Syria's opposition urges West to send rebels arms

Syrians who fled from the violence in their village, carry plastic containers as they line up to fill them with water at a displaced camp, in the Syrian village of Atma, near the Turkish border with Syria. Saturday, Nov. 10, 2012. (AP Photo/ Khalil Hamra)

Syrians who fled from the violence in their village, carry plastic containers as they line up to fill them with water at a displaced camp, in the Syrian village of Atma, near the Turkish border with Syria. Saturday, Nov. 10, 2012. (AP Photo/ Khalil Hamra)

Two Syrian boys who fled with their family from the violence in their village, sit in front of a tent at a displaced camp, in the Syrian village of Atma, near the Turkish border with Syria. Saturday, Nov. 10, 2012. (AP Photo/ Khalil Hamra)

A Syrian elderly disabled man who fled from the violence in his village, prays in front of his tent at a displaced camp, in the Syrian village of Atma, near the Turkish border with Syria. Saturday, Nov. 10, 2012. (AP Photo/ Khalil Hamra)

George Sabra, the new head of the main Syrian opposition bloc in exile, the Syrian National Council, speaks to reporters during a press conference on the sidelines of the General Assembly of the Syrian National Council meeting in Doha, Qatar, Saturday, Nov. 10, 2012. Sabra struck a combative tone Saturday, saying international inaction rather than divisions among anti-regime groups are to blame for the inability to end the bloodshed in Syria. (AP Photo/Osama Faisal)

George Sabra, the new head of the main Syrian opposition bloc in exile, the Syrian National Council, speaks to reporters during a press conference on the sidelines of the General Assembly of the Syrian National Council meeting in Doha, Qatar, Saturday, Nov. 10, 2012. Sabra struck a combative tone Saturday, saying international inaction rather than divisions among anti-regime groups are to blame for the inability to end the bloodshed in Syria. (AP Photo/Osama Faisal)

DOHA, Qatar (AP) ? The newly elected leader of Syria's main opposition group slammed the international community for what he called inaction, saying Saturday that fighters are in desperate need of weapons to break the stalemate with President Bashar Assad's forces.

George Sabra's comments came as his Syrian National Council struggled with other opposition groups to try to forge a cohesive and more representative leadership as rebels step up attacks against regime forces.

Two suicide car bombers struck a military camp in the southern city of Daraa on Saturday, killing at least 20 government soldiers and prompting clashes in the area, activists said.

Bombings targeting state security institutions have become frequent in recent months, raising Western fears that extremists fighting with the rebels could gain influence. That's one of the reasons the rebels' foreign backers are wary of providing weapons.

The United States also has become increasingly frustrated with the opposition's inability to overcome deep divisions and rivalries in order to present a single conduit for foreign support.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton harshly criticized the SNC late last month and called for a leadership that can rally wider support among activists fighting the regime on the ground.

Sabra, who was elected by the SNC on Friday, said the international community should support the opposition and send arms without conditions, rather than linking aid to an overhaul of the leadership.

The Syrian opposition may have many foreign friends, he told The Associated Press in an interview, "but unfortunately we get nothing from them, except some statements, some encouragement." The regime "has few friends, but these friends give the regime everything," he added, referring to Assad allies Russia, China and Iran.

Sabra, 65, headed the SNC delegation Saturday in talks in the Qatari capital of Doha on a Western-backed proposal that would give the group only about one-third of 60 seats on a leadership panel to make room for more activists from inside Syria, including those fighting on the front lines.

The outcome of the talks will be crucial not just for the SNC, widely seen as out of touch with activists on the ground in Syria, but for the future of the entire opposition. Without unity among opposition groups, the international community is unlikely to step up aid.

Sabra, a Christian and a veteran left-wing dissident who was repeatedly imprisoned by the regime, said the SNC agrees that unity is important but suggested his group would not accept a deal that could lead to its demise.

The choice of a Christian to lead the SNC could help counter Western concerns about the influence of Islamists in the group. A senior Brotherhood figure, Mohammed Farouk Taifour, was chosen as Sabra's deputy.

