While the House of Representatives finally seem to be getting ready follow the lead of the senate on immigration, the budget cuts disproportionally affect the Latino community.
I am just fine with your immigration portions. Just a few little edits for you below:
All the brouhaha about Benghazi, the IRS, and AP non-scandal scandals, as well as the recent positive developments on immigration reform (now that some conservative members of the House of Representatives have decided to come to their senses and work on a bi-partisan way on a solution) have helped the media overlook a very disturbing fact: Latinos have been and will be disproportionately affected by the sequester cuts as they kick in.
Health, education and housing have been hit hard by the cuts and these are the programs and the areas the Latino community depends on the most. And worst of all, children and the elderly are poised to take the brunt of the hit in sequestration cuts.
The conservative war on immigration reform is getting personal.
As we told you a while back, the conservative think tank Heritage Foundation - headed by the very partisan former Senator Jim DeMint - published a study stating that the path to citizenship (or 'amnesty' as they word it) would be a horrible burden to US taxpayers.
Well, last week the Heritage Foundation study was finally released, first thing that will catch your eye is the liberal use of politically charged terminology like 'amnesty,' 'Obamacare,' and 'unlawful immigrants.' I won't even pretend for a second here to hide my feelings, but what I will do is to resist the temptation to render a value judgment about it in order to keep this blog civil. So that, my dear reader, will be your duty.
Is this a Latino worthy of our support? Or should our community seat this one out?
So many questions, right?
But information about this former Navy SEAL of Colombian descent with a decidedly Latino name, is not exactly abundant. So why do I care about him? Because this successful investment banker is the GOP standard-bearer in the Massachusetts especial election to finish John Kerry’s Senate term in the U.S. Senate.
Gabriel Gomez is facing Ed Markey, a Massachusetts congressman whose liberal credentials are beyond question and is considered a natural for the seat. The Republican Party, whose presidential bid was unequivocally rejected by the Latino electorate in 2012, is furiously promoting Gomez, 47, as a new kind of Republican. But, (more questions) what does that mean? And, is that necessarily a good thing?
The Heritage Foundation fires the first conservative torpedo against comprehensive immigration reform.
They just can't help themselves.
After treacherously defeating the bipartisan bill containing legislation to expand background checks to gun shows and Internet sales in the U.S. Senate, conservatives are now aiming their crosshairs at the next significant initiative in the national legislative agenda: Comprehensive Immigration Reform.
While President Obama holds the upper hand in the upcoming meetings with Mexico’s new president Enrique Peña Nieto, will their talks lead to a win for immigration reform?
President Obama is in Mexico meeting with President Peña Nieto, no doubt they have a lot to talk about.
The relations between Mexico and the U.S. have changed significantly over the last 10 years. Suddenly, Mexico doesn't have the clout in the energy market they once did and have been tackling an aging production infrastructure. Yet, while the U.S. has experience a great deal of financial instability, Mexico has remained fairly stable. And of course drug trafficking and violence near the border remain big issues both countries are tackling.
But perhaps the biggest question many of us want answered is what both nations intend to do about immigration.
US Supreme Court takes a step towards the restoration of the proverbial but forgotten southern hospitality in the Yellowhammer State.
Alabama came before the Supreme Court hoping to overturn a circuit court ruling that eliminated parts of their immigration law criminalizing humanitarian aid for undocumented workers. The Supreme Court did not oblige refusing to hear the appeal. Of course to no one’s surprise Justice Antonin Scalia voted to hear the appeal, but none of his colleagues followed suit.
Alabama HB 56 also known by the politically charged name of the “Beason-Hammon Alabama and Taxpayer Protection Act,” is one of many legislative efforts at the state level looking to give a local solutions to a problem that has been over and over again been proclaimed a federal matter.
When it comes to Latin American gorillas history has still to render a verdict. Here is my take.
A friend who happens to be an influential TV personality from my homeland Venezuela, was telling me just the other day how he thought that the Latin American left had very effectively taken over the discourse in regards to who are the ultimate villains in the XX Century Latin America, and how therefore Fidel Castro was taking a much underserved pass.
While I do not necessarily agree with that conclusion I can see where my friend is coming from. Conventional wisdom would tell us that the Thatcher certified late Chilean president, General Augusto Pinochet should have a firm grip on the crown and scepter as the king of all bloodthirsty Latin American butchers-Presidents of the XX Century. In a region in which during most of last century, right wing military regimes were the norm however, Pinochet certainly has plenty of competitors for the top spot. Guys like Paraguay’s Alfredo Stroessner, Venezuela’s Marcos Pérez Jimenez, Domincan Republic’s Leonidas Trujillo, Nicaragua’s father-son duo Anastasio ‘Tacho” Somoza and Anastasio ‘Tachito” Somoza Jr., Cuba’s Fulgencio Batista as well and the endless string of Argentinean Generals certainly pose formidable competition.
April 14 – 20, 2013 was a bad news and action packed week we could have done without
Sunday April 14: Venezuela holds it second presidential election in 6 months in order to choose the person who would complete the still brand new term for which the late Hugo Chávez was chosen on October. The National Electoral Council (CNE), Venezuela’s electoral agency, in an unusually late fashion announced the results after 10:30 EST giving a slight advantage of about 1 percent to the government’s candidate Nicolas Maduro. Immediately in the same broadcast Vicente Díaz the only member of the 5-person council representing the opposition, which now as per the official count is at least half of the Venezuelan population, demands a recount. In an acceptance speech pronounced before Henrique Capriles the opposition candidate even conceded the election (which he still hasn’t done), Maduro accepts doing the recount.
Simón GómezPolitical junkie, loud mouth extraordinaire, and a born gear head, Simón found himself in Miami after 11 years of practicing law in Caracas and being a good ole boy. While always attuned to American culture, his heart is firmly rooted in the Latino community. Simón wrote for three years the car pages of Maxim en Español and has been freelancing for MSN Latino since 2011. Simón divides his time between his two dogs, his production work, and his writing.
