October 31, 2004

News From The Front

I'd love to give you an excerpt of the best part of Charles Krauthhammer's column, an election-eve commentary recalling the brilliance of the way President Bush conceived and conducted the Afghanistan war, but I think it's a copyright violation to copy the whole thing. So you can just read the whole thing, titled Kerry's Afghan Amnesia, here. Also in War on Terror and Campaign Season news comes this alert that the UN may try to meddle in the U.S. election Monday. I say, bring it on. The sight of the UN meddling in an American election is bound to influence some swing-state undecideds to back Bush, if only to tell the UN where to go.

Winning the war on terror doesn't just mean defeating terrorists and the rogue regimes that breed, support and fund them. Increasingly, it means defeating the UN too.

And, finally, the New York Post reveals that the latest Osama bin Laden video contains much more than was revealed in the six-minute excerpt broadcast by Al Jazeera and then by the major American news networks. The entire tape - 18 minutes long - includes Osama moaning about the setbacks dealt to his terrorist organization by the Bush administration.

...bin Laden bemoans the recent democratic elections in Afghanistan and the lack of violence involved with it. On the tape, bin Laden also says his terror organization has been hurt by the U.S. military's unrelenting manhunt for him and his cohorts on the Afghan-Pakistani border.

A portion of the left-out footage includes a tirade aimed at President Bush and his father, former President George H.W. Bush, claiming the war in Iraq is purely over oil. The tape also sparked some concern that an attack aimed at disrupting Tuesday's election may be planned.

Unless of course they're trying to influence the election...

Iran Leaders Edge Closer to the Brink

UPI reports:

TERHAN, Iran, Oct. 31 (UPI) -- "Death to America!" chanted Iranian lawmakers after a unanimous vote Sunday to allow their government to resume uranium enrichment activities.

Two days before election day, it's worth remembering that the Iranian regime is a major supporter of global Islamist terror. It's also worth remembering that John Kerry's "plan" for Iran involves helping the Mad Mullahs by giving them nuclear fuel.

It's also worth remembering that it is President Bush who, very strategically, has hundreds of thousands of American troops on either side of Iran - in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Key website going forward: Regime Change Iran.

The Main Thing

The Tennessean interviews a series of "Main Street" business owners regarding the political issues important to them in this election and finds a common desire for lower taxes and less-costly healthcare insurance. If these people are paying attention, every last one of them will vote for the reelection of President Bush.

Frist In Line

Here's an interesting look at what impact Tuesday's elections might have on the political future of Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist of Tennessee.

October 30, 2004

Tennessee Legislative Races Face Income Tax Impact

A story in today's Tennessean looks at the reasons why the Democratic Party's grip on the Tennessee legislature may be weakening, and ascribes it to social-conservative issues such as abortion and gay marriage. Not one single mention of the heavy support among Democrats in the state legislature for a proposed state income tax, though there is some evidence the issue is working well for Republican challengers. For example, in Clarksville, Republican challenger Curtis Johnson is leading 18-year incumbent Democrat state Rep. Tommy Head, one of the prime sponsors of the defeated income tax proposal, according to a poll released by the local university. And in race for a seat in the state Senate, incumbent Democrat Sen. JoAnne Graves is apparently so worried about a challenge from Republican state Rep. Diane Black, a staunch income tax opponent, that she's airing a commercial featuring the governor vouching for Graves being opposed to the state income tax too. Graves has never had a chance to vote against the income tax, but as a member of the Democratic Party leadership team in the state Senate, she would be under immense pressure to support a state income tax if one ever comes up for a vote - the Tennessee Democratic Party endorsed the income tax proposal.

Many of Tennessee's GOP candidates have signed a pledge to support an amendment to the state constitution to explicitly ban a state income tax. The story extensively quotes Democratic state Rep. Rob Briley, who calls the pledge a "cheap political stunt."

He would - Briley voted for the proposed state income tax two years ago, one of 37 Democrats in the state House to do so. His opponent in this election, Karen Bennett, is an outspoken foe of the income tax.

Briley also, according to The Tennessean, said no court had ever ruled on the constitutionality of a state income tax. The Tennessean lets that go unchallenged, but it is simply a lie. Briley, an attorney, probably knows - or should know - it is a false claim. The state Supreme Court has ruled three times that the state constitution does not permit an income tax, in 1932 in Evans v. McCabe, and in 1960 in Jack Cole Co. v. MacFarland and reaffirmed in 1964 in Gallagher v. Butler. In all three cases, the justices ruled unanimously. Nashville attorney Forrest Shoaf examines those rulings, and attempts by income tax proponents to get around them, in an excellent article posted here. Shoaf:

