNc&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwifiPj9x_TRAhXMSiYKHfb3CO4Q6AEIIDAB#v=onepage&q=arsonists%20feel%20thrill&f=false">a case involving a fire-setter who lit a barn ablaze</a>, gazed at it from a distance, reported the fire and then asked the first responders if he could ride along with them to the scene.<br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">In communities besieged by an arsonist, residents and public officials may fail at first to recognize what's happening. A spate of fires can seem simply a matter of coincidence until the pattern is established and the problem gets worse.<br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">By then the public is alarmed and afraid and investigators are hard-pressed to stop the destruction. In the early 2000s, for instance, officials in greater Washington finally realized they had a serial fire-setter on their hands when <a href="http://www.alternet.org/story/53378/why_thomas_sweatt_set_washington_on_fire">Thomas Sweatt crossed into Maryland</a> to commit one of his crimes.<br />With political arson, once it is recognized, it is not as mysterious as the problem of a fire-setter working under the cover of night to torch buildings.<br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Trump's destructive tendencies were once obscured by the notion that he would act as a normal President when the weight of the office settled upon him. This cover was blown when he issued his anti-immigrant executive order. Trump and his team have also signaled their disrupting intentions with diatribes against the press, assertions of "alternative facts," and wild claims about voter fraud that cast doubt on the foundation of American democracy.<br /><br /><b><u>Countering The Chaos</u></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=BvpC_hgHLoIC&pg=PA109&lpg=PA109&dq=arsonists+feel+thrill&source=bl&ots=pkQ-7GJ_Sh&sig=smMt5JfdDN9-qYqJ6oEI5xYjMNc&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwifiPj9x_TRAhXMSiYKHfb3CO4Q6AEIIDAB#v=onepage&q=arsonists%20feel%20thrill&f=false">One textbook</a> on arson notes that people who set fires like to feel they have outsmarted the authorities and enjoy testing their intelligence against them. They are adept at reading others and not generally burdened by feelings of guilt. Some experts recommend sending female investigators to interrogate male suspects, believing they may slip up because they feel insulted under their questioning. The point here is that overconfidence and arrogance can make an arsonist vulnerable to those who set out to stop the crisis.<br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">In the case of Sweatt, a determined and massive investigation led to the discovery of a small flaw in his methods. He used bits of his own clothing to make his fires and the remains contained DNA evidence.<br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Trump's political arson is now encountering a massive and increasingly well-organized opposition. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Like a community terrorized by fire, the nation was temporarily shaken, but it is recovering its balance. Citizens gathering in the street and at airports signal resolve. Journalists monitor every development. Court cases brought in defense of the Constitution resemble firefighters' efforts to put out the flames.<br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">In Washington state, a federal court order halting the Trump immigration ban across the country represented a defining act on behalf of a national community reacting to crisis. Although many Americans remain alarmed by the emergency created by the new administration, the response of the courts and others has been remarkably swift. In just two weeks, a White House devoted to chaos has been stopped, at least temporarily, by a system designed to put out fires.<br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Looking forward, those who favor stability and peace would be wise to consider the arson prevention <a href="https://www.usfa.fema.gov/downloads/pdf/arson/aaw10_media_kit.pdf">advice offered by the United States Fire Administration</a>. The agency advises education, organization, and most of all vigilance.<br /><br /><br /><br /></span><br /></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06168360738962673384noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8704236655602421604.post-62142660914177844752017-02-06T10:32:00.000-08:002017-02-06T10:32:06.640-08:00Majority of Fatal Attacks on U.S. Soil carried out by white supremacists, not international terrorists<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br /><br />By <a href="http://m.washingtontimes.com/staff/maggie-ybarra/">Maggie Ybarra</a><br /><br />The Washington Times<br /><br />Wednesday, June 24, 2015<span class="source" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #999999; font-family: lato; font-size: 14px;"><br /></span>
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<br /><br /><span style="color: white;">In the 14 years since the Sept. 11 terror attacks, nearly twice as many people have been killed in the United States by white supremacists and anti-government radicals than by Muslim jihadis, according to a new <a href="http://securitydata.newamerica.net/extremists/deadly-attacks.html">study</a>.<br /><br />White supremacists and anti-government radicals have killed 48 Americans, including last week’s deadly attack in South Carolina, versus 26 killings by Muslim radicals, according to a count by New America, a Washington research center.<br /><br />New America program associate <a href="http://m.washingtontimes.com/topics/david-sterman/">David Sterman</a> said the study shows that white supremacy and anti-government idealists are a major problem, that their growth rate needs to be addressed and that there is an “ignored threat” woven in the fabric of American society.<br /><b><br />“Each time it [right-wing, radical violence] comes up, there’s a tendency to dismiss it as lone actor, mental health issues,” he said. “So it’s important to not ignore threats,”</b><br /><br /><br />The suspect in last week’s slaughter of nine people inside a Charleston church, Dylann Roof, 21, had posted a manifesto that lays out a racist worldview, posted pictures online featuring white supremacist imagery and a T-shirt featuring the number “88,” which is often used as a symbol for “Heil Hitler.” He faces federal hate crime charges.<br /><br />Attacks by Muslim extremists appear to center around military targets, such as Fort Hood, a U.S. military post in Killeen, Texas, and areas where the possibility of mass casualties is high, such as the Boston Marathon, New America says. Meanwhile, the killing sprees of right-wing extremists lean more toward police ambushes and were rooted in anti-government sentiment, according to data compiled by the research center.<br />Experts say the research findings could be an indicator the nation’s intelligence collectors have been paying more attention to thwarting potential terror plots against the homeland concocted by Islamic extremists and less attention to the anti-government attacks of right-wing extremists.<br /><br /></span><blockquote class="tr_bq">
<b><span style="color: white;">“There has certainly been a tremendous concentration — not just by FBI and law enforcement, but intelligence community intelligence — focused on both the foreign born and the homegrown Islamic extremist terrorist threats,” said Ron Hosko, president of Law Enforcement Legal Defense Fund and former assistant director of the FBI. “And you’re talking about people in the military, intelligence, all the alphabet soup agencies as well as local law enforcement.”</span></b></blockquote>
<span style="color: white;"><br />There is also the possibility that the U.S. government has better information on Islamic extremist attacks because its surveillance techniques and information data collection techniques, said John Malcolm, a senior legal fellow at The Heritage Foundation. As a result, government agencies may be able to thwart those plans before they come to fruition, which might account for the low number of Islamic extremist attacks.<br /><br /><a href="http://m.washingtontimes.com/topics/david-sterman/">Mr. Sterman</a> agrees. He said the data does show a potential imbalance in the type and amount of intelligence gathering that the government’s various agencies are doing. It also shows that there is another “ignored threat” woven in the fabric of American society, he said.<br /><br />Terrorism should not be measured by whether the perpetrator is Muslim, he said. Additionally, indicators of a pending plot should not slide under the radar simply because the plot is not tied to the Islamic State or some other foreign terrorist organization, he said.<br /><br />“For example, in the Dylann Roof case, in the Charleston attack, you do see that he is leaking quite a bit of information to people around him about his view point and his desire to commit violence,” <a href="http://m.washingtontimes.com/topics/david-sterman/">Mr. Sterman</a> said.<br /><br />If an Islamic extremist were to do something similar, he or she would attract the attention of federal authorities and keep their attention until they no longer posed a threat, he said.</span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06168360738962673384noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8704236655602421604.post-81474337008083715462017-01-25T13:38:00.001-08:002018-06-08T15:38:54.789-07:00What Trump gets wrong about Hispanics in the U.S.<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
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<span style="text-align: start; color: inherit; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14px;">Toyota's Lexus luxury line is among the brands marketing toward Latinos, who injected $1.4 trillion into the U.S. economy in 2016, according to a new report (VidaLexus Presents: RPM – Reengineering Popular Music with Raquel Sofía)</span></h4>
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<span style="color: inherit; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14px;">President Trump, as he ran for office, portrayed Latino immigrants as a drain on the U.S. economy, saying "The Mexican government ... they send the bad ones over because they don't want to pay for them."</span></div>
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<span style="color: inherit; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14px;">But Trump’s campaign rhetoric ignored this fact: The growing Latino population injected $1.4 trillion into the U.S. economy in 2016, according to a new report by the Selig Center for Economic Growth. That’s larger than the GDP of Mexico.</span></div>
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<span style="color: inherit; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14px;">The rapid growth of Hispanic buying power in the U.S. is not a result of population growth alone. Per capita, the buying power of Hispanics in the country has jumped from $13,880 each in 2000 to more than $24,050 each in 2016 -- accounting for every man, woman and child.</span></div>
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<span style="color: inherit; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14px;">Upper-income Hispanics are fueling much of that spending power as the proportion of wealthy Hispanic households in the U.S. expands. Those making more than $100,000 a year accounted for nearly 16 percent of all Hispanic households in 2015, double the percentage in 2004, according to the Pew Research Center. More than half of those households reside in California, Florida, New York and Texas.</span></div>
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<span style="color: inherit; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14px;">Corporations have taken note. Industries from real estate and banking to luxury automakers and prestige cosmetics are expanding their marketing towards this rapidly growing demographic.</span></div>
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<span style="color: inherit; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14px;">“There’s definitely money, and growing money, in this segment so you absolutely cannot ignore it,” said Brian Bolain, general manager for Lexus marketing.</span></div>
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<i style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="color: inherit; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14px;">[<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/president-trump-is-planning-to-sign-executive-orders-on-immigration-this-week/2017/01/24/aba22b7a-e287-11e6-a453-19ec4b3d09ba_story.html" style="border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(213, 213, 213); box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.8em; margin-bottom: 18px; text-decoration: none; zoom: 1;">Trump to order building of border wall, crackdown on sanctuary cities</a>]</span></i></div>
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<span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="color: inherit; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14px;">Toyota, the No. 1 auto brand among Hispanic consumers for the past decade, has created a corporate department specifically targeting Hispanics for its various vehicle divisions, including its Lexus luxury line.</span></span></div>
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<span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="color: inherit; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14px;">As a result, Lexus is now the top selling luxury automobile brand to Hispanics, said Sara Hasson, senior vice president in Univision’s strategy and insights group who works with auto manufacturers and dealers. Other elite brands such as Audi, Mercedes and BMW are also investing millions each year in Spanish-language advertising, with luxury auto ads on Spanish television and radio tripling since 2013, Hasson said.</span></span></div>
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<span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="color: inherit; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14px;">One ad introducing the 2017 Lexus IS line, the brand’s entry-level sedan, features a car speeding through city streets spliced with scenes from a soccer match. A male voice-over says in Spanish, “No cheerleaders. No mascots. No halftime show. All thrills. Exhilarating performance in its purest form.”</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: inherit; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14px;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">Hispanics accounted for a quarter of Lexus IS sales in 2016. But Lexus markets a half a dozen cars at higher </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">price points each year to Hispanics, through not only traditional ads but also music videos starring Latin musicians, short programs featuring Latin chefs and athletes, live concerts, and events inviting consumers to test drive various models around a track.</span></span></div>
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<span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="color: inherit; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14px;">“One of the things we feel that’s key to their success is they are not making an assumption that you could only afford the entry-level vehicle,” Hasson said.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: inherit; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14px;">Companies especially strive to build brand loyalty early among wealthy Latinos because they tend to be younger and have larger families than the non-Hispanic upscale consumer. And while the majority of the target audience is bicultural and <a href="http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/03/24/a-majority-of-english-speaking-hispanics-in-the-u-s-are-bilingual/" style="border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(213, 213, 213); box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.8em; margin-bottom: 18px; text-decoration: none; zoom: 1;">fluent in both English and Spanish</a>, marketers say it’s still important to create Spanish-language ads that appeal to multi-generational Hispanic families.</span></div>
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<span style="color: inherit; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14px;">“Parents and grandparents, you have to address the whole family,” Bolain said. “People who have a voice and a vote in that ecosystem.”</span></div>
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<i style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="color: inherit; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14px;">[<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/09/28/in-50-years-most-immigrants-wont-be-hispanic/" style="border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(213, 213, 213); box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.8em; margin-bottom: 18px; text-decoration: none; zoom: 1;">The group that seriously out-earns white men</a>]</span></i></div>
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<span style="color: inherit; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14px;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">While affluent Hispanic households tended to be Cuban American or South American two decades ago, there is growing affluence among Mexican Americans, Puerto Ricans and Dominicans, said Gabriela Alcantara-Diaz, who owns her own advertising firm in Miami and who sits on the board of the </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">national trade group AHAA: The Voice of Hispanic Marketing. The trade group, in partnership with Nielsen, a global information and measurement company, has identified Latinos earning $50,000 to $100,000 annually as one of the most influential consumer segments since the baby boomers. </span></span></div>
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<span style="color: inherit; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14px;">Hispanic wealth is also expanding beyond the traditional urban centers in Miami, New York and Los Angeles to secondary markets such as San Bernardino, Calif., and Jacksonville, Fla., Alcantara-Diaz said.</span></div>
