The Assault on "Traditional America"

It's unfortunate that we are hearing from the disappointed Right an old refrain, perhaps best exemplified by Fox News commentator Bill O'Reilly's reflections on the reelection of President Barack Obama. O'Reilly said, "The demographics are changing." He lamented that, "The white establishment is now the minority," and "It's not a traditional America anymore."

John Stewart's send up of O'Reilly's comments is classic political parody and worth considering as much for its historical substance as for comic relief.

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
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Stewart points out the irony in O'Reilly's sturm und drang concerning America's downfall given O'Reilly's Irish ancestry.  But the fact is, there was a general prejudice against newly arriving immigrants of other nationalities, as well. In 1908, Police Commissioner Theodore Bingham published an article in The North American Review in which he contended that at least half the city's criminals were Jews. The face of Italian immigrants, wrote Charles Bancroft, a doctor who worked on Ellis Island, displayed "a lack of intelligence." The Mayor of New York in 1912, William Gaynor, was quoted as saying, “We have in the city the largest foreign population of any city… and a large number of them are degenerates and criminals." A powerful clique of eugenicists began to argue that the new immigrants from Eastern and Southern Europe were genetically prone to crime, disease and depravity and should be kept out.

Today, some in our country hope to make life so difficult for immigrants that they will exercise "self deportation." Others promote building 700-mile long fences across our southern border. States are passing laws that permit police to stop people who "look suspicious" and ask them for papers proving they are legal residents. Given our history, all this isn't surprising, but it is troubling, and it is certainly disappointing.

Italian school children, New York, 1890

The Minority White Establishment

On election night, 11/6/2012, Fox News’s Bill O’Reilly said, “The white establishment is now the minority.”

There are about 312 million people in the United States of America. According to the US Census Bureau, over 78% of them are white.


What the hell is O'Reilly talking about? Maybe by the "white establishment" he means the old, angry white guys that the Republican Party counts on to support their crazy ass policies.

Barack Obama's 2012 Election Victory Speech.

Thank you so much.

Tonight, more than 200 years after a former colony won the right to determine its own destiny, the task of perfecting our union moves forward.

It moves forward because of you. It moves forward because you reaffirmed the spirit that has triumphed over war and depression, the spirit that has lifted this country from the depths of despair to the great heights of hope, the belief that while each of us will pursue our own individual dreams, we are an American family and we rise or fall together as one nation and as one people.

Tonight, in this election, you, the American people, reminded us that while our road has been hard, while our journey has been long, we have picked ourselves up, we have fought our way back, and we know in our hearts that for the United States of America the best is yet to come.

I want to thank every American who participated in this election, whether you voted for the very first time or waited in line for a very long time. By the way, we have to fix that. Whether you pounded the pavement or picked up the phone, whether you held an Obama sign or a Romney sign, you made your voice heard and you made a difference.

I just spoke with Gov. Romney and I congratulated him and Paul Ryan on a hard-fought campaign. We may have battled fiercely, but it’s only because we love this country deeply and we care so strongly about its future. From George to Lenore to their son Mitt, the Romney family has chosen to give back to America through public service and that is the legacy that we honor and applaud tonight. In the weeks ahead, I also look forward to sitting down with Gov. Romney to talk about where we can work together to move this country forward.

I want to thank my friend and partner of the last four years, America’s happy warrior, the best vice president anybody could ever hope for, Joe Biden.

And I wouldn’t be the man I am today without the woman who agreed to marry me 20 years ago. Let me say this publicly: Michelle, I have never loved you more. I have never been prouder to watch the rest of America fall in love with you, too, as our nation’s first lady. Sasha and Malia, before our very eyes you’re growing up to become two strong, smart beautiful young women, just like your mom. And I’m so proud of you guys. But I will say that for now one dog’s probably enough.

To the best campaign team and volunteers in the history of politics. The best. The best ever. Some of you were new this time around, and some of you have been at my side since the very beginning. But all of you are family. No matter what you do or where you go from here, you will carry the memory of the history we made together and you will have the lifelong appreciation of a grateful president. Thank you for believing all the way, through every hill, through every valley. You lifted me up the whole way and I will always be grateful for everything that you’ve done and all the incredible work that you put in.

