Mai Thor’s post at Minnesota Daily would be utterly laughable if it weren’t so dangerous. Thor’s post concludes that requiring photo ID’s before voting is racist. Here’s the scariest part of Thor’s post:

Our Constitution affords us several rights, including the right to vote. It is unfortunate that many people, especially those who run our courts and make our laws, feel that voting is not a right, but minimize it to some sort of privilege, like having a bank account or going to the liquor store, where conditions and technicalities have to be met in order to participate.

There is no denying the race factor in the history of photo ID requirements. After the Civil War, the black vote was suppressed by poll taxes and literacy tests as well as other heinous laws known as Jim Crow. Proponents of photo IDs say it prevents voter fraud, when, in reality, voter fraud is an illusion which originated from an era of racism.

Photo IDs are the poll tax of present day America. Today, the group of individuals that are disenfranchised is much broader. Some of these individuals include seniors, low-income people and those who have disabilities.

Ms. Thor’s grasp of reality is faulty at best. First, let’s consider this article by WSJ’s John Fund:

Take the bill the GOP-controlled Legislature passed, which would require voters show a form of official ID or a utility bill; another bill would end Philadelphia’s bizarre practice of locating over 900 polling places in private venues, including bars, abandoned buildings and even the office of a local state senator. City officials admit their voter rolls are stuffed with phantoms. The city has about as many registered voters as it has adults, and is thus a rich breeding ground for fraud.

Let’s also examine this post by Stefan Sharkansky, in which Sharkansky quotes from a Washington Post op-ed by Michael Waldman and Justin Leavitt of the Brennan Center. Here’s one of Leavitt’s and Waldman’s assertions: (continue reading post »)

People have been talking about Sen. Obama’s wrapping up the Democratic nomination all day. That’s fair enough. That’s news. With his virtual clinching of the nomination, talk about his ties to Jeremiah Wright have temporarily subsided. The good news for Republicans is that Sen. Obama hasn’t left us with a shortage of things to ridicule him about. Let’s consider what he said in his victory speech last night:

The other side can label and name-call all they want, but I trust the American people to recognize that it is not surrender to end the war in Iraq so that we can rebuild our military and go after Al Qaida’s leaders.

I trust the American people to understand that it is not weakness, but wisdom to talk not just to our friends, but to our enemies, like Roosevelt did, and Kennedy did, and Truman did.

What on God’s green earth is Sen. Obama yapping about? When did Truman and FDR meet with Hitler or Tojo? I’ve heard about revisionist history before but this is ridiculous.

Only a blithering idiot would try justifying meeting with Ahmedinejad by saying that FDR met with that era’s equivalent of Ahmedinejad. Someone that’s either that intellectually dishonest or that intellectually vacant isn’t qualified to be the leader of the free world. (continue reading post »)

George Will has penned another masterpiece, this time asking Sen. Obama a set of rather difficult questions, questions that actually require intellectual heft. Here’s the easiest question in the bunch:

You say, “The insurance companies, the drug companies, they’re not going to give up their profits easily when it comes to health care.” Why should they? Who will profit from making those industries unprofitable? When pharmaceutical companies have given up their profits, who will fund pharmaceutical innovations, without which there will be much preventable suffering and death? What other industries should “give up their profits”?

Sen. Obama can’t answer that question because it requires a capitalist answer, something that’d infuriate Sen. Obama’s ardent socialist supporters. This is the only time it’s difficult being a liberal. It’s easy being a liberal if you’re never asked thoughtful questions. It’s immensely difficult when they’re asked why questions. Liberals are used to giving answers to ‘what’ type questions. It’s difficult for liberals to answer ‘why’ questions because that requires logic.

If I’ve learned anything about politicking, it’s that most liberals can’t handle answering why questions because they’re so used to not having to defend their principles and policies. Altogether too often, liberals are asked a what question, which often gets accepted without further questioning. (continue reading post »)

This morning, the Supreme Court ruled that Inidana can require voters show a government-issued photo ID. Here’s what they’re saying:

In one of the most closely watched cases of the term, the US Supreme Court has upheld Indiana’s requirement that voters show government-issued photo IDs at the polls. At least 17 other states were awaiting this decision before going ahead with similar laws of their own.

The vote was 6-3, with Justice John Paul Stevens joining the mostly conservative majority.

Democrats had attacked the law, saying it created a burden for poor, minority, and handicapped voters, who would have a harder time getting government-issued IDs. They accused Indiana officials of passing the law to suppress the minority vote.