When the current Tennessee Constitution was adopted in 1870, Article II, §28, contained the sentence "the Legislature shall have the power to levy a tax upon incomes derived from stocks and bonds that are not taxed ad valorem." In 1929, the General Assembly imposed a tax on the income from certain securities. The validity of that tax, now known as the Hall income tax, was upheld by the Tennessee Supreme Court in Shields v. Williams, 159 Tenn. 349 (1929). Two years later, the General Assembly, in extra session, levied a graduated tax on all income. This act, however, did not fare as well as Sen. Hall's. In Evans v. McCabe, 164 Tenn. 672 (1932), the court struck down the tax on the principle of "exclusion by affirmation," i.e., that §28's enumeration of a permissible tax on one form of income (from securities) made impermissible a tax on all other forms of income. "When the Constitution conferred upon the Legislature the power to tax only one class of incomes, that instrument necessarily denied to the Legislature the power to tax incomes of other classes." Evans, at 680.

In 1960, in Jack Cole Co. v. MacFarland, 206 Tenn. 694 and in 1964, and in Gallagher v. Butler, 214 Tenn. 129, the Supreme Court quoted with approval and followed Evans in deciding two other tax cases. Evans and its progeny have never been overruled, and that part of Article II, §28, which informed the cases, has never been amended. Therefore, opponents of a general income tax contend that the tax cannot be imposed without a constitutional amendment or a subsequent Supreme Court decision overturning Evans.

Osamarama

Well, Osama bin Laden - who John Kerry considered a mere "nuisance" before 9/11 - has spoken. Interesting speech. He says he first thought of trying to destroy the World Trade Center back in 1982. Back when terrorism was a "just a nuisance," you know.

Osama's weird speech is filled with moral relativism that could as easily have come from the mouth of the typical American or Euro Leftist. Considering the key points Osama made - America supports corrupt Middle Eastern governments, Bush lied, the Patriot Act = oppression, Bush stole Florida, etc. - Michael Moore could have written it.

The BBC's Paul Reynolds has a good summary of the taped message. The Chicago Sun-Times provides a look at the tape's impact on the presidential election.

Bottom line on the Osama tape: It is as Hugh Hewitt described it, "a butcher's threat to kill some more if Bush is re-elected." Translation: Osama will be angry if Bush wins, happy if Kerry wins. Vote accordingly.

October 29, 2004

Proof of WMD

It's worth noting in all the debate over the missing explosives in Iraq that one of the three kinds of explosives at the center of the debate is HMX.

Why is that important? As former weapons inspector David Kay, who later lead the Iraq Survey Group's hunt for WMD in post-liberation Iraq, explained to CNN's Aaron Brown in a recent televised interview, HMX is a key component of nuclear bombs. Siad Kay, "HMX is in powder form because you actually use it to shape a spherical lens that is used to create the triggering device for nuclear weapons."

Therefore, it is now beyond doubt that Saddam's regime was in possession of at least some components of nuclear weapons of mass destruction as late as just weeks before the March 2003 start of the war, in violation of UN Resolution 1441 which required him to disclose and dispose of such materials. His failure to comply with 1441 created the legal justification for war.

President Bush told the truth about Saddam's WMD program. The tons and tons of HMX is more evidence of that.

Osama Live

3:27 p.m: If Al Jazeera's new Osama bin Laden tape is real, and recent, and if on that tape bin Laden, mastermind of the murder of 3,000 American civilians on a bright September morning three years ago, discusses the possibility of another attack on the U.S. on the scale of September 11, it will remind voters of the most important issue in this election year - defeating Islamist terrorism - and John Kerry will have just lost the election. Especially if Osama espouses policy recommendations for the United States, or criticisms of President Bush's actions post-9/11, that even faintly echo those of Sen. Kerry.

Memo to Osama bin Laden: We are not Spain. We are Americans. We are not cowed by attacks. We do not run from threats. We run toward them to confront them. And then we win.

Now That Would've Been a Great Campaign Slogan

Blogger Frank J: "We need four more years of tax cuts and dead terrorists." Don't miss his illustrated endorsement. Much more fun than Megan McArdle's long, well-reasoned but, er, not funny presidential endorsement.

Er, Um. Nevermind.

It's going to be difficult for John Kerry to keep harping on the "failure" of the Bush administration to secure those 377 tons of explosives at that Iraqi arms depot after the invasion if it turns out that the American military removed much of them... But I'm sure he'll find a sensitive, nuanced way to do it.

After Nov. 2nd...

Just a head's up, but if President Bush wins re-election by a margin large enough to prevent the Democrats from trying again to steal it via the courts, I'll probably take a decently long break from extensive blogging. Oh, I'll post from time to time - I'm too addicted to it to quit cold turkey. But I can see this blog transforming, at least for a few weeks or maybe through the end of the year, into a very brief read - maybe one long post every other day and a daily list of links referring you to other good stuff at a variety of blogs. (A new one you should watch: Regime Change Iran. Also, doubleplusgood infotainment is fun.)

