I saw this story all over the intertubes yesterday, usually coupled with a denunciation of "stupid white racists" - and that really rubbed me the wrong way. I know all about racists, I grew up surrounded by them and I live in a white working class neighborhood. So yeah, I know there's a problem.

But if there's one thing I do know about my racist working-class peers, it's that the racism is more of a secondary characteristic. (In my neighborhood, they turned out for Obama when he first ran in 2008. I remember being pleasantly surprised when I read the precinct returns.) The racism really comes to the forefront when times are tough, and they're really tough now.

In an election year in which the economy ranks as Americans’ top concern, presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney holds significant advantages over President Obama among white voters who are struggling financially and buffeted by job loss, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.

Asked which candidate would do more to advance their families’ economic interests, middle-class white voters who say they are struggling to maintain their financial positions chose Romney over Obama by a large margin — 58 percent to 32 percent.

"Why do these stupid people insist on voting against their own interests?" one commenter chided. Geeze, condescend much?

Voters split evenly on whether President Obama or Mitt Romney would do more to help their families financially, but big majorities see the Republican as doing more to help wealthy Americans and Wall Street, not necessarily a win for the former governor.

The former Massachusetts governor has a similar advantage on this question among white voters who have lost a job in recent years, or who have seen a family member or close friend face unemployment.

Nonwhite voters, struggling or not, give Obama huge leads over Romney when it comes to looking after their families’ financial interests.

Are whites really voting against their own interests, or are we looking at a protest vote? Because with the exception of the auto industry bailout, I can't think of much Obama's administration has done to alleviate the economic pain of working class people. Did he push for an additional tier of unemployment benefits at a time when they were desperately needed? No, he did not. Did he do whatever he could to hold onto public sector jobs and thus keep the economy going? No. Again, he was much more concerned about Wall Street.

When the banks came to steal their houses, did Obama stop them? Nope. In fact, his administration went to work to craft an agreement between states that they wouldn't be prosecuted. Tim Geithner made sniffy comments about "moral hazard" and bent over to shine the shoes of the bankers. Did the administration really attempt to solve the housing crisis that devastated so many communities? No, they were too busy trying to prop up the zombie banks. Look at the disaster that was HARP.

And this is before the Grand Bargain is even on their radar. When that happens, working class voters will never trust the Democrats again. Because Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid are the grease in the wheels that make working class life work for extended families.

The results underscore a continuing challenge for Obama and the Democratic Party with white voters, and particularly those without college degrees — who, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, are significantly more likely to be unemployed than those with higher education.

Indeed, among whites who described themselves as struggling to maintain their economic footing — regardless of their current class — nearly seven in 10 lacked a college diploma. And although they lean more Republican than the population in general, it is a group that neither party can ignore. In the new poll, 31 percent of these voters described themselves as Republicans, 27 percent as Democrats.

The president's biggest achievement is the health care law, and it will definitely make parts of their lives better. But it's complicated, most people don't understand it, and they're afraid (not without reason) that they're going to get stuck with yet another monthly bill. (Remember, the Republicans have already announced they're going to defund it.) When you're out of work and just trying to survive, the benefits of this bill are largely theoretical and off in the distant future. What about right now?

And we won't even get into the constant drone of Fox News in the background and the effect on their brains.

All that said, it's still the job of the president and his administration to win the support of the voters. People vote to make their lives better, not worse. Explaining to them how much worse it could have been if the president's half-hearted stimulus package hadn't passed doesn't make a very compelling case for his reelection.

Here's a novel idea: Why not do something to actually help them?

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I suppose I'd be a little more sympathetic to the ideal of a chilling effect on the bench if the 5th Circuit wasn't famous for being so batsh*t crazy. But it is, so when one of the Republican activist judges pitched a little hissy fit over the president's remarks earlier this week, well, I find it hard to work up any sympathy:

A federal judge on Tuesday expressed concern over President Obama’s comments on the Supreme Court’s consideration of the health-care law and demanded a letter explaining whether Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. believes federal judges have the authority to strike down federal laws.

Judge Jerry Smith, a Republican appointee on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit, was part of a three-judge panel hearing arguments in a lawsuit over the Affordable Care Act when he issued his unusual demand, saying the Justice Department must submit the three-page, single-spaced letter by noon Thursday, according to a lawyer who was in the courtroom. The demand was first reported by CBS News.

The lawyer said Smith cited Obama’s statements Monday, when in unusually blunt language, the president said overturning the law would amount to an “unprecedented, extraordinary step” of judicial activism.

