GOP Must Address Immigration Reform

As Congress continues to punt on the immigration issue, a group of prominent GOP leaders urged them to take up comprehensive immigration as a way to win votes in the nation’s burgeoning Hispanic electorate.

"(Hispanics) will be the swing voters as they are today in the swing states. If you want to elect a center-right president of the United States, it seems to me you should be concerned about places like New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, Florida, Texas, places where but for the Hispanic vote, elections are won and lost," said former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, who co-chaired the conference organized by the new Hispanic Leadership Network, the Associated Press reported Friday.

The numbers bear him out. Hispanics are now the nation’s largest single minority block and they wield increasing power in, for the GOP, the electorally critical states in the Southwest and, more and more, the Rocky Mountain West. [See a roundup of editorial cartoons about immigration.]

In part the GOP’s dilemma is the result of aggressive messaging by the Democrats, who equate tough talk against illegal immigration with anti-Hispanic sentiments. It is also true that many Republicans talk about the issue indelicately and in ways that are open to misrepresentation and misunderstanding, creating an atmosphere of distrust in the nation’s Latino community.

To some, especially activists on the right, the call for comprehensive immigration reform is perceived as an argument for amnesty, the idea that estimated 12 million people who are in the United States illegally should be put on the fast track to citizenship, in essence rewarding them for jumping the line. But “What part of illegal don’t you understand” is not a rational basis for formulating public policy.

The challenge ahead, and it is a difficult needle to thread, is to find ways to embrace those who want to come to the United States in order to pursue a better life for themselves and their children in a way that does not fly in the face of existing law.

[Check out the year in cartoons: 2010]

The political consequences of failing to address the immigration issue could, for the GOP, be devastating. The party is currently competitive in the battle for Hispanic votes but it is a fight they could very easily lose--and not just by failing to tone down the rhetoric. It may be that they need to eschew comprehensive reform in favor of a bold and tough effort to increase security on the nation’s southern and northern borders, both of which seem to be relatively porous. In effect locking “the golden door” before taking up the much tougher task of dealing with the immigrants who are already here illegally--and who do not necessarily come from Latin America.

Being tagged as “the anti-immigrant party” hurt the GOP, especially in the nation’s urban centers, during the years when immigrants were primarily Catholics coming from Eastern and Southern Europe. It took many years, and a Cold War, before it could even begin to turn that around. And it may be, in a move that some Republicans and many Democrats may find unpalatable, but for different reasons, that the course ahead may require an increase in national quotas, especially for high-income and highly skilled workers who, for one reason or another, believe that the road to greater opportunity leads them out of their home country and into the United States.

[Check out our editorial cartoons on the GOP.]

At the same time, the GOP would be wise to take up the issue of "integration" at the same time it talks about “immigration”--which means doing more to improve the quality of public education and to reinforce the idea, popularized by former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, that English is the common language of the “American civilization.” Under the guise of showing respect for ethnic cultures, the linguistic Balkanization of the United States actually works to drive people apart and keep them from fulfilling the promise of the America Dream. It would certainly make the idea of comprehensive reform in a post-border security environment more political palatable to conservatives who find themselves stuck between a rock and hard place.

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'Same Old Jets' Exorcise Brady and the Patriots

Home > Opinion > Robert Schlesinger > 'Same Old Jets' Exorcise Brady and the Patriots

It was, a triumphant Head Coach Rex Ryan told the media after the game, the “same old Jets, going to the AFC championship game two years in a row.” This was what is called in politics a “dog whistle”—a message that only a select few listeners understand.

“Same old Jets” holds special meaning for those of us who have endured the special torture of being a Gang Green partisan. Some teams innovate on offense or introduce new schemes on defense. For most of my rooting life the Jets seemed to invent new and heart-wrenching ways to lose football games and waste promising seasons. “Same old Jets” was Richard Todd finding the Dolphins five times with a trip to the Super Bowl on the line in 1982; it’s Mark Gastineau crashing into Bernie Kosar in 1986 as the team squandered a 10 point lead with four minutes ; it’s Dan Marino and the fake spike in 1994; it’s Peyton Manning deciding to stay in school in 1997, when the Jets had the first pick in the draft; it’s Bill Belichick resigning as “HC of the NYJ” after one day on the job in 2000; it’s Doug Brien missing field goals twice in the last two minutes of regulation in Pittsburgh in 2004; it’s the tortured Brett Favre fade over the last final five games of 2008.

