Historic: Obama’s Fourth Year in Office Equals Most Polarized Ever

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PRINCETON, NJ — During his fourth year in office, an average of 86% of Democrats and 10% of Republicans approved of the job Barack Obama did as president. That 76-percentage-point gap ties George W. Bush’s fourth year as the most polarized years in Gallup records.

The list of most polarized years makes it clear that Obama’s highly polarized ratings may be as much a reflection of the era in which he is governing as on Obama himself. The last nine presidential years — the final five for Bush and Obama’s first four — all rank in the top 10. Thus, it appears that highly polarized ratings are becoming the norm, as Americans aligned with both parties are apparently not looking much beyond the president’s party affiliation to evaluate the job he is doing.

Obama’s record polarization last year also is owing to the electoral cycle. For most elected presidents, their fourth year in office — the year all sought re-election — was the most polarized year of their presidency. The election year likely causes Americans to view the president in more partisan terms, given his involvement in campaigning that year as well as the presence of an active opponent from the other party who is trying to defeat him. The lone exception to the pattern is Dwight Eisenhower, whose sixth year in office was his most polarized.

The average party gap in ratings of President Obama during the four years of his presidency is 70 percentage points. If that average holds, it would surpass Bush’s record 61-point average polarization during his eight-year presidency by a considerable margin. Bush also finished his presidency with a significantly larger party gap in job approval ratings than the previous leader, Bill Clinton (55 points).

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Video: Rand Paul Smokes Clinton, Says She Should’ve Been Fired Over Benghazi

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By Allahpundit. …I figured [Rand Paul] might be the boldest Republican questioner but I had no idea how bold. The key line: “I think it’s good that you’re accepting responsibility because no one else is.”

He’s taking dead aim at the insulting charade of buck-stops-here bravado among American politicians who are happy to “show leadership” by admitting to their failures on the condition that they’ll suffer no consequences for them.

Accountability’s a smart theme for a populist would-be presidential candidate to take up. And telling a Clinton to her face on TV that she should have been fired for negligence, which is true, is a smart, splashy way to do it. It’s a dual critique, superficially a reprimand to Obama’s secretary of state but more broadly an indictment of how Washington tends to do business. I’ve always assumed there’s no way he’ll leapfrog Rubio and Ryan as a frontrunner among grassroots conservatives in 2016 but it’s getting harder to believe that every day.

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Manila Challenges Beijing’s South China Sea Hegemony

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The Philippines said Tuesday that it is taking its feud with China over competing territorial claims in the South China Sea to an international tribunal.

Philippines Foreign Secretary Albert del Rosario’s office summoned Chinese Ambassador Ma Keqing in Manila and challenged the assertion that China’s sovereignty extends over “virtually the entire South China Sea.”

Manila says China seized control of the Scarborough Shoal, a rocky outcrop, last year and then illegally barred the Philippines from the area. China calls the shoal Huangyan Island.

Manila wants a tribunal operating under the 1982 U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea to declare as “unlawful” Beijing’s actions in the disputed waters.

“The Philippines has exhausted almost all political and diplomatic avenues for a peaceful, negotiated settlement of its maritime disputes with China,” Mr. del Rosario said at a news conference in Manila, according to a report by The Associated Press. “To this day, a solution is still elusive.”

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GOP Impurity Is No Myth

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“To listen to many grassroots conservatives, the GOP establishment is a cabal of weak-kneed sellouts who regularly light votive candles to a poster of liberal Republican icon Nelson Rockefeller.”

So writes the popular conservative commentator Jonah Goldberg in a thoughtful column titled “The Myth of an Impure GOP.” Goldberg argues that the very idea of a weak-kneed GOP establishment is itself “a destructive myth,” refuted by the the disappearance of the Rockefeller Republicans.

It’s true. Nelson Rockefeller’s political disciples are as dead as he is. The last of the genuinely liberal Republicans have mostly left the party, like Jim Jeffords and Lincoln Chafee, or remain only nominally affiliated with the GOP, like Colin Powell.

Jon Huntsman was widely regarded as the most liberal Republican to seek the party’s presidential nomination in 2012. Huntsman endorsed Paul Ryan’s proposed Medicare reforms, was so strongly opposed to abortion that as governor of Utah he signed a bill that would ban the practice if Roe v. Wade was ever overturned, and said he wouldn’t approve a deficit-reduction deal that contained $10 in spending cuts for every $1 of tax increases.

Since the 1990s, even some of the biggest Northeastern moderates — Rudy Giuliani, William Weld, Christine Todd Whitman, and Chris Christie — have run as conservatives on the big issues: crime, taxes, welfare, the cost of public sector unions. Their more liberal positions, no matter how sincerely held, were issues that were peripheral to their agenda.

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The Collectivist Mind Game, Part 3: Demonizing Human Nature

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If Robert Heinlein were to write The Moon today (see Part 1), there’s no doubt his notion of the future oppressive global government on Earth would be very different. With such forces at play, the free-market revolution in Lunar colonies would likewise be fought by different means, struggling to overcome the tidal wave of government indoctrination and demonization, in addition to an army of statist looters hiding behind the army of statist moochers, who will be hiding behind an army of statist Blue Helmets of the statist United Nations.

That would be an asymmetrical warfare if ever there was one. The individualist free-market rebels wouldn’t be able to respond in kind by playing the collectivist mind games with the statists because it would turn them into their own enemies. Their only hope would be to learn to recognize the game when it is being played, not to fall for any of its seductive illusions, methodically expose the players at every turn, call every little manipulative trick in their arsenal for what it is, and help to immunize the rest against its corruptive influence.