Here’s what USA Today’s Joan Biskupic wrote about the ruling: (continue reading post »)

Thanks to the hard work of Kit Lange and Tim Harrington, the truth is starting to come out about the railroading that the Pendleton 8 got and that was planned for the Haditha Marines. Fortunately, the media is picking up on what several people have known for awhile now. Kit Lange’s article in the Salem News lays out a story that should get every justice-loving American irate:

Two years ago the nation was shocked to hear of Marines coming home from the battlefield in shackles. This is not how we treat our heroes, not when they are highly decorated, highly trained, and even more experienced. It was preposterous, we said, to charge Marines with murder for shooting the enemy.

Isn’t that what we train them to do?

“Yet that is exactly what we did–and the seven Marines, together with their Navy corpsman, became known as the Pendleton 8. For the last two years, these men have seen their families disintegrate, their careers vaporized, and their freedoms taken, all because their government decided to turn its back on the men who fight to preserve it.

Now at last the real story is available. Over the next few weeks, I will tell you the real story of what happened that day in Hamdania. I will show you the autopsy reports, combat logs and diaries that prove them innocent (and that were barred from the trial!), and the tactics the government used to keep it all under wraps. What’s more, I’ll tell you what they were trying so hard to hide.

People inside and outside the Pentagon should be worried. Check the timeline for why there’s cause for more than concern over the military’s actions and motives. This part of the timeline doesn’t cast the Pentagon in a good light:

1. “According to accounts given by Hashim’s neighbors and members of his family, and apparently supported by photographs, the Marines went to Hashim’s home, took the 52-year-old disabled Iraqi outside and shot him four times in the face. The assault rifle and shovel next to his body had been planted by the Marines, who had borrowed them from a villager, family members and other residents said.”

2. “The Marines grabbed Hashim by the front of his cotton robe as soon as he came to the door, pulling him from the house, said one of his sons, Nadir, 26, an arts student in Iraq…Less than an hour later, we heard shooting.”

Note: The prosecution charged that the Marines took Awad out of the home, marched him down the road to the hole, bound him and shot him. Family members and neighbors said Awad was shot in the face four times when he came to the door. One of Awad’s sons said he was pulled from the house and they heard shots less than an hour later. The Iraqis apparently couldn’t get ‘their’ version straight. How did the prosecution arrive at its version; toss a coin?

(continue reading post »)

Silvestre Reyes’ dishonesty is showing. Here’s where Rep. Reyes goes wrong in his March 20th Strib op-ed:

As the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, I am committed to taking this fight to the terrorists, but I remain convinced that we can do that while stopping this administration, or any administration, from conducting warrantless spying on Americans. Our responsibility includes not only the safety of the American people but also the safety and sanctity of the American Constitution. We must protect both.

Rep. Reyes is spinning this beyond acceptable levels. He’s writing about Rep. Michele Bachmann’s op-ed about the expiration of the FISA reform bill known as the Protect America Act (PAA). In the law that expired, FISA was updated temporarily. It expired after 6 months.

Everyone who knows anything about intelligence gathering knows that FISA deals only with foreign surveillance, hence the name Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. It has nothing to do with surveilling Americans.

Let’s first examine why the PAA was enacted. A FISA Appellate Court judge ruled that foreign communications that passed through an American telecommunications switch needed a warrant because it was deemed a domestic communication. In this judge’s mind, it didn’t matter that the sender and recipient weren’t Americans. It didn’t even matter that neither the sender or recipient weren’t even in the United States. All that mattered was that the communication passed through an American switch.

DNI Chairman Mike McConnell testified to this in Congress. He repeated that information to FNS’s Chris Wallace:

Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell recently told Fox News Channel’s Chris Wallace that by summer 2007, “We were in extremis, because we had lost…about two-thirds of our [surveillance] capability.”

Director McConnell testified that he was writing out warrants for known terrorists because of the FISA court ruling. (continue reading post »)

This afternoon, the Supreme Court heard arguments in the case of District of Columbia v. Heller. Based on the questions that the strict constructionist jurists asked, it appears likely that DC’s gun ban law won’t be sustained. Here’s what Stephen Breyer asked:

Justice Stephen G. Breyer noted the number of people killed by handguns and asked if it was unreasonable for a “city with a very high crime rate to say ‘no handguns here.’”

Here’s how Chief Justice John Roberts responded to Breyer’s question:

Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. asked: “What’s reasonable about a total ban on possession?”

Here’s the Washington Post’s reporting that makes me believe that DC’s ban will be overturned:

Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, often seen as the deciding vote on the divided court, immediately made it clear he did not accept the District’s arguments, and the views of a vast majority of federal appeals courts, that the Second Amendment provided only a collective right to gun possession in furtherance of military purpose.

