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.

2013-- 17 Years Without Global Warming

"You see? I told you that my election was the moment that the Earth would begin to cool."

But... but... but... I thought the science was settled.

From The Daily Caller:

Hold your champagne glasses high this holiday season, because the end of 2013 marks the 17th year without global warming. 

This year has been trying for climate scientists and environmentalists who have been trying hard to explain away the 17-year hiatus in global warming and link “extreme weather” to rising greenhouse gas emissions — despite strong evidence to the contrary. There has been a breakdown in the manmade global warming consensus, and some even argue we are headed for an ice age. 

[...]  

The United Nations climate bureaucracy’s latest global warming report was called “hilarious” by a leading scientist from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dr. Richard Lindzen said the UN’s report “has truly sunk to level of hilarious incoherence” because they continue to proclaim with ever greater certainty that mankind is causing global warming, despite their models continually being wrong. 

“Their excuse for the absence of warming over the past 17 years is that the heat is hiding in the deep ocean,” Lindzen said. “However, this is simply an admission that the models fail to simulate the exchanges of heat between the surface layers and the deeper oceans.”

 

Going to ground in deep ocean... It's sneaky, that hiding heat.

And it's one more reason why you shouldn't all your faith into politically motivated scientists and science. This universe is far too complicated for that.

Carolyn Lawson, Overseer of Oregon's ObamaCare Exchange, Resigns

What?! Why?! Was it because no one has been able to sign up with the exchange unless they were getting Medicaid? Weird.


From The Oregonian: (via Jammie at JWF):

Carolyn Lawson, the embattled state technology executive who oversaw much of the development of Oregon's troubled health insurance exchange, has resigned for personal reasons.   

It was Lawson, chief information officer at the Oregon Health Authority, who decided the state could manage the complex exchange project itself, rather than hire a private-sector systems integrator, a decision since criticized by her superiors. Lawson also was close to Oracle Corp., the California technology giant that has been blamed for doing shoddy work and repeatedly missing deadlines.  

Nearly three months after the federal deadline for a functional health exchange website, Oregon's exchange has emerged as a technological train wreck and a PR nightmare. The state has paid more than $160 million and a fully functional site remains weeks -- perhaps months -- away.   

State officials have been forced to spend even more money gearing up a massive system of temporary employees and contractors to manually process paper applications for health insurance. 

Lawson started work for Oregon on July 1, 2011. The state paid her $178,992 a year. 

As The Oregonian reported Sunday, the exchange has been plagued by poor work by Oracle. Miscues by state managers have also figured prominently in the exchange's issues.

Wow. That is a lot of money shelled out for abject failure. But was it Flawson's failure? The answer is yes and no.

As Fox News noted:

Oregon leaders bragged for two years that it would have one of the nation's most advanced insurance marketplaces, but they were embarrassed when the online enrollment site wasn't ready to launch on schedule in October. It still doesn't work nearly three months later. 

The exchange has had to rely exclusively on paper applications, and it hired or reassigned more than 400 workers to process them manually. Oregon has been the slowest state to enroll people in private insurance, though the pace has picked up significantly in the past two weeks.  

[...]  

Lawson came under fire a year ago when state lawmakers accused her of misleading them about available technologies. More recently, technology experts and her own boss have laid blame for the problem with her decision to have the state act as the project's systems integrator, a sort of general contractor to oversee the complex integration of disparate parts of multiple vendors. 

Lawson was hired in 2011 to oversee technology projects for the two state agencies that administer health and human services programs. The state had just approved creating a health insurance exchange, and it was tacked onto a separate project to modernize the internal computer systems for both agencies. 

Lawson was responsible for delivering the technology on a very tight schedule. 

The $48 million federal grant funding Lawson's work ran out unexpectedly in May. The development work was hastily handed over to staff at Cover Oregon, a semi-autonomous state agency created to run the exchange business using Lawson's technology.

So Oregon has their highly paid scapegoat and she's back in California. If it wasn't for Lawson, the exchange would be functioning beautifully... Uh, right?