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<span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="color: inherit; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14px;">“There have been a lot of regional players more aggressive in pursuing the emerging upscale Hispanics” than national opportunities, said Alcantara-Diaz, whose firm began focusing on this demographic while working with Johnnie Walker whiskey and Publix supermarkets two decades ago. “We knew it was just a matter of time before this market would influence national trends.”</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: inherit; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14px;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">Hispanics have become key drivers of homeownership growth in the U.S., accounting for 69 percent of total net growth, according to a 2016 report by the Hispanic Wealth Project.</span> <span style="box-sizing: border-box;">They tend to accumulate wealth through real estate and small businesses but underperform in other assets like the stock market and retirements accounts.</span></span></div>
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<span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="color: inherit; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14px;">“Hispanics are earning more money but not making up ground on the wealth side,” said Gary Acosta, chief executive of the National Association of Hispanic Real Estate Professionals, who created the Hispanic Wealth Project with the goal of tripling Hispanic household wealth by 2024.</span></span></div>
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<i style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="color: inherit; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14px;">[<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/09/15/hispanics-are-doing-really-well-and-so-is-donald-trump/" style="border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(213, 213, 213); box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.8em; margin-bottom: 18px; text-decoration: none; zoom: 1;">Hispanics are doing really well. And so is Donald Trump.</a>]</span></i></div>
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<span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="color: inherit; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14px;">Wells Fargo expanded its Hispanic sales force by 15 percent last year in hopes that more diverse loan officers and home mortgage consultants would better cater to its growing Latino clientele, said Brad Blackwell, an executive vice president with Wells Fargo Home Mortgage.</span></span></div>
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<span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="color: inherit; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14px;">The bank is also opening new mortgage offices in branches that serve large Latino populations in Los Angeles, Dallas, Houston and Phoenix. And it has made a commitment, in collaboration with the Hispanic Wealth Project, to lend $125 billion to Hispanic homebuyers by 2025 and invest $10 million from the bank’s foundation to educate and counsel Hispanic homebuyers. </span></span></div>
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<span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="color: inherit; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14px;">(Wells Fargo’s commitment follows a $175 million settlement in a lawsuit alleging that the bank discriminated against Hispanic and African American borrowers.)</span></span></div>
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<span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="color: inherit; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14px;">In contrast to the many other companies pursuing wealthy Latino consumers, Sotheby’s International Realty, which focuses on high-end properties, does not specifically tailor its marketing toward Hispanics, let alone advertise in Spanish.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: inherit; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14px;">In Miami, where Sotheby’s average property sale price tops well over $1 million, Latino agents make up about a third of the real estate agents. But the nuances of language and cultural differentiation tend to disappear, said Michael Valdes, a global vice president at Sotheby's and the company’s highest ranking Latino.</span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06168360738962673384noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8704236655602421604.post-26196087724485032652017-01-20T08:47:00.000-08:002017-01-20T08:47:18.760-08:00Trump Voters Harbor Mixed Feelings Ahead of Inauguration<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Voters like Deborah Forster, an independent in Michigan, are part of a pivotal group who harbored reservations about Donald Trump but helped put him in the Oval Office.<span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: "Whitney SSm", sans-serif; font-size: 13px; text-align: left;"> </span><span class="wsj-article-credit" itemprop="creator" style="background: 0px 0px rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #666666; font-family: "Whitney SSm", sans-serif; font-style: italic; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: left; text-transform: uppercase; vertical-align: baseline;"><span class="wsj-article-credit-tag" style="background: 0px 0px; border: 0px; font-size: 11px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">PHOTO: </span><span style="font-size: 11px;">FABRIZIO COSTANTINI FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL</span><br /><br /></span></td></tr>
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<br /><br />By <br />JANET HOOK<br />Wall Street Journal<br /><br /><br /><br />President-elect Donald Trump owes his election in 2016 in part to voters like Deborah Forster, an independent in Michigan who had deeply mixed feelings about the Republican nominee.<br /><br />Ms. Forster, a 52-year-old attorney, voted for Mr. Trump mostly because she didn’t want Democrat Hillary Clinton to win. Now she is nervously watching as he prepares to enter the White House. She likes some of his cabinet picks, but isn’t pleased with his penchant for sending harsh tweets about everything from the <a href="http://www.wsj.com/articles/cia-director-john-brennan-rejects-donald-trumps-criticism-1484611514">U.S. intelligence community</a> to actress Meryl Streep.<br /><br />“I am hoping that Trump begins to speak and act like the intelligent businessman that I’m sure he is,” she said. “I’m hoping he stops tweeting like a 13-year-old boy and starts acting like an adult.”<br /><br /><br />Ms. Forster is one of a pivotal bloc of voters who harbored reservations about Mr. Trump but helped put him in the Oval Office. According to exit polls, 18% of voters had a negative view of both major party candidates, and nearly half of them voted for Mr. Trump.<br /><br />Their evolving view of Mr. Trump—whether their qualms are relieved or exacerbated by his performance—could tip the balance of public opinion, affecting how much leverage Mr. Trump will have with Congress and his prospects for uniting the country.<br /><br />The Wall Street Journal identified a pool of these voters, people who said last fall in Journal/NBC News surveys that they preferred Mr. Trump but with some reservations and concerns about his temperament. They will be interviewed periodically through the Trump presidency as a window into whether he is winning converts or losing support.<br /><br />Despite complaints from supporters, Mr. Trump shows no sign of giving up his use of <a href="http://quotes.wsj.com/TWTR">Twitter</a>. In a weekend interview with the Times of London, Mr. Trump said, “the tweeting, I thought I’d do less of it, but I’m covered so dishonestly by the press, so dishonestly, that I can put out [on] Twitter” a fast response that is viewed by millions.<div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">Daniel Gallegos II, of Colorado, objects to Donald Trump criticizing corporations for moving jobs out of the U.S. PHOTO: THEO STROOMER FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL</span></h2>
<br /><br />A Trump transition team spokeswoman said Mr. Trump “is always going to be clear about his principles, honest with the American people and committed to fighting for American jobs.”<br /><br />As of now, voters generally are giving him the benefit of the doubt. Many are pleased with his cabinet picks, but are uneasy with his attacks on people and broad, often confusing, statements of policy that he circulates on Twitter.<br /><br />“So far I think he’s doing a decent job,” said Matt Triplett, 47, a Republican salesman in Dublin, Ohio. “But I sure wish he’d get off Twitter. The guy is a loose cannon. I’m going to sit back and be entertained by what’s going to be transpiring. But it’s a little unnerving.”<br /><br />Mr. Trump’s high-profile moves to pressure companies such as Carrier Corp., an air conditioning manufacturer, <a href="http://www.wsj.com/articles/carrier-corp-agrees-to-keep-about-1-000-jobs-at-indiana-plant-1480469875">to keep jobs in the U.S.</a> is speaking to people like Cathy Coats, a former Barack Obama voter in Raleigh, N.C., who has been out of work for three years.<br /><br />“I am cautiously optimistic,” she said. “If he does what we want him to do—on immigration, jobs—then he will be an excellent president.”<br /><br />She worries that he is already easing off his demand that Mexico pay for <a href="http://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-hints-at-request-for-border-wall-funds-from-congress-1483707934">building a wall on the southern U.S. border</a> and softening his tone on immigration policy.<br /><br />“I may be jumping the gun a little myself, but I am wondering why we haven’t heard anything about deportation of illegal aliens,” said Ms. Coats, 59, an Army veteran who had worked in marketing.<br /><br />John Brickner, 78, a Republican former school superintendent in Wilbur, Neb., is eager to see the new administration roll back regulations of the Obama era, but was uneasy about Mr. Trump’s <a href="http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2016/11/29/trumps-thank-you-tour-brings-him-through-states-that-won-him-white-house/">postelection rallies</a>. “When he comes on with those damn rallies, I turn the TV off,” Mr. Brickner said.<br /><br />Mr. Trump’s decision to nominate Rex Tillerson, former CEO of <a href="http://quotes.wsj.com/XOM">Exxon Mobil</a> Corp., <a href="http://www.wsj.com/articles/donald-trump-chooses-exxon-mobil-chief-rex-tillerson-as-secretary-of-state-1481600036">to be secretary of state</a> and Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama to <a href="http://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-offers-attorney-general-post-to-sen-sessions-alabama-republican-was-an-early-trump-supporter-1479473455">be attorney general</a> eases his concerns. “The more I read about his choices the better I feel about it,” Mr. Brickner said. “These are people who will do what needs to be done. I like it that they are not all career politicians.”<br /><br />Mr. Trump hit it out of the park for Carol Jansson, 54, a former home-school teacher in Acworth, Ga., when he picked as Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, <a href="http://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-picks-school-choice-advocate-betsy-devos-for-education-secretary-1479927146">a noted advocate for school choice</a>.<br /><br />Like many social conservatives, Ms. Jansson supported Mr. Trump because of his abortion policies. And one of her highest hopes for Mr. Trump is that he cut off federal funding for Planned Parenthood, an issue that the president-elect has sent <a href="http://www.wsj.com/articles/donald-trumps-victory-looks-set-to-renew-battle-over-abortion-rights-1479671454">mixed signals</a> about.<br /><br />Polls indicate that Mr. Trump on Election Day benefited from some 11th-hour switches from people who had been backing third-party candidates like libertarian Gary Johnson.<br /><br />One of them is Daniel Gallegos II, 53, of Commerce City, Colo., a post office worker and libertarian who now objects to Mr. Trump’s calling out of corporations over moving jobs out of the U.S. and his <a href="http://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-targets-gm-on-chevy-cruzes-imported-from-mexico-1483448986">threatening to impose tariffs</a>.<br /><br />“Donald Trump appears to be economically ignorant,” he said. “I really don’t like the strong arm tactics on business.”<br /><br />Mr. Trump’s success as president may also hinge on winning over voters like Beckie Toney, 49, of London, Ohio, an independent who was so turned off that she ended up voting for neither Mrs. Clinton nor Mr. Trump. Still, she is willing to keep her mind open to the new president.<br /><br />“He is the winner and we have to give him a chance,” she said. “You are the president and I will respect it. We need someone who will bring us together. We needed to get an outsider.”<br /><br />—Peter Nicholas contributed to this article.</div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06168360738962673384noreply@blogger.com0Washington, DC, USA38.9071923 -77.03687070000000938.7094553 -77.3595942 39.104929299999995 -76.714147200000014tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8704236655602421604.post-13789887650784832672017-01-13T13:23:00.000-08:002017-01-13T13:23:03.263-08:00How Republican's Can Pass Immigration Reform Now, Here's How<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br /><br />By Stephen A. Nuno<br /><br />NBC<br /><br /><br /><br /><br />As President-elect Trump prepares for his term in office, Republicans in Congress have stumbled out of the gate with an ill-advised attempt to gut an independent ethics office that investigates House lawmakers and staff accused of misconduct. But if the GOP is looking for an easy victory that could put the Democrats on their heels, they may look no further than a compromise on immigration reform.<br /><br />Immigration reform has been difficult, mainly because of one important disagreement between the GOP and the Democrats; what to do with the estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants. Democrats desire a pathway to citizenship for this population; they have touted the economic and social benefits and it doesn't hurt that new citizens also means new potential voters.<br /><br />However, Republicans have been opposed to a pathway to citizenship, saying this would reward illegal immigration and sidestepped the legal system, despite the many incentives businesses provide to undocumented labor. Some in the party have also used thinly veiled racially charged arguments against a pathway to citizenship because these immigrants would dilute the social fabric of the country, ie. they may be less likely to assimilate into American culture. And frankly, given the GOP's performance with minority voters, the party knows they have a demographic disadvantage with new Latino and Asian voters that would only be made worse by extending this population with the right to vote.<br /><br />Immigrants without documentation are faced with daily struggles. It is difficult to work without proper identification. They are susceptible to human and labor rights violations because of their status. Their status is also a source of extreme stress for their families, many of whom are citizens. An undocumented immigrant may be pulled over for a traffic infraction and be taken to a detention facility without any notice to their family which can last weeks or months.<br /><br />Moreover, many undocumented immigrants were young when they migrated to the United States and had no idea that they were not processed properly until later in their lives. Recall that <a href="http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2016-election/natural-born-issue-ted-cruz-not-settled-not-going-away-n499226">Senator Ted Cruz</a>, who is married to a corporate banking executive and who has a law degree from Harvard University, did not discover that he was a Canadian citizen until he announced his candidacy for President. Cruz was also the longest serving Solicitor General of Texas who argued nine cases before the Supreme Court.<br /><br />However, a key compromise exists between the two parties that is both acceptable to the majority of voters in the country and would humanely solve the immigration issue. Perhaps as important, immigration reform would be beneficial to the economy and to Donald Trump's investment portfolio.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/rubio-pushes-dream-act-without-the-drea">Marco Rubio floated an immigration reform plan</a> that addressed the most important issues outlined above in 2012; a plan that granted undocumented immigrants a pathway to legalization without a special pathway to citizenship. His proposal became the basis for a compromise under the "Gang of Eight" proposal the following year, which died when an upswell of dissent rose from the Republican grassroots. But while Rubio's plan was also cast as unacceptable to Democrats because it did not provide an explicit path to citizenship, President Obama was praised for implementing a temporary reprieve program for Dreamers, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), which was essentially the same as legalization without a special path to citizenship.<br /><br />For undocumented immigrants, the economy, and Donald Trump, the benefits are immediate.<br /><br />"Increasing immigration is a guaranteed way to boost economic growth. Immigrants boost the supply and the demand side of the economy," says economist Alex Nowrasteh with the conservative Cato Institute. Even for immigrants already here without status, formally integrating them is a boost to economy, says Nowrasteh.<br /><br />Legalization brings undocumented immigrants out of the shadows so that they may work, take their kids to school, go to church or participate in society without fear of being torn from their families.<br /><br />Research from the social sciences shows that greater social integration increases immigrants' assimilation into American culture, like speaking English and <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Lives-Limbo-Undocumented-Coming-America/dp/0520287266/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1483557059&sr=8-1&keywords=lives+in+limbo">gaining the education</a> they need to maximize their contribution to the economy. And as Pew Research <a href="http://www.pewhispanic.org/files/2013/02/Naturalizations_Jan_2013_FINAL.pdf">has shown, </a>many immigrants do not desire to be citizens even if offered.<br /><br />Legalizing undocumented immigrants who can then freely participate in the economy brings them formally into the community. For Donald Trump, a real estate mogul, the benefits are obvious. Nowrasteh of Cato says, "The smallest estimated effect of immigration on rental prices is that a 1 percent increase in population from immigration increases rents by 1 percent. A huge impact."<br /><br />The case for immigration reform that includes a path to legalization without an explicit path to citizenship is obvious for all except those who either see immigrants as a threat to cultural purity in the Republican party or those in the Democratic party who see their value only in what they can provide in votes.<br /><br />But a great majority of voters in the 2016 wanted undocumented immigrants to be offered legal status. Exit polls during the election showed that <a href="http://edition.cnn.com/election/results/exit-polls/national/president">70 percent favored legal status</a>, and these data have been consistent for years. Voters are not resistant to legal status, except that the real point of disagreement is over what "legal status" actually means.<br /><br />Politically, a Republican solution to immigration reform would put Democrats in a difficult spot. Obama enjoyed a majority in Congress in his first term in office and could not get immigration reform through, largely because the GOP was united against it and a few Democrats in red districts defected against the party. Obama had also largely expended all of his political capital on health care reform. But the inability to get immigration reform passed was one of the biggest failures of the Obama administration. The GOP can start by settling an issue<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16px; letter-spacing: 0.01rem;"> that is long overdue.</span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06168360738962673384noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8704236655602421604.post-33566992647369767712016-12-08T09:23:00.002-08:002016-12-08T09:23:33.943-08:00Challenging D.C.'s Tradition Of Unpaid Government Internships<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">1995 White House Interns with US Senator Diane Feinstein on her visit to the West Wing.</td></tr>