I know that political campaigns can sometimes seem small, even silly. And that provides plenty of fodder for the cynics that tell us that politics is nothing more than a contest of egos or the domain of special interests. But if you ever get the chance to talk to folks who turned out at our rallies and crowded along a rope line in a high school gym, or saw folks working late in a campaign office in some tiny county far away from home, you’ll discover something else.

You’ll hear the determination in the voice of a young field organizer who’s working his way through college and wants to make sure every child has that same opportunity. You’ll hear the pride in the voice of a volunteer who’s going door to door because her brother was finally hired when the local auto plant added another shift. You’ll hear the deep patriotism in the voice of a military spouse who’s working the phones late at night to make sure that no one who fights for this country ever has to fight for a job or a roof over their head when they come home.

That’s why we do this. That’s what politics can be. That’s why elections matter. It’s not small, it’s big. It’s important. Democracy in a nation of 300 million can be noisy and messy and complicated. We have our own opinions. Each of us has deeply held beliefs. And when we go through tough times, when we make big decisions as a country, it necessarily stirs passions, stirs up controversy.

That won’t change after tonight, and it shouldn’t. These arguments we have are a mark of our liberty. We can never forget that as we speak people in distant nations are risking their lives right now just for a chance to argue about the issues that matter, the chance to cast their ballots like we did today.

But despite all our differences, most of us share certain hopes for America’s future. We want our kids to grow up in a country where they have access to the best schools and the best teachers. A country that lives up to its legacy as the global leader in technology and discovery and innovation, with all the good jobs and new businesses that follow.

We want our children to live in an America that isn’t burdened by debt, that isn’t weakened by inequality, that isn’t threatened by the destructive power of a warming planet. We want to pass on a country that’s safe and respected and admired around the world, a nation that is defended by the strongest military on earth and the best troops this — this world has ever known. But also a country that moves with confidence beyond this time of war, to shape a peace that is built on the promise of freedom and dignity for every human being.

We believe in a generous America, in a compassionate America, in a tolerant America, open to the dreams of an immigrant’s daughter who studies in our schools and pledges to our flag. To the young boy on the south side of Chicago who sees a life beyond the nearest street corner. To the furniture worker’s child in North Carolina who wants to become a doctor or a scientist, an engineer or an entrepreneur, a diplomat or even a president — that’s the future we hope for. That’s the vision we share. That’s where we need to go — forward. That’s where we need to go.

Now, we will disagree, sometimes fiercely, about how to get there. As it has for more than two centuries, progress will come in fits and starts. It’s not always a straight line. It’s not always a smooth path.

By itself, the recognition that we have common hopes and dreams won’t end all the gridlock or solve all our problems or substitute for the painstaking work of building consensus and making the difficult compromises needed to move this country forward. But that common bond is where we must begin.

Our economy is recovering. A decade of war is ending. A long campaign is now over. And whether I earned your vote or not, I have listened to you, I have learned from you, and you’ve made me a better president. And with your stories and your struggles, I return to the White House more determined and more inspired than ever about the work there is to do and the future that lies ahead.

Tonight you voted for action, not politics as usual. You elected us to focus on your jobs, not ours. And in the coming weeks and months, I am looking forward to reaching out and working with leaders of both parties to meet the challenges we can only solve together. Reducing our deficit. Reforming our tax code. Fixing our immigration system. Freeing ourselves from foreign oil. We’ve got more work to do.

But that doesn’t mean your work is done. The role of citizen in our democracy does not end with your vote. America’s never been about what can be done for us. It’s about what can be done by us together through the hard and frustrating, but necessary work of self-government. That’s the principle we were founded on.

This country has more wealth than any nation, but that’s not what makes us rich. We have the most powerful military in history, but that’s not what makes us strong. Our university, our culture are all the envy of the world, but that’s not what keeps the world coming to our shores.

What makes America exceptional are the bonds that hold together the most diverse nation on earth. The belief that our destiny is shared; that this country only works when we accept certain obligations to one another and to future generations. The freedom which so many Americans have fought for and died for come with responsibilities as well as rights. And among those are love and charity and duty and patriotism. That’s what makes America great.

I am hopeful tonight because I’ve seen the spirit at work in America. I’ve seen it in the family business whose owners would rather cut their own pay than lay off their neighbors, and in the workers who would rather cut back their hours than see a friend lose a job. I’ve seen it in the soldiers who reenlist after losing a limb and in those SEALs who charged up the stairs into darkness and danger because they knew there was a buddy behind them watching their back.

