There are  upwards of 11 million people living and working in the United States, in every state and city, who face the perpetual threat of physical exile from their lives and their homes, to be banished to a country they barely know or in which they can barely survive. The only crime most have committed was to cross an arbitrary confine seeking a better life for themselves and their families. Although their plight appears disconnected from ours, this threat involves every American who cares about their country and values their ancestral history. 

As Bobby Jindal begins to lay seeds for a possible run for the White House, approval at home seems to be falling for the Louisiana Governor. The new survey finds Louisiana voters are as conservative as ever, backing the Governor’s refusal to implement the Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare to critics, by a 13 point margin. However, in a bright sign for Democrats, it also shows that the local electorate has grown slightly critical of Jindal’s refusal of expanded Medicaid dollars.

About 60 percent of the 17 million Asian-Americans in the United States are foreign-born. Ninety percent of Asian immigrants come to the United States through family-based immigration visas, so backlogs in the system affect their everyday lives. In fact, nearly half of the 4.3 million people in the family backlog worldwide are in Asia. “What people often…frame as a Latino issue, it’s just not true,” Moua said. One in 11 undocumented immigrants in the United States is Asian-American; and one in 10 Dreamers is Asian-American.

Reaffirming his commitment to protect current and future generations who depend on Social Security, President Obama declared in Tuesday’s State of the Union address, “Our government shouldn’t make promises we cannot keep -- but we must keep the promises we’ve already made.”  Indeed, we must keep the promise of old-age security that Americans have earned through hard work. The nation’s politicians should be held accountable to keep their word that they will not cut the Social Security benefits of older workers, retirees, people with disabilities and the children of deceased and disabled parents.

The United States’ system of government was created for a more representative government across all spectrums of society and flexibility to adjust to the changing norms of societal and economic realities with the passage of time. Political parties are not included in the U.S. Declaration of Independence, Constitution, or the Bill of Rights. In the present, when the Founding Fathers, perhaps George Washington most of all, are revered to the point of demi-god status, two political parties have flourished and seeped into most mechanisms of government at the federal and state level. The practical applications of democracy in the United States need to be changed. 

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s actual birthday was celebrated on January 15 and will be observed on the national holiday on Monday, January 21, which is also Inauguration Day. As more than a million people are expected to attend inaugural celebrations in D.C. and millions more will watch around the world, neither the President nor leading Democrats have publicly mentioned his most faithful constituents, whose votes for him surpassed 95 percent in both elections.

“Media elites have convinced themselves that there is a crisis in Social Security,” said Eric Kingson, a professor of social work at Syracuse University and co-chair of the advocacy group Social Security Works. Kingson, who served as a policy advisor on presidential commissions on the issue in the 1980s and ’90s, said there is indeed an increasing crisis around adequate funding for retirement in America. “But they [journalists] focus on the most conservative framing of the crisis,” he said. In reality, Kingson added, “Social Security is the one bright spot” in the federal government.

The Tea Party’s brand of patented loose cannon obstructionism is too threatening to a GOP still reeling from the election flop. The ouster of the Tea Party hardliners and desertions by GOP bigwigs from the movement was hardly the first rumbling that the lights are dimming for the Tea Party. A year earlier, polls showed that far more Americans had an unfavorable view of the Tea Party than when it roared on the scene a couple of years earlier. The disaffection cut across all lines and that included many conservatives. 

It is predicted that voter turnout among young people, especially college students, will be higher than before. Political activism has been gradually rising among students since the 2004 election between Bush and Kerry. The most recent election in 2008 resulted in a 2.1 percent increase of student voters (51.1 percent of Americans between ages 18 and 29). Although the exact figures are still unknown, it is expected that more and more students will get involved this year; at least, at a level which is higher than average.

In the highly charged, relentlessly partisan political climate of today, one only worsened by the ongoing presidential campaign, it is sometimes easy to forget that Romney isn’t exactly the Republican base’s favorite son.  Indeed, in their fervent desire to defeat President Obama, the dislike and distinct distrust that many on the far right have for Governor Romney has been effectively swept under the proverbial rug. If, however, Romney is successful in his quest for the presidency, this unity on the right will likely prove transient.