Alberto Gonzales: Drones and The Power to Kill

 The  fmr. U.S. Attorney General weighs in on the use of drones on American citizens.

I support the authority of the president, relying upon his commander in chief powers, to kill enemy combatants according to the laws of war — even those who are American citizens. Few people could credibly question the authority of American forces to kill an armed member of al-Qaida confronted on the battlefield.

Most Americans would also agree that if that same al-Qaida member is an American citizen, our military forces are not required to call “time out” before using force, nor required to provide a battlefield mini-hearing to satisfy some notion of due process.

Under either scenario, members of al-Qaida constitute the enemy; they are combatants on the battlefield and may be killed or detained according to the laws of war.

Read more: http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/opinion/2013/02/18/alberto-gonzales-drones-and-power-to-kill/#ixzz2N3wBf2ez

Stephen A. Nuño: Petrodollars will continue to dominate our relationship with Venezuela

The NBC Latino contributor and Assistant Professor at Northern Arizona University responds to the recent news that Hugo Chavez has died.

Hugo Chavez is dead, but his oil lives. A man who evoked a prism of emotions, from those looking down on Latin America with scorn for his anti-American rhetoric to those who yearned that his democratic message may infect our complacent masses, Chavez was a divisive symbol of our changing relationship with our continental neighbors.

The article continues: An oil tycoon American leftists could love, a member of the one percent now at rest with over a billion dollars to his name, and countless admirers from the ninety-nine percent in this game called politics, Chavez was both villain and hero of the Americas. It’s difficult to find a more polarizing international figure in American politics than Hugo Chavez.

 His reckless personality and charismatic charm forced Americans to confront our foreign policy in a way no other Latin country has. His single-minded drive to resist American pressure and his embrace of our enemies, like Cuba’s Fidel Castro and Iran’s Ahmadinejad, while in our backyard was a rebuke that our government took personally

More: The larger picture is unlikely to change with Chavez’ death, and until we see Latin America beyond the sense of entitlement we have grown to assume in our relationship with that region, we will continue to serve as a convenient focal point of indignation for Latin politicians to rally their people behind.

Read more: http://nbclatino.com/2013/03/06/opinion-petrodollars-will-continue-to-dominate-our-relationship-with-venezuela/

Linda Chavez: Conservatives and Citizenship

Linda Chavez, the chairman of the Center for Equal Opportunity and author of Betrayal: How Union Bosses Shake Down Their Members and Corrupt American Politics takes on Jeb Bush's recent backtracking on the question of whether we should "grant legal residency but withhold citizenship to the 11 million illegal immigrants living in the country today".

The conservative author writes:

Conservatives should not want a country in which substantial numbers of those who reside here will eschew participating in the civic life of the country, with its obligations as well as its rights. Living here and enjoying the fruits of all this country offers should impose certain duties.

More: We all should know the history of this nation, understand our republican form of government, and be active and knowledgeable participants in choosing our leaders. Clearly, these characteristics do not apply even to everyone who was born here -- but we should be even more concerned that those we invite to live here, protected by our laws, should have the responsibility of participating in our civic life. It is not in our interest to have a two-tiered society in which a substantial number of those who have made their permanent homes in the United States are excluded from citizenship.

Read more:  http://townhall.com/columnists/lindachavez/2013/03/08/conservatives-and-citizenship-n1528460/page/full/

Jeb Bush will co-chair Republican Hispanic leadership conference

Former Florida Governor Jeb Bush will co-chair a Republican Hispanic leadership conference in April. (Photo/William Thomas Cain/Getty Images)

 

by Sandra Lilley, @sandralilley

 

 

Florida Governor Jeb Bush, who has been in the headlines for advocating legalization without a path to citizenship in his new book on immigration reform, will co-chair “Family Reunión,” the Hispanic Leadership Network’s (HLN) third annual Miami Conference in mid-April. Former Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutiérrez will also chair the bilingual event.

The Hispanic Leadership Network, a center-right organization of mainly moderate Republicans, announced that the event will focus on “lessons learned” when it comes to Latino engagement. The discussions, with leaders who are coming from around the country, will also look at ways to take policy proposals and convert them into legislation.