I'm pretty wiped out - and my paying workload is increasing. The post-election period, if Bush wins, is I think a perfect time to engage in a little less blogging. Bush by 4-6 points nationally, 280-plus electoral votes. That's my prediction ... and my prayer.

Balance

Nashville's public-access cable channel is going to air Michael Moore's lie-filled Fahrenheit 9/11 three days before the election. No word on if the public-access channel will also run FahrenHYPE 9/11, the documentary that debunks the crockumentary. The decision to air Tubby Riefenstahl's film was made by a local teevee producer, Chris Lugo, a leftist who is a member of Citizens for a Democratic Media. His production credits for the little-watched public-access channel include "Left of Center" and "Atheists Talk."

UPDATE: Tony over at Spleen Cuisine reports that the Moore film won't be aired on Nashville's CATV after all.

News You Can Use

Al Tompkins, who writes the Al's Morning Meeting online column for the the Poynter Institute's website, has compiled an extensive post today titled "The Electoral College, Provisional Ballots, Voter Fraud & Other Information You Need Before Nov. 2" It explains the Electoral College, followed by a voter fraud news roundup that includes a nice mention of the efforts of this blog to track such stories and gather them in one place. Before he landed that cushy Poynter gig, Tompkins was a highly respected TV news producer . His column is read by about 16,000 journalists in local media across the nation.

If you're one of those journalists, following the link from Tompkins, welcome. Here, forthwith, here is today's roundup of news coverage, blog coverage and reader emails about voter registration fraud and related topics:

Media Coverage:
Out of Denver comes an AP report that prosecutors have charged two people with filling out multiple voter-registration forms and said they were investigating "reams" of documents for potential problems. The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel reports:

The Republican Party of Wisconsin checked the addresses of more than 300,000 people registered to vote in the city with a software program also used by the U.S. Postal Service. Republicans found that 5,619 addresses may be non-existent and then visited a number of the addresses. They snapped photos showing vacant lots, a gyro stand, a park and spots between two houses where the address should have been.

Bloggage:
John Little examines a manufactured voter-intimidation controversy in Florida and exposes the hate-filled leftwing "journalist" behind it. Powerline reports on an investigation into the ease of fraudulently registering to vote in Wisconsin by the Federation for American Immigration Reform.

Susan Tully, midwestern field director for the Federation for American Immigration Reform, became alarmed when she realized that the deputy registrar of voters in Racine, Wisconsin, was an illegal alien. To see whether her fears were justified, Tully sent two individuals from other states to Racine to register to vote. Here is what happened...

I particularly like this quote from a Kerry spokesman: "A spokesman for John Kerry sharply criticized the move by Republicans, saying it was merely to prevent people, most likely those who lean Democratic, to vote." Another example of stereotyping – that Democrats are more likely than Republicans to live in real, but invisible, housing units.

Reader Emails:
Karl Filippini from FAIR, the Federation for Ameican Immigration Reform, writes that FAIR "has been conducting an investigation into voter fraud in Wisconsin."

FAIR was able to have two investigators, posing as illegal aliens, registered to vote - by a woman who herself is an illegal alien, yet is the deputy registrar of voters in Racine, Wisconsin. If you have any questions about this report, you can contact our Midwest Field Director Susan Tully at tullys@fairus.org.

If you spot a news story about suspected voter fraud in your part of the country, please send me the link and a brief summary to voterfraud-at-gmail.com.

And, finally, the most recent email I received at that voterfraud-at-gmail.com address begins this way:

This request may seem strange, but if I may crave your indulgence and hope that you view this proposal very seriously. My name is LAWRENCE TAYLOR, the junior brother to mr Charles Taylor, the former president of Liberia due to the current situations in our country (Liberia) we where forced to leave the country for Nigeria where we are currently on political asylum. My brother ex. President Taylor on getting to Nigeria. Based on these developments, the various foreign banks Account of my Uncle is already being investigated and that of Switzerland has already been frozen. In view of this very unpleasant development the sum of $45.7 million dollar has been Secretly moved to a private security vault for safekeeping...

October 28, 2004

No Surrender?

Instapundit guest-blogger Ann Althouse reports from a big Kerry rally in Madison, Wisconsin, where Bruce Springsteen delivered a speech and sang a few songs. I continue to find it interesting that the Kerry campaign has chosen Springsteen's song "No Surrender" as one of its campaign rally theme songs. The song's message is the opposite of that implied by its title. The lyrics:

No Surrender
We busted out of class had to get away from those fools
We learned more from a three minute record than we ever learned in school
Tonight I hear the neighborhood drummer sound
I can feel my heart begin to pound
You say you're tired and you just want to close your eyes and follow your dreams down

We made a promise we swore we'd always remember
No retreat no surrender
Like soldiers in the winter's night with a vow to defend
No retreat no surrender