The judge “said the president has been saying that unelected branches of government shouldn’t be activist and strike down federal laws,’’ according to the lawyer, who spoke on condition of anonymity to avoid antagonizing either side.

A court order cited the letter but did not give details. The other two judges hearing the case are also Republican appointees.

As Think Progress points out, the 5th Circuit appellate court is the right-wing equivalent of DisneyWorld:

The United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit may be the most ideological court in the country.

When the oil industry’s allies in Congress wanted to protect the industry from drilling lawsuits, they passed a bill trying to force those lawsuits into thereliably industry-friendly Fifth Circuit. When a high school cheerleader sued her school district after it made her cheer for her alleged rapist, the Fifth Circuit ordered the alleged rape victim to pay more than $40,000.

When one of the court’s few progressives asked a series of probing questions to a prosecutor during a court hearing, Fifth Circuit Chief Judge Edith Jones yelled at him to “shut up” and asked him if he would like to leave the courtroom.

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Sounds like Obama's itching for a showdown with the Roberts court if they decide to overturn the healthcare act, either in part or in whole. It's about time he stood up to these SCOTUS clowns, the conservative majority of which has never seen a judicial overreach they didn't like. In addition to that, I can't think of one good reason why citizens shouldn't be mobilizing to impeach Clarence Thomas and Tony Scalia:

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama on Monday issued a rare, direct challenge to the Supreme Court to uphold his historic health care overhaul, weighing in with a vigorous political appeal for judicial restraint. He warned that overturning the law would hurt millions of Americans and amount to overreach by the "unelected" court.

Obama predicted that a majority of justices would uphold the law when the ruling is announced in June. But the president, himself a former law professor, seemed intent on swaying uncertain views in the meantime, both in the court of public opinion and in the minds of the justices about not overstepping the high court's bounds.

"Ultimately, I'm confident that the Supreme Court will not take what would be an unprecedented, extraordinary step of overturning a law that was passed by a strong majority of a democratically elected Congress," Obama said at a Rose Garden news conference.

The majority he referenced was not quite that strong; Congress approved the law two years ago in hard-fought party-line votes after a divisive national debate. Republican presidential contenders say they will make sure it is repealed if the Supreme Court doesn't throw it out first.

For a president to weigh in so forcefully about a case currently under deliberation by the Supreme Court is unusual, and it speaks to the stakes at hand.

The law is the signature domestic achievement of Obama's term and already a prominent source of debate in the presidential campaign. The Supreme Court will decide whether to strike down part or all of the law, including its centerpiece requirement that nearly all Americans carry insurance or pay a penalty.

Obama essentially sought to reset the public view of the case to where the White House thought the baseline lay before the attention-grabbing court arguments and the commentary that followed — that striking down the law would be a surprising reach for the court, and that the heart of the law is likely to be upheld.

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Failed former junior senator from Pennsylvania by way of Virginia, turned presidential hopeful, Rick Santorum speaks to a crowd at The Armory in Janesville, Wisconsin on March 27th during a campaign stop.

In this speech, he had been blasting Barack Obama for all things real and imagined. Then where this clip begins Santorum continues "We know the candidate Barack Obama...what he was like. The anti-war, government nig... (insert stumble here)."

Oh my.

Maybe he meant to say "Blah people" again? Then Santorum awkwardly attempts to continue with some other thought bubble that hatched in his head. (The original video of the speech is available here. The remarks in question take place at about 34:50.)

Meanwhile, Santorum's campaign staff are searching desperately for a word that starts with "nig" that sounds plausible:

“Oh, come on!” Santorum spokesman Hogan Gidley told Raw Story when asked for comment. “Give me a break. That’s unbelievable. What does it say about those that are running with this story that that’s where their mind goes. You know, I’m not going to dignify that with [a response].”

“That is absolutely ridiculous.”

EDITOR'S NOTE: The other slip here was to call the man who killed Osama "anti-war." Obama anti-war?! Rick must be thinking of some other blah person.

Get ready for another round of manufactured media drama, where professional campaign operatives and the parrot-like surrogates of their respective candidates will be shocked, stunned and amazed that the president of the United States is waiting to exhale after the election:

For the second time in six months, a live mic picked up a private exchange between the president and a world leader, this time Russian President Dmitri Medvedev.

In Seoul on Monday, Obama assured the outgoing Russian leader that a compromise over a contentious missile defense system could be reached after the 2012 election. "This can be solved, but it’s important for him to give me space," Obama said, referring to incoming Russian President Vladimir Putin. "This is my last election. After my election, I have more flexibility."

