This is day-old news now, but worth a mention.

The twisted farce that is President Obama's Department of "Justice" recently used the Voting Rights Act to force a small North Carolina town to include party affiliation on ballots for local offices. The DOJ's excuse is that Democrats are less likely to be elected if they aren't identified as Democrats on the ballot and blacks want Democrats—and only Democrats—to be elected.

Yes, the decision is as starkly and as sickeningly racial as that:

The Justice Department's ruling, which affects races for City Council and mayor, went so far as to say partisan elections are needed so that black voters can elect their "candidates of choice" - identified by the department as those who are Democrats and almost exclusively black.

The department ruled that white voters in Kinston will vote for blacks only if they are Democrats and that therefore the city cannot get rid of party affiliations for local elections because that would violate black voters' right to elect the candidates they want.

Voters should get as much information on the ballots as they want—including party affiliation—but the key is that localities should be free to choose the information provided. In this case, Kinston voted 2 to 1 to do away with the party affiliation of candidates in local elections. Their choice should be respected, and in much of the rest of the country it would have been.

Unfortunately, North Carolina is still covered by the outdated Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, which requires state and local governments to submit any change in voting to DOJ to determine if it is "discriminatory." Of course, according to Obama's DOJ, anything that potentially makes it harder for a Democrat to get elected is discriminatory.

There was a chance Section 5 would have been held unconstitutional this year, but Chief Justice Roberts' judicial minimalism led him to avoid the question. Of the justices, only Justice Thomas stood up for the rights of states and localities not to be accused of institutionalized racism based on data 35 years old. He got it right:

The lack of sufficient evidence that the covered jurisdictions currently engage in the type of discrimination that underlay the enactment of §5 undermines any basis for retaining it. Punishment for long past sins is not a legitimate basis for imposing a forward-looking preventative measure that has already served its purpose. Those supporting §5’s reenactment argue that without it these jurisdictions would return to the racially discriminatory practices of 30 and 40 years ago. But there is no evidence that public officials stand ready, if given the chance, to again engage in concerted acts of violence, terror, and subterfuge in order to keep minorities from voting. Without such evidence, the charge can only be premised on outdated assumptions about racial attitudes in the covered jurisdictions. Admitting that a prophylactic law as broad as §5 is no longer constitutionally justified based on current evidence of discrimination is not a sign of defeat. It is an acknowledgment of victory.

If Justice Thomas' voice had won the day, Kinston would not now be forced to decide whether to fight Obama's DOJ in the courts.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 05:18 AM | Comments (46)
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Welcome all M&Ms. Tonight we run the gamut of moron-related topics - religion, magic, aliens, bras, and what have you. No kittehs, baconz, or heelz because well, some nights just aren't that special.

So What Ever Happened to Vasquez of Aliens?

Well after fighting aliens on planet LV-426 and playing John Connor's foster mom, Jenette Goldstein now runs a custom bra business in Los Angeles. She still does occasional acting, is proud of her 30G bust, and overall seems pretty happy with her life.

Posted by: Open Blog at 06:10 PM | Comments (978)
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No hard feelings over last year's boycott I guess.

Oprah Winfrey, on a campaign to climb back from last season's ratings slump, will attempt to kiss and make up with conservative viewers on Nov. 16 when she has Sarah Palin on her syndicated talk show.

...It's not just another show booking for Oprah Winfrey. She's going whole hog this season to try to recover from the ratings tumble she took last season when her audience slid to under 7 million viewers. And, during one awful week in July, "The Oprah Winfrey Show" suffered its smallest ratings since its debut way back in 1985.

Industry navel gazers speculated Oprah had turned off some of her conservative viewers -- or, more accurately, they had turned her off -- when she not only endorsed then presidential candidate Barack Obama but even campaigned for him. (Palin, of course, was the running mate of Obama's rival, Sen. John McCain.)

It was the first time Oprah had stripped off her apolitical veneer and publicly endorsed a political candidate. At the time, Oprah told CNN's Larry King she did it because "what [Obama] stands for" was "worth me going out on a limb for."

And her ratings took a tumble, though hers was not the only syndicated show to lose audience last season and she still managed to wind up at the top of the syndication heap at season's end.

Even so, Oprah has largely abandoned her whole aspirational programming mantra this season and gone in for the more purely commercial.

Not all of Oprah's fans are happy.

So does big Obama supporter Oprah go after Palin or is it a softball fest?

My guess it's more of the latter. What's the upside for Oprah in going after Palin as if Oprah were a real journalist? If it's a ratings ploy (and it is, it always is), why lure an audience in only to piss them off?

They'll touch on some touchy stuff (Bristol and Levi, etc) but mostly it'll be light and appreciative. Then will the media go after Oprah for letting Public Enemy Number 1 off easy?

