Gallup: ObamaCare Approval Falls Again

"Listen folks, the law is the law! It is as permanent and constant as the North Star! And it wil never, never be relegated to the dustbin of history!"

And it's not like this cruddy law was ever popular.

From The Hill:

Support for the Affordable Care Act [aka ObamaCare]  has fallen to its lowest point in more than a year, according to a Gallup poll released on Friday  

The survey found that 54 percent disapprove of the healthcare law, against only 38 percent who approve. 

The 16-point unfavorable spread is near an all-time high for ObamaCare, and a considerable difference from last month’s 10-point differential, when 51 percent said they disapproved of the law, against 41 who said they approved.  

[...]  

In addition, 48 percent said they expect ObamaCare will make their lives worse, 35 percent said it would make no difference, and only 12 percent said it would make their lives better.

Now let's wait until 50,000,000+ lose their insurance after ObamaCare forces employers to comply with their regulation. What do you think the numbers will be like then?

There is no fix for this monstrous law. There's only unconstitutional presidential decrees by Obama to ease the immediate impact people will be feel under ObamaCare. This law is a loser and it must be taken apart piece by piece and destroyed.

Giant Miss in December-- 74,000 Jobs Created, but 197,000 Had Been Expected

"Look, trying to micro-manage the economy and punish my enemies is really hard. I need another vacation..."

 

Oops.

Obamanomics in action. The Left simply does not create many non-government jobs. It creates government dependency.

From Zero Hedge:

So much for the recovery. Moments ago December nonfarms were revealed at just 74,000 a huge miss to expectations of 197,000 - the biggest miss Since December 2009. The drop from last month's revised 226K was the largest since December 2010. Other notables: the change in private payrolls was a tiny 87K vs expectations of 200K. Mfg payrolls added just 9K vs 15K expected and down from 31K. Average hourly earnings for all employees rose 0.1% vs. Expected 0.2%. The good news: the unemployment rate plunged to 6.7% from 7.0%... For all the wrong reasons - the number of people not in the labor force rose to a record 91,808,000. As a reason for the plunge the BLS says there was a major weather effect seen on the forced part-time series, and notes the decline in healthcare which is rare and part of the sector slowing. Thank you Obamacare. And now bring on the Untaper.  

[...]   

Some of the highlights from the report:  

[...] 

Among the unemployed, the number of job losers and persons who completed temporary jobs decreased by 365,000 in December to 5.4 million. The number of long-term unemployed (those jobless for 27 weeks or more), at 3.9 million, showed little change; these individuals accounted for 37.7 percent of the unemployed. The number of long-term unemployed has declined by 894,000 over the year. (See tables A-11 and A-12.) 

The civilian labor force participation rate declined by 0.2 percentage point to 62.8 percent in December, offsetting a change of the same magnitude in November. In December, the employment-population ratio was unchanged at 58.6 percent. The labor force participation rate declined by 0.8 percentage point over the year, while the employment-population ratio was unchanged. (See table A-1.) [emphasis mine]

So exactly when is Obama going to make us all rich? Or was that just a teensy bit unrealistic?

Record High Percentage of Americans Identify as Independent

Chart from Gallup's article

Better pay attention GOP.

From Gallup:

Forty-two percent of Americans, on average, identified as political independents in 2013, the highest Gallup has measured since it began conducting interviews by telephone 25 years ago. Meanwhile, Republican identification fell to 25%, the lowest over that time span. At 31%, Democratic identification is unchanged from the last four years but down from 36% in 2008. 

The results are based on more than 18,000 interviews with Americans from 13 separate Gallup multiple-day polls conducted in 2013. 

In each of the last three years, at least 40% of Americans have identified as independents. These are also the only years in Gallup's records that the percentage of independents has reached that level. 

Americans' increasing shift to independent status has come more at the expense of the Republican Party than the Democratic Party. Republican identification peaked at 34% in 2004, the year George W. Bush won a second term in office. Since then, it has fallen nine percentage points, with most of that decline coming during Bush's troubled second term. When he left office, Republican identification was down to 28%. It has declined or stagnated since then, improving only slightly to 29% in 2010, the year Republicans "shellacked" Democrats in the midterm elections.

The GOP had their chance, and the decided to show themselves as being as corrupt and untrustworthy as the Democrats. The independents' votes are there for the GOP to take, but they have to prove themselves to be more than merely nanny state politicians of a different party.

Left Begins to Admit ObamaCare Critics Were Right

"Okay. So I lied. What are you racist, little folks going to do about it?"

Gee, I guess that some of the ObamaCare criticisms were true. Shocker.

From Charles C.W. Cooke at he NRO:

It has not simply been that time has vindicated many of the conservative complaints. On the contrary: The Left has started to admit that much of what Obamacare’s critics said was true all along — even going so far as to unashamedly incorporate the grievances into their apologies. Earlier in the year, Jonathan Chait, Jonathan Cohn, and Ezra Klein — the administration’s golden trio — all of a sudden switched tactics and came clean. As reports of increased premiums started to flood in from across the country, the group tutted impatiently, rolled its eyes, and, with a how-stupid-are-you tone, explained that obviously one couldn’t cover a whole host of new people without some premiums’ being raised. In other words, once Obamacare’s launch was imminent, the Left admitted that conservatives’ key critique — which the president and Nancy Pelosi had promised over and over and over again was but a lie — had been correct all along. 

So habitually has the administration insisted that the troubles with Obamacare are the fault of wreckers and traitors that it has occasionally lost touch with reality. As Mediaite’s Noah Rothman noted, on the last day of last year a White House health-care adviser named Phil Schiliro took to MSNBC to claim that that the CBO enrollment projections that the White House and HHS secretary Kathleen Sebelius had been touting as a target all year had nothing to do with the administration. George Orwell’s name is rather overused in modern political journalism, but this really was a deception worthy of IngSoc, and its shifting, mutating truths the sign of deep dysfunction. Over and over, Sebelius had made it abundantly clear that the government wanted 3 million sign-ups by January, and 7 million by the end of March. But when the government only got 2 by the New Year, it simply pretended that the target had never existed. Have we always been at war with Eastasia? 

Nonsense on both sides has been rife from the outset. That’s politics. And around the edges, some conservatives did indeed scream bloody murder — weakening their case with frivolous allegations and careless language. But where it really mattered, the Right’s barbs hit their target. Whether Obamacare was a stalking horse for something much worse, and whether it will succeed in metastasizing into a nightmare for liberty, remains to be seen. Still, at this early stage, one thing seems certain: By the time we find out what happens in Chapter 2, an awful lot more of the “lies” that were told about the law will — as quietly as possible, without an apology in sight, and only when it is safe for them to do so — have somehow, magically come true.

For the Obama administration it's easier and more expedient to lie and then ask for forgiveness, than to come clean and debate their agenda beforehand. It's the dishonest route that erodes Americans' liberty. Hope & Change, baby!

