Voter ID

A liberal (or is it now "progressive"?) friend of mine made a comment the other night about how awful the Supreme Court ruling on the Indiana voter ID law was.

This kind of floored me bc. I knew that my friend is an active member of Common Cause, a liberal Move On-type group that works to "hold power accountable". I recalled that Common Cause had a big problem with the 2000 elections and figured they would support the Indiana law as a tool to reduce the potential for voter fraud.

So I went to the site and sure enough, on the Election Reform page on the Common Cause website it says:

"Since the electoral meltdown in the 2000 presidential election, each Election Day has raised new alarms that the foundation of our democracy - the right to vote in free and fair elections - remains beset with problems. Years after serious problems were exposed to the public, it has become increasingly apparent that our elections system is technologically, legally, and administratively inadequate and unfair." (Italics added.)

I just don't get. If the election system is flawed and unfair, wouldn't you want to do what you could to prevent voter fraud? Isn't the requirement to show a picture ID a great way to do that?

Evidently, six of The Nine agree with me and not my friend or Common Cause.

Tragedy for Obama

Don't I remember a tragedy being defined as the fall of a hero due to circumstances that are no fault of his own? Due to a fatal character flaw? Obie's fatal flaw may be loyalty to his former minister.

Obie was to be the first post-racial candidate. He wasn't going to be the black candidate but rather the candidate for change, the candidate who would bring everyone together, the candidate who would help us leave the baggage behind. Through no fault of his own, tho, he can't seem to get past it. Obie declared in his now-famous speech about race in America that "I can no more disown [Rev. Wright] than I can disown the black community." Wright can't seem to be able to return the favor.

Obama's problem is that the good Reverend Wright has his own set of priorities--building his ministry, answering his calling, bathing in the lime light, feeding his narcissism, making some serious coin. Yes, there will be books. And speeches. Maybe even movie rights.

One of Wright's priorities does not appear to be doing what he can to help his congregant make it to the White House. Otherwise, surely, Wright would have no problem postponing his own time in the sun by stepping aside for a few months. No, Wright's agenda is more important to Wright than Obama's agenda is to Wright. An attack on Wright is now an attack on the Black Church in America, says Wright.

And that's sad news for Obie because it'll be hard for most of America to buy what Wright is selling. It appears that Wright has saddled Obie with quite a burden.

Democrat Nightmare

Here's the nightmare scenario:

Obie ends up with more primary delegates.

Billary ends up with more popular votes if we count Michigan and Florida.

Obie ends up with more popular votes if we don't count Michigan and Florida.

Dems can't agree about what to do with Michigan and Florida. Michigan and Florida Dems feel screwed, turn away from the political process or switch to McCain.

The battle begins for the Super Delegates. Billary starts buying Super Delegate votes with promises of cabinet positions, dates with Bill, ambassadorships, and support for legislative pork.

Dean, Pelosi, Reid, Gore, Kerry, Kennedy, all call on Super Delegates to make up their minds to avoid a convention bloodbath. But it's the Dems: no one's in charge. Delegates hold out--the pork barrel line forms at back door of the smoke-filled room of the Billary campaign HQ. Why not linger? Why not wait for a super-sized pork meal?

Obie's African American supporters feel screwed and turn away from the political process. McCain goes crazy to the middle, offers olive branches to African American voters, and sees his support in that community grow from seven percent to 15 percent.

Obie's nutty left wing supporters feel screwed and go crazy. Some turn away from the political process, some start a third party, some revert to their earlier ways and re-bomb the Pentagon.

Billary's bitter, gun-toting, church-going supporters feel screwed and turn to McCain.

The Democratic Convention gets its highest TV ratings ever.

Jimmy Carter Cartoon

This one may be a little too harsh even for me. Altho, I do agree with its sentiment one hundred percent.

[Can't figure out how to put the cartoon right on the blog page.]

On Ethanol On Earth Day

This by Bogdan Kipling is the best that I've read about the disaster that is our ethanol/energy policy. As Kipling points out, we are taking corn out of the mouths of the hungry in order to fill our gas tanks. It's just not right. And, maybe worse, it makes no sense.

Why do we do this? To appeal to the voters in our first presidential primary for one. Also, the powers that be are frightened by the tyrannical eco-lobby which has no balance. If you're in Congress and stand against ethanol, you stand, therefore, against The Earth. The only things worse than that are smoking and not wearing your seat belt.

The bottom line to me is that this is, as Kipling so finely points out, an economic policy so terrible that it's unethical. Taking corn off the self to put in our gas tanks is driving basic food prices through the roof. And for what? So some of us can feel good and others of us can win in Iowa. The ripple effects are beyond the imagination.

It's time to stop. Take the ethanol subsidies and use them to build nuclear power plants. Or use them to develop clean coal technologies and alternatives to the combustion engine. Use them to dig tar sands. Put that money into something that doesn't drive up the price of tortillas for every poor Joe in Costa Rica who's having economic trouble enough as it is.

If our friends inside the Beltway can't figure this one out and can't do anything about it, we should all be worried about our Future.

Minnesota School Prayers

Why is it that my kids have to have a winter orchestra concert instead of a Christmas concert but an Imam can deliver daily prayers in school?

(Why are we naming schools after 8th century jihadists?)

Oil and U.S. involvement

An interesting question came to mind after reading an article entitled "Why Iraq Matters".

If Billary or Obie wins and our policy becomes one of unilateral withdrawal from Iraq, what will happen to the price of oil? My guess is that despite all the America bashing, The Market probably views our presence there now as a stabilizing influence. If we decide to pull out, the uncertainly of an pre-announced withdrawal would lead to a spike in oil prices.

Just my guess. Markets do loath uncertainty.

A Class Act

There's an article in today's New York Times that's worth the read. John McCain's son is a Marine who recently returned from a tour in Iraq. The McCains have tried very hard to keep this quiet (which makes me wonder why I am even posting this). In fact, the McCains asked the Times not to publish the article.

At one of the New Hampshire debates, McC was asked a question by a woman who had lost her brother to an IED in Iraq. Later, McC and his son, who at the time was days away from leaving for his tour in Anbar, visited her at her home without the presence of any reporters or cameras. What a visit that must have been.

In yet another class act, Cindy McCain arranged for a special visit to her son right before he was to leave but he refused to see her bc. he thought he would be the recipient of special treatment that the other Marines in his unit could not share.