Where is the outrage from Republican officials and conservative talking heads like Senator Chuck Grassley, Rep. Steve King, Rep. Louie Gohmert, Glenn Beck, Laura Ingraham, and etc., who have been exploiting the Boston Bombings?  A ricin letter was sent to the President of the United States (POTUS) — our Commander In Chief, yet we do not hear a peep from these people with regard to National Security.

Suppose the POTUS was harmed?

Shouldn’t these same individuals be alarmed with regard to toxic letters being sent to our officials?

Now we see a 3rd letter that was sent to our D.C. United State Air Force installation.  Bolling Air Force Base is the center of Air Force and Navy ceremonial support, among other missions performed by the nearly 50 military and federal agencies on the installation. Its service to the country, active-duty, reserve, retired and visiting military, as well as personnel deployed around the world, is an important one.  The Defense Intelligence Agency built its Defense Intelligence Analysis Center at Joint Base Anacostia-Bolling and moved many of its operations and headquarters there in 1987.

Ricin Letter Found At Bolling Air Force Base, Harry Reid Says

We thought we had the suspect, but the case involving ricin letters mailed to President Obama and other public official has evolved.  The initial suspect via Paul Kevin Curtis, was released on bond by the U.S. Marshal’s office. The FBI has said it found no traces of ricin at the suspect’s home in Mississippi.

According the AP:

All the envelopes and stamps were self-adhesive, Grant said Monday, meaning they won’t yield DNA evidence. He said thus far the envelopes and letters haven’t yielded any fingerprints.

On Tuesday, people in hazmat suits were seen going in and out of Dutschke’s house on a quiet block in Tupelo. Investigators from the FBI, U.S. Marshals Service and U.S. Capitol Police were seen outside the house. Dutschke said he counted at least 30 law enforcement agents.

Dutschke said his attorney wasn’t with him and he didn’t know whether he was going to be arrested.

Dutschke said that he knows Curtis but that the two had a falling out. Dutschke said the last contact they had was in 2010 when Dutschke threatened to sue Curtis for saying he was a member of Mensa, a membership group for people with high IQs.

The 2013 ricin letters are reminiscent the anthrax letters that were sent to officials and our media during the September 11 attacks, and stories by PBS and the New York Times do not make me feel comfortable with regard to the the final anthrax investigative outcome.  Indeed I hope the FBI isolated the anthrax threats despite doubt that is out there.   The individual(s) who sent our Commander in Chief and now our military base ricin letters is an issue that ought to be taken very, very seriously.

New Evidence Adds Doubt to FBI’s Case Against Anthrax … – PBS

Aztec dancer at Mexico City performance.

DAVID LEONHARDT, with the New York Times recently wrote an op-ed –  Hispanics, the New Italians with regard to “new arrivals.”

Ranking by Population — Pew

Indeed some Hispanic and Latinos are the new Italians, but the majority of those “Hispanics / Latinos” who are of Mexican descent are not the “New Italians” because those of Mexican descent are indigenous.  Mexicans should not be considered “new arrivals.”   Many people from the Anglo / Caucasian community forget Mexicans are indigenous to the United States pre-Guadalupe Treaty and it is high time we educate and remind them with regard to how we feel about painting with broad strokes.   The Mexica didn’t travel by Mayflower boat  to achieve the shores of this continent — nay, they were already here before borders were established and Manifest Destiny.   *On a side note:   The corrupt Sheriff Joe Arpaio is of Italian descent, and more than likely his ancestry came to our shores via boat.

The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo is a historical source of verification that those of Mexican descent had to recede when The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was signed by the United States and Mexico on February 2, 1848, ending the Mexican War and extending the boundaries of the United States by over 525,000 square miles. In addition to establishing the Rio Grande as the border between the two countries, the territory acquired by the U.S. included what will become the states of Texas, California, Nevada, Utah, most of New Mexico and Arizona, and parts of Colorado and Wyoming. In exchange Mexico received fifteen million dollars in compensation for the territory and the U.S. agreed to assume claims from private citizens of these areas against the Mexican government.

Many Americans forget how our President Abraham Lincoln believed the Mexican-American war to be ‘illegal.’  As a Congressional freshman, Lincoln

Abraham Lincoln rebuked President Polk for the Mexican War.

got on the floor of the House on January 12, 1848, when he defended the vote of his party given a few days previous “declaring that the war with Mexico was unnecessarily and unconstitutionally commenced by the President.”

It is no secret that Mexican-Americans make up almost 70% of the Latino population pie, but our culture is different than the Honduran, the Cuban, the Dominican Republic and so forth.  In fact, the only thing that we really have in common is the Spanish language.  In addition, many of the legal terms Americans use are in Latin, too.

Indeed a majority of “us” or the Hispanic / Latino people who are lumped into one big pile will often identify ourselves from our country of origin.

The Pew Hispanic Research states:

When Labels Don’t Fit: Hispanics and Their Views of Identity

by Paul Taylor, Mark Hugo Lopez, Jessica Hamar Martínez and Gabriel Velasco

I. Executive Summary

Nearly four decades after the United States government mandated the use of the terms “Hispanic” or “Latino” to categorize Americans who trace their roots to Spanish-speaking countries, a new nationwide survey of Hispanic adults finds that these terms still haven’t been fully embraced by Hispanics themselves. A majority (51%) say they most often identify themselves by their family’s country of origin; just 24% say they prefer a pan-ethnic label.

