Obama Administration Lies About Unemployment Rates

There is an old saying that figures never lie, but liars figure. This is never more prevalent than in government. There is an old question that asks how can you tell when politicians are lying and the answer is when their lips are moving.

Consider this. Unemployment is down according to the government figures. Late figures concerning unemployment in Ohio tags the rate at 8.5% unemployed, about the same as the national figure. But wait. That’s based on a U-3 rating. U-3? Yes, one of six calculations for measuring unemployment. With the government there are different categories of not having a job.

The U-3 unemployment figure, the official government reporting figure which is touted in the news, only counts those people who are unemployed and are actively seeking a job. These folks are drawing unemployment checks along with those in U-1, those who have been unemployed for at least 15 weeks, and U-2, who have recently lost a job or finished a temporary job, classifications. These are easy figures to count as they are listed on government lists of those on the public dole.

U-4 lists those who are listed in U-3, plus those who have just given up and have quit looking for employment. The government calls them discouraged workers, government-speak for quit looking for employment, who are no longer on the government dole, and are starting to fade away from government attention.

U-5 is made up of those workers who are “loosely or marginally attached”, in government-speak, and is made up of workers who would like to work but have quit looking because they feel that it isn’t worth the effort.

Lastly, U-6 combines the previous five categories plus people who are only working part time. This is the real unemployment rate, not the rate posted by the government. In truth, U-6 is generally twice as high as U-3. Since U-3 numbers are based on non-employed folks on the public dole, it is easy to count the number of checks sent out each month, but half the idle working population don’t get anything.

Taking this one step further the newly unemployed, U-3, who apply for unemployment benefits is another interesting government figure, especially when one understands why it is used instead of the all inclusive U-6. The government says, “Wow. Things are really getting better because new unemployment claims are down last month.” Look at it another way and it doesn’t look as great.

Say you have a hundred workers and you lose 10% a month, and those go on unemployment welfare. First month, new claims are 10 people. Second month, from 90 workers, the 10% loss equals 9 people. Third month loss is 8 people, and month four is only 7 people. The way the government figures it, things are getting better. As the figures show, claims for unemployment have been less for three consecutive months, a very encouraging situation. Not as many people have been laid off so we’re out of the woods. To make matters even better at the end of a year, according to governmental logic, the unemployment problem has been lessened as there were only three people who qualified for inclusion in the U-3 category. A victory for government planners who proudly state that applications for unemployment benefits have decreased by 60% in only a year. What they fail to mention is that instead of 100 workers in your business, there are now 28.

Granted, this illustration is on the exaggerated side but the principle is correct. The government doesn’t want the true figures out.

In truth, the official unemployment rate in the United States is not 8.5%, it is really 15.2%.

First Obama Re-Election Ad Filled With Fibs

Posted 01/20/2012 07:17 PM ET by investors.com

Energy: In his very first TV ad of the 2012 campaign, the president is feeding the public false information about America's dependence on foreign fuels. His twisted statistics actually celebrate the Obama recession.

The Obama re-election campaign is already shaping up as the most deceitful in American electoral history. "For the first time in 13 years our dependence on foreign oil is below 50%," the commercial declares, accompanied by goose-bumpy music.

Major economic downturns, in fact, unfailingly produce declines in oil imports. And so do higher gas prices — which went from an average of less than $2 a gallon at the time Obama took office to nearly $4 in the middle of last year and remain well above $3 today.

How could gasoline demand not drop with so many people out of work, businesses dying and jittery investors sitting on a trillion dollars?

Obama's ad dishonestly suggests he's been engineering an alternative energy economic renaissance in America. As hard-hatted workers are shown assembling solar panels, the ad says, "America's clean energy industry? 2.7 million jobs and expanding rapidly."

It's saying Obama created — or "saved" — 2.7 million new clean energy jobs, right? Uh-uh. Turns out that the Brookings Institution report that the ad cites as its source on the 2.7 million was referring to already-existing green jobs.

You'd never know from the Obama commercial that what Brookings actually said was: "Overall, today's clean economy establishments added half a million jobs between 2003 and 2010, expanding at an annual rate of 3.4 %" — a half-million over eight years being a tiny gain. And that "this performance lagged the growth in the national economy, which grew by 4.2% annually over the period."

