Check out this editorial cartoon. There is always some truth in good humor!

The election of 2008 promises to be an all-out battle throughout the country for the soul of America. Will we continue to be a nation of individuals who pride themselves on personal responsibility? Or will we keep sliding deeper into increasing government entitlement programs (and meddling) on the path to socialism?

The answer will largely be determined by the outcomes of the 435 hard-fought Congressional races throughout the United States. And in many of those races, the margin of victory or loss on average may be less than three percent. Which is to say that illegal aliens may decide the future of our democracy.

Our voting processes are deeply flawed. For quite some time the problem of voter fraud has been discussed, but tolerated. The website Illegal Aliens US comments:

Those ‘undocumented’ are actually ‘highly documented’ with fraudulent documents our government readily accepts.

Because of virtually no vote fraud enforcement, motor voter registration, driver’s licenses for illegal aliens, amnesties and other factors, American’s most precious liberty, voting, is being rapidly undermined by illegal aliens.

The Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) reports:

In 1996, Congress enacted the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act, making it a federal crime for non-citizens to vote in any federal election (or state election, unless authorized by state law). As a penalty, ineligible non-citizens who knowingly vote may be deported. Additionally, a non-citizen who falsely claims to be a United States citizen is in violation of this law.

However, there are many documented reports of non-citizen voting, and there is no evidence of prosecution of the aliens for their action. With nearly 19 million foreign-born residents who are not U.S. citizens in the country in the 2000 Census and an estimated 9-11 million illegal residents (many of them not also counted in the Census), the potential is enormous for non-citizens to affect the outcome of elections.

Accuracy in Media adds:

A recent study released by the conservative think-tank the Heritage Foundation provides proof that illegal aliens and immigrants with green cards are committing rampant voter fraud in the United States.

Just last week, Libertarian Republican posted about a specific case in San Antonio:

300 busted in San Antonio — Illegal Immigrants have been voting in US Elections for decades. California most especially has been plagued by hundreds of thousands of illegals voting in elections. Republicans have alledged for years that Democrats have undertaken massive voter registration drives of Illegals in heavily Mexican neighborhoods around Los Angeles, Orange County, San Diego County and other Border regions. Even Mid-Western States such as Ohio and Missouri have also seen problems with Illegal Immigrant voting. Now, Texas has been hit….

Specific Components of the Problem

 1)  By all estimates, the 1993 federal Motor Voter law is the biggest concern. It mandates that states allow people to register to vote when they get a driver’s license. And 47 states don’t require any proof of U.S. residence for enrollment.

 2)  For states that require some form of identification at the polling place, driver’s licenses are always accepted. And up to the present time, those can easily be finessed, obtained through bribery or forged. You will recall that seven of the 9-11 hijackers used fake driver’s licenses to board the planes. One of the terrorists used a bypass code to get a California license without a social security number.

Nawaf Alhazmi …. used a loophole, since closed, in California law that allowed hundreds of thousands of foreign drivers without Social Security numbers to use a generic number in its place…. Although the process changed a year ago, some of the drivers still have their original licenses… …a 1994 court decision required the state to also give driver’s licenses to qualified applicants, such as foreign students, who had no Social Security number…. 184,000 such licenses were issued between 12/2000 and 2/2002.

Security technologist Bruce Schneier reminds us:

Three of the 9/11 terrorists had valid Virginia driver’s licenses in fake names, after bribing a DMV clerk.

For those who can’t finesse the system or bribe a state employee, there is always forgery. And it is rampant. Just this week, reports US Border Control, a California man was charged with running a fake ID factory in a rented room:

Police have arrested Luis Alberto Montana, 44, and charged him with renting a room in a Watsonville, California home and running a document factory there, producing a variety of ID cards…. Evidence seized included sheets of blank social security cards, immigration cards, driver’s licenses, W-2 forms as well as completed cards, including driver’s licenses from California, Arizona, Oregon and California license plate stickers, Matriculas and resident alien cards, according to police.

So much for authentic identification.

 3)  Many jurisdictions allow people to vote based on property deeds, rent receipts or utility bills. That may be a fair indication that those folk live in the voting district, but says nothing about their eligibility to vote! The Northwest Indiana Times lists some of the documents that will work:

…the state-required residency documents, such as a child support check, current utility bill, property deed….

And, as we observed in an earlier article, lots of illegals own property. Many more have rent receipts. The only cases where such papers might be scarce are those (quite numerous) where several families share a rented apartment.

 4)  In a Wall Street Journal article, John Fund notes:

The Justice Department has often blocked states from weeding out people who have died or changed addresses. That’s important because in most states you don’t have to show photo identification to vote, making it quite easy for someone to vote in someone else’s name.

Even when big government does not interfere, precincts are notoriously lax in updating their rolls.

 5)  The manipulation of absentee ballots is another source of voter fraud. In 2005, the Detroit News cited:

The national average for voting by absentee ballots is 14 percent, according to the United States Election Assistance Commission…

On a nationwide scale, that’s a lot of room to move! Twenty-six states permit any registered voter to vote by absentee ballot. In these states voters are not even required to state a reason for voting by absentee ballot. It’s “convenience voting.” Oregon has taken it to the limit. Oregon conducts all elections solely by mail ballot, and has eliminated the expense and manpower requirements of maintaining polling places.

From My San Antonio News comes this gem:

Four Duval County residents have been indicted by a Brooks County grand jury and charged with illegally handling ballot applications and mail-in ballots that belonged to other voters … according to the state attorney general’s office.

The charge of possessing and handling the ballot of another person is a … violation of the Texas Election Code. The four San Diego residents indicted Thursday were Lydia Molina, 70; Maria “Kena” Soriano, 71; Elva Lazo, 62; and Maria Trigo, 55….

Check out those last names. What border do you think they came across?

