You might think the Commander in Chief of a nation’s military would want to make it as easy as possible for the troops he commands to vote. You might think that, but in the case of Our Dear Leader, you’d be wrong.
President Barack Obama, along with many Democrats, likes to say that, while they may disagree with the GOP on many issues related to national security, they absolutely share their admiration and dedication to members of our armed forces. Obama, in particular, enjoys being seen visiting troops and having photos taken with members of our military. So, why is his campaign and the Democrat party suing to restrict their ability to vote in the upcoming election?
On July 17th, the Obama for America Campaign, the Democratic National Committee, and the Ohio Democratic Party filed suit in OH to strike down part of that state’s law governing voting by members of the military. Their suit said that part of the law is “arbitrary” with “no discernible rational basis.”
Currently, Ohio allows the public to vote early in-person up until the Friday before the election. Members of the military are given three extra days to do so. While the Democrats may see this as “arbitrary” and having “no discernible rational basis,” I think it is entirely reasonable given the demands on servicemen and women’s time and their obligations to their sworn duty.
[f]or each of the last three years, the Department of Defense’s Federal Voting Assistance Program has reported to the President and the Congress that the number one reason for military voter disenfranchisement is inadequate time to successfully vote.
I think it’s unconscionable that we as a nation wouldn’t make it as easy as possible for members of the military to vote. They arguably have more right to vote than the rest of us, since it is their service and sacrifice that ensures we have the right to vote in the first place.
If anyone proposes legislation to combat voter fraud, Democrats will loudly scream that the proposal could “disenfranchise” some voter, somewhere. We must ensure, they argue, that voting is easy and accessible to every single voter. Every voter, that is, except the men and women of our military.
Make no mistake, the Democrat lawsuit is intended to disenfranchise some unknown number of military voters. The judge should reject it with prejudice.
How telling is it of the Obama and Democratic mindset that they would attempt something like this? Don’t they understand how bad this makes them look? Don’t they care? Or are they so desperate at this point that they will do absolutely anything to minimize the number of votes against The Smartest President Ever® when November rolls around?
I may not agree with some things the military is used for, but I absolutely agree that every service man and woman should be able to cast a vote for the person he or she wants to lead them.
Were I in charge, I’d make sure ballots were distributed to every service member at least two months in advance, collected soon after, and transported to everywhere they will be counted no later than a week before the election. I might even make it a serious felony to mess with such ballots, just to forestall anyone deciding to “forget” or lose” the ballots in states where they might well make a difference in the outcome of an election.
Obama, his campaign, the DNC, and the Ohio Democratic Party should be mightily ashamed of themselves. But then, shame is not something anyone ever associates with any of them.
What do you think?
Much ado about nothing or an open attempt to disenfranchise voters not likely to vote “the right way”?
No. You didn’t lose a day. Truth in Toons will be here tomorrow, as usual.
I was going though some old email yesterday and found one containing these political cartoons. Apparently, they originated overseas in 2010, though I don’t know where. (Thanks go to buffalogrammy for sharing them.)
They’re not especially funny, except, perhaps, in a macabre way, but what struck me about them was how they’re still relevant two years later.
Whether or not you like or detest Obama or could not care less either way, you have to admit there is a lot of truth in these ‘toons.
What would you do if you discovered one of your favorite stores was supporting organizations with ties to terrorist groups?
Former U.S. Marine James Canning, after learning that Best Buy was donating money to CAIR, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a group the FBI has identified as supporting radical Islamic terrorists, made the one-minute YouTube video below and began a boycott of the store chain.
Former U.S. Marine James Canning
Although I think that corporate support for a variety of social and charitable groups is commendable, I also think the company should know to whom their money is going and what they represent.
I imagine there are any number of Islamic organizations to which they could donate that have not been named unindicted co-conspirators in supporting and funneling money to terrorist organizations.
Somebody at Best Buy dropped the DVD player on this one, but rather than admit their error, they’re sticking to their guns according to this quote from the below-linked article:
“Best Buy’s customers and employees around the world represent a variety of faiths and denominations, and we respect our employees’ efforts to constructively promote diversity and education in their communities.”
While expertly crafted to sound politically correct so as not to offend anyone, the statement completely avoids the true issue — their support of terrorist supporters, essentially telling their outraged customers where to stick it.
I don’t spend a lot of money at Best Buy. I might shop their once a year, so my support for the boycott is likely to have next to no impact. But I suspect there are a lot of ex-marines and soldiers and sailors and airmen and others who do shop there regularly. And those folks have families and friends who can choose where to spend their money
Best Buy’s decision about who not to offend in this matter would seem to mean they’ve decided their future lay with an ever-growing American and world-wide Muslim population.
