Watchdog: 10 Most Corrupt US Politicians

Judicial Watch, the public interest group that investigates and prosecutes government corruption, today released its 2012 list of Washington’s “Ten Most Wanted Corrupt Politicians.” The list, in alphabetical order, includes:

• Rep. Vern Buchanan (R-FL)

• Secretary of Energy Steven Chu

• Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and UN Ambassador Susan Rice

• Attorney General Eric Holder

• Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. (D-IL)

• Sen. Robert Menendez (D-NJ)

• President Barack Obama

• Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV)

• Rep. David Rivera (R-FL)

• Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius

Read more: http://nation.foxnews.com/corruption/2013/01/03/watchdog-10-most-corrupt-politicians?cmpid=NL_FiredUpFoxNation#ixzz2Gw6OoTCx

The editors review 2012: Economics

EconomistMagazine

John Kerry: Still Wrong After All These Years

frontpagemag

sodahead.com

Daniel Greenfield

A year and a half before Osama bin Laden was found living in a compound at the heart of Pakistan’s military establishment, Senator John Kerry was celebrating the passage of the “Enhanced Partnership with Pakistan Act,” also known as the Kerry-Lugar Pakistan Bill. Under either name, Kerry was offering a rather sizable giveaway to a government that had a long history of ties to the Islamic terrorists that the United States was fighting.

Kerry, along with the bill’s co-sponsors, issued an explanatory statement to clarify why they would be directing 1.5 billion dollars a year over five years to a state sponsor of terrorism.

“The core intent of the Enhanced Partnership with Pakistan Act is to demonstrate the American people’s long-term commitment to the people of Pakistan. The United States values its friendship with the Pakistani people and honors the great sacrifices made by Pakistani security forces in the fight against extremism…  There are no conditions on Pakistan attached to the authorization of $7.5 billion in non-military aid.”

A year and a half later, after the Bin Laden raid, the man whom Pakistan’s top diplomat in D.C. described as a “steadfast friend of Pakistan” was sent once again as an envoy to the terrorist state. It was not the first time in his long career that Kerry had been dispatched to make nice with an enemy of the United States.

In 1971, 40 years before he flew off to Pakistan, Kerry had headed the Vietnam Veterans Against the War delegation that met with the Viet Cong in Paris. It was the first time that the future senator, presidential candidate and Secretary of State would meet with enemy leaders. It would not be the last.

Over the next forty years Kerry would reinvent himself numerous times, transforming from an anti-war activist disgusted by the uniform to a war hero reporting for duty as he sought to corner both sides of the market, but his flirtation with tyrants and tyrannies, particularly those hostile to the United States, never changed.

The murderous Viet Cong gave way to the Sandinistas of Nicaragua. Ho Chi Minh gave way to Assad. Vietnam gave way to Pakistan. But at no point during those long 40 years, a biblical number often linked to transformation and change, did John Forbes Kerry learn anything at all from his countless mistakes.

directorblue.blogspot.com

Kerry had hardly managed to win his first term in the Senate when he was back on a plane, this time to Nicaragua for a meeting with another Communist terrorist group. The Sandinista anthem called the “Yankee” the enemy of mankind and a year before Kerry’s visit, Daniel Ortega had threatened the United States with war while crowds of his supporters had chanted, “Here or There, Yankees Will Die Everywhere.”

The Sandinistas had ethnically cleansed the Miskito Afro-Indians and destroyed Nicaragua’s Jewish community. But none of that deterred Kerry from shaking hands with Ortega and urging Reagan to make a deal with him.

“We negotiated with North Vietnam… they just want to get rid of them [the Sandinistas], they want to throw them out, they don’t want to talk to them,” Kerry whined. And Kerry did want to talk them. To the Viet Cong, to the Sandinistas and to anyone else who hated the United States and wished us harm.

