Barack Obama's Church

In this morning's Chicago Sun Times there is a ridiculous article from Sun Times Editorial Board member Deborah Douglas that takes to task those who dare question the church attended by Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) and his family, the Trinity United Church of Christ. Ms. Douglas wrote, "(s)o when people stoop so low as to criticize and deconstruct Trinity United Church of Christ, Obama's South Side church, all that's left in their tired analysis on the cultural relevance and style of worship is a bunch of nothing." That strikes me as strange because the only criticism that I have noticed has taken the church and it's pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright to task using the words and actions of the church itself and the words of Rev. Wright himself. Thus rather than "deconstructing" anything the detractors who I have noticed have simply brought words to daylight.

The press around these parts have been in the bag for Obama since before the Chicago Tribune sued to obtain the sealed divorce records of his Republican opponent during the 2004 Senate race. So that type of poor commentary is to be expected but Ms. Douglas inadvertently points out the failings of local journalists, they told us that Barack Obama attended a "mainstream Christian church". They told us that the pastor who Barack Obama described as being "inspirational" was just another "mainstream Christian" pastor. I witnessed an interview with Rev. Wright on the Hannity and Colmes Show last winter and was shocked at the man, he struck me as a religious bully. Rev. Wright also stated that his and his church's religious practices were based on "Liberation Theology", he also said that his theology has been inspired by the Sandinista group from Nicaragua. Liberation Theology is a strange mixture of Christianity and Socialism, that is not what would be considered "mainstream Christian", at least not here in Chicago. Many blogs have also noted that just last year Obama's church magazine gave it's annual award to Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan. The blogs that I read noted that Sen. Obama had nothing to do with selecting the award recipient but it does call the Senator's judgement into question. His pastor has been a strong influence on Senator Obama, it is only fair that the American public get an unvarnished look at what that strong influence is.

Chicago Sun Times Editors - In Favor of Vote Fraud

The Chicago Sun Times editorial board came out four-square in favor of vote fraud this morning. In an editorial in this morning's Sun Times they have come up with the usual nonsense in order to continue the status quo in this corrupt city. The US Supreme Court is hearing a case involving an Indiana requirement to have some sort of ID to cast a ballot. John Fund in this morning's Wall Street Journal (subscription required) pointed out that the first test of this law was in the recent mayoral election in Indianapolis.

Indiana, like other states provides the indigent with free state IDs in place of a drivers license. Federal law also requires the use of provisional ballots and 32 of those ballots were used in that city election, the voter using a provisional ballot is required to certify his or her identification within 10 days, only 2 people chose to do so. Now there can be many reasons that those 30 people chose not to certify their ballots and one of them is fraud.

The Sun Times also stated that there has been no evidence of "widespread" poll fraud, I guess that it all depends on the meaning of the word "widespread". The whole thing would be funny if it weren't so serious; apparently the, ahem, journalists, are not familiar with ACORN and their recent involvement in vote fraud in Missouri with 35,000 possible fraudulent registrations nor are they familiar with the problems in Washington State. Maybe they even forgot that in 1996 Al Gore led a drive that illegally registered thousands of illegal aliens in California, many of whom later voted to elect Loretta Sanchez (D-Ca).

It is also very notable that Chicago civic lore has long basked in the glory of various stolen elections, most notably the 1960 Presidential ballot that elected John F. Kennedy. All of that bragging ended early Wednesday morning November 8, 2000. It would after all look pretty bad to be bragging about stealing elections here in Chicago while the mayor's brother was down in Florida attempting to steal an election. The examples of ballot fraud may not be legion because the crime is so tough to investigate, however Mr. Fund has numerous examples in his WSJ piece.

What the Democratic supporters of "free-for-all" balloting refuse to admit is that every time a fraudulent voter casts a ballot that ballot negates the ballot of a legitimate, legal voter. In fact for years local Democrats acted as if every time they stole a vote an angel in heaven rang a bell. We constantly hear from Democrats that Republicans are regularly attempting to disenfranchise minority voters; what the Democrats in this town and others have done is to disenfranchise legal voters, all of us.

Beyond the obvious problem of vote fraud the Sun Times is showing that they feel that they are above everybody else, not a very good thing for a newspaper that positions itself as being the paper for the regular working person. They have essentially labeled themselves as elite by demanding that people be allowed to vote multiple times under Lord knows how many alias' while refusing to allow anybody into the Sun Times own offices without showing a legal ID. Do as I say, not as I do.

The Backyard Conservative wrote on this issue while I was working and she points out that Barack Obama once worked for that bastion of vote fraud ACORN.

Paul-Bat Found in Chicago

The Chicago Sun Times has printed a Letter to the Editors (their crappy web site won't show the Letters section despite having a link to it on the home page) from a 22 year-old Ron Paul supporter from Wheaton, IL. named Ted Bodine. The "title" in the Letters section is "Censoring Ron Paul threatens democracy; How are young people today supposed to get excited about politics?" Mr. Bodine is miffed at Mr. Paul's lack of support from the press. Mr. Bodine watched the CNN coverage of the Republican debate in Manchester, NH and was shocked at the fact that Congressman Paul got such little face time and that he was not even discussed in the post-debate coverage. Mr. Bodine went on to write that he visited a CNN message board that was dominated by his fellow Paul-Bats who had also run up the Ron Paul score in an online poll. Mr. Bodine also wrote that the message board that had been overwhelmed by Paul-Bats was later taken down by CNN and he described such an action as "censorship".

First off, Mr. Bodine needs a better education, "censorship" generally involves the government not a private enterprise like CNN. I might add that I find it shocking to defend the likes of CNN but Mr. Bodine is simply wrong on this issue, CNN may not show the Ron Paul scrum but it's not as if those Paul-Bats do not have other public outlets for their craziness. Secondly, as any reader of Charles Johnson's fantastic blog Little Green Footballs knows, the Paul supporters have been overwhelming the thoroughly unscientific internet polls to give the impression that Mr. Paul has wide spread support. The actual (ahem) scientific polls consistently show Mr. Paul as the consummate also-ran with less than 1% support. The rigging of polls has included multiple hits from the same servers that only vote for Paul. It has gotten so bad that Johnson of Little Green Footballs has included Ron Paul as a choice in numerous polls including this one from last Monday that asked "Should the Bush administration lift sanctions against the terrorists of the Fatah party?" The choices are Yes, No, Undecided and Ron Paul. Mr. Paul is currently running second with 28% of the "vote".

The fact that the Sun Times printed this half-page of nonsense gives me the impression that the editors at the Sun Times are unaware of what and who surrounds the Paul candidacy or that they want undermine the actual Republican Party by making it falsely appear that this nut-case Ron Paul has wide support in the Party. Considering that the Sun Times is an average newspaper (with a great Sports section!) in this uber blue state city I would lean towards the later with a good strong dose of the former. The silly part of all of this is that Ron Paul is in the wrong party; the guy has made common cause with the 9/11 truther nuts who believe that Bush had something to with 9/11, a nutty idea that just happens to be a Democratic cause.

For More on the nutty Ron Paul and the crazy people who are supporting his candidacy see this list of Little Green Football entries on Mr. Paul.