Researchers at a Texas university have designed a chip that could give smartphones the long-envied ability of comic book hero Superman to see through walls, clothes or other objects.
A team at University of Texas at Dallas tuned a small, inexpensive microchip to discern a “terahertz” band of the electromagnetic spectrum.
The design works with chips made using Complementary Metal-Oxide Semiconductor technology behind processors commonly found in personal computers, smartphones, televisions and videogame consoles.
“CMOS is affordable and can be used to make lots of chips,” electrical engineering professor Kenneth O said in a statement on Friday.
“The combination of CMOS and terahertz means you could put this chip and a transmitter on the back of a cell phone, turning it into a device carried in your pocket that can see through objects.”
To assuage privacy worries, the professor and his team at the Texas Analogue Center of Excellence are limiting their study to what the chips can make visible at distances of four inches (10 centimetres) or less, according to the university.
The terahertz band has wavelengths that fall between microwaves used for mobile phone signals and infrared that is employed for night vision goggles.
The chip designed by Mr O’s team detects terahertz waves and shows the resulting imagery, perhaps on a smartphone screen.
Mr O’s team highlighted potential medical uses such as enabling doctors to peer easily into patients’ bodies and practical applications along the lines of finding studs in walls.
“We’ve created approaches that open a previously untapped portion of the electromagnetic spectrum for consumer use,” Mr O said.
“There are all kinds of things you could be able to do that we just haven’t yet thought about.”
Well, I feel a lot better knowing the researchers will be “limiting their study to what the chips can make visible at distances of four inches or less.” Lord knows we wouldn’t want anyone wandering the streets taking a peek at everyone through their clothes.
Of course, once they develop the technology, I suspect there will be lots and lots of people, most of whom will be drawing government paychecks and and carrying badges, who’ll have no compunction at all about using the technology to spy on everyone on the street and in their homes. Store detectives will be using the technology to look for shoplifters…and really enjoying the work!
What? Fourth Amendment, you say? It won’t apply. “We’re not searching you,” they’ll say. “We’re just looking around. You know these goggles we wear can see through things so it’s up to you to stay out of our line of sight if you don’t want us to see you naked.”
On the plus side, girlie magazines will quickly be out of business. For that matter, so will porn sites. Why pay to look at pictures in a magazine or on your monitor when you can don your goggles and watch your neighbors getting busy.
Once this technology becomes commonplace, I think we’ll see lots of manufacturers weaving enough metal threads into their clothing lines to block the snooping. Aluminum siding will make a comeback. Other siding and roofing will begin incorporating metal particles.
You know, this new technology might well be a boon to the economy. Think of all the new jobs it will create as people clamor for new smartphones and other devices that will let them see what folks at the gym or the club or at the park really look like. Think of all the manufacturing and construction jobs it will create as the demand for the aforementioned siding and shingles skyrockets.
Professor Kenneth O and his team might well accomplish with their new technology what Our Dear Leader and his cabal have failed to do for three-plus years. And it won’t cost the taxpayers trillions of dollars.
The real question now is, do I invest in the spy goggles manufacturers or those who make the siding and roofing?
America has a two-party system. We have a Stupid Party (the Republicans) and an Evil Party (the Democrats). Every so often Congress does something that is both stupid and evil, and we call this “bipartisanship”.
***
I’ve often lamented the commercialization of Christmas, but I’m rethinking things after reading Jeff Jacoby’s latest column:
The gift of giving
OF ALL THE RITUALS that mark this season, none is more misguided than the complaints about how crass and mercenary the holidays have become.
The laments begin early in November, when Santa starts showing up in TV commercials. They surge during the hyperactive shopping weekend that follows Thanksgiving. By the time Christmas (and Chanukah) are actually at hand, you’d have to be in a persistent vegetative state not to hear all the scolding about how the “reason for the season” has been lost amid the buy-one-get-one sales and the over-elaborate mall displays.
Even Pope Benedict joined the chorus this year. In the homily he delivered on Christmas Eve, he deplored “the superficial glitter” of the season, urging the faithful not to confuse the “commercial celebration” Christmas has become with its “true joy and true light.”
I wouldn’t presume to argue with the pope about the religious significance of Christmas, and I will readily acknowledge that the holiday shopping season can certainly be stressful, expensive, and more than a little materialistic. Nonetheless, as a measure of cultural and communal health, I can’t help seeing this yearly impulse to shower friends and family with presents as one of our society’s most endearing and heartening traits.