From the NRO: Ten ObamaCare Predictions

"You'll love ObamaCare, or I shall smite you!"

I have one prediction. ObamaCare's going to suck.

Oh, and one more, it's going to cost 50,000,000+ their health insurance and replace it with something much more expensive and with worse coverage.

From Grace-Marie Turner at The National Review Online:

1. Many won’t pay: A sizeable share of the 2 million people who selected a private insurance plan before the 2013 deadline will not pay their share of the premiums and therefore won’t be covered by the plans in which the White House says they “enrolled.” Enrolling, by the White House definition, is actually just selecting a plan — the same as putting an item in the shopping basket at Amazon. Until you pay, you don’t own it. Early reports from Washington State and Nevada show that only half of those selecting a plan had paid their first month’s premium before the deadline.  

2. Others will stop paying: Even if people do pay their premiums for the first few months, we’ll wait to see how many people are still paying them later in the year and maintaining their insurance. Remember, the law requires people to pay premiums for health insurance every month, year after year, to comply with the mandate; if they go more than three months in a year without government-approved health insurance, they have to pay a penalty tax. 

3. Many enrollees will be the newly-uninsured: Obama-administration officials are not releasing data on how many of the people who have picked plans are from the ranks of the uninsured. One reason: It is likely that many if not most of those enrolling in private insurance are people who have been kicked out of their existing private plans because their policies didn’t comply with the mountain of Obamacare rules, mandates, and requirements.

Read the rest at the link above.

Friday Funnies: Conan the Barabarian: The Musical

Enjoy:

ObamaCare Causing Confusion and Lack of Treatments at Hospital

"Okay, there's going to be a few hiccups in the implementation of this irreversible march toward government domination... uh, I mean solving the health care crisis. But I want you all to remember something: this isn't happening to anyone who actually matters. Thank you."

Yeah, ObamaCare is going great. And it'll go even better once people realize they can no longer afford insurance nor the penalty tax inflicted upon them by this atrocious law. This is what you get when you combine government overreach, outright lies, and the Left's insatiable desire to hastily usurp power as they "do something" to address a largely phony crisis.

From the UK's Daily Mail Online:

Hospital staff in Northern Virginia are turning away sick people on a frigid Thursday morning because they can't determine whether their Obamacare insurance plans are in effect. 

Patients in a close-in DC suburb who think they've signed up for new insurance plans are struggling to show their December enrollments are in force, and health care administrators aren't taking their word for it. 

In place of quick service and painless billing, these Virginians are now facing the threat of sticker-shock that comes with bills they can't afford.  

'They had no idea if my insurance was active or not!' a coughing Maria Galvez told MailOnline outside the Inova Healthplex facility in the town of Springfield.
She was leaving the building without getting a needed chest x-ray.  

'The people in there told me that since I didn't have an insurance card, I would be billed for the whole cost of the x-ray,' Galvez said, her young daughter in tow. 'It's not fair – you know, I signed up last week like I was supposed to.' 

The x-ray's cost, she was told, would likely be more than $500. 

Galvez said she enrolled in a Carefirst Blue Cross bronze plan at a cost of about $450 per onth through healthcare.gov, three days before Christmas.  

[...]  

Her Carefirst plan, identified on the Obamacare website as BlueChoice Plus Bronze, carries a $5,500 per-person deductible for 2014 – an amount she would have to pay out-of-pocket before her coverage would apply to medical expenses.  

[...]  

President Obama has attracted widespread criticism, and a 'lie of the year' award from one newspaper's fact-checker, for promising that Americans who liked their health plans would be allowed to keep them.

Hey, but don't worry. It's going to get better. Obama said it would. We can trust him. Right? 

Uh.... right?

Get Ready for the ObamaCare Taxes in 2014

"ObamaCare is the law of the land. You shall all be forced into it. You shall all love it. Any complaints are racist. So sayeth  your Light-bringer."

Happy New Year!

Hey Americans! ObamaCare's going to screw us all this year! Congrats!

From Kerry Picket at Breitbart:

Here are three of the major tax increases that come from the Democrats' healthcare law:

Individual Mandate Tax. The penalty for not buying health insurance will be either $95 or 1 percent of your annual income (whichever is greater). The Heritage Foundation points out that "Very few, if any, people will end up paying just $95, because individuals with an annual income of only $9,500 or less would likely qualify for Medicaid or a hardship exemption from the mandate." Additionally, the mandate will increase year by year to $325 or 2 percent of one's income in 2015, and $695 or 2.5 percent of income in 2016, whichever is greater. 

Reinsurance Fee. Heritage notes that health insurers must pay the temporary fee on group health plans in order to spread the cost of the covering people within the individual market who are inside and outside the Obamacare’s exchanges. "The fee begins in 2014, costing $63 per covered person and decreasing in 2015 and 2016. Like most taxes and fees, the result will likely be higher insurance premiums," Heritage explains. 

$60.1 Billion: Tax on Health Insurers (Takes effect Jan. 2014): Annual tax on the industry imposed relative to health insurance premiums collected that year. Phases in gradually until 2018. Fully-imposed on firms with $50 million in profits. Bill: PPACA; Page: 1,986-1,993

By 2015, the employer mandate kicks in. Originally, this mandate was scheduled to take effect in 2014, but the administration delayed it prior the the shoddy implementation of the healthcare law in late 2013. The mandate will order employers with 50 or more full-time employees (or those working 30 hours per week) to offer government-approved health insurance or pay a penalty. "The penalty varies—either $2,000 per employee after the first 30 workers, or $3,000 per employee receiving subsidized coverage in the exchange, whichever is less," Heritage says.

So get ready America. This first round of 5,000,000 insurance cancellations was just the beginning. There's going to be around 50,000,000 to 85,000,000 more cancellations this year. And then you'll be forced into buying expensive government mandated insurance policies that will give you less coverage and won't be accepted by many doctors and hospitals. Sounds great, doesn't it?

ObamaCare. The disaster just keeps rolling along.

Study: Concealed Carry Means Fewer Murders-- Plus, Assault Weapons Rifle Bans Have No Effect

"Only the responsible elite deserve access to guns! Bang! Bang! Take that Racist Tea-baggers!"

Shocker.

Criminals prey on those they see as weak. Guns can change that equation and they often back off.

Plus, the Wild West shootouts over parking spaces that opponents of concealed carry feared, never came to be. It's weird but law-abiding citizens tend to remain law-abiding citizens even when carrying guns. The gun didn't possess their souls and turn them into murderers. Again, shocker.

From Reason.com:

Quinnipiac University economist Mark Gius has published a new study, "An examination of the effects of concealed weapons laws and assault weapons bans on state-level murder rates," in the journalApplied Economics Letters. From the abstract:

The purpose of the present study is to determine the effects of state-level assault weapons bans and concealed weapons laws on state-level murder rates. Using data for the period 1980 to 2009 and controlling for state and year fixed effects, the results of the present study suggest that states with restrictions on the carrying of concealed weapons had higher gun-related murder rates than other states. It was also found that assault weapons bans did not significantly affect murder rates at the state level. These results suggest that restrictive concealed weapons laws may cause an increase in gun-related murders at the state level. The results of this study are consistent with some prior research in this area, most notably Lott and Mustard (1997).