CBS News has audio of the statements, which followed a 90-minute meeting between Obama and Medvedev over a proposed U.S. missile defense system in Europe. Russia strongly opposes the project, but the United States argues it is necessary to protect against the possibility of a nuclear Iran.

GOP presidential hopeful Mitt Romney seized on the open mic mishap at a rally in San Diego hours later, calling the president’s remarks "alarming" and "troubling." House Speaker John Boehner joined the fray on Twitter: "We look forward to hearing what he meant by having 'more flexibility' on missile defense."

Well, John (I can call you John, can't I? I feel like we've shared so much already!), I think you already know what he meant. He meant after the election, he won't have to worry about the dumbass right wing of your nutty party blowing every tiny thing he says or does into an attack ad. He means that he won't have to defend what would, in another, saner world, be considered perfectly rational policies.

And as for you, Mitt - geeze, your own damned healthcare plan, scaled up for the national plan "alarms" and "troubles" you! Why don't you take a Xanax and go lie down for a little nap?

This is great news, and not just because it was widely rumored that Larry Summers had the job in the bag - we wouldn't want him doing to the rest of the world what he's done here. (Robert Kuttner: "For Larry Summers, Obama's nomination of Jim Yong Kim ends a winning streak of falling upwards.")

No, it's good because an impressive activist and real development professional, not a Wall St. banker, will be overseeing the bank:

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama will nominate Dartmouth College President Jim Yong Kim to head the World Bank, a surprise pick for the international financial institution’s top job, senior administration officials said.

The Korean-born Kim is a physician by training and a prominent figure in global health and development circles. Officials believe his experience will help counter criticism from developing countries that have grown weary of the U.S. stranglehold on the World Bank presidency.

Obama took a strong personal interest in filling the World Bank vacancy after current president Robert Zoellick announced in February he was stepping down. Obama and his advisers considered more than a dozen candidates, including well-known figures in the administration. But in the end, officials said, Obama pushed for a nominee with broad development experience and was particularly drawn to Kim’s innovative work fighting the spread of AIDS and tuberculosis.

The 187-nation World Bank focuses on fighting poverty and promoting development. It is a leading source of development loans for countries seeking financing to build dams, roads and other infrastructure projects.

[...] Obama picked Kim over several more well-known candidates, including Susan Rice, current U.S. ambassador to the United Nations; Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass.; and Lawrence Summers, Obama’s former director of the National Economic Council.

Out of those people, only Larry Summers was known to be interested in the job. But I'll bet Larry Summers never rapped in one of Harvard's musicals like Kim did at Dartmouth (two minutes in):

The Huffington Post's Dan Froomkin has a pointed piece about the Obama administration's inaction on potential speculation in the energy market. Talk is cheap - and it's costing us quite a bit at the gas pump. I get the distinct impression that the president thinks enforcing any regulations at all, for anybody, will stall the recovery and cost him his reelection:

The topic of gas prices came up at Obama's press conference on Tuesday after a Fox News reporter asked if the president was on purpose driving up gas prices to wean Americans off fossil fuels. "Just from a political perspective, do you think the president of the United States going into reelection wants gas prices to go up higher?" he asked, with a laugh. "Is there anybody here who thinks that makes a lot of sense?"

Obama said there is "no silver bullet" to lowering high gas prices. Rather, he said, he endorsed an "all of the above strategy," that includes increased domestic production, energy conservation and the development of renewable energy.

His plans also involve "making sure that my attorney general is paying attention to potential speculation in the oil markets," Obama said. To that end, he said, "I've asked him to reconstitute a task force that’s examining that."

But it wasn't an investigative task force. Its job was to "monitor oil and gas markets" for potential violations of criminal or civil law. Even that might have helped -- but, as one expert from Public Citizen points out, the task force wasn't doing anything.

At the time Holder promised, "if illegal conduct is responsible for increasing gas prices, state and federal authorities should take swift action.” Tyson Slocum, director of the energy program for consumer group Public Citizen, said the Obama administration "isn't reconstituting this task force because this task force wasn't even meeting in the first place."

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Although the nation’s largest gun lobby would never publicly acknowledge it, at least one gun-loving group seems to realize that a Democratic president isn’t always bad for business.

In a post published Tuesday by online ammunition supplier Ammo.com, President Barack Obama is hailed as “the greatest gun salesman in America.”

The site is even asking readers whether the gun industry should actually begin supporting him.