Same old Jets? Rex Ryan knows better and so now do the long suffering Jets followers. Fans of the “same old Jets” have spent 17 years enduring nightmares where Dan Marino is eternally not spiking the ball; now we can, at least for a few months, drift off to sleep with visions of Tom Brady spending an eternity in the pocket trying and failing to make sense of green and white swarm dancing in front of him.

Same old Jets? It was a dog whistle; a message that these new Ryan Jets are on an exorcism tour. Ryan and his mad scientist defense had never beaten Manning, at least before last weekend. And every football watcher not getting paid by Woody Johnson knew that after a regular season shellacking at the hands of these Patriots, the Jets were bound to be window-dressing for another Belichick-Brady coronation. Next up the Jets go to Heinz Field where they will try to put Doug Brien’s specter to rest.

Same old Jets indeed--going back to the conference finals.

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5 Luxuries You Can Afford By Retiring Abroad

Retirement overseas isn’t only about the money. The are many benefits of retiring beyond U.S. borders. But choosing to launch this phase of your life on foreign shores means that, even on a modest retirement budget, you can afford luxuries you’d probably never be able to manage back home. Here a few indulgences that may fit into your retirement finances if you retire abroad.

[See 10 Tips for Retirement Overseas.]

Full-time help around the house. In Vietnam, you can have a full-time maid for $60 a month. And in Panama, the world’s number-one overseas retirement haven right now, you can engage full-time household help for as little as $150 a month. For this amount, your house is cleaned, your laundry done, and your meals prepared. I have to admit that I was a little uncomfortable with the idea of having a full-time maid when we first moved to this part of the world. Today, two-and-a-half years later, I can’t imagine how I ever kept up with all the housework and chores on my own.

Additional household help. In Latin America it’s common and super-affordable to hire a gardener, a driver, and an assistant. In Panama, a gardener costs as little as $10 per visit and in Nicaragua the cost is even lower. A full-time, English-speaking personal assistant in Panama can cost $800 a month or less. A driver or a young person to help with running errands, translating, and interpreting costs half that.

[See The World’s Top Retirement Havens For 2011.]

Dine out regularly. While recently enjoying a New Year’s holiday with our children in Medellin, Colombia, we couldn’t get over the number of quality restaurants we had to choose from each evening and especially how affordable dining out every night of the week, even as a family of five, proved to be. One night we had Cuban food, the next Tex-Mex, followed by Thai, French, Italian, Argentine asado, and Colombian. In many cases, the meal—the food, the ambiance, and the service—qualified as five-star. Yet we found we had trouble spending more than $20 per person, including wine, dessert, and tip. If we’d wanted, we could have opted for more local-style options, where our bill would have been half as much or less.

Pamper yourself. A friend living in Managua, Nicaragua, enjoys a weekly massage in her home for one full hour for $20. A friend in Panama City arranges for a girl to come to her apartment once a week to give her a manicure and a pedicure, also for just $20.

Indulge your interests. With all the help around the house you’re going to be able to afford in your new life retired overseas, you’ll have plenty of time to pursue your personal interests. What you’ll discover is that, in many parts of the world, your hobbies can be a bargain. In Ireland, for example, where we lived for seven years when our daughter was young, horses are a part of everyday life in the country. We found we could not only buy and keep a horse, but also arrange private riding lessons for Kaitlin for a fraction of what it would have cost for these things back in the States, where, frankly, this hobby would have been beyond our budget at the time.

[See How to Choose an Overseas Retirement Haven.]

