(MSNBC) As libertarian Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul looks for a state he can win, some of his supporters have turned to a new theme: voting fraud.

A Super PAC supporting Paul has pledged to monitor the vote in all the remaining states, using an army of exit pollsters to fight what it calls results that are “outrageous, unacceptable and patently un-American.” The group, called Revolution PAC, has spent half a million dollars supporting Paul with videos, webcasts, online ads, direct mail, billboards and radio ads in primary and caucus states.

The leader of the group, its founder, chairman and treasurer, is Gary Franchi, a promoter of conspiracy theories and sophisticated social-media entrepreneur in the resurgent movement known as the Patriots.

Some of what MSNBC writes about is

Franchi has supported the 9/11 Truth Movement, which supports the idea that the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, werean inside job to create a pretext for a reduction in American liberty, or at least involved a cover-up, with the World Trade Center brought down by a planned U.S. demolition, instead of terrorist-controlled airplanes. Franchi founded the Lone Lantern Society (a reference to Paul Revere indicating that foreign enemies are on American soil). The group supports “the birth of freedom and the death of the New World Order,” a secretive elite that is supposedly trying to set up a world government. Lone Lantern has held street demonstrations on the 11th of every month in Chicago and elsewhere, demanding an investigation of 9/11. In New Hampshire in 2008, a video shows Franchi asking Tom Ridge, the former secretary of Homeland Security, who was campaigning for Sen. John McCain, whether Ridge would support an investigation of the “controlled demolition” of the World Trade Center. Ridge was having none of it, saying, “I just don’t buy into that. That’s a conspiracy theory that has no basis in fact. It’s almost out of the Twilight Zone.”

Obviously, Revolution PAC is an outside group which can support who they want. But, Paul could finally come out and say “I do not support the 9/11 Truth movement, they’re out of their minds. He won’t. He seems to enjoy hanging with Truthers/conspiracy nuts like Alex Jones, and going on their radio programs.

Like Ron Paul, Franchi has a few good ideas, then turns them up to Ludicrous Speed, perhaps even going plaid. Ron Paul has won none of the beauty contests, er, primaries/caucuses, and will, mostly likely, win none in the future. He has a great core group, but no broader appeal, especially when people find out about his background.

A Lincoln County, West Virginia Sheriff and Clerk are to plead guilty to charges of vote fraud in the 2010 Democrat primary after the pair were arrested during an election fraud investigation conducted by state and federal authorities.

Sheriff Jerry Bowman and Clerk Donald Whitten were caught in a scheme to file fraudulent absentee ballots in an effort to get Whitten elected Circuit Clerk. Whitten will also plead guilty to lying to an FBI agent hired by WV Secretary of State Natalie Tennant to investigate the false absentee ballots.

Sheriff Bowman, who is at the tail end of a second term and is term-limited from running again, conspired with Whitten and a thus far unidentified candidate for county commissioner to help Whitten win a close election with the fraudulent absentee ballot scheme.

“The Candidates further agreed that they would complete absentee ballot applications for voters,” the agreement documents said. “The Candidates also agreed that on those applications they would state certain reasons that voters were legally eligible to vote absentee, regardless of whether those reasons were true.”

In 2004 several Lincoln and Logan County officials were convicted of vote fraud in a federal vote-buying case. Convicted included Lincoln County Circuit Clerk Greg Stowers and county Assessor Jerry Weaver. Amazingly, Weaver is now running for county sheriff.

But, remember… left-wingers and Democrats say there is no vote fraud in the USA.

(Washington Post) The Obama administration on Tuesday will wade into the increasingly divisive national debate over new voting laws in several states that could depress turnout among minorities and others who helped elect the president in 2008.

A dozen states this year tightened rules requiring voters to present state-issued photo identification at the polls, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Although Democratic governors vetoed four of the measures, liberal and civil rights groups have been raising alarms about the remaining laws, calling them an “assault on democracy” and an attempt to depress minority voter turnout.