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<br />NPR's Parth Shah wrote a great piece on interns in Washington DC and its hardships of working full-time unpaid internships. My personal experience as a White House intern in 1995 with President Clinton's administration was an experience of a life time. That opportunity still to this day opens doors in my career as a lobbyist.<br />
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As a USC student with limited financial means, we had to save money prior to starting our full-time internship program in addition to taking a full load of classes at USC's Washington DC program. It was impossible to get a second job because that meant we would not sleep. So with the limited funds that supported our tuition, books, rent and food...we took advantage of the intern "grapevine".<br />
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The "grapevine" was a word of mouth of communicating between interns from the White House to the Capitol Building and every Federal department in between. We would know about events where we controlled the "RSVP" list and add fellow interns in order to further network but more importantly eat and drink for free. This was also during the time of the 1995 Federal shut down, where interns were basically running Washington DC because the budget did not affect us, since we were free labor.<br />
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My parents who immigrated in the late 60's from Colombia came from a humble background and sent money whenever they could to add to my limited savings account to survive in DC. But in all honesty, if it was not for all the hard work, struggles and opportunities offered to me, I would not be the person I am today. We share great memories from meeting the leadership of America of both government and business, to sharing struggles as with fellow my interns (including Monica Lewinsky).<br />
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Written by Parth Shah<br />
NPR<br />
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The Department of Labor has <a href="https://www.dol.gov/whd/regs/compliance/whdfs71.htm" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #5076b8; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">guidelines</a> for companies that want to keep unpaid interns. Essentially, unpaid interns have to be treated like students and shouldn't do the work of paid employees.</div>
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Those rules, however, don't apply to government agencies.</div>
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"If America runs on Dunkin' Donuts, D.C. runs on unpaid internships," says Carlos Vera, the founder of a campaign called <a href="http://www.payourinterns.com/" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #5076b8; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Pay Our Interns</a>. The campaign's guiding principle: how much money your parents make shouldn't keep you from getting work experience.</div>
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Vera interned at the White House in 2014.</div>
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"For any person that loves politics, it's a dream being at the White House," Vera says. "Once I was on that other side, I realized it's not as glamorous as sometimes you think."</div>
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<span style="font-size: 1.7rem;"><br />Because of the full-time hours and the high cost of living in Washington, D.C., Vera says, unpaid government internships are out of reach for many people from low-income backgrounds. It's something that hits close to home for Vera.</span>White House interns are expected to work unpaid from at least 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday.</div>
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"One thing that the White House required is you had to bring in a suit every day," he said. "And that's something that they don't think about: Suits cost a lot of money. So my dad, my two aunts, and my uncle had to all pitch in money just so I could just buy one suit."</div>
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<a href="http://time.com/money/4269235/summer-internship-real-costs/" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #5076b8; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">According to Money magazine</a>, interning for the summer in cities like D.C. can cost upwards of $6,000. In a statement to NPR, White House officials said while the internship is unpaid, interns can earn academic credit. Vera says many government agencies offer academic credit as a form of compensation.</div>
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"At my university, school credit is [$1,467]," Vera says, referring to the per credit cost at his alma mater, American University. "You're paying to intern for free."</div>
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Reynolds Graves interned at the White House in 2011 and says unpaid internships are a rite of passage.</div>
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"You cannot put a price on the knowledge you obtain from an unpaid internship in these marble hallways, whether it's Capitol Hill or the White House," he says.</div>
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The White House internship was just one of the unpaid internships Graves did during college. He worked part time and dipped into savings to get by.</div>
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"Maybe you've got to bus tables after work. You know, everyone else gets off work, you don't get to go hang out," Graves said. "There's no shame in that and I think that would even build more grit."</div>
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Graves says interns can also seek out grant funding. That's what Ermolande Jean-Simon did when she was a White House intern. She got a $5,000 stipend from her alma mater, Boston University. But even with that money she still had to rely on family and friends to help her get by.</div>
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<span style="font-size: 1.7rem;"><br />Vera says there shouldn't be so many obstacles for people from low-income backgrounds looking to do an unpaid government internship.</span>"Without that kind of support, I don't think I would have even been able to even do the internship," she said.</div>
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"People shouldn't be precluded from starting a career in public service based on their socioeconomic status," he says. "That's so anti-American in many ways."</div>
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Vera says his campaign is keeping a close eye on government agencies that don't pay their interns. As new elected officials come in, Pay Our Interns will be pushing to make intern wages a priority.</div>
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06168360738962673384noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8704236655602421604.post-58289060301140579042016-11-30T10:43:00.001-08:002016-11-30T10:43:26.591-08:00Presidential Election Prediction & Chapter From My New Book!<br />
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<a href="http://www.rojascommunications.com/buy-book"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-f-tHiRXLmkE/WD8bsnVMwmI/AAAAAAAAEiY/KpC3d6Y7IAMJgpvmanwkqJaRn_1wAQxXACEw/s640/Jaime_Flag.JPG" width="640" /></a></div>
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By Jaime Rojas, Jr.<br />
November 3, 2016, Book Launch - Los Angeles, CA<br />
Chapter from <a href="http://www.rojascommunications.com/buy-book">"Fiscal Conservative's Pocket Constitution 2.0 aka Latino Republicans"</a><br />
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<b><u><span style="font-size: large; line-height: 107%;">Predictions of the
November 2016 Presidential Elections and Beyond</span></u></b></h2>
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<span style="line-height: 107%;">If I was a
betting man, never in my wildest imagination would I have predicted Donald
Trump to be the Republican Party’s Presidential nominee for the November 2016
elections. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
In September 2015, the Republicans had over a couple dozen
potential candidates for the position of President of the United States of
America. These Republican candidates’ policies fell on various parts of the
“conservative/right” spectrum: moderate right to “God is going to scorch your
ass” beliefs. But the interesting part, many more candidates were closer to the
“God is going to scorch your ass” than usual. Overall nothing to out of the
ordinary, well at least for the Republican party, since the 1980’s and its
hostile take-over by the Southern Conservative Christian extremist.<o:p></o:p><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 107%;">The
Democratic Party too was going through its form of “extremism”. Once again you
had the presumed Presidential Candidate and political machine, Secretary Hillary
Clinton, who just eight years ago lost to a no brand name candidate from
Chicago, President Obama. On the leftist spectrum, she is very moderate, some
even feel more Republican than Democrat in her policies and beliefs. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 107%;">Now to the
extreme left you had the very popular Congressman from Vermont, Bernie Sanders,
who in my humble opinion would give everything to the American people for FREE
or more on the socialist ideal. But to be honest, as a former Democrat, I felt
Bernie was more refreshing and “Obama” like in his philosophies (at least in
the aspect of “hope”) than his counterpart of Secretary Clinton.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 107%;">The stage is
set and now we have both Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton representing their
respected parties. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 107%;">I will
preface my next statements by saying I am a first-generation American and the
product of immigrant parents who came from Colombia to the United States over
forty years ago. As many immigrant stories, they too came with no money, no
network, and not speaking a lick of English. But they had the burning desire of
the “American Dream” and God bless them….they achieved it! My parents, like
many of yours, have a strong work ethic, have old-school beliefs, saved money
and were entrepreneurs in their thinking and in their actions. They worked hard
all their lives and have a retirement to show for it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 107%;">But I
believe their crowning jewel above all is the success of their two American
sons. Who in just one generation, attended & taught in the best
universities, worked for Fortune 500 companies and in the White House, became entrepreneurs
themselves and who at the end are productive American citizens.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 107%;">So back to
the Republican party’s nominee, El Donald Trump. As you remember over eight
years ago, he just like Hillary, ran for his prospective party and lost. But
back then he was a kinder and gentler Trump, who everyone remembers as the
person who hobnobbed and networked with anyone who he thought would either make
him richer or bring him higher TV ratings, including his friends the Clintons.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 107%;">Welcome back
to 2016 Presidential campaign. The “new” Trump starts off his bid for the
Presidential Republican nomination by calling “Mexicans” everything under the
big, blue sky and the scapegoats for all of America’s problems. They are
rapist, murderers, illegals….who came to this country to basically gut it and
return back to their Mother country fat and rich. He now wants to build a
continuous wall on the Mexican/American
border to keep America safe. But I wonder what happed to building a wall
between the Canadian/American border as well….oh yeah….those Canadian have
white skin and look European.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 107%;">The blame
game has been played since the inception of this already great country. It all
started when the Puritans were being persecuted in Europe for their religion.
They decided to escape this persecution and they landed on Plymouth Rock. The
American Indians for the most part welcomed them and helped them with the
necessary survival skills to make it through the harsh seasonal weather….and
America was born…more or less.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 107%;">In return,
these Europeans gave them diseases and in the long-run committed genocide through
the slaughter of the native Indians of this country.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 107%;">If that
wasn’t enough, the agricultural revolution was in full swing, and it was very
labor intensive. Due to the lack of numbers of strong European men (and the
social class mentality)….slavery thus began. African men were being shipped to
America in high numbers to meet the demand of tobacco, cotton and other
agricultural products. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 107%;">As most
business-minded folks know, the highest expense any business has is human
resources (aka labor), and the conservative numbers is somewhere around 50% of
a business’ expenses. So how did the United States become so rich and powerful
so quickly….the cost of labor = “zero”….so profits soared through the roof.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 107%;">Almost
forgot….so as American was born, the fore-fathers were very intelligent and
forward thinkers of their time. They designed and created a government that was
like no other and still is like no other. The core foundation of America are
two documents: the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights (luck you, this
book contains copies of both).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 107%;">Our founders
believed passionately of the protection of its citizens from its government.
But also a controlled government was
necessary to protect the people and keep balance and harmony.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 107%;">So now we
have a Presidential Republican nominee (or more like a snake-oil salesman) that
literally spews fear, hatred and racism all under the cause of the “Let’s Make
America Great Again” slogan. Blaming everyone but himself for the problems of
America. What’s wrong with this picture….many things!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 107%;">America is
currently facing a fork on the road. On one hand you have, for example,
coalminers in Virginia who have seen their great paying, union jobs decline (if
not almost disappear) and are not be prepared for globalization. They are
undereducated, underemployed and really pissed off. On the other hand you have
immigrants (I include African-Americans in this mix….they too are immigrants)
who have dealt with racism, glass-ceilings, police/government brutality,
scape-goating…they too are pissed off.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 107%;">So what now?
This is the million-dollar question. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><u><span style="line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></u></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><u><span style="line-height: 107%;">My Presidential election prediction
should not be too shocking. If we have a high voter turnout, Hillary wins in a landslide.
If we have poor turnout, Trump wins a close race.<o:p></o:p></span></u></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 107%;">But the
question all Americans should be asking, what happens after Tuesday, November 8<sup>th</sup>?