Sport fishing off the Pacific coast of Panama or Nicaragua and snorkeling and diving off the Caribbean islands of Belize or Honduras are local pastimes, not jet-setter indulgences. You can buy a ticket for a first-run movie in English in Medellin, choosing among a dozen of the latest releases in the half-dozen multi-screen theaters in the city, for as little as $3. When you retire overseas, not only will you have time for language lessons, private dance instruction, and golf club memberships, but you could also find them all well within your retirement budget.

Kathleen Peddicord is the founder of the Live and Invest Overseas publishing group. With more than 25 years experience covering this beat, Kathleen reports daily on current opportunities for living, retiring, and investing overseas in her free e-letter. Her book, How To Retire Overseas—Everything You Need To Know To Live Well Abroad For Less, was recently released by Penguin Books.

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In D.C., The March to Gay Marriage Rights Continues Unabated

The Supreme Court today declined to review an appellate court decision that essentially upholds gay marriage in the District of Columbia. Some anti-gay activists in the District have been pushing for a ballot initiative on gay marriage—essentially arguing to put it to a popular vote. The D.C. Court of Appeals ruled that an initiative banning gay marriage can’t be subjected to a popular vote because it would, itself, violate the District’s Human Rights Act.

So gay marriage, which became legal in the District of Columbia just last spring, continues unabated. Thus far, neither the nation’s capital nor the institution of marriage have fallen apart. Indeed, what has been most remarkable for me, as a D.C. resident, is how utterly uneventful the rise of gay marriage has been. The City Council passed it, a very small minority of people protested, there was a quick surge at the courthouse, which had to work through a backlog of gay marriage demand, and, well, that was about it. [Check out a roundup of this month's best political cartoons.]

Opponents of gay marriage are, at this point, in a race against the clock. Popular opinion is changing rapidly, and you don’t have to be Nostradamus to understand that gay marriage is going to be universally recognized in America in my lifetime. Americans born after 1980 support gay marriage rights by a fairly wide margin, and hard core opposition is increasingly limited to the old and to self-identified Republicans (even the independents are moving, rapidly, toward equal rights).

In California, where Prop 8 passed (barely) in 2008, public sentiment shifted the other way in less than two years. And even President Obama, finger firmly in the wind, said just before Christmas that his views on gay marriage are “evolving.” You bet they are; nothing evolves faster than a politician reading poll numbers. [Check out a roundup of Don't Ask, Don't Tell cartoons.]

A day after Martin Luther King, Jr., Day, it is interesting to contemplate the march of civil rights in this country. The courts and popular sentiment play off each other; what is rational in the eyes of the court depends in some measure on the views of the public. And while this march has never been fully linear, when viewed over the trajectory of decades, it has been inexorable. The rights Dr. King fought for seem, in hindsight, so self-evident that it’s hard today to imagine the opposition he faced. Forty years from now, we will say the same thing about gay marriage.

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Sen. Dick Lugar Ready to Battle Tea Party

Indiana's long-serving Sen. Dick Lugar says that he is steeled for a primary battle in 2012 with the Tea Party. "I take any opposition seriously," says the Republican leader on agricultural and foreign policy issues. [See who gives Lugar campaign cash.]

Given warning by the Tea Party's impact in the 2010 Delaware and Utah primaries, and their effort to block new Indiana Sen. Dan Coats's election, Lugar says that he is preparing earlier than ever before, and probably earlier than any other Indiana senator in history. For example, he conducted a poll last November that found him very popular in the state and this Friday he is hosting a fund raiser expected to earn his campaign $320,000.

The fund raiser comes a day before the Tea Party in Indiana meets to discuss ways to limit the number of candidates who might challenge Lugar in the primary. "We're coming out very early," says Lugar. Meeting with reporters this morning over breakfast, Lugar also says that the Tea Party represents a segment of the public who feel that Washington and the world have let them down. Tea Party supporters, he says, are "angry about how things have turned out for them." He noted that many members are unemployed or face severe government regulations on their businesses. "In essence they are unhappy about life in America."

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