Pat Archbold has the Best Analysis of the Roots of "Duck Dynasty" Flap So Far

I've been busy and haven't really chimed in on the whole "Duck Dynasty" mess because (a) I don't watch the show and (b) the whole thing isn't a Constitutional battle as people are making it out to be. Robertson has every right to say what he did, and A&E has every right to enforce their own restriction on what their employees say. Likewise the American public has every right to tell A&E and that they're bumbling buffoons-- as their mostly crappy lineup clearly shows-- and that they are currently cutting off their nose to spite their face.

Roberton, or whoever arranged the interview that causing this flap, was foolish to allow himself to be interviewed by GQ. It's clear that the magazine only wanted to deride him, make him seems a hypocrite, and show him as a foolish backwoods idiot-- a view that the Leftist elite hold of all Americans not living in the upscale sections of New York, Chicago, L.A. San Francisco, D.C and the Eastern seaboard.

Yet, as Pat Archbold at the National Catholic Register aptly points out, holding the Robertsons and their friends up to ridicule has been the point of the show from the very beginning.

From Pat Archbold's piece (h/t Donald Douglas at American Power):

To understand the why, we have to go back to the beginning. Duck Dynasty is not the show that they wanted, it is the show that got away from them. 

It seems what the producers intended and what A&E envisioned with the show is much different than the show that they ended up with, but they didn't do anything about it because it was so wildly popular and so wildly profitable. But even with all the money, they have never really been comfortable with what happened. 

This is what happened. The whole idea of the show was to parade these nouveau riche Christian hillbillies around so that we could laugh at them. "Look at them," we were supposed to say. "Look how backward they are! Look what they believe! Can you believe they really live this way and believe this stuff? See how they don't fit in? HAHAHA"  

When the producers saw the way the show was shaping up, different than they envisioned it, they tried to change course. They tried to get the Robertson's to tone down their Christianity, but to their eternal credit they refused. They tried to add fake cussin' to the show by inserting bleeps where no cussword was uttered. At best, they wanted to make the Robertson's look like crass buffoons. At worst they wanted them to look like hypocrites. 

They desperately wanted us to laugh at the Robertsons. Instead, we loved them. 

A&E wanted us to point fingers at them and laugh at them. But something else happened entirely. Millions upon millions of people tuned in, not to laugh at them, but to laugh with them.  

And then we pointed at them. We pointed at them and said things like, "I wish my family was more like them. I wish we prayed together as a family. I wish we were together like the Robertsons." 

By the time this all happened, A&E had a conundrum. They knew who the Robertsons were and what they believe and they still held it in disdain. But they really liked the money. Really liked the money. So they lived with it. 

But the progressives whose bank accounts were not growing fatter because of these backward rubes were never inclined to look the other way. They hate the show and they really hate the response to the show. They want it destroyed. 

Many magazines and interviewers have tried to get the Robertsons to trip up so they could pounce. When Phil backed the Christian viewpoint on homosexuality and added some personal asides about how he just couldn't understand it, they had their moment. 

I suspect that the folks at A&E, who always disliked the positive Christian message in the show of which Phil is the primary proponent, saw their chance. They want to keep the cash but dial down the Christianity. With Phil out, perhaps they could get the show they always wanted. 

I suspect that the Robertsons are more principled than that and A&E will end up disappointed on many levels. The Roberstons are who they are and I suspect the money means a great deal more to A&E than it does to them. 

It will be interesting to see whether A&E likes the money more than they hate the Christianity. I wouldn't be surprised if the hate wins.

The real story is how much the Left hates people like the Robertsons. They hate them with a white-hot intensity that is matched only by their conviction that their Marx-based beliefs (which are always atheistic-- no matter what ill-informed or foolish theists might think or say) taught to them by college professors, Hollywood, trendy writers, magazines, and the talking heads of news shows is the "Truth." Yes, capital T.

Indeed Leftist thought, which was responsible for the majority and the certainly the bloodiest of the 20th Century genocides, demands this hatred. Marxist thought demands genocide, a wiping clean of competing political, ethical, and economic thought through murder.

And genocide, of course, can only be accomplished with an intense hatred of those butchered. It's a hatred borne of disdain toward the victim, often buoyed by jealousy, and absolved by the "hope" that the world will be a better place once the victims have been expunged from the Earth.

Now, I'm not suggesting that the Robertsons will be killed by A&E or that America will soon be awash in blood.

