President Obama’s Bogus Voting Rights Claims

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Photo Credit: Pete Souza

Photo Credit: Pete Souza

Last Friday, in a speech at Al Sharpton’s National Action Network conference, President Obama proudly announced that the Justice Department had taken on more than 100 voting rights cases since 2009. The problem with that claim is that, since 2009, the Justice Department has taken on only 39 voting rights cases—and as former Voting Section lawyer Christian Adams points out, only 13 were related to protecting minority voting rights. And, with respect to some of the cases in which the department has been involved, it lost spectacularly—such as its false claim that South Carolina’s voter ID law was discriminatory.

Perhaps President Obama misspoke when he overstated the number of voting rights cases by more than 60—or perhaps he was misinformed by his Attorney General, Eric Holder. In fact, the ever-criticized Bush administration had a much better enforcement record with much higher case numbers than the Obama administration, as was outlined in a report released by the Justice Department’s Inspector General in March 2013. President Obama also made no mention of his administration’s unjustified dismissal of the voter intimidation case against the New Black Panther Party—that would, after all, not fit the narrative he is trying to propagate. Regardless, President Obama’s exaggerated claims come as no surprise, especially given the setting of this particular speech.

Al Sharpton’s National Action Network conference in New York City, where Bertha Lewis, the former CEO of ACORN, an organization convicted of numerous voter registration frauds, participated in a panel discussion earlier in the week, was the perfect arena for the President’s inaccurate claims. In her remarks, Lewis declared that there is a “great fear” of what she called the “darker…new majority” that she says wields power in America. She went on to say that supporters of voter ID laws are attempting to implement a “South African apartheid-type thing where the masters of the universe still rule.” She is apparently unaware that Nelson Mandela, South Africa’s former president, supported voter ID laws or that South Africa today has much stricter ID requirements than any state in America.

Consider also that Al Sharpton keynoted a voting rights rally in Ohio this March where convicted voting fraudster and former Ohio poll worker Melowese Richardson was brought onto the stage and given a hero’s welcome. Sharpton embraced Richardson, despite her 2013 sentencing in state court for six counts of voter fraud (as well as her previous convictions for intimidating and threatening a witness in a case against her brother, DUI, theft, and participating in a bar fight). During the investigation into Ms. Richardson’s fraud, she showed no remorse for abusing her role as a guardian of the polls. As Judge Robert P. Ruehlman of Ohio put it, Richardson’s actions diluted her fellow citizens’ votes and infringed on the sacred doctrine of “one person, one vote.”

In light of President Obama’s claim that voting rights “justice” is being administered by the Department of Justice, it is worth noting that Melowese Richardson was never charged by the Justice Department—even though she admitted, on camera, to having voted for President Obama multiple times in 2012, which is a felony under federal law. This type of behavior may explain another claim by President Obama at last week’s conference: that there were “only 10 cases of alleged in-person voter impersonation in 12 years.”

If the DOJ is going to ignore cases in which voter fraud is being openly admitted, their prosecution statistics will continue to lose any semblance of credibility. Not surprisingly, the President ignored the hundreds of people that North Carolina just discovered to have voted twice in the 2012 election and the numerous other cases of voter fraud that have been successfully prosecuted over the past decade by state and local authorities. That wouldn’t fit his narrative either.

The President denounces voter fraud as myth, while ignoring documented cases of blatant voter fraud. In his Friday speech, President Obama said that all Americans must have an equal right to vote and that he is in favor of common sense reform to secure the ballot. Voter fraud prevents Americans from holding an equal right to vote because, as Judge Ruehlman said, the votes of honest Americans are diminished when fraud is committed. And what could be a more common sense reform than requiring the same kind of ID that the government requires visitors to show when they enter a government building—such as the White House or the Department of Justice?

This article appeared originally at Heritage.com and is re-published in full with the Heritage Foundation’s permission.

Obama’s Pencil-Thin Presidency

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Photo Credit: American Thinker

Photo Credit: American Thinker

Peeking over the top of Obama’s shirt pocket is not the end of the pen that he threatened to use, along with his phone, if he didn’t get his way. It’s the tip of a pencil. An ordinary, wooden, No. 2 pencil, complete with eraser, both ends worn to the nub, in desperate need of sharpening.