Now young faces grow sad and old and hearts of fire grow cold
We swore blood brothers against the wind
I'm ready to grow young again
And hear your sister's voice calling us home across the open yards
Well maybe we could cut someplace of our own
With these drums and these guitars

Blood brothers in the stormy night with a vow to defend
No retreat no surrender

Now on the street tonight the lights grow dim
The walls of my room are closing in
There's a war outside still raging
you say it ain't ours anymore to win
I want to sleep beneath peaceful skies in my lover's bed
with a wide open country in my eyes
and these romantic dreams in my head

Perhaps that's why John Kerry plays the song at campaign rallies, and why he mounted the podium at the Democratic National Convention as that very snippet of the song boomed out across the Fleet Center crowd. There's a war outside still raging, but we'd rather dream romantic dreams of peace than actually fight for it. We're old. We're tired. We've lost that fighting spirit we had when we were young. We just wanna talk about healthcare...

On The Front Lines For Freedom

While much of the current presidential campaign focuses on Iraq, it's worth remembering that Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan, started three years ago - and steady progress has been made since then. But soldiers such as these pictured and thousands of others remain on the front line, fighting for the freedom of Afghanistan and, by extension, our freedom as well.

A Soldier from B Co., 1st Battalion, 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment brings up the rear while on a dismounted patrol high in the mountains of Nowabab, Afghanistan, Oct. 7, 2004. (U.S. Army photo by Spc. Harold Fields) [From DefenseLink.mil - click image for larger version. ]

A Random Sports-Related Thought

Random sports-related thought: When the Boston Red Sox were down three games to zero in the best-of-seven American League Championship Series to their nemesis the New York Yankees, what odds were the Las Vegas sports books giving on the Sox winning the World Series? And did anyone place a large bet on those odds?

In, But Not Of

If you haven't yet purchased a copy of Hugh Hewitt's excellent book In, But Not Of, I can't think of a better way to spend $12.59 today - that's less than a price of a delivery pizza for a book that could help you help change the world for the better.

The book, subtitled "A guide to Christian ambition and the desire to influence the world," is a practical guide to the nuts-and-bolts things a person should do to maximize their opportunities to achieve a position of significant influence.

The book is not a theological discussion of the propriety of a Christian pursuing power and influence, but a nuts-and-bolts guide to making such a pursuit successful so that the Christian can be salt and light to the world and influence it positively. With chapters as short as two pages and a few hundred words, the the book is an easy read and would make a perfect gift to any high school or college student on your gift list, though it also is perfect for older folks as well.

Hewitt, by the way, is a lawyer, author, radio talk show host, former adviser to Ronald Reagan. He's also a blogger.

Update

Thanks to all of you who sent emails or wrote nice comments to the post about my wife's medical emergency. She came home from the hospital yesterday after a rather traumatic few days in the hospital.

Boom

Did Russia help Saddam hide those missing explosives? Perhaps. The Pentagon is reportedly declassifying satellite photos showing heavy truck activity around the arms depot before the U.S. invasion. It's rather clear now that John Kerry's attack on President Bush concerning the missing explosives is non-factual. It's also rather clear that the New York Times ran with the non-factual story in an effort to harm Bush's re-election prospects. John Hinderaker has a good related post over at PowerLine.

Whatever It Takes

In a war for survival - in the war to remain free from Islamist oppression and death, the only exit strategy we can afford is complete and total victory, whatever it takes. For your children and mine, please remember that when you vote.

Click Play Button to start

October 27, 2004

BAH Humbug!

You may have noticed the photo that I call "Bah Humbug Baby" adorning an ad on the right side of the page. That's my son, Bennett Alexander Hobbs, starring in his first ad campaign, via a photo taken at Christmas time in 2002 when he was less than 4 months old. I placed the ad to remind you, my readers, that you can support the ongoing operation of this blog simply by doing some of your holiday or regular shopping at Amazon.com, provided you get to Amazon's website by clicking the Amazon link at the top of this page (or by clicking on my son's picture). HobbsOnline earns a small tiny commission on every purchase made by a shopper clicking to Amazon from a link from HobbsOnline.

Head's Up

Watch this space on Friday. 16,000 journalists will be.

Tennessee Political Earthquake Predicted

Knoxville political sage Frank Cagle predicts voters in West Tennessee are going to oust the sitting Lt. Governor and the sitting state House Speaker. Tennessee will be blessed if Cagle is right.

Pro-Kerry GOTV Effort Exploits Children

A pro-Kerry group is exploiting Wisconsin school kids as young as 11 in a get-out-the-vote effort that is taking kids away from the classroom. Details and commentary from Ann Althouse here. Coverage from the Milwaukee State Journal here.

Hundreds of public schoolchildren, some as young as 11, are taking time out of regular classes to canvass neighborhoods in Milwaukee, Madison and Racine in a get-out-the-vote effort organized by Wisconsin Citizen Action Fund - a group whose umbrella organization has endorsed John Kerry for president.

