Is Hawaii Home to the Next Scott Brown?

Save for a special election in Florida’s 19th congressional district, the May special election in Hawaii’s 1st congressional will be the next snapshot of American popular opinion on the road to the November elections this year. FrumForum sat down with Charles Djou, the Republican candidate in this upcoming race.

Unlike Florida-19, which was won by President Obama by over thirty points in 2008, Hawaii-1 looks to be a district where voter dissatisfaction with the Democratic Party could lead to a Republican pick-up. While still quite blue (D+15 in the Cook Partisan Voting Index), Hawaii’s 1st congressional district has gone to the GOP in the last four governor’s races.

Further, the special election is set up in winner-take-all format, meaning that there are no primaries. With two, maybe three Democrats in the race, Djou thinks that Hawaii-1 could be the inverse of one closely-followed special election in upstate New York: “I think that my special election could essentially be the inverse of the New York-23 election, with the Democrats splitting the vote.”

Fmr. NFL Player “Tony Bouie” to Run for State Senate Seat - Arizona

Tony Bouie is running as a Republican for a State Senate seat in Arizona. According to his website he grew up in New Orleans, Louisiana. He comes from a home of two hardworking parents. Tony was encouraged to pursue excellence in athletics and academics by his parents who were the first in their families to receive both Undergraduate and Advanced degrees.Tony was one of the rare dual sport athletes in college which made for no off-season. He was a 4 year starter in football and a 2 year starter in baseball. He was a Pac-10 Champion in both sports. He was 1st Team All Pac-10 and a Consensus All American in football. He was also on the cover of Sports IllustratedView.

Tony holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts Degree in Media Arts from the University of Arizona (1994), which he finished in only four years. He began pursuit of his first masters degree while still playing ball in college and completed it while playing in the NFL, a Masters of Arts in Literacy and Education from the University of Arizona (1997). After a prolific college career, Tony went un-drafted. He fought his way onto the Tampa Bay Buccaneer roster in the NFL after being cut the last week of training camp. His career lasted four years in Tampa.

NOBLE WARRIOR: ZORA NEALE HURSTON

Zora Neale Hurston embodied Republican sentiments concerning race-relations and African-American People. Infuriating many people including Langston Hughes, Countee Cullen, and Richard Wright because of her “right-wing” and ultraconservative perspective, by the time of her death, at the age of sixty-nine, Hurston had become an obscure writer dying in a welfare home for the aged.

A Moderate Republican’s Thoughts on Health Care Reform

As the health care debate seems to heat up, I’ve had a few thoughts about the whole drama from my vantage point as someone on the center-right. This is less of magnum opus than some random thoughts on the issue. I should stress these are the thoughts of one person and don’t reflect all Republicans or all moderate Republicans (all twelve of us).

First, I still don’t understand why many Democrats and liberals are so hung up on a public option. I know that the rhetoric is that it is needed to keep the private insurers honest, but to me it seems needless. I mean if we wanted to make sure the insurance companies are playing fair, we would have laws that would ban certain practices like pre-existing conditions or recission and the like. In short we could use regulation. I know that has become an anathema among your typical Republican, but then, I have never been the typical Republican.

African-Americans & HIV - Remembering World AIDS Day

HIV/AIDS is a leading killer in the African-American Community not only because of the rate at which African-American people engage in sexual activities and participate in the drug culture but also because they are not using preventative measures which are available to them.

NADRA ENZI OP-ED:Sarah Palin: Beyond The Pale

Governor Palin is an ethnic escapist dream where simple rural girls best slick urban intellectuals.

Could Obama’s Education Plan kill HBCUs?

Shutting our ears to some justifiable criticism of Obama’s policies could kill past gains for blacks and the poor, particularly in the area of education. Rumor had it that the Obama Administration budget was to cut $85 million from the HBCU’s, about $67 million from Native American institutions and increased the amount to Hispanic universities from $95 to $98 million. It is clear policy for such may be driven by population growth favoring those likely to vote Democrats in; however there is more to this than meets the eye.

All of our colleges and universities, particularly the small ones with high tuition depend of federal assistance to make education affordable. Given that grants are not performance justified as they should be, loans have been loosened as bad as those which prompted the mortgage crisis rather than make banks the lender of choice.

THE PHILOSOPHICAL HUMOR OF GEORGE CARLIN

Some years ago, George Carlin was regularly featured on television and on the radio. It did not last for long. For although Carlin, has been called one of the funniest men in the World only rivaled by Richard Pryor, and even considered to be funnier than the legendary Lenny Bruce, he incurred the wrath and the scorn of the FCC when he used four letter words over the air in his skit entitled Seven Dirty Words You Can Never Say on Television.

He was fired and fined and arrested on July 21st, 1972 for violating the Nation’s obscenity laws.

Body-Image Distortion: By Martin Martinez

Today, more than ever we are plagued with distorted images of how we should look and what we expect others to be. I am sure that you have heard this quote ” beauty is in the eye of the beholder”. But whose eyes are we really looking through? ours or society’s? and are we really the beholder? All of us are influenced in one way or another by society or our culture, no one lives in or under a shell. I will say in all assuredness, that adolescents, teens and those in their early to mid-twenties are truly overweight and unhealthy.

RUGBY AS A DYING SYMBOL OF OPPRESSION: A FILM REVIEW OF “INVICTUS”

In Invictus, starring Morgan Freeman and Matt Damon, Producer and Director Clint Eastwood, demonstrates how, through the use of the South African Rugby Team, Nelson Mandela unified the Nation.

In South Africa during Apartheid, at least eighty-five percent of the population was Black while only six percent of the population was Afrikaner. For decades, however, the wealth and the political power of the Nation remained in the hands of the White Afrikaner Government. Extremely similar to the predicament of African-Americans in the United States before the Civil Right’s Movement, a symbol to the Blacks in South Africa of their oppression was the Rugby Spring Box (Rugby Football Team). So menacing was the predominantly all White Rugby Team to Black South Africans that Blacks routinely cheered against The South African Team.

As Mandela in Invictus, however, Morgan Freeman, through the Rugby Team’s Captain, handsomely played by Matt Damon, uses the National Rugby Team of South Africa to unify the polarized races in the Nation.

Teddy Pendergrass Dead At 59

Teddy Pendergrass’ soul has taken flight. The buttery smooth R&B singer died today in Philadelphia (hat tip: Booker Rising). Mr. Pendergrass, who was paralyzed from the waist down in a car accident in 1982, underwent surgery for colon cancer eight months ago and had a “difficult recovery,” according to his son, Teddy Jr. A Philly native, Mr. Pendergrass came to fame in the early 1970s as lead singer of the Blue Notes, responsible for hits such as “If You Don’t Know Me By Now” and “Wake Up Everybody.” He released his self-titled debut in 1977 and enjoyed a successful solo career, siring velvety singles like “Close the Door” and “Turn Off the Light.”

Will The Pink Vote Give Obama The Pink Slip In 2012?

Don’t Ask Don ‘t Tell, challenges conservatives to come to terms with their idea of a strong military. Who should and should not serve? Should gays and lesbians in the military be allowed to speak out about their personal lives? Can they marry on base like straight soldiers? Currently, many gays have been discharged from service who were excellent soldiers and offered valuable skills such as weapons or language capabilities which should under ‘normal’ circumstance render them indispensable. Despite President Obama pledging to repeal Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, the pink vote has noticed his annoying tendency to waffle as he has done with so many other campaign promises he made to liberals.”