Even before the late Mayor Richard Daley helped steal the 1960 election for John Kennedy, Chicago was infamous for voter fraud. “Vote early and vote often,” is an apt description of Daley-era Chicago politics.

It seems that at least one community organization is taking this lesson to heart.

The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), which bills itself as “ … a non-profit, non-partisan social justice organization,” claims to have registered 1.7-million new voters since 2004. Certainly, they are active in voter registration in 2008.

In 1992, Project Vote, a branch of ACORN, hired a young Chicago attorney and aspiring politician named Barack Obama to head up its efforts in Illinois. Obama returned the favor earlier this year by funneling more than $800,000 in campaign funds to ACORN during the Democratic primary season.

ACORN rose to the task registering hoards of new voters — Chicago style.

The organization is currently under investigation for voter fraud or registration irregularities in at least 13 states.

For example, in Lake County, Ind., the bipartisan Elections Board has stopped processing a stack of about 5,000 applications delivered just before the Oct. 6 registration deadline after the first 2,100 turned out to be phony. In Indianapolis/Marin County, voter registration now stands at 105 percent of eligible voters.

In Nevada, among those apparently “registering” to vote was the entire starting lineup of the Dallas Cowboys football team. Continuing its pattern of misconduct in Nevada, ACORN seems to have employed at lest 59 felony inmates on work release. It is against Nevada law to employ felons in voter-registration projects.

In Albuquerque, N.M., at least 1,400 registration cards are in question. Officials in Missouri (53,500 new ACORN voters) and Ohio are finding forged signatures and registrations from nonexistent addresses.

The Wall Street Journal reports that ACORN workers in Ohio were “given crack cocaine in exchange for fraudulent registrations that included underage voters, dead voters and pillars of the community named Mary Poppins, Dick Tracy and Jive Turkey. One person in Ohio told the New York Post ACORN registered him to vote 72 times and paid him in cash and cigarettes to register.

This is just the tip of the iceberg. Progressives are determined that Barack Obama must win the election — and they will stop at nothing to achieve their end.

Mayor Daley taught them how to win.

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Kip Allen is an award-winning broadcast and newspaper journalist currently residing in Southern California. He is a contributor to CaliforniaConservative.org, and you may read more of his work here.

There has been another school shooting tragedy with five innocent victims dead.

Pundits are asking how such a thing could happen … after all, Northern Illinois University was as gun free zone. So, many are renewing the call for increased gun control, despite its dismal record of failure.

Typical of such flawed and dishonest thinking was a column by Los Angeles Times columnist Tim Rutten in the Feb. 16 issue. After rehashing a recent series of shootings ranging from Kirkwood, Mo., to Chicago, to Louisiana Technical College, Rutten has fingered the villain — the National Rifle Association. He blames what he calls “Second Amendment fundamentalists,” pressuring politicians. If not for them, he reasons, effective gun control laws could be enacted.

Guns, he maintains, “…make the malicious, the malcontent, and the mad powerful.”

What he doesn’t say is that is that it makes the crazies powerful because they know their intended victims are disarmed and helpless.

That is the legacy of “gun free zones.”

Rutten does note is that 12 states — Alabama, Arizona, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Virginia and Washington — are considering legislation allowing students, faculty and staff with concealed-weapons permits to carry weapons on campus. He calls this, “social idiocy.”

What he doesn’t note is that other school shooting incidents were halted when armed faculty members or students confronted the shooters. Pearl High School in Mississippi and Virginia’s Appalachian School of Law are two such examples.

Academic study also supports the premise that concealed-carry deters such shootings. University of Chicago Professor John Lott’s book “More Guns, Less Crime” clearly shows the correlation. As for the mass shooters, Lott notes, “Such people may be deranged, but they still appear to care whether they themselves will be shot as they attempt to kill others.”

He based this conclusion in part on finding that states that adopted nondiscretionary concealed-carry laws between the years 1977-92 virtually eliminated public mass shootings.

The evidence, both academic and empirical, is clear — more gun control laws and creating “gun-free zones” guarantee mass shootings will continue; concealed carry permits will stop them.

But recognizing this involves a degree of intellectual honesty that Rutten and his ilk lack. To use Rutten’s own phrase, they persist in the “social idiocy” of denying simple truth.

Democrats are victims of their own success.

They have adopted a far-left platform pleasing to the MoveOn.org crowd that is endorsed by both frontrunners, Sens. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.

They have successfully purged ideological dissent within the party and now goosestep in unison with the single-minded purpose of a hive mentality.

They have even discarded the term “liberal” in favor of “progressive.” This is unintentionally honest as the Democrat Party of today has little resemblance to the values of traditional Western liberalism.

They have been so successful that the typical Democrat voter can see little difference in the policies and positions advocated by Clinton and Obama.