What I am saying is that the Left's very political essence is based in hatred, envy, a demand for conformity, and an egotistical disdain for those who hold differing views. Keep this in mind in the coming debates regarding ObamaCare and Obama's coming regulatory nightmares. Watch as hard working Americans, the seriously ill, the religious (exempting Muslims, of course), and the elderly become demonized.

Gallup: Record High in U.S. Say Big Government Greatest Threat



Graph from Gallup site

Well, I'm sure that Gallup was only polling racists.

From Gallup:

Seventy-two percent of Americans say big government is a greater threat to the U.S. in the future than is big business or big labor, a record high in the nearly 50-year history of this question. The prior high for big government was 65% in 1999 and 2000. Big government has always topped big business and big labor, including in the initial asking in 1965, but just 35% named it at that time.  

The latest update comes from a Dec. 5-8 poll. Gallup has documented a steady increase in concern about big government since 2009, rising from 55% in March 2009 to 64% in November 2011 and 72% today. This suggests that government policies specific to the period, such as the Affordable Care Act -- perhaps coupled with recent revelations of government spying tactics by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden -- may be factors.

Yeah, those may be factors-- however the numbers shot up just at the beginning of Obama's presidency. It could be that his use of government agencies-- especially the IRS and EPA-- to intimidate political opponents might have something to do with it. Oh, and also his rather undemocratic actions, such as selective law enforcement, unconstitutional actions, and attempts to bully and control the press, might be contributing factors too. Just sayin'.

Obama's Approval Ratings Lowest Since Truman-- Except Nixon Post-Watergate

"Don't put too much stock in these numbers. It was mostly racists that were polled."

Yet, (surprise!) The Washington Post is making lame excuses for him.

From The Washington Post (via Ace of Spades):

President Obama is ending his fifth year in office matching the worst public approval ratings of his presidency, with record numbers of Americans saying they disapprove of his job performance and his once-hefty advantages over Republicans in Congress eroded in many areas, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll. 

His position is all the more striking when compared with his standing a year ago, as he was preparing for his second inauguration after a solid reelection victory [Solid victory? It was a victory bouyed by lies ("You can keep your insurance if you like it."), the IRS attacking political opponents leading up to the election, and an intentional delay of enacting his most damaging policies and regulations by the EPA, HHS, and other executive agencies. He is most definitely president asterisk.] That high note [high note? how about comparing his numbers right after Obama's first inauguration so we can see how much the American people disapprove of his total performance.] proved fleeting as the president faced a series of setbacks, culminating in the botched rollout of his Affordable Care Act two months ago [rollout and Americans finally finding out what was actually in this behemoth law].  

[...]  

The president’s overall approval rating stands at 43 percent, while disapproval is at 55 percent. Those numbers are virtually identical to a poll taken a month ago. At this time last year, 54 percent approved of Obama’s overall performance and 42 disapproved. Even after the huge losses his party suffered in the 2010 midterms, Obama’s approval rating was higher, at 49 percent, than it is today and was slightly more positive than negative. 

Obama ends his fifth year in office with lower approval ratings than almost all other recent two-term presidents. At this point in 2005, for example, former president George W. Bush was at 47 percent positive, 52 percent negative. All other post-World War II presidents were at or above 50 percent at this point in their second terms, except Richard M. Nixon, whose fifth year ended in 1973 with an approval rating of 29 percent because of the Watergate scandal that later brought impeachment and his resignation.

The article goes on to say that Obama's on his back and this is only a challenging bump blah, blah, blah. We'll see how challenging it will be when 50 to 80 million more American lose their insurance plans to ObamaCare.

Anyway, the fact is Obama and the Democrats are in dire straits. ObamaCare, the IRS scandal, the NSA spying on Americans, record high unemployment, the abysmal economy, all belong to the Democrats. And the heavy hand of Obama's feds are beginning to be felt by normal citizens-- especially through ObamaCare.

Obama's in trouble and the press are just now beginning to understand how bad it is. They'll begin making excuses and probably crying racism ("It's racist to want to keep your insurance!") within the next month.

Fox News Ratings are Higher than CNN, MSNBC and HLN Combined

"I still despise them, for they do not dote upon me, nor so they use messianic pictures of me like this one... And furthermore they do not represent my base-- low information voters who are easily lied to or shamed."