You wouldn't know, Brookings said, that "many longer-standing companies in the clean economy — especially those involved in housing- and building-related segments — laid off large numbers of workers during the real estate crash of 2007 and 2008, while sectors unrelated to the clean economy (mainly health care) created many more new jobs nationally."

And Brookings' assessment that the green economy is "expanding rapidly"? Its report's conclusion actually warns "against excessive hopes for large-scale, near-term job-creation from the sector" because "the U.S. clean economy remains small where it is fast-growing and relatively slow-growing on balance ... their status as major employers remains a few years off."

In truth, Obama's energy policy is a disaster as to reducing foreign energy dependence. As the Institute for Energy Research points out, "oil production on federal lands has fallen by 43% over the past nine years, according to the Obama administration's Energy Information Administration. And it has dropped rapidly on President Obama's watch."

Dan Simmons, IER's director of regulatory and state affairs, told IBD he's convinced "President Obama is afraid of charges of crony capitalism regarding Solyndra," the solar panel company that got $535 million in taxpayer-funded stimulus loan funds from the administration, then soon went bankrupt.

That's why the Obama re-election campaign's first big lie is that he is the energy president.

Obama State Of The Union Preview

State of Dysfunction

Posted on Morning Bell on 01/24/2012, at morningbell@heritage.com

Tonight, Americans who tune in to the State of the Union will watch the work of a rhetorical master with a flair for illusion. President Barack Obama will take to the floor of the Capitol in hopes of laying the groundwork for a political debate on his terms--one where he stands on emotional appeals, populism, and class warfare, not the shaky ground of his crumbling record. And looking right back at him will be the U.S. Senate, which has for the past 1,000 days failed to pass a budget--a total shirking of their fundamental duty to be diligent stewards of the taxpayers' dollars.

The President will thus rely on the power of his words. With flourish, he will tell the story of America through a progressive's eyes--one where "fairness" takes on a new meaning, where America's core values are brushed aside, and where the truth about a failed presidency is forgotten in the shadows of his country's collective memory. The President will speak from the high ground of his vaulted office. The question is whether the elevation conferred by his office will allow him to escape the soaring deficits, depths of unemployment, or miles of job-killing regulation that his Administration has wrought.

Before considering the President's record, first consider his message--that economic populism is the core of America's principles, that the federal government should be the guarantor of equal outcomes and that "fairness" of achievement should be decided by legions of bureaucrats in Washington. It is a theme that the President unveiled in a speech last month in Osawatomie, Kansas, and it's one he plans to return to tonight. This vision is at the root of the President's progressive ideal. It is not, however, the ideology on which our country was founded. The Heritage Foundation's Matthew Spalding, vice president of American Studies and director of the B. Kenneth Simon Center for Principles and Politics, explains:

America is exceptional because it is dedicated to the principle of universal human liberty: that all are fundamentally equal by nature and equally endowed with unalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. This principle and the constitutional framework of law that enlivens it are the foundation of the American Dream...

What is truly revolutionary about the United States is that the ladder of opportunity became available to everyone. As a result, poverty has been vastly diminished. Even more important, it is no longer a permanent condition from which there is no real possibility of escape.

The "ladder of opportunity" exists so that people may apply their God-given talents and abilities in order to better themselves and pursue the American dream. That is the liberty that makes the United States unique. The President, though, does not stand for that dream. Instead, as he has made clear, he believes that it is through government engineering that society can advance--through more government power, federal education programs, economic regulations, and infrastructure spending, all funded by "fair" taxes on "wealthy" Americans.

This sort of progressivism has its roots in 100 years of history and 100 years of failure. But the country need not look back into the annals of time to see the proof. They only need to see the President's record of the past three years--facts that will undoubtedly receive short shrift in tonight's speech.

Obama enacted a purely progressive agenda with his expansion of the state under Obamacare, his trillion-dollar stimulus bill, the government takeover of the auto industry, the proliferation of regulations under the Dodd-Frank regulatory reform bill, the crony capitalism of the Solyndra scandal, and the illegal appointments to the unrestrained Consumer Financial Protection Agency and the National Labor Relations Board. The result: Some 13.1 million Americans remain unemployed, job creation has been abysmal for much of the past three years, and the President's promise to turn around the U.S. economy has gone unfulfilled.