Of FARC, the Colombian Marxist Narcoterrorist group, Kerry said that they had “legitimate complaints.” When it came to Cuba, Kerry killed democracy funding for the island just last year and complained that the United States clings to a Cuba “policy that has manifestly failed for nearly 50 years.” By that Kerry meant the Castro embargo, which he had steadily opposed for as long as he had been in the Senate.

But Kerry wasn’t just wrong when it came to Latin American Marxists; he was equally wrong in the Middle East.

In 2009, Kerry visited Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad and described Syria as “an essential player in bringing peace and stability to the region.” Kerry’s visits to Syria and gushing about Assad grew so torrid that even the Washington Post described him as a “prominent admirer” of Assad.

boston.com

Last year at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Kerry bragged about his close relationship with Assad and gushed, “Syria will change, as it embraces a legitimate relationship with the United States and the West and the economic opportunity that comes with it and the participation that comes with it.”

But then Kerry had a long history of getting the Middle East wrong, of supporting tyrants and terrorists.

Two years ago, Kerry wrote a letter of support for Code Pink activists bound on a mission of support for Hamas. “My staff has met with members of the group and is impressed with their ability, dedication and commitment to the peace process.“  The letter was used to allow a political march from Egypt into Gaza and a meeting with Hamas leaders.

And there’s Iraq, an enduring part of the Kerry legend, because in few places did Senator Kerry get it as wrong, as often, as he did in Iraq. While it’s famously believed that Kerry flip-flopped once on Iraq, going from pro-war to anti-war, he actually shifted gears and directions a dizzying number of times.

Before the original Gulf War, Kerry urged Bush I to give Saddam Hussein room to back off, negotiating an Iraqi withdrawal from Kuwait in exchange for allowing Iraq to make a claim on some Kuwaiti territory and proposing some Israeli concessions as well. He claimed that threatening Saddam “stiffened Iraq’s resolve and weakened America’s.”

After the war, Kerry turned into a hawk, saying of Bush that, “The administration has basically sided with Saddam Hussein” and demanded that Saddam be tried for environmental terrorism. During the Clinton Administration, Kerry called for using ground troops to force Saddam out of power. It was no surprise at all when during the Bush Administration, Kerry flipped in reverse, going from a strong supporter of the war to a strong opponent of it.

In the spring of last year, Senator Kerry met with Mohammed Morsi, the Muslim Brotherhood’s new tyrant in Egypt, and said that, “in our discussions, Mr. Morsi committed to protecting fundamental freedoms, including women’s rights, minority rights, the right to free expression and assembly.”

Six months later, Morsi’s thugs were beating political opponents in the street and ‘Always Wrong’ Kerry had another notch in his belt.

“How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?” Kerry had asked during his Senate testimony, and throughout his decades in the Senate, with the power of the same committee that he had once testified before behind him, he had done his best to see to it that Americans and people from all nations would die for his mistakes.

Stanton: Why John Boehner Will (Probably) Be Fine

Pat Dollard

Excerpted from Buzzfeed: WASHINGTON — Democrats and some conservatives are dreaming this weekend of a late Christmas present: House Speaker John Boehner’s head on a platter.

But that probably won’t happen, for several reasons. First, legislative coups are risky, and the fiscal cliff talks are still playing out. Meanwhile, Boehner is personally popular. The opposition has no clear leader.
But perhaps most important of all, it’s not clear that it’s in the interest of the conservative Republicans leading talk of the coup to dive into the messy business of making deals with a Democratic president and Senate, or assuming responsibility for the 2014 midterm elections.
“I’m not,” Boehner said Friday, asked whether he was worried about his speakership following the collapse of his attempt to rally Republicans around an alternative tax increase plan to President Obama’s. “They weren’t taking that out on me — they were dealing with the perception that they were raising taxes,” he said.
In theory, a coup is possible: many conservatives would gleefully support such a move — and few Democrats would shed a tear. And it would only take a handful of his conference to throw the election for speaker into chaos. As National Journal points out, it would take just 17 Republicans voting for anyone other than Boehner to throw the election into chaos.
But while he may have lost control of his conference, Boehner has a lot of reasons to not be worried about actually losing the speakership when the House convenes January 3rd to hold elections.
Keep reading…

Obama to nominate Sen. John Kerry as secretary of state this afternoon

President Obama will nominate Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) as secretary of
state this afternoon, according to a White House official.
Kerry will succeed Hillary Clinton, who has long planned to step down
shortly after Obama’s inauguration. He was widely considered to be Obama’s
top choice after U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice removed herself from
consideration last week. 

