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Obama Finds 4
Million More Votes
Drew Zahn reports
that Democrats in Congress are pushing for a new law that would allow
nearly 4 million people currently banned from voting to cast their
ballot, and most of those millions, studies show, will vote Democrat.
And where will these new voters come from? Why, from the
ranks of convicted felons.
Last week, a House subcommittee heard
testimony on H.R. 3335, the "Democracy Restoration Act." The bill
seeks to override state laws, which vary in how they restrict when
convicted felons released from prison can vote.
The bill,
sponsored by Rep. John Conyers (D-MI), and sponsored in the Senate by
Sen. Russell Feingold, D-Wis., states, "The right of an individual who
is a citizen of the United States to vote in any election for federal
office shall not be denied or abridged because that individual has been
convicted of a criminal offense unless such individual is serving a
felony sentence in a correctional institution or facility at the time of
the election."
Advocates of the bill trumpet it as a civil
rights issue and a matter of freedom, while pointing out that a
disproportionate number of black and Hispanic Americans have been
disenfranchised by laws restricting felons from voting.
Critics
call it another example of the federal government overstepping its
constitutional powers to squash state sovereignty and point out that the
laws don't discriminate against minorities, for the statistics simply
reflect the disproportionate numbers of black and Hispanic Americans
convicted of crime.
Critics have also hinted that the law is
politically convenient for Democrats.
Hans von Spakovsky, a
former Commissioner on the Federal Election Commission, explained in a
blog statement, "What is particularly revealing about this bill is that
it does not say anything about the other civil rights that a felon
loses, such as the right to own a gun or serve on a jury or in some
states, to work as a public employee.
"That is an interesting
comment given that the 'findings' in the bill claim that such state
felon laws 'serve no compelling State interest,'" he concluded. "I
guess this legislation would serve one compelling interest for the
sponsors -- it might get them votes they need to win in close
elections."
Michael Barone
says Democrats are reportedly planning to raise $125 million for a
campaign to sell ObamaCare to the voting public. Apparently the
idea is that what 50-plus presidential speeches and statements and
months of congressional debate could not do can be done by $125 million
spent on everything from TV ads to community organizers. Maybe,
but there seems to be a more fundamental problem here. The Obama
Democrats didn't set out to produce an unpopular stimulus package, an
unpopular health care bill and an unpopular cap-and-trade scheme.
They thought these initiatives would be popular. In their view,
history is a story of progress from small government to big government
and, as historians of the New Deal wrote, that progress is especially
welcome in times of economic distress.
The massive
unpopularity of the Obama Democrats' programs suggests that view of
history is defective. Let me propose another, starting with the
Founding Fathers.
The Founders believed there was a tension
between representative government and the right to life, liberty and
property. So they wrote the Fifth Amendment to insure that no
citizen was deprived of those rights without due process of law.
In Britain, that tension had been limited by allowing only property
owners to vote. That way, those without property could not elect
representatives who would steal from the rich and give to the poor.
In the early years of our republic, that precaution did not seem
necessary. We were a nation of farmers where land was plentiful
and labor scarce. The large majority of citizens then considered
relevant -- white adult males -- actually owned the land they farmed.
There was no danger in allowing all of them to vote, because the large
majority owned property. The definition of relevant citizens in
time expanded to include blacks and women. But as Americans and
immigrants increasingly clustered in enormous cities, and as large
industrial factories employed thousands of low-skill workers, the
percentage of property owners fell.
One hundred years ago, most
urban Americans rented rather than owned their homes. Many had no
bank accounts and few had significant financial assets. Elites
worried that this proletariat might rise in revolution.
In this
America, the Progressives argued that the Founders' vision was obsolete.
Property rights should be subordinate to human rights. Government
should regulate economic activity and "spread the wealth around," as
Barack Obama told Joe the Plumber. This view animated the New Deal
in the 1930s and appealed to the non-property-owning majority.
Franklin Roosevelt sowed the idea, harvested by the New Deal historians,
that an ever-expanding government was both good and necessary.
Democrats were referencing this when they said they were "making
history" by passing their health care bill.
Their problem is that
the America of the Progressives and New Dealers no longer exists.