Pens suggest importance and permanence. Great documents are composed with pens. Pivotal moments in history are recorded in ink, as are inspiring presidential legacies. The references to the current president inserted into those biographies, however, are sketched in the erasable strokes of a pencil — as is everything else Obama has ever produced or that his presidency has inspired.

Pencils’ output is flexible. Pencils design and transform and spin. Pencils redefine, divide, draw distractions and smudge and distort and erase: facts, events, and narratives. Penciled opinions can conveniently evolve. Penciled statistics, measurements and books are easily cooked. Red lines marked by pencils can be erased and redrawn. Laws become mere “suggestions” and imply a “vast amount of discretion” in enforcement.

Because Obama is a “master of words” — one with the ability to control their meaning — his pencil, aided by a vast media complex, is a tool that holds the potential for absolute power as executive, legislator and judge.

A prominent law professor once aided Obama in that mastery with this explanation: “[Obama] didn’t say what he meant…and having said that, in order to avoid misleading anyone, he had to clarify it.” Thomas Sowell put it a little clearer than Mr. Tribe when he observed about Obama: “One of the many ways of lying smoothly is to simply redefine words.”

Read more from this story HERE.

It’s Time to Protect Religious Liberty in the Marriage Debate (+video)

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Photo Credit: YouTube

Photo Credit: YouTube

For years, a central argument of those in favor of same-sex marriage has been that all Americans should be free to live and love as they choose; however, does that freedom require the government to coerce those who disagree into celebrating same-sex relationships? A growing number of incidents demonstrates that the redefinition of marriage and state policies on sexual orientation have created a climate of intolerance and intimidation for citizens who believe that marriage is the union of a man and a woman and that sexual relations are properly reserved for marriage.

Now these citizens are facing a new wave of government coercion and discrimination. State laws that create special privileges based on sexual orientation and gender identity are being used to trump fundamental civil liberties such as freedom of speech and the free exercise of religion.

Consider the case of Barronelle Stutzman, owner of Arlene Flowers, who is being sued by the state of Washington. In March 2013, she met with long-time customers who asked her to arrange the flowers for their same-sex wedding ceremony. Stutzman felt that she had to decline because of her “relationship with Jesus Christ,” and her belief that marriage is between one man and one woman. While she was happy to sell and arrange flowers for any other occasion (the same-sex couple were happy costumers of hers for nine years), she didn’t want to use her artistic skills to help celebrate a same-sex wedding ceremony.

As Stutzman explains:

I think most artistic people—especially painters—put their hearts into their arrangements. It’s part of them, it’s part of who they are. And I think that’s the same thing with a florist.

A month later, Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson filed suit against Stutzman, contending that she had violated the state’s sexual orientation law. The state of Washington is seeking a $2,000 fine and a court order forcing Barronelle to violate her conscience by using her artistic talents to celebrate a same-sex relationship.

Stutzman is not the only small business owner whose religious liberty is at risk. As we note in a new Backgrounder, “Protecting Religious Liberty in the State Marriage Debate,” she is joined by other families across the country who are being hauled into court for their belief that marriage is the union of a man and a woman.

Cake makers, photographers, family bakeries, and adoption agencies, among others, have faced penalties and lawsuits for working in accordance with their faith.

This shouldn’t happen in America. Part of the genius of the American system of government is its commitment to protecting the liberty and First Amendment freedoms of all citizens while respecting their equality before the law. The government protects the freedom of citizens to seek the truth about God, to worship according to their conscience, and to live out their convictions in public life. Likewise, citizens are free to form contracts and other associations according to their own values.

State and federal policy should respect Americans’ ability to live and work in accordance with their beliefs. Even in states where marriage is redefined, government should not coerce individuals and organizations to violate their moral or religious beliefs about marriage. Although Americans are free to live as they choose, no one should demand that government compel others into celebrating their relationship. And Americans should continue to work for laws that reflect the truth about marriage. If marriage is redefined, attempts to marginalize the view of marriage as one man and one woman will only increase.

For citizens like Barronelle Stutzman, the consequences are becoming apparent. Read more about it here.

This article originally appeared at Heritage.com and is re-published in full with the Heritage Foundation’s permission.