Funny how this study is consistent with prior studies, but still we have a debate over it. We're expected to disbelieve study after study and distrust our own lying eyes as we see violence escalte in gun restricted areas like Chicago, Los Angeles, and New York.

Happy New Year!

Here's hoping you had a fun and safe new year... and that any hangovers that may have resulted are light.

From the NRO: New York Investigators Obtain Fraudulent Ballots 97 Percent of Time

"Look, if some correct-thinking folks want to vote multiple times for the correct candidate, that's their own business."

Gee, I wonder if this has anything to do with why the Democrats resist voter photo ID Laws so vehemently? Naw...

From the NRO post by John Fund (via Instapundit):

New York City’s Department of Investigation (DOI) has just shown how easy it is to commit voter fraud that is almost undetectable. Its undercover agents were able to obtain ballots for city elections a total of 61 times — 39 times using the names of dead people, 14 times using the names of incarcerated felons, and eight times using the names of non-residents. On only two occasions, or about 3 percent of the time, were the agents stopped by polling-place officials. In one of the two cases, an investigator was stopped only because the felon he was trying to vote in the name of was the son of the election official he was dealing with. 

Ballot security in checking birth dates or signatures was so sloppy that young undercover agents were able to vote using the name of someone three times their age who had died. As the New York Post reports: “A 24-year female was able to access the ballot at a Manhattan poll site in November under the name of a deceased female who was born in 1923 and died in April 25, 2012 — and would have been 89 on Election Day.” All of the agents who got ballots wrote in the names of fictitious candidates so as not to actually influence election outcomes. 

Last year, guerrilla videographer James O’Keefe sent hidden cameras into polling places around the country to demonstrate just how easy it is to commit voter fraud and how hard it is to ever know it happened. In Washington, D.C., one of his assistants was able to obtain Attorney General Eric Holder’s ballot even though Holder is 62 years old and bears no resemblance to the 22-year-old white man who obtained it by merely asking if Holder was on the rolls. In New Hampshire, poll workers handed his assistants ballots in the names of ten dead people. After a public outcry, New Hampshire’s legislature passed a photo-ID law over the veto of the state’s Democratic governor. 

But opponents of photo-ID laws scoffed at O’Keefe’s revelations. The Department of Justice, which is currently suing Texas to block that state’s photo-ID law, dismissed the Holder ballot incident as “manufactured.” The irony was lost on them that Holder, a staunch opponent of voter-ID laws, could have himself been disenfranchised by a white man because Washington, D.C., has no voter-ID law. Polls consistently show that more than 70 percent of Americans — including clear majorities of African Americans and Hispanics — support such laws.  

An even richer irony is that it is the people Attorney General Holder purports to speak for — the poor, often minority, inner-city residents — who suffer the most from voter fraud. 

As law professor Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit noted: “Many of America’s largest and worst-governed cities suffer from entrenched and corrupt political machines that maintain their position in no small part via voter fraud. Corrupt machines (like that of Detroit’s disgraced ex-Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick) siphon off money that should go to essential services and instead divert it to political fatcats and their supporters.”  

[...]  

As the New York DOI report demonstrates, it is comically easy to commit voter fraud in person, and, unless someone confesses, it’s very difficult to ever detect — or stop. The Gothamist reported that police officers observed the problems at IS 71 last September but did nothing because voter fraud isn’t under the department’s purview. 

Opponents of photo-ID laws — which the DOI report does not address — claim they will block people from voting. But there are very few cases of legitimate voters who have been unable to have their vote counted because they lacked ID. People who show up without photo ID at the polls are allowed to cast a provisional ballot that is counted after proof of identity is offered.

But let us all remember that it's racist to pass laws that prevent people from stealing the votes of minorities, the elderly, and poor.

So let's see here... Opposition to prevent voter fraud. Harassment against political opponents by the IRS, EPA, etc. Organized harassment of opposition political donors. This is Obama's America folks-- fundamentally transformed indeed!

Obama Pollster to Press: Stop Covering Polls!

Any bets on whether Joel Benenson has this poster hanging on his wall at home?

Oh, boy...

From The Daily Caller article by Alex Pappas:

After a year of seeing President Obama's approval ratings plummet, the president’s pollster is offering a strikingly candid and pessimistic New Year’s resolution. 

Reporters should go the next “year without reporting any public polling data,” Joel Benenson, president and CEO of Benenson Strategy Group, said.  

[...]  

Benenson explained that he thinks the polling often reported by news organizations lacks the proper context. 

Asked his New Year’s resolution: “Here’s one — with a variation, if mine is too extreme: Go one year without reporting any public polling data.” 

“Rationale: Most public polling continues to be reported on strictly from a topline, horserace-type perspective that does nothing, or at best very little, to illuminate the news of the day.”

News like the American people unabashed love of ObamaCare so generously bestowed upon us by our Dear Leader?

According to Wall Street Journal/NBC news polling, Obama’s job approval fell from 52 percent at the start of the year to 43 percent today.

Well, that's certainly a novel way to buttress up your flailing leader... just don't say how unpopular his problems and policies are.

Hmm... It seems familiar, though. Where have I heard this before?

Oh, right...

And 2014 is Looking Great!

"Dropping the Ball"

Only three more years... How bad can they be? Uh, right?

Cartoon by A.F. Branco and originally posted at Legal Insurrection.

2013: A Year of Obama's Constitutional Violations

"The Constitution is in my way! You must not limit the Light-bringer!"

But will 2013 be Obama's top year for violating the Constitution? My bet, with ObamaCare to begin to really kick in 2014, is no.

Ilya Shapiro at Forbes.com has kindly listed Obama's top Constitutional violations of this year. Check them out at the link below. There's explanations for each one at the article itself.

From Shapiro's Op/ed "President Obama's Top 10 Constitutional Violations Of 2013":

One of Barack Obama’s chief accomplishments has been to return the Constitution to a central place in our public discourse.  

Unfortunately, the president fomented this upswing in civic interest not by talking up the constitutional aspects of his policy agenda, but by blatantly violating the strictures of our founding document. And he’s been most frustrated with the separation of powers, which doesn’t allow him to “fundamentally transform” the country without congressional acquiescence.  

[...]  

2. Delay of Obamacare’s employer mandate. The administration announced via blogpost on the eve of the July 4 holiday that it was delaying the requirement that employers of at least 50 people provide complying insurance or pay a fine. This time it did cite statutory authority, but the cited provisions allow the delay of certain reporting requirements, not of the mandate itself. 