 6)  Nursing homes are another prime source of legitimate voter names that can be manipulated. And from what population of day laborers might all those low-paying service jobs in the nursing homes be filled? The attendants, janitorial staff, groundskeepers?

In Alabama, the Montgomery Advertiser discloses:

Sadly, the use of absentee ballots to commit voting fraud has been well documented in Alabama in past elections. While many people used absentee ballots legitimately, past court cases have disclosed numerous instances where the outcomes of elections have been skewed by people who manipulate absentee ballots in one way or another…. Residents of nursing homes have legitimately filed for absentee ballots only to find that someone else had already filed in their name….

And the state of Florida, as a retirement destination, has a disproportionate senior population. Nursing home fraud is pervasive:

In 1998, the mayoral election in Miami was thrown out after it was learned “vote brokers” had signed hundreds of phony absentee ballots…. “In this area there’s a pattern of nursing-home administrators frequently forging ballots under residents’ names,” says Sean Cavanagh, a Democratic county supervisor who uncovered the scandal. He believes law enforcement turns a blind eye to voter fraud in many other places….

 7)  State-wide voting, rather than precinct voting, increases the chance for fraud. The poster child for “dead souls” is Maryland:

It should normally be difficult to pick the worst state legislature in America, but Maryland’s is way out in front…. Democratic legislators … passed three election-related bills and again mustered the necessary three-fifths votes to overturn his [GOP Gov. Bob Ehrlich, 2006] vetoes. Together the election laws would so weaken safeguards against voter fraud as to make Maryland the nation’s prime example of Election Day irresponsibility….

The most troublesome bill undermines the concept of local polling places by allowing all voters to vote anywhere in Maryland using a provisional ballot. Gilles Burger, chairman of the state’s Board of Elections, flatly says the bill invites fraud. His testimony prompted the Beall commission to warn that it would mean “a provisional ballot could be cast successfully in multiple counties and not be detected until after the votes were certified.”

As you can see, there are two factors in the danger of state-wide voting. First is the lack of local scrutiny regarding eligibility. Second is the potential for using the same ID in multiple precincts.

 8)  Incredibly, there are jurisdictions that do not require any identification at all at the polling place:

…California and many other states don’t require voters to show any identification at the polls. This continues at a time when you have to show photo ID to cash a check, board an airplane or even get a library card. Those under age 27 now have to show ID to buy cigarettes, but not to vote.

California? Er, Mexifornia? The home of sanctuary cities?

 9)  Rushing the naturalization process also leads to large numbers of ineligible individuals getting the opportunity to vote:

Some politicians try to make the current system even more susceptible to fraud. Vice President Gore’s office took the lead in convincing the Immigration and Naturalization Service to waive “stupid rules” on background checks so that hundreds of thousands of people awaiting citizenship would be “processed in time” for the 1996 election. It was later learned that 75,000 new citizens had arrest records when they applied. A spot check of 100 random new citizens by the House Judiciary Committee found that 20% of the sample had been arrested for serious crimes after they were given citizenship.

10)  The practice of allowing non-citizens to vote in local elections also poses a problem. Phyllis Schlafly of the Eagle Forum explains:

The Scam of Voting by Noncitizens — ….the Democrats are seeking odd-ball constituencies to enhance their numbers. They and their liberal-advocacy law firms and lobbyists … are going after the votes of noncitizens. Many millions of noncitizens live in the United States, some legal and some illegal, and the Democrats see this as a win-win effort to get them to the polls on election day. They figure the percentages are pretty good that those constituencies will vote Democratic. Local decisions to allow noncitizens to vote in city, county and school board elections should not give them a pass to vote in federal elections, but once they are on the precinct registration rolls, who is going to stop them? Certainly not the Democratic polling officials.

And the numbers are significant:

“Thousands of non-citizens are registered to vote in some states, and tens if not hundreds of thousands in total may be present on the voter rolls nationwide. These numbers are significant: Local elections are often decided by only a handful of votes, and even national elections have likely been within the margin of the number of non-citizens illegally registered to vote,” said Hans A. von Spakovsky, a researcher at the Heritage Foundation.

“There is no reliable method to determine the number of non-citizens registered or actually voting because most laws to ensure that only citizens vote are ignored, are inadequate, or are systematically undermined by government officials. Those who ignore the implications of non-citizen registration and voting either are willfully blind to the problem or may actually favor this form of illegal voting,” said Spakovsky, an expert on the subject of illegal aliens and immigration law…

11)  And then there are those pesky electronic voting machines. From Popular Mechanics — Hack The Vote:

Four companies, Diebold, Sequoia Voting Systems, Hart InterCivic and ES&S, are supplying the large majority of the machines… Proponents of the new technology insist these ATM-like devices will save us from the debilitating ambiguity and sloppiness of old tallying methods that complicated the 2000 deadlock in Florida. But critics fear that this generation of machines may create far more problems than it solves, such as systemwide breakdowns, lost votes–even the potential for widespread tampering.

The danger will be exacerbated in Maryland with its state-wide voting:

Maryland will now become the only state in the nation to allow statewide early voting on touch-screen machines that lack a verifiable paper trail.

Opposition To Election Reform

Civic-minded folk who work for reform will face legal obstacles and public derision:

… anyone who combats vote fraud comes in for abuse. The Justice Department has become expert at raising cries of “voter intimidation” at any attempt to monitor polling places. Last week Justice dispatched investigators to Fort Worth, Texas, merely because a political activist there distributed leaflets alleging Democrats were casting absentee ballots on behalf of shut-in voters. When the Miami Herald won a Pulitzer Prize for its reporting on the fraud in that city’s mayoral election, the Pulitzer jury noted it had been subject to “a public campaign accusing the paper of ethnic bias and attempted intimidation.” Local officials who’ve tried to purge voter rolls of felons and noncitizens have been hit with nuisance lawsuits alleging civil-rights abuse.

