Campaigns Spar Over Military Absentee Ballots | Military.com

Campaigns Spar Over Military Absentee Ballots | Military.com

Even as state election officials across the U.S. have noticed a rise in military voting, a disturbing trend has appeared. The rate active-duty military voters who reported not receiving a requested absentee ballot almost doubled from 16 percent in 2008 to 29 percent in 2010, according to a survey done by the Defense Department’s Federal Voter Assistance Program (FVAP). 

“It is a very real challenge” to get ballots out to forward operating bases in Afghanistan and other duty stations worldwide, said Paddy McGuire, FVAP’s deputy director for Elections Assistance. Mail services must also return those ballots as servicemembers try to keep track of ever-changing voting deadlines and the blizzard of federal, state and local election laws.

The political parties have added to the confusion of who can vote and when. Both Republicans and Democrats have dispatched platoons of lawyers to challenge or defend local election laws as they jockey for advantage.

The parties have clashed recently over an Ohio law that allowed military absentee ballots to be accepted up to the day before the Nov. 6 general election day. The cutoff for civilian absentee ballots is Nov. 2.

The National Guard Association filed a motion backing Republicans seeking to keep the three-day window for the military although Joseph Goheen, an NGA spokesman, said the motion was filed reluctantly.

“Our intent was to ensure that our members had a voice in this,” Goheen said. “But it’s been twisted in every direction by those seeking to politicize this.”

He said he supported the solution of accepting all absentee ballots up to Nov. 5 as requested in the lawsuit filed jointly by the Obama campaign, the Democratic National Committee and Ohio Democratic Party in July.

“We have no problem with that. We’re really not taking sides in this,” said Goheen, who explained that NGA’s main concern is making voting as easy as possible for servicemembers overseas. 

McGuire admits a “complexity problem” still exists for troops trying to navigate the absentee ballot process.

Whats The Matter With A Cain/Palin Ticket?

I know it works for me. It will certainly make things interesting. Bet the turnout on Election Day will be record-breaking. Put Sarah-barracuda up against Joe BFD Biden in a debate again.

Let Mr. Cain bust Bambi's chops for the lousy job he's done as President. Let the successful businessman mop the floor with the academic elitist. Cain will have Bambi walking down the road kicking cans and talking to himself by the time its over.

Write-in time. Screw politcs. This is about the future of America. You can choose Occupy Wall Street with the freeloaders and greedy slobs or Occupy Your Street with responsibilities and a paycheck. Time to choose.

Poll on Sarah Palin

Sarah Palin for President in 2012?
Cast Your Vote!

Vote Here Now!

$4,000? I'd Have Asked for Full Tuition to Hillsdale College

I guess the ACLU does a little good sometimes

Student settles case over 'NOBAMA' shirt
Will be paid $4,000 by school officials who detained him

A Colorado student detained for wearing a "NOBAMA" slogan taped to his shirt as Michelle Obama prepared to speak at his public school during the 2008 presidential campaign is getting a $4,000 settlement from officials.

According to the Denver Post, Blake Benson reached agreement to settle the dispute and avoid a lawsuit against the Jefferson County sheriff's department and the Jefferson County school district.

Benson, a student at Dakota Ridge High, wore the slogan Nov. 3, 2008, as other students were lining up to enter the gym to hear the first lady speak.
He chose to "stay and campaign" for Sen. John McCain at the school, according to a news release from the ACLU.

AFA Wants To Know

Is Obama qualified to be President.

PBS running poll on Sarah Palin.

AFA counters by running poll on Barack Obama.

Respond to the AFA poll here.