But analysts said Sabra's election was unlikely to significantly change the situation.

"I don't think his election will do anything to persuade the detractors of the SNC that it has become more attractive and democratic," said Salman Shaikh, the director of the Brookings Doha Center. Sabra is an SNC insider, and "his election is part of continuity, not change," he added.

Senior SNC members portrayed Saturday's meeting as the beginning of what could be days of negotiations over the size and mission of any leadership group. Other opposition delegates said an agreement on the new body is imminent.

Riad Seif, another veteran dissident who presented the reform plan, has said the new group would be recognized as the sole legitimate representative of the Syrian people and would receive billions of dollars in aid.

Sabra said he and the 66-year-old Seif are old friends and even shared a jail cell when both were rounded up after the March 2011 outbreak of the uprising against the regime. "The problem is with the initiative itself," he said of Seif's plan, arguing that it's too vague.

Haitham Maleh, a veteran Syrian opposition leader, said discussions with Sabra will continue but the leadership group might be formed without the SNC if an agreement can't be reached.

"If they (SNC representatives) don't accept having a common body, we could form a political body alone," Maleh said.

Damascus has dismissed the meeting in Doha, and Information Minister Omran al-Zoubi called it a political folly. In an interview on state-run Syrian TV aired late Friday, al-Zoubi said those who "meet in hotels" abroad are "deluding themselves" if they think they can overthrow the government.

Syrians, who fled violence and found refuge in neighboring countries, like Turkey, Jordan and Lebanon, urged Sabra and other opposition leaders to work together to end bloodshed.

"Our priority is to stop killing of the Syrian people. They should unite and become a single entity," said Abdulrahman Mostafa, 33, who has been living in the Yayladagi refugee camp in Turkey's Hatay province along the border with Syria. "If our leaders are not united, how can we stand united as a people?"

Hundreds of thousands of Syrians have fled the violence in their country, inundating neighboring countries. As many as 11,000 crossed the borders on Friday, a surge attributed to fighting at Ras al-Ayn in the predominantly Kurdish oil-producing northeastern province of al-Hasaka.

The uprising against Assad began in March 2011 with peaceful protests in Daraa, inspired by the Arab Spring wave of revolutions in the Middle East. But a regime crackdown prompted fierce fighting, propelling the conflict into a civil war that has taken on sectarian overtones. In all, activists say more than 36,000 people have been killed.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which relies on a network of activists on the ground, said two suicide bombers drove their explosives-laden cars into a military encampment behind the officer's club in Daraa in quick succession. It said at least 20 soldiers were killed, most in the second explosion.

Other activists described explosions that targeted the high security area but didn't say they were suicide attacks. State-run news agency SANA reported triple car bombings in Daraa that killed seven civilians and wounded several others.

The government rarely provides death tolls for security forces, and the discrepancy could not be reconciled or independently verified.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for Saturday's attack, but Jabhat al-Nusra, an al-Qaida-inspired extremist group that is fighting alongside the rebels, has said it was responsible for similar bombings in the past.

In other violence, Syrian TV said a locally made rocket slammed into a four-story residential building in the district of al-Qassaa in the capital of Damascus, wounding two young women.

SANA said three mortar rounds were fired in central Damascus Saturday evening, injuring several people and damaging a clinic in a residential building in al-Tilyani neighborhood.

The state media blamed "terrorists" for the attacks ? the term used by the Syrian government to describe rebels.

___

Surk reported from Beirut. Zeina Karam in Beirut, Mehmet Guzel in Yayladagi, Turkey, and Abdullah Rebhy in Doha contributed to this report.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2012-11-10-Syria/id-69165add9f2345e0bbdf6a96640385c6

lake vostok montgomery county public schools the river dr dog ke$ha earl csco

Official backs studying quake risks at nuke plants

ATLANTA (AP) ? Recent earthquakes demonstrate the need for the nation's nuclear industry to re-evaluate the geologic hazards facing power plants, a process that has already started, the new chair of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission said this week.

NRC Chairwoman Allison Macfarlane said in an interview that a spate of natural events shows the importance of further study.

