Obama’s Minimum Wage Gambit

The President’s proposal to raise the minimum wage is as politically clever as it is economically meaningless. The proposal is pointless in practical terms since it can’t become law and wouldn’t help the economy if it did. It is only significant because of what it says about President Obama.

The President is clearly learning how to use Republican dysfunction to his advantage. This gambit invites Republicans to put their most serious weaknesses on display. So far we are giving him what he hoped for and more.

Any Republican response ought to begin by acknowledging the merits of the minimum wage. While it’s true that a wage floor eliminates some jobs, that’s what it is meant to accomplish. In extreme circumstances, people can find themselves without negotiating leverage in the wage market. A wage floor, along with the rest of the social safety net, legislates out of existence certain jobs which are inherently exploitative.

Along the way it incentivizes technological development, supporting careers in fields like computers and robotics which might not exist if the poorest in society could be starved into submission. Eliminating the wage floor entirely would do more than make the poor poorer. It would pull some of the momentum out of higher-paid industries, sucking wages downward for everyone.

J.C. Watts Launches 'INSIGHT America'

From BetNews:


J.C. "Buddy" Watts Sr., father of former Republican congressman J.C. Watts, in 1999 said, "A Black man voting for the Republicans makes about as much sense as a chicken voting for Col. Sanders." Back then, his son was the only African-American Republican in Congress and there's still just one. It is in part why Watts is taking steps to diversify his party by starting an organization called Insight.

Set to launch on Feb. 27, Insight will recruit students of color to serve in Republican offices, host professional development and policy forums and provide networking opportunities, Politico reports. The policy forums will kick off in March and focus on issues that affect ethnic minorities.

Watts, who runs a consulting firm, said he was inspired to create Insight in part by his time as a youth pastor. He hopes the group will help young people of color build the kinds of networks that build careers.

Read more: http://www.bet.com/news/politics/2013/02/19/j-c-watts-launches-group-to-groom-minority-republicans.html

Old Bridge Republicans Meet-and-Greet at Rajpoot Authentic Indian Restaurant

How Indian Immigrants Could Save the Republican Party

South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley speaks to supporters at an election party this summer in Columbia, S.C. The child of immigrant parents, Haley's real name is Nimrata Randhawa.

 

The Republicans have a diversity problem on their hands. Six out of 10 white voters chose Mitt Romney, while blacks (93%), Asians (73%) and Latinos (71%) overwhelmingly voted for Barack Obama. So far, strategy has focused on getting the GOP to embrace immigration reform.

That’s a good idea, but it’s going to take some time. It also doesn’t tackle the problem head on: The Republicans need to actually start looking more like America; they need real immigrant politicians behind real immigrant-friendly policies. It’s the only way to get over the party’s “angry white guy problem.”

Yet how to explain this: Two of the fastest-rising stars of the Republican Party are the children of Indian immigrants—Piyush Jindal and Nimrata Randhawa.

Never heard of them? That’s because most people know them better as Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal and South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley. Both were elected in states that are more than 60% white. How did they cross the racial barrier? Fundamentally, they represent the parallel narratives of the Republican Party and immigrant life—family values, patriotism, hardscrabble work ethic, among them. But Jindal and Haley also reflect just what must be lost in order to make it as an immigrant Republican.

Read more: http://www.nationaljournal.com/thenextamerica/politics/how-indian-immigrants-could-save-the-republican-party-20121113

Interview w/ Harmeet Dhillon, Chairwoman of the Republican Party

WomenNow recently sat down with Harmeet Dhillon, an accomplished attorney and chairwoman of the Republican Party in San Francisco. Harmeet shares her insights on politics, community involvement and how to engage in policy and policy making.

NAIRA Ashcroft Interview: US-India Relations

John Ashcroft, former Attorney General of the United States, speaks with with Nalini Raja from TV ASIA previous to the National Asian Indian Republican Association's 8th Annual Dinner on August 9th, 2009. In this clip, Mr. Ashcroft discusses the relationship between the United States and India. 6/6

Republicans and Sikh voters

 

 

By Ennis Singh Mutinywale

 

Sikhs are a fairly small group of voters in America, so I’m always intrigued when a candidate reaches out to us.

I expected the Obama campaign to issue Diwali greetings and figured he’d direct it to Hindus, Sikhs and Jains. But I was quite surprised when the Obama campaign also sent a letter to the American Gurudwara Parbandhak Committee to wish everybody a happy Tercentenary Celebration of the Guruship of Sri Guru Granth Sahib. It is a big holiday for Sikhs, but not one I expected any national politician to notice. (There were no official greetings from the McCain camp for either holiday)
As I’ve written before, these sorts of emails to the community are fairly cheap in terms of effort, and are a nice way to build good will, even if they tell you little about a candidate.