The big question is, when does Allah's dream come true and Palin appears on The View (with Meghan McCain guest hosting)?

In other TV news...Obama has been absent from TV (for him anyway) but thankfully that will be fixed tomorrow. He's doing an exclusive interview with what he seems to think is a 'real news organization', NBC.

You know NBC, the people who employ Andrea Mitchel, who doesn't think George Soros is "far left".

You see 'real news organizations' and reporters come to the defense of someone not there by interjecting their own opinion. That's journalism!

Posted by: DrewM at 04:22 PM | Comments (237)
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Meet Ron Bloom, Obama's Manufacturing Czar, seems he's also a fan of Lee Atwater or something.

It is not the American tradition that "power comes form the barrel of a gun". Our tradition is that power comes from the consent of the governed. It's a distinction I don't think Mr. Bloom and too many of his colleagues gets.

Let me be clear, I'm not in the "Obama's going to round up conservatives and use force to stay in power forever" club. I have too much faith in America for that, checks and balances are there for the tough times, not the easy ones.

Still, the people that populate this administration are way to comfortable with radical thought and figures. Obama didn't run as a leftist (though the signs were there if you wanted to look) but he is one. It's not racism or crazy talk to point this out and hold them to account.

And what could possibly go wrong with having someone in a high level job, charged with formulating manufacturing policy, who disparages capitalism? Actually, since we don't do 5 Year Plans on what is an isn't made, why do we even need this kind of position anyway?

(Video via Lex. Since I swiped the link from him, make it up to him for me by checking out his site. There's always good story about the Navy and insights on flying and other stuff. Plus, you can follow him on Twitter.)

UPDATE: Maybe not such a big deal. Below the fold is what appears to be more of the video from the event. The Mao quote is not in it but he's talking about how the union does business. He may be saying they as a union play rough, which is likely true enough.

Still, in a better world, US government officials wouldn't be reaching for Mao to describe themselves and their outlook. Insert Hitler for Mao and it's just never cool. more...

Posted by: DrewM at 03:16 PM | Comments (189)
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Ben sends:

buzzion 57
Monkey Sleeping 56
Peoples Republic of Baltimore 56
Svenster61 55
Moflickey 55
Dave R 54
Red State Ny 54
Doctors Swoop 54
The Tard's Ninja 53
Wunderkraut 53
Jay in Amers 53
NJ Conservative 53
Paranoid Polly 53
liberrocky's losers 53

and then 8 people tied with 52.

Ben adds: I forgot to put my 1:00 picks in on time, so needless to say i tanked.

I am going to try that excuse sometime myself.

UPDATE (Jack M.): Despite his never having participated in the AoS Football Pool, I have just learned that Barack Obama is, in fact the current leader with 58 games selected correctly.

My source is Charlie Gibson, who says this is the "only football pool of which I've ever heard." So you know this info is, like, totally legit.

Posted by: Dave in Texas at 12:14 PM | Comments (59)
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Some big shifts here in the GOP's favor.

CNN has a poll out (no link yet; email sent to me by CNN). It finds Obama's approval rate at 55%. Um, whatever.

It also finds that on the issues that matter most to voters (they decide themselves what they are), 48% feel that Obama agrees with them. While 51% feel Obama disagrees with them.

Again, on the issues that matter most to them, personally.

And yet his approval is at 55%. Go figure.

For the sake of comparison: In April, CNN's poll found Obama's support at 63%. 57% of voters then said Obama agreed with them on the issues that matter most to them.

So, he seems to consistently get a 6-7% goose in job approval above the agree on the issues number, which I can only guess must be from his awesome level of competence and ability to successfully turn this recession around.

Harris Poll: It was reported over the weekend the Harris Interactive poll put Obama at 45%.

They're now releasing his approval on the top twelve issues -- not a single one where he commands majority approval.

Posted by: Ace at 09:44 AM | Comments (224)
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A commenter at Instapundit made this point the other day.

The criticism of Fox is not aimed at Fox. It is aimed at liberal editors, and is intended to quarantine the dramatic news being uncovered by right-of-center media. If the liberal editors accept the criticism, theyÂ’ll feel good about hiding right-of-center news stories from busy, non-political, swing-voting Americans.

A Politico story confirms this:

A White House attempt to delegitimize Fox News – which in past times would have drawn howls of censorship from the press corps – has instead been greeted by a collective shrug.

ThatÂ’s true even though the motivations of the White House are clear: Fire up a liberal base disillusioned with Obama by attacking the hated Fox. Try to keep a critical news outlet off-balance. Raise doubts about future Fox stories.

