Wednesday, April 02, 2014

Let’s dispense with the myth that liberals are really against voter fraud; Voter fraud is actually an essential part of their election strategy

When the Reverend Al Sharpton embraced felonious vote fraudster Melowese Richardson he embraced her crime
writes Benny Huang.
Harlem’s own race-hustling clergyman appeared at a political rally in Cincinnati in support of the “Ohio Voters’ Bill of Rights,” that would make it illegal to ask voters for ID at the polls, when Ms. Richardson, freshly sprung from a prison she should not have left, was called up to the stage for a heartfelt “welcome home,” complete with thunderous applause and big hug from Reverend Al.

Ms. Richardson, a county poll worker, pleaded no contest in 2013 to four counts of voter fraud. The previous year she voted five times for President Obama—once for herself, and four times illegally. She has also admitted to voting illegally in 2009 and 2011, though those charges were excluded as part of her plea deal. She was then sentenced to five years in prison, though she served only eight months before the same judge that sentenced her in the first place re-sentenced her to parole.

“In the interest of justice, it is time for her to go home,” said Hamilton County Prosecutor Joe Deters, a Republican. He offered no objection to Ms. Richardson’s resentencing.

Apparently eight months in prison was punishment enough for depriving (at least) four other citizens of their franchise. That’s what voter fraud is—disenfranchising voters. Each illegitimate ballot cast nullifies a legitimate one. Her fraud was no different than reaching into the ballot box and removing four ballots, or physically blocking four people from the polling place.

 … Any talk of voter fraud elicits swift backlash from the Left. A series of billboards reading “Voter Fraud is a Crime” created quite a stir In the Buckeye State in 2012 and were quickly condemned by the “civil rights establishment” who demanded to know who they were “targeted at.”

Answer: vote fraudsters, of course. Who else?

But misnamed “voting rights” groups didn’t see it that way. They asserted that the billboards were intended to intimidate minorities and felons, who are permitted to vote in Ohio. How someone might have interpreted “Don’t vote illegally” to mean “Don’t vote,” is beyond me. It would be like claiming that advertisements against drunk driving dissuade people from driving sober.

But I wasn’t born yesterday so I can see through their transparent objections. Liberals weren’t concerned that the billboards would send the wrong message. They were concerned that it would send the right message, thus stymying their efforts to cheat. No one honestly believes that the billboards were designed to intimidate legitimate voters from voting only once. They were aimed at the Melowese Richardsons of this world who think nothing of voting five times in a single election.

Leave Melowese alone!

 … So let’s dispense with the myth that liberals are really against voter fraud. If they were, they wouldn’t object to billboards that warn against it and they wouldn’t make a martyr out of Melowese Richardson, who served only eight months in prison when she could have spent decades.

Voter fraud is actually an essential part of their election strategy. They know what the law says but the law is, in their eyes, unfair. So they flaunt it. They recruit noncitizens to vote, some of whom aren’t even in the country legally. They get felons to polls, even though felons are ineligible to vote in some states. They comb the voter rolls for people who have recently died, and they never allow anyone to clean up voter rolls, even if they contain more registered voters than a precinct has eligible citizens.

This isn’t an argument between two groups of people who both care about the integrity of our elections but disagree about how best to ensure it. It’s an argument between people who think that elections should be clean and well-ordered, with sensible safeguards to ensure that only eligible voters vote and only one time each, and those who think that cheating is okay so long as it is done in the service of a just cause. And really, there is no cause more just than electing saintly liberals and defeating evil conservatives.

Tuesday, April 01, 2014

In the Wake of Crimea, What Lands Does the Kremlin Have Its Heart Set On?

After Crimea — whose historical ties to Russia are discussed by the BBC's Ruth Maclennan — will other territories be coveted by Moscow, ask Le Monde's Jules Grandin, Flavie Holzinger, Benoît Vitkin, and Mathilde Gérard.

Monday, March 31, 2014

Historic Defeat for Hollande's Ruling Socialists in France's Municipal Elections


On Sunday, François Hollande's ruling socialists suffered a defeat without precedent in France's 2014 municipal elections (spoken about in all of Europe), leading to the opposition UMP becoming the nº1 party (on a town-hall level, at least, with the emergence of a new generation of right-leaning mayors, some under 40 years of age) and to the capture of several town halls by Marine Le Pen's Front National.

Marine Le Pen Proves Yet Again that America's Conservatives Are No Equivalent of Her Front National


While François Hollande's ruling socialists suffer a defeat without precedent in France's 2014 municipal elections (spoken about in all of Europe) — leading to the opposition UMP becoming the nº1 party along with the capture of several town halls by the Front NationalMarine Le Pen proves, yet again, that America's conservatives, Tea Partiers, and Republicans are no equivalent of her movement.

The FN leader, who once said that “Obama is way to the right of us”, does not refute the idea of being the incarnation of a sort of "Peronism à la française" (in an interview by Abel Mestre and Caroline Monnot), all the while speaking of starting over at the year 0 (evoking Robespierre, Pot Pol, et al) and rejecting the "ultra" free market.
Mme Le Pen appelle de ses vœux à la naissance d'un « grand mouvement patriote, ni droite ni gauche », s'opposant à un autre bloc politique qui serait composé de l'UMP et du PS. Une sorte de « péronisme à la française », définition que l'eurodéputée ne rejette pas.
Votre positionnement « ni droite ni gauche » n'est-il pas une impasse qui vous empêche de passer des alliances ?
Pas du tout. C'est ce qu'attendent les Français. Dans notre électorat, il y a des déçus de l'UMP et des déçus du PS. Nous sommes à l'année zéro d'un grand mouvement patriote, ni de droite ni de gauche, qui fonde son opposition avec la classe politique actuelle sur la défense de la nation, le rejet de l'ultralibéralisme, de l'européisme, capable de transcender les vieux clivages pour poser les vraies questions : est-on dans une vision nationale ou postnationale ? J'espère que cela apparaîtra de manière claire lors des élections européennes.

 … Votre positionnement « ni droite ni gauche » n'est-il pas une impasse qui vous empêche de passer des alliances ?

Pas du tout. C'est ce qu'attendent les Français. Dans notre électorat, il y a des déçus de l'UMP et des déçus du PS. Nous sommes à l'année zéro d'un grand mouvement patriote, ni de droite ni de gauche, qui fonde son opposition avec la classe politique actuelle sur la défense de la nation, le rejet de l'ultralibéralisme, de l'européisme, capable de transcender les vieux clivages pour poser les vraies questions : est-on dans une vision nationale ou postnationale ? J'espère que cela apparaîtra de manière claire lors des élections européennes.

Le Front national ne fait pas partie du bloc de droite ?

Non, pas du tout. Le bloc droite-gauche ne correspond plus à la réalité. On ne peut plus classer les électeurs dans deux camps droite et gauche, la réalité est bien plus complexe que cela.