Via Orb:¹

08/19/2008 22:00 PACIFIC

SEATTLE, WA - ORBUSMAX EXCLUSIVE

***** DID OBAMA SUPPORTER BREAK SCHOOL POLICY AND/OR ELECTION LAW ON MONDAY AND PRIMARY ELECTION TUESDAY (8/18-8/19)? *****

The Seattle Public school system may be finding itself in more hot water, following dustups over last fall’s “Myth Of Thanksgiving”, and last summer’s “Exploring White Privilege”. A reliable source has told ORBUSMAX that at least one Obama supporter was caught openly selling Obama for President t-shirts, “on Seattle Public School premises during an official School District Training” for teachers, yesterday and today, at the Aki Kurose Middle school.

The source says they overheard the Obama supporter being told by an attendee of the training on Monday that the table display was inappropriate and may be in violation of school policy, but nonetheless the Obama supporter returned on Tuesday and once again set up the display with the t-shirts for sale. It appears school officials made no attempt to stop or remove the display either day.

(#1 - See SEATTLE PUBLIC SCHOOLS - LEVY OR ELECTION INFORMATION DISTRIBUTION, #4, at http://www.seattleschools.org/area/policies/e/E22.00.pdf - “Students, teachers, and administrators may not use school facilities to make or display election propaganda”. “Signs, memoranda, or the like, stating the reasons why voters should cast their votes for or against a particular ballot issue or candidate cannot be made at school, cannot be made with school materials, and cannot be displayed at school.” )

(#2 – See Seattle Public Schools Policy E02.01 on “COMMERCIAL ACTIVITIES”, at http://www.seattleschools.org/area/policies/e/E02.01.pdf: Certain Corporate Support or Activity Prohibited. No corporate support or activity will be permitted in the District or in the schools that: … f. Promotes or opposes any political candidate or ballot proposition )

ELECTION LAW VIOLATION?

Aki Kurose also served as an official polling place for the Washington State primary held Tuesday. The source went on to say “although the Obama display was not next to the main polling place entrance, there were undoubtedly some voters who walked by the Obama display on their way to the polls today”.

I blogged about this this morning, but the real scope of the ruling is just now being fleshed out, and a few things have occurred to me.

First of all, as I said earlier, this is a complete victory for common sense.  It just makes simple sense that if voting is the precious right and responsibility we think it is, it should be protected and cherished, and one facet of that is to ensure that only those eligible are allowed to vote, lest the franchise be corrupted by people who are not.

Some say that is exclusionary, but the fact is that voter criteria exists to protect the validity of the votes of all.   Protecting it by what seems to be the simplest method, checking ID, is a complete no brainer.

And yet there are the critics who decry this as unfair, as disenfranchising people, and targeted to eliminate minorities, also know as the race card.

Hog wash. 

They claim fraud is a myth, and that there is no compelling reason to protect against it.  Sure.  There is also no compelling reason your care will be stolen, so feel free to leave the keys in.

Locks and laws serve the same purpose:  To protect against criminals.  Voter fraud laws close the door on the easy loopholes and make it less likely. And in doing so they once again show how valuable the right to vote is, such that we want to be sure “you” are really “you” before you cast your vote.

The requirements are not a burden.  Since when is it odd to expect people to be able to prove their identity?

The ACLU opposes such laws which frankly puzzles me, though I admit it is hardly a shock.  They often take a contrary position to civil rights and common sense.

Note to the ACLU:  Committing a crime is not a right.  Look it up.

Told ya so.  Now, watch as the world comes unglued and the liberals implode that actual accountability is a part of voting.

 Via AP:

WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court ruled Monday that states can require voters to produce photo identification without violating their constitutional rights, validating Republican-inspired voter ID laws.

In a splintered 6-3 ruling, the court upheld Indiana’s strict photo ID requirement, which Democrats and civil rights groups said would deter poor, older and minority voters from casting ballots. Its backers said it was needed to prevent fraud.

It was the most important voting rights case since the Bush v. Gore dispute that sealed the 2000 election for George W. Bush. But the voter ID ruling lacked the conservative-liberal split that marked the 2000 case.

The law “is amply justified by the valid interest in protecting ‘the integrity and reliability of the electoral process,’” Justice John Paul Stevens said in an opinion that was joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and Anthony Kennedy. Stevens was a dissenter in Bush v. Gore in 2000.

Justices Samuel Alito, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas also agreed with the outcome, but wrote separately.

Justices Stephen Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and David Souter dissented, just as they did in 2000.

More than 20 states require some form of identification at the polls. Courts have upheld voter ID laws in Arizona, Georgia and Michigan, but struck down Missouri’s. Monday’s decision comes a week before Indiana’s presidential primary.

The decision also could spur efforts to pass similar laws in other states.

About freakin time.