Estimating the Percentage

There’s a quick and easy way to guesstimate the percentage of illegal aliens registered to vote — winnowing the juror pool. The Cutting Edge shares this data:

In 2005, the U.S. Government Accountability Office found that up to 3 percent of the 30,000 individuals called for jury duty from voter registration rolls over a two-year period in just one U.S. district court were not U.S. citizens….

Thousands of non-citizens are registered to vote in some states, and tens if not hundreds of thousands in total may be present on the voter rolls nationwide. These numbers are significant: Local elections are often decided by only a handful of votes, and even national elections have likely been within the margin of the number of non-citizens ille­gally registered to vote.

References:

WSJ Opinion Journal — Voting Early–and Often

WSJ Opinion Journal — Phantom Voters

Eagle Forum — The Scam of Voting by Noncitizens and Felons

Accuracy in Media — Is Rampant Voter Fraud by Illegal Aliens Being Ignored by Government and Media?

The Heritage Foundation — The Threat of Non-Citizen Voting

American Enterprise Institute — Absentee Balloting for Convenience This is a good article on the historical development of absentee balloting and the trade-off between convenience and privacy.

******************************

This has been a production of the Guard the Borders syndicate.

The Republican race for the 2008 Presidential nomination is still less predictable than the Democratic one. The Dems’ wealthy trial lawyer with fabulous haircuts, the “cute” John Edwards, who offers to save the corpulent poor from the trimmed-down rich, finds shockingly few takers. (Even his strong, cancer-stricken wife, unable to catch up with the Clinton/Obama RAGUV (Race and Gender Utility Vehicle), laments that “We can’t make John black” and, less convincingly, “We can’t make him into a woman.”

Nouveau Google-rich Al Gore may not even bother, despite his powerful self-promotion as Warmologist to Planet Earth. Al has been let down by the weather. There may still be senior citizens whose Bush prescription drug benefits fail to save from heat death in Bush’s Global Warming. There certainly may be George Bush hurricanes, (like Katrina in New Orleans). But will there be enough flooded homes, drownings and underprivileged lootings to get Al the nomination and the White House he says was stolen from him in 2000? Possibly not.

So what’s left if you forget (like everyone else does) Connecticut’s Senator Dodd, Delaware’s Senator Joe Biden (more colorful than his State) and, Governor of New Mexico, the pallid Clintonista Bill Richardson?

Obviously nothing is left except two : (1) Hollywood and Oprah’s Great Half-White Hope, Barack Hussein Obama, and (2) the Back-to-Billary machine, this time putting its estrogen foot forward with the tightly managed and widely disliked, even loathed, Hillary Rodham Clinton, the culmination of the U.S. progressive women’s liberation movement.

Can Senator BH Obama’s “charisma” and choir-pleasing voice camouflage a callow core: his Illinois legislature platitudes made for a hip-hop constituency, geriatric hippies and mid-west corn farmers; his propulsion into the U.S. Senate, hence the national stage, due to a very qualified Chicago man being eliminated by a sex scandal; his new-found World Leader “skills” (or handlers with degrees in International Relations), including proposals for U.S. withdrawal from Iraq, combined with “proof” that he’s not really just a 60′s clone of half-digested Peace Now cliches, as when he announces a willingness to invade nuclear-armed ally Pakistan, (if he finds something “actionable” on the elusive Osama bin Laden.)

In brief, BH Obama helps to make Hillary Clinton look more than just wired-up and electronic. By comparison, he makes her look seasoned, rational and statesperson-like. This is a very important service for Democrats. While this progressive Yale woman owns the Dems’ locked-in Neo-Plantation vote, also the angry white female vote, and even white guys facing life without Mommy, she remains less popular nationally than any American female since Typhoid Mary.

Talking Point Dems must convince Americans—or at least independents— that Hillary is “just the victim of a great right-wing conspiracy.” She must not be perceived as the Marxist Medusa. They must persuade the electorate that the sight of her will turn only Republicans to stone, while leaving everyone else, especially independents, still fleshed out, the blood still running in their veins. Not the easiest of tasks, but it can be managed among Democrats in primaries.

This would leave only two questions : (1) When will the billionaire-oiled Clinton Machine have Obama for lunch? (2) Will that terminate him, or will Bill tell Hill that they need to spit him out, kiss and make up and dress him up for VP duty? Bill will have to keep an expert eye on their entitlement base, especially after Oprah, TV’s black billionairess, raised its Obaminated expectations so high. Will this base—its Soviet-like 90% fidelity crucial— now feel dissed without a pigmented ticket? If so, what are progressive whities to do?

The Republic, more racialized than ever since the Civil Rights “We Shall Overcome” 60′s, enters a new era: fat, prosperous, permissive, politically correct, logged in and not sure where it’s surfing.

As for Republicans, it’s a horse race of three stallions. The others, the pony entries, include California Congressman (and Vietnam vet) Duncan Hunter, surely not a Council of Foreign Relations favorite. Hunter is considered decent, honorable, excellent on borders, and going nowhere on Air Force One.

Colorado Congressman Tom Tancredo has long warned about the undocumented millions swarming out of Mexico The Corrupt, seeking U.S. jobs, U.S. entitlement freebies and free U.S. maternity wards for their anchor babies-cum-U.S. citizens. But the North American Union DemoPubs will have none of Tancredo. The same goes for his suggestion on how to deter a major Muslim attack on America: warn that their Mecca, in retaliation, would disappear from Earth. (Good Dems and good Pubs, while offering no alternative deterrence, expressed shock and dismay that Tancredo would want to make muslims so angry, just because a major American city was taken out in the name of Allah.)