Government home finance programs helped make us a nation of homeowners.
Technological progress and deregulation squeezed out transportation and
communications and made the necessities of life less costly, enabling
citizens to accumulate significant wealth in their working years.
True, we carried some of these things too far. Efforts to raise
homeownership over 65 percent resulted in a housing price crash.
Poorly understood financial innovations resulted in the financial crisis
of 2008.
But we still live in an America like the America of the
Founders, and unlike the America of the Progressives and the New
Dealers, in which a majority of citizens are or have every prospect of
becoming property owners. And a nation of property owners is less
willing to plunder the property of others in search of some promised
gain than a nation where most people don't and will never own
significant property. So when Susan Roesgen, then of CNN,
upbraided a Tea Party protester in 2009 by reminding him that he was
getting a $400 tax rebate thanks to the Democrats' stimulus package, she
was met with utter dismissal. You don't sell out your property
rights for a mere $400.
The polls and the post-2008 election
results show that the purported beneficiaries of the Obama Democrats'
programs are unenthusiastic about voting and people with modest incomes
are trending heavily Republican. The only enthusiasm for the Obama
Democrats' policies comes from David Brooks's "educated class":
people who are or identify with the centralized experts tasked by the
Obama Democrats with making decisions for the rest of us.
Unfortunately for the Obama Democrats, they, unlike property owners, are
not a majority in today's America.
Evidence -- Obama Stole Election
Against Hillary
Evidence of voter intimidation and fraud (06:15) YouTube
link
The Election Process Is The Left's Next
Target
Jerome Corsi is
reporting that Democrats have found yet another way to circumvent
the U.S. Constitution: Bypass the Electoral College and elect a
president by popular vote without first passing an amendment to the
founding document.
The Massachusetts Senate has joined five
other states in passing a National Popular Vote bill to do just that.
It approved the legislation July 15 by a margin of 28-10.
The
National Popular Vote, which already passed the Massachusetts House, is
within one final "enactment vote" in the Massachusetts Senate before the
measure can be ready for the governor's signature, the Boston Globe
reported.
"Under the proposed law, all 12 of the state's
electoral votes would be awarded to the candidate who receives the most
votes nationally," according to the report.
Critics fear the
movement, if successful, could turn the entire nation into a potential
"Florida 2000" battleground in close elections.
The Political
Left has been working on this for some time. Just Google FairVote.
These guys are busy, busy beavers. They have been actively
attempting to corrupt the American electoral process for years.
Hell, they even run
a workshop called "New Analysis on Fixing the Primaries" -- they
boldly use the phrase, "fixing the primaries."
And if that isn't
scary, check this out. Frances Piven, of
Cloward-Piven fame,
recently
joined the Project Vote board of directors.
It was Piven’s
strategy that served as the impetus for the creation of the National
Welfare Rights Organization, led by the radical George Wiley.
Wiley had a young protégé, named Wade Rathke, who was eventually
dispatched to Arkansas to establish a beachhead in the South for the
social justice movement. He founded, of course, ACORN.
The
strategy put forward by Piven and Richard Cloward, to overwhelm the
welfare system in the late 60s and early 70s, bankrupted New York City.
It was Piven who suggested that people losing their homes to foreclosure
should simply refuse to leave. ACORN had been following this
strategy to a T with its Home Defenders program.
And now Piven is
going to have a direct influence over the policy and direction of
Project Vote.
Perhaps Piven’s strategy of overwhelming the system
will now be applied to registering people to vote. As we saw in
Indiana, Florida, Pennsylvania, Missouri, Nevada, Ohio and many other
states, Project Vote created chaos for elections workers to sift
through. With Piven now guiding this ship, her success at
overwhelming the welfare system will now be applied to voter
registration.
What could possibly go wrong?
Obama Loses Campaign-Finance Fight
Greg Hitt and Brody Mullins are reporting that
Senate Democrats failed to advance the campaign-finance legislation that
had been a top priority of Barack Obama, falling short of the 60 votes
needed to end a GOP filibuster.