"I think what this highlights to us ? especially to me as a geologist ? is the importance of paying close attention to earth processes and making sure we properly account for them in ensuring that the plants operate safely," Macfarlane said.

In March, the NRC instructed power companies to re-evaluate the seismic and flooding hazards that their power plants face. While such a re-evaluation had been discussed for years, the issue accelerated after a 2011 earthquake and tsunami crippled reactors at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant in Japan, leading to multiple meltdowns and radioactive releases. Later that year, the North Anna nuclear plant in Virgina was struck by an earthquake that caused peak ground movement at twice the level at which the plant was designed. No major damage or complications were reported.

Federal officials later cleared that plant to resume operations.

Nuclear plants in the eastern and central United States will have until the end of 2013 to finish the re-evaluation, she said. New evaluations for nuclear plants on the West Coast will take until 2015 to complete since they face more varied geologic conditions.

"If a plant is found to be deficient then, yes, it will have to get up to its new design basis," Macfarlane said.

President Barack Obama appointed Macfarlane, a geologist and expert on nuclear waste, to the post in May after former NRC chairman Gregory Jaczko announced his resignation. Jaczko pushed for safety reforms but was criticized for a style that his fellow commissioners and agency employees described as bullying. Macfarlane traveled to Atlanta this week to address top nuclear executives gathered for a conference of the Institute of Nuclear Power Operations.

Her term runs through 2013. Macfarlane had said she planned to seek re-appointment if Obama won the presidential election.

___

Follow Ray Henry on Twitter: http://twitter.com/rhenryAP

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/official-backs-studying-quake-risks-nuke-plants-224530214.html

zimmerman charged bonobos charles manson al sharpton actuary elon musk fox mole

Calif. city plans to provide transgender surgeries

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) ? San Francisco is preparing to become the first U.S. city to provide and cover the cost of sex reassignment surgeries for uninsured transgender residents.

The city's Health Commission voted Tuesday to create a comprehensive program for treating transgender people experiencing mental distress because of the mismatch between their bodies and their gender identities. San Francisco already provides transgender residents with hormones, counseling and routine health services, but has stopped short of offering surgical interventions, Public Health Director Barbara Garcia said Thursday after the vote was announced.

The idea for a new program that included surgeries came out of conversations between public health officials and transgender rights advocates who wanted mastectomies, genital reconstructions and other surgeries that are recommended for some transgender people covered under San Francisco's 5-year-old universal health care plan.

At the urging of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors and the San Francisco-based Transgender Law Center, the commission agreed this week to drop sex reassignment surgery from the list of procedures specifically excluded from the Healthy San Francisco plan.

But Garcia described the move as "a symbolic process" for now because the city currently does not have the expertise, capacity or protocols in place to provide the surgeries through its clinics and public hospital.

"The community felt the exclusion on Healthy San Francisco was discriminatory and we wanted to change that as the first step," she said.

Instead of expanding the existing plan, the Health Commission approved the establishment of a separate program that covers all aspects of transgender health, including gender transition. Garcia hopes to have it running by late next year, but said her department first needs to study how many people it would serve, how much it would cost, who would perform the surgeries and where they would be performed.

"Sex reassignment surgery is not the end all. It's one service that some transgender people want and some don't," she said. "We can probably manage this over the next three years without much of a budget increase because we already have these (other) services covered."

San Francisco in 2001 became the first city in the country to cover sex reassignment surgeries for government employees. Last year, Portland, Ore. did the same. The number of major U.S. companies covering the cost of gender reassignment surgery for transgender workers also doubled last year, reflecting a decades-long push by transgender activists to get insurance companies to treat such surgeries as medically necessary instead of elective procedures.

Kathryn Steuerman, a member of a transgender health advocacy group in San Francisco, said the city's latest move would help residents avoid going into debt to finance operations related to gender transition, as she did.

"I am filled with hope and gratitude that we are achieving this level of support for the well-being of the transgender community," Steuerman said.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/calif-city-plans-transgender-surgeries-003038743.html

rex ryan yule log ham recipes darlene love free kindle books roasted potatoes turkey recipes

Why ?Being Special? Will Never Make You Happy. ? wordfromthewell

Today we ask that you examine the idea of ?specialness.?

