Hispanic Vote Spells Trouble For Republicans

The Republicans did badly in 2012, nobody can deny that. As a result the Republican Party has spent the last several months trying to work out what went wrong and how to fix it, so that they can come back and win elections again. One of the problems they have identified is: Hispanics. Hispanics are the fastest growing demographic group in the country, and they are overwhelmingly Democratic. In the 2012 Presidential Election, Obama won 71% of the Hispanic vote to Romney’s 27%. This could pose a serious existential threat to Republicans in a Presidential election. As I’ve already mentioned, Hispanics are the fastest growing ethnic group in the US and losing that group by 43 points is a very bad sign. Yet Republicans haven’t always had it so bad with Hispanics, as this graph shows George W. Bush did a good job capturing the demographic, especially when you compare him to McCain and Romney.

There is also the problem of where the Hispanics live, and where they are moving to. For most of Colorado’s history it has been solidly Republican in regards to the presidential election, with a Democrat only winning three times in the period 1940 – 2004. In recent years the state has become increasingly Democratic with Obama winning by 8% in 2008. This rising Hispanic vote could also prove problematic in Nevada and Florida, both key swing states. The chart below shows what states have the highest Hispanic population.

As you can see most of these states are either swing states or reliably Democratic. Yet there are two major outliers, Texas and Arizona. Both of these states are solidly Republican yet they both have large, and increasing, Hispanic communities. If the Republicans continue on their current trajectory with Hispanics, both states could start to turn purple within a decade. This would be devastating to Republican presidential hopes as the combined Electoral College vote of the two states is 49!

With the census figures for 2010 released, we have a better view into just how much the Hispanic community has increased by. In 2000 there were 35 million Hispanics residing in the US, this increased to a whopping 50 million in 2010! If we look deeper into the statistics we can pick out the states that were considered swing states in 2012. All nine states had a significant increase in their Hispanic population, in North Carolina the Hispanic population more than doubled.

State	Increase in Hispanics 2000 - 2010	Hispanic Population in 2010
Colorado	41.2%	20.7%
Florida	75.4%	22.5%
Iowa	83.7%	5.0%
Ohio	63.4%	3.1%
Nevada	81.9%	26.5%
New Hampshire	79.1%	2.8%
North Carolina	111.1%	8.4%
Virginia	91.7%	7.9%
Wisconsin	74.2%	5.9%

Naturally the Republicans are going to want to reduce their conflict with Hispanics or they will continue to lose national elections, as well as some of their strongholds. It’s also important to note that a lot of the Hispanics represented in the 2010 census figures are not yet old enough to vote, in 2012 Hispanics made up roughly 17% of the population, yet only 11% of the electorate. This is bad news for the Republicans as Hispanics are going to make up a larger proportion of the electorate, even if they stop immigration. The election time bomb is here, how the Republicans attempt to diffuse it over the next few years will affect American politics for a generation.

Is There Hope For Gun Reform?

The NRA is arguably the most powerful lobbying group in the United States, it is probably the bulk of the reason why the US has the weakest gun regulations of any Western nation. Yet what has been happening in the last couple of months has been amazing in American politics. On the 14^th of December 2012, 20 young children and six adults were shot and killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. This changed America, there had already been several high-profile mass shootings in America over the past few years, the Gabby Giffords assassination attempt and the Aurora Theatre massacre to name a couple. This was the final straw for many Americans, hearing about the deaths of children around the age of seven was too much and many Americans demanded change. President Obama and Vice President Biden were very quick to begin trying to figure a way out of America’s crippling gun violence situation.

After a month or so of discussions about how to reduce gun violence, Obama and Biden came forward with a package of gun reforms; some of which needed the approval of Congress first. This was going to be difficult considering the NRA’s grip on Congress and the fact that the Republicans control the House. Nonetheless Senate Democrats began to try and push through new reforms. Particularly vocal was the Senior Senator from California, Dianne Feinstein, who had authored a prominent gun regulation bill that passed Congress back in 1994. Unfortunately it had been allowed to expire in 2004 by the Republican controlled Congress.  Feinstein’s bill put a ban on semi-automatic machine guns (the kind that fire many bullets in quick concession) and high capacity rifles. The idea behind it is that you do not need these guns, a hunter is not going to require a “spray” weapon to kill deer and you certainly don’t need it for self-defence. The high capacity magazines refers to ones that can hold more than ten bullets, the argument here is that you do not need more than ten bullets to hit a target, and if you do you probably shouldn’t own a gun anyway. This part of the package of reforms does have majority of support in America, around 57% of people say the support it, but it is unlikely to get passed the Republican controlled House.