Meanwhile, the Senate has largely acceded to the President's agenda while leaving undone the budgeting process for the past 1,000 days. Instead of respecting the people's money and putting it to its appropriate use, the Senate has chosen to pass short-term "business as usual" continuing resolutions, one after another, all while government spending continues to skyrocket, deficits are exploding, the country's credit rating is in jeopardy, Social Security and Medicare are in crisis states, and future generations are left holding the bag.

The President's "populist" message is designed to appeal to the American people--and this is after all what all American politicians try to do. It is fair, however to ponder how the people have fared under the President's policies. It is hard to miss the mass of unemployed Americans, the plodding economy, the businesses that are afraid to grow and expand, and the jobs that are being left on the table. It is understandable that the President will not want to bring up these "achievements."

Christopher Columbus discovered the New World in 70 days. The Empire State Building was built in 410 days. Yet for 1,000 days, the U.S. Senate has failed to pass a budget. Find out more in our newest video, "1,000 Days Without A Budget."

Obama’s Keystone XL Decision Shows America His True Priorities

PIPELINE PUSHOVER
By Bob Beauprez, Published January 18, 2012

Short of announcing it outright, President Obama could not have signaled in stronger terms than he did Wednesday how little he cares for the plight of the American public.

With the news that the White House is definitively rejecting approval of TransCanada’s Keystone XL pipeline, a project that has the potential to employ 20,000 Americans almost immediately, the president has made clear that he’d rather placate a small group of environmental radicals than offer real relief to unemployed Americans struggling to pay constantly rising gas prices.

Once operational, the Keystone XL would bring 900,000 barrels of crude a day from Canadian oil sands in Alberta to Gulf Coast refineries in the United States. That would mean the creation of approximately a quarter of a million new American jobs over the project’s lifetime, as well as more than $5 billion in property taxes for the states on the pipeline’s route. Given that more than 25 million Americans are currently under-employed or out of work completely, these numbers mean a great deal – just not to Obama and his administration, apparently.

The Keystone XL has been valued by at least one major independent study at more than $20 billion from both economic and security-related standpoints. As Iran’s banana republic threatens for the third straight week to close the Strait of Hormuz and cut off a sixth of the world’s oil supply, we are witnessing the fallout from another Obama shortcoming – failure to take a hard line with Tehran. The Keystone XL, then, is a golden chance for Obama to shore up energy security as he simultaneously helps lower national unemployment. It should be a no-brainer.

But as usual when it comes to measures that would bolster our long-suffering economy, Obama and his cohorts never miss an opportunity. Beholden, bafflingly, to the relatively small environmentalist voting bloc and the lure of another term in office, Obama today effectively thumbed his nose at the majority of hardworking Americans as they struggle to make ends meet in the economic climate he vowed to improve.

But the problem of the administration’s Keystone XL rejection goes deeper, even, than employment: If we don’t move on the pipeline project, someone else will, and likely already is. Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper said publicly on Wednesday that Canada will now seek to "diversify" its portfolio - more than likely in the form of sale of the crude to China, which Harper has said before Canada would do.

This is a promise we can be sure he means to keep; indeed, Transcanada President Russ Girling said cryptically today that “plans are already under way on a number of fronts to largely maintain the construction schedule of the project."

With an 8.5 percent unemployment rate, an economy struggling to gain traction and rising oil and gas prices, the Obama administration has chosen, once again, to pursue a destructive energy policy that discourages any actual energy production. Perhaps by “hope and change,” Obama meant “protracted, high unemployment and remaining beholden to unstable, despotic regimes in the Middle East.” Otherwise, he has failed Americans terribly in his decision on the Keystone XL project.

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Bob Beauprez is a former Republican Colorado congressman. He currently serves as editor-in-chief of “A Line of Sight” a policy resource covering issues that affect conservatives across the country and operates a working buffalo ranch in Colorado

U.S.A. Bridges and Roads Being Built by Chinese Firms

Shocking to say the least! This video is a jaw-dropper that will make you sick. (It was also shocking that ABC was actually reporting this story.)The lead-in with Obama promising jobs in the U.S. by improving our infrastructure is so typical of all his promises! Our tax dollars are at work - for CHINA!!!