?Specialness? is so much a part of your culture that most of you do not question it.

?Specialness? simply means that some things are better or more important than others.

So, in your world, there are special people. ?Celebrities, the very wealthy, people who win prizes, politicians, athletes ? such people are considered ?special? in your reality.

That is why so many people crave nothing more than to become rich and famous.

Specialness is very insidious.

Parents wish their children to be more special than other children.

People fantasize about special romantic relationships ? so much so the they are closed off to the real, true relationships that are right in front of them.

People get hung up on ?special days.? ?Weddings, bar mitzvahs, confirmations, holidays, birthdays, anniversaries.

People experience terrible stress around ?special days,? for if these special days fall short of their fantasies, there is deep depression, and disappointment.

This is one of the causes of postpartum depression. ?Women believe that motherhood and birth will imbue them with specialness. ?When confronted with the all too mundane reality of parenthood, depression follows.

Notice this pattern in yourselves.

Do you have an obsession with specialness?

Are you especially interested in the lives of celebrities?

Do you fantasize about being a ?special person??

Do you fantasize about ?special days?? ?Weddings, holidays, birthdays, anniversaries. ?The birth of a child.

Do you fantasize about your children being ?special??

As commonplace as all this is, the craving for specialness is a direct road to terrible misery.

This is why people get depressed around holidays, and other ?special days.?

This is why people spend fortunes on weddings they can?t afford.

It is why they buy big, special houses they can?t afford, or send their children to special schools they can?t afford.

Specialness, specialness, specialness.

If you could let go of the craving for specialness, what deep, ?lasting, profound peace you would feel.

How present you would be.

You would greet each day with equanimity. ?Each day would be ?special,? and no day would be ?special.?

You would no longer fantasize about events in the future that will make you special. ?You would not be let down and depressed when your fantasies do not come to pass.

You would be better parents to your children.

You would have a saner, more loving society.

All of this would happen if you could let go of your obsession with specialness.

And people would still do wonderful things.

They would do wonderful things, and not be driven mad ? like so many of your celebrities, who have been driven mad by the addiction to specialness.

So just observe this behavior in yourself. ?Notice how it operates inside of you.

If you observe it, it will lose its power.

Source: http://wordfromthewell.com/2012/11/08/why-being-special-will-never-make-you-happy/

armenian genocide asteroid mining memorial day ivan rodriguez planetary resources mothers day gift ideas natalee holloway

Harry Sloan's Global Eagle Signs $430 Million Airline Entertainment ...

Harry Sloan?and Jeff Sagansky?s recently formed company Global Eagle Acquisition Corp. is taking flight with a $430 million deal to create what it is calling the ?largest integrated entertainment platform for the global airline industry,? it was announced Thursday.

Global Eagle, which is being renamed Global Eagle Entertainment, has signed an agreement to acquire Row 44 Inc., which provides broadband services to airlines, and 86 percent of Advanced Inflight Alliance AG, a Frankfurt, Germany, company that supplies games, movies and general entertainment to the airline industry.

?By combining AIA's access to the installed in-flight entertainment market with Row 44's Wi-Fi to mobile device capability,? said Sloan, ?Global Eagle has potential access to 100 percent of the airline passenger experience, creating an addressable market as large as the global airline industry. This is exactly the kind of worldwide digital media opportunity we?ve been seeking for Global Eagle since our IPO; and this is also a platform for Jeff and me to utilize our media and content relationships and experience to drive expansion and enhancement of in-flight content and programming around the world.?

RELATED: Former MGM, CBS Execs Raise $190 Million for Media Investments

This is the biggest deal for Sloan and Sagansky since they raised a $190 million fund with an IPO in May 2011. According to the announcement, they ?believe that this marriage of content, connectivity and capital will create a superior platform to exploit the rapidly expanding global airline industry as it increasingly focuses on the in-cabin entertainment experience and other ancillary revenue opportunities.?