At the Core — Human Nature vs. the Test

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Photo Credit: Newscom

Photo Credit: Newscom

Common Core – the phrase sets off a mental picture of a multitude of hungry mouths all trying to nibble off of a shriveled apple, nothing much left but cellulose and seeds. Unfortunately, that’s an apt description. I am, like all conservatives, and like many educators, appalled and concerned about this new wrinkle in our rumpled educational wardrobe. I’m concerned about its uniformity, when our pupils, our communities, our cultures are so diverse. I’m concerned about the secretive, manipulative manner in which this was developed and dispersed. I’m annoyed to see commercials trying to sell it like it was a new brand of toothpaste. I’m scared of the probability of our schools being used even more heavily as bastions of propaganda. But my main concern is that it is based on a demonstrably faulty assumption – that you can change student learning from the top down. You can’t.

This program is entirely test-driven. Now, who can argue against “standards” — the current terminology? Is it not true that we should be able to tell whether or not schools are doing their job? Of course, but no one says clearly what that job is, so the test itself becomes the definition:

What is an educated person?

One who can pass the test.

What’s in the test?

Whatever can be tested.Therefore anything that can’t be measured on a multiple-choice bubble sheet, isn’t education. Ta dum!

Read more from this story HERE.

Uninstall Firefox: Boycotts Should Be Rare, but Mozilla’s Intolerance Calls for One

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Photo Credit: National Review

Photo Credit: National Review

In 31 years of broadcasting, and 40 years of writing, I have never advocated a boycott of a product.

Quite the opposite, in fact.

During the 2012 presidential campaign, when the Left attempted to destroy Chick-fil-A for its owner’s views on same-sex marriage, I suggested on my radio show that the Republican candidate, Mitt Romney, stand in front of a Chick-fil-A restaurant while enjoying some Ben and Jerry’s ice cream.

In that way, I argued, he could show one of the great moral differences between the Right and the Left. Though Ben and Jerry are leftists, we conservatives do not believe that company owners’ views should matter to consumers. We believe that products should speak for themselves. If the ice cream is good, despite whatever repugnance we might feel regarding the views of the makers of that ice cream, we will still purchase it.

The Left doesn’t see things that way. The Left is out to crush individuals and companies with whom it differs. This is especially true today on the issue of same-sex marriage.

Read more from this story HERE.

America Suffers From A President Dangerously Disconnected From Reality

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Photo Credit: Official U.S. Navy Imagery

Photo Credit: Official U.S. Navy Imagery

By Peter Ferrara.

The population of the U.S. is 314 million. On the day Obamacare was passed, the estimate of the uninsured was 60 million. So in this context, the supposed 7 million Americans signed up for insurance on the Obamacare Exchanges, even if that is a valid number, and all of those have actually started paying premiums, both of which are highly dubious, does not mean any significant success for Obamacare.

That is especially so since at least 6 million Americans have lost their health insurance due to Obamacare, so far, with more to come once the illegally and arbitrarily delayed employer mandate becomes effective, if it is ever allowed to do so. The estimate based on a new Rand Corporation study is that only 858,000 Americans signed up on the Obamacare Exchanges were previously uninsured. That is barely a dent of just over 1% in the original number of uninsured, from the historic Obamacare program that was supposed to provide “universal” coverage.

Yes, there are other sources of coverage under Obamacare. President Obama told us in his celebratory, hocus pocus, Obamacare address on April Fools’ Day that “more than 3 million young adults have gained insurance under this law by staying on their family’s plan.”

But that number is a publicly documented fabrication. It comes from a 2010 survey by the highly politicized Department of Health and Human Services estimating coverage for 19 to 25 year olds from all sources, including taxpayer financed Medicaid, and private insurance, which includes employer provided insurance and individually purchased plans, not just coverage from their parents’ health insurance, as David Hogberg explained at Spectator.org on April 2.

Moreover, that data is now outdated, as later HHS surveys show that health coverage for 18 to 25 year olds has since declined from 2010, Hogberg adds. That is why HHS has not released any new data on the point for almost two years now.

Read more from this story HERE.

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Photo Credit: Agence France-Presse / Getty Images

Photo Credit: Agence France-Presse / Getty Images

A Catastrophe Like No Other

By Peggy Noonan.

…As I say, put aside the argument, step back and view the thing at a distance. Support it or not, you cannot look at ObamaCare and call it anything but a huge, historic mess. It is also utterly unique in the annals of American lawmaking and government administration.