Are our problems fixable? My short answer is yes but with a hell of a lot of
work. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 107%;">America
needs to go back to the basics. We need to begin by getting involved on the
local level…that means with our families first. We need to be better parents
and better children. I truly believe this is the start of the renaissance of
America. Without love and structure of a strong family (traditional and
non-traditional) as the foundation, American will continue in this downward
spiral of fear, anger and hatred. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 107%;">How American
is that?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><u><span style="line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></u></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><u><span style="line-height: 107%;">Please be a responsible Americans and
vote on election day…your country is depending on it.<o:p></o:p></span></u></b></div>
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<div style="text-align: center;">
<a href="http://www.rojascommunications.com/buy-book">BUY BOOK HERE!</a></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06168360738962673384noreply@blogger.com0Los Angeles, CA, USA34.0522342 -118.243684933.2099567 -119.5345784 34.8945117 -116.95279140000001tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8704236655602421604.post-41244141765589448272016-11-29T07:26:00.000-08:002016-11-29T07:26:58.889-08:00Let's Give Back! #GivingTuesday<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06168360738962673384noreply@blogger.com0The White House, 1600 Pennsylvania Ave NW, Washington, DC 20500, USA38.8976763 -77.03652979999998312.551267800000002 -118.34512379999998 65.2440848 -35.727935799999983tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8704236655602421604.post-57487430580765700682016-11-28T07:20:00.001-08:002016-11-28T07:20:44.690-08:00U.S. Constitution - Cyber Monday 25% Discount Sale Today!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06168360738962673384noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8704236655602421604.post-15824530259141305042016-11-26T07:47:00.001-08:002016-11-26T07:47:36.613-08:00My Book - 25% Off Sale Extended to Monday!! #Constitution<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06168360738962673384noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8704236655602421604.post-23447354298558852782016-11-25T09:13:00.000-08:002016-11-25T09:13:22.461-08:00Black Friday Special - 25% Off My Book!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06168360738962673384noreply@blogger.com0The White House, 1600 Pennsylvania Ave NW, Washington, DC 20500, USA38.8976763 -77.03652979999998313.3756418 -118.34512379999998 64.4197108 -35.727935799999983tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8704236655602421604.post-72697709798301827742016-11-24T06:40:00.001-08:002016-11-24T06:40:11.669-08:00Happy Thanksgiving!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06168360738962673384noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8704236655602421604.post-56562047184235834782016-08-30T12:22:00.001-07:002018-06-09T15:09:55.355-07:00A REAL VETERAN RESPONDS BACK TO NFL QUARTERBACK KAEPERNICK<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="color: inherit;"><br>
Op/Ed<br>
By Jim Wright<br>
<br>
</span><div style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "Open Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 17px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: 28.9px; margin-bottom: 1.6em; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; word-break: break-word; word-wrap: break-word;">
<span style="color: inherit;">“I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color. To me, this is bigger than football and it would be selfish on my part to look the other way. There are bodies in the street and people getting paid leave and getting away with murder.”</span></div>
<div style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "Open Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 17px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: 28.9px; margin-bottom: 1.6em; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; word-break: break-word; word-wrap: break-word;">
<span style="color: inherit;">I’ve been away from the internet all day.</span></div>
<div style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "Open Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 17px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: 28.9px; margin-bottom: 1.6em; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; word-break: break-word; word-wrap: break-word;">
<span style="color: inherit;">I came home from a family picnic on the Blackwater River to find my inbox, as usual, overflowing like a ripe Port-O-Potty.</span></div>
<div style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "Open Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 17px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: 28.9px; margin-bottom: 1.6em; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; word-break: break-word; word-wrap: break-word;">
<span style="color: inherit;">One of the first messages I read was about 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick, quoted above, who last Friday night at the beginning of a preseason game suddenly decided to become the most hated man in America du jour by deliberately not standing for the National Anthem.</span></div>
<div style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "Open Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 17px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: 28.9px; margin-bottom: 1.6em; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; word-break: break-word; word-wrap: break-word;">
<span style="color: inherit;">Yes, that’s right, a football player didn’t stand for the National Anthem.</span></div>
<div style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "Open Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 17px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: 28.9px; margin-bottom: 1.6em; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; word-break: break-word; word-wrap: break-word;">
<span style="color: inherit;">As you know, this means Kaepernick is scum, a horrible human being, a likely member of ISIS, a Muslim terrorist, a black thug, a communist, a socialist (and not the cool share your weed Bernie Sanders kind of socialist but the Red Brigade kind of Socialist who sleeps under a poster of Chairman Mao), a radical, a Black Panther, and he probably has Fidel Castro’s phone number in his contact favorites.</span></div>
<div style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "Open Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 17px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: 28.9px; margin-bottom: 1.6em; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; word-break: break-word; word-wrap: break-word;">
<span style="color: inherit;">Yeah. Okay.</span></div>
<div style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "Open Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 17px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: 28.9px; margin-bottom: 1.6em; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; word-break: break-word; word-wrap: break-word;">
<span style="color: inherit;">I answered the message and went on to the next one.</span></div>
<div style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "Open Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 17px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: 28.9px; margin-bottom: 1.6em; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; word-break: break-word; word-wrap: break-word;">
<span style="color: inherit;">The next message was about Kaepernick. As was the next one. And the next one. And…</span></div>
<div style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "Open Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 17px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: 28.9px; margin-bottom: 1.6em; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; word-break: break-word; word-wrap: break-word;">
<span style="color: inherit;">They all begin pretty much the same way: Jim, AS A VETERAN, what do you think about this? Well?</span></div>
<div style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "Open Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 17px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: 28.9px; margin-bottom: 1.6em; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; word-break: break-word; word-wrap: break-word;">
<span style="color: inherit;">Let me answer all the messages at once …</span></div>
<div style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "Open Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 17px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: 28.9px; margin-bottom: 1.6em; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; word-break: break-word; word-wrap: break-word;">
<span style="color: inherit;">AS A VETERAN, what do I think about Colin Kaepernick’s decision to sit during the National Anthem?</span></div>
<div style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "Open Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 17px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: 28.9px; margin-bottom: 1.6em; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; word-break: break-word; word-wrap: break-word;">
<span style="color: inherit;">As a veteran?</span></div>
<div style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "Open Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 17px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: 28.9px; margin-bottom: 1.6em; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; word-break: break-word; word-wrap: break-word;">
<span style="color: inherit;">Very well, as a veteran then, this is what I believe:</span></div>
<div style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "Open Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 17px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: 28.9px; margin-bottom: 1.6em; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; word-break: break-word; word-wrap: break-word;">
<span style="color: inherit;">The very first thing I learned in the military is this: Respect is a two-way street. If you want respect, true respect, sincere respect, then you have to GIVE IT.</span></div>
<div style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "Open Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 17px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: 28.9px; margin-bottom: 1.6em; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; word-break: break-word; word-wrap: break-word;">
<span style="color: inherit;">If you want respect, you have to do the things necessary to earn it each and every single day. There are no short cuts and no exceptions.</span></div>
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<span style="color: inherit;">Respect cannot be compelled.</span></div>
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<span style="color: inherit;">Respect cannot be bought.</span></div>
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<span style="color: inherit;">Respect cannot be inherited.</span></div>
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<span style="color: inherit;">Respect cannot be demanded at the muzzle of a gun or by beating it into somebody or by shaming them into it. Can not. You might get what you think is respect, but it’s not. It’s only the appearance of respect. It’s fear, it’s groveling, it’s not respect. Far, far too many people both in and out of the military, people who should emphatically know better, do not understand this simple fact: there is an enormous difference between fear and respect.</span></div>
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<span style="color: inherit;">Respect has to be earned.</span></div>
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<span style="color: inherit;">Respect. Has. To. Be. Earned.</span></div>
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<span style="color: inherit;">Respect has to be earned every day, by every word, by every action.</span></div>
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<span style="color: inherit;">It takes a lifetime of words and deeds to earn respect.</span></div>
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<span style="color: inherit;">It takes only one careless word, one thoughtless action, to lose it.</span></div>
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<span style="color: inherit;">You have to be worthy of respect. You have to live up to, or at least do your best to live up to, those high ideals — the ones America supposedly embodies, that shining city on the hill, that exceptional nation we talk about, yes, that one. To earn respect you have to be fair. You have to have courage. You must embrace reason. You have to know when to hold the line and when to compromise. You have to take responsibility and hold yourself accountable. You have to keep your word. You have to give respect, true respect, to get it back.</span></div>
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<span style="color: inherit;">There are no short cuts. None.</span></div>
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<span style="color: inherit;">Now, any veteran worth the label should know that. If they don’t, then likely they weren’t much of a soldier to begin with and you can tell them I said so.</span></div>
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<span style="color: inherit;">IF Kaepernick doesn’t feel his country respects him enough for him to respect it in return, well, then you can’t MAKE him respect it.</span></div>
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<span style="color: inherit;">You can not make him respect it.</span></div>
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<span style="color: inherit;">If you try to force a man to respect you, you’ll only make him respect you less.</span></div>
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<span style="color: inherit;">With threats, by violence, by shame, you can maybe compel Kaepernick to stand up and put his hand over his heart and force him to be quiet. You might.</span></div>
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<span style="color: inherit;">But that’s not respect.</span></div>
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<span style="color: inherit;">It’s only the illusion of respect.</span></div>
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<span style="color: inherit;">You might force this man into the illusion of respect. You might. Would you be satisfied then? Would that make you happy? Would that make you respect your nation, the one which forced a man into the illusion of respect, a nation of little clockwork patriots all pretending satisfaction and respect? Is that what you want? If THAT’s what matters to you, the illusion of respect, then you’re not talking about freedom or liberty. You’re not talking about the United States of America. Instead, you’re talking about every dictatorship from the Nazis to North Korea where people are lined up and MADE to salute with the muzzle of a gun pressed to the back of their necks.</span></div>
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<span style="color: inherit;">That, that illusion of respect, is not why I wore a uniform.</span></div>
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<span style="color: inherit;">That’s not why I held up my right hand and swore the oath and put my life on the line for my country.</span></div>
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<span style="color: inherit;">That, that illusion of respect, is not why I am a veteran.</span></div>
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<span style="color: inherit;">Not so a man should be forced to show respect he doesn’t feel.</span></div>
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<span style="color: inherit;">That’s called slavery and I have no respect for that at all.</span></div>
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<span style="color: inherit;">If Americans want this man to respect America, then first they must respect him.</span></div>
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<span style="color: inherit;">If America wants the world’s respect, it must be worthy of respect.</span></div>
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<span style="color: inherit;">America must be worthy of respect. Torture, rendition, indefinite detention, unarmed black men shot down in the street every day, poverty, inequality, voter suppression, racism, bigotry in every form, obstructionism, blind patriotism, NONE of those things are worthy of respect from anybody — least of all an American.</span></div>
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<span style="color: inherit;">But doesn’t it also mean that if Kaepernick wants respect, he must give it first? Give it to America? Be worthy of respect himself? Stand up, shut up, and put his hand over his heart before Old Glory?</span></div>
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<span style="color: inherit;">No. It doesn’t.</span></div>
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<span style="color: inherit;">Respect doesn’t work that way.</span></div>
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<span style="color: inherit;">Power flows from positive to negative. Electricity flows from greater potential to lesser.</span></div>
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<span style="color: inherit;">The United States isn’t a person, it’s a vast construct, a framework of law and order and civilization designed to protect the weak from the ruthless and after more than two centuries of revision and refinement it exists to provide in equal measure for all of us the opportunity for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The United States is POWER.</span></div>
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<span style="color: inherit;">All the power rests with America. Just as it does in the military chain of command. And like that chain of command, like the electrical circuit described above, respect must flow from greater to lesser FIRST before it can return.</span></div>
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<span style="color: inherit;">To you the National Anthem means one thing, to Kaepernick, it means something else. We are all shaped and defined by our experiences and we see the world through our own eyes. That’s freedom. That’s liberty. The right to believe differently. The right to protest as you will. The right to demand better. The right to believe your country can BE better, that it can live up to its sacred ideals, and the right to loudly note that it has NOT. The right to use your voice, your actions, to bring attention to the things you believe in. The right to want more for others, freedom, liberty, justice, equality, and RESPECT.</span></div>
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<span style="color: inherit;">A true veteran might not agree with Colin Kaepernick, but a true veteran would fight to the death to protect his right to say what he believes.</span></div>
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<span style="color: inherit;">You don’t like what Kaepernick has to say? Then prove him wrong, BE the nation he can respect.</span></div>
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<span style="color: inherit;">It’s really just that simple.</span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06168360738962673384noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8704236655602421604.post-11339094193618526932016-08-26T10:09:00.001-07:002018-06-09T15:27:29.329-07:00Donald Trump's call for poll watchers brings back fears of 1988 Santa Ana<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-79GlTcTM1F0/V8BybhD6LKI/AAAAAAAAEgE/yidnukPlA-YVCh-23BwwbkYK2bkpEhhsACLcB/s1600/Trump.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-79GlTcTM1F0/V8BybhD6LKI/AAAAAAAAEgE/yidnukPlA-YVCh-23BwwbkYK2bkpEhhsACLcB/s400/Trump.jpg" width="400"></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 17px; text-align: start;">Donald Trump, in Altoona, Pa., on Aug. 12, told the crowd that he would dispatch supporters to monitor polling places to guard against voter fraud in "certain parts" of Pennsylvania. (Evan Vucci/Associated Press)</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br>
By Kurtis Lee<br>
AUGUST 19, 2016, 10:30 AM<br>
<br>
He phone calls to Donald Tanney’s office began shortly after polls opened on that election day nearly
three decades ago.<br>
<br>
Tanney, then Orange County’s registrar of voters, was told that when residents — mostly Latino
— arrived at 20 Santa Ana polling locations on Nov. 8, 1988, they were greeted by uniformed guards
holding signs with a message in Spanish and English: "NonCitizens Can't Vote."
The guards, dressed in navy blue attire, had been hired by the campaign of Curt Pringle, a Republican state
Assembly candidate from Garden Grove, and the Orange County Republican Party. Their mission? Monitor the
polling places to ensure no fraudulent ballots were cast, insisted Pringle and officials from the county GOP.<br>
<br>
“It was bad,” Tanney recalled. “People were really upset.” The incident became a blemish for California Republicans, producing allegations of voter intimidation and
racism. A lawsuit was filed and a settlement reached.<br>
<br>
“I remember thinking, ‘Really?’ This is something you could have easily imagined in other parts of the country,”
said Raphael Sonenshein, executive director of the Pat Brown Institute for Public Affairs at Cal State L.A., who
back then was teaching political science in Orange County. “This was a clear attempt to intimidate Latinos.”<br>
<br>
Now, nearly three decades later, as Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump calls for his supporters to
volunteer as election observers, concerns of voter intimidation have come to the forefront. At a rally
in Pennsylvania last week, Trump used strong racial overtones to allege to his mostly white audience that
“certain areas” of the state — such as Philadelphia, where almost half the residents are black — will commit
voter fraud to support Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton.<br>
<br>
Officials with the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania have said they will be on watch Nov. 8
to ensure every eligible voter is able to cast a ballot. Trump’s campaign says it’s simply advocating for an open
and honest election.
<br>
<br>
The incident at the Santa Ana polls came six years after the Republican National Committee began operating
under a consent decree, which was handed down by the Supreme Court and prevents the party from engaging
in some voterfraud prevention efforts without court approval. Yet that does not apply to campaigns, which
routinely dispatch volunteers to observe activity at polling places.<br>
<br>
But what happened in Santa Ana was far from routine. At a news conference after the incident, Jose Diaz
Vargas, a 53yearold Santa Ana police officer, said he was on his way to vote when he heard that uniformed
guards were patrolling the polling areas. He went home but later changed his mind in anger and went back to
vote.
<br>
"I was very upset," he said back then. "This kind of conduct, I did not expect this to happen in the United
States. Maybe in some other countries, but not in the United States. . . . I went back to the voting place, but how
many other people didn't go back?"<br>
<br>
Pringle bested his Democratic challenger, Rick Thierbach, and went on to become Assembly speaker during his
time in Sacramento. He did not respond to interview requests. Thierbach said he sees similarities between then
and now.<br>
<br>
“Trump is afraid he’s going to lose,” Thierbach, a retired Superior Court judge, said as he reminisced about the
race he lost by fewer than 900 votes. “What form those poll observers take will be interesting to see.”<br>
<br>
Some Republicans in the state said the uniformed guards of 1988 came at a time when Californians began to see a demographic shift. Mike Madrid, a Republican political consultant and expert on Latino voting trends, said the incident was an
“encapsulation of an action that was taken that demonstrated how some people in the party viewed a changing
electorate.”
<br>
<br>
“Demographic change is never easy for any constituency or any group — it never has been,” Madrid said.
“When it manifests politically, it becomes extremely charged and very explosive.”<br>
<br>
<br>
Madrid said the growth of the Latino electorate in California in the late 1980s and early 1990s is what some
swing states, like North Carolina and Virginia, are experiencing now.<br>
<br>
The stationing of guards in 1988 came six years before Proposition 187, a ballot measure that sought to deny
taxpayerfunded services to those in the country illegally — another sign of unease with a changing electorate.
Later it was nullified by the courts, but the message from the GOP — the measure was championed
by Republican Gov. Pete Wilson — had been sent.
<br>
<br>
Prior to Prop. 187, Republicans received onethird or more of the Latino vote in California, according to a study
by Latino Decisions, a polling firm. The vote peaked in 1984, with 45% of California Latinos backing Ronald
Reagan and dropped to 22% supporting Mitt Romney in 2012.<br>
<br>
Trump’s rhetoric this election cycle — he’s called Mexican immigrants “rapists” and drug runners — is not likely
to help increase those numbers, say political analysts. Polls in swing states consistently show Clinton outpacing
Trump among Latino voters.<br>
<br>
“It’s been awhile,” recalled Tanney, “but it was certainly the most memorable moment of my time working
on elections in Orange County.”<br>
<br>
Now retired, Tanney, a lifelong Democrat, was asked if Trump’s calls for election observers in certain states
could reignite what occurred at those 20 polling locations in Santa Ana 28 years ago.
