by Sally Jo Sorensen
On his Thug in Pastels tumblr, Minnesota labor leader and immigration reform advocate Javier Morillo-Alicea posted a screenshot of an entry on the Café Con Leche Republicans' blog, A Hispanic Solution to Washington Gridlock.
Morillo-Alicea quips:
I believe… that “Cafe Con Leche” Republicans might have a tad more credibility presenting “Hispanic Solutions” to anything if, oh I don’t know, the blogger himself was His-Panic. But wait, isn’t a white guy married to a His-Panic sort of the same thing? Um, no.
What's that? He's alluding to Bob Quasius, whose name is at the foot of the document. Presumably,the Marshall, Minnesota, Republican is the author.
Editor's note 10/7: after both Morillo-Alicea and Bluestem commented on the post, a different author was added. See comment on Bluestem. The new author is not tagged in the post. [end note]
Here's how Quasius begins the post about a "Hispanic solution" to gridlock:
. . .Here is a Hispanic solution to the immense crevasse that exists between Obama and the House of Representatives that best reflects America:
The House has sent a compromise continuing resolution (CR) that makes two adjustments to the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare); they are: Delay implementation of the Act for a year and ending the job-killing Medical instruments tax.
Senate Majority Leader under orders from the White House says no, that is not acceptable. The President says he won’t negotiate.
How about this: The Senate by a bipartisan 68 to 32 votes has sent S744 to the House that is the best Comprehensive Immigration Reform bill ever constructed by the Senate. Many in the House do not want that bill voted upon by the House because it would pass that bill (with some adjustments to be sure) and send it to conference with Senators for fine tuning. Some of these members are obstructionists, some racists, some anti-immigrants, some Mexican haters and some very stupid people. . . .
We're not sure why the suggestion is "Hispanic." Here's Quasius' bio from the group's website:
Originally Bob, like many conservative Republicans, did not support immigration reform. After navigating the legal system to bring his wife Aida to the U.S., and learning more about our broken immigration system, Bob has come full circle. Bob believes if he can be persuaded with facts and logical argument, then so too can many other conservatives who oppose immigration reform without knowing all the relevant facts.
As a long term Republican activist, and now husband of a legal immigrant from Honduras, Bob’s unique perspective led him to realize the GOP is missing an opportunity to attract “new Americans” to the GOP, due to lack of understanding and engagement. The paradigm shift came after realizing that our legal immigration system cannot meet our economic needs, and a total overhaul is needed.
Bob isn't Hispanic. In fact, he was adamant last year about the group itself being pro-immigration reform, but not Hispanic in Liberals and Pretzel Logic:
. . . we don’t define ourselves as a Latino organization, but rather a pro-immigrant republican organization.
We'll wait for him to bend that text to demonstrate how Hispanic he and the group he leads have become since he wrote that in March 2012 that he can write shamelessly in October 2013 of A Hispanic Solution to Washington Gridlock.
On the group's about page:
We come from a variety of backgrounds. Most of us are Hispanic but we don’t define ourselves by race or ethnicity, but rather by mission and guiding principles. We also don’t define ourselves by immigrant status.
Perhaps Bob just wants it both ways.
Screenshot: The CCLR blog post, from the Thugs in Pastels tumblr (above); Bob Quasius, Café Con Leche Republicans President and Founder.
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