We’ve talked about this numerous times, and, I just have to wonder, is it racist to think that minorities aren’t capable of getting state issued IDs? I think it just might be. It is pretty damned simple to get a state issued ID, and not particularly expensive. Most people have them. They are needed for tons of stuff in our daily lives. Yet, Democrats think minorities, and they are mostly talking about Blacks, do not have one for one reason or another. I bet Eric Holder has an ID. In my previous job, I saw IDs all day long, from people who made lots of money to people in Section 8 housing who lived on welfare. Some of them were minorities, and they all had ID. Who doesn’t have ID? Heck, in some states even illegal aliens have state issued IDs.

With the presidential campaign heating up, Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. will deliver a speech Tuesday expressing concerns about the voter-identification laws, along with a Texas redistricting plan before the Supreme Court that fails to take into account the state’s burgeoning Hispanic population, he said in an interview Monday.

“We are a better nation now than we were because more people are involved in the electoral process,’’ Holder said in the interview. “The beauty of this nation, the strength of this nation, is its diversity, and when we try to exclude people from being involved in the process .?.?. we weaken the fabric of this country.’’

First, some people are too uniformed to vote, as witnessed by thinking “hope and change” is a political platform. But, we can’t exclude people, even if they are idiots. Second, can the AG point to anyone being excluded because they do not have ID who could legally vote otherwise? No? Damn.

When it comes to voting fraud, some conservatives have long argued that it is a serious problem, although others say the number of such cases is relatively low. Studies of the issue have reached different conclusions on the extent of the problem.

“You constantly hear about voter fraud .?.?. but you don’t see huge amounts of vote fraud out there,’’ Holder said.

So, the AG of the USA has no problem with some violations of federal law? Is anyone surprised?

Democrats freaked after the 2000 and 2004 elections, claiming massive voter fraud which put Bush in the White House and saw his re-election. They latched on to many things, but one thing that stops some fraud is the requirement for ID. They do not want their people who vote multiple times to have to prove they are who they are. Furthermore, they are having a conniption fit over reduced early voting. Last time I checked, the Constitution gave Congress the duty to choose a voting day, and by law they made it the 1st Tuesday in November following the 1st Monday in November. That’s why it is called “Election Day” not election weeks.

Anyhow, Democrats talk a good game about doing all that can be done to reduce election fraud, but, when push comes to shove, they know it is a necessity in order to get Democrats elected, as Powerline points out in wondering if the Obama admin. is coordinating with left wing groups on this issue.

Crossed at Pirate’s Cove. Follow me on Twitter @WilliamTeach.

With this week’s Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing of American Airlines, we again see the results of unions having a hand in destroying American businesses. We also saw GM laid low by union demands costing Americans billions in bailouts. But despite these lessons of the recalcitrance of Big Labor forcing even worse calamities on our jobs climate in this dismal economy, Obama is about to make matters worse by using his powers to regulate to further harm both our business sector and our economy.

Obama likes to stand before the American people and claim that he wants to “help” the business sector. He claims that his crony capitalism is meant to “save” those businesses that are “too big to fail.” But while he stands before the microphones and pretends at being interested in capitalism, he wields his powers to regulate like a club with which to beat down the business sector.

Obama’s latest move — among dozens in the last three years — is to have a regulatory board he controls to issue new rules which would make it harder on business owners to prepare themselves and inform their employees on what it might mean to unionize their workplace.

The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) is supposed to be an arbiter between business and labor. It is supposed to be a non-partisan watchdog standing between the two groups as an impartial judge. But since Obama took office the NLRB has been swung solidly on the side of the far left, union bosses — Obama’s biggest campaign fund donors. Obama has taken the NLRB from a non-partisan judge to a fully partisan actor for unions.

This time the NLRB is mulling changes in labor laws that would take away the time that business owners have to respond to unions that want to unionize workers. Currently that response time is up to six weeks, but Obama wants that cut down to ten days. As proposed by NLRB Chairman Mark Pearce, the changes to current practice are:

(1) a shortened time period between the filing of the initial election petition and election date
(2) post-election NLRB review of contested issues previously resolved prior to the election
(3) increased disclosure requirements for employers.