The Libertarian Ron Paul, while sharply analyzing the stupendous debt burden and great Ponzi scheme of U.S. fiscal insanity, is widely considered a provincial, too idealistic, even goofy, ignoring the need for U.S. global committments in the Middle East and everywhere else.

Senator Sam Brownback, Kansas friend of life? Unfortunately for his prospects, the unborn cannot vote.

Folksy and articulate Mike Huckabee, the Arkansas Pastor-Governor, ran second in the recent Iowa straw poll. It may keep him in the running, but not for President. Any man who can lose 100 pounds and keep it lost has earned a role in Government of the Bloated, although his Bible Belt demeanor may rankle the heathen. He could sermonize Washington, but whose earmarks would listen?

Is there anything more to say about fallen hero John McCain? [Gringommentary June 08, 'BYE, JOHNNY (McCAIN)]
Possibly the most celebrated POW in U.S. history (Vietnam War), McCain the maverick and media star was out-maneuvered (or shafted, some still think) by Karl Rove, winning the Republican nomination in 2000 for George Bush. But McCain, as he states, never gives up. He hung in there as Senator from Arizona, working the establishment, working the Beltway, becoming the odds-on favorite for 2008, despite age seventy looming. It looked so predictable. Two years ago McCain vs Hillary for 2008 seemed as certain as Republicans and caddies, or Democrats and taxes.

And then it all began to unravel.

Problems old and new compounded. Dems and some independents began to loathe him for stoutly defending the unpopular war in Iraq, despite the Bush mismanagement. Old sore points with Republicans got sorer. There was McCain-Feingold, seen as liberal suppressing of free speech and electioneering. As a politician he also–surprise–flip-flopped. His record showed him good on the unborn, but not good enough for some. He also (1) opposed same-sex marriage (2) opposed a Constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage (3) would not oppose a homosexual President (and of course didn’t say whether this President should bring the significant same-sex other to the Inaugural Ball, could they hug with cameras present, could they raise children in a civil union etc? ) Independents gagged. Republicans groaned. Finally, the Beltway (sic) high life and the furor over the Illegal Invasion sealed his doom. It was called the Bush-Kennedy-McCain Amnesty-Don’t-Say-It’s -Amnesty bill, hundreds of incomprehensible pages that few even tried to read. It was like wading through jungles of IRS Tax Code. What was this once golden guy of the “Straight Talk Express” thinking?

The temperamental John McCain, Republican heir apparent for 2008, had slapped himself upside the head, then shot himself in the foot, and finally jumped off the bridge. Possibly the strangest case of Post-Vietnam Stress Syndrome on record.

That leaves the Big Three, Romney, Giuliani and the current stalking horse, Fred Thompson. The actor and former Senator from Tennessee, Thompson, is virtually certain to make his long-awaited official announcement in September.

And when he does enter stage center? There’ll be cheers and applause, excitement from the faithful, euphoria, fantasies of Ronald Reagan, miles of media, acres of buzz, fear and lashing from the Left. Taller than Abraham Lincoln, with a Presidential manner and gravitas honed in Hollywood, the erstwhile lawyer and Washington lobbyist can still write and speak in plain homespun American. It’s enough to drive opponents up the wall, yelping about Jeri, his attractive attorney “trophy wife,” when he is more likely the trophy husband. In polls can the Fred Train pull ahead of its much better organized and funded (to date) rivals, the Mormon Wiz and the street fighter /New York Prosecutor? Sure, why not? But can it hold that lead?

With more than a year to go, the crystal gringoball does not see Thompson as a shoo-in for his party’s nomination, despite reservations about Romney and Giuliani. Unlike the Democrats, who are joined at the hip to Clinton Redux, for better or worse, the Republicans are assessing three new faces, and finding all blemished. How far can any in this trio be trusted? No, they may not be Democrats in mufti. They’re not yelling, “Bush’s war in Iraq is unpopular so let’s find a way to surrender to the evil, rag-tag killers, give it a nice name, and get out.” But are any of them really closer to Ronald Reagan than to Presidente Jorge Bush, who called the Minutemen at the Mexican border ‘vigilantes’?

True, the fate of John McCain has sobered them up. “America’s Mayor,” Rudy Giuliani, formerly a champion of “Sanctuary Cities” in New York, forbidding police or Government officials to disturb business by identifying illegal aliens, now offers new hi-tech plans to track all entries and exits of non-citizens, while still offering ways for millions of illegals to become legal. The recent execution of three college students in Newark, NJ by an illegal Peruvian will focus even a politician.

Mitt Romney, an excellent business manager, all clean-cut and clear-cut, now discovers reasons to oppose “Sanctuary Cities,” suddenly sounding like Tancredo and Duncan Hunter did years earlier. Fred Thompson, at his state-of-the-art weblog, just posted cogently on “Sanctuary Cities.” It’s catching. You’d think an election was coming up.

As for a deeper look, they seem to avoid the border-busting North American Union question as if it were a red hot tamale. Or possibly they await “questions ” that can be “answered” into oblivion, as in the typical lamestream format of major media.
For some, the blemishes are downright disfiguring. True, Giuliani’s street fighter instincts can excite the Bush-fatigued who are still wary of Giuliani who was an old supporter of Democratic icon Robert Kennedy. Who can imagine Georgie “It’s a religion of peace” Bush having Palestinian terrorist Yasser Arafat thrown out of Lincoln Center in New York? Despite liberal ex-Mayor Koch’s book on him, “Nasty Man,” Giuliani can rouse them. Nevertheless, few are roused by his tranvestite performances at NY political dinners and on “Saturday NIght Live.” He would be America’s first President foto-opped as a drag queen. He compounds his problem with readers of the Pentateuch by waffling on Roe vs. Wade, obfuscating on immigration, dodging the North American Union issue and, despite being a nominal Catholic, wondering what’s so wrong with letting Sally marry Sara.