Keep reading on Washington Post >>

Kerry and Hagel Offer Obama a Way Forward on Cuba

Sarah Stephens

Days ago, the future of Cuba policy in President Obama's second term seemed predictable.

Kerry [L] and Hagel

In his first term, Cuba and Latin America never rose on his priority list. At her confirmation hearings, Hillary Clinton promised the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that she and the president were prepared to "seize the opportunities in Latin America," but they never did.

After repealing all restrictions on travel by Cuban Americans, opening categories of People-to-People travel, and restarting migration talks, progress on engagement was thwarted by the imprisonment of Alan Gross and the administration's reluctance to negotiate directly with Cuba for his release.

The prospective appointment of Susan Rice as Secretary of State -- she once told the United Nations that U.S. sanctions did not cause deprivation among the Cuban people -- seemed a signal of continuity. But, her candidacy was devoured by opponents on issues ranging from the tragedy in Benghazi to the contents of her investment portfolio, and she never arrived at the point of being nominated or given close to a fair hearing.

On the heels of her misfortune, things could get interesting. If the speculation now is accurate, President Obama may appoint Senator John Kerry, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, as Secretary of State and former Senator Chuck Hagel as Secretary of Defense. By doing so, the president would bring into his security cabinet two seasoned figures with long histories as Cuba policy reformers and simultaneously place the Foreign Relations Committee in the hands of some of the coldest of the Cold Warriors in Congress.

Kerry, a steadfast opponent of U.S. intervention in Latin America since his election in 1984, has been consistently smart on Cuba. He supported travel rights not just for Cuban Americans but for all Americans. He would not give the Obama administration a blank check to run the USAID regime change programs in Cuba and held up funding when he could. He was a reliable skeptic of the millions spent on the anti-Cuba broadcast propaganda arms -- Radio and TV Martí -- and of the consultants and bureaucrats who create the programming that most Cubans don't see, hear, or care much about.

Chuck Hagel served two terms in the Senate and called our policy toward Cuba "senseless." When former President Jimmy Carter visited the island in 2002, he was the only Member of Congress Carter considered to ask to join his delegation, but Hagel stayed in Washington for a Senate debate on trade. Earlier, Hagel cosponsored legislation to open the Cuban market further for sales of food and medicine and repeal restrictions on travel.

If these two men are nominated and confirmed, this doesn't mean President Obama will elevate Cuba as a foreign policy priority. But it does mean that seasoned figures who urged the country to dump its Cold War baggage and normalize relations would be at the table when critical strategic decisions are made. More >>

Where in the World Is Paul Ryan?

Slate/ By David Weigel

Right after the 2012 election, when Republicans trudged glumly back to Washington, Speaker of the House John Boehner found two jobs for Paul Ryan. By Ryan’s request, he would stay on as chairman of the Budget Committee—he’d be the only chairman holding on after his six-year term at the top of a committee had ended. By necessity, he would also join a working group to help Boehner negotiate a way around the “fiscal cliff.” Ryan would partner with Ways and Means Committee chairman Dave Camp and Energy and Commerce Committee chairman Fred Upton in crafting proposals, strategizing, and calculating. If the White House wanted to talk to Ryan, congressional liaison Rob Nabors knew where to find him.