He sighed and offered no comment.<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06168360738962673384noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8704236655602421604.post-89543729221444819452016-08-22T11:01:00.000-07:002016-08-22T11:01:49.300-07:00What the baby Bolivar boom tells us about how we used to view South America<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-XhTTPeBevW8/V7s8U9IzYWI/AAAAAAAAEf0/tjMmqv52EzwMTBju-xolBTyoaWQGmU2qQCLcB/s1600/bolivar.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-XhTTPeBevW8/V7s8U9IzYWI/AAAAAAAAEf0/tjMmqv52EzwMTBju-xolBTyoaWQGmU2qQCLcB/s400/bolivar.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #999999; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 17px; text-align: start;">An image from the book "Bolivar" by Marie Arana. (Simon & Schuster)<br /><br /><br /></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
By Caitlin Fitz<br />
<br />
Almost 200 years ago, as the United States approached its 50th birthday, a new baby name swept the
nation. It wasn’t biblical or even Anglophone. It was Bolivar. Hundreds of mothers and fathers,
living in Kentucky log cabins or Illinois farmhouses, named their crying, crinkly newborns after
Spanish America’s most celebrated revolutionary: Simón Bolívar of Venezuela.
The baby Bolivar boom wasn’t an isolated oddity, either. Other Americans named their new towns, their
boats and even their livestock Bolivar, adopting the Spanishspeaking revolutionary as one of their own.
Given how much of our current election cycle has been marked by talk of border walls and racial slurs, it may
seem surprising that ordinary Americans held such early affection for Latin America. A generation before the
United States swallowed half of Mexico (including what turned out to be a golden-crusted California), visions
of a harmonious republican hemisphere prevailed.<br />
<br />
In the 1810s and early 1820s — just a generation or two after our Revolution of 1776 — most of Latin America
fought (and won) independence wars against Spain and Portugal, from Mexico and Colombia to Chile and
Brazil. Those developments owed more to the chaos of the Napoleonic Wars than to the shot heard round the
world, but nonetheless, U.S. patriots happily gave themselves credit for having inspired a hemisphere full of
revolutionary disciples. They concluded that their founding republican ideals really were universal — that U.S.
light was spreading to places thought mired in Iberian colonial darkness. Victories across Latin America thus
inflamed U.S. patriotism; as a Boston newspaper trumpeted, these newfound sister republics were “flattering to
our national pride.”<br />
<br />
The excitement was pervasive. From Chillicothe, Ohio, to Savannah, Ga., mothers dressed their daughters in
feathery, broadbrimmed “Bolivar hats.” Poets wrote odes to Brazil and Peru. West Point cadets looked
exuberantly south and fired ceremonial cannons. Newspapers printed long lists of toasts sent in after each
Independence Day, including hundreds feting Latin American freedom. As editors nationwide approvingly
observed, toasts to “the Patriots of South America” were “the favourites of the day,” along with toasts to the
Founding Fathers, the Constitution and the United States itself.<br />
<br />
The U.S. government remained officially neutral in these revolutions, declining to do for Latin Americans what
France had done for it. But people found smaller ways to chip in. In 1812, Congress voted to send $50,000
worth of provisions to help erstwhile revolutionaries in Caracas dig out after a devastating earthquake; it was a
pioneering instance of U.S. foreign aid. In another groundbreaking congressional vote 10 years later, the
United States became the first country to formally recognize Spanish America’s new nations as independent
powers.<br />
<br />
Hoping to do well by doing good, merchants loaded their ships “with weapons as ballast” (as Portugal’s
ambassador griped) and sold the goods to South American rebels. With similarly mixed motives, some 3,000
privateers attacked Spanish ships on the high seas until Congress outlawed the practice beginning in 1817.<br />
<br />
The interAmerican idealism was so strong that it often transcended racial and religious differences. Everyone
knew that Latin Americans were Catholics, and newspapers widely reported that Spanish Americans in
particular were passing gradual antislavery laws. Black U.S. audiences were thrilled, while white observers were
so excited about the anticolonial battles that they accepted the antislavery ones. As the flummoxed Portuguese
ambassador wrote at the time, it was “as if every person ... was denounced as an antipatriot, if he be not an advocate for supporting every rebellion or insurrection ... whether these selfstyled patriots are white, black, or
yellow.”<br />
<br />
Americans’ universalist optimism about human potential was endlessly contested, and their abstract talk of
brotherhood wilted as slavery spread into the South and West. InterAmerican ardor eventually yielded to
manifest destiny, racialized chauvinism and war with Mexico. But the sanguine inclusiveness of the 1810s and
early 1820s mattered nonetheless. In celebrating the decline of colonial rule to their south, Americans were
defining the United States as an advocate for worldwide republican liberty — even when that liberty included
Spanish-speaking antislavery Catholics.<br />
<br />
This shortlived and selfcongratulatory excitement for Latin American independence offers few easy answers
for our own times. Hemispheric enthusiasts themselves disagreed about the particulars of interAmerican trade
and diplomacy. Immigration wasn’t a central issue, and when it did begin to surge later in the 1820s and 1830s,
people usually were moving to Mexico, not away from it. Still, the hemispheric enthusiasm stands in striking
contrast to our current political discourse about Latin America. Our early 19th century predecessors saw
themselves as political kin of people with clear cultural, linguistic and sometimes racial differences. Turning
south of the border, early U.S. patriots adopted internationalism as a credo.<br />
<br />
Two centuries later, Donald Trump offers a new credo: “Make America great again.” The power and the peril of
this slogan stem from its imprecision. To which past? What elements of our history does he propose to
resuscitate? To paraphrase Walt Whitman, our history is large; it contains multitudes. It teems with triumph
and treachery, freedom and slavery, equality and oppression.<br />
<br />
But here’s one thing we might resuscitate. We could improve upon our early 19th century predecessors’ global
awareness and interest, their conviction that our welfare was intertwined with that of foreigners. We could
reject Trump’s belligerent isolationism in favor of international goodwill. And we might consider that such
hemispheric hopefulness and inclusive cosmopolitanism are an American tradition too.<br />
<br />
<br />
Caitlin Fitz is an assistant professor of history at Northwestern University and author of “Our Sister
Republics: The United States in an Age of American Revolutions.”<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06168360738962673384noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8704236655602421604.post-65680973957241124212016-08-17T11:30:00.002-07:002018-06-09T15:50:19.147-07:00REPOST: Exclusive Interview with Ann Coulter On The Upcoming Latino Vote!<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-y_mvmGBXASE/UuEdsPgUKKI/AAAAAAAAD3s/jkd374CjrIk/s1600/20131109_063703.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-y_mvmGBXASE/UuEdsPgUKKI/AAAAAAAAD3s/jkd374CjrIk/s1600/20131109_063703.jpg" width="240"></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8px;">Ann Coulter with Jaime Rojas</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="color: #cccccc;">By Jaime Rojas, Jr.</span><br>
<span style="color: #cccccc;">Jimmy's Politico</span><br>
<br>
<h4>
<span style="color: #cccccc;">(This piece is dedicated to NBClatino.com...thank you for the opportunity you gave me. May the decision made by NBC.com be for the better and the positive future of our Latino community!)</span></h4>
<span style="color: #cccccc;"><br></span>
<div dir="ltr" id="yui_3_13_0_ym1_1_1390481897152_8442" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
</div>
<div dir="ltr" id="yui_3_13_0_ym1_1_1390481897152_8442" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: #cccccc;"><span id="yui_3_13_0_ym1_1_1390481897152_8441" style="font-family: "arial"; vertical-align: baseline;">Describing her as polarizing is an understatement. Many perceive Ann Coulter to be divisive and at times even anti-Latino. One of the columns she included in her new book, "Never Trust A Liberal Over 3 - Especially a Republican," is entitled "America Nears El Tipping Pointo." </span></span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" id="yui_3_13_0_ym1_1_1390481897152_8442" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
</div>
<div dir="ltr" id="yui_3_13_0_ym1_1_1390481897152_8442" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: #cccccc;"><span id="yui_3_13_0_ym1_1_1390481897152_8441" style="font-family: "arial"; vertical-align: baseline;">In it, she states: "No amount of 'reaching out' to the Hispanic community, effective 'messaging,' or Reagan's 'optimism' is going to turn Mexico's underclass into Republicans."Now, these are precisely the kinds of comments that makes so many Latino voters think there is no way they would ever turn to the Republican party.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; vertical-align: baseline;"></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; vertical-align: baseline;"><br></span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" id="yui_3_13_0_ym1_1_1390481897152_8448" style="font-family: arial; line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: #cccccc;">But interestingly enough, even Ann Coulter realizes the GOP needs the Latino vote. "Any election analysis that doesn't deal with the implacable fact of America's changing demographics is bound to be wrong." </span></span></div>
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</div>
<div dir="ltr" id="yui_3_13_0_ym1_1_1390481897152_8448" style="font-family: arial; line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: #cccccc;"> In her new book, she outlines to those Republicans and conservatives who want to listen a basic strategy for GOP success.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: #cccccc;"><br></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: #cccccc;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; vertical-align: baseline;"></span></span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" id="yui_3_13_0_ym1_1_1390481897152_8450" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: #cccccc;"><span id="yui_3_13_0_ym1_1_1390481897152_8449" style="font-family: "arial"; vertical-align: baseline;">This may be surprising, but as a Republican Latino - and there are many of us out there, but mostly in hiding nowadays - I agree with some of Ann's opinions. </span></span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" id="yui_3_13_0_ym1_1_1390481897152_8450" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
</div>
<div dir="ltr" id="yui_3_13_0_ym1_1_1390481897152_8450" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: #cccccc;"><span id="yui_3_13_0_ym1_1_1390481897152_8449" style="font-family: "arial"; vertical-align: baseline;">Don't get crazy with me now - I said "some" of her opinions. When she is not hurling insults, Coulter brings up some good points on how Republicans need to shift gears if they want to win elections.</span></span></span></div>
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</div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: #cccccc;">"Conservatives, we need to adopt the smart things Democrats do, not the stupid ones. We like their persistence, but not their plans to wreck the country. We like the part about winning elections, not the part about jamming execrable policies down the nation's throat."</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: large; vertical-align: baseline;"><br></span></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="http://youtu.be/m_tsTvq-zSw"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-fIx8hSI0-IU/UuEeXwU0IsI/AAAAAAAAD30/reee2W6CiHc/s1600/20131109_063048.jpg" width="240"></a></span></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8px;"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="http://youtu.be/m_tsTvq-zSw">CLICK HERE to watch VIDEO INTERVIEW!</a></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: #cccccc;"><br></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: #cccccc;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; vertical-align: baseline;"></span></span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" id="yui_3_13_0_ym1_1_1390481897152_8455" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: #cccccc;"><span id="yui_3_13_0_ym1_1_1390481897152_8454" style="font-family: "arial"; vertical-align: baseline;">So how does she propose winning? </span></span></span><br>
<br>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: #cccccc;"><span id="yui_3_13_0_ym1_1_1390481897152_8454" style="font-family: "arial"; vertical-align: baseline;">For one, I strongly believe in Ann's comments that the GOP needs to focus on "how to win" elections by picking the strongest Republican candidates that showcase the diversity of the party and not the extreme views of the party. </span></span></span><br>
<br>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: #cccccc;"><span id="yui_3_13_0_ym1_1_1390481897152_8454" style="font-family: "arial"; vertical-align: baseline;">She stated that Republicans should stay focused on the party's message - in order to gain support from Latinos and other minorities in America.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: #cccccc;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; vertical-align: baseline;"></span></span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: #cccccc;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; vertical-align: baseline;">Coulter adds that "part of the problem Republicans always have in reaching out to Latinos and women ... is that they do not stick to the core principles of the Party ... believing in freedom, opportunity and hope in America." </span></span></span><br>
<br>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: #cccccc;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; vertical-align: baseline;">The GOP can begin preaching these core believes via action by finally putting together a comprehensive immigration policy. What better way to support freedom, opportunity and hope in America!</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: #cccccc;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; vertical-align: baseline;"></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: #cccccc;"><span id="yui_3_13_0_ym1_1_1390481897152_8475" style="font-family: "arial"; vertical-align: baseline;">I asked Ann whether the recent re-election by New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, where he received 51 percent of the Latino vote, is a GOP roadmap on how to outreach to Latinos. Coulter says "this is a great indicator for the GOP on how to appeal to the Latino voter. </span></span></span><br>
<br>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: #cccccc;"><span id="yui_3_13_0_ym1_1_1390481897152_8475" style="font-family: "arial"; vertical-align: baseline;"> Conservatives should reach out to the Latino community, but they are currently doing it the wrong way."</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: #cccccc;"><br></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: #cccccc;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; vertical-align: baseline;"></span></span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" id="yui_3_13_0_ym1_1_1390481897152_8473" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: #cccccc;"><span id="yui_3_13_0_ym1_1_1390481897152_8472" style="font-family: "arial"; vertical-align: baseline;">On immigration, Coulter does not believe "amnesty" - providing a path to citizenship to undocumented immigrants - is the way to appeal to Latinos. </span></span></span><br>
<br>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: #cccccc;"><span id="yui_3_13_0_ym1_1_1390481897152_8472" style="font-family: "arial"; vertical-align: baseline;">She mentioned that some polls show immigration is not the top priority for some Latino voters, saying that "scratchy toilet paper ranks higher than amnesty for Latinos in America." </span></span></span><br>
<br>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: #cccccc;"><span id="yui_3_13_0_ym1_1_1390481897152_8472" style="font-family: "arial"; vertical-align: baseline;">She also adds that "...for the poorest and working class of this country – these are the people that will get hurt most with amnesty being passed in this country."</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: #cccccc;"><br></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: #cccccc;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; vertical-align: baseline;"></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: #cccccc;"><span id="yui_3_13_0_ym1_1_1390481897152_8469" style="font-family: "arial"; vertical-align: baseline;">Coulter has a myopia view of immigration by only looking at amnesty. I am shocked that as a staunch Republican she does not follow in the beliefs of her idol President Reagan who granted "amnesty" to so many in the 80's. </span></span></span><br>
<br>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: #cccccc;"><span id="yui_3_13_0_ym1_1_1390481897152_8469" style="font-family: "arial"; vertical-align: baseline;">But again total reform is needed to give America's immigration policy a complete and much needed overhaul:</span></span></span></div>
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<br></div>
<div dir="ltr" id="yui_3_13_0_ym1_1_1390481897152_8468" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><a href="http://nbclatino.com/2013/11/25/as-president-makes-another-push-for-immigration-reform-poll-finds-majority-support-path-to-citizenship/" id="yui_3_13_0_ym1_1_1390481897152_8467" rel="nofollow" style="text-decoration: none;" target="_blank"><span id="yui_3_13_0_ym1_1_1390481897152_8466" style="color: #1155cc; font-family: "arial"; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">http://nbclatino.com/2013/11/25/as-president-makes-another-push-for-immigration-reform-poll-finds-majority-support-path-to-citizenship/</span></a></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: large; vertical-align: baseline;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: #cccccc;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; vertical-align: baseline;"><br></span></span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" id="yui_3_13_0_ym1_1_1390481897152_8464" style="font-family: arial; line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: #cccccc;">But like many Republicans and Americans for that matter forget that amnesty does not equal comprehensive immigration policy. </span></span><br>
<br>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: #cccccc;">Amnesty is only one element of many parts that make up the whole on immigration reform in this country. Let's just follow the strategy the Republican President Ronald Reagan, the great communicator and Californian, who made comprehensive immigration policy happen....almost 30 years ago.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: #cccccc;"><br></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: #cccccc;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; vertical-align: baseline;"></span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: #cccccc;"><span id="yui_3_13_0_ym1_1_1390481897152_8458" style="font-family: "arial"; vertical-align: baseline;">Can the GOP finally be listening or is this just Coulter "marketing" to sell more books? Or maybe I can just tutor Ann in the art of compassion, which is the truly the American way!</span></span></span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06168360738962673384noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8704236655602421604.post-54874843591912986612016-08-09T09:14:00.000-07:002016-08-09T09:14:39.525-07:00The sinking fantasy that Trump would defend the Constitution<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-BEvf0s6IMCE/V6n-Z26nIaI/AAAAAAAAEfk/-RIJRJCeoq4ApXcCb-aqyWiCeZuuQSszQCEw/s1600/trump%2Bpic.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-BEvf0s6IMCE/V6n-Z26nIaI/AAAAAAAAEfk/-RIJRJCeoq4ApXcCb-aqyWiCeZuuQSszQCEw/s400/trump%2Bpic.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><h3>
<span style="color: #6e6e6e; font-family: FranklinITCProLight, HelveticaNeue, "Helvetica Neue Light", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, "Lucida Grande", sans-serif; line-height: 20px; text-align: start;"><span style="font-size: small;">Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump speaks in Portland, Maine, on Thursday. (Sarah Rice/Getty Images)</span></span></h3>
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<br /><br />By George Will<br /><br /><br />Like shipwrecked mariners clinging to a floating mast, many Republicans rationalize supporting Donald Trump because of
“the court.” This two word incantation means: Because we care so much for the Constitution, it is supremely important to
entrust to Trump the making of Supreme Court nominations. Well.<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
In a Republican candidates debate, Trump complained that Ted Cruz had criticized Trump’s sister, a federal judge. Trump
said: “He’s been criticizing my sister for signing a certain bill. You know who else signed that bill? Justice Samuel Alito, a very
conservative member of the Supreme Court, with my sister, signed that bill.” Trump, the supposed savior of the Supreme
Court, thinks federal judges sign bills.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
The mast clingers say: Well, sure, he knows nothing about U.S. government, including the Constitution, which he vows to
defend all the way to “Article XII.” He will, however, choose wise advisers and humbly defer to them. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
This does not quite seem like him, but the mast clingers say: Don’t worry, he already has compiled a list of admirable potential
nominees, and, stickler that he is for consistency and predictability, he will stick to this script written by strangers. This, too,
does not quite seem like Trump, but the mastclingers say: Don’t worry, he has said enough to reveal what his “instincts” are.