Whether Mitt Romney does better on these core issues, or does a smoother flip-flop, is for partisans to argue. As a one-woman man, with five sons who seem to like him, he clearly surpasses Giuliani—and even Thompson—in the Perfect Paterfamilias department. Even the Mormophobes, concerned with Mitt’s faith which may include, after this life, becoming a god on another planet, must recognize family values here on earth. Unfortunately, though, for Romney’s all-American image, during the Iowa straw poll campaign, someone asked if any of his five sons served in the military. Quick on his feet, The Mitt pointed out that his sons were busy all over Iowa for Romney. “That’s how they’re serving our country, by getting me elected.” Unwittingly, did he demonstrate that a top manager (Romney) is not the same as an exceptional leader (Ronald Reagan)? Reagan knew little about management and everything about leadership. Romney knows everything about management. And leadership? The question is open, but maybe not as open among the military and their families, seeing their service in the Middle East’s blistering sandbox ranked with knocking on doors in Iowa for a politician.
After a visit with Giuliani, the tough but conflicted cosmopolitan, and Romney, the very smooth, very eager efficiency expert, and a nostalgic farewell to John McCain in his sunbelt rocker, do all Republican roads lead back to Fred Thompson?

Fredheads think so. Fred is supposed to be the one “real” conservative in the running. Some conservatives are not so sure, including icon Richard Viguerie who calls Thompson a “marshmellow Republican,” (Viguerie didn’t think Ronald Reagan was conservative enough.) As for Thompson’s recent moves, he shows no signs of severing ties with his ‘Abraham Albatross.’ Spencer Abraham, a one-term Senator from Michigan, Bush appointee as Energy Secretary, nominally Christian of Lebanese extraction, is a good buddy, He is also a well-documented lobbyist for Islamic and loose border causes. Fred Thompson, touted as possible heir apparent to the Reagan mantle, recently named Abraham his Campaign Chairman. Thompson’s continuing relationship with someone reputed to be an Islamic toady, and soft on border control, is not likely to bolster a “true Tennessean” image.

Of course, Newt Gingrich may have the most historical perspective, the sharpest insight and comprehension of the issues. But even if he were more hail-fellow and hadn’t cheated on his sick wife, and even if, as some think, Fred Thompson flames out,giving Newt a go sign to run as the sole “conservative,” Americans have not wanted a professor as Commander-in-Chief since Woodrow Wilson of Princeton University (1913-1921.)

Conclusion: As of August 2007, all roads for Republicans in November 2008 lead to the dreaded Hillary Rodham Clinton vs. the somewhat less dreaded… (?) And if the Dems are showered with manna from socialist heaven, like a stock market crash, vast job losses or financial emergency, will it even matter who the Republican choice is?

As a Vietnam war correspondent, Dan Cameron Rodill stayed in country as Vietnam was invaded by the communists, and continued to cover the fall of Saigon for CBS News while the entire CBS staff (including Bob Simon, Bill Plante and Ed Bradley) fled. You can read this and other articles by Mr. Rodill on his blog gringoman.com.

Yesterday, the Washington Post published this disingenuous article:

The Myth Of Voter Fraud
By Michael Waldman and Justin Levitt
Thursday, March 29, 2007

As Congress probes the firing of eight U.S. attorneys, attention is centering on who knew what, and when. It’s just as important to focus on “why,” such as the reason given for the firing of at least one of the U.S. attorneys, John McKay of Washington state: failure to prosecute the phantom of individual voter fraud.

Allegations of voter fraud — someone sneaking into the polls to cast an illicit vote — have been pushed in recent years by partisans seeking to justify proof-of-citizenship and other restrictive ID requirements as a condition of voting. Scare stories abound on the Internet and on editorial pages, and they quickly become accepted wisdom.

But the notion of widespread voter fraud, as these prosecutors found out, is itself a fraud. Firing a prosecutor for failing to find wide voter fraud is like firing a park ranger for failing to find Sasquatch….

Note the use of these words, “the phantom of individual voter fraud”.

The subject article by Michael Waldman and Justin Levitt is itself a fraud. It begins by mentioning the firing of US Attorney John McKay of Washington State for a failure to prosecute the “phantom” of individual voter fraud without presenting the facts of that situation. In the Governor’s race in Washington State, the Republican candidate won the regular voting, the 1st recount, the 2nd recount & then lost on the 3rd recount to the Democrat candidate who happened to be the State Attorney General. Recounts favoring the Democrat were all in a Democrat area. The Republicans initially went into State Court but were told that they had no jurisdiction. Then, McKay refused to even investigate much less prosecute. McKay should not only have been fired for dereliction of duty, but investigated for a potential conspiracy with the Democrat Campaign. This article shows the typical Democrat Bias of 90% of the Media as well as a Joe Goebbels devotion to truth. If the Washington Post is ever going to rise above being a mouthpiece for the Democrat Party, a follow-up article should be written to reveal the real facts. How about it “Independent Newspaper?”

This is classic & deceptive Democrat Bias by the 90% Democrat Media. The article obviously assumes that no one will look into the “facts” in Washington State.

The Republicans will hold the House and Senate

Before I tell you my predictions, let’s put this election in some historical perspective. See A Historical Reality Check on Mid-term Election Expectations for charts and lots of history.

The bottom line is this: 6th year midterm elections are very bad for the incumbent. FDR lost 71 seats in ’38. Reagan lost the Senate in ’86. Eisenhower had huge losses in ’58.

In fact:

“Using these averages, the Democrats should gain around 33 seats in the House and 6 seats in the Senate.”

What about elections during wartime? FDR lost 45 seats in ’42, Truman lost 28 in ’50 and LBJ lost 45 in ’66. By the way, I found FDR’s losses in ’42 a bit surprising. Wasn’t that war very popular? FDR’s losses came only one year after Pearl Harbor.