It’s been a month. While the White House has been talking to Boehner, Ryan hasn’t been so busy. The B-team of Camp, Ryan, and Upton has stayed on the bench. Ryan hasn’t recently met or talked to key negotiators. Ryan’s big moment in the talks, so far, came with the three-page offer that House Republicans sent the president on Dec. 3. According to National Review, Ryan “worked with Boehner to craft” the document. They spent two pages explaining how proud they were of Ryan’s budgets and two paragraphs offering $800 billion of unspecified revenue and $1.2 trillion of unspecified cuts. And the White House rejected that at the speed of Twitter.

Paul Ryan is irrelevant, but that can’t last. No one in modern times has lost a national election and returned to such a powerful role in Congress. John Kerry’s consolation prize was minority status in the Senate. After his loss, George McGovern was so marginalized that he considered moving to England.

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The chairman of the House Budget Committee can’t be marginalized. For two years, Ryan was the de facto intellectual leader of the GOP, introducing and passing spending plans that nearly every Republican supported. He’s got two more years of that on the calendar, and his rank-and-file members are thrilled. “The American people are looking to him for ideas,” Colorado Rep. Cory Gardner told me last month. Gardner and other freshman fans of Ryan believe that the vice-presidential campaign, even if a loss, still helped him; without that, Americans “might not have known who he was.”

Ryan’s absence from the “cliff” debate has actually helped his clout—among Republicans. They resent their current position. They passed their budgets (Ryan’s budgets). The media doesn’t seem to take that seriously. Obama’s Democrats haven’t pushed a budget through since 2009; the media doesn’t care.

“Our perspective is, ‘Yes, we think our budget is the way forward,’ ” says Rep. Sean Duffy, a freshman from northwestern Wisconsin and a Ryan stalwart. “The president rejected it. There was an effort to be reasonable and to meet the concerns he had, so we came off the budget a little, but the president needs to lead.”

That’s the polite version of the sentiment. In the Senate, utterly marginalized by the Boehner-Obama talks, Republicans resent that the “cliff” negotiation is so secretive. In a real budget debate, says Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson, “You have hearings on it. You have witnesses. You have a debate about what you want, then you have mark-up. That’s the way this should work ... as opposed to seeing on the news: Do Speaker Boehner and President Obama get along? Is it going to be $1 for $2? For $3? That’s drivel. That’s meaningless.”  

More: http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2012/12/paul_ryan_has_been_quiet_since_barack_obama_won_re_election_but_he_will.2.html

Can Trudeau Jr. live up to Trudeau dad?

Is Susan Rice "Bad for Congo"

TheRealNews

Kambale Musavuli: Susan Rice's record on Africa suggests as Secretary of State, she would side with dictators and US allies Rwanda and Uganda against the people of Congo.

Canada's House of Commons confrontation

GlobalToronto Wed, Dec 5: Government House Leader Peter Van Loan crossed the floor to physically confront the opposition, so other MPs stepped in to calm things down. Shirlee Engel reports.

Carl Sagan, política y religión

Microsiervos

Hoy es el cumpleaños de Carl Sagan, uno de los más conocidos divulgadores científicos de los últimos años, que podría haber cumplido hoy 78 años de no haber muerto tan joven.

Pero nos ha dejado muchas frases que recordar, algunas de ellas muy apropiadas con la que está cayendo:

En ciencia suele ocurrir que un científico diga: «Es un buen argumento, yo estaba equivocado», cambie de opinión y desde ese momento no se vuelva a mencionar la antigua posición. Realmente pasa. Aunque no todo lo frecuentemente que debería ya que los científicos son humanos y el cambio es a veces doloroso. Pero ocurre cada día. No recuerdo la última vez que algo así pasó en política o religión.

Ontario Premier's resignation and the prorrogation of Ontario legislature

Capital Read/ Mark D. Jarvis*

Last evening, after 16 years as Leader of the Ontario Liberal Party and nine years as the Premier of Ontario, Dalton McGuinty resigned unexpectedly. Partisans, pundits, journalists and other observers have already started, and will continue to, pick apart McGuinty’s record as he serves his remaining days.