Sloan started his career in Hollywood as an attorney before becoming an executive and dealmaker. From 2005 until 2009, Sloan was chairman and CEO of MGM. He also made millions developing media in Scandinavia as chairman and CEO of SBS Broadcasting between 1990 and 2001. Sloan recently was a finance chairman for the Mitt Romney campaign.

Sagansky was president of CBS Entertainment from 1990 to 1994. He was co-president of Sony Pictures Entertainment from 1996 to 1998. He was CEO of Paxson Communications from 1998 until 2002. He also held positions at Peach Arch, RHI Entertainment, Winchester Capital Management and Elm Tree Partners, a privately held casino development company.

As part of the deal, Global Eagle is purchasing the Alliance shares from PAR Investment Partners Lp., which also is a major shareholder in Row 44. Alliance will retain its listing on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange with the remaining 14 percent of the shares held by the public.

To finance the transactions, PAR will purchase 7.1 million shares of Global Eagle, which will include both voting and nonvoting stock.

Row 44, based in Westlake Village, Calif., provides in-flight broadband and in-flight entertainment via satellite to commercial airlines. Customers have included Southwest Airlines, Norwegian Air Shuttle, Transaero and UTair Aviation (Russia), Icelandair (Iceland) and Mango Airlines (Africa).

Edward Shapiro, a partner of PAR Capital Management and chairman of the board of Row 44 and chairman of AIA?s supervisory board, will become chairman of Global Eagle Entertainment after the closing. ?With this transaction, not only will the two companies be able to enhance their offerings,? said Shapiro, ?but they will gain access to additional capital and relevant entertainment industry experience.??

All the Row 44 and AIA senior management teams, including Row 44 CEO John LaValle and AIA CEO Louis Belanger-Martin,?continue in their current positions.

Citigroup is lead capital markets adviser to Global Eagle, and BofA Merrill Lynch and Citigroup are providing financial advisory services to Global Eagle. RBC Capital Markets provides advisory services to AIA. Seabury Group Llc. is advising Row 44.? Legal counsel to Global Eagle is McDermott Will & Emery Llp. Legal counsel to PAR are Goodwin Procter Llp. and SJ Berwin.? Legal counsel to Row 44 is Strategic Law Partners Llp.?

Source: http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/harry-sloans-global-eagle-signs-387724

Seaside Heights nj transit PSEG hocus pocus hocus pocus mta schedule PECO

Top Democrat: Boehner's "fiscal cliff" remarks "a good first step" (cbsnews)

Share With Friends: | | Politics - Top Stories News, RSS Feeds and Widgets via Feedzilla.

Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/261554461?client_source=feed&format=rss

mila kunis stacey dash christopher columbus columbus day columbus day Stacy Dash Amber Tamblyn

The GOP Needs to Transcend Its Aging White Base?But How?

A festive crowd sporting cherry-red ties and cocktail dresses packed the Republican National Committee party in downtown Washington on election night. Dry-ice smoke wafted into the room as white-gloved waiters ferried silver trays of champagne flutes and a lineup of honky-tonk singers graced the stage. Ronnie McDowell performed his 1981 hit ?Older Women,? and the theme song from the 1970s hit sitcom All in the Family. The audience cheered as he sang, ?Those were the days!?

Hours later, as the election returns crested toward what one despondent political operative would later call a ?tsunami,? the crowd and the mood were sinking. The lights were coming up. The smoke was gone. People clustered in small groups, nursing tumblers of scotch and gin and staring at the television screen as Fox News called one swing state after another for President Obama. The blind 69-year-old country music legend Ronnie Milsap launched into ?In the Still of the Night,? replacing the chorus with ?I?m lost in the 50s tonight. Somebody help me. I?m lost in the 50s tonight.?

By the end of the evening, as the vote tallies showed that minorities, women, and young people had overwhelmingly rejected Republican nominee Mitt Romney, it was clear that the Grand Old Party needed to wake up from its nostalgia trip.

?Republicans are a Mad Men party in a Modern Family America,? Republican consultant Matthew Dowd posted on Twitter the next day. ?They need to adapt to 21st-century country and demography.?

