NEW CENSUS TRACKS CITYS CHANGING FACES

Number Who Identify as Democrats Down Big in 2010
While the Obama Administration is thinking about ways to win over Independents in anticipation of the 2012 election, they actually should be worried that a large segment of former Democrats are no longer choosing to identify themselves with the party. From Gallup: In 2010, 31% of Americans identified as Democrats, down five percentage points from just two years ago and tied for the lowest annual average Gallup has measured in the last 22 years. While Democrats still outnumber Republicans by tw...

More immigrants making Hampton Roads home
Jorge Romero's family thought they had found a gold mine. In 2007, they opened a Grocery Store in Norfolk's Ocean View section that specializes in Hispanic foods, and for a while they had the market almost to themselves. "There were a couple little grocery stores in the area," said Romero, originally from Mexico City. "Now there are about 20." The stores sell the same ingredients, like the husks, spices and meats needed to make Mexican tamales. They're all responding to the s...

Latino clout in Congress appears to stay consistent
WASHINGTON — Latino political clout stayed steady in the new Congress that convened this week following the election of five new Hispanic House members and one senator. The 112th Congress has 26 Latino members, less than the 27 who served for the past two years but a substantial increase from the 19 Latinos in Congress a decade ago, according to records of the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials (NALEO). All told, there will be 17 Democrats and seven Republican...

New poverty figures for San Diego County
US Census figures reported last year that 14.3% of Americans lived below the Poverty level of $10,956.00 per year for a single adult and $21,954 for a family of four.  California had an even higher rate during the last study rising to 15.3% of state residents. However, today the Census figures were revised under a more accurate formula, overall Poverty in 2009 stood at 15.7%, representing about 47.8 million people.  When compared to the past September 2010 Census reports that’s a...

More Hispanic voters in states that gained congressional seats
According to a Pew Hispanic Center report released this week, “Hispanic voters are nearly three times more prevalent in states that gained Congressional Seats and Electoral College votes in the 2010 reapportionment than they are in states that lost seats.” Overall Latinos represent a greater share of eligible voter and resident populations in states that will gain seats than they do in states that will lose seats. Among eligible voters, in states that will gain seats 15.2% are Latino...

Rudy Giuliani Should Really Run For President
​The world is getting a lot of mixed messages today about the possibility of a Rudy Giuliani presidential run. This morning, we pointed you toward a report in the New York Post's Page Six indicating that Giuliani may very well be putting out feelers to a team of potential advisers and that he's even "confident that he'd have a chance to win." CBS has since confirmed Page Six's initially dubious report, but on Morning Joe this morning Giuliani said, "I haven't rounded up my political advi...

US electoral map gives Hispanics more heft: study
Stumble This! WASHINGTON (AFP) - The new electoral map that emerged from the 2010 US Census favors Hispanics, the largest US minority group, as some states in which they live will win more representation in Congress, a study found Wednesday. States with growing populations such as Texas and Florida will pick up extra Congressional Seats, while some northern states such as Ohio and Iowa are set to lose seats under a redistricting system ahead of the 2012 Elections. The study by the Pew His...

2010 Census Says California State Budget is $254 Billion, Not $90 Billion
Californians have not been told the truth about how much the State Government is spending.  A blockbuster bit of information has been buried in a new U.S. Census report and has not been covered by the Mainstream Media.   This  raises questions about the integrity of  California’s legislature,  former Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, indeed about ANYONE who has been involved with the stewardship of public funds and the California state Budget.  Who is ...

Ashley Michelle Williams: Social Media Is the Gateway to Hispanics
Media experts agree that Social Media is the gateway to U.S. Hispanics, the fastest-growing audience to embrace social networks and to tap into web information resources. Joe Kutchera -- author of the newly released book, Latino Link: Building Brands Online with Hispanic Communities and Content -- says that to target Hispanic customers, marketers should embrace marketing to Hispanic consumers on social platforms since they over-index for using social media. "Many research companies and market...

Reapportionment gains driven by Latinos
Republicans look at the states that got a boost in EVs, and they rejoice. It's mostly Red States! And in the short term (2012), than certainly is good news for them. What isn't good news is the reason why those states have grown. Hispanic voters are nearly three times more prevalent in states that gained Congressional Seats and Electoral College votes in the 2010 reapportionment than they are in states that lost seats, according to an analysis of Census data by the Pew Hispanic Center, a projec...

Prince William County Proves "Attrition Through Enforcement" Works
With all the buzz about Arizona's Immigration law this past summer, one might have thought the border state had literally launched an attack on Mexico. Before then, Prince William County, Va., adopted a vigorous 287(g) program in October 2007 to rid the county of its burgeoning Illegal Alien problem. The 287(g) program, which the Obama Administration has substantially weakened, enables state and local police to help systematically enforce Immigration violations. Arizona's Sheriff Joe Arpaio ope...

How Do All These Work Force Dropouts Actually Quit?
In response to BLS Job Report: December Nonfarm Payrolls +103,000, November Revision +32,000, October Revision +38,000; Workforce DROPS by 260,000, reader "Aleph" wants to know how someone drops out of the workforce. Can you explain to your readership how the government determines that a person has dropped out of the Labor Force, as opposed to running out of Unemployment Benefits and becoming desperate (or Homeless) with no job and no decent prospects? Or do they make no distinction between volu...

Brash GOP Lawmaker Won't Lead Immigration Panel
Republicans eliminated a potential liability with Latino voters Friday by refusing to give the top spot on an Immigration subcommittee to a congressman who once proposed stopping Illegal Immigrants with an electrified fence. The expectation was that Rep. Lamar Smith of Texas, House Judiciary Committee chairman, would choose fellow Republican Rep. Steve King of Iowa to be the next chairman of the Judiciary Committee's subcommittee on immigration, Citizenship and other related issues. Instead he c...