3. Delay of Obamacare’s insurance requirements. The famous pledge that “if you like your plan, you can keep it” backfired when insurance companies started cancelling millions of plans that didn’t comply with Obamacare’s requirements. President Obama called a press conference last month to proclaim that people could continue buying non-complying plans in 2014—despite Obamacare’s explicit language to the contrary. He then refused to consider a House-passed bill that would’ve made this action legal. 

4. Exemption of Congress from Obamacare. A little-known part of Obamacare requires Congressmen and their staff to get insurance through the new healthcare exchanges, rather than a taxpayer-funded program. In the quiet of August, President Obama directed the Office of Personnel Management to interpret the law to maintain the generous congressional benefits.  

5  Expansion of the employer mandate penalty through IRS regulation.  

[...]   

6. Political profiling by the IRS. After seeing a rise in the number of applications for tax-exempt status, the IRS in 2010 compiled a “be on the lookout” (“BOLO”) list to identify organizations engaged in political activities. The list included words such as “Tea Party,” “Patriots,” and “Israel”; subjects such as government spending, debt, or taxes; and activities such as criticizing the government, educating about the Constitution, or challenging Obamacare. The targeting continued through May of this year. 

7. Outlandish Supreme Court arguments. Between January 2012 and June 2013, the Supreme Court unanimously rejected the Justice Department’s extreme positions 9 times. The cases ranged from criminal procedure to property rights, religious liberty to immigration, securities regulation to tax law. They had nothing in common other than the government’s view that federal power is virtually unlimited. As a comparison, in the entire Bush and Clinton presidencies, the government suffered 15 and 23 unanimous rulings, respectively. [Ouch. Holder's Justice Department is a disgrace to this country.]  

8. Recess appointments.  

[...]   

9. Assault on free speech and due process on college campuses. Responding to complaints about the University of Montana’s handling of sexual assault claims, the Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights, in conjunction with the Justice Department, sent the university a letter intended as a national “blueprint” for tackling sexual harassment. The letter urges a crackdown on “unwelcome” speech and requires complaints to be heard in quasi-judicial procedures that deny legal representation, encourage punishment before trial, and convict based on a mere “more likely than not” standard.

This is a huge issue, and one that has been ignored by the media. It is heavy-handed, dictatorial tyranny in the raw, and completely without any reasonable defense other than "I agree with it and we won so suck it up as we attack your rights to free speech in a Kafkaesque manner." Completely unacceptable in a free society.

10. Mini-DREAM Act. Congress has shamelessly failed to pass any sort of immigration reform, including for the most sympathetic victims of the current non-system, young people who were brought into the country illegally as children. Nonetheless, President Obama, contradicting his own previous statements claiming to lack authority, directed the Department of Homeland Security to issue work and residence permits to the so-called Dreamers. The executive branch undoubtedly has discretion regarding enforcement priorities, but granting de facto green cards goes beyond a decision to defer deportation in certain cases.

Hang in there. 2013 wasn't so great. 2014's is very likely to be worse.

2013: Some Big Wins for 2nd Amendment Supporters

"I shall protect you and heal you. You need no guns nor health insurance. I am the Light-bringer."

And this despite a relentless push by Obama and Democrats to restrict guns to the wealthy and other deemed "worthy" of protection.

From AWR Hawkins "Top 5 Pro-Gun Moments in 2013" at Beitbart:

Number five on the list is the lopsided win NRA-backed Virginia delegates secured over delegates backed by Michael Bloomberg and Mayors Against Illegal Guns (MAIG) on November 5. Out of 67 delegate races, NRA-backed candidates won 65.  

[..]  

Number three is the way sheriffs throughout the country stood against gun control and literally refused to enforce new gun laws. This started with Jackson County Kentucky Sheriff Denny Peyman who spoke up in January during the intense federal gun control push following Sandy Hook. Said Peyman, "My office will not comply with any federal action which violates the United States Constitution or the Kentucky Constitution which I swore to uphold."  

[..]  

Number two in our top five list is the successful Colorado recall movement that tossed state senators John Morse (D-Colo. Springs) and Angela Giron (D-Pueblo) out of office for heaving gun control upon Coloradans. 

The September 10th recalls drew people from all demographics, including many of the young voters whom the Obama campaign once targeted and energized to support Obama. The success of the recalls sent a signal that the people want politicians to leave their guns alone.

Check out all five of Hawkins' list at the link at the top.

While this is generally good news for people who like a low crime rate and modicum of safety, the bad news is that Obama and the Leftist Dems on the national scene have shown the willingness to double down on stupidity regardless of the political consequences-- ObamaCare anyone? There will be much more standing on the backs of dead children to push anti-gun legislation in 2014.

"Never let a crisis/tragedy go to waste." It's the Obama way.

Saturday Funnies: Kung Fury--- The Ultimate Trailer

I saw this on Ace of Spades and had to share.

Enjoy:

Not too far from a couple of Michael Dudikoff's later films...

Kwanzaa: An Inauthentic Holiday Created by a Torturer of Women Pt. 2

And here's Part 2. I've checked the links, noting it on the dates, but this is still is just a basic re-posting from the original a few years ago.

Here we get into the specifics of Kwanzaa's Marxist principles, Ron Everett's... er, Maulana Karenga's sadistic torture of two black women, his mental issues, and some Kwanzaa websites' open call for a race war to create an African nation in America-- whatever that means.

Anyway, here you go:

The socialist (actually Marxist) nature of the seven principles, the Nguzo Saba, of Kwanzaa is addressed, but once again dismissed by Riley. Of the seven principles of Kwanzaa (unity, self-determination, collective work and responsibility, cooperative economics, purpose, creativity, and faith), Riley writes "The ujima [collective work and responsibility] and ujamaa [cooperative economics] principles certainly sounds socialist, but any of the Kwanzaa principles can be interpreted to mean that through private means we should help others. I do think that these principles - if the focus is on private efforts, and not Big Government - have merit year-round in building black communities."

True enough. Who would have problems with the incredibly general idea of "faith" or "creativity" etc.? I mean, how many anti-faith (not necessarily religious faith-- faith here is used too generally for that) people are out there? How many people are against creativity?

But the seven principles of the Nguzo Saba were not created from an ideological vacuum, nor have they evolved from centuries of social development, such as Christmas' general "peace on Earth and goodwill toward men"-- a process that defines the general principle with a cultural understanding and imbues it with a meaning beyond the mere vague words. When scrutinized beyond the thinnest of superficial gloss, it is evident (from Karenga's own words UPDATED 12/10/10 & re-checked 12/27/13: *sigh* Once again the link is down. You'd think that the works of Karenga would last longer on the web than my tiny blog-- but no. Once again a search for these quotes have come up empty.) that the seven principles, are, in fact, merely Marxist principles created by Karenga for the expressed purpose of promoting Marxist doctrine.

