Latinos make up 17% of the nation, yet less than 2% of elected officials are Latino. Even with this fact, Mitt Romney thinks being a Latino would make it easier for him to win the presidency.

Rosie Perez pokes fun at Romney's terrible joke and explains why Latinos are not supporting Romney. 

Learn more at www.actually.org.

Check out Facebook's AFL-CIO Latino page at www.facebook.com/aflciolatino. 

This is a cross-post from The Huffington Post's Spanish-language site, Voces, by AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka. Read "El Cambio en Nuestras Comunidades se Logra Con Unión y Determinación" on The Huffington Post. 

What is often missing from the highly politicized discussions about Arizona’s immigration policies and Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s law enforcement practices are the stories of people who live with those policies and practices on a day-to-day basis. People like 15-year-old Carmen of Tempe, Ariz. Carmen’s story helps us see that change is not only possible, but becoming more real every day.  

Maybe this election year will finally put a stake through the heart of efforts by corporations and extremist right-wing millionaires to silence the voice of California's working families in the political arena.

This year, it’s called Prop. 32 and it’s a near-clone of 2005’s Prop. 75 and 1998’s Prop. 226, which voters defeated by a 53% margin. Both times huge mobilizations by working families turned back the millions of dollars from Republican PACs and corporate and anti-worker extremists. These are the same groups that are behind Prop. 32.          

We had another lively chat on the AFL-CIO Now blog during last night's presidential debate at "AFL-CIO Live Discussion on the Presidential Debate, Round Two."

Here are some unedited comments from our live chat:

Romney punting on outsourcing question to talk about corporate tax rates. His audience isn't YOU, it's his wealthy donors. #letsdebate

— Working America (@WorkingAmerica) October 17, 2012

Ohio souls will go to the polls on the weekend before Election Day. Yesterday, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected a request by Ohio Republican lawmakers to stay a lower court decision that had refused to allow the state to curtail early voting on the weekend that traditionally yields high voter turnout in communities of color. Many African American churches organize events to get their congregations to the polls after worship services on Sunday. 

As a result, early voting will take place in Ohio on the weekend before Election Day.

Earlier this year, as part of a voter suppression campaign in the Buckeye State, Republican legislators passed a bill ending the weekend of early voting.

Mitt Romney won’t come to “Bainport” and meet with the workers whose jobs are being shipped overseas by Sensata Technologies. Sensata is owned by outsourcing pioneer Bain Capital, where Romney was a founder and former CEO.

But Tuesday, Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) visited the tent city set up across the street from the Freeport, Ill., Sensata plant that will shut down as soon as the rest of the equipment follows the 170 middle-class jobs on the way to China—where Sensata workers earn about 99 cents an hour.

Mitt Romney continues to be disconnected from working families' priorities. Just take a look at his tax and jobs plans he touted during last night's second presidential debate. Romney insisted he could cut tax rates for the wealthiest earners across the board without increasing the deficit or raising taxes on working people. He also touted his five-point jobs plan, which President Obama called out for what it really is:

Gov. Romney doesn't have a five-point plan. He has a one-point plan. And that plan is to make sure that folks at the top play by a different set of rules. That's been his philosophy in the private sector, that's been his philosophy as governor, that's been his philosophy as a presidential candidate.

Last night we held a live policy chat on the AFL-CIO Now blog about the presidential debate. Read the thread below. 

Text DEBATE to AFLCIO (235246) to join our text action team. (Standard messaging and data rates may apply.)

Before the presidential debate tonight, tune in to Democracy Now as the “Expanding the Debate” series continues. At 8 p.m. ET, Democracy Now will host and air a pre-debate community roundtable, live from Hofstra University in Long Island, N.Y.

New Hampshire Reps. Charles Bass (R) and Frank Guinta (R) have toed the line of House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and his extreme tea party-influenced agenda, with attacks on Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and continued tax cuts for the rich.

With Bass’ and Guinta’s record on Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and the Bush tax cuts in mind, yesterday several dozen union and community activists delivered “Middle Class Survival Kits” to their district offices in Manchester and Nashua.