No pass for Romney

I was puzzled by the recent SN&R guest commentary from Phillip Fujiyoshi with all of his criticisms of President Barack Obama (“No pass for Obama,” June 7).

Mr. Fujiyoshi failed to be transparent by not stating he is a Peace and Freedom Party voter with his own horse in the presidential race, someone who will get less than 1 percent of the vote. People who vote for candidates who will never be in office usually have an ax to grind.

But here are just a few things that Mr. Fujiyoshi failed to mention about President Obama:

His administration got our combat troops out of Iraq, and combat troops are being brought out of Afghanistan. He put on the U.S. Supreme Court two very qualified women (including the first Hispanic justice), and ended the Bush Jr. recession; after eight years of no increase in private-sector jobs under the previous administration, we’ve had an increase of more than 4.3 million jobs so far.

He pressed for and signed a health-care law that outlaws lifetime caps on Americans with many health problems (such as those wounded—including myself—in wars who are refused coverage by insurance companies). Women who have had breast cancer in the past will no longer be refused a health-insurance policy; millions of young Americans under age 26 are now covered by their parents’ health-care plan; and Medicare recently reported that 14.3 million American seniors have already received preventative health-care services under the Obama health-care-reform plan.

His administration worked to repeal “don’t ask, don’t tell”; supports marriage equality; and the Obama adminstration’s Department of Justice is no longer opposing legal challenges to the Defense of Marriage Act—the Republican House of Representatives is doing that.

Obama has reformed student loans to save thousands of dollars for each student—and the first bill that he signed was the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009, which gives women the right to take their employer to court if they discover—even years later—that they were not paid equally with men in the same job. Gov. Mitt Romney opposes that legislation.

While some people want to go to their grave saying they never voted for anyone who was elected, Americans deserve better.