My point is this: 6th year mid-term elections reflect a fatigue factor with the incumbent. He usually loses big! Therefore, it is amazing that the Republicans are in this game. It is amazing that we are even talking about the party in power holding on to its majorities.

Here it goes. Let me put money on the horses.

On the Senate side, the Republicans will lose Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and Ohio. However, I would not be shocked to see Santorum pull off a stunner in Pennsylvania. Also, Michael Steele has a shot in Maryland.

Senate: Republicans lose 3, maybe gain 1 in Maryland.

Next year’s Senate: Republicans 52, Dems 46, 2 Ind.

On the House side, the situation is very confusing because the polling data is less reliable. After all, there are 435 elections and only about 30 are in play. Why will the Republicans keep the House? The answer is turnout. I believe that a strong turnout will be enough to keep the House.

House: Republicans lose 10 seats.

Next year’s House: Republicans 220, Dems 215

Why am I making this bet? I will put my money on Karl Rove because he has done this before.

Let’s face it. It’s Game 7 of the World Series. Who do you give the ball to? Bob Gibson or someone who has never won a big game.

Give me Gibson. In this case, give me Karl Rove. There are lots of polls and I don’t understand them. I will put my money on Karl Rove.

Can the Democrats prove me wrong? Sure. It’s still a 50-50 race in the House and some Senate elections are too close to call. Also, there are anti-abortion and conservative Democrats running in 2006. James Webb in Virginia is a conservative. Bob Casey in Pennsylvania is anti-abortion. In the House, the Democrats recruited a lot of conservative Democrats.

If the Democrats win, it won’t be a liberal victory!

However, I go back to turnout! Turnout is the key! I like the Republican turnout machine because we’ve done it before.

After the election, the Republicans need new leadership. We need new faces and voices.

See Predictions no more by Tod Lindberg:

“No, the great missing link in the supposed “nationalization” of this election, in contrast to 1994, say, is this: We know what (and whom) Democrats are running against, but what are they running for? Democrats have allowed their perception of Republican weakness as a result of Iraq and the deficiencies of GOP congressional control to excuse them from spelling out a national platform with anything like the specificity of the Contract with America. That may be smart, as a lot of Democratic candidates hoping to succeed in Republican-held seats are running rather conservative themselves. But nationalization, it isn’t.”

I agree. The Democrats did not define themselves. In ’94, the Republicans did and nationalized the election. In 2006, the question is this: What’s a Democrat? The answer is district by district rather than a national theme.

See Republicans Will Hold On by Quin Hillyer

“When Congress convenes in January of 2007, Republicans will be elected both as Speaker of the House and as Senate Majority Leader.”

See AJ Strata:

“Two week’s ago I predicted the Dems would pick up 6-9 seats. Last week I predicted the Dems would lose one seat in addition to the Reps looking better in one seat and modified the prediction to 5-8 seats.”

See Wednesday’s Headline: GOP Keeps House Majority by Patrick Basham

“Without question, the Democrats are going to make impressive gains in House races on Tuesday. Nevertheless, we expect their improved position to fall just short of wresting control from the Republicans.”

See November Surprise: It will be nice to be a Republican on November 8 by Michael Novak:

“Media reality says that the Democrats are going to win — either a colossal win or at least a narrow win — in the House and Senate races November 7. Maybe. But I am sticking to my view, expressed last June 15, that the Republicans will actually gain seats this fall, both in the House and in the Senate. Well, maybe only in the Senate, while holding the House.”

Some conservatives and libertarians have given voice to the idea of “sending the Republicans a message” by staying home tomorrow. By not voting and allowing the Left to assume control of Congress they will indeed send a message to the Republicans — a message that some in Congress deserve to hear. Unfortunately, they will also be sending a message to the Islamic terrorists. And they will be sending a message to Kim Jong Il, Ahmadinejad, and the rest of the destructive anti-American factions in the third world. That message is: We Surrender.

The Democrats have, by their own words and deeds, explained that they have no plans for defending us from the threats we face other than ignominious withdrawal from Iraq. Oops! That is, “redeploying to Okinawa,” gutting missile defense and giving our dear friends the French and Germans veto power over U.S. foreign and security policy.

This a dangerous world. There is a gathering darkness out there. And the Democrats will not or cannot protect us from what wickedness comes our way. Don’t send the wrong message tomorrow.

Editor’s note: You can read more articles by ADMC contributor [Laconic J] at his own weblog, Laconic Blog.

By Jim Simpson

I have skirted around the following subject for years, either because I was focused on some small subset of it, or because I did not feel the message would be accepted. I no longer care. We are teetering at the abyss, and bold action is required if we are to save ourselves. It is way past time for a reality check, so here it is, late, but better late than never:

1. We all know that Ahmadinejad, Bin Laden and other terror leaders past and present would never strap on a suicide belt themselves, although they encourage others to. So maybe they’re not quite as committed to Allah as they would have us believe.
2. We know that suicide belts and other media-focused tactics used by Muslim terrorists are nothing new. Anyone familiar with the Vietnam conflict, for example, knows of the suicide bomber, targeting of civilians, kidnapping, torture, dismemberment and mass murder. These are standard Soviet tactics in use for decades.
3. We know that the Soviets have been arming and training “Jihadists” since the 1950s and probably before.
4. We know that the PLO was a creation of the Soviet KGB and that communists invented the “Palestinian” cause as an excuse to prosecute their war against the West with surrogates by attacking its critical regional representative, Israel.
5. We know that many key members of al Qaeda are professional, Soviet-trained Baluchi terrorists, not Muslims. How could a supposed purist like Osama Bin Laden allow such infidels to assume leadership positions in his ardently Muslim al Qaeda?
6. We know that Russia actively supports Iran, Syria and the Ba’athist dominated resistance in Iraq, i.e. Muslim and non-Muslim alike. (For those of you who wonder what I mean by non-Muslim here, Syria’s and Iraq’s Ba’athists are non-Muslim communist atheists, prayer rugs notwithstanding!)
7. We know that in 1991, the Soviet Union “spontaneously” collapsed and that its leaders, who remain in power to this day, suddenly, independently, at precisely the same moment, inexplicably transformed into… Democrats!
8. We know through public statements made in 1991 by Soviet representatives on U.S. television that this event was, in the Soviets’ own words, a “deny your enemy an enemy” tactic, taken directly from the pages of Sun Tzu’s Art of War – the inspiration of most Soviet military doctrine. Gorbachev himself used these exact words, in a seminar held at the Heritage Foundation a few years ago.

