I laughed out loud the other morning when I opened the print edition of the Houston Chronicle. The front page headline read
Koch funded Libre Initiative looks to mobilize Latino voters.
I like to read the print edition every morning. The first thing I do is open the paper and line up the front page and the city and state sections side by side. I look to see what section I will read first. So, when I opened the city/state section I laughed when I read the section's front page headline. Of course none of this is really funny at all. The plight of immigrants in this country is beyond craven, heartless and hypocritical. While the Koch GOP groups try to pretend to care about immigrants their colleagues in state houses and in the U.S. Congress are working 24/7 to keep cheap labor a permanent state of slavery in this country.
GOP again tries to repeal in state tuition law
If you click on the image below you can see a larger version. (I'm technologically challenged).
I guess it has dawned on the Republican Party that it cannot rely solely on cheating, stealing, lying, fraud and treason in order to win elections. It somehow has to find a way to woo Latino voters.
The Libre Initiative, the Texas-based organization funded heavily by billionaires Charles and David Koch, is expanding in Texas and around the country in a drive to mobilize Latino voters heading into the 2016 elections.
The growth of the Mission-based organization offers more evidence of Republicans’ determined effort to make inroads into the fast-growing Latino vote, which overwhelmingly supported President Barack Obama and most Democrats in recent elections.
Since February, a separate Koch-funded group has posted openings for Libre Initiative jobs in Florida, Arizona, North Carolina, Colorado and Virginia - states with heavy Latino populations or likely battlegrounds in the 2016 elections.
The organization's methodology will likely rely on typical GOP scorched earth politics. It will target groups of evangelical Christian Latinos and employ the usual wedge issues, i.e. gay marriage, abortion. It will demonize Democratic opponents by smearing and attacking their greatest strengths. Remember the Swift Boating of John Kerry? I guess it's hard for the Party of, for and by the 1% to run on the merits of its accomplishments, agendas and ideologies.
A wolf in sheep's clothing.
Libre — the Spanish word for free — bills itself as a nonpartisan, grassroots organization that advances the principles and values of economic freedom to empower Latinos. The group provides a variety of services, from helping obtain driver’s licenses and tax filing to providing children with school supplies.
The definition of freedom in Koch GOP World means serfdom. While these grassroots groups pretend to help immigrant families their cronies, enabled by GOP politicians, will prey upon them later like
sharks. The unfettered payday loan businesses in Texas is out of control. Greg Abbott and other Texas Republicans protect the loan sharks because of the industry's generous contributions to their campaigns. Unfortunately it is the low income earners who fall into the traps laid by ruthless payday loan organizations. While the politicians look the other way.
The Latino Victory Project, a political advocacy group co-founded last year by Henry Muñoz, of San Antonio, is keenly aware of Libre’s activities. Project president Cristobal Alex said he intends to conduct a briefing on Libre in New York soon with potential donors.
"We need to have a counterweight to what the Koch Brothers are doing," he said. "They understand, and rightly so, that Latinos will decide future elections in a number of places, including at the very top, but that Latinos are not hyper-partisan."
He added: "They (Koch brothers) are not investing in Libre for the benefit of the Latino community. They are investing in Libre for their pocketbooks."
Yep.
Meanwhile, back on the ranch in Austin, Texas Republicans are hell bent on making life as miserable as possible for immigrants and their children.
The Texas GOP wants to make it illegal for the undocumented children of immigrants to have in-state tuition benefits at public universities and colleges.
The measure, however, is backed by Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and supported by tea party lawmakers who increasingly dominate the Legislature. It is expected to win committee approval and advance in the full Senate.
The anti-immigrant move is not against any group country, according to a Tea Party snake oil dealer. Except that it is.
Sen. Donna Campbell, R-New Braunfels, who is authoring the bill in the Senate, said her proposal aims to make a priority students who are U.S. citizens. Campbell, one of Patrick's closest supporters in the Senate, told cap-and-gown-clad college students in the packed hearing room that her Senate Bill 1819 was not an anti-immigrant bill.
"It's not against any group or country," Campbell said, adding that the law provided an incentive for undocumented parents to send their children across the border.
Former Governor Rick Perry vetoed any bills to repeal in-state tuition for immigrant children in the past. Current Governor Greg Abbott doesn't share a ounce of Rick Perry's stingy compassion. He intends to punish the undocumented children of immigrants.
The issue has taken on significance for tea party-backed Republicans in the Senate and their most vocal supporters. Since 2011, Senate Republicans have tried to repeal the law. Those attempts failed when former Gov. Rick Perry held the veto pen. Perry, who signed the law initially, has become a strong supporter of the bill in a changed Republican Party and a newer, more conservative Senate.
Gov. Greg Abbott, the new chief executive, has revived conservatives' hopes that they can effectively repeal the law this session. During the gubernatorial campaign, Abbott said the law "has to be fixed" and is "flawed" as it currently stands, while he has supported the law's overall objective.
When serving as the state's Attorney General, compassion bereft Greg Abbott
sued the Obama Administration for its executive action on immigration.
"The way the law is written is students who are applying for in-state tuition under that law must be making progress toward establishing legal status," Abbott said. "There are absolutely no rules or regulations establishing whether they are fulfilling the law as it is written."
So, earth to Latino voters. Don't be sucker punched. Look at what happened in 2000 when too many of us thought G.W. Bush would be a nice guy with whom to have a beer.
That fairy tale turned into one of the worst financial and foreign policy nightmares in recent American history.