Gee, do you think it's because viewers are tired of one is essentially Leftist propaganda being poured out of the other "news" networks? Or maybe because of the betrayal as these networks touted ObamaCare and slammed opponents as Nazis and racists? Nah. It's because Americans are all racist or something...

From Variety (via Drudge):

It was a down year in terms of overall audience, as every newsie but HLN showed primetime declines from their Presidential Election-driven tallies of 2012. 

According to Nielsen data through Dec. 8, Fox News Channel averaged 1.774 million viewers in primetime (down 13% from 2012) and 297,000 adults 25-54 (down 30%). It was followed by MSNBC with 645,000 viewers and 203,000 adults 25-54 (down 29% in both); CNN with 578,000 (down 15%) and 187,000 adults 25-54 (down 16%); and HLN with 403,000 total viewer (up 21%) and 142,000 in the demo (up 27%). 

Among all basic cable networks in 2013, FNC ranked sixth in primetime while MSNBC was 29th and CNN was 31st. In total day, Fox ran fourth while CNN was 28th and MSNBC ran 30th; in 2012, CNN finished behind MSNBC. CNN and HLN showed some year-over-year gains on a total-day basis, while FNC and MSNBC were down. 

Fox and CNN both made some significant changes to their lineup in 2013, with FNC’s revamped primetime lineup, introduced on Oct. 7, posting gains in both total viewers and adults 25-54 vs. the block’s 2013 season-to-date average. The newest program, “The Kelly File” with Megyn Kelly, has improved the 9 p.m. hour by 23% in total viewers and 13% in adults 25-54, and “The O’Reilly Factor” is the top show in cable news (2.78 million, 439,000 adults 25-54). 

Also of note outside of primetime, “The Five” (5-6 p.m. ET) and “Red Eye” (3-4 a.m. ET) had their most-watched years to date.

I wonder if this means Obama will allow them to ask questions at press conferences? At least he's letting them show up now. Does anybody remember when Obama tried to ban Fox News?

By the way, it seems Google wants you to forget Obama's pettiness, because a search for Obama's boycott leads to barely any links.

Forbes: White House Forces ObamaCare Insurers To Cover Unpaid Patients At A Loss

"A few illegal acts, a sustained propaganda campaign and some unconstitutional acts is all that is needed for ObamaCare to thrive."

Would you expect more from Obama?

From the Forbes article by Avik Roy (h/t Sweetness & Light):

Of all of the last-minute delays, website bungles, and Presidential whims that have marred the roll-out of Obamacare’s subsidized insurance exchanges, what happened on Thursday, December 12 will stand as one of the most lawless acts yet committed by this administration. The White House—having canceled Americans’ old health plans, and having botched the system for enrolling people in new ones—knows that millions of Americans will enter the new year without health coverage. So instead of actually fixing the problem, the administration is retroactively attempting to force insurers to hand out free health care—at a loss—to those whom the White House has rendered uninsured. If Obamacare wasn’t a government takeover of the health insurance industry, then what is it now? 

On Wednesday afternoon, health policy reporters found in their inboxes a friendly e-mail from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, announcing “steps to ensure Americans signing up through the Marketplace have coverage and access to the care they need on January 1.” Basically, the “steps” involve muscling insurers to provide free or discounted care to those who have become uninsured because of the problems with healthcare.gov.  

[...]  

The administration could pay insurers to cover up for its mistakes. But that would lead to criticism—as it has in other instances—that the White House is lawlessly throwing taxpayer money at insurers to, well, cover up for its mistakes. So, instead, they’re asking insurers to pay for the mistakes. 

But, of course, the cost of paying for those mistakes won’t end up being paid by insurers, but by consumers, in the form of higher premiums. 

In theory, the Obama administration’s actions aren’t merely illegal—they’re unconstitutional. The Fifth Amendment of the Bill of Rights says that no one can “be deprived of life, liberty or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.” 

But it will be up to insurers to sue to protect their rights. Like battered wives, they are unlikely to do so. Companies like Aetna and Humana are so terrified that the administration will run them out of business that they are more likely to do what they’re told, and quietly pass the costs on to consumers. The chaos and recriminations have made insurers like UnitedHealth, who have largely stayed out of the exchanges, look smart. 