It was also newsworthy that at the same time as he announced his resignation, McGuinty prorogued the Ontario legislature.

While some will find this of little interest or just merely a distraction from the broader political fall out and machinations, I would suggest the decision to prorogue deserves considerable attention.

Prorogation has a legitimate – and valuable – function within the parliamentary system.

Parliament is prorogued so that the government can efficiently organize sessions, allowing it to conclude one session when its legislative program has come to an end and it wishes to introduce a new legislative program. Each session begins with the Speech from the Throne, when the governor general, or lieutenant governor in Ontario’s case, reads the government’s new legislative program. Prorogation is a mechanism for ensuring effective governing and government.

But prorogation can also be abused.

Prorogation is not a mechanism designed to afford the current government a political advantage in the exercise of power.

Yet, in recent years we have seen first ministers misuse the power of prorogation to avoid confidence votes, delay reporting by officers of parliament, escape questioning and scrutiny, and side-step accountability for matters of public policy and administration.

This most recent prorogation terminates an ongoing investigation of contempt against one of McGuinty’s ministers  and effectively precludes anticipated motions of contempt against an additional minister and McGuinty himself until a new session of the legislature, when McGuinty will no longer be premier.

This alone renders this prorogation an abuse. Where it fits alongside past abusive prorogations will be debated (This excellent Peter Loewen piece is a good start).

Also troubling is that there are no clear timelines for when the legislature will be called back into session.

But there is something even more disconcerting afoot.

Across the country prime ministers and premiers are making it clear that they see legislatures – our elected representatives – as an undue burden. Whether as a means of managing legislative impasses or risks of losing confidence or simply to escape scrutiny, first ministers have demonstrated a predilection for simply shutting down the respective legislative assemblies in their jurisdictions.

It is worth examining the premier’s own words in explaining the prorogation. In an email sent to Liberal supporters McGuinty said: “I’ve asked the Lieutenant Governor to prorogue the legislature to allow those discussions with our labour partners and the opposition to occur in an atmosphere that is free of the heightened rancour of politics in the legislature…”

The “rancour” that Premier McGuinty is so dismissive of is an essential dynamic of public accountability within our democratic system, which sees partisan politics – institutionalized adversarialism – as the best means of securing democracy.

The premier’s tone and message is reminiscent of Premier Christy Clark, who earlier this fall cancelled the fall term of the British Columbian legislature, leaving an open question as to whether or not it would sit at all before the scheduled provincial election in May. On the opposite coast, the Newfoundland and Labrador legislature reopened this March after having only sat for a total of just 33 days in the previous 14 months.

These actions violate the basic premise of responsible government: that the house or legislature, as the case may be, is actually in session in order to fulfill its fundamental responsibilities: to review government legislation, to scrutinize government administration and to extend or withdraw confidence as it deems fit.

These developments should be disconcerting to us all.

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*Mark D. Jarvis is a doctoral candidate at the University of Victoria. His 2011 book, Democratizing the Constitution: Reforming Responsible Government co-authored with Lori Turnbull and the late Peter Aucoin, was awarded both the Donner and Smiley book prizes. Mark adapted some of the book’s proposals for a contribution to our series on the House last year. You can find more information about the book here: http://www.emp.ca/democratizing-the-constitution-reforming-responsible-government.html

Canadian politicians on Castro dictatorship

DeepakObhraiMP

Letter to Elizabeth May, leader of the Green Party of Canada:

Honorable Mrs. Elizabeth May,

As a Cuban-Canadian who for 48 years suffered the most brutal dictatorship in the Western Hemisphere and as a strong supporter of the Canadian values is very unpleasant to hear your vision about the Castro brothers dictatorship who violently suppressing freedom of speech and assembly to remain in power for nearly 54 years.

