GOP contender Rick Santorum continues to try to explain away a racist welfare rant in which he said “I don’t want to make black people’s lives better” through government aid. Santorum appeared to acknowledge he made the remarks in an interview with CBS shortly after the original comment. But after being roundly criticized, he backtracked and claimed he said “blah” people, not “black.”

Santorum’s latest explanation is that what sounded like “black people” was actually the garbled word “plives”:

Rick Santorum said Monday that comments he made last week in Iowa about food stamps that some construed as racially charged were the result of his having been tongue-tied and were not a reference to black people.

Moreover, he said he has done more in black communities “than any Republican in recent memory.”

He maintains that he did not say “black” people’s lives but rather stumbled verbally when he was trying to say “people’s lives” and uttered a short syllable that came out as “plives.”

Here’s the original video — decide for yourself whether what he said sounds anything like “plives”:

Santorum’s self-aggrandizing claim that he’s done more for black people “than any Republican in recent memory” is even more of a leap. The NAACP blasted him for falsely suggesting that most welfare recipients are black. And on the campaign trail Santorum proudly touts his role throwing millions of families off the welfare rolls by supporting welfare “reform” in 1996.

EXETER, New Hampshire — The Jon Huntsman campaign escalated its attacks on front-runner Mitt Romney the night before the New Hampshire primary, with Huntsman himself telling CNBC host Larry Kudlow that Romney is making himself “completely unelectable.” Romney is taking flak from all GOP opponents, in addition to Democrats, for his comments this morning that he “liked being able to fire people.” Huntsman said earlier that he prefers to hire people, rather than fire them, and his adviser had harsh words this afternoon for Romney when ThinkProgress interviewed him, but Huntsman’s statements on Kudlow represent the strongest attack from the candidate himself yet:

HUNTSMAN: First of all, you’ve got to get elected to office for heaven’s sake, and making statements like that you render yourself completely unelectable. Whether you’re referring to economic policy, it really becomes more of a political issue, when you’ve got the Chicago political machine and $1 billion bearing down on you. You make a statement like, you talk about pink slips, and pretty soon you’re going to lose the high ground.

Watch it:

As Mitt Romney’s tenure at Bain Capital comes under increasing scrutiny, even Republicans are attacking the presidential frontrunner for generating billions in profit by bankrupting companies and implementing massive layoffs.

Romney founded Bain, a private equity firm, in 1984 and was its first CEO. Since that time, Bain made billions by, as the Los Angeles Times writes, “firing workers, seeking government subsidies, and flipping companies quickly for large profits.” In all, Bain bankrupted nearly one-quarter of the companies it invested in, often causing “substantial job losses,” according to a new Wall Street Journal report.

Sensing the national mood of populist economic outrage, many Republicans are now joining Democrats in lambasting Romney for doing more to fire workers than hire them. Here is a round-up of recent statements from Republicans:

JON HUNTSMAN: “What’s clear is he likes firing people, I like creating jobs.” [1/9/12]

NEWT GINGRICH: “Those of us who believe in free markets and those of us who believe that, in fact, the whole goals of investment is entrepreneurship and job creation, would find it pretty hard to justify rich people figuring out clever, legal ways to loot out a company.” [1/8/12]

RICK PERRY: “Now, I have no doubt Mitt Romney was worried about pink slips — whether he was going to have enough of them to hand out because his company, Bain Capital, of all the jobs that they killed. I’m sure he was worried that he would run out of pink slips.” [1/9/12]

GINGRICH: Bain Capital was a “small group of rich people manipulating the lives of thousands of people, and taking all the money.” [1/9/12]

PRO-GINGRICH SUPER PAC: “A story of greed, playing the system for a quick buck. A group of corporate raiders led by Mitt Romney, more ruthless than Wall Street. For tens of thousands of Americans, the suffering began when Mitt Romney came to town.” [1/9/12]

GINGRICH: “I would just say that if Gov. Romney would like to give back all of the money he’s earned from bankrupting companies and laying off employees over his years at Bain, that I would be glad to listen to him.” [12/12/11]

Romney has gone to great lengths – from saying that he has worried about being fired in the past to telling voters that he is “unemployed” – to cast himself as anything but an extraordinarily wealthy businessman.

However, with the right and left now coalescing in the message that Romney’s personal wealth came largely on the backs of laid-off workers, the hurdle for his campaign will be increasingly difficult to surmount.

Alejandrina Cabrera is one of several candidates running for City Council in San Luis, Arizona. Like nearly all of her constituents, Cabrera is Hispanic and speaks fluent Spanish. She also has been an annoyance for the city’s current leadership, having led efforts to recall Mayor Juan Carlos Escamilla.

Seemingly in retaliation for her trouble-making, city leaders have singled out Cabrera to take an English proficiency exam to prove her eligibility to hold office:

The City Council recently asked for verification that activist and council candidate Alejandrina Cabrera could speak, read and write in English, as state law requires of public officials. The action was in response to allegations by Guillermina Fuentes, a former mayor of the fast-growing border city, the Yuma Sun reported. [...]

The council’s action could mean that the city hires someone to test Cabrera’s English fluency. In San Luis, nearly all 25,000 residents are Latino and about 88% speak a language other than English at home, according to Census Bureau data.

Cabrera is one of 10 council candidates running in the city’s March primary, the Sun said. She is considered something of a rabble-rouser, having spearheaded two failed recall attempts against the current mayor of San Luis, Juan Carlos Escamilla.

Escamilla voted in favor of testing Cabrera’s grasp of English, TV station KSWT reported.

English-only laws have been highly controversial, especially in states like Arizona that have a large number of Hispanic voters, many of whom have a limited grasp of English themselves. It would seem more important that Cabrera can effectively communicate in the language the vast majority of her constituents speak.

The suggestion that her English is not up to scratch is based on anecdotal claims from the very people who are trying to keep her from serving. None of the other Hispanic candidates for office are being asked to prove their English proficiency. In addition, the mayor’s targeting of Cabrera seems somewhat hypocritical given that he admits he is not completely fluent himself.

The Voting Rights Act protects the right of non-English speakers to cast a ballot, but these protections do not apply to candidates. Nevertheless, selectively applying the law based on candidates’ ethnicity or political leanings is troubling. There is nothing in the Constitution that protects English as the exclusive language of the United States.

During a campaign event in Nashua, New Hampshire this morning, Mitt Romney told the crowd, “I like being able to fire people who provide services to me.” The remark came as the Romney discussed purchasing health care services at a Nashua Chamber of Commerce event:

ROMNEY: I want people to be able to own insurance if they wish to, and to buy it for themselves and perhaps keep it for the rest of their life and to choose among different policies offered from companies across the nation. I want individuals to have their own insurance. That means the insurance company will have an incentive to keep people healthy. It also means if you don’t like what they do, you can fire them. I like being able to fire people who provide services to me. If someone doesn’t give me the good service I need, I’m going to go get somebody else to provide that service to me.

Watch it:

Still, given that his business history includes extensive layoffs, the remark will likely cause headaches for the former Massachusetts governor. Before entering politics, Romney founded Bain Capital, a private equity firm that made billions by, as the Los Angeles Times writes, “firing workers, seeking government subsidies, and flipping companies quickly for large profits.”

Romney’s Republican opponents have hammered him on the issue for weeks; just yesterday, Gingrich alluded to Romney’s tenure at Bain while criticizing “rich people figuring out clever, legal ways to loot out a company.” Bain bankrupted nearly one-fourth of the companies it invested in, “sometimes with substantial job losses,” according to a Wall Street Journal report released today.