There is no question of Karenga's Marxism. He makes no effort to hide his Marxism and openly promotes it. From Scholer: "Eight years later [in 1989 according to the wikipedia entry on Karenga] California State University at Long Beach made Karenga the head of its Black Studies Department. Karenga had toned down his rhetoric and abandoned his cultural nationalism for straightforward Marxism." This "toned down" Marxism continued to be expressed in the seven principles as detailed in the Kawaida Theory: An African Communitarian Philosophy, (UPDATED 12/26/12 & rechecked 12/17/13 alas, this link is basically down. It's amazing to me how quickly these links change) his book from 1980.

Karenga expounds on the intended principles of the Nguzu Saba here 1965 (UPDATED 12/10/10 & still down in 12/27/13: This link was to the same site as above and, as I said, it's down).

For Ujima (collective work and responsibility) he writes, "The third principle encourages self-criticism and personal evaluation, as it relates to the common good of the family/community. Without collective work and struggle, progress is impossible. The family and the community must accept the reality that we are collectively responsible for our failures, as well as our victories and achievements. Discussions concerning each family member's responsibility prove helpful in defining and achieving family goals."

For Ujamaa (cooperative economics) he writes, "Out of the fundamental concepts of 'African Communal Living' comes the fourth principle of Kwanzaa. In a community or family, wealth and resources should be shared. On the national level, cooperative economics can help African-Americans take physical control of their own destinies. On this day, ideas should be shared and discussed for cooperative economic efforts to provide for needs as related to housing, education, food, day care, health, transportation and other goods and services."

Let's see here... communal living, collective work, and a fading of the individual through "self-criticism and personal evaluation, as it relates to the common good of the family/community" [I must add that this "self-evaluation" is a mainstay of repressive communist regimes, particularly in the uber repressive North Korea under Kim Il Sung]. I think it's perfectly reasonable to conclude that that an avowed Marxist (cultural nationalist at the time) talking in these terms is preaching to Marxist principles; therefore Ujima and Ujamaa do not just sound socialist, they are socialist.

When Karenga says Ujamaa he meant specifically the definitions I quoted above. As the originator of Kwanzaa, these are indisputably the specific meanings of Kwanzaa's founding, generalized principles. So while Riley maintains that "any of the Kwanzaa principles can be interpreted to mean that through private means we should help others," she is presenting a mis-reading that is obvious once Karenga's writings and theories are examined. If we are not a socialist or a Marxist, we should look elsewhere for guiding principles to improve our communities.

Riley tacitly acknowledges Karenga's violent history by writing "And while Maulana Karenga’s history of abusing women is highly problematic, I believe that events can transcend problematic founders (look at the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia back in 1787)." Again, an attempt to build an equivalency, in this case between Karenga and the attendees of the Constitutional Convention.

Rather than discuss in detail the myriad of differences between Karenga and various members of the Constitutional Convention (men whose births are separated by about two centuries), I will go into some detail about Karenga's acknowledged abuse as publicly reported by the Los Angeles Times and related by Scholer.

"On September 17, 1971, Karenga was sentenced to one to ten years in prison on counts of felonious assault and false imprisonment. The charges stemmed from a May 9, 1970 incident in which Karenga and two others tortured two women who Karenga believed had tried to kill him by placing 'crystals' in his food and water.

"A year later the Los Angeles Times described the events: 'Deborah Jones, who once was given the title of an African queen, said she and Gail Davis were whipped with an electrical cord and beaten with a karate baton after being ordered to remove their clothes. She testified that a hot soldering iron was placed in Miss Davis' mouth and placed against Miss Davis' face and that one of her own big toes was tightened in a vice. Karenga, head of US, also put detergent and running hoses in their mouths, she said.'"

I'm sorry, but I don't believe that the phrase "highly problematic" really does justice to the imprisonment, stripping, binding, beating, burning, and the mangling of a toe during the systematic torture of two women by Karenga and a pair of cohorts.

Karenga's sanity can also be fairly questioned. Scholer again writes: "The shooting at UCLA [the Jan. 17, 1969 killing of Black Panthers John Jerome Huggins and Alprentice Carter by US Organization members George and Larry Stiner immediately following Huggins' and Carter's verbal attack of Karenga during a public meeting] caused Karenga to become deeply paranoid and spurred his bizarre behavior. At his trial, the question of Karenga's sanity arose. The psychiatrist's report stated, 'This man now represents a picture which can be considered both paranoid and schizophrenic with hallucinations and elusions, inappropriate affect, disorganization, and impaired contact with the environment.' The psychiatrist observed that Karenga talked to his blanket and imaginary persons and believed that he had been attacked by dive-bombers."

While it is, perhaps, true that at times "events can transcend problematic founders," Karenga's problems, to me, are an awful lot to transcend.

And of course, this begs the question as to what an event will become once it transcends its founder. Would Kwanzaa become transformed into something more then a racially divisive, anti-religious, Marxist promoting event?

As I wrote in part 1 of this post, as Kwanzaa became more popular within mainstream Black American communities, Karenga backed down from his virulently anti-religious bent. As I stated before, Karenga's newer books like Kwanzaa: A Celebration of Family, Community, and Culture (1997) tell lies (contradicted by Karenga's earlier works) about Kwanzaa not being intended as an alternative to Christian holidays.

But this inauthentic backing away from its anti-religious roots has not been coupled with Kwanzaa backing away from the radical black separatist movement. At least none is in evidence at the Official Kwanzaa Information Center as Scholer, once again, points out. "Still, some charge that the holiday and its official black, green, and red flag promotes racial separatism and violence. Says the official Kwanzaa Information Center: 'red, or the blood, stands as the top of all things. We lost our land through blood; and we cannot gain it except through blood. We must redeem our lives through the blood. Without the shedding of blood there can be no redemption of this race.' The Kwanzaa Information Center also notes that the flag 'has become the symbol of devotion for African people in America to establish an independent African nation on the North American Continent.'"

Okay... So the official Kwanzaa Information Center (UPDATED 12/10/10 & 12/26/12 &12/27/13: The site this link is to is no longer the "official" Kwanzaa Information Center-- gosh, a lot changes in a year. It is now simply the Kwanzaa Information Center. The Official Kwanzaa Website [at least according to its web address] is here and gives pretty much the watered-down, family-friendly schtick-- among the ample links for making a donation.) is basically calling for a race war --the shedding of blood to redeem the race etc.-- not unlike white supremacists. Great. Actually the quote Scholder mentions is from the "Feel Good Information" section (I am not making this up) of the Kwanzaa Information Center's website. The quote regarding the Black Nationalist flag in full is:

"Origin of the Flag of Pan-Africanism and/or Black Nationalism Red is for the Blood. Black is the Black People. Green is for the Land.

"Red, Black and Green are the oldest national colors known to man. They are used as the flag of the Black Liberation Movement in America today, but actually go back to the Zinj Empires of ancient Africa, which existed thousands of years before Rome, Greece, France, England or America.