In short, the Soviet Union never fell. It transformed its appearance dramatically, but only superficially, in a shrewd strategic move that tricked Western policy makers into unilateral disarmament. Democrats rejoiced at the excuse this “victory” provided to gut our military, while Republicans rejoiced at being able to take credit for “winning” the Cold War. Both parties rejoiced about spending the elusive “peace dividend” and dismissed shouts of warning from those few analysts willing to make them. We declared ourselves the winner and went home, neither party daring to risk even a cursory examination of the circumstances surrounding this surprise event, for fear of what the blatantly obvious must force them to confront.

Policy makers seem to live in a never-never land of fanciful imagination that willfully ignores the continued march of communism across the globe, with countries falling under its spell at, if anything, an increased rate. Communism is dead, but Venezuela and Bolivia recently fell to communist regimes. Looks like ole Danny Boy Ortega may be making a comeback in Nicaragua too. Communism died, but Columbia has a vibrant communist insurgency, as does Nepal, Sri Lanka, Thailand and many other countries. Communist China refuses to go away, as do Cuba and North Korea, where rumors of those regimes’ impending demise have been, as usual, greatly exaggerated.

After the “fall” of communism, communists consolidated their control of Angola when we declared ourselves the “victors” and abandoned Jonas Savimbi’s anticommunist guerillas in the field, only to see them utterly wiped out shortly thereafter. The same communist Angolan government remains in power today. Rashid Dostum, a key leader of Afghanistan’s “Northern Alliance” is, and always has been, Russia’s man in Afghanistan. He was left there in charge of the Soviet-backed Afghan Army after the Soviets went home and continued to wreak havoc until the Taliban chased him out. In yet another demonstration of our interminable brilliance, American policy makers allowed him to become Deputy Defense Minister in the new Karzai government, guaranteeing a behind-the-scenes Soviet Communist role in Afghanistan’s future.

In short, since the so-called “fall” of the Soviet Union, communist movements have, if anything, blossomed. And nowhere is the resilient strength of the communist movement more apparent than here at home, where communist inspired ideas and spokespeople dominate the media, educational establishments, churches, civic organizations and politics. It’s high time we recognized that these people are our enemies!

With Islamic Jihad, the Soviet Union found the ideal vehicle to continue its war with the West, while continuing to uphold the myth of their demise. A large population of ignorant, unemployed, discouraged, disenfranchised, naïve Muslim youths has provided fertile ground for recruitment into what can only be described as the consummate false flag operation. Jihadists believe they are fighting to create a worldwide Muslim Caliphate, because they are recruited by Hezbollah, Hamas, al Qaeda and other recognized Muslim terror groups. But in fact they are doing the dirty work of the Soviets, just as countless surrogates have in the past.

It is no coincidence that North Korea chooses this time to provoke the West with nuclear tests, while Iran flouts world demands to halt nuclear research and Muslim terrorists everywhere threaten the West. These provocations are a deception we have bought, guaranteeing that when the time arrives, our eyes will be riveted on the wrong enemy. And I feel that time is approaching fast. The Soviets are moving to reassert themselves on the world stage. We cannot hope to win if we don’t even know who the enemy is. We must recognize this, now!

Do we have a fighting chance? I am not optimistic in any circumstances, but of one thing I am certain. Our chances will drop to virtually zero if in next week’s Midterm elections, we choose Democrats to run Congress. While Republican leaders have not been everything we would like, they do remain responsive, and many are at least aware that we are under threat. Also, Republican philosophy is by nature more open to new ideas.

By contrast, the Democrats are forcefully determined to impose their Socialist agenda on us. This agenda has shown itself to be an unqualified failure despite fifty years and countless trillions of taxpayer dollars worth of effort—ample time and resources for it to prove otherwise. Furthermore, many of these same people are working—covertly and some not so covertly—to bring about the very communist victory the Soviets have sought since 1917. Calling them the “Treason Party” as Ann Coulter has, is scarcely an exaggeration.

We may no longer be able to strangle the Bolshevik baby in its crib, as Winston Churchill so colorfully recommended long ago, but we can at least temporarily forestall its metastasized descendants in the Democrat party from wreaking more havoc than they already have. Vote Republican this November 7th!

Editor’s note: Freelance writer Jim Simpson is a former White House staff economist and budget analyst (1987-1993). His writings have been published in the Washington Times, FrontPage Magazine, DefenseWatch online newsletter, Soldier of Fortune magazine, Military magazine and others. You may read this and other articles by Mr. Simpson on his blog Truth and Consequences.

First one political party and then the other tries to hype and spin the scandalous behavior of their opponents. A homosexual Congressman here, an unpatriotic and bungling Senator there.

And, of course, in those individual instances conduct and commitment to America do matter, and should count for those specific individuals. But for the profile of the nation as a whole, it is the generic issues that should decide the election.

The war against terrorism.