New Presidential Candidate

For those that can't see the above video: Cargosquid 08
If elected I promise to put a 1911a1 into every pot. You have to get your own chicken.
I will make January 23rd a national holiday.
Militia training will resume. The citizenry should be trained for national emergencies including that of overreaching government.
Tarring and feathering of corrupt politicians will become a national pastime and be shown at Halftime on Super Bowl Sunday.
Letters of Marque will be issued against terrorists, pirates, and, oh, anybody that ticks us off....
The UN will be moved to Africa.
Drill Here, Drill Now, Drill Over there, too.
Anybody that declares that we are only in a "war for oil" will be deported to Darfur where there is a war for oil going on....
Income taxes will be eliminated for Honorably discharged veterans and honorably serving military members. Murtha and Kerry will have their entire net worth confiscated. Kerry will be tried for treason. Murtha will be sent to Parris Island for "re-training."
Free trade is good for America. If the other countries don't want it, we will match THEIR restrictions.
The State Department will get their funding tripled. All foreign officers will then get trained at Blackwater. Let them protect themselves if they don't like how their bodyguards react. The Army and Marine Corps should NOT be doing THEIR job.
The rules of engagement will be, well, you'll find out....sssshhhh. Let's surprise them.
If Iran wants nukes, fine. They want to play with the big boys. If one nuke goes off, ANYWHERE, they get turned to glass.
Same for Korea.
Build the fence. Put the National Guard on it. No more Mexican soldiers crossing the line. Send some maps to Mexico. With big lines drawn, showing "north", "south", and "border". Remind them that 1846 was not THAT long ago.....
That said, if their citizens want to become Americans, streamline the process and take ALL OF THEIR HARD WORKING CITIZENS.
Cold beer, Smooth Whiskey, and smoke 'em if you got' em.
If someone wants free medical treatment, we will give them a free ticket to Cuba.
General Petraeus for Vice President.
Fred Thompson on Supreme Court. Condi, too.
John Bolton as Secretary of State.
Ted Nugent as Secretary of Interior.
Defense Department renamed the War Department. USMC Gen'l Mattis (ret) as Sec of War.
Disband Department of Homeland Defense.
Recognize Taiwan as the Republic of Taiwan. (If they want us to do so.)
Give India the USS Kitty Hawk, just to tick off Russia. (and Iran)
If Georgia, Poland, and any other country wants our help, put their troops through OUR boot camp and training. Then sell them our weapons.
The BATFE will be folded back into the FBI. ALCOHOL, TOBACCO, and FIREARMS, should be a convenience store, not an agency. "Shall not be infringed" is written in plain english. The other two products don't need a federal watchdog agency.

Oh, and the White House will get its own firing range.

What If McCain Picks A Woman?

My Brother Marine, Ron Winter, author of "Masters of the Art: A Fighting Marines View of Viet Nam" and a door-gunner on a CH-46 in Nam asks this question. He has more after the jump.

Well, what if McCain does select a woman as his running mate? Personally, I think it would be the death knell for the Democratic campaign, based of course on the assumption that his selection is a good one and can stand up to campaign scrutiny.

I’ve heard the same point made by quite a few of my veteran friends - male veterans - and if you can convince that crowd, I think the American voter is more than ready for a woman in one of the top executive posts.

There are at least two Republican women, and one business Chief Executive Officer whose names have been mentioned as possible VP selections, but the MainStream Media, well, actually, all the media, have given them short shrift.

They are Texas Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, and former eBay Ceo Meg Whitman.

All are pragmatic, accomplished leaders who have set firsts with their elections and careers. They have shown they have a tremendous grasp of the issues, aren’t afraid to step up when the going gets tough, and all could step into the president’s role should anything happen to McCain.

On a purely political level they also would certainly draw large numbers of democratic women voters to the GOP in response to Barack Obama’s disrespectful treatment of Hillary Clinton. Then there’s the stage-managed sham called the Democratic Convention that was engineered to cloak the closeness of the Democratic race between Obama and Clinton.

But there is another issue that should be addressed regarding the Republican Party and its relationship to the voters. An esteemed colleague spoke with me about this issue just this morning and I have learned to heed her advice.

The fact is, she said, the GOP looks old, stodgy, stuck in its ways. Even though Obama has close relationships with a convicted felon, and an anarchist with a history of bombing the US Capitol, the mainstream media has made sure that most Americans don’t know this unless they are Internet savvy.

Thus Obama comes across as young, fresh and energetic, even though he is simply another political hack, produced by the Chicago Democratic political machine 0perated by the Daley family for decades. It helps the GOP somewhat that he selected Joe Biden as his running mate, another Democratic politician who hid out in college and law school during the Vietnam War, but now acts like a bad ass.