In 2010, PolitiFact said that the claim that Obamacare was a “government takeover of health care” was its “lie of the year.” The Federal Register disagrees.

There's really nothing Obama won't do in the course of implementing this disaster. Break laws? Sure. Lie? Of course. Deprive people of their life, liberty, and property? Well, that's exactly what ObamaCare is designed to do.

 

WSJ: Obama and IRS Planning to Target Tea Party Again in Advance of 2014 Elections

"Dissenting voices against my fundamental transformation of America are all racist. They shall be punished by the hand of federal agencies... as shall all the enemies of the Light-bringer."

ObamaCare driving down your poll ratings? Then just go with the tried and true tactic of using federal power to attack your political opponents.

From The Wall Street Journal piece by Kimberly A. Strassel:

President Obama keeps claiming that he had no knowledge of the Internal Revenue Service's abusive muzzling of conservative groups. That line is hard to swallow given that his Treasury and IRS are back at it—this time in broad daylight.  

In the media blackout of Thanksgiving week, the Treasury Department dumped a new proposal to govern the political activity of 501(c)(4) groups. The administration claims this rule is needed to clarify confusing tax laws. Hardly. The rule is the IRS's new targeting program—only this time systematic, more effective, and with the force of law. 

That this rule was meant to crack down on the White House's political opponents was never in doubt. What is new is the growing concern by House Ways and Means Committee investigators that the regulation was reverse-engineered—designed to isolate and shut down the same tea party groups victimized in the first targeting round. Treasury appears to have combed through those tea party applications, compiled all the groups' main activities, and then restricted those activities in the new rule.  

"The committee has reviewed thousands of tax exempt applications," says House Ways & Means Chairman Dave Camp. "The new regulation so closely mirrors the abused tea-party group applications, it leads me to question if this new proposed regulation is simply another form of targeting."  

Here's how it works. To get or keep tax-exempt status, 501(c)(4) organizations must devote a majority of their work to their "primary" social-welfare purpose. Most tea party groups were set up with a primary purpose of educating Americans on pressing problems—the size of government, the erosion of the Constitution—and did so mainly via nonpartisan voter guides, speakers forums, pamphlets or voter-registration drives.  

What the proposed Treasury/IRS regulation would do is to re-categorize all these efforts as "political activity"—thereby making it all but impossible for tea party groups to qualify for 501(c)(4) status. Say an outfit's primary purpose is educating voters on our unsustainable debt, which it does mainly with a guide explaining the problem and politicians' voting records. Under the new rule, that guide is now "political activity" (rather than "social welfare"), which likely loses the group tax-exempt status. 

The rule, in other words, is not designed to provide helpful "guidance" on allowable activities. It was designed, rather, as Mr. Camp explains, "to put tea party groups out of business."  

[...]  

Consider the timing. This "proposed guidance"—while technically pending public comment—puts conservative groups on immediate notice that it could be enforced at any moment. It is clearly designed to have a chilling effect on any group gearing up for next year's midterms, just as the first round of targeting was designed to dampen conservative participation in the 2010 and 2012 elections.  

Democrats are daily directing government against their political opponents—via Congress, the SEC, the FEC. Yet IRS Acting Commissioner Danny Werfel wants Americans to think this latest IRS rule is just about providing "clarity." And the White House continues to insist that it was unaware of the previous targeting.  

The political insult is that President Obama is using his new targeting rule to wiggle out of liability for the last round. The same president who in May was "outraged" by the IRS's actions now says it was all just some confusion over tax law (which his new rule fixes). He told Chris Matthews last week that the media had hyped what was a few poor IRS souls in Cincinnati who were "trying to streamline what is a difficult law to interpret . . . And they've got a list, and suddenly everybody's outraged." 

Everybody was outraged to discover the IRS was secretly targeting the president's political opponents. They might be more outraged that the White House is now using the IRS to do the same thing in the brazen light of day.

Ah, the Obama Administration... If it isn't baldly lying and passing unpopular laws to take away your health insurance, if it isn't covering up various blunders that result in multiple deaths (Benghazi, Operation "Fast and Furious"), if it isn't running the American economy into the ground, then its trying to use the federal agencies to attack political opponents.

It is amazing to me how fast and how far the United States has fallen while under Obama's watch.