"The Red, or the blood, stands as the top of all things. We lost our land through blood; and we cannot gain it except through blood. We must redeem our lives through the blood. Without the shedding of blood there can be no redemption of this race. However, the bloodshed and sorrow will not last always. The Red significantly stands in our flag as a reminder of the truth of history, and that men must gain and keep their liberty, even at the risk of bloodshed.

"The Black is in the middle. The Black man in this hemisphere has yet to obtain land which is represented by the Green. The acquisition of land is the highest and noblest aspiration for the Black man on this continent, since without land there can be no freedom, justice, independence, or equality."

A little further down the page is the "devotion for African people in America to establish an independent African nation on the North American Continent" part as related by Scholer.

For an event to transcend the problematic founders, paraphrasing Riley, the event must move beyond both the faults and the intentions of the founder. If we were to peel away from Kwanzaa the racial exclusivity of the black separatism, the anti-religious ardor, the rituals designed to replace Christmas celebrations, the Marxist doctrines contained within the Nguzo Saba's seven principles, all of this imbued by its angry founder Karenga-- what's left?

I understand that Riley was somewhat ambivalent to Kwanzaa and that the very short blurb was not intended as an endorsement of the "holiday." I have nothing against Shay Riley. I have never met Riley, never (to my knowledge) have read anything else written by Riley, and this very long posting was not meant, in any way, to be an attack against Riley personally.

But Riley's ambivalence is something very common, and found both in my own and my wife's family. There's a real lack of understanding regarding the fringe origins of Kwanzaa. The idea seems to be that if Hallmark makes Kwanzaa cards, the holiday must be legitimate and not a bad thing. My family shies away from scrutinizing "black things" (best to leave it all alone) and my wife's family generally give black opinions, theories, and views (no matter how wild or fantastic) their quick approval and then an almost completely unearned pass. I don't think there's anyone in either branches of my family that would support Kwanzaa after learning the facts about its origins and creator.

Kwanzaa is founded on principles that are incompatible with today's mores and unacceptable by mainstream America's current values-- mores and values resulting from the many years of struggles for civil rights.

Kwanzaa champions racial separation, segregation, anger, and meaningless racial confrontation while rejecting racial integration and downplaying interracial understanding and tolerance.

It attacks religion rather than respects it-- uses outlandish language and concocted suppositions to coerce a needless and artificial racial confrontation.

Kwanzaa's seven principles sacrifice the rights of the individual upon a Marxist altar-- for the sake of communal work, collective economics, and sacrifice of self, all designed to help control Black American individuals and bring them into a black separatist fold-- making them think "correctly."

Kwanzaa was founded by a radical and violent black nationalist; a man who was convicted of personally participating in the atrocious tortures of two black women, as well being very closely (if not directly) linked to the1969 murders of two members of the Black Panthers.

Kwanzaa is a contrived, artificial, and inauthentic holiday championing anger and alienation. It is nothing to celebrate.


UPDATE 12/27/13: Oh great... According to Jerome Hudson, the RNC released a "Happy Kwanzaa" statement. Nice job fellas. Way to do some research.

Kwanzaa: An Inauthentic Holiday Created by a Torturer of Women Pt. 1

In celebration of that holiday manufactured by a sadist and Marxist, I offer a re-post of my Kwanzaa article from a few years back.

Enjoy the batty racial segregation Kwanzaa represents:

I read this little blurb "Reflection on Kwanzaa" by Shay Riley at Hip Hop Republican [Time has marched on and Riley's small article is no longer posted], and decided I couldn't just sit by and let this one pass without comment. Kwanzaa (wikipedia link for those unfamiliar with the holiday) and its creator Maulana Ron Karenga (originally named Ron Everett) is a bit of a raw nerve with me. I hope that if you read the whole entry here, you can, perhaps, see why.

From Riley (in its entirety):

"I have mixed opinion about Kwanzaa. I’d argue that it’s based on culture - however garbled - not race. I don’t buy many conservatives’ claims that Kwanzaa is a racially divisive holiday, unless one is prepared to argue the same for St. Patrick’s Day (which is practically its own very-secular holiday here in Chicago). Critics charge that Kwanzaa sets up Christmas as a 'white' holiday, and thus isolates blacks from others. One of my aunts calls Kwanzaa a 'devil’s' holiday, designed to undermine the gospel of Jesus Christ among blacks. Calling Kwanzaa an invented holiday - which it is - is meaningless, as invention is behind all holidays. And while Maulana Karenga’s history of abusing women is highly problematic, I believe that events can transcend problematic founders (look at the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia back in 1787). I don’t see the holiday as anti-Christian, but I’m not religious.

"Many bookeristas have also taken Kwanzaa to task for promoting socialism, but I don’t have a problem with the Kwanzaa principles per se: umoja (unity), kujichagulia (self-determination), ujima (collective work and responsibility), ujamaa (cooperative economics), nia (purpose), kuumba (creativity), and imani (faith). The ujima and ujamaa principles certainly sounds socialist, but any of the Kwanzaa principles can be interpreted to mean that through private means we should help others. I do think that these principles - if the focus is on private efforts, and not Big Government - have merit year-round in building black communities.

"I don’t have a problem with a black American-specific holiday, but my main issue with Kwanzaa concerns authenticity. Kwanzaa isn’t rooted in black American culture and experience. While the official Kwanzaa website calls it a 'celebration of family, community, and culture', why is the holiday a mishmash of East African cultures when the overwhelming majority of black Americans are of West African origin? Nor is it even a holiday that resides with Africans. Kwanzaa thus contributes to the stereotype that Africa is just one big blob, with few if any inter-country differences. This viewpoint is ironically a strange bedfellow of many white attitudes towards Africa, as if one can switch African cultures in and out at will. Black Americans should certainly learn more about Africa. However, Kwanzaa - with its misinformation about our African heritage - falls short of this goal."

While Riley's conclusion is ultimately true-- that Kwanzaa is "a mishmash of East African cultures," that it "contributes to the stereotype that Africa is just one big blob, with few if any inter-country [and racial, and ethnic] differences," and that it lacks "authenticity,"-- she reaches this conclusion but denies pretty much all the factors that would create a common definition of authenticity.

Kwanzaa's purposefully invented nature, its racial divisiveness, Kwanzaa's direct attack on religion and attempt to replace it with socialist doctrines, and Karenga's own history of violence (including the imprisonment and torture of women) are all mentioned, but rather off-handedly dismissed by Riley. Frankly, I just can't abide that and I thought I might address each of these in my response.

"The Story of Kwanzaa" is an eye-opening short essay written by J. Lawrence Scholer and the editors of The Dartmouth Review. Click on the link for the entire piece. I won't reprint the whole thing here, although it is short, but will use selected quotes from it to cover some of the facts glossed over by Riley.

Riley denies that Kwanzaa's made-up nature is any problem for its authenticity. "Calling Kwanzaa an invented holiday - which it is - is meaningless, as invention is behind all holidays."

