The Kwame Tsunami
ArchPundit
Kwame Raoul gets mentioned in another speculative piece on Obama’s potential replacements
(yes, there are some real problems with Kwame getting the call given it would anger Jackson Jr.)
October 2008
What You Are Missing If You Aren’t Tweeting
Re Obama video-didn’t you expect to see Matt Saracen? The segments on families seemed like an FNL ep – the way it was shot, the music, etc.
David Axelrod: Freak
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XQWxgnFc1fk[/youtube]
Gotta watch to the end for the payoff.
Took Godless Money
Satire and Parody are Dying a thousand deaths each
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QuS342L22QI[/youtube]
The Alaskan Independence Party Writes Letters to Sarah Palin
Brings a few questions to mind…
October 28, 2008
Open Letter to Governor Palin:
We admire your ability to galvanize the conservative movement in America
with such conviction, clarity, and grace. Your message of small
government, social conservatism, and reform has endured the attacks of
your detractors, re-energized a presidential campaign and, God willing,
will soon bring you into the vice presidency.
You have taken a stand against corruption in Alaska, and your demand
that Senator Stevens, regrettably now a convicted felon, step down from
his position has shown you true to your convictions and that you can be
relied upon to reform government at the highest levels.
However, Governor, you have many supporters in Alaska that wonder who
you are supporting in the U.S. Senate election. Allow us to suggest a
solution.
Bob Bird is the AIP candidate for U.S. Senate. He is a hockey coach and
father of three who has introduced thousands of Alaska’s high school
students to the truth of our nation’s Constitution in more than 30 years
of service as a public educator in Alaska’s schools. He is an avid
sportsman, a devout Christian, and former President of Alaska Right to
Life. Bob was a lifelong Republican until faced with the same corruption
which you recognized and now casts a shadow over our great state. In
1996, he left the party and joined more than 14,000 other Alaskans,
including myself in the AIP—not a radical group as painted by an unjust
media, but Alaska’s most respected and established third party, a
socially and fiscally conservative party. You remember that in 1990
Wally Hickel, former U.S. Interior Secretary under Ronald Reagan, was
elected on the AIP ticket to the same gubernatorial position you now hold.
Senator Stevens’ betrayal of his constituents is unfortunate, but as a
conservative coalition we cannot let it result in the election of
another liberal democrat to Congress. Bob Bird _is_ a conservative, and
he will caucus with Republicans at a time America can’t afford to let
Harry Reid get a 60-person majority in the Senate. Bob will join your
movement to bring Constitutional conservatism, transparency, and simple
Alaskan common sense to Washington.
Please, when asked by the next “gotcha” reporter who thinks they can
stump you with a question about who you will support in the race for
U.S. Senate in Alaska, simply respond, “Bob Bird, a fellow conservative
and Washington outsider who I know will bring honor and integrity back
to that seat in the U.S. Senate.”
Good luck, God bless you, and may God bless the America people in this
most crucial of times.
Sincerely,
Lynette Clark, Chairman
Alaskan Independence Party
Not the Person I’d Pick to Attack Barney Frank
Matt Blunt addresses Frank’s recent comments on military spending.
Oh, There’s a Princess Registered in IL-10
The GOP is suing for…well, I’m not real sure:
The lawsuit seeks a court order directing the Lake County clerk’s office, which oversees elections, to create separate, special codes for all voter-registration forms gathered by a Chicago group called Citizen Action/Illinois and a worker named Terrance LeNoir. In court papers, the GOP and other plaintiffs blame the group and LeNoir for delivering “fraudulent, incomplete or illegitimate” voter applications to the clerk’s office.
Additionally, the complaint requests ballots cast by voters registered by Citizen Action or LeNoir to be considered provisional ballots that wouldn’t be counted until two weeks after Election Day.
“We need to restore confidence in the electoral process in Lake County and across the country,” Lake County GOP Chairman Dan Venturi said during a news conference at the party office in Libertyville.
Citizen Action/Illinois Executive Director Lynda DeLaforgue denied any wrongdoing and said the voters the group has registered in Lake County were handled “in accordance with the law.”
She said the group registered about 600 people in Lake County in 2008, far fewer than the roughly 5,000 applications GOP representatives said they’re seeking to segregate.
So let’s run through the scenarios where voter fraud could be occurring. The only cases where any of this matters is where individuals register by mail/registration drive and provide a unique identification number from a Social Security number or Driver’s Licence number. Those are the people who do not have to present either a photocopied identification with the registration or bring it to the polling place when they first vote.
So this one group who provided information in the form of a Driver’s License number or the last four of their Social Security number and those numbers match to the name with the SS number or the DL number are the relevant group that are at issue.
This means anyone who is voting illegally is either choosing to vote in Lake County over their true home and since this can be documented, opened themselves to prosecution or choosing to vote twice meaning they vote in their home address and in Lake County and there will be evidence of this after the election with which to prosecute them.
Of course, the GOP will argue this is some large group of people, but it’s a story that doesn’t pass the laugh test. We can barely get people to vote once, but under this theory people will vote in one location and then take the time to go vote again in Lake County from another County. Lake County made the point previously that they check registrations against others in the county so the potential of intra-county fraud in this case simply isn’t possible. So thousands of people are going to cross the Lake County border and vote even though they leave a trail back to a real person to prosecute should they vote in two places.
There’s a fairly simple answer to all of this that doesn’t involve any further effort on the voter trying to register. Using updated and current street files a GIS program can weed out potential problems in a matter of minutes. If someone were offering a limited solution to the worst potential of this problem, the entire argument would have more credibility. Then you simply mark those addresses as needing further confirmation or a provisional ballot.
The larger problem to the argument over wide spread voter fraud is that new voting technology–meaning the punch card systems and computerized voting lists–has made it too difficult to be cost effective. Stuffing ballot boxes was easy when simple paper ballots were used or the Republican alternative of short pencilling was cheap. You didn’t need lots of people to be transported, find polling spots and be registered multiple times and having some form of unique identifier whether it be mail or SS or DL numbers–you simply stuck ballots in the box. It’s far more cost effective to develop effective GOTV operations and find legal voters.
But that’s not nearly as interesting of a story. Even if it’s true.