Republican Congressman Refers to Latinos as "Wetbacks"

The Republican Party has embarked on an effort to re-brand itself to a more diverse set of voters, but one GOP congressman apparently did not get the memo. 

Rep. Don Young (Alaska) referred to Latinos using the racial slur"wetbacks" in an interview with public radio station KRBD that was published on Thursday. Young, 79, used the term when discussing how automation in industry has taken away jobs from working-class individuals.

"I used to own -- my father had a ranch. We used to hire 50 to 60 wetbacks to pick tomatoes," he said. "You know, it takes two people to pick the same tomatoes now."

Read more: http://abcnews.go.com/ABC_Univision/Politics/republican-congressman-refers-latinos-wetbacks/story?id=18836752#.UVWgP7Aq3D1

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GROW Helps Elect Three More Latino Republicans to Office

 Jack Guerrero won his seat for City Council in the City of Cudahy

 

Los Angeles – GROW Elect, the political organization dedicated to electing Latino Republicans to office in California, has scored three more wins in local elections held in Southern California yesterday.GROW Elect supported the successful candidacies of Jack Guerrero for City Council in the City of Cudahy, Ray Marquez for City Council in the City of Chino Hills and Art Vasquez for City Treasurer in the City of Azusa.

 

The three winners are in addition to 30 Latino Republicans elected to local office across California with the support of GROW Elect since late 2011.

 

GROW Elect President Ruben Barrales declared, “I am proud of all of our candidates and of the hard work of our team in helping guide three of them to victory. I am especially proud of Jack Guerrero’s victory. He is an impressive young talent, a CPA who is Stanford and Harvard educated. Elected Democratic leaders tried hard to defeat Jack, so they could cite it as an example to be used against us. Our team on the ground made the difference in Jack’s tough election victory.

 

“GROW Elect is getting results and changing the face of the Republican Party in California one election at a time, one office at a time. We are in this for the long haul and last night’s results are just the latest boost in momentum for our efforts,” concluded Barrales.

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