New Voter ID Law Has Had The Jim Crow Effect Wanted On Black And Latino Votersct

Has voter registration among Latinos and African-Americans gone up or down since the 2008 election?

Considering how important these two voting blocks will be to the presidential candidates come November, the issue has become a source of debate.

Last week, The Washington Post reportedthat the number of black and Latino eligible voters is lagging under the headline, “Voter registration down among Hispanics, blacks.” On Monday, the Obama campaign's Director of Constituency Press, Clo Ewing, struck back on the organization's BarackObama.com blog.

“The analysis on which The Post based its mistaken claim is fundamentally flawed in several ways,” Ewing said.

The data cited by The Post is an outdated measure of voter registration and that “registration among Latinos and African Americans has never been higher," Ewing wrote. "There are more Americans of both backgrounds registered to vote today than there were when President Obama was elected.”

In March, The Huffington Post reported on the decline of registered Hispanic voters in 2010 citing a recent report by the William C. Velasquez Institute (WCVI). The institute is a non-profit and nonpartisan Latino research and advocacy group, that analyzed voting and registration data gathered by the Census Bureau between 1972 and 2010. Among their findings: “for the second “post-presidential cycle” in a row, Latino voter registration declined nationally” and declined 5 percent during 2009-10.

Source http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/07/is-voter-registration-amo_n_1497746.html?ref=black-voices

Romney Refuse To Claim His Faith In Run For White House.

When Honduran-born Antonella Cecilia Packard converted to the Mormon Faith 20 years ago, she said it was like "coming home."

The Catholic-educated Packard, who grew up in "the middle of Mayan ruins," appreciated the faith's strong sense of family and conservative values. She also saw her own history in the Book of Mormon with stories of migrations, tragedies and triumphs of a people many Mormons believe are the ancestors of some present-day Latinos.

But two decades after her conversion while a college student at Mississippi State, the 43-year-old Packard finds herself on a new mission: defeating Mitt Romney and any Mormon politician who betrays what she sees as a basic Mormon principle of protecting immigrants.

As Romney continues to seek the Republican presidential nomination while rarely discussing his faith, a growing number of vocal Hispanic Mormons say they intend to use Mormon teachings as a reason to convince others not to vote for him. They have held firesides (equivalent to a tent revival) on immigration, protested outside of Romney campaign events and have traveled across state lines to help defeat other Mormon politicians with similar harsh immigration stances.

"Yes, we are happy that we have a Mormon running for president," said Packard, a Saratoga Springs, Utah, resident and member of Somos (We are) Republicans. "But a lot of us aren't supporting him because of his stance against immigrants."

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Latinos Brown Skin Becomes The New Face Of D.W..B.

Four police officers from a Connecticut suburb have been accused of abusing their legal authority to harass, intimidate and deprive Latinos of their rights, the latest in a series of charges brought by the federal government against local police departments.

The charges against four East Haven police officers follow a Justice Department report last month that found a pattern of discrimination against Latinos and their supporters.

"We know and understand how difficult police officers' jobs are and how important they are to a free society," U.S. Atty. David B. Fein said at a news conference announcing the charges in East Haven. "It is for their benefit — and society's — that we at the Department of Justice are ever-vigilant in investigating and prosecuting wrongdoing by those who have sworn to protect the public."

East Haven police officers Dennis Spaulding, David Cari and Jason Zullo and Sgt. John Miller were charged with conspiracy, deprivation of rights and obstruction of justice in a federal indictment released Tuesday. The three officers worked the 4 p.m. to midnight shift, often supervised by Miller.

The indictment alleges that the group, "acting under the color of law did knowingly and willfully conspire and agree together and with each other ... to injure, oppress, threaten and intimidate members of the East Haven community in the free exercise and enjoyment of rights," the indictment said.

"In simple terms, these defendants behaved like bullies with badges," Janice Fedarcyk, assistant director of the New York office of the FBI, said at the news conference.

Nationwide, the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division is investigating 17 law enforcement agencies for possible violations, said Xochitl Hinojosa, a department spokeswoman in Washington.

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