“If adopted as currently proposed, the most significant loss to employers will be time — time to design an appropriate campaign message and a legal strategy to protect their interests and ensure the workforce can cast fully informed votes,” notes Bob Quackenboss, partner at Hunton & Williams LLP in Washington, DC.

“The solution is for employers to work with legal counsel and labor consultants to plan for elections ahead of time, leaving only ‘fine tuning’ for the shortened campaign period. Organized Labor has been perfecting its campaign message for years; early preparation by employers will ensure they do not get caught flat-footed once a petition is filed,” adds Quackenboss.

Another change that Obama wants to force on America’s business sector is something called “micro unions.” He wants to allow as few as three workers to be able to start a union. This could cause employers to have to deal with innumerable small groupings of their employees starting mini unions throughout their businesses. Imagine the confusion, disruption and cost this will incur.

There is a bill being considered in the House today that will curtail some of Obama’s partisan moves to attack the business sector and further dampen our economy. The Workforce Democracy and Fairness Act introduced by John Kline (R, Minn.) seeks to head off the NLRB’s new rules.

“It’s very clear to me that we’re seeing the rights of employers and employees under attack,” said Mr. Kline, adding, “I expect overwhelming support from my side of the aisle.”

Mr. Kline’s bill addresses this sharp cut in the days leading up to unionization. He would require at least 14 days before a pre-election hearing is held, giving employers more time to find a legal team and build their case. He would also require a minimum of 35 days — about the current average — before a vote can be taken.

We need to stop Obama’s attack on the business sector. Call your House members today and tell them you support Kline’s bill.

Also, feel free to sign the petition below to send a message to Congress and the President.

Matt Yglesias of Think Progress apparently feels it’s a good idea for kids to vote in U.S. elections. No, not just 18-year-old kids. All kids regardless of age. It is ideas impossible to take seriously like this that makes one wonder why liberals are ever listened to about anything by anyone.

I have to say, though, that it’s funny that Matt brought up this let-kids-vote idea because I was just talking about repealing the 26th Amendment and making the voting age start at 21 again. Funny we were both thinking about kids voting, eh?

Now, despite their undeserved reputation as peacemongers, liberals love a good fight. At least, they love to cause others to fight, anyway. They love to see the non-religious fight the religious, they love to see the relativists attacking patriots, but most especially they love to see the young hating their elders. They do all this by breaking people into balkanized enclaves where their politics of personal destruction can be most effective. And one of their chief weapons is to attempt to destroy social norms and substitute their own, cockeyed view of how things should be.

Certainly not every social norm is a great idea. But not every idea needs changing simply because there is “another way” to do things. The problem with liberals is that they have an absurd bias toward “new” loving it simply for the fact that it’s new. They begin all discussions with the base assumptions both of their own brilliance and their elder’s stupidity. There is no thought put into their positions but if it seems “new” to them, why, it must be better than that tired “old” idea.

This idea of kids voting is one of those exercises in logic-free thinking.

Here is Yglesias’ post:

…ally Kohn writes about a campaign in Lowell, Massachusetts to let seventeen year-olds vote in local elections. More power to them, but I say let any American citizen vote in any American election he or she wants to.

Objections to this usually take the form of imagining a highly disciplined party of seven year-olds reliably delivering bloc votes to whichever candidate credibly promises endless kindergarten. If you think for five minutes about the practical problems of political organizing, and then for five minutes more about the practical problems of getting kids to do anything I think you’ll see quickly that this is a misguided worry. Realistically, voter turnout in the United States is not particularly high to begin with. Older teens and twentysomethings are already disproportionately unlikely to vote. If we extended the vote to more children, my guess is that relatively few of them would exercise it. But those who did would come from an unusually dedicated and informed sub-set of American teenagers. Meanwhile, if seven year-olds somehow do manage to organize themselves into an effective political lobby, I say more power to them.

I am not sure who Yglesias is talking to that thinks preventing kids from voting would stop a “highly disciplined party of seven year-olds” from hijacking an election, but that isn’t the form that objections to kids voting takes. The objections to kids voting is that they don’t have enough information in their heads — and absolutely cannot have — upon which to make an informed vote.