Indeed he has.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
The court’s two most important decisions in this century are Kelo and Citizens United. Conservatives loathe Kelo; Trump loves
it. Conservatives celebrate Citizens United; Trump repeats the strident rhetoric of its liberal detractors.
Kelo did radical damage to property rights. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
The Constitution says private property shall not be taken “for public use” without
just compensation. Until Kelo, the court had held that “for public use” meant for something used by the general public (e.g.,
roads, public buildings) or to remove blight.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
In Kelo, the court held, 5 to 4, that the government of New London, Conn.,
behaved constitutionally when it bulldozed a residential neighborhood for the “public use” of transferring the land to a corporation that would pay more taxes than the neighborhood’s residents paid to the government. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Trump’s interests as a
developer and a big government authoritarian converge in his enthusiasm for Kelo.
Citizens United said that Americans do not forfeit their free speech rights when they band together in corporate form to
magnify their political advocacy. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
The court held that the First Amendment protects from government restriction independent
(not coordinated with candidates’ campaigns) candidate advocacy by Americans acting collectively through corporations,
especially nonprofit advocacy corporations such as the Sierra Club and the National Rifle Association.
Hillary Clinton favors amending the First Amendment to empower government to regulate the quantity, content and timing of
campaign speech about the government’s composition and conduct. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
It would do this by regulating campaign spending, most of
which funds the dissemination of speech. The rationale for this, and for the broader liberal objective of replacing private
funding with public funding of politics, is the theory that politicians are easily bought and that private contributions breed
quid pro quo corruption. Trump loudly voices this proposition. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
The court has said that campaign speech regulations can be justified to combat corruption or the appearance thereof. Trump
says he has made innumerable contributions to members of both parties because, “When you give, they do whatever the hell
you want them to do.” </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Before he decided to solicit contributors, he said his wealth made him the only candidate impervious to corruption. It is
unlikely that he would nominate to the court people who believe that the First Amendment, properly construed, requires the
deregulation of political speech. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
The mast clingers should remember that Trump’s hostility to First Amendment values is
apparent in his desire to “loosen” libel laws, thereby making it easier to sue or intimidate people who criticize people like him. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Most mastclingers are properly dismayed by President Obama’s anti-constitutional use of executive orders to implement
policies Congress refuses to enact. Trump promises more executive orders: “I’m going to use them much better, and they’re
going to serve a much better purpose than he’s done.” So, mastclingers straining to justify themselves by invoking “the court”
are saying this:
Granted, Trump knows nothing about current debates concerning the court’s proper role. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
We will, however, trust that he will
suddenly become deferential to others’ preferences about judges. And we will ignore his promise to continue Obama’s
authoritarian uses of the executive branch that will further degrade the legislative branch. We will do this because we care so
very much for the Constitution. </div>
<div>
<div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06168360738962673384noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8704236655602421604.post-77833301329394769232016-08-05T10:37:00.001-07:002016-08-05T10:38:07.386-07:00My newest book goes on Pre-Release Sale for only $12!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://www.rojascommunications.com/buy-book"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-3MtqWiGZ3rM/V6TOHTDD48I/AAAAAAAAEfU/kq3UHC5R044SMZvFy8LxpXSxp16Hi6giACLcB/s400/book%2Bflyer%2B%25233.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<span aria-live="polite" class="fbPhotosPhotoCaption" data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" id="fbPhotoSnowliftCaption" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; display: inline; font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px; outline: none; width: auto;" tabindex="0"><span class="hasCaption" data-gt="{"timeline_og_unit_click":"1","app_id":"124024574287414","action_type_id":"282366618453208","object_type":"instapp:photo","unit_id":"447280888645770","og_ref":"ogexp","is_intentional":"1"}">Pre-release sale of my newest book <b>"The Fiscal Conservative's Pocket Constitution"</b> for only $12. Buy it today! <a class="_58cn" data-ft="{"tn":"*N","type":104}" href="https://www.facebook.com/hashtag/advocacy" style="color: #365899; cursor: pointer; text-decoration: none;">#advocacy</a> <a class="_58cn" data-ft="{"tn":"*N","type":104}" href="https://www.facebook.com/hashtag/constitution" style="color: #365899; cursor: pointer; text-decoration: none;">#constitution</a> <a class="_58cn" data-ft="{"tn":"*N","type":104}" href="https://www.facebook.com/hashtag/rcg" style="color: #365899; cursor: pointer; text-decoration: none;">#RCG</a></span></span><span class="fbPhotoTagList" id="fbPhotoSnowliftTagList" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; display: inline; font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;"><span class="fcg" style="color: #90949c;"> </span></span><br />
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<span class="fbPhotoTagList" style="background-color: white; display: inline; font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;"><span class="fcg">You can buy your copy at</span><span class="fcg" style="color: #90949c;"> <a href="http://www.rojascommunications.com/buy-book">www.rojascommunications.com/buy-book</a> .</span></span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06168360738962673384noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8704236655602421604.post-32393845961390055022016-08-01T09:28:00.000-07:002016-08-01T09:30:02.548-07:00Khizer Khan to Donald Trump: Have You Read the U.S. Constitution?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://youtu.be/7ASv_z6fUzk"><img border="0" height="220" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ygRZLx84vfI/V59y438pBTI/AAAAAAAAEe4/YfWMt3vo1qo9Vs34SUZ8MSa3k-W2r8MVACEw/s400/khan%2Bpic.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
By Ghazala Khan<br />
<br />
CHARLOTTESVILLE<br />
Donald Trump has asked why I did not speak at the Democratic convention. He said he would like to hear from me. Here is my
answer to Donald Trump: Because without saying a thing, all the world, all America, felt my pain. I am a Gold Star mother.
Whoever saw me felt me in their heart.<br />
<br />
Donald Trump said I had nothing to say. I do. My son Humayun Khan, an Army captain, died 12 years ago in Iraq. He loved
America, where we moved when he was 2 years old. He had volunteered to help his country, signing up for the ROTC at the
University of Virginia. This was before the attack of Sept. 11, 2001. He didn’t have to do this, but he wanted to.<br />
<br />
When Humayun was sent to Iraq, my husband and I worried about his safety. I had already been through one war, in Pakistan in
1965, when I was just a high school student. So I was very scared. You can sacrifice yourself, but you cannot take it that your kids
will do this.<br />
<br />
We asked if there was some way he could not go, because he had already done his service. He said it was his duty. I cannot forget
when he was going to the plane, and he looked back at me. He was happy, and giving me strength: “Don’t worry, Mom.
Everything will be all right.”<br />
<br />
The last time I spoke to my son was on Mother’s Day 2004. We had asked him to call us collect whenever he could. I begged him
to be safe. I asked him to stay back, and not to go running around trying to become a hero, because I knew he would do
something like that.<br />
<br />
He said, “Mom, these are my soldiers, these are my people. I have to take care of them.” He was killed by a car bomber outside
He said, “Mom, these are my soldiers, these are my people. I have to take care of them.” He was killed by a car bomber outside
the gates of his base. He died trying to save his soldiers and innocent civilians.<br />
<br />
That is my son. Humayun was always dependable. If I was vacuuming the house and he was home, he would take the vacuum
from my hand and clean the house. He volunteered to teach disabled children in the hospital how to swim. He said, “Ilove when
they have a little bit of progress and their faces, they light up. At least they are that much happy.” He wanted to be a lawyer, like
his father, to help people.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://youtu.be/Xzkkk-oJ6bo" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-7r6FrstnlJ4/V590KsI28cI/AAAAAAAAEfE/dqrVIuiJPJ8JTnsOKpfr1UGu6GXzdockgCLcB/s400/Khan%2Bpic2.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">CLICK HERE to hear his speech at the DNC Convention</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<br />
<br />
Humayun is my middle son, and the others are doing so well, but every day Ifeel the pain of his loss. It has been 12 years, but
you know hearts of pain can never heal as long as we live. Just talking about it is hard for me all the time. Every day, whenever I
pray, I have to pray for him, and I cry. The place that emptied will always be empty.<br />
<br />
I cannot walk into a room with pictures of Humayun. For all these years, I haven’t been able to clean the closet where his things
are — I had to ask my daughterinlaw to do it. Walking onto the convention stage, with a huge picture of my son behind me, I
could hardly control myself. What mother could? Donald Trump has children whom he loves. Does he really need to wonder
why I did not speak?<br />
<br />
Donald Trump said that maybe I wasn’t allowed to say anything. That is not true. My husband asked me if I wanted to speak, but
Itold him I could not. My religion teaches me that all human beings are equal in God’s eyes. Husband and wife are part of each
other; you should love and respect each other so you can take care of the family.<br />
<br />
When Donald Trump is talking about Islam, he is ignorant. If he studied the real Islam and Koran, all the ideas he gets from
terrorists would change, because terrorism is a different religion.<br />
<br />
Donald Trump said he has made a lot of sacrifices. He doesn’t know what the word sacrifice means.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06168360738962673384noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8704236655602421604.post-59657617354807243212016-07-26T15:55:00.000-07:002016-07-26T15:55:40.494-07:00The Latino 'Brand' Is Alive and Well at the DNC, As It Should Be<h2 style="text-align: center;">
<br /></h2>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-J1xDevc46Es/V5fo1P0SV0I/AAAAAAAAEeg/AsEoFdD4h_kfzq9b_cha17bLi5AyJs-LACLcB/s1600/latinos.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="243" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-J1xDevc46Es/V5fo1P0SV0I/AAAAAAAAEeg/AsEoFdD4h_kfzq9b_cha17bLi5AyJs-LACLcB/s400/latinos.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<h4>
By Stephen A. Nuno</h4>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
PHILADELPHIA — Democratic National Committee operatives came under fire this week on social
media and in posts for leaked emails in which Latinos were labeled as a "brand." </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Yet at the Latino Leaders Luncheon on Tuesday, part of the Democratic convention's activities, the
event was a clear display of Latino branding and business generation based on the image of
Hispanics as an emerging political and cultural force in Washington and throughout our nation. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
With almost half of Latinos born in the millennial generation, Latino pop culture will become as
valuable as their votes. And their votes matter: More than 40 percent of the eligible Hispanic
electorate in 2016 is millennial.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
There are about 55 million Hispanics in the U.S., and their purchasing power has been estimated at
over one and a half trillion dollars. Corporate America know this; the function was sponsored by
companies such as Geico, AnheuserBusch and Southwest Airlines.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-69omMxAhx0Y/V5fpWl77ncI/AAAAAAAAEek/OZRAhz0zUr43otsOERj_Sc_JskOd5_GhgCLcB/s1600/dinner.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="298" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-69omMxAhx0Y/V5fpWl77ncI/AAAAAAAAEek/OZRAhz0zUr43otsOERj_Sc_JskOd5_GhgCLcB/s400/dinner.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div>
All of this "branding" power allows us to flex our political muscle through our numbers and our growing
political presence. And politicians take notice. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
At the luncheon, the senior senator from New York, Chuck Schumer said to those assembled, "If I
become [Senate] Majority Leader, we will pass comprehensive immigration reform." </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
This statement was immediately followed by a remark from Mickey Ibarra, a longtime Washington
lobbyist and Beltway insider, who was the honoree of the luncheon. "And we will hold you
accountable," said Ibarra in a friendly but pointed tone. Democratic legislators know they cannot
discount the Hispanic vote.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
At the event, Latino elected officials rubbed shoulders with consultants vying to expand their network
to capitalize on the growing Hispanic image within the Democratic Party and around the country. The
long list of elected officials included Congresswoman Linda Sanchez, the Chairwoman of the Hispanic
Caucus, former Los Angeles Mayor, Antonio Villaraigosa, former Governor of New Mexico, Bill.