I pray all the unemployed see this and cast their votes accordingly in 2012!

Click here: U.S. Bridges, Roads Being Built by Chinese Firms Video - ABC News

(Sorry, but there's a short commercial at the start.)

Life-Changing Tribute to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

An Article from morningbell@heritage.org, published January 16, 2012, written by Robert L. Woodson, Sr.

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The greatest tribute to the legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr., is not to name a street in his honor or celebrate a national holiday. It is to recognize and support those who are working to carry out his vision, those who empower those facing the greatest obstacles through personal relationships that restore the fabric of civil society—without the need for federal government intervention.

As former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Jack Kemp once said, “We need an anti-poverty agenda based on democratic capitalism, not socialism and on private ownership, not government control. Our definition of compassion is not how many people live on the government welfare plantation, but how many of our people are liberated from government dependence.”

Among those ranks of individuals who are carrying out Dr. King’s vision are three young men—Curtis Monroe, Michael Toland, and Roger Marshall—who give their time, talents, and earnings from their day jobs serving as coaches and mentors of at-risk youths in the Benning Terrace public housing development in Washington, D.C.

The investment by this trio of volunteers is, in fact, an act of longstanding gratitude and reciprocity. Two of them grew up in Benning Terrace, and their childhood and adolescence was spent in a war-torn environment in which a familiar face would vanish from the neighborhood nearly every other month as the victim of gang violence.

Fifteen years ago, the lives of Monroe and Toland were salvaged and their futures reclaimed when a cadre of friends who called themselves the Alliance of Concerned Men felt called to intervene after the violence reached a shocking climax: The body of a 12-year-old boy who had been shot execution-style was discovered in a frozen ravine.

The members of the Alliance had at one time been involved with crime, drugs, and violence, but each life had been transformed. Because they were familiar with the day-to-day dangers of life in the inner city and were well-versed in the gang subculture, they readily won the youths’ attention and respect. Through meetings at the Center for Neighborhood Enterprise, they developed a plan of action. They shared information with grassroots counterparts who had successfully worked with gang members in other parts of the country. They also connected with David Gilmore, the D.C. housing director at the time, who saw the potential of the intervention and offered to provide jobs for youths who would lay down their weapons.

Warring gang members seized the opportunity to exit the cycle of violence and willingly took on jobs ranging from graffiti removal to landscaping and building repairs. The neighborhood was transformed from a wasteland into a thriving community. There was not a single gang-related death for the next 10 years.

Today, Monroe, Toland, and Marshall, who experienced that transformation firsthand, are investing in a third generation of Benning Terrace kids. Their coaching goes far beyond how to pass a football or block a defender, as they serve as moral mentors and confidantes. Their investment is critical for the futures of each of the youths they work with.

These volunteers also hold weekly group counseling sessions. At a recent gathering, seven of eight participants reported that their fathers were in jail. Statistics show that adolescents who do not live in intact families are more likely to engage in crime and delinquent activity and risky behavior and are less likely to succeed in school. But Monroe, Toland, and Marshall have refused to relegate the young people of Benning Terrace to the ranks of a “lost generation.” They are available on a 24/7 basis for kids who are in need, and they serve as surrogate big brothers and dads, taking them out for pizza after their football games and going to their schools to consult with their teachers.

These men are rebuilding civil society, demonstrating the concern and care for individuals at a personal level that is most effective in transforming behavior and meeting people’s needs.

They exhibit the power of presence—a sharp contrast to the impersonal efforts of government programs or over-reliance on curfews and cameras. Part of a nationwide network, these dedicated community leaders are proving that it is possible to counter the odds of poverty and disadvantage. Instead of surrendering young people to another cycle of generational poverty and accompanying government dependency, these community healers are demonstrating a realistic neighborhood-based alternative to government intervention. Policymakers should take note of the innovation and success of grassroots efforts like Benning Terrace in addressing the social breakdown that so often causes poverty, crime, and community devastation.

Their investment is truly a powerful, living, and longlasting tribute to the vision and sacrifice of Dr. King.

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Robert L. Woodson, Sr., is the founder and president of the Center for Neighborhood Enterprise located in Washington, D.C. The Heritage Foundation works closely with Mr. Woodson and the center on conservative anti-poverty strategy.