Its biggest proponent in Congress, the Democratic speaker of the House, literally said—blithely, mindlessly, but in a way forthcomingly—that we have to pass the bill to find out what’s in it. It is a cliché to note this. But really, Nancy Pelosi’s statement was a historic admission that she was fighting hard for something she herself didn’t understand, but she had every confidence regulators and bureaucratic interpreters would tell her in time what she’d done. This is how we make laws now.

Her comments alarmed congressional Republicans but inspired Democrats, who for the next three years would carry on like blithering idiots making believe they’d read the bill and understood its implications. They were later taken aback by complaints from their constituents. The White House, on the other hand, seems to have understood what the bill would do, and lied in a way so specific it showed they knew exactly what to spin and how. “If you like your health-care plan, you can keep your health-care plan, period.” “If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor, period.” That of course was the president, misrepresenting the facts of his signature legislative effort. That was historic, too. If you liked your doctor, your plan, your network, your coverage, your deductible you could not keep it. Your existing policy had to pass muster with the administration, which would fight to the death to ensure that 60-year-old women have pediatric dental coverage.

Read more from this story HERE.

Sebelius is Out, but ObamaCare’s Problems are Here to Stay

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Photo Credit: Fox News

Photo Credit: Fox News

Kathleen Sebelius, the face of ObamaCare, is out. If only the Affordable Care Act were going with her.

Unhappily, as much as Republicans may cheer the departure of the Health and Human Services Secretary, who oversaw the bungled roll-out of President Obama’s signature health care legislation, the damaging law will continue to infect the economy like a great virus.

Sebelius may have drastically mismanaged the start-up of ObamaCare, but she cannot be blamed for the law’s fundamental flaws.

The law forces healthy young people to pay excessive rates for a level of insurance they do not need in order to fund the costs of coverage for older sicker people.

The fines that are meant to drive young people to this foolish economic choice are inadequate; many will simply choose to go without.

Read more from this story HERE.

Voter Fraud: The Left’s Tool For Social Justice

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Photo Credit: Annie Bartholomew

Photo Credit: Annie Bartholomew

By Matthew Vadum.

Why did Democrats applaud the loathsome community organizer Melowese Richardson, a freshly released, unrepentant voter fraud felon, at a recent “voting rights” rally in Ohio?

Because, like Richardson, they believe they are entitled to vote more than once against a system they see as unjust. Some serial voters do what they do in order to exact revenge against a society they feel did them or their ancestors wrong. Richardson is far from alone. Double-voting is distressingly common.

Many leftists have contempt for the electoral process because they don’t believe in the electoral system as it is constituted in capitalist America. To them, elections are already a fraud – an instrument of the rich, or as Saul Alinsky prefers to call them, the Haves. If the electoral system doesn’t serve “the people,” but is only an instrument of the Haves, then election fraud is justified as the path to a future that will serve the Have-Nots, as David Horowitz has explained.

This belief helps Democrats and the rest of the left rationalize their habitual efforts to suppress and cancel out lawfully cast votes. It helps to explain the strenuous efforts of leftists like former Congressman Jesse Jackson, Jr. (D-Ill.), now federal prisoner number 32451-016, to assure the public that voter registration fraud is no big deal and that fraudulent registrations almost never turn into fraudulent votes.

This is why liberal fascists inside and outside government routinely excuse electoral fraud – in all its manifestations – arguing in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary that such fraud is merely a Republican invention created to keep minorities and the poor down.

Read more from this story HERE.

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Obama decries ‘bogus’ voter fraud complaints

President Obama labeled complaints about voter fraud “bogus” and accused Republicans of cynically trying to prevent Americans from accessing the polls in a fiery speech Friday at a civil rights forum hosted by Al Sharpton.

Obama argued that attempts in some states to impose new voter identification restrictions were actually efforts by Republicans to make “it harder, not easier to vote.” And the president said that while voter fraud should be prevented, it rarely occurred.

“So let’s be clear, the real voter fraud is the people who try to deny our rights by making bogus arguments about voter fraud,” Obama said.

Obama sad that the efforts betrayed a weakness within the Republican Party, saying his opposition needed to restrict poll access to remain competitive.

“If your strategy depends on fewer people showing up to vote, that’s not a sign of strength, it’s a sign of weakness,” Obama said.

Read more from this story HERE.