As Republicans confront continued Democratic control of the White House and the Senate, even as the economy continues to sputter, the nation?s changing demographics are dominating the soul-searching and second-guessing that typically consume the losing party. Romney?s resounding defeat at the hands of the first African-American president?despite a 20-point margin of victory among white voters?starkly illustrates the party?s unhealthy dependence on a shrinking voting bloc.

But the Republican Party?s challenges are bigger than demography. Voters widely viewed the GOP ticket as championing the haves over the have-nots, after a torrent of attack ads that accused Romney of shipping jobs overseas, dodging taxes, and reducing government aid to the poor and the elderly. In exit polls, 53 percent of respondents said that the former corporate executive would favor the rich; only 34 percent said his policies would help the middle class.

It all adds up to a Republican Party in danger of becoming an outdated brand favored mostly by rich, old, white men. To expand the party?s reach and build new, winning coalitions, GOP leaders say, candidates have to develop a message that appeals to the more homogenous, conservative primary electorate as well the broader and increasingly diverse general-election audience. The party has a lot to learn from the Obama campaign?s unprecedented turnout operation, which pushed even casual supporters to the polls.

?We are not nearly as advanced today as the Democrats. That has got to change and change fast,? said Sara Fagen, a top adviser to President George W. Bush?s reelection campaign, which set the bar for Hispanic outreach by a GOP nominee. ?No one thought all these young people and unmarried women and Hispanics would turn out for Obama, yet they did; and that, to me, is a result of their machinery.?

The white share of the electorate dropped 2 percentage points since the 2008 election, and the Hispanic community increased its share by 2 points. Romney pulled in 27 percent of the Hispanic vote, according to exit polls?the worst showing by a Republican nominee since Bob Dole in 1996. But not a surprising one. Desperate to outflank his more conservative rivals in the Republican primary, Romney condemned popular Dream Act legislation that would legalize children brought here illegally if they attend college or serve in the military, and he callously suggested ?self-deportation? as a remedy in a nationally televised debate.

That Hispanics are the fastest-growing segment of the electorate and a key swing vote in several toss-up states was well-known within the Romney campaign. That Republican opposition to immigration reform helped Democrats increase their appeal in the Hispanic community and take back the House in 2006 was also well established. Yet Romney?s team cultivated an unswerving belief that the torpid economy would sink Obama under its own weight and depress Latino support, even after the administration ordered temporary visas for Dream Act students.

Demographics?and Obama?s superior political machine?won the day. Republicans who have been sounding the alarm for years are wondering if Tuesday?s election will finally resonate as a clarion call.

?If we as Republicans had moved just a few percentage points of the Hispanic vote in states like Florida, Ohio, Colorado, and Virginia, it could have thrown the election to Romney,? said former Sen. Mel Martinez of Florida, a Cuban-American and past chairman of the Republican National Committee who fought for sweeping immigration reform. ?This is not a choice. It?s either extinction or survival.?

LOOKING FOR HELP

Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, a perennial draft choice for president, is one of the few Republican figures with strong credentials in both conservative and Hispanic circles. It wasn?t until the homestretch of the race that Romney softened his tone on immigration and aired ads promising ?to achieve permanent solutions for undocumented youth.? Former U.S. Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez, who also served on the ticket?s Hispanic advisory board, said, ?It is absolutely ridiculous that we force a candidate to be so far to the right, and then in the general election, they have to move to the center. The people who are running the show, the so-called base who is writing the platforms, are the extreme Right.?

One advantage for the party seeking the Hispanic community?s good graces is a stable of high-powered, Spanish-speaking elected officials, including Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida; Govs. Susana Martinez of New Mexico and Brian Sandoval of Nevada; and newly elected Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas. Rubio, also viewed as a top contender for the nomination in 2016, said in a statement responding to the election, ?The conservative movement should have particular appeal to people in minority and immigrant communities who are trying to make it, and Republicans need to work harder than ever to communicate our beliefs to them.?