Obama Plays La Raza Card In Key Appointment

Originally published on 01/11/2012 06:09 PM ET by Investors Business Daily, www.investors.com


Campaign 2012: By choosing to head his policy council with an open-borders advocate and former leader of the Hispanic activist group favoring amnesty, the president has signaled a divide-and-conquer re-election campaign .

In another move aimed at aiding his re-election, President Obama on Tuesday announced that Cecilia Munoz, a former senior vice president of the National Council of La Raza (NCLR), would replace Melody Barnes as head of his Domestic Policy Council.

Hispanics are a key part of the coalition Obama and a key part of his re-election strategy will no doubt be to portray Republicans and others who advocate border security and stronger immigration enforcement as racists. Munoz's appointment is a part of that strategy.

It's a strategy that includes suing states like Arizona over laws that in fact mirror federal law but which the feds refuse to enforce. Also part of the strategy is the Justice Department's targeting of Maricopa County, Ariz., Sheriff Joe Arpaio, accusing him of violating federal law and the Constitution in his department's handling of Hispanics.

Coming soon after the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear the case of Arizona's immigration and border enforcement law, SB1070, it smacked of retaliation.

The NCLR, whose name translates as "the race," is a tax-exempt nonprofit that describes itself as "the largest national Hispanic civil rights and advocacy organization in the United States." It most recently led in vocal opposition against Arizona SB 1070, a law attacked by Attorney General Eric Holder as a discriminatory incarnation of profiling that usurped federal authority over immigration policy.

When then-candidate Obama spoke to the NCLR national convention in 2008, he told the group what it wanted to hear — that Latino "communities are terrorized by ICE immigration raids." He also condemned those "communities taking immigration enforcement into their own hands," such as those that have passed state laws or local ordinances to check that those who are here are in fact here legally.

At this year's La Raza convention, Obama touted the federal Dream (Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors) Act, a thinly disguised amnesty program that is part of "comprehensive immigration reform" designed to pit those who have successfully eluded the border patrol on a path to citizenship.

Subscribe to the IBD Editorials Podcast Munoz has been serving since January 2009 as director of the Office of Intergovernmental Affairs at the time of that appointment. She was La Raza's vice president for research, advocacy and legislation.

Since her entering the Obama administration, according to the watchdog group Judicial Watch, federal funding for La Raza has increased dramatically. In fiscal 2008, NCLR received $2.8 million in federal grants, and in fiscal 2009 it got $4.1 million. In 2010, the total rocketed to more than $11 million.

In Orwellian fashion, defenders of La Raza deny it means "the race," saying a better translation would be "the people." Then why not use "la comunidad" or "gente" when speaking about the Latino people and community? Because La Raza wants to be called La Raza, and they know exactly what it means to them.

La Raza has ties it refuses to condemn with groups such as MECHa, which has spent the last three decades indoctrinating Latino students on American campuses, claiming that California, Arizona, Mexico, Texas and southern Colorado were stolen and should be returned to their rightful owners, the people of Mexico.

MECHa's slogan is derived from the rhetoric of Cuban dictator Fidel Castro: "Through the race, everything; outside the race, nothing."

The historic election of the first African-American president was hailed as the beginning of a post-racial era in America and American politics. Yet race and ethnicity were recently said by Attorney General Eric Holder to be the prime motive behind criticism of his and the president's actions and policies.

Unfortunately, race is shaping up as a key part of the president's re-election campaign.

Obama Trashes the Constitution Again

Obama's Tyrannical Abuse of Power

Standing behind a podium on a stage just outside Cleveland, President Barack Obama delivered a speech yesterday that will reverberate throughout history. No, its lasting impact will not come because of its soaring rhetoric. Instead, it will make its mark because it was at that moment on a Wednesday afternoon in Ohio that the President announced his plans to act in total and utter disregard of the U.S. Constitution with his illegal appointment of Richard Cordray to serve as director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB).

It's an astonishingly reckless exercise of executive authority that Heritage's Todd Gaziano described as a "tyrannical abuse of power." Never before in the 100-plus years of precedent on the recess appointment power has a President taken such an action while the Senate was still in session. Yet notwithstanding that fact, President Obama yesterday decided that he would be the first.

