Republicans

The legion of websites, bloggers, talk show jocks, and the occasional GOP official that has teed off on President Obama and at times Michelle Obama with assorted borderline racist digs, taunts, and depictions have been relentless. The offensive remarks quickly evoke a storm of outrage, and the offender gets rebuked. This happens because they are public figures, and their comments are publicly aired. They fly high on the public’s radar scope. 

Even a small drop in the percentage and number of black votes in the traditional must-win states of Pennsylvania, Ohio, Florida, North Carolina and Virginia that Obama won in 2008, could spell potential disaster for him this time around. Romney will take every opportunity to shove the notion down the throats of black voters that Obama’s alleged failures on the economy have directly resulted in mounting economic misery in poor black communities. 

Jese Ventura’s no fool when it comes to performance. He’s more than a TV personality. Before he was elected the governor of Minnesota in 1999, he was a professional wrestler, and before that, a Navy SEAL-turned-member of an outlaw motorcycle club in San Diego.  He’s appeared in a number of movies and TV shows, and has lectured at Harvard University. When I mention to Ventura that he taught one of the most popular courses at Harvard, he quickly cuts in to correct me: “It was the most popular. My class was the biggest class in Harvard history.”  Read Christopher Karr's interview with Jesse Ventura. 

Talk of the end of American exceptionalism seems to be everywhere lately, but in at least one area, the United States inarguably reigns supreme.  Currently, per capita health care expenditures in the U.S. are approaching $8,000 a year, far more than anywhere else in the world.  The nation with the second-highest per capita cost, Norway, spends  $2,500 less per person per year.  What do Americans get for their money?  A life expectancy of 78.2 years, slightly ahead of Panama and Libya.

President Obama's jobs plan centers on: 1) putting millions of people directly back to work to rebuild America’s tattered infrastructure and 2) providing money to states to rehire over 450,000 teachers.  If the Republicans had enacted the president’s employment legislation when he proposed it in 2011, rather than declaring it dead-on-arrival, the economy could have churned out 227,000 jobs last month rather than the anemic 69,000. This is the point that Obama was making when he tripped over himself on June 8: Americans need quick action on jobs.

Governor Scott Walker of Wisconsin, a Republican whose agenda of union-busting and gutting public services outraged many in the state, became the only governor to have survived a recall election in American history on Tuesday as he prevailed over his Democratic opponent. His victory foreshadows the rise to power of politicians more likely to bow to a rising oligarchy than heed the interests of their constituents -- a disturbing sign given Social Security and Medicare are on the federal chopping block.

Willard Mitt Romney has emerged as the most winsome debutante of this season’s corporate cotillion, a quadrennial bash sponsored by Wall Street tycoons, right-wing entrepreneurs, K Street lobbyists, golfers, and industrial polluters. Every four years since 1928, the big bucks boys of amalgamated power rally around some beau of the ball who agrees to insist that business acumen is the paramount qualification for election to the office of president.  

Asian-Americans represent the fastest-growing demographic segment in this country and a critical voting bloc. But, according to a new first-of-its-kind poll, neither Republicans nor Democrats seem to be taking note. The Lake Research Partners poll is the first to gauge political attitudes among Asian-American voters, who are largely aligned with the Democratic Party – by a margin of three to one.