One of the oldest quotes about what we have here in our U.S. system is ascribed to Ben Franklin who was asked what the founders had given us as he was leaving the Constitutional Convention of 1787. He said it was a republic if we could keep it.

He said this meaning that we can only keep our system working properly if we, the people, keep ourselves informed about current events and then make an informed vote grounded in the principles upon which the founders had based our system. That takes maturity and a certain breadth of knowledge. This is something children are not mentally equipped to have gained. Not only does it take maturity to understand these concepts it takes time to have taken all that information in.

I know this will probably make liberal’s head spin right off their shoulders, but as First Corinthians, 13:11 notes, “When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me.”

Few other quotes are as germane to this issue as that.

Additionally, Yglesias seems to imagine voter turnout should somehow be a deciding factor in why kids should or shouldn’t vote, too. He seems to think that because voter turnout is not all that high, kids voting wouldn’t be a big deal. This is just ridiculous. Should we be designing our system based on low turnout of the very voters that we need to shore up that system? That hardly makes sense.

Further, we should not be allowing an abomination to exist simply because only a few instances of it will take place! That would be like saying we should allow theft because most people don’t do it.

One of the things many of the founders thought about voting was that anyone who is not vested in the system would not cast an informed vote. This is why in the beginning only taxpayers of high station and landowners were given the right to vote. It was thought that if you didn’t have a stake in the system you’d be prone to voting for other’s benefit instead of your own.

In this light, kids are not vested in anything. They don’t have jobs, they pay no taxes, and few votes they’d make would have an impact on them directly. Why should we expect a logical, thought-out vote from someone that has neither the mental capacity nor any direct interest in that vote?

But Yglesias’ biggest mistake is this: “But those [children] who did [bother to vote] would come from an unusually dedicated and informed sub-set of American teenagers.”

What an absurd thing to say. Why does coming out to vote automatically mean said voters are “unusually dedicated and informed”? What if their school just gave them extra credit to go vote and they were instructed how to vote by some left-wing teacher somewhere? How is a fully programmed vote an informed one?

Granted many votes of adults are wholly uninformed. But at least adults have the mental capacity and the years of life in to have learned about and grasped the full importance of their votes whether they bother to apply themselves to that education or not. Kids just don’t have the mental capacity or the time to do this even if they want to.

So I am sorry, Matt, but being “unusually dedicated” to go vote does not mean the voter is necessarily informed well enough about the issues and our system to make a logical, informed vote. Union members are “unusually dedicated” but usually they are only so dedicated because their union bosses told them to or they’ll lose favor with the union and, therefore, lose money or their job. That doesn’t mean the actual votes cast by union members are either informed or good for anyone but greedy union bosses!

The Democrats in the pre-civil war south were “unusually dedicated” to voting in order to keep slavery and the slavocracy in power. We know what a terrible idea that was, right?

Dedication or motivation to go vote does not ipso facto mean said vote is an informed or good vote. Period.

But, see, to Yglesias, because the idea of kids voting is new, why that makes it good and right.

This man’s total lack of logic is simply stunning. His little idea isn’t just an exercise in theorizing. He displays such a lack of critical thinking that he makes of himself a silly person. It seems to confirm that being part of “Think Progress” means that the “thinking” part is optional.

When does a columnist write something so utterly absurd that his credibility is forever damaged? I am not sure how to answer that in general terms, but I think at least one journalist answered the question for his own, now thoroughly destroyed veracity. Jonathan Alter of Bloomberg has written one of the most ridiculous, least reality-based assessments yet of the short White House tenure of Barack Obama.

Alter put on his strongest rose-colored glasses and penned an uproarious piece headlined, “The Obama Miracle, a White House Free of Scandal.”

In his Bloomberg piece Alter claimed that Obama is “honest” and falsely asserted that his White House has been “free of scandal.” In fact, some of the incidents that Alter himself notes, and immediately dismisses, carry at least a whiff of scandal — if not untruthfulness.