The tidal wave of propaganda notwithstanding, the rebels would still have the most important ally on their side — human nature. No matter into what society they are born and what mind conditioning they receive, people will never stop being competitive individuals. They will always long for individual freedom, rationality, objectivity, personal achievement, and the pursuit of a better life for themselves and their families.

Without these traits humanity would never have risen from the ignorant tribal collectivism of hunters and gatherers, with its brutal mores, dark superstitions, and average life expectancy of 30 years, when few lived long enough to develop complete self-awareness, formulate a coherent individual thought, and pass it onto others. There would be no division of labor, no markets, and no capitalist wealth to sustain the advances in science, arts, and technology — let alone to feed the multitudes of Marxist intellectuals and statist plutocrats. There would be nothing to lose and nothing to fight for.

Admittedly, the Marxist notion of human progress is a spiral that would return humanity to that stateless, moneyless, classless, and selfless collectivism — except on a higher level. For that purpose they must, so to speak, put the genie of individualism back into the bottle, and the only way they can do it is by demonizing human nature itself.

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Union Membership Falls to 70-Year Low

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Washington — The nation’s unions lost 400,000 members in 2012 as the percentage of U.S. workers represented by a labor union fell to 11.3 percent, its lowest level since the 1930s – declining by 0.5 percent over the last year.

Michigan accounted for about 10 percent of the nation’s loss of unionized workers as the Wolverine State fell to the seventh most-unionized state, from fifth in 2011.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics said the biggest hit was in public sector unions, where many states and cities have cut back on their unionized workforce.

Among public sector workers, 35.9 percent are in a union – down from 37.0 percent in 2011, as the public sector shed nearly 250,000 union workers.

The public sector union rate is more than five times higher than that of private-sector workers. In the private sector, 6.6 percent are unionized, down from 6.9 percent in 2011.

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Missouri Lawmaker Introduces Bill Criminalizing Failure to Report Gun Ownership to Child’s School

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A Missouri lawmaker has proposed legislation that would require parents to notify their children’s school if they own a firearm.

The bill, introduced by Missouri Democratic State Sen. Maria Chappelle-Nadal, would make it a crime to fail to report gun ownership to a school and to store a firearm in a place where a child could possibly access it. The legislation also criminalizes failure to prevent illegal possession of a firearm by a child under the age of 18.

“This act requires a parent or guardian to notify a school district, or the governing body of a private or charter school, that he or she owns a firearm within 30 days of enrolling the child in school or becoming the owner of a firearm,” the bill reads in part. “The written notification only needs to include the names of the parent and any child attending the school and the fact that the parent owns a firearm.”

In an interview with Missouri’s KSDK Chappelle-Nadal emphasized that she believes in the Second Amendment, but that the issue is one of safety.

“I am not trying to take away the gun rights of any parents or any other citizens. I believe in the Second Amendment,” Chappelle-Nadal said.

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House Approves Debt-Limit Extension, Presses Senate to Pass Budget

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The House on Wednesday approved a bill extending the nation’s debt limit, raising pressure on the Senate to pass its first budget in nearly four years.

The House approved the No Budget, No Pay Act, which also includes a measure withholding senators’ pay until they complete that work, in a 285-144 vote.

Among Republicans, 33 voted against it to protest the absence of specific spending cuts alongside suspending the nation’s borrowing limit. But they were more than offset by the 86 Democrats who voted for the measure.

The bill extends the debt ceiling through May 18, and requires each chamber to pass a budget by April 15 or have its members face a suspension of pay. Republicans are hoping the bill gives Congress a few months to find a longer-term debt-ceiling agreement that includes significant spending cuts.

At a press conference after the bill passed, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) praised the vote as the “first step towards trying to resolve the nation’s fiscal crisis in a responsible manner.”

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Obama CIA Pick Argued for Government Censorship in Graduate Thesis

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In his 1980 graduate thesis at the University of Texas at Austin, John Brennan denied the existence of “absolute human rights” and argued in favor of censorship on the part of the Egyptian dictatorship.

“Since the press can play such an influential role in determining the perceptions of the masses, I am in favor of some degree of government censorship,” Brennan wrote. “Inflamatory [sic] articles can provoke mass opposition and possible violence, especially in developing political systems.”

Brennan serves as President Barack Obama’s national security advisor. Obama has nominated him to lead the Central Intelligence Agency.

The thesis, “Human Rights: A Case Study of Egypt,” was a requirement for Brennan’s Master of Arts degree in government with a Middle Eastern studies concentration. It grew out of his time studying at the American University in Cairo . . .

Central to Brennan’s presentation was a relativist view of human rights, which he said include “security, welfare, liberty, and justice.”

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War On Women – Literally: Obama Administration to Lift Ban on Women in Combat

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Women in all branches of the military soon will have unprecedented opportunities to serve on the front lines of the nation’s wars.

Leon Panetta, in one of his last acts as President Obama’s defense secretary, is preparing to announce the policy change, which would open hundreds of thousands of front-line positions and potentially elite commando jobs after more than a decade at war, the Pentagon confirmed Wednesday.

The groundbreaking move recommended by the Joint Chiefs of Staff overturns a 1994 rule banning women from being assigned to smaller ground combat units. Panetta’s decision gives the military services until January 2016 to seek special exceptions if they believe any positions must remain closed to women.

“This policy change will initiate a process whereby the services will develop plans to implement this decision, which was made by the secretary of defense upon the recommendation of the Joint Chiefs of Staff,” a senior defense official told reporters on condition of anonymity.

Some front-line military roles may open to women as soon as this year. Assessments for others, such as special operations forces, including Navy SEALS and the Army’s Delta Force, may take longer.

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