The coalition says the effort is non-partisan, but because the group is targeting minority neighborhoods and those with historically low voter turnout - overwhelmingly Democratic areas - Republican operatives are crying foul amid the highly charged political atmosphere in the state.

Kerry and George Bush are virtually tied in recent polls; in 2000, the state's 10 electoral votes went to the Democrats by 5,708 votes - a margin of two-tenths of one percent of all votes cast.

"They are exploiting schoolchildren on the taxpayers' dime to conduct what is clearly a Democratic, partisan get-out-the-vote effort," said Chris Lato, communications director for the Republican Party of Wisconsin. "To spend this time on a clearly partisan effort when these kids should be in school learning is shocking. It's a disgraceful use of taxpayer money."

The idea for the program was developed by Larry Marx, co-executive director of Wisconsin Citizen Action...

Georgia Duerst-Lahti, chairman of the political science department at Beloit College, said she finds merit in the program, but she wishes the people at Wisconsin Citizen Action would not "pretend they are not partisan."

"It's a liberal, lefty kind of group, and everyone knows it," she said. Any get-out-the-vote effort, especially in urban areas, is likely to help the Democrats, said Duerst-Lahti. "There is absolutely a partisan aim here," she said.

The Wrong Diagnosis

The Tennessean blames the flu vaccine shortage on the pharmaceutical industry's desire for higher profits, in an editorial today that claims there's no link between liability lawsuits and the dwindling number of companies that produce the flu shots. Predictably, the editorial calls for "solving" the problem by a large dose of government spending to subsidize flue shots.

But the truth is liability lawsuits have played a very large role in reducing the number of flue vaccine makers for the U.S., and government intervention of the kind The Tennessean is calling for more of has also played a role,, according to this comprehensive and fact-filled report from William Tucker

Why is it that 100 percent of our flu vaccines are now made by two companies in Europe? The answer is simple. Trial lawyers drove the American manufacturers out of the business.

In 1967 there were 26 companies making vaccines in the United States. Today there are only four that make any type of vaccine and none making flu vaccine. Wyeth was the last to fall, dropping flu shots after 2002. For recently emerging illnesses such as Lyme disease, there is no commercial vaccine, even though one has been approved by the Food and Drug Administration.

All this is the result of a legal concept called "liability without fault" that emerged from the hothouse atmosphere of the law schools in the 1960s and became the law of the land. Under the old "negligence" regime, you had to prove a product manufacturer had done something wrong in order to hold it liable for damages. Under liability without fault, on the other hand, the manufacturer can be held responsible for harm from its products, whether blameworthy or not. Add to that the jackpot awards that come from pain-and-suffering and punitive damages, and you have a legal climate that no manufacturer wants to risk.

In theory, prices might have been jacked up enough to make vaccine production profitable even with the lawsuit risk, but federal intervention made vaccines a low-margin business. Before 1993, manufacturers sold vaccines to doctors, doctors prescribed them to patients, and there was some markup. Then Congress adopted the Vaccine for Children Act, which made the government a monopsony buyer. The feds now purchase over half of all vaccines at a low fixed price and distribute them to doctors. This has essentially finished off the private market.

Government intervention could drive down the price by making government the sole buyer and at a very low price fixed by the government. But at such a low price the profit would be negligible and few if any vaccine makers would agree to produce the vaccine.

If you're without a flu shot this year, ask yourself which you'd rather have: flu shots that cost $50 and are plentiful, or a flu shots that cost $20 or even $10 but aren't available.

Government intervention of the kind called for by The Tennessean today, would only increase the risk of the latter.

October 26, 2004

One in A Thousand

John Kerry continues to harp on the missing explosives in Iraq, as if less than 400 tons of the stuff is all that big a deal considering that the coalition forces have already destroyed 280,000 tons of Iraqi munitions and have secured another 160,000 tons awaiting disposal. That's 440,000 tons of arms and explosives, and John Kerry thinks 377 tons that - as we've now learned - went missing before American forces reached the arms depot - represents a great "blunder."

Let's put things in perspective. If 377 tons of explosives were taken from the depot and are now in the hands of Saddam loyalists or other insurgents and terrorists inside Iraq - which is not certain - it would still be less than 1/1000th of the arms that Saddam Hussein would still be in possession of today, along with his position, power, and billions of dollars scammed from the oil-for-food program if John Kerry had had his way and we had continued to dither with UN inspections and toothless resolutions and crumbling sanctions.

I don't know about you, but I feel far safer with 377 tons of explosives in the hands of terrorists tied down facing the American military in the sands of Iraq than I would with Saddam - with his known ties to Islamist terrorism and his grudge against the U.S. - holding 440,000 tons of arms and explosives and facing nothing more potent than a sharply worded resolution. But that's just me.