Naturally, Alter ignores far more than he reports on Obama scandals but he also misses the biggest reason why Obama seems to him to have a scandal free presidency. The Media refuses to call anything Obama does a scandal!

After all, if you have a guy that wantonly lies, that double deals, that hides facts, that also allows subordinates to lie and that fellow is allowed to just get away with it without repercussion from journalists, I guess that makes for a “scandal free” guy, eh?

Alter’s first attempt to give succor to Obama’s failing presidency comes with a baseless swipe at “the whole” Republican Party.

The sight of Texas Governor Rick Perry tumbling out of the clown car recently as a “birther” (or at least a birther- enabler) is a sign of weakness, not just for the Perry campaign but for the whole Republican effort to tarnish the president’s character.

This is a false premise. It assumes that “the whole” Republican Party is using birtherism to “tarnish the president’s character.” This is a flat out untruth. Only a small portion of the center right polity in America has any interest in Obama’s birth certificate. Alter’s attempt to make the whole of the GOP into birthers is simply baseless.

Next, Alter dismisses the Solyndra scandal as meaningless. I guess if you don’t think it’s a touch scandalous when you have millions upon millions of tax dollars going into the pockets of buddies who turn around and go bankrupt almost immediately, well, what can you say to that?

Next Alter dismisses both Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner’s tax evasion and Obama’s firing of Ag. Dept. official Shirley Sherrod without knowing what she really did. Then Alter makes the silly claim that Obama’s stimulus spending was free of any waste or abuse — the latter claim is laughable on its face. Have you ever heard of a government spending program that had no waste at all?

Just this week, for instance, it was discovered that so-called stimulus money went to fund federal healthy eating advertisements instead of actually going to stimulate the economy as Obama claimed it was for.

Is that not waste or fraud?

Alter then admits that we might be missing some scandals because of failure of the Old Media to uncover them. While Alter does seem to acknowledge that the Old Media might be ignoring real scandals — ones he is unaware of — he absurdly ascribes that failure to newsroom budget cuts and the demise of the Office of Independent Counsel (a ready source of scandal for lazy reporters past). He doesn’t even bother wondering if it might be reporter’s ideology that prevents the reportage of Obama scandals.

Like the biased left-winger he is, he also blames Fox News for apparently inventing partisan political commentary. I guess he’s never seen ABC, CBS, NBC, The New York Times, or MSNBC, for that matter.

There ends Alter’s “analysis.” We are left wondering why Alter didn’t mention the fact that Obama’s close personal friend and Attorney General Eric Holder is stonewalling Congress over Obama’s arming of Mexican narco-terrorists with his Operation Fast and Furious, a program that has so far killed at least two American officials and hundreds of Mexicans. As long as we are on Eric Holder, why doesn’t Alter think it is a scandal that Obama decided not to prosecute the criminals of the New Black Panthers for voter intimidation when they stood in front of polling places in 2008 brandishing weapons at white voters?

One also wonders how Obama can be considered “honest” when he said if you like your doctor, you could keep him when his plan clearly means to eliminate everyone’s private insurance policies? How can Obama still be “honest” when he said he wanted to end private insurance, then claimed he never said it? Why is Obama not dishonest for pretending he wants to make energy costs affordable when he fully intended to make the cost of electricity “necessarily skyrocket“?

We are also left wondering why Alter missed Obama’s recent lie that he’s fulfilled “60% of his campaign promises,” when even a left-wing newspaper says it’s closer to 39%. Then there is his lie that he wouldn’t hire lobbyists for his administration when he’s hired dozens of them.

But I guess it’s hard for Alter to hear of scandals when he is standing there with his fingers in his ears screaming “la, la, la, la” at the top of his lungs. But his fawning, slavish devotion to Obama the “honest” President “free of scandal” is not much different than the fawning from the rest of his Old Media comrades.