In an eye-grabbing message, the munitions outlet compiled dozens of statistics that show firearms sales skyrocketing in the wake of Obama’s 2008 election.

“Ironically, the perceived hostility towards gun owners by President Obama has actually helped the firearms industry tremendously,” they wrote. “Since the 2008 election, more Americans than ever before are purchasing firearms & ammunition. This has meant massive increases in sales by firearm & ammunition makers, billions more in federal and state tax collections related to guns & ammo, increased membership in the [National Rifle Association (NRA)], and hundreds of thousands of new Americans carrying concealed handguns. Therefore, should the firearms industry support President Obama for a second term or not?”

That’s actually a good question — although it’s not being taken seriously by the NRA.

During the recent Conservative Political Action Conference, NRA CEO Wayne LaPierre declared Obama’s lack of interest in gun regulations to be part of “a massive Obama conspiracy.”

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Wayne LaPierre, the CEO of the National Rifle Association ("We Sell Fear"©) is gearing up for the election year fundraising blitz. Imagine, if you will, President Barack Obama carrying out a full-scale national crackdown on guns. Now that you're done laughing, read just what paranoid flames Wayne is willing to fan to keep his million-dollar paycheck:

Obama administration officials are deliberately keeping gun owners in the dark about the president’s gun-control agenda as we head into next year’s national election, because administration officials know that when NRA members and gun owners show up at the polls en masse, anti-gun candidates lose.

The Obama campaign’s strategy goes like this:

Neutralize gun owners and NRA members as a political force in the upcoming national election by pretending to be pro-gun or at least not focused on pushing a gun-control agenda;

With gun owners neutralized, Obama will be able to win the election. After the president is re-elected, he won’t have to answer to voters because he won’t have to face another re-election battle;

Launch a full-scale, all-out assault to rip the Second Amendment out of the Bill of Rights through legislation, litigation, regulation, executive orders and international treaties — in short, every lever of power at the administration’s disposal.

Barack Obama spent his entire political career proudly and publicly pushing for the most radical anti-gun positions you can imagine. He endorsed a total ban on the manufacture, sale and possession of handguns. He opposed right-to-carry laws. He voted to ban nearly all commonly used hunting-rifle ammunition.

During the presidential primary debates, Obama even vowed to re-impose the discredited Clinton gun ban, which banned many commonly owned firearms used for hunting and self-defense.

Obama hasn’t had a sudden change of heart; rather, he’s making a purely political calculation by staying quiet on the gun issue until the time is right. In the meantime, he’s gearing up for his second-term assault on the Second Amendment in a number of ways.

Hah! It's more than a tad ironic that the CEO of the NRA is selling the same line Obama true believers do: "He's keeping his powder dry! Just wait until his second term!" The truth is, the president has shown no interest in actually doing anything to control guns, although he occasionally offers tepid verbal support, like after Gabby Gifford's shooting.

But the NRA hasn't lived in the fact-based world for several decades now. Richard Feldman, former NRA lobbyist, is a public affairs lawyer who wrote "Ricochet: Confessions of a Gun Lobbyist". He points out that the name of the game for NRA leadership is keeping themselves highly compensated:

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It's so crazy, isn't it? Scary black man in the White House! If Obama had ever actually done a thing to control guns, I could see it. But he's been missing in action on the topic for a very long time. Amazing, the things people use to scare themselves:

WASHINGTON, D.C. (CBS Washington) — A gun company advertisement that warns of impending gun control compares President Obama to Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin.

The USAAmmo ad shows side-by-side pictures of Obama with Hitler, Stalin and other dictators who committed atrocities across the world. The ad, which is also accompanied by a video, warns that gun control is imminent and foreshadows that the U.S. could face millions in casualties if they are not allowed to defend themselves.

USAAmmo states that “tyranny is knocking down the doors of American cities daily” and that Obama, Attorney General Eric Holder and other gun control advocates “are secretly conspiring American Citizens of the right to bear arms.”

Trace Williams, director of operations for USAAmmo, defended the ad that was emailed Monday. He told CBS Washington that “Obama and his various czars are infringing on the rights of Americans to own guns.”

“He’s anti-gun and he’s obviously a socialist cramming health care down American’s throats,” Williams said. “That is exactly how those people in that ad rose to power.”

This post is written as part of the Media Matters Gun Facts fellowship. The purpose of the fellowship is to further Media Matters’ mission to comprehensively monitor, analyze, and correct conservative misinformation in the U.S. media. Some of the worst misinformation occurs around the issue of guns, gun violence, and extremism, the fellowship program is designed to fight this misinformation with facts.