OHIO GOP Challenges 35,000 Voter Registrations

The Ohio Republican Party is challenging 35,000 voter registrations across the state of Ohio, registrations suspected of being fraudulent or of people who are not eligible to vote. Good. The Left will howl and toss around words like disenfranchisement, intimidation and "voter suppression," but the GOP is right to challenge any voter registration they believe is fraudulent or is of a person ineligible to vote, a point that Will Wilkinson made rather well. The good news is that Ohio's Gov. Bob Taft is promising scrutiny so that only properly registered, eligible voters actually vote in Ohio this year.

Taft told CNN’s Bill Hemmer that in four Ohio counties, more people have registered to vote than live in those counties and are of voting age. "We have four counties where you have more voters registered than you have 18 and over population," Taft said.

Taft noted the role of Democrat 527 groups who have inflated Ohio’s voter registration rolls. "We've had a lot of fraudulent voter registrations already, mostly by those 527 groups. There will be unprecedented scrutiny of this election on both sides," he said. Taft noted that many of these new registrations appear to be fraudulent.

Taft says he hopes the heightened level of scrutiny will lead to "an accurate count for the State of Ohio." Taft said vote monitors will seek to "make sure that a voter is a citizen, 18 and over, and a resident of the precinct and county where they plan to vote."

If you spot a news story about suspected voter fraud in your part of the country, please send me the link and a brief summary to voterfraud-at-gmail.com.

Milestone

More than 50,000 different people have visited HobbsOnline this month, a new milestone for the blog. Thank you. The top visited page so far this month is my archive of voter fraud stories, accessed more than 23,000 times. Thanks to all of you in the blogosphere who linked to my voter fraud archive - that page is currently the number two search result when you Google voter fraud. Voter fraud is the number one search phrase bringing people to HobbsOnline, having generatad almost 1,000 visits. Other stats for the still-unfinished month of October: 110,000 total visits, 2 million pages read, and 3 more gigs of bandwidth consumed (and climbing) than I've paid for.

And If Not That, Then Perhaps The Comfy Chair?

Nashville's largest newspaper, The Tennessean, says in an editorial today that the growing threat of Iran's nuclear weapons program "warrants an ultimatum."

What kind of an ultimatum? A threat to use force to destroy Iran's nuke facilities, perhaps? Or a threat to use force to oust the terrorist-supporting Mad Mullahs of Tehran?

No. An ultimatum that "Iran... will become isolated if it doesn't listen to reason."

Agonizing. Such a "threat" would be empty and ineffective. Iran hasn't listened to reason for 25 years. And the same European countries that didn't want to back the U.S. in confronting a much weaker Iraq over its weapons program sure won't want to confront Iraq with anything close a threat of force if they don't cease pursuit of nukes.

The naiveté of viewing a threat of "isolation" as an "ultimatum" would be almost funny if the potential of a nuclear-armed terrorist-supporting Islamist regime that hates America and is hell-bent on the destruction of Israel weren't so grave.

I wonder if the editorial's author knows that Iran's nuclear facilities are located in hardened underground sites. I wonder if he knows that Iran's leaders have threatened to wipe out Israel. I wonder if he knows that there are real doubts that Israel has the capability of destroying Iran's underground nuclear facilities the way it took out Iraq's above-ground nuke site in the 1980s.

But mostly I wonder if the editorial's author is aware that John Kerry promised twice during the debates to cancel the nuclear "bunker buster" weapons development program, the one program that might provide the United States a way to destroy caches of weapons of mass destruction stored in hardened underground bunkers by rogue regimes as well as the hardened underground weapons labs and facilities where such weapons are produced.

I wonder, too, if the author has contemplated what we might have to do to Tehran if the Mad Mullahs, unbowed by threats of being "isolated," ever use a nuke to erase Israel, or pass a nuclear bomb to a member of al Qaeda or Hezbollah to smuggle into and then detonate in Baltimore or New York or New Orleans or Los Angeles...

Kerry Campaign Calls Non-Existent Voters

A blogger finds evidence of voter fraud - the local office of the Kerry campaign has at least six different alleged voters registered at his address:

In the last three or four days, my residence has received a half dozen calls from the Clark County "Kerry" Campaign. My caller ID reads: "OHIO VICTORY 937-323-5158". I'm posting that in it's entirety so that if any web crawler comes across it, they'll get slammed by unsolicited phone calls. Anyhow, every time I answer the person on the other line asks for someone who doesn't live at my residence. It's been a different name every time. Interesting isn't it? Could this be another sign that someone has registered "people" to vote using false information? If so that's at least a half dozen voters with my phone number. I know for certain that they don't have old residents of this house, since it has been in my family for many years with no one by those names.