The amendment states: “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” (continue reading post »)

For months, Democrats in the House and Senate have have huffed and puffed at the start of the debate on various bills, then left whimpering when President Bush got his way again. That’s certainly been true with the Iraq funding bills. Based on this Washington Times article, it sounds like they’re getting better at caving into President Bush’s demands:

But the House Democratic leadership is under mounting pressure from members of the Blue Dog Coalition (a group of relatively moderate Democrats who joined with Republicans in August to pass a temporary extension of FISA over Mrs. Pelosi’s objections) to adopt the Senate bill or work out some kind of compromise on retroactive liability protection. House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer indicated last week that he wants to work out an agreement, and Mr. Reyes, interviewed on CNN’s “Late Edition,” said that the Intelligence Committee had been talking to telecommunications companies “because if we’re going to give them blanket immunity, we want to know and understand what it is we’re giving them immunity for.” The Texas Democrat’s use of the term “blanket immunity” would appear to suggest that the House leadership is moving toward the Senate bill. Mr. Reyes added that he has an “open mind” about retroactive liability protection, and said negotiators are “very close” to working out some kind of compromise.

This had to happen if we were serious about preventing future terrorist attacks. Now that it’s all but signed, sealed and delivered to President Bush’s desk, the NSA can breath a sigh of relief. (continue reading post »)

Speaker Pelosi announced that they will file a lawsuit against Harriet Miers and Josh Bolten for not testifying in the Democrats’ witch hunt known as the firing of the US attorneys. Here’s a portion of what she said:

“The American people demand that we uphold the law,” Pelosi said. “As public officials, we take an oath to uphold the Constitution and protect our system of checks and balances and our civil lawsuit seeks to do just that.”

The president’s personal staff isn’t subject to subpoena because they aren’t confirmed. That’s because they work for him. As such, there are no constitutional or checks and balances issues.

It’s worth noting that President Bush had the legal right, just like Bill Clinton had the right, to fire US attorneys anytime he wants to for any reason he wants to. In fact, Bill Clinton fired 93 US attorneys at the start of his administration.

The suit had a political purpose too. Democrats have urged that the filing occur swiftly so that a judge might rule before the November elections, when all 435 House seats and a third of the Senate are up for grabs. Criticism of Bush’s use of executive power is a key tenet of the Democrats’ platform, from the presidential race on down.

This isn’t smart politics on Pelosi’s behalf because this gives the Republicans the perfect vehicle to remind people that Pelosi’s Congress wasted time conducting witch hunts instead of getting things done like passing a budget or passing permanent FISA reform legislation or funding the Surge. (continue reading post »)

Isn’t that a splendid headline? It’s the first thing that popped into my head after reading the headline to this AP article:

Court Rejects ACLU Challenge to Wiretaps

Here’s what they’re talking about:

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Supreme Court dealt a setback Tuesday to civil rights and privacy advocates who oppose the Bush administration’s warrantless wiretapping program. The justices, without comment, turned down an appeal from the American Civil Liberties Union to let it pursue a lawsuit against the program that began shortly after the Sept. 11 terror attacks. The action underscored the difficulty of mounting a challenge to the eavesdropping, which remains classified and was confirmed by President Bush only after a newspaper article revealed its existence.

“It’s very disturbing that the president’s actions will go unremarked upon by the court,” said Jameel Jaffer, director of the ACLU’s national security project. “In our view, it shouldn’t be left to executive branch officials alone to determine the limits.”

The Terrorist Surveillance Program no longer exists, although the administration has maintained it was legal.

The ACLU sued on behalf of itself, other lawyers, reporters and scholars, arguing that the program was illegal and that they had been forced to alter how they communicate with foreigners who were likely to have been targets of the wiretapping. A federal judge in Detroit largely agreed, but the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals dismissed the suit, saying the plaintiffs could not prove their communications had been monitored and thus could not prove they had been harmed by the program.

The government has refused to turn over information about the closely guarded program that could reveal who has been under surveillance.

This is a major win for the intelligence community and a huge setback for the ACLU and their fellow litigants. The impact of Tuesday’s ruling is that there’s another legal precedent that says warrantless surveillance isn’t illegal. That’s the predictable outcome if you believe that the Fourth Amendment only protects against unreasonable searches.

There’s a lesson to be applied to this year’s election. This lawsuit’s path through the judiciary shows the difference between activist judges and strict constructionist jurists. This all got started when Anna Diggs-Taylor ruled that the NSA’s intercept program violated people’s First Amendment rights of all things. Once it got to the 6th Circuit, though, Diggs-Taylor’s ruling was toppled, setting up a potential hearing in the Supreme Court.

Anna Diggs-Taylor is a Carter-appointed judge with strong connections to the ACLU. For that reason alone, she should’ve recused herself from this case. Failing to do that, she should’ve been removed from this case.

Now that her ruling has been overturned and all their appeals options used, we can get back to surveilling terrorists and hopefully preventing future terrorist attacks.

Technorati Tags: ACLU, Anna Diggs-Taylor, First Amendment, Fourth Amendment, Activist Judges, Strict Constructionist, SCOTUS, NSA, Election 2008

Cross-posted at LetFreedomRingBlog