Thousands of Cubans were shot to dead. Hundreds of thousands have been imprisoned for crimes of conscience. 20% of the Cuban population had to emigrate despite repression to prevent it.

Respectfully,

Lazaro Gonzalez

Amigo de Fidel Castro gana nominacion democrata en Harlem

Rep. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.) overcame a re-drawn congressional district, several primary challengers and a censure 18 months ago for ethical misdeeds, winning the Democratic nomination Tuesday for the Harlem-based district that he has represented for nearly 42 years.

Read more at:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/post/new-york-primary-results-hakeem-jeffries-easily-turns-aside-charles-barron-in-brooklyn/2012/06/26/gJQAht2f5V_blog.html

Los cubanos lindos del americano feo

cubainformacion.tv

Leer en  Ichikawa >>

Attorney General Holder Discusses Project Veritas Investigation

veritasvisuals

Attorney General Holder discusses in a Judiciary Oversight Hearing the video where his ballot was offered to somebody else in the District of Columbia on primary day.

The Cowardice of Colin Powell

Slate Magazine/  Nathaniel Frank

Colin Powell has often been cited as among the most-admired leaders in America. Hence it’s been news this week that he followed President Obama in endorsing same-sex marriage. But is Powell really a leader, much less one worthy of admiration? It’s worth a glance back at his record in this election year as the nation discusses the attributes it seeks in a leader and contemplates what moral leadership really looks like.

Speaking on CNN Wednesday, Powell said he has “no problem” with same-sex marriage. Before he could utter another sentence on that subject, though, he defensively and dishonestly shirked responsibility for his critical role in enshrining a ban on openly gay military service into law. “It was the Congress that imposed 'don’t ask, don’t tell,' he said in response to Wolf Blitzer’s questioning. Powell admitted it was his “recommendation” but passing the buck to Congress may be the dodge of the century. As the first African-American chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, a hero of the first Iraq war, and the highest-ranking officer in the country, Powell commanded immense moral authority on this issue. Indeed his was doubtlessly the single most important voice in the painful debate, and the voice most pointed to by the Congress he’s now trying to blame.

1954

While advocates of lifting the ban compared the gay ban to racial segregation in the military, Powell forcefully rejected the analogy, and his stature as a top African-American general put the issue to rest. Rear Adm. John Hutson, a high-ranking official who was part of the talks over whether to lift the gay ban, recalls that “Powell put a hole in the analogy to racial integration, not particularly logically, but just by force of his personality and who he was.” Hutson said it allowed the rest of the military leadership to “hide” behind Powell. It allowed other champions of anti-gay discrimination to say, “this isn’t the same as racial integration.  This is different, and Gen. Powell says so.” More >>

Cheney and Obama are distant cousins: Mrs. Cheney

 

WASHINGTON | Tue Oct 16, 2007 6:00pm EDT

(Reuters) - There's no sign of a family reunion planned, but U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney and Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama are distant cousins.
So says the vice president's wife, Lynne Cheney, who said she discovered that her husband of 43 years is eighth cousins with the senator from Illinois.
The two men could hardly be more different. Cheney is an advocate for pursuing the war in Iraq to try to stabilize the country, while Obama wants to get U.S. troops out of Iraq.
Mrs. Cheney told MSNBC on Tuesday that it was "an amazing American story that one ancestor ... could be responsible down the family line for lives that have taken such different and varied paths."
The common ancestor was Mareen Devall, who the Chicago Sun-Times said was a 17th century immigrant from France.
Mrs. Cheney said she discovered the link through family research for her new book, "Blue Skies, No Fences," about growing up in Wyoming.

China's city divided by disgraced Communist leader’s legacy

David Lom / NBC News

Angry pro-Bo Xilai supporter voices his opinion to the crowd in Chongqing.

By Ed Flanagan, NBC News

CHONGQING, China – Everywhere you go in Chongqing, you can see traces of the complicated legacy of Bo Xilai, the former Communist party chief who ran this municipality of 30 million people until scandal derailed him. 