We have called that number to find out where they are getting their contact lists. Well it so happens that they get their lists from the Clark County Board of Elections. Now the board of elections only maintains lists of people who are registered to vote. This means that there are at least five (or more) individuals who have been registered with my phone number, but do not live at this residence. This may be going somewhere....stay tuned.

ACORN's Branches

Reader Patty O. writes from Colorado, where the left-wing organization ACORN has been implicated in voter registration fraud:

Here in Colorado at least three groups are involved in registration fraud. ACORN, the New Voters Project and Colorado Progressive Coalition.

ACORN is headed by Wade Rathke. He helped found the United Labor Union in 1979, founded Local 100 of the Service Employees International in New Orleans (affiliated with the AFL-CIO) and sits on the board of both the Tides Foundation and Tides Center. The Tides Foundation receives money from the HEINZ FOUNDATION.

The New Voters Project lists on its' website one of it's main supporters, THE TIDES FOUNDATION.

The Colorado Progressive Coalition has on its' board of directors, Lena Potyondy. She is the Political Director for the Denver Local #105 Service Employees International.

I found all of this information within minutes of searching the internet. I would love for people in other states where ACORN has surfaced or any other group associated with voter registration fraud to search those groups for similar links. If you recall the AFL-CIO was involved with the Oct. 5th "Day of Protests" where several Republican campaign offices were stormed and some people injured. I suspect they may be more involved in a lot of this than many would care to believe. The smell of collusion is almost unavoidable.

If you spot a news story about suspected voter fraud in your part of the country, please send me the link and a brief summary to voterfraud-at-gmail.com.

Voter Fraud Roundup

Here's a round-up of several stories about voter fraud (and related issues such as voter intimidation, etc...), that I've recieved via readers in recent days. Headlines only for some of them.

Media Coverage:
A tally of election semi-dirty tricks - Philadelphia Daily News, 10/19
Voter fraud at record levels - Stockton (Calif.) Record, 10/18
Calif justices skirt voter privacy issue until after election - AP, 10/18
Voter fraud case traced to Defiance County registrations volunteer; 124 registrations falsified, allegedly for crack cocaine - Toledo Blade, 10/19
Bogus voter registration forms pop up - Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 10/20:

Fulton County elections officials suspect they received as many as 3,000 bogus voter registration applications collected illegally in exchange for money. The applications were submitted to the Georgia secretary of state's office in September by Unity '04, a national group working in Atlanta with civil rights leader the Rev. Joseph Lowery to register African-American voters.

There ought to be a federal criminal investigation of ACORN under the RICO statute, and Congress ought to launch a parallel probe.

A Mini-Watergate - Accuracy In Media, 10/25. A bit off topic, but Nader's forces are accusing the Kerry campaign of dirty tricks.

Thousands of new-voter cards in Ohio undeliverable - Cincinnati Enquirer, 10/20. The paper reports that thousands of cards mailed by county election boards to newly registered voters throughout Ohio are being returned because the people can't be found. Ohio Republican Party Chairman Robert Bennett says this is a result of statewide registration fraud conducted by independent groups that support Democratic candidates. [Via PowerLine]

Bloggage:
Sean Hackbarth notes that Kerry-backers are helping convicts vote in Wisconsin, and the state isn't doing much to double-check their eligibility. He has a follow-up here. And yet more from Sean Hackbarth: Project Vote, which is being investigated by the Racine County (Wisconsin) district attorney for voter registration fraud, apparently hired two convicted felons to register voters. That's illegal.
Charles Rich notes the NAACP's crack-for-voter registrations scandal.
Jeff Quinton reports on a group trying to trick residents in six of South Carolina's poorest counties into voting by promising them flu shots, though it can't deliver on the promise. Disgusting.
Scary Kerry has posted a blog article on vote paring/vote swapping in the 2004 election, here, and also updated his guide to combating voter fraud from a few weeks ago.

Good News:
Reader Steve N. sent the link to this AP story noting that the Florida Supreme Court may have learned its lesson from four years ago and given up trying to alter election law to suit the Democrats.

People who cast a provisional ballot at the wrong precinct aren't entitled to have their votes counted, the state Supreme Court unanimously ruled Monday, rejecting an argument by labor unions that the rule wrongly disenfranchises voters. The court said that the law clearly states that provisional ballots must be counted only if the person was entitled to vote "at the precinct," and that the constitution gives the Legislature the authority to dictate voting rules.

CORRECTIONS:

Your post at http://billhobbs.com/hobbsonline/004758.html incorrectly states: "Meanwhile, vote already cast on absentee ballots that listed Nader will be tossed out. Those votes will not count and those voters will not have sufficient time to receive, complete, and return a new ballot." Please refer to the news release from the Federal Voting Assistance Program which states "Any votes for Mr. Nader will be treated as write-in votes. Votes for all other candidates will be tallied as usual - no further action from voters is required."