If our nation is lost to the terrorist agenda, none of the other issues will be relevant. There will be no economy. All of the life-style issues will be moot. And the Democrats have amply demonstrated that they want to concede the middle eastern conflict to the terrorists. Only the Republicans have shown the backbone to do what has to be done, however unpleasant.

If we “cut and run” from the commitments we made in Iraq and Afghanistan, then the war will come home to our own shores. The tragedy of 9/11 will pale in comparison to the nuclear events, biological threats, and civic disruption in our own cities that will occur. The weapons are already in place, imported through our porous southern border.

Illegal immigration.

If we persist in our efforts to establish democracy in the Middle East, do not lose our nation to the Islamofascist terrorists, and do not become a backward country ruled by sharia law, then we may be overrun by an invasion of uneducated and illegal Hispanics, who have allowed their own countries to be trashed by drug lords, and are now coming to destroy ours. The influx of potential voters who only want to exploit the United States to send money back to South America and do not understand the mechanics of democracy will dilute our electorate, and our way of life will be lost.

In general this issue favors Republicans, but it must be examined separately for each race — gubernatorial, senatorial, and congressional. For a complete rundown on the candidate positions on immigration and border security visit Americans For Better Immigration.

The right to keep and bear arms.

Our founding fathers established a workable democracy. Its continuation depends on our Constitution and our Bill of Rights. The most important of those rights is defined in the Second Amendment, the “right to keep and bear arms.” This is the freedom that secures all of the other rights, and, in fact, the Constitution itself.

While this issue largely favors Republicans, it must be examined for each election contest. The best record of incumbent voting patterns and challenger platform positions is maintained by the National Rifle Association. To view the endorsements for races in your jurisdiction, click on your state in their map of the United States to bring up a complete list of all the races in the state.

The economy.

This issue decidedly favors the Republicans. The economy is prospering. The Dow Jones Industrial Average, one measure of our general prosperity, has reached record highs. Employment is solid. The rise of all the traditional economic indicators is remarkably covariant with the passage of tax cuts by the Republicans.

Across the board, the Democrats favor increased government control and taxation, based on their theory of “redistribution of wealth.” Their traditional viewpoint favors penalizing the productive members of the society to grant unearned benefits to the non-productive citizens, as a way of buying their votes. This is a tremendous de-motivating factor for those individuals and businesses that grow our economy, and for the capital investors that enable them.

The right to life.

This issue generally favors the Republicans. Most of those who advocate abortion, research on human embryos, and euthanizing the disabled tend to be Democrats. However, not all Democrats deserve to be painted with this brush.

When the highly (and incorrectly) publicized battle was fought to save the life of Terri Schiavo in the spring of 2005, a subset of the Democrats in Congress, and a few Republicans, voted on the side of death. The American newspapers, consistent with their liberal bias, nowhere published a tally of the vote.

One courageous Canadian journalist did. We archived that issue of the Canada Free Press at the time, so that we could make it available before the 2006 mid-term elections. It gives a complete list, with pictures, of the Capitol Hill Death Squad.

This is a separate page from the archives at our old website, so after viewing it, you will need to use the “Back” button in your browser to return to this article. Check out the

Capitol Hill Gang

As we approach the fall elections, this article from Human Events Online is a must read:

Don’t Repeat Mistake of 1974
by John O’Neill

Dispirited conservatives and Republicans rightfully appalled at the Cunningham, Abramoff, and Foley scandals should remember history as they contemplate not voting in the 2006 elections because of disillusionment.

In early 1973, the Dow approached new highs in a booming economy. In the 1972 election, the new left was rejected in almost every state. The Paris Peace Treaty was concluded with North Vietnam memorializing its pledge not to interfere militarily in the affairs of South Vietnam. The nation was prosperous and at peace.

Within a short time, the mainstream media were able to dismember and destroy the Nixon Administration, using as their sword the Watergate affair. In the congressional elections of 1974, Republican candidates were pounded, losing 48 House seats and five Senate seats.

Until the 1990s, the so-called “Watergate Babies” (i.e. left-wing Democrats) ruled Congress. As its first act after the 1974 election, the new Congress cut off all aid to South Vietnam. Within a short period of time, this led to Communist conquest of all of Indochina, the massacre of at least 4 million of our friends in the killing fields of Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam, and the displacement of millions of “boat people.”

Read all of this article here.

Which of America’s two major political parties do you think is opposed to voter identification? Which one stands to lose the most by ruling out the ineligible — the “undocumented workers” (aka illegal aliens), the paroled felons, the unwashed who couldn’t bother to register, the dead? Why, the Democrats, of course.

The WSJ Opinion Journal has good coverage of the situation in Missouri, where the Democratic party won a court judgement against improved voter identification:

The Don’t Show Me State
The liberal assault on voter ID laws.
Tuesday, October 24, 2006

People in the good state of Missouri need photo identification to cash a check, board a plane or apply for food stamps. But the state Supreme Court has ruled that a photo ID requirement to vote is too great a burden on the elderly and the poor. Go figure.

Public polls consistently show that an overwhelming majority of Americans–regardless of age, race, ethnicity or socioeconomic status–favor voter ID laws. And nearly half of the nation’s states have passed them. Yet a string of recent court decisions has blocked their implementation in some places, thus siding with Democrats and liberal special interest groups who would rather turn a blind eye to voter fraud….

This is an important issue. If you want to read the entire article, go here.

A recent poll taken at the website Vote.com posed these alternatives:

New York State Voter ID Bill: Should valid photo identification be required in federal elections?

YES!
Requiring valid photo identification in federal elections will help deter voter fraud and make sure that only those with proof of U.S. citizenship can vote!

NO!
Requiring valid photo identification in federal elections is the equivalent to segregation-era measures and is aimed at disenfranchising minorities and immigrants!

The poll is closed, and the final tally was Yes — 95%, No — 5%.