Biden’s just another career Washington insider with a lot to answer for regarding his relationships with lobbyists, not to mention taking credit for other people’s work.

0bama-Biden Not Gonna Do Your Bidden

From GOPUSA

On Monday, while Democrats delivered vague speeches from a stage set that rivaled a rock concert, those outside the convention hall were left asking: Who is the real Barack Obama? The American Issues Project's new ad provides part of the answer.

The ad explores Obama's ties to William Ayers, whom the New York Sun describes as a "founding member of the group that bombed the U.S. Capitol and the Pentagon during the 1970s."
In 2001, Ayers Did Not Express Regret For His Past Conduct And Even Claimed The Weather Underground "Didn't Do Enough" Bombings. "Mr. Ayers wrote a memoir, 'Fugitive Days,' published in 2001, and on the day of the September 11 terrorist attacks, he was quoted by the New York Times as saying: 'I don't regret setting bombs. I feel we didn't do enough.'" (Russell Berman, "Obama's Ties To Left Come Under Scrutiny," The New York Sun, 2/19/08)
"Obama's relationship with Ayers is an especially vivid milepost on his rise, in record time, from a local official who unabashedly reflected a very liberal district to the leader of national movement based largely on the claim that he can transcend ideological divides." (Ben Smith, "Obama Once Visited 60s Radicals," Politico, 2/22/08)
The fact that Barack Obama chose to launch his political career at the home of an unrepentant terrorist reflects not only a lack of judgment, but also real questions about his views. Obama's response to the ad? A full-throated defense of his long association with a man who says he didn't bomb enough U.S. targets. That tells us more about Barack Obama than any of the speeches we saw Monday night ever could.
To find out more facts about the Obama-Ayers relationship, just click here.

Also, in a AP news story running on GOPUSA, Ayers "compared U.S. government actions to the Sept. 11 attacks."

It is also becoming clear that the Obama-Biden ticket has even deeper ties to corrupt political powerbroker Tony Rezko.

On Monday, we learned that Joe Biden has a 30-year friendship with a key figure in the Tony Rezko trial. When Biden sought the Democratic nomination for president, he turned to his long-time financial contributor and adviser Joseph Cari, Jr. for help. Cari is now awaiting sentencing for his part in an $850,000 kickback scheme overseen by Tony Rezko.

Shortly Before Cari's Indictment Biden Called Him "An Honorable Guy."
"Shortly before Cari's corruption indictment by a federal grand jury in Chicago in 2006, Sen. Biden called him "an honorable guy" and was planning to appoint him to a high-ranking campaign position for the 2008 presidential campaign. However, the Illinois shakedown scheme...derailed Cari's future plans." (Chuck Goudie, "Unlocking Biden's Baggage Reveals Blago Ticket," Daily Herald [Chicago, IL], 8/25/08)

Biden "Won't Give Obama Much Cover On The Tony Rezko Front."
"No matter what help Barack Obama might get from Sen. Joseph Biden, his newly named vice presidential running mate won't give Obama much cover on the Tony Rezko front." (Dave McKinney, "Biden Has Deep Ties To Rezko Accomplice," The Chicago Sun-Times, 8/25/08)

As predicted, this week voters are getting a preview of the choice they will have to make in November ... and the "new politics" looks a lot more like politics as usual.

The choice is clear: BARACK OBAMA IS NOT READY TO LEAD. JOHN McCAIN IS.

John McCain stands for a government that is principled, honest, and worthy of the American people that it serves.
John McCain will get my vote in November. I hope he will get yours as well.

Smilin' Joe Bden

"They smile in your face
All the time they wanna take your place..

The Backstabber

Obama's Hatchet Man
By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY
Posted Monday, August 25, 2008 4:20 PM PT

Veepstakes: If Barack Obama really were a "uniter," he wouldn't name the "scrappy kid from Scranton" as his running mate/attack dog. Ultra-liberal Sen. Joseph Biden's frequent smile belies the scalps on his belt.

