Tuesday, December 28, 2010

Judging Obama policy

Andres Oppenheimer writes about President Obama's promises to Hispanics and to Latin America.  With regard to Latin America, his analysis is generally solid but I disagree on two points: one, the Obama administration did not "stand up for democracy" in Honduras; and two, Latin America is not waiting with bated breath for more FTAs.

But I agree completely with his assessment about immigration policy, as I have been making the same point over and over:

He may be right in thinking that Hispanics will not migrate to the Republican Party, which over the past two years has increasingly come across as the party of Hispanic-allergic, anti-immigration zealots. But Obama may be forgetting that Latino voters may do something just as harmful to his re-election chances in 2012 – stay at home.

3 comments:

Pablo 4:34 PM  

Oppenheimer argued passionately in his book, Cuentos Chinos, that Latin America should move away from inward-focused populism and toward more open trade that one sees in many Eastern European countries as well as in China. Great book for anyone who reads Spanish. I don't believe that there is an English version.

Defensores de Democracia 6:49 PM  

Thanks for excellent article Mr Weeks and good comment of Pablo.

Latinos won't stay at home in the 2012 presidential elections.

Why ??

Because they did not stay at home in California - They elected Jerry Brown, Barbara Boxer and many others there.

They did not stay at home in Nevada and saved Harry Reid.

They did not stay at home in Colorado and elected Governor John Hickenlooper.

And there are more prominent Senators and even House Representatives that were "saved" by Latinos on November 2010. In fact Latinos saved the U. S. Senate for Democrats.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt suffered a worse defeat in the 1938 midterms than Obama 2010.

Obama is a "Chicago Pol", a "Wheeler Dealer", he cuts the bread and eats his loaf, he does not snatch the hog, but eats his ham sandwich.

This President is not only intelligent but shrewd.

Gamblers, Bettors and Bookies already know that the prospects of reelection are much better than 50% ... They are already putting their money and eggs with President Obama. See INTRADE.COM

And I haven't considered the very possible Economic Recovery of 2011.

Vicente Duque

Defensores de Democracia 5:44 PM  

The U.S. Senate confirmed President Obama’s nomination of Mary Murguia of Arizona to be a judge of the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ( In San Francisco ). She is the Twin Sister of Janet Murguia of La Raza


MetNews.com
Metropolitan News-Enterprise
Senate Confirms Mary Murguia to Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals
By a MetNews Staff Writer
December 23, 2010


http://www.metnews.com/articles/2010/murg122310.htm


Some excerpts :

The U.S. Senate yesterday confirmed President Obama’s nomination of U.S. District Judge Mary H. Murguia of Arizona to serve as a judge of the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

The nomination was confirmed on a roll call vote of 89-0.

Murguia, 50, is expected to receive her commission shortly and will maintain chambers in Phoenix, the court said. She will fill a judgeship vacant since Feb. 12, when Judge Michael Daly Hawkins, also of Arizona, took senior status.

Then-President Clinton nominated Murguia to the district court in 2000, and she was the first Latina to serve on the Arizona federal bench. Obama nominated Murguia to the Ninth Circuit March 25, but the nomination had been on hold despite a favorable report by the Senate Judiciary Committee Aug. 5.

Deal on Votes

Yesterday’s vote was the result of a deal between Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., to confirm at least 19 of the president’s 38 pending judicial nominees, while deferring four others, before the 111th Congress adjourns. The deferred nominations include those of UC Berkeley School of Law professor and associate dean Goodwin Liu to the Ninth Circuit, and federal Magistrate Judge Edward M. Chen to the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.

Liu has drawn fire from Republicans about comments he made criticizing U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. before Alito joined the high court. Chen was a civil litigator for the American Civil Liberties Union’s Northern California Chapter for 16 years before becoming a magistrate judge.

Before joining the bench, Murguia was a federal and state prosecutor. She worked in the criminal section of the Office of the U.S. Attorney for the District of Arizona from 1990 to 2000, and served as chief criminal deputy from 1994 to 1998.

That year, she joined the Executive Office for U.S. Attorneys at the Department of Justice in Washington, D.C., where she served as counsel to the director’s staff, principal deputy director and director.

Kansas Native

Murguia began her legal career in 1985 with the Wyandotte County District Attorney’s Office in Kansas City, Kansas, where she was born and raised. She attended college and law school at the University of Kansas.

Her twin sister, Janet Murguia, is president and CEO of the National Council of La Raza, a Hispanic advocacy group. Mary Murguia in July 2009 recused herself from presiding in a racial profiling lawsuit the group filed against Maricopa County, Ariz., Sheriff Joe Arpaio after the sheriff’s attorneys argued that she was biased.

The judge wrote at the time that she was stepping aside to “avoid even the slightest appearance of impropriety,” even though “no reasonable person would automatically ascribe the views of one sibling to another.”

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