Tuesday's 57-41 vote broke along
party lines. It could signal the death, at least in the current
Congress, of legislation meant to blunt the impact of a landmark Supreme
Court decision striking down major portions of campaign-finance laws
that were intended to limit the influence of special interests in
political campaigns.
Among other things, the legislation would
force companies and labor unions to disclose more information about
their donors and their spending on elections. It is opposed by
many of the largest interest groups across the political spectrum,
including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the AFL-CIO.
Republicans said the bill would impose greater limits on corporations,
discouraging them from taking steps on behalf of GOP candidates.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.) called it a
"transparent effort to rig the fall election for the Democrats."
"Unions are the ultimate victors under this bill," he said.
Remember the
State of the Union? Justice Alito
shook his head
when Obama lied about the effects of the campaign finance decision.
Obama wanted this one.
Related:Obama met with about 50 of the Democratic Party’s
biggest donors on Tuesday night at an upscale Washington hotel, but
aides excluded reporters from the event.
Serious Questions Raised About Obama
Tactics in 2008 Election
Recently, Accuracy In Media interviewed Gigi
Gaston, director of the documentary film, "We Will Not Be Silenced."
The film documents voter intimidation and corruption by forces working
for then-candidate Barack Obama at Democratic precinct caucuses and
state conventions during the 2008 Presidential primary. The
filmmaker is surprising in that she is a lifelong Democrat, whose
grandfather was the mayor of Boston and later the governor of
Massachusetts, and she is a Hollywood screenwriter.
She says that
after receiving a call from a former congressional investigator, she
went to Texas to look into charges of voter irregularities in the
Democratic caucus process to choose their presidential nominee. It
was down to Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama. What she found, as
described on the website for the film, was "falsified delegate counts,
falsified documents, and other violations," and she describes the
"disenfranchising of American citizens by the Democratic Party and the
Obama campaign," and said that the "infamous campaign of 'Change' from
Chicago encouraged and created an army to steal caucus packets, falsify
documents, change results, allow unregistered people to vote, scare and
intimidate Hillary supporters, stop them, threaten them, lock them out
of their polling places, silence their voices, and stop their right to
vote."
Through interviews with people with a first-hand knowledge
of what was going on, including civil rights activist Helene Latimer, a
very disturbing picture formed of what the Obama campaign was up to in
order to "win" the nomination. Attorney Gloria Allred is shown
calling for the elimination of the caucuses.
Ms. Gaston described
how the Clinton campaign attempted to bring evidence of some of these
irregularities to the attention of the media, but they were largely
ignored.
You can listen to the full interview, or read the
transcript
here . . .
Strategists Advising Democrats To Walk Away From Obama
Flopping Aces
says most of us already knew this, but look where this advice is
coming from.
The advice from Democratic consultants and
strategists is almost unanimous: Run away from Obama, and fast.
A prominent Democratic pollster is circulating a survey that shows
George W. Bush is 6 points more popular than Obama in "Frontline
districts" -- seats held by Democrats that the Democratic
Congressional Campaign Committee sees as most vulnerable to
Republican takeover. That Bush is more popular than Obama in
Democratic-held seats is cause for outright fear.
"He is a
walking radioactive disaster," one senior Democratic operative said
of Obama, but any effort to seriously distance oneself from Obama is
dangerous for an incumbent -- go too hard against Obama and the
voters will think the candidate is faking it.
What will those Democrats who fell all over
themselves lapping up the ch-ch-change message do now? Are they
going to just walk away from the one?
Can’t see it.
Reid
reports that those same Democrat strategists seem to understand this
problem since the only advice he can give them is to stop talking about
the one and talk about yourself, the local politics, and their opponent.
All well and good but Obama is a professional candidate who
doesn’t know how to lead his way out of a cereal box. So instead
of leading he is out campaigning, giving his asinine "blame everyone
else but me" speeches. They can’t help but be seen with this guy.
No, after 2008 the Democrats own Obama. The Democrats are
Obama.
Ch-ch-changes!
A Perfect Example Of All That Is
Wrong
Warner Todd Huston
says we see a perfect
example of all that is wrong in both our immigration and electoral
systems in Cookeville, Tennessee.