So, their party faithful must look to other factors.

Here, Democrats run into their other success story — identity politics.

If you’re a feminist who believes in government-funded abortion-on-demand, you’re a Democrat.

If you’re an African-American who believes you should receive preferential treatment because your great-grandfather was a slave, you’re a Democrat.

If you’re a Hispanic and see no reason to assimilate culturally, learn English or follow the nations’ immigration laws, you’re a Democrat.

If you’re gay and believe that organized religion’s rejection of homosexuality is hate speech, you’re a Democrat.

You get the picture; if you claim victimhood, you’re a Democrat. (continue reading post »)

I’m old enough that I remember Martin Luther King. I read about him in the newspapers. I saw him on television. I heard his “Dream” speech. I wept when he was murdered.

I have no patience for those who claim that America is just as racist as it was in years gone by. I remember those days. I remember federal troops in Little Rock. I remember Gov. George Wallace blocking the school door. I remember Sheriff “Bull” Conner and the fire hoses being turned on marchers in Birmingham. I remember the Freedom Riders. I remember separate drinking fountains and “white only” signs. I remember the fear. I remember the hate.

But mostly, I remember the sound of a Georgia preacher’s voice calling out. I remember him calling out, not just to his followers, but to his enemies as well. He told us that we were better men and women and that hate and fear shouldn’t divide us. He reminded is that we were all one people, regardless of skin color or religion.

That voice was heard. In 1964, the Civil Rights Act became the law of the land with the support of more than 80% of the Republicans in Congress and slightly more than 60% of the Democrats (among those opposing the measure were Klansman Sen. Robert Byrd of West Virginia and Al Gore’s late father who was a senator from Tennessee).

Those were heady days. Then the dream started to sour. Government programs aimed at aiding African Americans ended up causing mortal harm. The welfare structure effectively destroyed the black family structure. Other program, such as affirmative action, conveyed the message to both African Americans and others that blacks were incapable of competing. Some claimed it was needed to fight vestiges of racism against minorities, while completely ignoring the success of Asian Americans, some of whom in modern times faced incarceration solely based on their ethnicity.

Whatever the intent, the effect was to make African Americans dependent upon government largess and intervention rather than encouraging their own genius. (continue reading post »)

I am a committed Republican and intend to support my party’s presidential candidate this fall. I dislike the positions the Democrat candidates take on most issues from the war, to national security, to immigration, to health care.

However, I have to say that I have an increasing respect for Sen. Barack Obama. His win in the Iowa Caucus, one of the most lily-white states in the Union, demonstrates several factors.

There are those who say it gives lie to the Democrat claim that America is an inherently racist society. Others claim that whites were simply afraid to oppose Obama because the voting in the caucuses was not by secret ballot.

I think there is something else at work here, and that is Obama himself. The senator from Illinois is not running as an African-American — he is simply running as a candidate who happens to be black.

Perhaps because a white mother raised him after being abandoned by his black father; perhaps it is because he has seen a lot of the world and knows how special it is to be an American; perhaps it is just that he is comfortable in his own skin.

Whatever the reason, he comes off simply as someone running for his party’s nomination. (continue reading post »)

One of the most basic lessons taught in journalism school is proper identification of the newsmaker. This usually means, name (including middle name or initial), age and place of residence.

It does not matter if the story is on the society page, an obituary or crime blotter — proper identification is an essential part of news reporting.

This well serves everyone involved. It protects both the newsmaker and others with similar names, gives proper information to the public and protects the reporter from libel actions.

All this is just good, common sense.

Today’s media falls down on the job. Newsmakers are not properly identified. What is missing from most news stories today? Residency status.

One of the most hotly debated issues in American society today is immigration. There are those who claim that open immigration benefits society; there are those who claim society is harmed by unrestricted immigration.

But both sides agree that the impact of immigration is felt by society every day ballyhoo studies supporting their conflicting claims.

Yet, residency status is nearly always omitted from news stories. (continue reading post »)

The Democrats rightly condemn the Bush Administration’s profligate spending policies. But I suspect the Democrats’ criticism is based more on jealously than condemnation that he spends the people’s money like a drunken Kennedy.

The proof is in legislative actions the Plantation Party has taken this week in both the U.S. House of Representatives and the California General Assembly.

On the federal level the house Democrat leadership managed to pass on a party line vote the “omnibus spending bill.” Among other things, the Democrats demonstrated their support for the troops in Iraq by cutting off all funding for them. They also showed their support for border security and immigration reform by killing funding for a border fence, while at the same time providing $10 million in “emergency” funding for legal representation for illegal immigrants.

On the state level, California Democrats responded to the state’s $14-billion budget shortfall by calling for a new entitlement program that would cost more than the deficit. They want universal health care for all California residents (hmmm, what do you want to bet this means regardless of legal immigration status?). Way to go, guys.

