Illegal immigration is flash point for Republican White House hopefuls
Posted in Main Blog (All Posts) on September 2nd, 2011 4:35 am by HL
Illegal immigration is flash point for Republican White House hopefuls
KEENE, N.H. — Mitt Romney opened his town hall meeting here talking about the economy — his thoughts on growing business, getting government out of the way — just as he does nearly every other campaign event. But when he opened last week’s forum for questions, the first voter he called on didn’t seem concerned about any of that. He wanted to know the Republican presidential candidate’s stance on border security.
A similar scene played out in South Carolina a few days later, when Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) attended a town hall meeting she assumed would center on the economy, jobs and the federal deficit — only to see the assembled voters react most passionately to her comments on illegal immigration.
White House projects lower deficit
Two painful rounds of cost-cutting on Capitol Hill and higher-than-expected tax collections will push this year’s budget deficit down by $300 billion and slice nearly $1.5 trillion from deficits over the next decade, according to new White House projections.
But the report says that the national debt, which stands at $14.6 trillion, would still continue to climb if a budget proposed by President Obama in February were enacted. The debt would rise to $24 trillion by 2021 — or 99 percent of the nation’s entire annual economic output.
Latino leaders pessimistic about new Latino districts
Rapid Latino population growth and a smattering of newly-created Latino House districts across the country are giving the fastest growing population in the United States a chance to grow its voice in Congress.
But talk to Latino leaders, and you won’t hear a whole lot of optimism about 2012.
“It would appear to be a good opportunity on the surface, but in reality it’s not,” said Juan Andrade, president of the United States Hispanic Leadership Institute. “It does not necessarily follow that the representatives will be Latino, as much as we would like for that to be the case.”
Review: Sarah Palin documentary ‘The Undefeated’
Quick: What did Sarah Palin say yesterday?
Palin, whose failed vice presidential bid in 2008 resulted in one of the most lucrative and attention-getting careers as a gadfly, has gone oddly silent of late. She seems more seen than heard, stealing thunder at other Republicans’ candidacy announcements or teasingly leading the press on a goose chase along the Eastern Seaboard.
It’s Palin-as-projection who stars in “The Undefeated,” Stephen K. Bannon’s fawning, oddly bloodless portrait, which never opened in Washington. Instead, it made a brief midsummer tour through theaters in primary states before landing unceremoniously on pay-per-view Thursday. Now, at their convenience, and at a mere $5 a pop, viewers can see for themselves what audiences largely rejected at the multiplex: a tendentious, poorly made infomercial that reduces one of the most charismatic political and media figures of her age to little more than a talking point for far less telegenic talking heads. Love her or hate her, Sarah Palin deserves better.