Yet there is one extremely popular gun reform measure: background checks. Currently when buying a gun from a shop in America you have to go through a background check, to make sure you are legally allowed to own a gun (i.e. not a criminal or mentally ill). The problem is there is a huge loophole, if you purchase a gun whilst at a gun show or from another person, you do not have to go through a background check! It is estimated that around 40% of gun purchases in America do not involve background checks! So if you are not allowed to buy a gun in America, it is still extremely easy to buy one. What the new bill proposes is that every purchase should require a background check, regardless of who you are buying it from. This is extremely popular in America, NBC did a poll and 92% of Americans said they supported it, for comparison NBC’s poll showed background checks as more popular than Italian food, holidays and capitalism! Yet even this part of the bill, with this level of popularity, might fail in the Republican controlled House. When the Senate judiciary committee voted on it, of the eight Republicans, only Chuck Grassley of Iowa voted for it. Seriously.

Other parts of the bill increase funding for schools who wish to have guards as well as increased penalty for straw purchasers. Straw purchasers are people who buy guns for people who would not pass a background check at a shop.

Yet there is some hope that these bills could pass, that the NRA’s power could be dented. Mike Bloomberg, the Independent Mayor of New York runs a PAC called ‘Mayors Against Illegal Guns’ which attempts to aid gun reforms pass. Just recently the PAC made a $12 million ad buy in several states trying to get constituents to contact their senators and encourage them to support gun reforms. There is real hope now as Senators and Congressmen fear the NRA running adverts against them in elections; if a new group can raise as much as the NRA, then much of the NRA’s ‘power’ will disappear.

I wish America all the luck in the world, in most other western nations, only a handful of people are killed by guns every year. In America, the number is around 30,000. 

Cypriot Bailout Finally Agreed

Cyprus has finally agreed to a bailout to help its ailing economy. Cyprus will receive €10 billion to prop up its government after the financial sector of the small island nation was devastated by the Greek debt write-off. Some of the measures passed have been amazingly draconian in nature, completely different to the bailouts of Greece, Ireland and Portugal. Instead of hitting the taxpayer rather than the bond holders of the banks in trouble, the Cypriot bailout goes the other way round. It’s people with large deposits in Cyprus’ banks that will be worst hit, if you have more than €100,000 in a Cypriot bank you will lose a jaw-dropping 40% of your deposit! Cyprus has almost frozen the movement of capital: You can’t take more than €300 out of your bank (this is to stop people taking their money out of the banks en masse causing them all to collapse simultaneously) and you can’t take more than €1,000 out of the country! This kind of capital control is unprecedented in modern world history and it really highlights the desperation of Eurozone leaders due to the unending crisis.

Each time a bailout happens European leaders attempt to convince everyone that this will stop the contagion spreading, but so far Greece has been in permanent trouble, Ireland and Portugal have had their governments bailed out and Spain has had its banking sector bailed out. Most European countries have lost their AAA credit rating, with Germany as the last major economy to retain it!

I’m in no way convinced that this crisis is anywhere near over, so which country will be next?

An angry protester in Cyprus
sourece: www.money.cnn.com

The Future of Gay Rights in America

The future of gay rights in America is being debated in the Supreme Court this week as the court hears two cases involving marriage equality.

The first case the Supreme Court will be deliberating on is California’s ‘Proposition 8’. On 15^th of May 2008 California’s Supreme Court declared that marriage was a fundamental right that could not be withheld from people on the basis of who they wanted to marry. This infuriated the opposition that wants gay marriage to be banned and began trying to get the ruling overturned. The opposition decided that the best option was to ask the people of California, they managed to collect enough signatures to put gay marriage to a vote in November 2008. What became known as ‘Proposition 8’ was passed, by a margin of 4% and thus the court’s ruling was struck down. That was five years ago, and current polling out of California puts support at roughly 60% of the population. Recently there have been attempts to declare Proposition 8 unconstitutional in relation to California’s state constitution and on the 7^th of February 2012 the 9^th Circuit Court of Appeals made a 2 – 1 decision that Proposition 8 was indeed unconstitutional. Naturally the opponents of gay marriage weren’t prepared to give up and decided to try and take it to the Supreme Court on the 31^st of July. On the 7^th of December the Supreme Court agreed to hear the challenge to Proposition 8.