A tactical maneuver was in place as Barack Obama took office. It was the political version of Fast and Furious without guns, but yet a clear and present danger. Obama’s strategy, along with the Progressive-Democrat Party, was to unleash a blitzkrieg of legislation on the U.S. economy and its citizens before the opposition could grasp who and what had been voted into office. Much like a military “kill box area,” congressional authority and government agencies were sectioned off, targeted and undermined with a deluge of legislation and executive orders. The goal: Obama’s “transformation of America.” The free-enterprise economy was flooded with a strangle-hold of regulations that took over health care, corporations, housing, insurance and banking. Obama unleashed his “change” with such a fury that opponents experienced a political version of “shock and awe.” With the system overwhelmed, moderate and conservative members of Congress were blind-sided and ineffective to stop the “transformation” being thrust upon the American people.

For two years, Barack Obama had free reign as he appointed over three dozen, unelected Czars to advise him and oversee government policy and agencies. Among the Czars were admitted Socialists, Marxists and radical environmentalists seeking to “transform America” to meet Obama’s Liberal-Progressive agenda. In 2010, the American voter became wise to the destructive governmental changes that usurped their Constitutional freedoms and ravaged their pocketbooks. The conservative base of American voters abruptly woke up the GOP by voting compromising enablers out of office followed by warnings to clean house even further.

Warning number two is now in play for the GOP. With the Progressive-Democrat’s game plan unveiled and its raw corruption exposed, Congress is again on notice as the nation faces elections in 2012. Republicans must now take the offensive and formulate a blitzkrieg of policies and investigations of their own. Every GOP member of the House and Senate, in parity with their committees, must be assigned direct oversight of Obama’s Czars and department heads. Every move, every piece of legislation, every regulation and every request for funding must be tracked and brought out of the shadows and into the light. Obama’s shadow-government of Czars is embedding itself and is being paid by taxpayer dollars to sit in government offices while deconstructing America’s founding policies and principles. The Czars primary targets are free-market capitalism, Constitutional freedoms and U.S. sovereignty. The call to action and accountability by members of Congress has never been greater. Pick a czar or department head, expose their agenda and defund their fiefdoms. If Obama and a Progressive-Democrat majority are elected in 2012, expect the full fury of Obama’s Czars to be unleashed on America in 2013.

American voters need to understand that whether Obama is re-elected or replaced by Hillary Clinton, Progressive-Democrat goals are the same. Both Obama and Clinton are advocates of radical Socialist/Marxist Saul Alinsky whose goal was to radicalize then socialize America and its government. Clinton’s college thesis praised her socialist professor, Saul Alinsky. One of Alinsky’s guiding principles, to all his disciples, was that in order to gain real power and overthrow capitalism it is necessary to crush the middleclass. As a Chicago street activist, Alinsky taught that class and race warfare are the most effective ways to bring about “change.” As the race-and-class-warfare-in-chief, Obama demonstrates he learned Alinsky’s lessons well.

PS – Partial plan of action for the GOP: 1.) Block Obama’s so-called “infrastructure labor union bank” that is a replacement for Obama’s planned money-funneling, climate-change bank in Chicago that was put on-hold by the man-made global warming scandal. 2.) Rein in the unelected National Labor Relations Board that is wielding unauthorized fascist authority. 3.) Assign additional oversight teams to prevent potential election fraud and vote tampering in 2012. Fecklessly investigating voter fraud after the fact does no good. Al Franken, anyone?

Obama’s Department Of Justice claims that Texas redistricting is somehow “unfair” because Democrats have lost power. Therefore the DOJ is going to take the state to court over its new map. Yet, in Illinois, the Democrats have decimated Republican districts and slighted several Hispanic districts, yet the DOJ has turned a blind eye to pleas for redress there. This all tends to prove that Obama’s DOJ is less about “fairness” and more about politics. Sadly, Obama is playing politics with justice.

Only days after his inauguration in 2009 President Barack Obama warned Republicans that he wasn’t much interested in what they had to say on policy. In a meeting with congressional leaders he told Republicans “elections have consequences” and “I won.” Obama apparently wanted to stress that those that win elections should set the agenda and run the table. To echo Rep. Joe Wilson, Obama lied.