Richardson, and Julian Castro, Secretary of Housing and Urban Development.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-HdO5GssIO08/V5fp5R46-jI/AAAAAAAAEeo/NFEcwd9-xeUIi8ADubBqleTlWvxp-arbQCLcB/s1600/banner.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-HdO5GssIO08/V5fp5R46-jI/AAAAAAAAEeo/NFEcwd9-xeUIi8ADubBqleTlWvxp-arbQCLcB/s400/banner.jpg" width="300" /></a></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
While some may scoff at the notion of Latinos as a brand, any political or social movement must be
keenly aware of how they are viewed by society in general and broad acceptance brings power,
money, and the ability to change policy.
Latinos at the overflowing room of leaders and government officials have spent years honing the
Latino brand, and its effectiveness was evident in the room. </div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06168360738962673384noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8704236655602421604.post-88476531589232652462016-07-20T12:31:00.001-07:002018-06-10T10:10:13.096-07:00Opinion: The Party of Lincoln is Dead, But Don't Just Blame Donald Trump<h1 itemprop="headline"> <br></h1><h1 itemprop="headline"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-vOxX1ZsJ9yE/V4_N1m5Y_4I/AAAAAAAAEeA/NoQHk8JoEjgUem9B6yPiRooHegWUqFNjACLcB/s1600/trump.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-vOxX1ZsJ9yE/V4_N1m5Y_4I/AAAAAAAAEeA/NoQHk8JoEjgUem9B6yPiRooHegWUqFNjACLcB/s400/trump.jpg" width="400"></a></div>
</h1>
<h4>
by Stephen A. Nuno - NBC.com</h4>
<br>
CLEVELAND<strong> </strong>-- Make no mistake, the party of Lincoln
is dead, but don't blame Donald Trump. The real Republican Party signed
its death warrant the day it embraced the land of Dixie and the kinds of
politics whom the Party of Lincoln spilled vast sums of American blood
and treasure to cripple. <br>
<br>
A party who sends Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama, who once came<a href="http://www.npr.org/2016/07/14/486011917/sen-jeff-sessions-loyal-to-trump-defined-by-race-and-immigration"> under scrutiny</a>
for his checkered racial past, to speak at their convention about his
concern over Hispanic and black unemployment can only be seen as a gross
attempt at ridicule.<br>
<br>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://youtu.be/B66fOJOaJZE" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="170" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-WBIUFygz3jQ/V4_Oq3BT6CI/AAAAAAAAEeE/NaTY-FvHwe0bhODAMVFWYmv0eXfJsO-KQCLcB/s320/jeff%2Bsessions.png" width="320"></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://youtu.be/B66fOJOaJZE">Senator Jeff Sessions Speech at the RNC Convention</a></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"> </td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"> </td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"> </td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"> </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br>
Party platforms are important statements about the principles that
bind political parties together and the recent release of the <a href="https://prod-static-ngop-pbl.s3.amazonaws.com/media/documents/DRAFT_12_FINAL%5B1%5D-ben_1468872234.pdf">2016 GOP</a>
solidifies the Republican Party as the most anti-immigrant force in
American politics today. The policy proposals are standard Republican
fare, but the hostile tone of the platform towards immigrants is
reflective of the GOP's descent. <br>
<br>
The platform mentions "aliens" seven times, and
the section on Immigration and The Rule of Law is a deliberate affront
to immigrants. The platform encourages the implementation of a new
internet-based verification system, called S.A.V.E., which stands for
Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements. It supports building a
border "wall along the entirety of the southern border", even though <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/trumps-border-wall-would-cost-billions-n396551&source=gmail&ust=1469024874152000&usg=AFQjCNEQqeJk3orGZ8F4cd5LMLYxfURCiw" href="http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/trumps-border-wall-would-cost-billions-n396551" target="_blank">experts agree</a>
it's a pretty ludicrous - and ridiculously expensive - proposition. But
much of this language was already in the Party platform, as was its
hostility. For instance, the word "alien" was in the 2012 platform ten
times, while it is in the 2016 document seven times. The SAVE program is
a retread of 2012, as well. <br>
<br>
The entire document reaffirms the anxiety that
propelled Donald Trump to the nomination, mentioning a derivative of the
word "terror" 25 times (the 2012 Platform used the word 29 times), and
comforts whomever supports it by clearly communicating its disdain for
immigrants, foreigners, and people generally seen as incapable of
becoming American. <br>
<br>
This would be a profound disappointment to our Founding Fathers, and frankly, the originators of the Republican Party itself. <br>
<br>
Days before the Republican convention and having
just celebrated the birth of our Nation on the Fourth of July, it is
useful to revisit the principles of our country. Among those ideals of
liberty, equality, and justice, this country has struggled to rectify
these honorable endeavors with the ugliness of racism and the very real
American belief in the supremacy of whiteness. However, to say racism is
an American ideal is not a radical statement. <br>
<br>
The Constitution chiseled into the soul of this
country the notion that black Americans were not equal to whites. The
Declaration of Independence began a path to war against King George
over, among other things, immigration, but it was white immigration and
white citizenship that was of greatest concern to the colonists. <br>
<br>
Once the American Revolution was won, among the
first acts of Congress was to determine who could become American
citizens. The <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://www.indiana.edu/~kdhist/H105-documents-web/week08/naturalization1790.html&source=gmail&ust=1469024874152000&usg=AFQjCNFK-n7R4bxkYvVrt4_Y3ciWwNgBgw" href="http://www.indiana.edu/%7Ekdhist/H105-documents-web/week08/naturalization1790.html" target="_blank">Naturalization Act of 1790</a>
stated "That any Alien being a free white person, who shall have
resided within the limits and under the jurisdiction of the United
States for the term of two years, may be admitted to become a citizen…" <br>
<br>
The history of American immigration is rife with
examples of the country trying to socially engineer whiteness as an
ideal. The <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?flash%3Dtrue%26doc%3D47&source=gmail&ust=1469024874152000&usg=AFQjCNGofmqXLiT7641yMP-_PoJGzpV-Ew" href="https://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?flash=true&doc=47" target="_blank">1882 Chinese Exclusion Act</a>
sought to erect a great wall between the United States and China as
white labor grew increasingly restless with competition from the East.
The 1924 Quotas Act (Johnson-Reed Act) sought to turn the clock back on
the influx of Eastern European immigrants infecting the country. <br>
<br>
During the debates over the passage of the act, Senator Ellison
DuRant Smith of South Carolina said, "The time has come when we should
shut the door and keep what we have for what we hope our own people to
be." What the Senator "hoped" our people should be, was to retain what
racial purity the country had lost with the growth of immigration. Only
six senators voted against the immigration bill. <br>
<a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://www.pbs.org/wnet/jimcrow/stories_events_birth.html&source=gmail&ust=1469024874152000&usg=AFQjCNHBEB38kkkqppsRoTucnEDQvDxE2Q" href="http://www.pbs.org/wnet/jimcrow/stories_events_birth.html" target="_blank">D.W. Griffith's "Birth of a Nation"</a>
had captured the imagination of the country and had capitalized on the
anxiety of whites over the inclusion of African Americans into society.
President <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/wilson/portrait/wp_african.html&source=gmail&ust=1469024874152000&usg=AFQjCNGN6J8P3Q-y0-ownFWDO0F8rBaMfw" href="http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/wilson/portrait/wp_african.html" target="_blank">Woodrow Wilson</a>
hosted a screening of the film in the White House and worked diligently
to resegregate Federal workers. He also justified the presence of the
Ku Klux Klan as defenders of their way of life and was illustrative of
the racial sentiment of the time. <br>
<br>
The Republican Party, however, was borne out of
different ideals. Out of the ashes of the struggle between Democrats and
Whigs emerged a truly radical party who sought to make good on the
promises of the original principles of this country to form a union
based on the ideals of liberty, equality, and fairness. <br>
<br>
The 1860 party platform fashioned by these
radicals sought an expansion of the original Founder's conception of
immigration and sought to extend the rights of passage and
naturalization to all. <br>
It was the <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid%3D29621&source=gmail&ust=1469024874152000&usg=AFQjCNEciMeQvghS1F8tHcGdVz0xapkGLg" href="http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=29621" target="_blank">party platform of Lincoln, in 1864</a>,
amidst the rubble and anxiety of the Civil War, which stated, "That
foreign immigration, which in the past has added so much to the wealth,
development of resources and increase of power to the nation, the asylum
of the oppressed of all nations, should be fostered and encouraged by a
liberal and just policy." <br>
<br>
And just four years before, these radicals
sought to expand the rights to all migrants, stating that the
Republicans were "in favor of giving a full and efficient protection to
the rights of all classes of citizens, whether native or naturalized,
both at home and abroad". <br>
<br>
The death of the GOP this country once knew
began with the embrace of Southern whites. Decades later, this
perversion of the Republican Party can be readily seen throughout.<br>
<br>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://youtu.be/med0tr9q5Fs" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="166" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-A5CMfATI7Zw/V4_Px4w34wI/AAAAAAAAEeM/lbOksa1b91Myi-f6r0VjaCWKgxP8jVlwACLcB/s320/steve%2Bking.png" width="320"></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://youtu.be/med0tr9q5Fs">GOP Senator Steve King Jaw Dropping Statements</a></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"> </td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"> </td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"> </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br>
Iowa congressman Steve King said on Monday that "this 'old, white
people' business does get a little tired," going on to say that no
"subgroups" had contributed as much to society. When asked by MSNBC host
Chris Hayes if he was referring to white people, he said "western
civilization." <br>
<br>
No doubt Rep. King forgot that excluding every
place that contributed to society but Western Europe would include the
birthplace of Jesus and before that the societies that brought us
algebra and other mathematics, medicine and astronomy and the Code of
Hammurabi, one of the first forms of law. <br>
<br>
By the way, a confederate flag <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://www.omaha.com/news/politics/rep-steve-king-draws-criticism-for-having-confederate-flag-on/article_7d870961-c77e-5870-a150-268e538e2e8e.html&source=gmail&ust=1469024874153000&usg=AFQjCNFCwdSTtE3pa_t2DEySZLU4mbJPkQ" href="http://www.omaha.com/news/politics/rep-steve-king-draws-criticism-for-having-confederate-flag-on/article_7d870961-c77e-5870-a150-268e538e2e8e.html" target="_blank">sits on the desk</a>
of Rep. King, a duly elected representative of a state that once shed
blood fighting to preserve the union against the racist framework of the
Confederacy. It's an unconscionable reminder of the values and history
of this country's original sin. <br>
<br>
The Republican Party chose the <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/monkey-cage/wp/2015/06/24/republicans-say-goodbye-to-the-confederate-flag-and-hello-to-a-new-strategy/&source=gmail&ust=1469024874153000&usg=AFQjCNF0CwHhN0b3e2T4mntPSaIqHd6J7w" href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/monkey-cage/wp/2015/06/24/republicans-say-goodbye-to-the-confederate-flag-and-hello-to-a-new-strategy/" target="_blank">Southern Strategy</a>
as an explicit attempt to attract southern whites to the GOP. Donald
Trump has amplified on this, making Latinos and the southwestern border
one of his main targets. <br>
<br>
The party platform is following Trump, taking
the GOP proposed anti-immigrant stance to new heights, though it is not
much different from past platforms in its intent. The first modern GOP
platform to make "illegal aliens" a part of its cause was in 1972, and
it was the party of Nixon who first organized the GOP to establish a
policy infrastructure that appealed to whites throughout the South. The
statements against "aliens" have not left the party platform since, and
the party of Trump has run with it. <br>
<br>
The latest platform reaffirms the GOP's call to change the way we count human beings living in our cities and states. " <br>
<br>
"We
urge our elected representatives to ensure that citizenship, rather
than mere residency, be made the basis for the apportionment of
representatives among the states," the <a href="https://prod-static-ngop-pbl.s3.amazonaws.com/media/documents/DRAFT_12_FINAL%5B1%5D-ben_1468872234.pdf">platform states</a>.<br>
<br>
For
anyone trying to convince you this is still the "party of Lincoln",
recall that his party once sought "full and efficient protection to the
rights of all classes of citizens", not a new twist on separate but
equal where Americans are distinguished from one and other by the
government.<br>
<br>
The Republican platform takes the worst of America's
ideals and, once again, attempts to turn the clock back in a time of
high anxiety over the future of what it means to be white in America.<br>
<br>
Trump
has not emerged out of nowhere. He has emerged from the soul of this
country, which Lincoln gave his life to changing. Going into the
convention, the platform reinforces this stance. The Republican Party
will endure, but make no mistake, it is no longer the Party of Lincoln,
and it has not been for a very long time.<br>
<div itemprop="headline">
<br></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06168360738962673384noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8704236655602421604.post-64210276465014119142016-07-18T20:21:00.000-07:002016-07-20T12:31:46.116-07:00With Markedly Fewer Latinos at Republican Convention, Meet 3 Delegates<br />
<br />
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<h2 style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-weight: normal;">With Markedly Fewer Latinos at Republican Convention,Meet 3 Delegates</span></h2>
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-weight: normal;"> </span><span class="byline"><span class="lowercase">by</span> <span class="byline_author" itemprop="author">Suzanne Gamboa</span> <span class="lowercase">and</span> <span class="byline_author" itemprop="author">Victoria DeFrancesco Soto - NBC.com</span></span></h3>
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span class="byline"><span class="byline_author" itemprop="author"> </span></span></h3>
CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Donald Trump will come to the 2016 Republican
National Convention to find a shrunken Latino presence, but it will not
be absent. <br />
<br />
Even though Trump started his campaign bashing
Mexicans, promising to build a wall on the border, saying those here
illegally "have to go" and calling a U.S.-born federal judge Mexican
while questioning the judge's competence, there are Latinos who say
Trump is this election's better candidate and that they will cast their
vote for him to be the party nominee. <br />
<br />
Not all have been Trump supporters throughout.