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Read More: Election 2008

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The image of Joe Biden that Sen. Barack Obama's presidential campaign and the dominant establishment media want Americans to accept may be that of a tempered, likable working-class Irish Catholic you'd love to have a beer with. In fact, Biden is known for opposing — and at times destroying — the Republican presidents' nominees for top jobs.

During George H. W. Bush's administration, for instance, he helped squash fellow Sen. John Tower's nomination to be secretary of defense in 1989.
Two years before that, he helped destroy the nomination of current Secretary of Defense Robert Gates to be CIA director. As for the current Bush administration, in 2005 as ranking Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Biden spearheaded the smearing of Bush's nominee for ambassador to the U.N., John Bolton. Inviting witnesses who claimed Bolton had a nasty temper, Biden stopped his confirmation. The president ended up sending Bolton to the U.N. as a temporary recess appointment.

These aren't isolated instances: In 2001, Biden unsuccessfully tried to stop John Ashcroft from becoming attorney general, Gale Norton from becoming secretary of the interior and Theodore Olson from becoming solicitor general. But Biden's biggest kills have been judicial nominees. As National Review's Kathryn Jean Lopez pointed out last week, in 1991 then-Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Biden sucker-punched Clarence Thomas in his confirmation hearings by lying in private meetings prior to his testimony. "Instead of the softball question s he'd promised to ask, he threw a beanball straight at my head," Justice Thomas recalls in his memoir, "My Grandfather's Son." Biden took a quote from a speech Thomas gave out of context to give the impression that Thomas favored some kind of right-wing activism on the Supreme Court, rather than his philosophy of judicial restraint. "The point I'd been making was the opposite of the one that Senator Biden claimed I had made," Thomas noted. "Senator Biden's smooth, insincere promises that he would treat me fairly were nothing but talk." Biden, of course, failed to keep Clarence Thomas off the Supreme Court, even after turning the hearings into an X-rated circus by inviting Anita Hill to make groundless charges of sexual harassment.

But earlier, in 1987, it went Biden's way, when perhaps the greatest judge of our generation was sliced and diced on live TV by Biden and the other liberal Democrats of the Judiciary panel. Teddy Kennedy's words may be the ones best remembered: "Robert Bork's America is a land in which women would be forced into back-alley abortions" he falsely claimed, while "blacks would sit at segregated lunch counters." But it was chairman Biden who orchestrated the destruction of Ronald Reagan's nominee to the Supreme Court, adding a new word to our vocabulary — "borking." As millions of Americans watched, Biden launched into a discussion of Bork's opposition to the high court's 1965 Griswold case, declaring a Connecticut contraception ban unconstitutional. "It appears to me that you are saying that the government has as much right to control a married couple's decision about choosing to have a child or not, as that government has a right to control the public utility's right to pollute the air," Biden said, adding "that the economic gratification of a utility company is as worthy of as much protection as the sexual gratification of a married couple, because neither is mentioned in the Constitution." As Bork testified, it was only "the way Justice (William O.) Douglas . . . derived this right" that he was opposed to. But it didn't matter; millions of TV viewers now thought Bork wanted the police spying on married couples in their bedrooms. Then it was on to Biden's next line of questioning — "do you think that there is a basic right, under the Constitution, not to be forcibly sterilized by the state?"

Joe Biden, 35 years a senator, knows how to slip the knife through your ribs while flashing the biggest smile in Washington. Barack Obama is hoping John McCain will be his next victim.

I Never Make Predictions

Mainly because I hate being wrong.
I may be wrong about what I'm preparing to predict, but it's what I see.

Hillary Rodham Clinton is going to be the Democratic nominee for President if the convention really allows a floor vote from the delegates.

If Obama Was A Concrete Mix Design

I wouldn't build a dog run with it.

My job, (the one I actually get paid to do) is to determine if pre-established standards are being met and complied with. I do that by looking at empirical data, and judging the current conditions based on that data. We establish baselines through research and trials, testing and evaluating, using pre-established methods to insure the continuity of research and validation of results. Empirical data are historical results, established by years of use, that appear to meet the current requirements.