Take Texas, for instance. Thanks to two years of one failed Democrat policy after another and after two years of a sustained assault on American values, an attack on our business community, capitalism, and an avalanche of regulations quashing any chance of an economic recovery, the political landscape of Teas turned a deep, deep red in the 2010 midterm elections.

Because “elections have consequences” Texas Republicans had the power to control the redistricting process and, unsurprisingly, the new map favors Republicans even more than it did to help the GOP win the right to remake the map.

But “I won” doesn’t seem to satisfy Obama when the “I” happens to be anyone other than himself and apparently elections only “have consequences” when it favors him and his far left ideas because suddenly the Department of Justice has decided that Texas Republicans should not be allowed to control redistricting like every other winning party has since the *early days of the Republic.

Obama’s DOJ is basing its attempt to intervene in Texas redistricting on claims that Hispanic voters are not being properly represented. More likely its that Democrats are further being cut out of power.

But, even if we were to take Mr. “I Won” at his word and his DOJ is only interested in making sure that a party in power won’t disenfranchise Hispanics a similar complaint in Illinois has fallen on deaf ears. In Illinois the Democrats have a hammerlock on power and have similarly redistricted the state to seriously harm GOP districts. GOP leaders and Hispanic leaders in Obama’s homestate also say that Hispanics have been given short shrift.

After having gained five new GOP congressmen in the 2010 midterms Illinois Democrats want to take away the will of the voters by so altering the districts that GOP votes will be dissipated to the point of nonexistence. Due to reapportionment the state lost one House seat anyway. But the Democrats also want to materially damage all other GOP gains, as small as they were.

Along with GOP voters, Hispanics also seem to have lost out. Hispanics did not gain the influence they were promised in Illinois. Hence the lawsuit.

So, where is the Obama DOJ for Illinois? Nowhere to be seen. And what is the difference between Illinois and Texas? Only that in Texas where Obama is ready to take everyone to court, the Republicans were the ones that proved that “elections have consequences.” In Illinois it is Democrats high on the “I won” meter.

Yep. It’s all about politics.

*After all, the word “Gerrymandering” came from the name of our fifth vice president, Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts.

My friend over at Alexa Shrugged (www.alexashrugged.com A great blog you should visit) made a hilarious observation about what is going on in Washington D.C. during preparations for the oncoming hurricane named Irene.

On her Twitter feed Alexa joked about a story on Fox about D.C. residents being told where and how to get sandbags for the storm.

Alexa noted this specific part:

Residents, with DC identification, may pick up sandbags (up to five per household) at RFK Stadium, Lot 7.

Alexa found the whole “DC identification” thing rather amusing.

“Need ID to pick up sandbags, but not to vote,” she snarked.

Totally hilarious, no?

You need a valid ID to save your home, but you don’t need an ID to vote??

Absolutely incredible and Good Night Irene.

And, last, what are you supposed to do with just five sandbags? Save the dog house in the back yard?

Twitter friend Meredith Reed notes another amusing aspect to this story. What is the main criticism that lefties have about voter ID laws? It is that “the poor” are being kept from voting because it is a “poll tax” to have the onerous requirement of getting a state ID. So, Meredith wonders why Democrats in D.C. are now forcing “the poor” to lose their homes in a storm because they have that oppressive requirement of having an ID to get their five little sandbags?

WHY oh WHY does the left hate the poor?

In a surprise announcement, the Obama administration said it will review the deportation cases of 300,000 illegal immigrants and might allow many of them to stay in the U.S., a decision that angered immigration hard-liners and pleased Hispanic advocacy groups.

Under the plan, federal authorities will review individually all cases of immigrants currently in deportation proceedings. Those who haven’t committed crimes and who aren’t considered a threat to public safety will have a chance to stay in the U.S. and to later apply for a work permit.

The shift could help counter growing discontent among Hispanic voters and immigration advocacy groups about record deportations; audits of businesses that have pushed undocumented workers underground; and the lack of progress toward overhauling the immigration system under President Barack Obama.