Opinion: What Republicans Stand For

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Photo Credit: Red State

Photo Credit: Red State

This morning a group that I am a member of was asked an interesting question. What do we as Republicans/Libertarians/Conservatives believe in and actually stand FOR? Now, I obviously don’t speak for the entire right of center coalition that exists today. I am more socially conservative than some of my libertarian friends, I am more libertarian than some of my socially conservative friends, and I am more fiscally conservative than nearly all of our elected representatives.

Despite these divisions and nuanced differences on certain policy aspects, I still believe that the center right coalition stands for a few simple things that don’t just bind us together as Republicans, but also have made up the basis for our civil society since our founding.

So what is it that Republicans stand for?

We stand for many things, to list them all out would be quite the task. But it all springs forth from our founding. We stand for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

We stand for life, in that we stand for the dignity of the individual. We stand for life by acknowledging the uniqueness of each individual, embracing them for who they are, rather than what purpose they might suit for the collective. We stand for life in the defense of our nation through the sacrifice of a volunteer military.

Read more from this story HERE.

A Major Concern of Progressives is Their Supposed Interest in the Fate of the Poor

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

The Poverty Hoax

A major concern of progressives is their supposed interest in the fate of the poor. They purport to be the champions of the poor. But the truth is that they need the poor more than the poor need them, in a symbiotic relationship. As much as 75% of the money allocated to the poor is consumed by the vast bureaucracies that administer this aid. These agencies are actually job programs for college graduates who would often find it difficult to find employment in the private sector. The late William Raspberry wrote a column dealing with Gina, a 14 year old living in a group home, who had a caseworker, a psychotherapist and a court appointed lawyer. These caregivers have to be supported by a number of clerical workers and supervisors who compose the vast helping bureaucracy. If the “poor” were suddenly to disappear they would have to redefine their definition of poverty in order to maintain their sinecures. And that is exactly what they have done.

Advocates for the poor do not ordinarily live by what they preach. The President has informed us that, “We can’t drive our SUVs and eat as much as we want and keep our homes on 72 degrees at all times.” Yet during a recent trip to China the first family and their staff of about 70 stayed in the presidential suite at the Westin Chaoyang Hotel, which USA Today reports costs about $8,400 a night. Clearly the elite live by a different standard and have for a long time. Communist defector Victor Kravchenko recalled that during the famine in the Soviet Union, “I found myself among men who could eat ample and dainty food in full view of starving people not only with a clear conscience but with a feeling of righteousness, as if they were performing a duty to history.”

What is poverty? The late political scientist Edward Banfield provided four degrees of poverty: destitution, which is lack of income sufficient to assure physical survival and to prevent suffering from hunger, exposure, or remediable or preventable illness; want, which is lack of enough income to support essential welfare; hardship, which is lack of enough to prevent acute persistent discomfort or inconvenience. To this he added a fourth: relative deprivation which is a lack of enough income, status, or whatever else may be valued to prevent one from feeling poor in comparison to others. This last category is elastic enough to include millionaires who covet the possessions and power of billionaires. One important category of poverty Banfield does not mention is psychological or spiritual poverty. This is the most significant form of poverty in an affluent society when physical needs are easily met.

Where do America’s “poor” stand in this scale of poverty? In a nation of over 300 million people there are undoubtedly cases of destitution, want and hardship. However, these cases appear to be the exception. As former Secretary of Agriculture Dan Glickman stated, “More people die in the United States of too much food than of too little.” According to William Bennett, “Poor people in America have a higher standard of living than middle-class Americans of previous generations.” According to the Heritage Foundation, 80% of poor households have air conditioning. Nearly three-fourths have a car or truck, and 31% have two or more. Two-thirds of poor households have cable or satellite TV with 18% having a big screen television. And .6% of poor households own a Jacuzzi. The Los Angeles Times reported the California’s “poor” spent $69 million using their welfare payments on at least 14 cruise ships sailing from Miami and other ports, at Disney World, in Hawaii and Guam and at hotels in Las Vegas. Many of the “poor” enjoy luxuries that the Pharaohs of ancient Egypt would envy. Heather MacDonald claimed in 2000 that New York City spent $790 million on the homeless, or $39,500 per person. According to Robert Rector of the Heritage Foundation the U.S. has spent over $20.7 trillion on means-tested welfare since the beginning of the War on Poverty.

Read more from this story HERE.