There are several ways in which the Supreme Court could decide to rule, first they have to decide if it is unconstitutional. If they decide that it is unconstitutional, they have several avenues that they could take;

1.      Make it apply solely to California (current polling would make this uncontroversial).

2.      Apply it to states that have passed Civil Unions that grant all the rights of marriage instead of the name. This would force the legalisation of gay marriage in other states that only have Civil Unions; Oregon, Nevada, Colorado, Illinois, Delaware, Hawaii, New Jersey and Rhode Island.

3.      Decide that gay marriage is a constitutional right and thus legalise it in all 50 states.

It is unlikely that they will rule the 3^rd way as it would simply be too controversial in many states and could harm the progress of people’s feelings towards gay people in states firmly opposed to gay marriage. The second is a real possibility but could be prove problematic as states would stop passing Civil Unions. The third is probably the most likely as it relates only to one state that is one of the most progressive in the US.

The second case the Supreme Court will hear is on the “Defence of Marriage Act” or DOMA as it is usually called. The act was passed in 1996 and signed into law by Bill Clinton (who has since called for the bill to be repealed). What the Act does is it defines marriage as between ‘one man and one woman’ and prevents the federal government from giving benefits to same-sex partners even if they are legally married in the state they reside in, such as Massachusetts. The anti-DOMA side is optimistic that it will be struck down as unconstitutional due to the state’s rights argument. This is the federal government restricting what the states can do, which might appeal to the more moderate conservatives on the court; Kennedy and Roberts.

The arguments for Prop 8 have already taken place today and DOMA will be held tomorrow. It is likely the gay rights side will get at least some of what they want, we’ll have to wait and see. 

The Budget

It was more of the same today from Chancellor George Osborne as he announced a new budget in Parliament. He has flat out refused to change course from the abysmal failure of Plan A that has led to this stagnating economy. The British economy is still 3% lower than its pre-crisis level and it is on the verge of triple dip recession. Charting Britain’s economy is starting to resemble a roller coaster rather than an actual graph.

George Osborne looking rather gloomy holding the budget
source: guardian.co.uk

Osborne has put in some small changes into the budget to try and look like less of a nasty chancellor. I don’t think that 1p off a pint of beer is going to coax many people into supporting his failing government. In more depressing news the OBR has reduced their expectation of growth in the UK economy from 1.3% to a measly 0.6%. I wonder when it will get halved again. If that wasn’t enough for the Chancellor, Moody’s has already dropped Britain’s AAA Credit Rating with Fitch and S&P likely to follow.

Yet despite all this austerity, what has Britain got to show for it? Nothing. Borrowing is rising again and the coalition has borrowed more money in three years than Labour did in 13 years.  We’ve been in this crisis now for six years now, I’m starting to really believe that we are heading for a lost generation. A generation in which living standards are actually decreasing until we find someone capable of leading the country into a future that is acceptable. Until that person comes along we’re stuck with Dave, George and Nick. 

Cypriot Bailout Chaos

There is chaos all across the small island nation tonight as the Cypriot Parliament delayed the vote on the €10 billion bailout of the country. As in all the previous cases, the bailout comes with harsh austerity on the Cypriot people. The austerity most angering civilians is the savings tax, if you have less than €100,000 in deposits, then you will be pay 6.75% in tax and 9.9% if you have deposits in excess of €100,000. The previous bailouts to Greece, Ireland and Portugal were all very harsh, but none put the burden so directly on civilians. The savings tax will hit elderly, who depend on their savings, the hardest. Naturally this has infuriated Cypriot civilians who are already facing tough economic woes.

As per usual, it’s the banks that have caused this crisis. They took a very big hit from the debt write off in Greece. There are serious worries in the financial markets that Cyprus will never pay back the €10 billion bailout, after all its GDP is only €18 billion

This has caused a bit of angst in Britain as well, due to the presence of two British military bases (Akrotiri and Dhekelia) there are several thousand British military personnel with deposits in Cypriot banks. The new tax would take a considerable proportion of their money, as a result the British government has promised to repay the soldiers, what the Cypriot government takes from them. That is assuming that the bailout passes.

It has been proven time and time again that austerity simply does not work, look at Greece. It was the first country to get a bailout and it had to get another one and a debt write off. Look at the UK, we’ve embarked on austerity and we’re looking likely to enter a triple dip recession. Great. When European leaders finally reach the conclusion that austerity is not working, then maybe this continent will be saved from this diabolical financial situation. We cannot continue like this, we must change course and change from Plan A to Plan B. 