The announcement comes as several states seek to pass laws to crack down on illegal immigrants, including millions who flocked to the U.S. before the recession to take blue-collar jobs in construction, agriculture and hospitality.

A senior administration official described the move as an effort to better use limited immigration-enforcement resources and to alleviate pressure on overburdened immigration courts. The idea, this person said, is to “identify low-priority cases…and administratively close the case so they no longer clog the system.” The official added that such cases could be reopened by the government at any time.

While the announcement doesn’t address illegal immigrants who aren’t involved in deportation proceedings, it could benefit them indirectly. “They will be less likely to enter the caseload to begin with, so we can focus on folks in the caseload who are high priority,” said the administration official.

Critics described the decision as a step by the administration toward offering amnesty for illegal immigrants. “The Obama administration should enforce immigration laws, not look for ways to ignore them,” said Rep. Lamar Smith (R., Texas), head of the House Judiciary Committee.

Dan Stein, president of the Federation for American Immigration Reform, which lobbies against legalization, said: “In essence, the administration has declared that U.S. immigration is now virtually unlimited to anyone willing to try to enter—subject only to those who commit violent felonies after arrival.”

Others welcomed the move. Ali Noorani, executive director of the National Immigration Forum, a nonpartisan advocacy organization, described it as a “step forward” and a “sound policy decision that uses valuable law-enforcement resources to remove those who once caused harm but keeps contributing members of the immigrant community here.”

The majority of agricultural workers are in the U.S. illegally. “We hope this is a move toward an immigration solution that works for agriculture,” said Jason Resnick, general counsel of Western Growers, a California-based association that represents produce growers. “Even in this time of great unemployment, we are not seeing domestic workers apply for jobs.”

Ordinarily, illegal immigrants can’t get work permits, and most never apply for fear of opening themselves up to deportation. The new plan would enable some to get permits, said the administration official, who didn’t elaborate other than to say decisions would be made on a case-by-case basis

In a letter to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D., Nevada) outlining the plan, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said that an interagency working group would execute a “case-by-case review of all individuals currently in removal proceedings to ensure that they constitute our highest priorities.”

Administration officials said low-priority cases likely to be shelved include individuals brought to the U.S. as children by their parents, undocumented spouses of U.S. military personnel and immigrants who have no criminal record.

“This process will allow additional federal enforcement resources to be focused on border security and the removal of public safety threats,” Ms. Napolitano said in the letter.

Current immigration policy aims to deport illegal immigrants who commit serious crimes, but critics say it is snaring too many immigrants who have committed only minor offenses, like traffic violations, or who have called the police to report a crime. Controversy over a key element of the policy, the Secure Communities program, is threatening the president’s relations with the Hispanic community.

This week, there have been protests in several cities, including Los Angeles, Chicago and Atlanta, prompted by the surge in deportations and administration plans to expand the program.

More than 390,000 people were removed from the U.S. in each of the last two years, surpassing previous years. Immigration courts are so jammed it can often take more than a year for a judge to rule on a deportation case.

U.S. immigration policy has eclipsed the economy and jobs as the top issue for Hispanic voters, according to a national poll released in June. To Hispanic voters, Mr. Obama has touted his support for an immigration overhaul that would put illegal immigrants on the path to legalization, and has bemoaned a lack of support from Republicans.

The immigration issue is a critical one for Mr. Obama as he prepares for reelection. He won 67% of the Hispanic vote in 2008. Republicans are unlikely to significantly increase their share of the Hispanic vote, but Mr. Obama needs Latinos to turn out in large numbers.

An effort to pass the Dream Act, which would allow certain young people brought to the U.S. illegally as children to stay, failed at the end of last year and has little chance in the Republican-controlled House. The prospects for comprehensive immigration legislation, which would provide a path to citizenship for a broader group of illegal immigrants, are even worse.

Hispanic lawmakers have called on the Obama administration to hold off deporting any young people who would qualify for legal residency under the Dream Act. Last month, four House Democrats wrote Mr. Obama arguing that most of those being deported “are not criminals and pose no threat to our country’s security.”

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