Moreover, by a ratio of more than two-to-one (69% versus 29%), survey respondents say that the more than 50 million Latinos in the U.S. have many different cultures rather than a common culture. Respondents do, however, express a strong, shared connection to the Spanish language. More than eight-in-ten (82%) Latino adults say they speak Spanish, and nearly all (95%) say it is important for future generations to continue to do so.  FULL STORY>>>

Indeed, I hope the New York Times, the Associated Press, the UK Guardian, the Huffington Post will not lump “Hispanics” into one big pile.   We are different, and as a Mexican-American — I do know our American history and rose my right hand to defend this great Nation, however, I also know that those of Mexican descent are indigenous to this land, too.

Most people forget those of Mexican descent are indigenous to the southwestern part of our Nation.

I really appreciate President Obama’s push for more Charter Schools and he has  strongly restated his support for charter schools.  The country has “got to experiment with ways to provide a better education experience” for its children, Obama said in an interview with The Plain Dealer and other newspapers.

Bottom line:  We need more Charter Schools in Arizona to offer better schools and ratings for our children across the state.  If you take a look at the interactive report card released by Students First — you will see that Arizona received a mere C rating.  I discovered the Arizona GPA rating is at 1.85.  Who wants that for their children?  Don’t our children deserve more?  The teachers seem to be doing a good job, but it looks like parent empowerment needs help, and so does the spending department.

The New York Times wrote an excellent piece regarding the failing grades states are receiving and I was surprised to learn that not one single state received an A rating.

I thought this was America? We don’t want to be on a path in being a second-rate economic power, do we?

The United States will become a second-rate economic power unless it can match the educational performance of its rivals abroad and get more of its students to achieve at the highest levels in math, science and literacy. Virtually every politician, business leader and educator understands this, yet the country has no national plan for reaching the goal. To make matters worse, Americans have remained openly hostile to the idea of importing strategies from the countries that are beating the pants off us in the educational arena.

There is absolutely no reason why educational programs should be receiving substandard grades — after all … don’t we expect stellar grades from our children? If we expect good grades from our children, then we ought to expect good grades on our public educational system, too.

From the NYT:

12 States Get Failing Grades on Public School Policies From Advocacy Group

By MOTOKO RICH

In just a few short years, state legislatures and education agencies across the country have sought to transform American public education by passing a series of laws and policies overhauling teacher tenure, introducing the use of standardized test scores in performance evaluations and expanding charter schools.

READ FULL STORY.

I was invited to be on The Takeaway again tomorrow morning to discuss Mitt Romney’s speech at NALEO.  I will share the MP3 audio once it is online and available. The Takeaway is a national show that is co-produced by the New York public Radio, Public Radio International, the BBC and the New York Times. As you may already know, the Tequila Party is a Latina counter movement to the extremist Tea Party people.Most pundits believed Obama would wait (like Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush waited) to address the DREAM Act or immigration related issues only after being re-elected to a 2nd term.  They were wrong, and now the relief offered to babies, children and our youth via the Deferred Action MEMO has become  historic immigration news –  particularly for those of us who are legal immigration reform activists.

Bottom line:  I stated that Mexican-American / Latino voters should NOT gamble their voting chips away on Mitt Romney who has aligned himself with protectionists, economic isolationists and restrictionists  via Pete Wilson and Kris Kobach.  It is a calculated risk for Latinos to invest their voting chips on an incoming 2nd term President via President Obama because both Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush waited to confront legal  immigration reform related policies until after they were re-elected.  President Obama addressed some partial DREAM Act relief within his first term in an era where anti-immigrant activists have demonized us and made the issue a toxic one.

We have American history to learn from regarding this issue, and it should not surprise anyone that not one single American President over the last 100 years has confronted or taken on immigration-related reform within his first term as President of the United States (aside from continued Cuban Amnesty via the Cuban Adjustment Act).  The one American President who addressed immigration within his 1st term as President was President Benjamin Harris (of Ohio) when he designated Ellis Island as the first federal immigration state that helped Irish, Italian, European, Latin immigrants and etc. from all over the world.   Ellis Island was established in 1890 (over a century ago), and it is time for legal immigration reform to be addressed once again. This nation was founded by immigrants that helped our Nation to become a beacon and a Shining City on a Hill to the whole world.

Finally, it would be advantageous for Latinos to invest their vote on an incoming 2nd term President rather than to gamble our voting chips away on Mr. Multiple Choice Mitt Romney who has flip-flopped so many times we don’t know who is who with him anymore.  Mitt Romney is the same man who was for ObamaCare initially but flip-flopped and now states he is against government health care — even though he created RomneyCare that helped lay the foundation to ObamaCare.

It is my view that it is better to have 4 more years of Obama than 8 more years of Mr. Romney.  If Romney sincerely wants the Latino vote by November Election Day, he would have to round up enough Republican Senators and Republican Congressman to pass a fair, full and comprehensive legal immigration reform bill and have it passed before November 6, 2012.  Latinas and Latinos cannot afford to throw their votes away anymore because this issue has been used as a political football for far too long, and we have no choice but to make the best calculated decision for the sake of all immigrants from all over the world.  Immigration does not affect only us (Mexicans and Latinos), it affects the Irish, the Asians, the Europeans, the Canadians and etc.

A healthy and legal immigration solution will secure our borders, create a safer North American Continent and promote a stronger relationship with our contiguous neighbors.  Enforcement-only initiatives promote a situation that emulates the failed days of Prohibition, which serves only to encourage the underground labor market.  Our government needs the additional tax revenues that new immigrants generate in order to sustain the burgeoning entitlement programs baby boomers require as they continue to retire.  By developing a reasonable legal immigration plan, we create a system where immigrants share American tax burdens as they continue to contribute millions of dollars into our tax coffers.  New immigrants sharing our tax burdens will help discourage our government from increasing taxes, because under the current system these entitlement programs will drain all federal revenues within 15 years.