Republicans and Gay Marriage

No one can deny that the 2012 elections went badly for Republicans, they lost the presidency as well as seats in the House and Senate.  They were also on the wrong side of the gay marriage fight in Maine, Maryland, Minnesota and Washington. Republicans have spent the last four months trying to find out where they went wrong and try to fix it so that they can go back to winning presidential elections again. Already we’ve seen them attempt to fix their problems with Latino voters by going after immigration reform, they’ve even considered going after the big banks. Yet there is one issue on which the Republican Party would appear to be unanimous; opposition to gay marriage. Whenever gay marriage is voted on in state legislatures, very few Republicans vote for the measure, and those who do often get ‘primaried’ by their own side.

The reality is, Republicans are divorced from the opinion of the majority of Americans. Polling consistently shows that, nationwide, Americans support gay marriage, but only by a few percentage points. It also varies hugely, in Massachusetts support for gay marriage stands at about 60%, whereas in Mississippi support barely makes double figures at 13%. Looking at the trend, you can clearly see that support for gay marriage is constantly rising and so this creates a problem for Republicans. They have to modernise their party, but their base is staunchly opposed to any attempts to try and bring the party into the 21^st century. In a surprise move, some Republicans have tried to move the party into a more progressive stance. At the end of last month over 100 prominent Republicans signed a letter to the Supreme Court urging it to strike down the Defence of Marriage Act, the law that forbids the federal government from recognising same-sex marriage. Yet there was one type of Republicans missing from the letter: incumbents. Basically all the Republicans that signed the letter (bar a few) are retired, no incumbent governor or senator signed on to the letter. The reason? Primaries. When Republicans show any sort of willingness to compromise, or support something that is not party policy, the base gets angry and chucks them out of office in favour of a more radically conservative Republican. Yet one incumbent Republican has decided to take a leap and announced his support for gay marriage. Rob Portman, the junior Senator from Ohio announced today that he supports legalising same-sex marriage. Portman is quite influential in the Republican Party, and at one stage was thought as a serious contender to be Mitt Romney’s running mate last year. Portman says he began to doubt his opposition to gay marriage when his son came out to him two years ago.

Now that such an influential, incumbent, Republican has announced his support, will other Republicans join him? Perhaps moderate Republicans such as Susan Collins will change their minds and support gay marriage! If some Republicans do decide to support same-sex marriage, then perhaps the wave of legalisations that many of us predict will happen in the coming months and years. We can only wait and hope.

Falklands Say NO to Argentina

The Falkland Island residents have overwhelmingly voted to remain a British Overseas Territory with only three of 1520 voters saying no. The question the voters were asked was as follows:

                           

“Do you wish the Falkland Islands to retain their current political status as an Overseas Territory of the United Kingdom?”

The massive landslide comes as no surprise to anyone who has even a slight understanding of the Falkland Islanders and their identity. Yet it was still met with delight across the small, South Atlantic archipelago. The residents are fed up with the Argentine government’s constant aggression towards them and the UK. For the past 30 years successive Argentine governments have tried everything to try and get the islands under their sovereignty, but to no avail.  British government after British government has refused to properly negotiate with Argentina on the issue unless the Falkland Islanders agree to talks.

Unsurprisingly the Argentinians had rejected the referendum before it even took place and they will still try and get something to move at the UN. The Falkland Islanders knew that Argentina would simply ignore their will, but the referendum was not meant to sway the Argentines. The point of the referendum was to show the rest of the world, the overwhelming opinion of the Falkland Islanders. Many countries simply did not realise the strength of opposition held by the Falkland Islanders and may have previously considered supporting dialogue between London and Buenos Aires.

This will not stop Argentina, the Falklands issue is always a good way to stir up national support for your government. It will not stop De Kirchner constantly attempting stupid stunts at the UN, such as handing David Cameron a piece of paper containing a list of UN Resolutions that they claim support their cause. They claim that the islands are rightfully theirs, despite British rule being firmly established in 1833 and Argentina only being re-unified in 1862. Many of the Falkland Island residents of today can trace their ancestry back to the 1833 settlers, they’ve been there for almost 200 years! Some people would claim that the Falkland Islanders should get no say in the future of the Falkland Islands as they are not ‘indigenous’. Which is absurd as there are no indigenous Falkland Islanders! It’s also hugely ironic as most of these people, in Argentina, making this claim are descendants of European immigrants. Just like those on the Falklands.

Regardless of what Argentina decides to do next, this referendum was very useful for the Falkland Islanders in their attempts to show the world that they are British and wish to remain so.