David Calder, Major, USAF
Hill Air Force Base Voting Assistance Officer

If you spot a news story about suspected voter fraud in your part of the country, please send me the link and a brief summary to voterfraud-at-gmail.com.

Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes

Joe Trippi says the Internet is changing things, like political campaigns, journalism and war. Hey. Someone finally noticed that the Internet is changing things.

Boom

Another attempt by a member of the elite Big Media to smear President Bush has already been undone by both the blogosphere - and by another member of the elite Big Media.

The short version: The New York Times published this report Monday accusing the Bush administration, essentially, of letting 377 tons of high-explosives fall into the hands of the enemy by failing to secure a weapons depot from looters after the fall of Iraq.

John Kerry jumped on the story, calling the failure to secure the explosives one of the Bush administration's "greatest blunders."

Er, except... Monday night, NBC News broadcast a Jim Miklaszewski report noting that the missing explosives were already gone before U.S. forces arrived at the weapons depot in the early days of the war. Roll that around a bit. The explosives were already gone by the time US forces arrived.

NBC's version of events is solid - NBC had a reporter embedded with the 101st Airborne unit that secured the depot. NBC Nightly News 10/25/04:

April 10, 2003, only three weeks into the war, NBC News was embedded with troops from the Army's 101st Airborne as they temporarily take over the Al Qakaa weapons installation south of Baghdad. But these troops never found the nearly 380 tons of some of the most powerful conventional explosives, called HMX and RDX, which is now missing.

Which, er, means that Kerry is blaming Bush for failing to secure explosives that were stolen before we invaded Iraq. Well, Sen. Kerry, perhaps if you and others on your side of the political aisle hadn't demanded that Bush spend a year trying to get the UN and the French to approve taking action against Sadddam, we might have gotten there in time.

Tuesday's NYT carries a follow-up report, "Iraq explosives become issue in campaign," that fails to mention that Monday's NYT report painted a false picture designed to hurt President Bush and help the Kerry campaign.

Blogospheric commentary:
Roger L. Simon
Blogs for Bush
Belmont Club

Footnote: U.S. forces operating in Iraq have seized and either secured or destroyed some 243,000 tons of Iraqi munitions since the start of Operation Iraqi Freedom, or nearly 650 times the amount that is missing. What is unknown is how many weapons of mass destruction and related materials Saddam was able to move into Syria during the year that Bush followed the same kind of UN-begging France-coddling approach to national security that Kerry espouses...

October 25, 2004

Say What?

Tennessee poll: Bush leads Kerry by 12. The Tennessean publishes the poll results on the same day it endorsed Kerry. Bizarre line from the endorsement:

Kerry understands that a strong America is an America with steadfast allies. He has vowed to support U.S. troops abroad by providing them with the proper equipment and training.

Actually, Kerry doesn't believe it that way. He believes a weak America that subjects its interests to the whims of the UN and the French and the Germans will have the French and the Germans as its "allies."

Now, read the second line: "He has vowed to support U.S. troops abroad by providing them with the proper equipment and training."

Yes. And he backed up that vow by voting against $87 billion needed to properly arm and fund our troops in the Iraq and Afghanistan combat zones. And, in 1984, at the height of the Cold War, he called for cancellation of a series of weapons systems that today we are finding crucial in the war on terror.

Kerry Lies About Security Council Meeting

The Washington Times reports that John Kerry's oft-repeated claim to have met with the UN Security Council before the Iraq war is a lie. RedState.org has a lot more on the subject. This story has been brewing for awhile in the blogosphere, and now it has broken into the mainstream press.

Why does it matter? Kerry tells the lie as part of his standard talk about how he would be better at coalition-building and foreign policy than President Bush, a key part of his campaign message.

October 22, 2004

Blogging Forecast

Sorry for the light blogging today... my wife is in the hospital. Again. I've lost count how many times this year. They're going to name a suite for us. More light bloggage in the forecast for the weekend, though I will try to clear out the backlog of emails about voter fraud stories sent to me at voterfraud-at-gmail.com.

I picked the wrong week to give up coffee.

Wolves

Watch these two ads, the first from the Bush campaign, the second from the pro-Bush independent group Progress for America.

Wolves

Click Play Button to start

Ashley's Story

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Two decades ago, Ronald Reagan framed the 1984 presidential race with a stunningly great ad titled Bear in the Woods. Wolves is better by a mile. And, combined with Ashley's Story, it will be a devastating one-two punch to the dwindling hopes of John Kerry. The best news of all: Both are running heavily in battleground states with two of the largest media-buys of the campaign.

You can watch Reagan's Bear ad here.

Also, you may wish to watch the Bush campaign's other recent ad on the choice facing us this Nov. 2:

Risk

Click Play Button to start

"Either we fight terrorists abroad or face them here." That one line from the latest Bush campaign ad encapsulates everything that matters most in this election.

Pa. Dems Working Hard to Cancel Military Vote