Sister Toldjah notes:

The opinions can be read here. As expected, the usual corners are crying foul, believing “harassment” and “disenfranchisement” are just around the corner for poor and elderly Dem voters. How dare voters have to show proof of identity, even when they’re no longer with us!

Michelle Malkin remembers:

You may recall that the woman who challenged the voter ID law in Indiana was, um, fraudulently registered to vote in two states.

I blogged this back in 2005 (reposted below) as it was happening, and now 2 years later the end is drawing near, but even as it is, nothing is settled, and the closure seems impossible.  How can you move on from something so horrific?

Joseph Duncan, the guy who commiitted this indescribly horrible crime pled guilty in state court previously, and has now pled guilty in Federal court.

Duncan pleads guilty to all counts (emphasis mine)

 Joseph Duncan this morning pleaded guilty to all 10 counts in the federal indictiment against him for kidnapping and molesting two North Idaho children and killing one in 2005.

“I just wanted to say that since my arrest I have never attempted to deny responsibility,” Duncan told the court.

The convicted killer faces a possible death sentence for kidnapping Dylan and Shasta Groene in 2005 and for killing Dylan at a remote Montana camp site.

 Possible?  Good God, if ever there was a poster child for the death penalty, this is it.

The prosecution and defense had agreed on a “recitation” of the facts in the case, which federal prosecutor Traci Whelan read, along with the charges, in a courtroom that was chilled into silence despite being nearly full. The recitation included a lengthy description of Duncan’s actions, starting from April 2005 when he purchased video recording equipment and stole a car and a gun, all of which he then used in the crimes against members of the Groene family in North Idaho.

The recitation also graphically identified the nature of Duncan’s sexual abuse of the two children, and detailed how he videotaped his abuse of Dylan and then shot him to death. It also included the fact that after young Shasta, the sole survivor of the attack on her family, was rescued from Duncan at a Denney’s restaurant in Coeur d’Alene, lab testing identified Duncan as her abuser.

Today was a bittersweet day.  Before work, I went down to the Issaquah Police Station today.  No, I didn’t post bail. 

I voted.  What made it bittersweet to me, is that I voted for what is likely the last time.

No, my commitment to civic responsibility is still intact, so it is not that.  King County, where I live, is moving with most of my state to an all mail in ballot system.

And I hate it.

My opposition to mail in ballots is not absolute, for some people it is a necessary process.  They have situations that demand an absentee process.  But I think for the average person, the ‘burden’ of driving to a local polling station, signing your name and taking you ballot to a semi private voting table to fill in the ovals, or connect the arrows or whatever, is not such a huge burden.

The people at the polling stations are friendly and utterly committed to the democratic process.  In Issaquah, I have yet to see a non smiling face.  The attitude is almost festive and the appreciation you feel for being there and being part of the process is very warming.

But the majority of people polled want to vote by mail and as in all things, the majority rules.  To me the mail in ballots are just not the same.  You fill it out, sign it, lick a stamp and away it goes.

So what if you fill out your ballot a week before the election, and mail it off.  You are committed to the choices you made.  Then the night before the election, the guy you voted for is arrested for DUI.  Can you change you mind?  No.  That louse still gets your vote.  When you hit the polls on election day morning, you have the latest info at your disposal.

Sure, you can mail it the day of the election, but that means the election results are delayed by weeks as they have to wait for the trickle in effect, and the signature verification process is frankly a nightmare.

Seems an incredible slap in the face, but its true.  8 of the 19 Hijackers had used phoney documents or loopholes in the state law to obtain drivers licenses, and under the Motor Voter act had also been allowed to register to vote.

Makes you feel real secure in our system, doesn’t it?  Because nowit is easier then ever before to do both.

Eight 9-11 Hijaacckers Were Registereed to Vote: Will MSM ‘Drive’ Story?

The fact has been out there for some time, but never garnered much media attention. Now, in the context of the current debate over the granting of driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants, will there be renewed focus on this chilling reality? Could this be the factoid that changes a presidential election? As John Fund wrote in his Wall Street Journal column today and discussed during his “Morning Joe” appearance:

After 9/11, the Justice Department found that eight of the 19 hijackers were registered to vote.

View video of Fund’s “Morning Joe” appearance here.

And what made it so simple for them to register? As Fund explains:

[T]he National Voter Registration Act, commonly known as “Motor Voter,” that President Bill Clinton signed into law in 1993. It required all states to offer voter registration to anyone getting a driver’s license. One simply fills out a form and checks a box stating he is a citizen; he is then registered and in most states does not have to show any ID to vote.

The Fund column contains other mind-boggling details of the extent to which Eliot Spitzer, the New York governor whose drivers license plan Hillary Clinton supports, wanted to go:

Despite a tactical retreat this week–he says he will only give illegal immigrants a license that isn’t valid for airplane travel and entering federal buildings–Mr. Spitzer has taken active steps to obliterate any distinctions between licenses given to citizens and non-citizens.