But most of all, get other journalists to think twice before following the networkÂ’s stories in their own coverage.

...

To some media observers, it’s almost the definition of a “chilling effect” – a governmental attempt to steer reporters away from negative coverage – but the White House press corps has barely uttered a word of complaint.

That could be because of the perception among some journalists that Fox blurs the line between reporting and commentary - making it seem like not the most sympathetic victim.

Um, that could be because 99% of the White House press corps voted enthusiastically for Obama, too, and have staked their journalistic futures on his success.

But of course that doesn't occur to Politico. Too fantastical to be considered.

Still, the comments set off alarm bells with some journalists and media analysts.

“I can never remember a White House urging news organizations to boycott other news organizations. That strikes me as unprecedented,” said Thomas DeFrank, a Washington journalist who has covered eight presidents and now serves as the bureau chief of the New York Daily News.

“I see it as bullying a news organization, by the time you get to telling ABC or some other news organization how they should behave to another news organization,” said David Zurawik, media critic for the Baltimore Sun. “Someone should tell them: you’re one branch of government. We’re something else over here. Don’t lecture us about how we should behave towards one another.”

Politico notes that mixing news with "criticisms of the president" is working for FoxNews.

Um, didn't that used to work for the media generally?

Posted by: Ace at 08:31 AM | Comments (228)
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20%. Yeah, that sounds about right.

They proclaim this as a finding of the poll, rather than an absurd skew that invalidates it.

Apparently they're still embargoing how many people identify as Democrats -- should be good for a laugh. I'm guessing 45%. (Nope, Ed says it's 33%. Not sure where he saw that.)

(That's an ABC link btw -- they did the poll with the WaPo.)

Thanks to AHFF Geoff.

Posted by: Ace at 07:13 AM | Comments (116)
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I've been bitching to other bloggers lately that in order to draw traffic, you need to discuss national issues and campaigns that reach a national sort of level of prominence.

And yet to actual win elections, you need to be focused on the critical county and state level party organizations and races. (Might be working on something to address that, by the way.)

This article, linked by Hot Air, has me thinking:

The party organizations are not the locus of mass political activity. In decades past, some local and state parties did have that role, but not any more. Instead, today's party organizations are little more than legal money-laundering units that help candidates get around campaign finance laws.

..

First, the national party organizations remain weak (as they always have been), but state party organizations have been on the decline for some time. They are not a place where partisans meet up and participate in politics. This means that ambitious politicos looking to make a name for themselves are not heading to the state parties, and of course not going to the national organizations. Instead, they look to be congressional aides, White House staffers, or maybe to a spot in a state legislature. Simply put, there is a shallow talent pool.

Second, the party organizations do control quite a lot of money. That's a consequence of federal law - first the Federal Elections Campaign Act (FECA) and now the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (BCRA, a.k.a. McCain-Feingold). As is typical with broad laws like these, they are full of unintended side-effects. Combined, these laws make the parties an excellent place for donors with spare dollars to send their cash. Because the Supreme Court struck down provisions of the BCRA, the parties can spend unlimited dollars on behalf of candidates so long as the dollars are "independent" (yeah right!). All of this means that the national committees literally raise hundreds of millions of dollars every cycle.

Combined, these factors provide a strong incentive to ambitious, semi-famous politicians to serve as national committee chairman as a way to stay relevant. These pols might not be able to win elections themselves, but candidates who want to win have to come to them. Plus, the cable networks are always happy to host them - with the absurd implication that they are somehow the "leaders" of their respective parties. Because the talent pool is so shallow in the party organization system, there is not a great deal of competition.

Can someone with a working knowledge of how parties work on the county level and state level tell me how difficult it would be -- how many bodies, how much time required -- for an insurgent group of conservatives to simply take them over, or at least win a few seats on their governing boards or whatever board actually makes decisions?

This would solve a lot of problems.

First, after the elections, a lot of conservatives felt dispirited and isolated and so we had a spate of Moron Meetups. Seems to me like this would be a good social outlet, too.

Second, a lot of us are frustrated because we feel like we don't have power or influence.

Third, we can stop bitching about decisions made for us and start making those decisions ourselves.

But I know nothing about this at all. Does anyone?

In the average county -- let's say in the county that makes up the majority of NY's 23rd district -- how many insurgents joining would it take to start voting our own people on to these boards? What level of commitment in time and so forth is required to get a vote at all? And so on.

Partial Answer: Mallamutt explains the basics here.

But I'm still trying to find out -- how difficult? How many people are needed to pull this off?

Posted by: Ace at 05:22 AM | Comments (172)
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Now I'm back. What'd I miss? It seems like things are pretty much the same as three weeks ago.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 05:20 AM | Comments (36)
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