In a way this point is difficult to address, as the generality of this statement makes it almost meaningless. Exactly what form of culture, what item, trait, accomplishment, or artifact within a society is not a human invention? In the broadest possible strokes, Riley seeks to build some of sort of equivalency between all holidays by virtue of their common human origins, or at least a human recognition of a holiday as such. This is ludicrous and sloppy. With this same logic, why can I not draw the same level of equivalency between Thanksgiving and the hi-lighter sitting here on my desk based on this implied criteria-- I mean they're both human inventions, right?

Okay, but let's restrict this line of thought in ways that Riley does not do (it is a very short work and perhaps it is terribly nitpicking and unfair of me to criticize her logic in this way) and restrict the talk to holidays. Riley sees no difference between Kwanzaa and, let's say, Christmas. She doesn't acknowledge that there is a difference between a religious holiday that celebrates the birth of the Christian religion's namesake and a set of days made up by a man with an immediate and very contemporary political agenda (more on that in a second). Perhaps I should whip out some red, white, and blue candles, declare January 12th "TeaPartia" and insist that it's a holiday that is, in all intents and purposes, the equivalent of Christmas.

Even if one were to divorce Christmas from its religious nature, one is still left with centuries of tradition and various forms of celebration. Yes, the more readily identifiable traditions are not nearly as old as popularly thought to be. The Victorians were really the ones to turn what had become a drunken and oftentimes riotous holiday (sort of a winter Mardi Gras) into something more approximating the "peace and goodwill among men" that are at the holiday's Christian roots. And yes, the day itself was a Christian usurpation of a pagan holiday celebrating the winter's solstice. But all of this, a mere portion of Christmas' convoluted history, is part of the cultural complexity that makes a holiday what it is. It doesn't merely exist because some small group of people (I am talking here about Karenga and his handful of cronies at Kwanzaa's inception on Dec. 26th, 1966 and not about the Black American population-- don't even try to interpret my words that way) say that it did. To draw an equivalency by paralleling the contrived origin of Kwanzaa with the long and complex history (and the accompanying cultural resonance and feelings) of other more readily accepted holidays is nonsense.

Riley denies that Kwanzaa is an alienating holiday, designed to be segregationist. "I don’t buy many conservatives’ claims that Kwanzaa is a racially divisive holiday, unless one is prepared to argue the same for St. Patrick’s Day (which is practically its own very-secular holiday here in Chicago)."

Oh, I think I can claim Kwanzaa is divisive without arguing against St. Patrick's Day. Let's go ahead and use the words of Karenga while doing it. Let's briefly establish Karenga's mind-set with some quick facts about Karenga. To begin, he helped establish the United Slaves Organization (US) in 1965, a radical black nationalist-- or "cultural nationalist" as Karenga would describe it at the time-- group.

In the late 60s (the actual dates seems fuzzy and ranges from 1967 to '71-- the book is copyright itself is '67) Karenga wrote and published The Quotable Karenga edited by Clyde Halisi and James Mtume. Important research detail: To qualify all this I have to state that I have no idea as to the source of this PDF link in this entry-- the source blog does not allow uninvited visitors like myself to its homepage. I do believe this to be a genuine scan, while the book itself is hard to find (I'm not paying $300 for it on Alibris -- okay it's now listed at $35, but that's still $34.95 more than I'm willing to pay for it) and a bit mysterious (Karenga himself does not list the 30 page book on his own webpage), the cover scan of the PDF matches an actual first edition of the book and much of the material within the scan jibes with my own research on Karenga including the "Seven-fold Path of the Blackness" on page 5. So I want to be absolutely clear that I am arbitrarily accepting this PDF as genuine without knowing anything about the source. Important research detail UPDATED 12/10/10 & this still applies now 12/26/13: The link to the PDF of The Quotable Karenga is down less than a year after I found it. This is very unfortunate. I've run several web searches and have been unable to find another source without actually purchasing the booklet. I can assure you that the quotes I relate are 100% accurate from the booklet.

Contained within the 30 pages of the book(let) are gems like these that attempt to both divide black from white and to unify black at the exclusion of white. *note all page references are the book pages and not the PDF file's pages.

"There is no such thing as individualism, we're all Black. The only thing that saved us from being lynched like Emmet Till or shot down like Medger Evers was not our economics or social status, but our absence." Page 1-- the first quote of the book.

"If we could get a nigger to see how worthless, unimportant, and weak he is by himself, then we will have made a contribution." page 2

"Black people aren't superior or inferior to one another, but complimentary. We are all on the same level but in different categories." page 3

"The sevenfold path of blackness is think black, talk black, act black, create black, buy black, vote black, and live black." page 5

"Thinking Black is thinking collective minded." page 5

"Individualism is a white desire; co-operation is a Black need." page 5

"Black values can only come through a black culture." page 6

"Man is only man in a philosophy class or a biology lab. In the world he is African, Asian, or South American. He is a Chinese making a cultural revolution, or an Afro-American with soul. He lives by bread and butter, enjoys red beans and rice or watermelon and ice cream." page 6

"To talk Black is to start talking 'we' instead of 'me.'" page 7.

"We want integration-- integration of dark and light Black people." page 16

"We should not be blamed for talking separation. Racism in America has already decided this. We just want to be separate and powerful, not segregated and powerless." page 18

"Brothers must watch out for whites who are rebelling against their own society and uses the wave of Black revolution to push their cause." page 29

"White people can't be Black peoples friend. A friend is your alter-ego and a reflection of yourself." page 30

"All whites are white. White doesn't represent a color it represents a mentality that is anti-black." page 30

"To say the white boy would wipe us out if we moved against him is to say he is bad. Why would he wipe us out if he were not bad?" page 30-- the last entry.

Beyond these examples, reading through this work cover to cover leaves little doubt as to where Karenga stands in terms of racial integration and makes clear his view of the both the established and desired relationship between blacks and whites. So now, I believe, we have a decent idea of Karenga's mind-set at the time of Kwanzaa's inception on Dec. 26, 1966 (remember The Quotable Karnega was copyrighted in 1967). Taking these quotes into account it's a bit hard to believe that when Karenga says "We must institute holidays which speak directly to the needs of Black people," (page 5) that he is suggesting that Kwanzaa is something that should, in any manner or way, be inclusive to whites or any other peoples. There is really is no way that Kwanzaa can be anything else but divisive.

Riley brings up St. Patrick's Day, again offering some sort of equivalency between this traditional Irish holiday and one that was contrived in 1966 by Karenga. Just to restate Riley writes: "I don’t buy many conservatives’ claims that Kwanzaa is a racially divisive holiday, unless one is prepared to argue the same for St. Patrick’s Day (which is practically its own very-secular holiday here in Chicago)."