Read more: http://nbclatino.com/2013/03/07/jeb-bush-will-co-chair-republican-hispanic-leadership-conference/

Chris Christie: Republicans must welcome Latinos

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie said the GOP needed to do more to include Latinos on Thursday while campaigning for his gubernatorial reelection, saying Republicans should make Latinos “feel welcome and important” within his party.

“We cannot expect to get support from the Latino community if we don’t make the Latino community feel welcome and important in our party,” the possible 2016 presidential candidate said in a Hispanic community in New Jersey, according to The Star-Ledger.

Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2013/02/chris-christie-republicans-must-welcome-latinos-88242.html#ixzz2McPdJDDp

California Republicans Recognize The Need To Connect With Hispanic Community

From The Huffington Post:

California Republicans acknowledged this weekend that the party needs to recruit more Hispanic candidates as well as extend an olive branch to Latinos to have any political future in the Golden State.

No Republican has been elected to statewide party in seven years, and that was Arnold Schwarzenegger whose movie star celebrity may have accounted more for his win than any GOP connection.

So at their state meeting in Sacramento, Republicans had to swallow the bad news that read like something out of a supermarket tabloid: “Go Hispanic or Die!”

“Latino outreach is the greatest challenge for the Republican Party today,” GOP activist Ruben Barrales said at the convention where the GOP began preparing for the 2014 mid-term elections.
“(But) It’s not about (only) outreach — it’s about inclusion. If we want more Latinos in the Republican Party we have to bring more Latinos into the Republican Party.

Read more: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/04/california-republicans-re_n_2802308.html

TheHill.com: RNC chairman stakes his legacy on winning over minority voters

TheHill.com: RNC chairman stakes his legacy on winning over minority voters

Reince Priebus is staking his legacy as Republican National Committee chairman on improving the party’s performance with minority voters.

"I just sort of reached a boiling point on the issue," Priebus told The Hill in an interview at RNC headquarters on Friday. "I want to fix these problems."

In the 2012 election, President Obama won 93 percent of the black vote, 71 percent of the Hispanic vote and 73 percent of the Asian vote, helping him coast to a victory over Republican Mitt Romney.

As the first black president, Obama’s success with black voters is no surprise, but the rising margins he won with all three demographics is a warning sign for the GOP. Obama only won 67 percent of the Hispanic vote in 2008 and 62 percent of the Asian-American vote.    
        

Read More

Republicanos se reúnen con líderes latinos en Denver

Obama: The Marketer-in-Chief

 

Politics offer us clear insight into the formulation of marketing. Very rarely, outside of bikini-clad or football-related beer ads, is the marketing so blatantly transparent. Throughout the 2012 Presidential Election, both Barack Obama and Mitt Romney’s campaigns vigorously targeted particular demographics by appealing to certain internal and external forces that influence a voter’s choice. In the end, it was the ability of Barack Obama to connect with these factors that allowed him to retain his incumbency.

“Obama was the better marketer and if the Grand Old Party wants to have a chance of resetting the electoral map they need to respect marketing” (Tantillo, 2012). This statement is especially true when we look at two if the most decisive issues: Healthcare and Reproductive/Women’s Rights.

Healthcare

Almost immediately after it was passed in 2010, the Affordable Care Act (ACA) had its detractors and some pretty prominent ones at that. Fast forward nearly two years and “repeal Obamacare” became a rallying cry for the Republican Party. This was intimated by numerous candidates during the primaries and by Mitt Romney as the eventual nominee.

Outside of trying to appeal to those who are against big-government and rational thinkers who are aware of the bureaucratic nightmare this may become, Mitt Romney’s message was largely ineffective. This was because a majority of Americans, although not necessarily in favor of the ACA were not willing to simply repeal it (Jones, 2012). Barack Obama’s camp kept close watch on polling data that allowed them to tailor their message effectively to the trends currently impacting the public, thus they were easily able to appeal to those who the ACA was intended to benefit (lower income, pre-existing conditions, unemployed recent college graduates) and come off looking compassionate and keeping the public’s best interest in mind.