In 2004, an illegal immigrant
voted illegally in Tennessee’s Putnam County. He showed false
identification and a stolen Social Security card, but in 2010 the federal
government is asking Tennessee officials to help smooth this illegal’s
way to citizenship by ignoring past crimes. (video)
Putnam County administrator of elections Debbie
Steidl seems pretty annoyed by the whole situation. This illegal
immigrant even went to her and signed an affidavit admitting that he
voted illegally, but he also presented the election official with a
letter from the Department of Homeland Security demanding that she purge
his name from the 2004 voting records.
You see, unless his name
is purged he cannot seek legal citizenship because he has this illegal
act on his record.
The frustrated County official said this
illegal immigrant, "is being enabled. And that’s what bothered me
more than anything!"
Naturally the court is siding with the illegal
saying that his illegal act has exceeded the statute of limitations for
vote fraud.
But here is the thing: it doesn’t matter if the
statute of limitations for vote fraud has been exceeded or not. No one
is prosecuting him for vote fraud. The question being considered is if
he should be allowed to become a citizen. The answer is no, and the
solution is immediate deportation of this long-time criminal, not
coddling and a free pass to citizenship.
This incident shows a
complete breakdown in our electoral system, our courts, and our
immigration system as well as the Dept. of Homeland Security -- not to
mention common sense.
The Anti-Obama Tide Hasn't Peaked
Dick Morris
says don't confuse the dramatic swell of the Republican tide that is
becoming increasingly evident to the pundits of the country with party
trend. Right before Election Day, the numbers will get even better
and presage an even larger Republican victory.
Party trend
usually indicates itself in the 10 days before an election when voters
who do not typically follow politics closely tune in and decide for whom
to vote. Until this window, they usually describe themselves to
pollsters as "undecided." There will be a huge Republican party
trend this year, but it hasn't happened yet.
The huge Republican
poll numbers these days do not reflect the last-minute switches typical
of less involved voters, but rather mirror the disappointment with
Barack Obama and with Congress among voters who do follow politics
closely that has accumulated over the past year and a half. It is
this reappraisal of their political opinions that is occasioning the big
swing toward Republicans in the 2010 election.
The ranks of
these disaffected voters who are now turning against Obama and the
Democrats will soon be joined by the less-involved voters who will come
around in the week or 10 days before the election.
From the
perception of the pollster, party trend is a bit like a curveball thrown
by a pitcher to a batter. The election statistics remain fairly
static for weeks, or even months, with little change as the race unfolds
through September and early through mid October. Like a fastball
that comes in straight and true.
Then, suddenly, as the election
nears, the vote swings wildly to one side or the other, akin to a
curveball that breaks as it approaches the batter -- usually too late
for him to make an adjustment.
Suddenly, the tied races show up
as decisive victories for the side that benefits from party trend, and
the unwinnable races come into play.
2010 is a year like no other
in the magnitude of the partisan shift going on. It dwarfs 1994,
and even 1974, in its order of magnitude. But we haven't yet seen
the full impact of the last-minute party shift that will take place.
Plenty of voters who are now undecided are yet to be heard from, and
when they are, they will impact the results decisively.
In which
direction? Most likely they will transform a massive Republican
win into an even more massive victory. The uninvolved voters who
will decide late in the process are likely to break the same way the
rest of the country is breaking -- toward the Republicans.
Surveys suggest that they share the disenchantment of the participating
voters with the economy and Obama's performance. They have just
not focused on the coming election.
Democrats hope that the less
involved voters are also less educated and more likely to be the young
or minority voters on whom their party depends, but the lack of
enthusiasm among Democrats for Obama indicates that these voters are
likely to decide by staying home. In the most recent Fox
News/Opinion Dynamics study, 54 percent of Republicans said they were
"very enthusiastic" about voting in the 2010 elections, while only 28
percent of Democrats felt the same way
So the net result is that
for those who anticipate a major Republican win in 2010, you ain't seen
nothin' yet!
Democrats Face Midterm Meltdown
Edward Luce says Barack Obama’s Democratic
party faces a series of dramatic defeats at every level of government in
Washington, and beyond, in the November midterm elections, according to
leading analysts and opinion polls.
