COLUMNA de AZTLAN

Once again we are rendered invisible and our so called "Latino" vote is taken for granted. I hope Obama loses his ass and big. White males certainly will not vote for him.

But instead of picking Richardson to lock in the Hispanic vote and make 40 million of us feel like we are part of the electoral process, he picked a white male. When it is clear that whites don't vote for VP.

But Hispanics would've come out in droves to vote for Obama/Richardson. That would've been guaranteed.

I will be praying that the "Tom Bradley effect" bites Obama in his ass.

By Kathy Kiely, USA TODAY
WASHINGTON — The battle for the Hispanic vote is on.

Presidential candidates John McCain and Barack Obama plan back-to-back appearances Saturday before the annual meeting of the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials. The non-partisan group represents more than 5,500 officeholders and the fastest-growing voting bloc in the nation.

In a report issued Thursday, the group, known as NALEO, predicted a record-breaking turnout of at least 9.2 million Hispanic voters this fall. They could be key to winning swing states such as New Mexico, Florida and Colorado.

More than 800 donors packed into a Westin Diplomat Hotel ballroom Thursday night to pad Barack Obama’s war chest by another $500,000, according to this pool report of the evening.

In a speech to the crowd, Obama sharpened his rhetoric against some of the most vocal voices against immigrant workers and migrant worker programs.

“A certain segment has basically been feeding a kind of xenophobia. There’s a reason why hate crimes against Hispanic people doubled last year,” Obama said. “If you have people like Lou Dobbs and Rush Limbaugh ginning things up, it’s not surprising that would happen.”

From the Media Pool:

Tailoring his stump speech toward a South Florida audience, Sen. Barack Obama promised to fight a growing anti-immigrant movement fueled by demagogues, said all Florida delegates would be counted and again portrayed himself as the best hope for uniting Americans.

AZ lawmaker, Pearce, the fat guy who looks like the rooster on the Corn Fleis box, has sponsored legislation (SB1108 AZ) that would, in effect, outlaw student groups that are supposedly race based in AZ state funded schools and universities. Presumably, student groups like MEChA, Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlan would be the main target.

Pearce, who looks like he might be insulin deprived has been on the Lou Dobbs comedy hour with a smirk from ear to ear gloating about about how difficult he has made it for the poor and low resource people of AZ.

Following Pearce's legislation, Skull and Bones, a Yale (New Haven, Connecticut) based, male only, student sorority, would probably not be affected since it is not "race based." The irony, of course, is that they are well known to be the most racists student group in the U.S. Not allowing Jews, Indigenous peoples, blacks or Asians to join.

If current trends continue, the population of the United States will rise to 438 million in 2050, from 296 million in 2005, and 82% of the increase will be due to immigrants arriving from 2005 to 2050 and their U.S.-born descendants, according to new projections developed by the Pew Research Center.

Of the 117 million people added to the population during this period due to the effect of new immigration, 67 million will be the immigrants themselves and 50 million will be their U.S.-born children or grandchildren.

Among the other key population projections:

• Nearly one in five Americans (19%) will be an immigrant in 2050, compared with one in eight (12%) in 2005. By 2025, the immigrant, or foreign born, share of the population will surpass the peak during the last great wave of immigration a century ago.