Socialists, Racists and Fraud, Oh My!

Richard Epstein published an insightful Oped in Forbes today, addressing the cloudiness of Obama's true views on economic policy and how he would use the power of the Presidency. Epstein, who knows Obama through his neighborhood and law school, is a well-known libertarian (I've read other pieces by him while working and living in the Chicago area), and as such, is not too likely to be a fan of Obama. Nonetheless, his letter is spot-on. Obama is known for presenting a calm, accessible demeanor without revealing his left-ward leanings. I've written before that I think he associates with radicals because it brings him power, while speaking to his own preferences. If Obama is elected President with a super-majority in Congress, there will be no fetters on those preferences, and a willing Congress to support out-of-control spending, a welfare state, and muzzling of the right. I'm going to have to sharpen my teeth if that happens. Click on the title for the Epstein letter.

After calling his constituents racists last week, Congressman Murtha is now calling them rednecks. He apparently doesn't know that that's the native color of anyone who works hard, and is bitterly clinging to guns and religion waiting for the coming socialist state.

And we return to fraud - this time real voter fraud (not just registration fraud, which apparently, Democrats think is just dandy as long as people vote for Obama). Reports from OH (what a shocker), and multiple other states with early voting are showing, gasp, false registrants are fraudulently voting! Holy cow, who could have foreseen that one? County Prosecutor Joseph Deters (Cincinnati) has subpoenaed records from early voting, and found that a whopping 40% of early votes in his county were from fraudulent registrants, including those recently-discovered Ohio River mermaids (it's a pretty muddy river - I wouldn't want to live in it myself, but I guess some of the local inhabitants like the muck). He's recused himself from the investigation, and turned it over to a special prosecutor who is finding the same thing. Since OH's Sec-State, Jennifer Brunner, and Governor, Ted Strickland, see no problem (maybe they've got river mud in their eyes) other than pesky Republicans trying to strike fear into voters' hearts, there may be no way to get an accurate assessment of what's really happening until six months from now.

Spin Wars

The Christian Science Monitor published a little piece poo-pooing voter fraud today (click the title link to see the original). It occurred to me while reading it that one of the problems Republicans are facing in fighting for an election win (being vastly overspent), is our tendency to talk just 'amongst ourselves.' It's certainly comforting to speak with like-minded folk, and is one of the reasons I come back from phone-banking every week feeling charged up. But, self-congratulatory back-slapping won't help get John McCain elected President, and I very badly want him win this election. In fact, I've wanted him to be President ever since watching the way he handled the Keating five scandal with dignity, honesty, humility and leadership.

So, what should we do? Take the fight to them. We should all be reading opinion pieces and articles we don't agree with, and commenting on each and every one of them with well-written, well-reasoned arguments (poor grammar and irrationality don't help anyone's case). I've included the comment I've posted to the Christian Science Monitor article at the bottom of this blog posting. I noticed that their posting policy says the following:

"We do not publish all comments, and we do not publish comments immediately. The comments feature is a forum to discuss the ideas in our stories. Constructive debate - even pointed disagreement - is welcome, but personal attacks on other commenters are not, and will not be published."

Depending on how this policy is implemented, my comment may never show up on their website. I also couldn't help noticing that all of the comments so far were from Obama supporters calling Republicans racist and other friendly comments, so I think using 'idiot' shouldn't be too out of line (but all my friends and family could tell you that it's my favorite epitaph). Whatever the result of this election, I want to know that I did everything I possibly could to get John McCain elected. Don't you?

My comment:

Voter fraud, perhaps not (although there were reports today on ABC and CNN of some of the fraudulent registrants casting ballots in early voting in OH), but registration fraud is a felony and should be rigorously prosecuted. Members of ACORN have admitted to offering bribes, and registering the dead, pets, children and cartoon characters. While this may be limited to a small sector of their workforce, it's remarkable that so many of the demonstrable false registrations are occurring in 'battleground' states. Further, fraudulent registration detracts from ACORN's stated mission of ensuring registration of people who typically don't participate in the election process. If registrations are taken up by fraudulent filings, how does that assist anyone who truly needs and wants to register? The sentence, "In Indiana, Lake County officials stopped processing about 5,000 applications after the first 2,100 looked bogus," says it all. They found NO legitimate applications among the first 1/3 they examined, indicating that the majority of filings were likely to be fraudulent. And by the way, messdeupfacemccain, plumbers are not required to be licensed when working as sub-contractors, which was 'Joe's' job, and McCain's face is 'messed up' because he spent much of his life defending your right to be a flaming idiot.

Obama Defends ACORN

The Obama campaign is no longer just acknowledging that ACORN is under investigation, and 'apparently' engaged in filing illegal registrations (for which some of its members bribed the registrants). Now, the Obama campaign is calling for a special prosecutor, the AG no longer being good enough for these complaints, alleging partisan politics, false accusations of voter fraud, and the specter of fired state attorneys. Hmmm, seems to me when the same individual can register multiple times, when the dead are registered, and when ACORN is under investigation for false filings in nine states, that we can fairly claim fraud has occurred. Except for those states where early voting has already occurred, voter fraud can't be alleged yet, but fraud there was. When registrants report bribery and coercion to register in a certain direction (or at all), that's fraud folks. To quote the estimable Sen. Biden, "if it walks like a duck ... it is a duck."

Freep.com reports that:

'Bauer said there appears to be an “unholy alliance” between law enforcement officials and Republican officials, including presidential nominee John McCain’s campaign. In his letter, Bauer said in a footnote that several of the nominee’s supporters in Congress have written to the Justice Department “pressuring them to investigate ACORN.”'

Well, yes, they probably have written to the Justice Dept., and I'm sure they have their own partisan leanings, but since we have wide-spread allegation of fraudulent registrations in multiple states (all of which are conveniently must-have states) demanding an investigation is the Congress' job.

'Obama does have ties to the group, though he has repeatedly said they are straightforward. He was one of a group of lawyers – including Justice Department representatives – who represented ACORN, the League of Women Voters and other groups in a voter registration case against the state of Illinois in the 1990s, and he also sat on a foundation board which gave money to the community organizing group. Obama – a former community organizer – also attended training sessions for the group in the past but never worked for it.'

Hey, Sen. Obama, why not take a stand for shedding light on the situation rather than trying to suppress information. Oh, that's right, suppression is only something Republicans do, right?

Click the title for a link to the full story, and let me know what you think.

And the winner is ... fraud

The Supreme Court has ruled that Ms. Brunner, the OH Sec. State, need not turn over discrepancy information in voter roles to local officials for action on their part. The court apparently was relying on precedence in the application of HAVA that does not permit private parties to have access to voter information. That's well and good - I certainly don't want the Democratic Party have access to my voter registration info. But ... Ms. Brunner has said she has no way of knowing which registrants are fraudulent and which are not, and that she has no intention of sorting through that information. So how is HAVA to be fairly applied? If the local officials have no way of comparing discrepancies in voter roles, and picture IDs can't be used, how are they to know how many times one individual has voted much less who is a valid registered voter? Maybe the county officials should engage in a major suit against the Sec. State since the GOP has been turned down. Click the title to link to the NY Times article on the decision, and on this article, and let me know what you think.