I’ve seen it on the shores of New Jersey and New York, where leaders from every party and level of government have swept aside their differences to help a community rebuild from the wreckage of a terrible storm. And I saw just the other day, in Mentor, Ohio, where a father told the story of his 8-year-old daughter, whose long battle with leukemia nearly cost their family everything had it not been for health care reform passing just a few months before the insurance company was about to stop paying for her care.

I had an opportunity to not just talk to the father, but meet this incredible daughter of his. And when he spoke to the crowd listening to that father’s story, every parent in that room had tears in their eyes, because we knew that little girl could be our own. And I know that every American wants her future to be just as bright. That’s who we are. That’s the country I’m so proud to lead as your president.

And tonight, despite all the hardship we’ve been through, despite all the frustrations of Washington, I’ve never been more hopeful about our future. I have never been more hopeful about America. And I ask you to sustain that hope. I’m not talking about blind optimism, the kind of hope that just ignores the enormity of the tasks ahead or the roadblocks that stand in our path. I’m not talking about the wishful idealism that allows us to just sit on the sidelines or shirk from a fight.

I have always believed that hope is that stubborn thing inside us that insists, despite all the evidence to the contrary, that something better awaits us so long as we have the courage to keep reaching, to keep working, to keep fighting.

America, I believe we can build on the progress we’ve made and continue to fight for new jobs and new opportunity and new security for the middle class. I believe we can keep the promise of our founders, the idea that if you’re willing to work hard, it doesn’t matter who you are or where you come from or what you look like or where you love. It doesn’t matter whether you’re black or white or Hispanic or Asian or Native American or young or old or rich or poor, able, disabled, gay or straight, you can make it here in America if you’re willing to try.

I believe we can seize this future together because we are not as divided as our politics suggests. We’re not as cynical as the pundits believe. We are greater than the sum of our individual ambitions, and we remain more than a collection of red states and blue states. We are and forever will be the United States of America.

And together with your help and God’s grace we will continue our journey forward and remind the world just why it is that we live in the greatest nation on Earth.

Thank you, America. God bless you. God bless these United States.

Texas, Iowa Threaten to Arrest Election Observers

By Gavin Aronsen | Mother Jones, Wed Oct. 31, 2012 3:42 PM PDT

When news broke last week that the United Nations-affiliated Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe was dispatching election observers from 23 nations to the United States [1], conservative groups went up in arms, claiming that liberal activists [2] had sought international assistance to fight Republican-led voting reform efforts. Soon afterward, Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott sent a letter to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton [3] threatening the observers with arrest if they got within 100 feet of a polling place and complaining that OSCE officials had met with a group formerly affiliated with ACORN. Yesterday, Iowa Secretary of State Matt Schultz, who has made voter fraud a central theme [4] of his time in office, followed suit, saying [5] that there would be "no exception" made for OSCE members to enter polling stations.

As a member of the OSCE, the United States has invited outside observers into the country since 2002 without incident. The State Department dismissed Abbott's complaint, saying that the election observers are simply observers (and would be eligible for immunity [6] if they are arrested). "[T]he mandate of the OSCE is designed to be absolutely and completely impartial, and that's what we plan on when we participate and that's what we'd expect here," State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland told the Washington Examiner [7]. The OSCE expressed willingness to meet with both liberal and conservative voter groups and has acknowledged the controversy over GOP-led voter ID efforts in a report released earlier this month [8].

In any case, any role the OSCE plays on November 6 will probably be minimal. A list of election observers [9] uploaded by conservative attorney J. Christian Adams suggests that only two observers will be in Texas, both in Austin; two others are scheduled to be in Des Moines, Iowa. But the OSCE, which sent a letter to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton calling Abbott's threat of arrest "unacceptable," also responded to Abbott, saying that it plans to follow state laws [10] and wouldn't need to enter polling places in order to observe the election. In addition to monitoring potential voter suppression, the OSCE also plans to research [1] campaign finance, new voting technology, and the media. Meanwhile, many more American election monitors will be at polling stations, ranging from impartial observers to labor union members and recruits from a tea party group [2].

Washington Commissioner for Public Lands

I’ve seen enough letters in our local paper, the Tri-City Herald, supporting Clint Didier  for Commissioner of Public Lands to wonder if the Tea Party is serving its members Kool-Aid instead of tea. What an absolutely crazy idea!