The County should thanks her for exposing the loopholes that make fraud in King County so easy to commit but instead they are punishing her.

Instead of dealing with the law’s obvious flaws, they will bully her with threats and intimidation.  This is senseless prosecution and retribution for poking the sleeping giant in the eye.  Period.

Woman registers her dog to vote; prosecutors growl

Jane Balogh had a pretty good idea who was calling when the phone rang and the caller asked for Duncan M. MacDonald.

Duncan is the dog Balogh registered as a voter seven months before the November 2006 election.

Duncan’s absentee-ballot envelope was signed with a picture of a paw print.

That is the only thing that gave it away, isn’t that ironic?  Had she scrawled a signature they would have accepted it.

“You can’t sign with a paw print,” the election worker told Balogh on Nov. 9.

“I said, ‘he can if he’s a dog,’ ” answered Balogh, a 66-year-old grandmother and Army veteran who lives in Federal Way.

The election worker told her a supervisor would call, but she never heard from anyone.

After making her point — how easy it is for a voter to register illegally — Balogh will be arraigned in King County Superior Court on Tuesday on a misdemeanor charge of making a false statement to a public official.

If she declines to plead guilty, prosecutors told her in a letter this week, they will file a felony charge of providing false information on a voter-registration application. She doesn’t plan to contest the misdemeanor: “I’m not going to claim to be innocent when I know I’m guilty.”

Bryan Suits had her on the radio tonight, and offered to pay her fine, but she refused.  She knew what she did in civil disobedience was against the law and is willing to pay the price.  But the prosecution against her serves no purpose, and eliminating the flaws that allowed her to do this is not even being considered.

The news seems grim, that the Bush Administration and the DOJ purged 8 US Attorney’s including the one from Seattle.

The foes, including Hillary, charge the firings are political.

Of course they are, the position is a political appointee, like the president’s Cabinet.

And Hillary should know that intimately:  Her husband and his AG Janet Reno fired 93 in one swoop.  But apparently that is vastly different.   Once again the Democrats leap on a non issue for partisan gain.

Hillary Clinton Calls for Gonzales’ Resignation

In an exclusive interview to air Wednesday morning, March 14, on “Good Morning America,” Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., the front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination, for the first time called for the resignation of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.

“The buck should stop somewhere,” Clinton told ABC News senior political correspondent Jake Tapper, “and the attorney general — who still seems to confuse his prior role as the president’s personal attorney with his duty to the system of justice and to the entire country — should resign.

“I’m deeply disturbed by what we have learned thus far,” Clinton said, “and I join those who are calling for a full and thorough investigation to try to get to the bottom of these very political decisions that interfere with prosecutorial responsibility by U.S. attorneys, and I think that the attorney general should resign.”

I checked and could not find any evidence of her asking for Janet Reno’s head on a platter.  She answered that criticism thus:

When Clinton’s husband took office in 1993, one of the first actions his attorney general took was to remove every U.S. attorney. Clinton was asked how this was different from the termination of eight U.S. attorneys last December.

“There is a great difference,” Clinton said. “When a new president comes in, a new president gets to clean house. It’s not done on a case-by-case basis where you didn’t do what some senator or member of Congress told you to do in terms of investigations into your opponents. It is ‘Let’s start afresh’ and every president has done that.”

I blogged yesterday about the ACLU and their opposition to election reform and integrity. I also noted that it seems the ACLU and the Liberal/Progressives and Democrats are seemingly in bed on this topic.

Well slide over and make room for the NY Times who are also apparently opposed to election reform.

Today in the NY Times Opinion section (free registration required)

(Comments in line, of course) 

Keep Away the Vote

One of the cornerstones of the Republican Party’s strategy for winning elections these days is voter suppression, intentionally putting up barriers between eligible voters and the ballot box. The House of Representatives took a shameful step in this direction yesterday, voting largely along party lines for onerous new voter ID requirements. Laws of this kind are unconstitutional, as an array of courts have already held, and profoundly undemocratic. The Senate should not go along with this cynical, un-American electoral strategy.

a)  The fact it was largely along party lines as opposed to completely shows that this is not a fully partisan issue, as they insinuate.

b)  None of the provisions act as "barriers" to eligible voters, they simple define who is eligible in a meaningful fashion.  Exactly why is that bad?  When the laws also clearly include provisions to make the ID available to anyone, I fail to see an issue.

And all of this ignores the fact that there has been significant voter fraud over the years, including double voting, dead voting and fraudulent registrations, all of which might be fixed if people would quit whining about this, and recognize that voting is as much a responsibility as it is a right. 

And nothing about any "constitutional right" auto-magically makes it exempt from responsibility and precaution.

The bill the House passed yesterday would require people to show photo ID to vote in 2008. Starting in 2010, that photo ID would have to be something like a passport, or an enhanced kind of driver’s license or non-driver’s identification, containing proof of citizenship. This is a level of identification that many Americans simply do not have.