The federal bill ran into common sense (and Republicans) in the Senate who decide that American soldiers dead on the battlefield for lack of ammunition is not good policy. The state bill still has to pass the state senate and the voters must approve taxing themselves to the tune of another $14 billion to provide health insurance for someone else.

The Democrats will provide more theater of the absurd as election day approaches; they can’t help themselves.
Just remember when you go to the polls who it is they want to tax and who will benefit. You can bet the tax will be on every working American and the benefits will go to someone else.

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Kip Allen is an award-winning broadcast and newspaper journalist currently residing in Southern California. He is a contributor to CaliforniaConservative.org, and you may read more of his work here.

To All My Democrat Friends:

Please accept with no obligation, implied or implicit, my best wishes for an environmentally conscious, socially responsible, low-stress, non-addictive, gender-neutral celebration of the winter solstice holiday, practiced within the most enjoyable traditions of the religious persuasion of your choice, or secular practices of your choice, with respect for the religious/secular persuasion and/or traditions of others, or their choice not to practice religious or secular traditions at all. I also wish you a fiscally successful, personally fulfilling and medically uncomplicated recognition of the onset of the generally accepted calendar year 2007, but not without due respect for the calendars of choice of other cultures whose contributions to society have helped make America great. Not to imply that America is necessarily greater than any other country nor the only America in the Western Hemisphere. Also, this wish is made without regard to the race, creed, color, age, physical ability, religious faith or sexual preference of the wishee.

To My Republican Friends:
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

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Kip Allen is an award-winning broadcast and newspaper journalist currently residing in Southern California. He is a contributor to CaliforniaConservative.org, and you may read more of his work here.

It’s difficult to have a civilized debate on the topic of illegal immigration because of the hateful rhetoric that infuses the issue. To even question the situation leaves one open to charges of nativism, xenophobia and racism.

But the truth is neutral; truth cannot be nativist, xenophobic or racist.

Here are some of the inconvenient truths about illegal immigration.

Illegal immigration depresses wages: An inconvenient truths is that whenever an illegal immigrant takes a job for below minimum wages or without benefits, the entire workforce suffers. Why would an employer hire legitimate workers when illegals are so much cheaper? The entire system of using illegal immigrants for labor smacks of the old plantation system of slavery.

Illegal immigration takes jobs from legal residents: An inconvenient truth is that every job held by an illegal immigrant is a job a citizen or legal immigrant does not hold.

Illegal immigration increases crime crime: The inconvenient truth is not whether illegals commit more crime than other groups. The truth is that every crime committed by an illegal immigrant is a crime that would not have been committed if they weren’t here. Whether it’s murder or shoplifting, these are crimes that did not have to be committed.

Illegal immigration harms the education system: This is a huge inconvenient truth. Would there be overcrowding in our local school systems if illegal immigrants were not in those classrooms? How does the lack of English skills impact overall school performance? Even higher education is adversely affected. Every illegal immigrant admitted to a college or university deprives a citizen or legal resident of that educational slot. (continue reading post »)

Reforming America’s immigration policy is stalled for the simple reason that the current situation benefits too many people. Immigration reform is impossible until a solution is found that offers even more benefits to the vested interests.

It seems to me that we may be over thinking the entire immigration question. The very problems and issues confronting America suggest a solution agreeable to all parties. First, let us more closely examine the issue.

On one hand are those who favor open borders, amnesty and a path to citizenship. Many of these are the would-be immigrants themselves and their home countries.

The governments of those people are unable or unwilling to provide the simplest services or economic opportunities for their populace. To do so would mean the dictators and oligarchs would have to curb their own corruption and even permit the underclass a voice in their ruling circles. This is intolerable because it would necessarily mean such adverse concepts as accountability, power sharing and a fewer dollars pouring into their pockets or offshore accounts.

Yet to crack forcibly down on those seeking economic and political reform is to risk armed revolt. Even if the existing order were to retain control, it would cost money and might even put some of the oligarchs in physical danger.

So, they seek a third path.

That is emigration for their disadvantaged opportunity seekers. The governments facilitate the movement of these elements into the United States via a variety of mechanisms. Mexico’s government-funded Grupo Beta aids would-be immigrants in a variety of ways, including issuing publications on how to cross the Mexican-American border in safety.

In addition, the Mexican government, through its consulates in the United States, issues Matricular Consular Identification Cards to its citizens, whether they are in the U.S. legally or not. This is official identification that is recognized by various commercial groups on the American side of the border, thus bypassing the inconvenient obstacle of having necessary legal status to obtain other documents required for such things as housing, banking and the like that encumber U.S. citizens and legal aliens. (continue reading post »)