Romney and his allies were vastly outspent on Spanish-language advertising; one media tracking source estimated they spent $8.6 million while Obama and Democratic groups invested at least $14.6 million. This is not uncharted territory for Republicans; President Bush made inroads with Hispanic voters with uplifting ads that touted his party?s shared values. But airing more ads and talking more politely to Hispanic voters isn?t enough, said Terry Nelson, who served as Bush?s political director in his 2004 campaign. Bush?s outreach was backed up by policies that would have allowed illegal immigrants to earn citizenship.

?There?s room for improvement in our efforts on Spanish-language radio and television, but, fundamentally, we have to address the policy issues or it?s going to be difficult to compete for votes in this community,? Nelson said.

An ImpreMedia/Latino Decisions poll on the eve of the election found that 74 percent of Hispanics thought Romney didn?t care or was outwardly hostile to the Latino community. Sixty percent said they knew undocumented immigrants. The economy and job creation was the top issue, followed by immigration reform, education, and health care.

Rep. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., who won his Senate bid on Tuesday, sponsored an immigration-reform bill, but he was forced to abandon his stance when the party?s base raised objections. In a debate with his Hispanic Democratic opponent, Richard Carmona, last month, Flake said, ?We beat our head against the wall and came to realize in the end that until we had a secure border nobody will trust the government [to fix immigration].... That?s a pragmatism. Sometimes, in a wash, you have to take half a loaf. You just can?t take an ideological position and run with it.?

PRIMARY PROBLEM

Part of the GOP?s challenge in nominating a candidate with more-moderate positions on issues such as immigration is that the Republican primaries are dominated by white, religious voters. Self-conscious about his previous support for abortion rights and gay rights, Romney was anxious to toe the party line in the 2012 campaign.

?We need someone who can stand up to the angry voices in our party,? said Martinez, who served on Romney?s Hispanic advisory board and emphasized that he was not criticizing the nominee.

Rep. Steve King of Iowa, a leading Republican voice against immigration reform in Congress, rejected the notion that the issue offered the party a pathway to the Hispanic vote.? ?That?s a Democratic Party tactic, to divide people down the lines of race for political gain,? King said. ?What we have to make clearer is our opposition to debt and deficits and that borrowing against our children?s future is immoral. I don?t think we need to become more like liberals.?

King is not alone in the postelection debate about the party?s direction. While some leaders are calling for a more mainstream agenda, others are arguing that the party needs to adopt an even stricter posture on fiscal and social issues. The Tea Party Patriots this week called Romney ?a weak, moderate candidate, handpicked by the Beltway elites and country-club establishment of the Republican Party.? Concerned Women for America President Penny Nance said in a statement, ?The Republicans? insistence in unilateral disarming on social issues means that only the Left is discussing abortion and marriage. Refusing to discuss this important issue left their candidates unprepared to intelligently engage on life.?

But the failure of Republicans to secure two winnable Senate seats belies that logic. Todd Akin in Missouri and Richard Mourdock in Indiana fell short amid fierce criticism of comments they made about rape and abortion. Democrats pilloried Romney for not denouncing Mourdock and for opposing government funding for Planned Parenthood and Obama?s initiative to require employee health insurance plans to cover birth control. The attacks seemed to work. Women voters favored Obama 55 percent to 43 percent. The gender gap was even wider among unmarried women, who preferred Obama by more than 2-to-1.

Indeed, Akin?s and Mourdock?s woes revealed a problem larger than Romney. The GOP lost Senate seats in Massachusetts, Maine, and Indiana, and Senate Democrats won closely contested races in North Dakota, Montana, Virginia, and Wisconsin. In an election in which Republicans were gunning to take control of the Senate, Democrats increased their majority by two seats.

?I thought this was going to be a 50-50 race, and instead it was a tsunami,? said Al Cardenas, chairman of the American Conservative Union. ?The losses across the country in federal and state races?it?s a tsunami that none of us expected. There are glaring demographic shifts in this country that will not allow the Republican Party to compete unless immediate attention is paid.?

This article appeared in print as "Color Scheme."

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/gop-needs-transcend-aging-white-134629845--politics.html

twisted metal sea lion si swimsuit 2012 westminster dog show abe lincoln vampire hunter xi jinping matt bomer