Well, I can't make any claims to possessing intimate knowledge of Chicago's St. Patrick's Day celebrations. While I've been to Chicago several times in my life, I was never there on St. Patrick's Day. However, where I grew up (in Southern California) St. Patrick's day was basically wearing some article of green clothing to grade school so you didn't get pinched (do they still do that?), having Irish-themed meals, and stapling paper shamrocks to the classroom walls. When I got older, the St. Patrick's day celebrations pretty much became drinking green beer and spirits at the local "Irish pubs" dotting Los Angeles and San Diego. There was never any particular exclusivity (my wife was always served with the same courtesy as I was) and the make-up of the crowds were racially mixed-- no I wasn't keeping count, but I can assure you that it was never even close to all white. Any recent attempt by some bigot or white supremacist to make St. Patrick's Day a racially exclusive holiday a) has not been popular enough to make into my general knowledge (and I don't think I'm all Pollyanna on the subject), and b) is not the fault of the holiday itself.

Yes, you can argue that St. Patrick's Day is exclusive in the sense that it is an Irish holiday. That's right. It's origins are that of an Irish holiday. The same can be said of Hanukkah a Jewish holiday, or Ramadan a Muslim holiday, or Diwali an Indian holiday. Describing a holiday as "exclusive" simply because of its place of origin cannot be thought of as equivalent to describing Kwanzaa-- a holiday arbitrarily invented by a black separatist/nationalist that was intended, from its very inception, to be racially exclusive. I'm sorry, but they are just not equivalent in this manner.

Now, let me address Kwanzaa being an anti-religious holiday. Riley writes, "Critics charge that Kwanzaa sets up Christmas as a 'white' holiday, and thus isolates blacks from others. One of my aunts calls Kwanzaa a 'devil’s' holiday, designed to undermine the gospel of Jesus Christ among blacks. [...] I don’t see the holiday as anti-Christian, but I’m not religious."

Whether Riley is religious or not, I think that she should be comfortable coming to the conclusion that Kwanzaa is anti-Christian after we, once again, examine the nature of Karenga's beliefs as reflected in his own words, and what he writes about the purpose of Kwanzaa.

In The Quotable Karenga, Karenga's antipathy toward American mainstream religion is evident as these following excerpts (a mere sampling) demonstrate.

"Christianity is a white religion. It has a white God, and any 'Negro' who believes in it is a sick 'Negro.' How can you prey to a white man? If you believe in him, no wonder you catch so much hell." page 25

"Jesus was psychotic. He said if you didn't believe what he did you would burn forever." page 25

"We are Gods ourselves, therefore it is not good to be atheistic or agnostic. To be an atheist is to deny our existence and do be agnostic is to doubt it." page 26

"The time we spent learning about Jesus, we should have spent learning about Blacks. The money we spend on church should have been spent on our community and the respect we gave to the Lord should have been given to our parents." page 26

"If you realize how human Jesus was you'd see he was no God." page 26

"Next thing Christianity deal with is spookism which is a degeneration of spiritualism." page 26

"They taught us Christianity so we could be like Jesus-- crucified." page 27

"Jesus said, 'My blood will wash you white as snow'. Who wants to be white but sick 'Negroes', or worse yet-- washed that way by the blood of a dead Jew. You know if Nadinola bleaching cream couldn't do it, no dead Jew's blood is going to do it." page 28

This next quote probably best illustrates Karenga's contempt of Christianity:

"The Christian is our worse enemy. Quiet as it's kept it was a Christian who enslaved us. Quiet as it's kept it's the Christian that burns us. Quiet as it's kept it's a Christian that beats us down on the street; and quiet as it's kept, when the thing goes down it'll be a Christian that's shooting us down. You have to face the fact that if the Christian is doing all this there must be something wrong with Christianity." page 27.

Karenga has directly said that "Christianity is a white religion," so I think we can safely make the logical step forward that he would view Christmas as a white holiday. Given Karenga's penchant for separating black and white, again amply evidenced by (and directly stated within) his own words, we can therefore presume that his intention at setting up Christmas as a white holiday is indeed to"isolate blacks from others."

As Scholer points out in his essay, Karenga said as much himself. "Thus, Karenga explained in his 1977 Kwanzaa: Origin, Concepts, Practice, 'Kwanzaa is not an imitation, but an alternative, in fact, an oppositional alternative to the spookism, mysticism and non-earth based practices which plague us as a people and encourage our withdrawal from social life rather than our bold confrontation with it.' The holiday 'was chosen to give a Black alternative to the existing holiday and give Blacks an opportunity to celebrate themselves and history rather than simply imitate the practice of the dominant society.'"

No matter how not religious one may be, the fact that the creator of Kwanzaa is a black separatist with an obvious antipathy for Christianity and states that Kwanzaa is "a Black alternative to the existing holiday" gives ample evidence to the critics' "charge that Kwanzaa sets up Christmas as a 'white' holiday, and thus isolates blacks from others."

Yes, Karenga has backed away from this position more recently as Scholer notes. "Since then, the holiday has gained mainstream adherents, and Karenga has altered its justification so as not to alienate practicing Christians: 'Kwanzaa was not created to give people an alternative to their own religion or religious holiday,' he writes in Kwanzaa: A Celebration of Family, Community, and Culture, published in 1997." This more recent statement is, as can be clearly seen, a lie. Karenaga has written publicly that Kwanzaa was an alternative to, in his directly stated view, "white" Christianity.

I'm not really going to address Riley's aunt's claim that "Kwanzaa [is] a 'devil’s' holiday," but perhaps you should keep this characterization in mind as I later write about some of the facts of Karenga's history of violence and mental illness.

I'll put up Part Two tomorrow.

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas to all!

CNN Poll: ObamaCare Support Drops to All-Time Low

"Look, it's not my fault folks don't know what's best for themselves... namely trusting every lie I speak."

Although CNN has stopped calling it ObamaCare.

From CNN.com (via Instapundit):

Support for the country's new health care law has dropped to a record low, according to a new national poll. 

And a CNN/ORC International survey released Monday also indicates that most Americans predict that the Affordable Care Act will actually result in higher prices for their own medical care.

CNN/ORC International survey full results 

Only 35% of those questioned in the poll say they support the health care law, a 5-point drop in less than a month. Sixty-two percent say they oppose the law, up four points from November. 

Nearly all of the newfound opposition is coming from women. 

"Opposition to Obamacare rose six points among women, from 54% in November to 60% now, while opinion of the new law remained virtually unchanged among men," CNN Polling Director Keating Holland said. "That's bad news for an administration that is reaching out to moms across the country in an effort to make Obamacare a success."

CNN is still shilling for Obama and the Left saying that the main problem with it is that it isn't "liberal" enough. And by "liberal" of course they actually mean Leftist, since there is nothing in this economically Fascist law that equals the classical definition of liberal.

It does seem interesting that as Obama pushes hard for ObamaCare to appeal to women, more and more women are opposing it. It's been very true that the more Americans know about ObamaCare, the more they oppose it.