South Carolina Can Keep its Stars and Bars, Dixie, high infant mortality rate, and obesity.

A couple of weeks ago, South Carolina Governor and Tea Party Heroine Nikki Haley challenged GOP frontrunner Mitt Romney and his record as Governor of Massachusetts.  Romney has been defending his record as the man who signed into law the Massachusetts healthcare law providing universal healthcare coverage to all citizens.  "I will tell you we do not want a Massachusetts health care plan in South Carolina," Haley said in an exclusive interview with ABC News "This Week" anchor Christiane Amanpour.   I think that he will have to continue to deal with that issue. I think he's going to have to talk about how that was not good for the country. That wouldn't be a good thing that we'd want to mandate on all of our states."

So Li’l Sarah, you think South Carolina is better off than Massachusetts?  Well, let’s look at the numbers shall we class:

%Population without Healthcare:               MA (5%)               SC (16.4%)

Immunization coverage %                            MA (93.4%)         SC (90.5%)

Primary physicians per 100k people           MA (191.3)          SC (104.3)

Prenatal care (% Pregnant Women)           MA (88.2%)         SC (65.8%)

Premature Death (Yrs lost/100k ple)          MA (5,757)          SC (9,521)

Infant mortality (death per 1k births)         MA (4.8)               SC (8.5)

Stroke (% adult population)                          MA (1.9%)           SC (3.1%)

High Cholesterol (% adult population)       MA (35.6%)         SC (41.8%)

High Blood Press (% adult population)       MA (25.7%)         SC (32.6%)

Heart Attack (% adult population)              MA (3.9%)           SC (4.5%)

Cardiac Disease (% adult population)         MA (3.8%)           SC (4.4%)

Diabetes (% adult population)                     MA (7.9%)           SC (10.3%)

The above is but a sample of Massachusetts to South Carolina comparisons, and there are plenty of other comparisons such as education and employment that would tell the same story.  So Ms. Haley, you can defend your state of unhealthy unemployed uneducated masses because your citizens are free.  I will tell you fat, stupid, and out-of-work isn’t free, it’s sad and unnecessary.

The xenophobic Arizona state senate leader Russell Pearce once again is either confused or is an unabashed liar.  In a recent fundraiser letter, Pearce launched a half-ass inaccurate description of the Dream Act: “If the so-called DREAM Act becomes law, the Department of (IN)Security is required to grant amnesty to EVERY illegal alien who: (1) Has been present in the United States for at least the past five years; (2) Has attained a U.S. high school diploma or GED, or has been admitted to a U.S. institution of higher learning: and (3) Is of 'good moral character' and has not received more than two misdemeanor convictions."  Pearce is implying that all illegal aliens would gain citizenship by meeting these three criteria, when in truth, there are at least eight more criteria that would need to be met before an undocumented person could gain citizenship.  At the end of the day, less than 40% of the eligible undocumented people would likely gain citizenship.  By the way, these other criteria include learning English, providing biometric data for national identification and two years of college or military service.  Tell you what Pearce; get your story straight on your Fiesta Bowl and other gifts before you spew any more white supremacist nonsense.

Recent poll from KSTP/SurveyUSA in Minnesota, President Obama leads Pawlenty 47-43 in the poll, which surveyed 552 registered voters in Minnesota earlier this week. Obama leads Michele Bachmann 57-32. By comparison, Obama beat John McCain in 2008 here by 10 percentage points. That’s the President kicking the crap out of Minnesota’s finest Republican politicians in head to head polling.

One thing Mr. Obama must do is visit Israel and give a speech directly to the Israeli people so they can hear from his lips his thoughts, plans, and ideas for the region.  Sadly, too many Israelis are influenced by the ubiquitous Fox News Channel and the End of Days rants from the Evangelicals such as Palin, Bachmann, and Huckabee.

In related news and as predicted in this column, Israeli Prime Minister saw a major 15% spike in his approval ratings back home according to a poll in Ha’aretz.  What is unique in this poll was the across the board bump he got from the right, center, and left; the right, no doubt, from his confrontation with Obama, and the center/left from his reaffirmation of the two-state solution.  Equally surprising, and contrary to U.S. media claims, President Obama is not viewed as hostile to Israel by Israelis.  Asked their opinion of Obama, who tussled with Netanyahu late last week and also stung him a bit during his speech to the AIPAC annual conference on Sunday, 43 percent of those polled described him as "businesslike," while a quarter described him as friendly and only 20 percent saw him as hostile.