Obama has no pre-existing data. There is no empirical data to suggest he is qualified to meet and comply with the pre-established standards of the Presidency.

His trial runs so far have been miserable failures. He has changed, altered, obscured, and inveigled every attempt to determine if he is compliant. He has failed to comply with the established research procedures necessary to even set up a trial batch.

He is not qualified to run the country, based on existing data. Whether he is eligible is an entirely different matter, which may or may not be settled before 4 November 2008.

On 5 November 2008, we will wake to a new leader. Before that happens, you'd better make damn sure the one you wake up with, will meet, or exceed, the established standards for leadership.

Back To Obamamania

Chicago Annenberg Challenge Shutdown?

The problem of Barack Obama’s relationship with Bill Ayers will not go away. Ayers and his wife, Bernardine Dohrn were terrorists for the notorious Weather Underground during the turbulent 1960s, turning fugitive when a bomb — designed to kill army officers in New Jersey — accidentally exploded in a New York townhouse. Prior to that, Ayers and his cohorts succeeded in bombing the Pentagon. Ayers and Dohrn remain unrepentant for their terrorist past. Ayers was pictured in a 2001 article for Chicago magazine, stomping on an American flag, and told the New York Times just before 9/11 that the notion of the United States as a just and fair and decent place “makes me want to puke.” Although Obama actually launched his political career at an event at Ayers’s and Dohrn’s home, Obama has dismissed
Ayers as just “a guy who lives in my neighborhood,” and “not somebody who I exchange ideas from on a regular basis.” For his part, Ayers refuses to discuss his relationship with Obama.
Although the press has been notably lax about pursuing the matter, the full story of the Obama-Ayers relationship calls the truth of Obama’s account seriously into question. When Obama made his first run for political office, articles in both the Chicago Defender and the Hyde Park Herald featured among his qualifications his position as chairman of the board of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, a foundation where Ayers was a founder and guiding force.
Obama assumed the Annenberg board chairmanship only months before his first run for office, and almost certainly received the job at the behest of Bill Ayers. During Obama’s time as Annenberg board chairman, Ayers’s own education projects received substantial funding. Indeed, during its first year, the Chicago Annenberg Challenge struggled with significant concerns about possible conflicts of interest. With a writ to aid Chicago’s public schools, the Annenberg challenge played a deeply political role in Chicago’s education wars, and as Annenberg board chairman, Obama clearly aligned himself with Ayers’s radical views on education issues. With Obama heading up the board and Ayers heading up the other key operating body of the Annenberg Challenge, the two would necessarily have had a close working relationship for years (therefore “exchanging ideas on a regular basis”). So when Ayers and Dorhn hosted that kickoff for the first Obama campaign, it was not a random happenstance, but merely further evidence of a close and ongoing political partnership. Of course, all of this clearly contradicts Obama’s dismissal of the significance of his relationship with Ayers.
This much we know from the public record, but a large cache of documents housed in the Richard J. Daley Library at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC), is likely to flesh out the story. That document cache contains the internal files of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge. The records in question are extensive, consisting of 132 boxes, containing 947 file folders, a total of about 70 linear feet of material. Not only would these files illuminate the working relationship between Obama and Bill Ayers, they would also provide significant insight into a web of ties linking Obama to various radical organizations, including Obama-approved foundation gifts to political allies.
Obama’s leadership style and abilities are also sure to be illuminated by the documents in question.

Cover-Up?

Unfortunately, I don’t yet have access to the documents. The Special Collections section of the Richard J. Daley Library agreed to let me read them, but just before I boarded my flight to Chicago, the top library officials mysteriously intervened to bar access. Circumstances strongly suggest the likelihood that Bill Ayers himself may have played a pivotal role in this denial. Ayers has long taught at UIC, where the Chicago Annenberg Challenge offices were housed, rent-free. Ayers likely arranged for the files of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge to be housed in the UIC library, and may well have been consulted during my unsuccessful struggle to gain access to the documents. Let me, then, explain in greater detail what the Chicago Annenberg Challenge (CAC) records are, and how I have been blocked from seeing them.

Read the rest here.