Here's why the President finds himself so far outside of constitutional bounds. Under Article II, section 2, clause 2 of the Constitution, the President has the power to fill vacancies that may happen during Senate recesses, as Gaziano writes. In this case, President Obama was seeking to fill the vacancy in the CFPB, a new agency that has come under significant criticism given its unparalleled powers to issue expansive regulations with virtually no accountability. Republicans in the Senate, to date, have refused to confirm the President's nominees to head up the CFPB, vowing to block Senate approval until reforms are made to the agency. So President Obama has decided to act without their approval by attempting to make a recess appointment. The trouble is that Congress is not in a recess because the House of Representatives never consented, as required under the Constitution, Article I, section 5. That means that the President simply does not have the power to make this appointment. Gaziano explains the implications of the President's actions:

[The recess appointment] power has been interpreted by scores of attorneys general and their designees in the Department of Justice Office of Legal Counsel for over 100 years to require an official, legal Senate recess of at least 10-25 days of duration. (There are a few outlier opinions, never sanctioned by the courts, that suggest a recess of six to seven days might be enough--but never less than that.)

The President's purported recess appointment of Cordray would render the Senate's advice and consent role to normal appointments almost meaningless. It is a grave constitutional wrong that Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has already denounced. But it fits a pattern of extra-constitutional abuse by the White House that seems more interested in energizing a liberal base than safeguarding the office of the presidency.

Why take such action? The President says it's because he can't wait for Congress to act on behalf of the American people. The truth is that the President is hell bent on ramming through his agenda, and he is entirely unwilling to compromise with the duly elected representatives who sit in the House and Senate. By circumventing the Senate and appointing Cordray, the President can ensure that his big-government regulatory agenda is enacted without the reforms that Congress is demanding. Unfortunately, the Cordray appointment is not the only example of the President's wanton, unilateral actions.

Apart from Cordray, the President also plans to make three appointments to the National Labor Relations Board without Senate approval, which will fundamentally alter the makeup of the board and enable the President to realize his Big Labor agenda. That means an unrestrained push to unionize businesses at all costs and punish companies that seek to grow in non-union states (as was attempted in the Boeing case) -- even if it means harming both workers and the economy. And in the case of environmental regulations, immigration law, No Child Left Behind, the auto bailout, the selective enforcement of voting rights laws, and the regulation of the Internet (among others), the Obama Administration has in fact enacted its agenda via legislative fiat time and time again.

In an interview last month with 60 Minutes, the President gave warning of his intentions to preside over an imperial presidency for the next year. "What I'm not gonna do is wait for Congress," he said. "So wherever we have an opportunity and I have the executive authority to go ahead and get some things done, we're just gonna go ahead and do 'em." The President now, though, seems to have made a significant course correction. With these latest illegal, unconstitutional appointments, the President has jumped at an opportunity to act regardless of the fact that he has no executive authority to do it. And under his feet is a trampled Constitution and 100 years of precedent for which he has no use. It's time for Congress and the American people to take a stand against President Obama's abuse of power.

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Originally published by morningbell@heritage.org on January 5, 2012

Department of Justice Orders South Carolina To Stop Requiring Proof Of Residency To Vote

By Robert Knight

The most consequential election in our lifetime is still 11 months away, but it’s clear from the Obama administration’s order halting South Carolina’s new photo ID law that the Democrats have already brought a gun to the knife fight.

How else to describe this naked assault on the right of a state to create minimal requirements to curb voter fraud?

On Dec. 23, Assistant Attorney General Thomas E. Perez sent a letter ordering South Carolina to stop enforcing its photo ID law. Perez, who heads the Civil Rights division that booted charges against the New Black Panther Party for intimidating voters in Philadelphia in 2008, alleged that South Carolina’s law would disenfranchise thousands of minority voters.

South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson rejected Perez’s math and explained on Fox News why the law is necessary. The state Department of Motor Vehicles audited a state Election Commission report that said 239,333 people were registered to vote but had no photo ID. The DMV found that 37,000 were deceased, more than 90,000 had moved to other states, and others had names not matched to IDs. That left only 27,000 people registered without a photo ID but who could vote by signing an affidavit as to their identity.