More important than holiday greetings was the difference in response by campaigns to the Sikh Coalition‘s first ever Voter Guide for Sikh Americans. The Sikh Coalition is non-profit and non-partisan. Their guide invited responses from all presidential candidates (not just the major ones) including the Green Party, Socialist Party, Libertarian Party and even such ultra-fringe parties as the Prohibition Party and the Boston Tea Party.

They received extensive replies from Obama (Democratic Party) and Gloria Riva (Party of Socialism and Liberation) and shorter replies from Ralph Nader (Independent Party) and Gene Amondson (Prohibition Party). The GOP did not reply.

Read more: http://sepiamutiny.com/blog/2008/11/02/reaching_out_to_1/

Why Republicans Can't Harness Indian-American Patel Power

Why Republicans Can't Harness Indian-American Patel Power Shikha Dalmia| Mitt Romney might not have baptized any dead people lately, but 10,000 miles away in India a Hindu priest recently concluded a yajna on his behalf. A yajna is a nine-day prayer ceremony that, in this case, involved 16 local participants who poured 16 kgs of pure ghee on a sacred bonfire while chanting Sanskrit mantras and offering 100 kgs of barley to the Tantaric deity Bagula Mukhi.

Kannubhai Patel, an Indian émigré, who moved to the United States 20 years ago and quickly acquired (guess what?) a chain of motels, paid for the entire event because he is a die-hard Republican and wanted to do something to help swing the polls in poor Mitt’s direction. So he called his friend and priest in his native village and instructed him to conduct the yajna to enlist Goddess Mukhi on Mitt’s side. When queried about the neck-and-neck results after the latest debate between Obama and Romney, the priest confidently predicted:

“There is still time. The result will be favorable.” But Patel is clearly an outlier in the 2.85-million strong Indian community, 84% of whose members voted for Barack Obama in 2008 -- second only to the 95% support that Obama drew among blacks. Even without Obama’s star power, 65% of Indians generally vote Democratic.

Read more: http://reason.com/blog/2012/10/31/why-republicans-cant-harness-indian-amer

The GOP's Big Asian-American Problem

Still overlooked in the immigration discussion are Asian Americans, who are the fastest growing demographic group in the country—and one of the most diverse. The bulk of Asian American immigrants (83 percent) come from China, the Philippines, India, Vietnam, Korea, and Japan. At present, they’re 5.8 percent of the total population, nearly half of whom live in the West, with a large concentration on the Pacific coast. Seventy-four percent of Asian American adults were born outside of the United States, and in 2009—according to the Pew Research Center—Asian American immigration outpaced Hispanic immigration for the first time in recent history:

Read more: http://prospect.org/article/gops-big-asian-american-problem

"It's About Winning"

 

Check Out San Francisco Chronicle's Recent Story Featuring SFGOP Chairwoman Harmeet Dhillon

Harmeet Dhillon has the loneliest job in politics: chairwoman of the Republican Party in San Francisco, a very liberal city that former California GOP leader Ron Nehring described as "just to the left" of the capital of communist North Korea.

Dhillon, a tall, dark-haired attorney, has long been comfortable being the loud voice at the front of unpopular battles. Smart, blunt and outspoken, she is determined to make the GOP brand, which has been moribund in San Francisco for decades, relevant in the city and statewide.
She's a different kind of Republican.

 Harping on social issues, she said, isn't the way forward. "Bottom line: It's a political party. It's not a philosophy, it's not a way of life, it's not a religion. It's about winning," Dhillon, 42, said in the direct, prosecutorial tone that dominates her conversations. "I'd like to see our party win."

The daughter of conservative Sikhs, she was born in India and raised in a rural North Carolina town, where a sign at the city limits encouraged passers-by to "Join the Support" of the Ku Klux Klan…

 

CONTINUE READING

RGA Chairman Bobby Jindal's speech at the 2013 RNC Winter Meeting

                 

RGA Chairman Bobby Jindal's speech at the 2013 RNC Winter Meeting in Charlotte, North Carolina, 1/24/2013

Bobby Jindal to 2016 hopefuls: Get your heads examined

 

GOP Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal said in an interview that aired Monday that any Republicans thinking about 2016 need to “get their head examined,” while cautioning against “nonstop” presidential campaigning.

“Anybody on the Republican side even thinking or talking about running for president in 2016, I’ve said needs to get their head examined and the reason I say that is we’ve lost two presidential elections in a row. We need to be winning the debate of ideas — then we’ll win elections,” Jindal said on Fox News’s “Fox & Friends.”


Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2013/02/bobby-jindal-head-checks-for-2016-hopefuls-87132.html#ixzz2JydpRzft

Donald Trump: Bobby Jindal 'Stupid' For Calling GOP 'Stupid' (VIDEO)

Real estate mogul and political onlooker Donald Trump called into "Fox and Friends" on Monday morning, criticizing Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal (R) for his colorful appraisal of the GOP as the "stupid party" following its losses in 2012.

"I think he was stupid for using that term, because that term is so obnoxious, and so good for the other side," Trump told the Fox News hosts. "He should not have used that term. That term is going to be living now with the Republican Party for a long time, and they're going to have his face on television saying it for the next four years."

Speaking at the Republican National Committee's winter meeting last month, Jindal urged his colleagues to talk "like adults" and cut out the type of "offensive and bizarre" rhetoric that had damaged the party's chances in a number of Senate contests last cycle. Missouri Rep. Todd Akin and Richard Mourdock of Indiana both took nationwide heat for their controversial comments about rape and subsequently lost their races in November.

Read more: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/04/donald-trump-bobby-jindal_n_2615151.html

Why Do Indian-Americans Love Barack Obama And The Democrats?

BY Palash R. Ghosh |

Numbering some 3 million, Indian-Americans are becoming an increasingly important voting bloc in the United States – and if a recent survey is accurate, they will overwhelmingly support Democrat Barack Obama in Tuesday's presidential election.

A poll last month by professors Karthick Ramakrishnan, Taeku Lee and the National Asian American Survey (NAAS) revealed that a whopping 68 percent -- higher than any other Asian ethnic group – of Indian-Americans will vote for Obama, while Romney will attract only 5 percent support (25 percent were undecided).

Overall, 81 percent of Indian-Americans gave Obama high job approval ratings, despite the fragile U.S. economy and the president's attacks on outsourcing.

The dramatically strong support for Obama among Indian-Americans flies in the face of some contradictory realities -- Indian-Americans are among the best-educated and highest-earning ethnic groups in the country (a demography that typically favors the Republicans); and the two most prominent Indian-American politicians, Gov. Nikki Haley (South Carolina) and Gov. Bobby Jindal (Louisiana), are members of the GOP and stridently opposed to Obama. Jindal and Haley are regarded as potential GOP presidential or vice presidential candidates themselves.

So, why do Indian-Americans love Obama so much?

Read more: http://www.ibtimes.com/why-do-indian-americans-love-barack-obama-democrats-859890

Indian American Republicans Blast Obama at RNC

The immense hope that brought President Barack Obama to office in 2008 has been dashed by his lackluster job performance over the past three-and-a-half years, said several Indian Americans who attended the Republican National Convention in Tampa, Fla., Aug. 27-30.

“We expected a lot but nothing has changed. America has become a third world country,” physician Sampat Shivangi, a three-time delegate to the convention from Mississippi, told India-West. “Obama has had four years already to change it and I doubt he can do it in the next four years,” said Shivangi, president of the Indian American Forum for Political Education, one of the oldest organizations of Indian American activists.

Republican presidential challenger Mitt Romney and his vice presidential running mate Paul Ryan have both the vision and business acumen to turn the faltering U.S. economy around, stated Shivangi.
In an unprecedented move, four Indian Americans took prime-time spotlights at this year’s RNC. South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley — earlier hinted as a possible running mate for Romney — took center stage on the evening of Aug. 28 and bashed the president for “fighting American ingenuity.”

California congressional challenger Ricky Gill – widely considered a rising Republican Party star – was delayed by a day from delivering his speech at the convention by the expected onslaught of Hurricane Isaac, which partially set back the RNC’s planned agenda. In his brief address on the afternoon of Aug. 28, Gill characterized California’s Central Valley – from where he is running — as “a cautionary tale of false policies” (I-W, Aug. 31).

Also in the limelight at the RNC were Milwaukee, Wisc., businessman Yash Wadhwa, who spoke on the convention floor Aug. 29. Wadhwa, who helmed an engineering consultancy firm for 22 years and is now running for a seat in the Wisconsin State Assembly, said Obama’s failed economic policies had turned the nation into a “tent city.” (See separate story.) And Ishwar Singh, president of the Sikh Society of Central Florida, made history as he delivered an invocation on the final night of the RNC, becoming the first-ever Sikh American to address a national convention from either party. (See separate story.)

Haley was born into a Sikh family but identifies as Christian.

Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal was also scheduled to speak at the RNC, but stayed home as Hurricane Isaac prepared to blast into his state. This is the second convention Jindal has missed due to inclement weather; Hurricane Gustav kept Jindal from attending the RNC in 2008.
Republican political strategist Rina Shah, who attended the RNC, told India-West the convention “really enlightened a great many people,” including the crucial undecided Asian American bloc.

Read More: http://indiawest.com/news/6453-indian-american-republicans-blast-obama-at-rnc.html