I don’t often go to the theater, but when I do, I expect to be able to enjoy the performance without being distracted by those seated around me.
Apparently, it’s becoming so common for people to be tweeting during performances that theaters are starting to set aside “tweet seats” for the vainglorious who believe their self-styled bon mots more important than the efforts of the performers.
I can only hope the tweeting section will be the last row or two. Of the third balcony. After all, why waste good seats on folks who can’t be bothered to pay attention to the whole performance.
In a comment to my blog post yesterday, reader Ann On asked…
“Got any advice for how we distinguish those who protect and defend freedom from those who just mindlessly obey orders and kill “towelheads” or “gooks” or whoever the latest boogieman is — never asking if they might actually be destroying freedom instead?”
…and I thought it deserved an answer.
Ann, your question asks what advice I’d give to soldiers in the field. The answer is, none, because you’re asking the wrong question. Soldiers are just men and women doing the jobs they are commanded to do. Does that absolve them of responsibility if they purposely slaughter obvious innocents. Absolutely not. But soldiers are not the problem, Ann.
Our military is commanded by our civilian government. Specifically, the armed forces are commanded by the President. They go nowhere and do nothing without the President’s approval. At any moment, The President can command all American armed forces worldwide to pack up and come home or to doff their uniforms and pull on powder-blue polyester leisure suits.
Now, in fairness to American Presidents, they are advised by people they trust. And those people rely on other people they trust to gather and analyze intelligence, news, and other information.
But even if the President and all his advisers decide they want to send the Marines somewhere to kick some foreign butt, Congress must first issue a Declaration of War.
Right about now, many readers are laughing. They’re laughing because what I just briefly described is the way it’s supposed to happen according to the rules We the People set down on paper over two centuries ago. They’re laughing, or maybe crying, because they know those rules have been subverted and ignored for so long our Government too often behaves as if there were no rules at all. And when rules become inconvenient, one of our courts uses some esoteric bastardization of the language to find the justification they want in a Constitutional penumbra none of the learned Justices or judges who came before them ever noticed.
Perhaps now, you understand why I said soldiers are not the problem. And you may be thinking I’ve identified the real problem — the men and women who make up our government — but you’d be wrong. Even they are not the problem.
The problem is We the People, that part of us who have, for generations, been too busy to notice what our elected officials have been doing; who have gone to the polls on election day and voted for the Ds or the Rs because that’s so much easier than having to spend time informing ourselves about the issues and the candidates and really thinking and discussing it all with others so we can cast an informed vote instead of a blind one. The problem is those who feel without thinking and think without feeling.
Perhaps some allowance may be made for certain generations past when information was tightly controlled and we knew only what our newspapers and, later, televisions and radios told us. But today, in 2011, there is simply no excuse for being oblivious to what is happening in the nation and the world. And while it might take a bit of searching to find it, the logical, rational truth is out there for those who don’t just dismiss out of hand everyone and everything that does not agree with their insular worldview.
And lest someone imagine I’m any kind of authority on anything, I’m not. But I believe I’m generally much more aware of what’s going on than most, and am willing to learn more about issues when I believe it’s warranted.
So here, at long last, is my my advice to the people who are the real problem, although those who most need to hear it and take it to heart don’t waste valuable TV or gaming or partying time reading blogs like this:
Get yourself informed about issues. Stop blindly voting party lines. Look and listen to all the candidates. Stop trying to make everyone else do what you want them to do. Instead, set an example. Elect people at every level who understand the purpose of government is not to provide for us but to protect our right to provide for ourselves. Read Claire Wolfe’s blog for ideas about resisting and monkey-wrenching. Stop demanding government solve your problems. Recognize the inevitable, unintended consequences of such meddling that, inevitably, worsens the problem or creates new ones.
There is so much you can do it could fill a book. But the two most important — THINK! DO!
The bottom line, Ann — I believe there are only two ways to solve the issues in your question: One — winning an armed revolution and, two — motivate and change the people who are the root cause. And since I’m way too old and unhealthy for the former, I’m sticking with the latter, one blog post, one conversation, one debate at a time.
Agree? Disagree? Have an alternate solution? Please let me know.
And while we’re celebrating, please remember take a moment to honor those who pledged their Lives, their Fortunes, and their Sacred Honor to create this nation, and to remember and thank all those who since then have served to protect and defend it and the freedom for which it stands.
Comment Contest Winners # = Repeat winner
For the week ending
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8/4 Will you be this week's winner?