Some are part of a thus far unsuccessful movement to allow delegates to
vote for the candidate they choose, an attempt to keep Trump from being
the nominee. Others have switched to Trump after their first choice
bowed out. Some just want to beat Hillary Clinton. <br />
<b></b><br />
The convention begins Monday, after a week in
which Trump named Indiana Gov. Mike Pence as his running mate and scored
a victory in preventing a rules change in the Republican platform
committee that threatened his nomination. <br />
<b></b><br />
In marked contrast to 2012, when rising Hispanic
Republican stars like New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez, Nevada Gov.
Brian Sandoval and Florida Sen. Marco Rubio rallied the convention
delegates and put a more diverse face on the party, what is remarkable
about 2016 is the few Latinos who will be there. The initial roster of
speakers for this convention only included Texas Sen. Ted Cruz.
<br />
<br />
A group of Latino conservatives who have been harsh and vocal critics of Trump <a href="http://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/group-latino-conservatives-are-now-backing-trump-n611661">said Monday</a>
that they are backing the presumptive GOP nominee to get a Republican
administration in the White House after recent terror events and
shootings. But many Hispanic elected officials and other prominent
Latinos who served in previous administrations are not attending. <br />
<b><br /></b> <br />
The convention also comes after the latest NBC/Wall Street Journal Marist poll shows the presumptive Democratic nominee <a href="http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/2016-conventions/clinton-leads-trump-diverse-battleground-states-new-polls-n609551">Hillary Clinton ahead of Trump in four of the most diverse presidential battleground states</a>, Colorado, Florida, North Carolina and Virginia. <br />
Nonetheless, there are several Latinos excited
to be at the convention and among them those who are enthusiastically
supporting Trump. They recognize the diminished Latino presence but are
optimistic about their party's chances for the White House and Congress.
<br />
<br />
Here are summaries of conversations from three of the delegates who talked to NBC News before arriving in Cleveland: <br />
<br />
<b>JESSICA FERNANDEZ, Florida delegate</b> <br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
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<div class="js-caption_wrapper">
<h4>
<figcaption class="img-caption img-caption_default no-margin-bottom"><span class="img-caption_txt">Jessica Fernandez, a Donald Trump delegate from Florida to the 2016 Republican National Conveniton</span> Florida Federation of Young Republicans</figcaption>
</h4>
</div>
</figure>
Believed to be the youngest delegate from the
state of Florida, 31-year-old Jessica Fernandez comes to the convention
with a sense of duty. <br />
<br />
A Miami-Dade County resident, she is from the
one county of Florida's 67 counties that Trump did not win. She had been
a Marco Rubio supporter in the primary, but because she represents the
state, she feels obligated to the other 66 Florida counties' preference.
<br />
<br />
"I feel as a Republican delegate I have a duty
to fulfill and I want to do the correct thing and that means supporting
Trump," Fernandez said. "I want to do the correct thing. I don't want to
add to chaos." <br />
<br />
The Miami-born daughter of Cuban exiles,
Fernandez's parents arrived to the U.S. at a young age in the late '60s
and early '70s. Fernandez said her mother told her stories of life under
the Castro regime and the attempt to brainwash her as a little girl
into loyalty to the communist government. <br />
<br />
"They would tell her to put her head down and
pray for candy and they would open their eyes and there would be candy.
Then they would say pray to the father Fidel (Castro) and pray for candy
and there would be candy or a penny," she said. He mother and her
mother's family arrived on one of the last Freedom Flights from Cuba. <br />
<br />
One of her grandfathers was forced to leave the
country after being told that because of his political work, if he did
not, he would face a firing squad, she said. <br />
<br />
The political activism has remained with
Fernandez, who leads the Miami Young Republicans as its president and is
the executive director of the Florida Federation of Young Republicans. <br />
She worked on the Mitt Romney campaign and has
worked to helped recruit Hispanics to the GOP and build Hispanic leaders
in the party. <br />
<br />
She said she expects she'll be one of the few
Hispanics at the convention, but was looking forward to it nonetheless,
despite the opposition among the ranks of delegates to keep Trump from
getting the nomination. <br />
"I respect that there are people who say don't
want to vote for Trump," she said. "He got the nomination by the
process. There will be delegates like myself who are bound to play their
part to deliver the vote of their district," she said. <br />
<br />
"The alternative is not pleasant. We have
someone running on the other side who has been testifying in front of
Congress, the FBI, who's been a liar," said Fernandez. "Those problems
supersede a comment that would have insulted people." <br />
<br />
"When we have someone on the other side who has behaved very questionably," she said, "I'm all Trump." <br />
<br />
<b>GUSTAVO PORTELA, Michigan delegate</b> <br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
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<h4>
<span class="img-caption_txt">Gustavo "Gus" Portela, a Donald Trump delegate from Michigan to the 2016 Republican National Convention.</span> Gustavo Portela
</h4>
<div class="js-caption_wrapper">
</div>
</figure>
While in high school, Gustavo "Gus" Portela
would go to his local county party's meetings in Grand Rapids, Mich. He
liked George W. Bush and helped in his 2004 re-election campaign by
going door-to-door to drum up votes. <br />
<br />
He went on to join the College Republicans in
Grand Valley State University and today is in Washington, D.C. serving
as the executive director of the College Republican National Committee. <br />
Despite the years of history in party politics, Portela, 27, says what he likes about Trump is that he is an outsider. <br />
<br />
Trump's success in the primaries is a continuation of elections of outsiders to Congress in previous elections, Portela said. <br />
<br />
"I just think that he [Trump] brings a fresh
perspective to the process I don't think we've ever had. I don't think
we've had a Republican nominee who is an outsider," he said. <br />
<br />
Originally from Puerto Rico, Portela and his
family moved to the mainland when he was 11 because his parents
"essentially were looking for a better life" and to get better
educations for their children. Puerto Rico is a U.S. territory and those
born on the island are American citizens. <br />
<br />
In Michigan, his father worked in the Sara Lee
factory and his mother, who had been a receptionist in a hair salon in
Puerto Rico, was a stay-at-home mom while he was growing up. <br />
Portela said Trump has said "controversial
things" but said his statements have been taken out of context by the
media, such as Trump's pledges to build a wall, which he said became
declarations that Trump wants to deport everyone. <br />
<br />
At an Iowa rally in November 2015, Trump said:
"I'm tougher on illegal immigration than anybody. That's what I'm saying
we have to take people that are here illegally and we have to move them
out and you know what, it's going to be done, it's going to be done." <br />
<br />
Trump has also said families would have to go
but some could return through the legal process. Although he was thought
to have backed off from some of that, Trump has not been clear about
whether mass deportation was still a policy. <br />
<br />
Portela said he sees Trump as wanting to
establish law and order in the U.S. "He has said he wants people to come
here legally," Portela said.
<br />
As far as Trump's comments on the wall, Portela
said the policy is not unlike the policies of other politicians who have
called for border security. <br />
<br />
<b>ADRYANA BOYNE, Texas delegate </b><br />
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<b> </b> <br />
<br />
<br />
<figure class="img_half"><div class="js-caption_wrapper">
<br />
<h4>
<figcaption class="img-caption img-caption_default no-margin-bottom"><span class="img-caption_txt">Adryana Boyne, a Ted Cruz delegate from Texas to the 2016 Republican National Convention</span> Adryana Boyne</figcaption>
</h4>
</div>
</figure>
Texas delegate Adryana Boyne agrees with Trump
that immigration is a serious problem that has to be addressed head on.
And she does not believe that he is a racist or a nativist. However his
lack of consideration for the tone of his immigration comments is what
gets under her skin. <br />
<br />
Boyne, a prominent political voice in the Texas
GOP and the Hispanic Republicans of Texas, has had to struggle with
Trump's comments. She likes his business sense but has been troubled by
his Latino related rhetoric. <br />
<br />
Shortly after <a href="http://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/donald-trump-announces-presidential-bid-trashing-mexico-mexicans-n376521">Trump announced his candidacy</a>, Boyne penned an opinion piece for the <a href="http://www.texasgopvote.com/family/donald-trump-statement-caused-tsunami-let-s-clarify-what-real-issue-007960">TexasGOPVote</a> site where she enumerated in detail her grievances with the soon-to-be Republican candidate. <br />
What most bothered (and still bothers) Boyne is
the generalization Trump made out of the gate that Mexico was sending
people that "have lots of problems…They're bringing drugs. They're
bringing crime. They're rapists." <br />
<br />
For Boyne "the focus on the minority of criminal elements overshadows the tremendous contributions that Mexicans have made." <br />
<br />
The Texas delegate's struggle with fully
embracing Trump is personal. She was born and raised in the Mexican
state of Puebla and became a naturalized American citizen in 1994. <br />
<br />
"I am a first-generation immigrant and I take Mr. Trump's comments to heart - he does not differentiate," she said. <br />
<br />
Boyne said that if she were further removed from
the immigration experience she would likely not be as affected by
Trump's comments. But for her, the anti-Mexican rhetoric rings too close
to home. <br />
Donald Trump is not Boyne's first choice. She is a Ted Cruz delegate because of his performance in the Texas primaries. <br />
<br />
An attempt to stop Trump from securing the
nomination by changing rules and allowing delegates to "vote their
conscience" failed, so efforts to build more support for Cruz or any
other candidate aren't likely. <br />
<br />
But Boyne's distaste for Hillary Clinton is so strong that it has moved her toward supporting Trump. <br />
In Cleveland, Boyne will be looking to see a
change in tone from Trump, but ultimately, she is committed to helping
her party stop Clinton from reaching the White House. <br />
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<br /></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06168360738962673384noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8704236655602421604.post-19933158493386004992016-02-29T09:50:00.000-08:002016-02-29T09:54:37.288-08:00Trumping Up Politics<div style="text-align: center;">
<img src="http://www.thewrap.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/donaldtrump.jpg" height="266" width="400" /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b><u><span style="font-size: x-large;">Trumping Up Politics</span></u></b></div>
<div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1456764492326_17850">
<br /></div>
<div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1456764492326_17850">
<br /></div>
<div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1456764492326_17850">
<br /></div>
<div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1456764492326_17850">
Written By: </div>
<div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1456764492326_17850">
Carlos Sepulveda</div>
<div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1456764492326_17850">
Business Professor</div>
<div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1456764492326_17850">
Universidad Latinoamericana de Ciencias y Technologia (ULACIT)</div>
<div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1456764492326_17850">
San Jose, Costa Rica</div>
<div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1456764492326_17850">
<br /></div>
<div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1456764492326_17850">
<br /></div>
<div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1456764492326_17850">
<div class="MsoNormal">
No need for a crystal ball.
No need for Nostradamus. Stop the
Presses! Drum roll please…. The next President of the United States will
be Donald Trump for one reason only: the entertainment factor.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Since its birth, Hollywood has made America starstruck. Throughout the years, celebrities have become
gods. From the days of Charlie Chaplin, Clark
Gable and James Dean to more contemporary stars, such as Michael Jackson, Tom
Cruise, Leonardo DiCaprio, Beyoncé, and J-Lo, America’s fascination has grown
immensely. It has become a tradition to religiously
watch the Oscars, Golden Globes, The Grammys, Fashion Police, and of course mainstream
media has capitalized by providing apps with up to the minute information, not
to mention the instant impact of Facebook, Twitter, & Instagram.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Now enter Donald Trump, an outsider to the establishment and
a multi-billionaire real estate mogul, who became a reality TV show megastar by
being blunt and uncaring. He made the expression “You’re Fired” a
popular phrase that previously could have had a negative connotation. From the beginning, his strategy during debates
was ruthless, not only to other candidates, but also to Fox’s presenter, Megyn
Kelly. Even when people called him a
fascist, racist, and bully, ratings went through the roof. When you mix in the fame of a reality TV
star and a powerful self-financed political figure that says things that some
people are unwilling to say in public, you have the winner of the popular vote.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
As shallow as this may sound, Americans want to be
entertained. If people by the millions
tune in to Entertainment Tonight and TMZ online to get the “low-down” on Kanye
and Taylor Swift’s beef, Miley Cyrus’ antics, Justin Bieber’s new girlfriend,
and the latest Kardashian sighting, at the same rate, America will vote for Megastar
Trump to hear his latest shocking statements as president for the next 4 years. It is perfect to make conversation during
coffee breaks. “Did you hear what Trump
just said?” Without a doubt, it is the
same “shock jock” phenomenon of the entertainment factor that made Howard Stern
an instant success and one of the most popular radio personalities of his time.
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Whether or not, Trump is the best candidate
for the job, political incorrectness is a strategy that is effective and he is
proving it in the political arena. Trump
is the master of ratings. The Republican
primaries have become a sneak peak of what is to come. Only time will tell, if my prediction of the
entertainment factor holds true.</div>
</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06168360738962673384noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8704236655602421604.post-22433994414558340902015-08-06T10:54:00.000-07:002015-08-06T10:54:35.344-07:00Jon Stewart's "The Daily Show" Favorite Latino MomentAs many of you know Jon Stewart's "The Daily Show" is coming close to its last show. I had to honor is funny banter and comic relief of American politics. Here is one of my favorite show segments that is a MUST WATCH!<br />
<br />
<br />
CLICK HERE: <a href="http://thedailyshow.cc.com/videos/94qtlx/democalypse-2014---south-by-south-mess--mex-tex" target="_blank">Jon Stewart on Immigration and Old Fashion Racism</a><br />
<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img alt="Image result for jon stewart the daily show pictures" height="183" src="https://encrypted-tbn2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQQMuKgh9n8aPTOYwpQ4btMxwZ7KPMbNIMRaIh7g09XOUlsYf3Ulg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" title="The Daily Show with Jon Stewart" width="400" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Daily Show with Jon Stewart!</td></tr>
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