Europe's Porn Ban

Next week the European Parliament will vote on a bill that will lay down a blanket ban on pornography. The bill’s aim is supposed to be an anti-sexist one, yet I would argue that it is actually (accidentally) sexist! The presumption here is that women who enter pornography do so almost against their will. I find the idea that women cannot make their own decisions to be repulsive, if a woman wishes to do pornography, then let her, who are you to stop her? I mean, nobody cares about the men in porn, is the suggestion that men are mentally more able to take the ‘abuse’ of porn? I’ve never fully understood the argument that porn is demeaning. Another question is what happens about gay porn? If the ban is solely to try and protect women, then surely gay porn would be exempt as no women appear in it. If gay porn is also banned then this bill has nothing to do with sexism, but is simply an attempt to advance the author’s moral aversion to porn.

There is, of course, the more pressing issue of internet censorship. As I have already explained, the bill has no base on the grounds of combatting sexism and is simply someone’s moral objections to a particular practice. Censoring the internet in this fashion is unacceptable, what will be censored next? This bill cannot be passed, we must fight this tooth and nail to protect the freedom of the internet.  

Latest Government Humiliation

The government has been hit but another humiliating story this week, following the publication of a letter from the chief of the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) to David Cameron. During a speech made on Thursday by the Prime Minister, the claim was made that “[according to the OBR] the deficit reduction is not responsible [for the economic downturn], in fact it’s quite the opposite.” In a rather embarrassing turn of events the chief of the OBR, Robert Chote, explained that this was simply not true. This is the first time that the OBR has responded in such a visible fashion since it was set up by the current coalition government in 2010. This all plays very well into the Labour line that the government’s austerity policies are crushing the economy, Ed Balls was particularly gleeful following this recent embarrassment:

“A Prime Minister, who is desperately trying to defend an economic plan which is clearly failing, the economy flat lining, our deficit getting bigger, but to do so by being fast and loose with the facts, that is unbecoming of the office of Prime Minister.”

It does prove that more debate must take place over the success of the government’s austerity policy, and whether it should be stopped to allow the economy to grow. In international news, Japan’s recently elected Prime Minister, Shinzō Abe, has announced his intention to follow stimulus policies to get the economy moving. Japan has a much larger deficit that ours, it should also be noted that America (also with a larger deficit) has a growing economy, primarily thanks to the stimulus policies pursued by Obama in the first half of his first term. At the same time European nations that have followed the harshest austerity such as Greece and Spain are looking at a shrinking economy. The coalition needs to seriously debate their current economic plan as it is simply not working; a ‘Plan B’ must be thought up as ‘Plan A’ is failing epically. 

North Korean Craziness

If there was a prize for craziest regime, I believe North Korea would win that prize. In the past week several stories have emerged of the regime threatening catastrophic war. A couple of days ago North Korea threatened to void the armistice that ended the devastating Korean War in 1953. North Korea threatened both South Korea and Japan with war if certain conditions are not met, the regime claimed that they would turn the Seoul Presidential Palace into a "sea of fire". The issue over which North Korea is getting so aggressive about is joint sea and land exercises by the South Korean and US military which are due to take place on the 11th, four days away. In response South Korea has said that any attack would be taken as an act of war and South Korea will defend itself.

But even North Korea managed to top its own craziness and has threatened the US with nuclear war. The regime claims that the US is using the military drills as a cover to plant nuclear weapons. "Since the US is about to ignite a nuclear war, we will be exercising our right to pre-emptive nuclear attack against the headquarters of the aggressor in order to protect our supreme interest." Paranoid, right?

It is true that the North Korean regime always uses aggressive rhetoric when it comes to South Korea and its allies. Yet this seems to be a new level, threatening nuclear annihilation. This heightening of rhetoric occurred when the UN Security Council was discussing new sanctions on North Korea due to their nuclear test last month. The heightened rhetoric probably helped to push China into agreeing to the new sanctions earlier today, this will put real pressure on the small, isolated nation.

The big problem with North Korea is that no-one knows how to deal with it. An invasion would be totally out of the question, China is unlikely to agree to it so an invasion from the north is out of the question. The border between South and North Korea is too heavily defended and an amphibious invasion would be extremely costly to the invader. We have to see how sanctions go but I feel that eventually different actions will have to be taken. The US may be forced to place nuclear weapons in South Korea and Japan to try and act as a deterrence against North Korea. In the mean time, let's hope they don't do anything stupid!