At one time destined for a top post in China’s highest echelon of power, the standing committee of the politburo of the Communist Party, Bo aggressively poured money into this municipality in pursuit of his populist agenda.To drive through the windy roads that snake around this hilly metropolis is to see a city in constant transformation. Towers of low-income housing complexes dot the skyline. These social housing projects were meant to address a major national issue: the lack of affordable housing, and provided homes that cost just a few hundred dollars a year to rent. And Bo had gingko trees, said to be one of his favorites, planted across the city.

But these city improvements came at a cost: His heavy investment in capital construction projects forced the city to borrow so much money to pay for it that Chongqing owes $20 billion to the China Development Bank, according to a news report on Wednesday. The tree planting saddled the city with a $1.5 billion bill just for 2010 alone.  

The improvements weren’t the only controversial aspect of Bo’s reign over this important gateway city to the western half of China, and since his demise his critics have stepped out of the shadows to talk about the darker side of life in what had become the former leader’s personal fiefdom.

Told a Bo joke, got a year in a labor camp

In Chongqing, NBC News spoke with Fang Hong, a 51-year-old former forestry officer who made news earlier this week when he filed an appeal with a local court seeking compensation for what he alleged was an unfair sentence he served at a labor camp.

According to Fang, he was imprisoned for posting a two-line joke about Bo on his microblog that quickly went viral. Soon after, Fang said he was dragged in by police for questioning and later brought before a police tribunal where he was sentenced for “fabricating facts and disturbing public order.” 

Fang served his sentence at a labor camp where he said he was forced to assemble thousands of Christmas ornaments for export for one year.

Released earlier this year, Fang was emboldened by the criticism that has shrouded Bo following his high-profile falling out with his vice-mayor and former police chief, Wang Lijun, who famously sought refuge at the American embassy in Chengdu. That move by Wang sparked an international political scandal that now includes a murder mystery. Bo’s wife, Gu Kailai, is a murder suspect in the death of British businessman Neil Heywood; Bo has been officially disowned by the ruling Communist Party and has disappeared from public view.  More >>

Hard right Cuban-American tests Texas political climate

San Antonio Express/  By Peggy Fikac

AUSTIN — He would like English to be the official language of the United States, opposes Texas' law allowing in-state college tuition for illegal immigrants' children, takes a dim view of bilingual education and is against the proposed federal DREAM Act.

He's also a Latino who grew up speaking Spanish and English, an immigrant's son who delights in telling of his father's journey.

And for Ted Cruz, the former Texas solicitor general running in a crowded GOP primary for U.S. Senate, there's no disconnect.

“I am a conservative who also happens to be the child of an immigrant who came here penniless and not speaking English,” said Cruz, 41.

Running to the right simply makes sense in a GOP primary, noted Arturo Vega, associate professor of political science at St. Mary's University.

“He's not running as an ethnic candidate,” Vega said. “You don't want to run an ethnic campaign in a non-ethnic party, right?”

But some see a potential disconnect elsewhere in Cruz's primary fight, where his best hope is to push Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst into a runoff. They say Cruz's surname might be a hurdle despite his hard-right stands, noting GOP voters two years ago rejected an incumbent railroad commissioner who blamed his Hispanic surname.

In addition, Cruz's story differs from the usual Texas immigration tale — his father came from Cuba, not Mexico. It's similar to the story that helped propel Marco Rubio to a U.S. Senate seat in Florida. But it might not resonate the same in Texas, where about 8 million of 9.5 million Latinos are of Mexican origin and about 47,000 are Cuban.

“There is a mistake that a lot of voters make, a lot of politicians make, and a lot of people in the media make — that when we talk about Hispanics, we're talking about a very monolithic group of people,” said Jennifer Duffy, senior editor of The Cook Political Report.

Read more: http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/local_news/article/Hard-right-Cuban-American-tests-Texas-political-3483979.php#ixzz1sAedBj3r