Arizona Bans Latino Studies Program, Fueling New Immigration Fight
A new Immigration debate is burning in Arizona this week after the state's Attorney General declared a Tucson School District's Mexican-American program illegal -- while similar class programs for blacks, Asians and American Indians were left standing. "It's propagandizing and brainwashing that's going on there," Tom Horne, the new Attorney General said earlier this week referring to the Latino program. He ruled it violated a new state law that went into effect on Jan. 1, the New York Times repo...

Rahm Emanuel ups the ante on Police Department Manpower
Yesterday, Rahm Emanuel was going add 250 policemen to the ranks of the Chicago Police Department if elected mayor. Today, he’s upped the ante to 1,000 more cops. If you recall, Miguel del Valle wants ten years to fill 1,100 CPD vacancies and Gery Chico says he’ll hire 2,000 officers and will find proper funding. Carol Moseley Braun plans to “implement new policies for patrolling and Deployment of sworn personnel.” Emanuel wants to add the 250, and shift another 250 by re...

Attacking health care and repealing birthright citizenship: dumb and dumber
Just when we thought the new crop of Republicans could do no worse than their senseless attack on American’s hard-fought Health Care reforms, guess what?  They one up themselves with an equally pointless assault on our constitution. With two wars, few jobs, and a huge Budget Deficit, Republicans decide to… attack the 14th amendment, as predicted.  Whatever you think of these antics, this is much is clear: GOP moderates and their Far Right conservative wing appear to more an...

Police search for man with schizophrenia, heart condition
Chicago Police are searching for a man who disappeared from a South Side nursing home and suffers from schizophrenia. Jose Sanchez, 64, is missing from the Alden-Princeton Nursing Home at 255 W. 69th St. in Englewood, according to a Missing Persons alert. He was last seen Friday. Sanchez is described as a Hispanic man about 5-foot-5 and 158 pounds, the alert said. He has short salt and pepper hair, brown eyes and is missing his top and bottom front teeth. He was last seen wearing gold wire rimm...

Pro-Abortion Rudy Giuliani Denies a White House Run
Although pro-life Repbulican voters rejected the pro-abortion but otherwise well-regarded New York City mayor for the GOP nomination in 2008, Rudy Giuliani is reportedly considering a second run. CBS News indicates sources close to the former mayor say he is talking to political advisors about another campaign for the Republican nomination, this time to take on pro-abortion President Barack Obama. Giuliani’s 2008 Presidential Campaign won him just one delegate, as he failed to resonate eit...

Is Rudy Giuliani running for president again? (The Ticket)
Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani's bid for the 2008 GOP presidential nomination went down in flames, but that apparently hasn't stopped him from considering another White House run. While Giuliani denies it, sources close to the former mayor tell CBS's Stephanie Condon that he's been reaching out to political advisers to feel out the possibility of a 2012 Campaign. One source, who refused to be named, tells CBS that Giuliani has learned his lesson from '08 — a campaign in which he skipped...

If Giuliani Is Back, It Won't Be By Popular Demand
Let’s not indulge in any equivocation: Mayor Rudy Giuliani’s 2008 Presidential Campaign was a flop. Though he was an early front-runner in national surveys of potential Republican primary voters, Mr. Giuliani placed a distant sixth in the Iowa Caucus, fourth in the New Hampshire primary, sixth again in both Michigan and South Carolina and then, finally, a distant third in Florida, a state where he had allocated much of his resources. Mr. Giuliani then dropped out of the race and endo...

Will New Hampshire Put Gay Marriage Front and Center in 2012?
The new Republican majority in New Hampshire's legislature wasted little time upon assuming power before changing things around, voting on the opening day of the legislative session to allow Firearms on the House floor. The GOP's gains in the Granite State could also mean a new initiative to ban Gay Marriage there, just two years after the Democratic legislature voted in 2009 to allow it. The Concord Monitor reported earlier this week that a push to ban Gay Marriage looms—despite the ...

Poll: Rick Santorum Strongest Challenger to Casey
A new poll showed Sen. Bob Casey on stronger footing than several of his fellow first-term Senators up for re-election in 2012. Is the Democratic firm Public Policy Polling daring Rick Santorum to abandon his presidential ambitions in favor of a run for his former Senate seat? We found it interesting that PPP released a new survey on Pennsylvania Sen. Bob Casey’s (D) re-election chances with the following paragraph in the Press Release: “With yesterday’s release showing Rick Sa...

Friday Hitzenmisses
It’s another one of those sloooow news days with no big stories but a few little ones. Here we go: He’s baa-ack! Rudy gearing up for DC run Confident that he’d have a chance to win, Rudy Giuliani is rounding up his top political advisers for a possible 2012 presidential run, sources tell Page Six. Sources say the tough-talking former mayor “thinks the Republican race will be populated with far-right Candidates like Mitt Romney, Sarah Palin and Mike Huckabee, and there&#...

How many double-takes can one do in a split second?
I think I broke the record. Last night as I was putting the finishing touches on the two posts I was working on, a Google Alert email came up on my phone. [Well, the buzz of my phone told me I had a message. I had to actually pick the phone up to see that it was one of the Google Alert variety.] Instead of totally interrupting my train of thought and clicking on the adjacent email tab online, I picked up my phone and this is what I saw: Presidential Primary Process Reorganized Kansas City Star...

Assassinations are rare -- but not unheard of
Saturday’s shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords was so startling in part because of how rare it is that an attempt it made on the life of a major American political figure. Four presidents in history have been assassinated (Abraham Lincoln, James Garfield, William McKinley and John F. Kennedy), with several others (including Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan) targeted. Even though they aren’t protected by nearly as much security, attacks on members of Congress are, statistically speaking,...