The University of Virginia’s
widely monitored Crystal Ball will on Wednesday forecast sweeping
setbacks on Capitol Hill and the loss of a clutch of state governorships
on November 2.
It follows a Gallup poll that showed the
Republicans with a 10 percentage point lead over the Democrats -- the
widest margin in 68 years. Separately, a University of Buffalo
paper has predicted a 51-seat gain for Republicans in November.
The Democrats have a 39-seat majority in the House of Representatives.
Many believe Democratic control of the Senate is also at risk.
"Voters are going to deliver a big fat message to President Obama, which
he will not want to hear," said Larry Sabato, who runs Crystal Ball.
"The Republican base is at least 50 degrees further to the right than
where it was when Newt Gingrich took control of the House in 1994, so we
would be looking at two years of absolutely nothing getting done on
Capitol Hill."
Shane D'Aprile
says that in a last-minute fundraising appeal, Democratic Senatorial
Campaign Committee Chairman Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) warned that
capturing Obama's former Senate seat would be the "ultimate political
trophy" for Republicans in 2010.
"Nothing would give them more
bragging rights than winning this seat," Menendez wrote in a fundraising
e-mail Tuesday. "Polling shows we're in a dead heat, and your gift
now will help level the playing field in this and other important
races."
Campaign committees are in the midst of a last-minute
flurry of fundraising appeals to get as much in their coffers ahead of
the monthly fundraising deadline.
Polls show Rep. Mark Kirk
(R-Ill.) and state Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias (D) locked in a tight
battle for Obama's former Senate seat. The latest Rasmussen poll
has the race tied 45-45.
Obama held a fundraiser for Giannoulias
earlier this month to help cut into the financial lead Kirk held at the
end of the second quarter. The Republican raised $2.3 million
during the second quarter to the $900,000 raised by Giannoulias.
Only in Obama's Chicago can a
mob banker and out-and-out crook, like Giannoulias, even run for the
United States Senate, much less be tied in the polls.
You’re a Bigot, Now Vote for Me
Derek Hunter asks, are you opposed to ObamaCare
or illegal immigration? You’re a racist. Are you opposed to
gay marriage? You’re a homophobe. Did you oppose Elana
Kagan’s appointment to the Supreme Court? You’re a sexist.
After less than two years of complete Democrat control of government,
there aren’t many Americas progressives haven’t accused of some sort of
bigotry for simply having an opinion different from theirs. The
politics of "hope" and "change" have devolved into exactly what those
espousing them claimed they would end. Is this really Democrat’s
plan to win votes in November?
Barack Obama campaigned under the
banner of unity and ending the "politics of division." But that
banner was swiftly furled and the true banner of progressive politics
began flying over our country. Progressivism leaves no room for
debate or disagreement. To paraphrase former President Bush, to
progressives you’re either with them or you’re with the enemy.
During the ObamaCare debate, opponents were compared to opponents of
civil rights legislation. The ethically challenged Congressman
from New York, Charlie Rangel, said "The group that were in Washington
fighting against the health bill and fighting against the President,
[they] looked just like and sounded just like those groups that attacked
the civil rights movement in the South." Left-wing blogs ran with
this mantra and agenda-driven media outlets like MSNBC dutifully
followed. They still advance the lie that African-American Members
of Congress were pelted with racial slurs as they walked to cast their
vote, something even the New York Times has acknowledged there is zero
evidence of.
The ends justify the means, no matter how sickening
and divisive the means.
When a homosexual judge in California
overturned Proposition 8, a ballot measure that defined marriage as
being between one man and one woman which was passed by voters, these
self-appointed champions of democracy cheered its undermining.
Whatever your opinion on the issue, it was a rather ironic turn for
people who use the word "democracy" as though they respect it.
When Elena Kagan was nominated to the Supreme Court without much of a
record, opposition to this life-time appointment was called sexist all
across the left-wing echo chamber. Blogs were replete with this
unfounded charge, with headlines like "Not-So-Subtle Sexism at the Kagan
Hearings" from the blog at Ms. Magazine.
The bigotry arrow has
become the default weapon in the progressive’s quiver, only it’s lost
its sting.