Wilson told me by phone on Thursday that he would file a challenge to the order in federal district court in January. Asked whether he felt South Carolina was being singled out, he declined to speculate on motives. However, citing the National Labor Relations Board’s orders to invalidate the voter-approved union card check amendment and to stop a new Boeing plant, and the Justice Department’s suit to halt the immigration law, he said, “there certainly is a pattern of the federal government overreaching into South Carolina.”

Leading Democrats loudly equate recently enacted photo ID legislation as updated versions of Jim Crow laws that once robbed people of their constitutional right to vote simply because of their race. But photo ID laws and other voter integrity measures cover everyone. Like other states, South Carolina provides photo IDs if a person cannot afford one.

The U.S. Constitution empowers the states to enact voting procedures with minimal input from the national government, such as setting the voting age and election days for federal offices. The Fifteenth and Nineteenth amendments ensure that no one is denied the right to vote based on race or sex.

In 1965, Congress passed the Voting Rights Act, which authorizes the U.S. Attorney General or a three-judge panel of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to review changes to voting procedures or redistricting in nine states (Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, Texas and Virginia), some counties in California, Florida, New York, North Carolina and South Dakota, and some townships in Michigan and New Hampshire.

Congress did so to counter clearly established patterns of voter intimidation of blacks. Now, the Justice Department, which, under Attorney General Eric H. Holder, Jr. could be renamed the Retribution Department, looks the other way depending on the race of the parties involved.

In 2008, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld Indiana’s 2005 photo ID law, which the Democratic Party and several interest groups had challenged as a “severe burden.”

But, as American Civil Rights Union attorney Peter Ferrara noted in the ACRU’s friend of the court brief:
“No one has been denied the right to vote by the Indiana Voter ID Law. The record clearly establishes without challenge that 99% of the Voting Age Population in Indiana already has the required ID, in the form of driver’s licenses, passports, or other identification. Of the remaining 1%, senior citizens and the disabled are automatically eligible to vote by absentee ballot, and such absentee voting is exempt from the Voter ID Law.”

Does that sound “severe” to you? As Ferrara notes, “the slight burden of additional paperwork for a fraction of 1%, to show who they are and thereby prove their eligibility to vote, cannot come close to outweighing the interests of all legitimate legal voters in maintaining their effective vote.”

In 2005, a bipartisan Commission on Federal Election Reform chaired by former President Jimmy Carter and former U.S. Secretary of State James Baker III found no evidence that requiring photo IDs would suppress the minority vote. The panel recommended a national photo ID system and a campaign to register voters.

In a 2008 column, Mssrs. Carter and Baker cited a study by American University's Center for Democracy and Election Management that echoed the election commission. Among other things, researchers found that in three states— Indiana, Mississippi and Maryland — about 1.2 percent of registered voters had no photo ID.

The Obama Administration is playing the same race card that Democrats have played for decades. But this is not about race; it’s about whether legitimately cast votes will be wiped out by illegally cast votes.

In Chicago, a federal investigation of the 1982 gubernatorial election estimated that at least 100,000 illegal votes had been cast and that voter fraud had been routine for many years. In 1960, Mayor Richard J. Daley’s Chicago Democrat machine almost certainly sealed John F. Kennedy’s presidential election by delaying reporting by Democratically-controlled precincts and counting them for Kennedy.

Republican Richard Nixon had a compelling case for a challenge, but chose not to do so. The media would have crucified him as a sore loser without seriously investigating fraud allegations.

Conversely, in 2000, when Democrat Al Gore challenged George W. Bush’s razor-thin victory in Florida, the media flogged Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris because she refused to overlook “hanging chads” and other questionable vote-counting.

Since the GOP took a majority of governorships and legislatures in 2010 and continued enacting voting safeguards, you can feel the panic in Democratic strongholds.

The stakes are enormous, and the Obama Administration is quite aware of the danger posed by an aroused electorate on a level playing field.

With the economy in a ditch, their only hope of stemming the conservative tide might be to rig the returns, especially where political machines still prevail.

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Robert Knight, author of the preceeding article, published January 4, 2012, on Townhall.com is an author, senior fellow for the American Civil Rights Union and a frequent contributor to Townhall.