I felt some kinship with the Tea Party when the movement first raised the issue of our massive debt in 2008, and called for fiscal responsibility in Washington D.C. But for some reason, what seemed to start out as a reasonable collection of people opposed to bigger government, became a grab-bag of extremists spewing polemic on everything from Agenda 21 to Muslims in America.

Tea Party leaders should have distanced the party from these nutcakes, but they didn’t, and now our local Tea Party is supporting someone who embodies most of the crazy ideas the fringe membership has raised. Didier thinks Agenda 21, a U.N. roadmap on sustainable development, is in reality a sneaky plan to impose global governance, and place limits on population growth by curtailing farming. But reality isn’t something Didier embraces easily, as his stance on climate change illustrates. He says global warming is a hoax, and Arctic ice is growing, not shrinking. Fortunately for people in our hard-hit drought states, Didier is our problem, and not theirs.

Angry White Guys

A sea of white faces at the 2012 Republican National Convention

"We're not generating enough angry white guys to stay in business for the long term." (Senator Lindsey Graham, R-SC).

Mitt Romney Unbundled

Miraculous Signs and Wonders

U.S. President George W. Bush, 2001 - 2009

Why, after the CBO predicted in the 1990s that the US would experience $6 trillion in surpluses over the Third Millennium (2000s), did we end up in the hole today? Well, it's not that complicated.

First, the economy did a lot worse than anybody expected during George W. Bush’s presidency and the Republican “trickle-down” economic policy; the housing bubble burst in that same period due to unmitigated greed and fraud; we had the financial crisis caused by under-regulated financial institutions; and then the big recession hit in 2008. That cut income to the government and made us spend more on various benefits that kick in as a safety net, like unemployment, welfare, and food stamps. The perfect storm. But that wasn’t all.

Second, Congress cut taxes repeatedly, starting with Bush's tax cut primarily benefiting the wealthy, and so there was less revenue than we had anticipated.

Third, the government spent more—a lot more. A couple of wars, "off the books," expansion of Medicare (Bush's unfunded drug plan), and the bank bailouts ($700+ billion under Bush with no strings attached). Believe it or not, Bush and his anti-government Republicans increased government spending more than any of the six U.S. presidents preceding him, including LBJ, of Great Society fame.

Now, when you cut taxes, have less revenue coming in, and you spend more than what you budgeted -- Hello! You end up with a deficit. Any surprise there? Of course not.

And if you have a deficit, you have to pay more interest, so that brings us to four -- higher interest payments.

The economic downturn was precipitated by a Republican president, with the unbounded cooperation of a Republican House and Senate in his first term. You can go back to the 1990s and blame Bill Clinton for signing a Republican-initiated bill throwing out the Glass-Steagal Act, but if Bush and his Republican stalwarts wanted to control Goldman Sachs and their ilk, couldn’t they have re-instituted Glass-Steagal. You bet they could. Did they want to? Hell no! And they don’t want to now.

Wasn't all this a Republican nightmare perpetrated on a basically ignorant American public, 46% of whom don't believe in evolution and think Glass-Steagal is a form of art glass?

For Republicans, all this proves one thing; Obama is a communist. No, I’m not kidding. Listen to your Republican friends crow about the American Communist Party having endorsed Barack Obama. This is like believing that because the CEO of Chick-fil-A endorses Mitt Romney it makes Romney a chicken.

For Republicans, because recovery from the consequences of their disastrous time in office is slow, it follows that we must bring back a Republican-led government that will lead us out of recession with “a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, with great terror and with miraculous signs and wonders.” Verily. But without a plan, or not one they are willing to share.

We can, however, surmise what a Republican government will do. It will voucherize Medicare, and privatize Social Security, so that Wall Street can take care of your healthcare future, and BTW, repeal Dodd-Frank so that they can do it to you better.

Republicans will cut Medicaid, repeal the Affordable Care Act and let the uninsured die (listen for the cheer in the background), cut Planned Parenthood, NPR, the National Endowment for the Arts, Head Start, and Early Childhood Education.

They will do away with Affirmative Action, eliminate the Department of Education, cut the Department of Energy funding for clean up of the mess we made during the Manhattan Project, cut back EPA and OSHA and limit their ability to enforce clean air, clean water, and safety standards. How can we know this? By reading the GOP Platform. It’s poorly written and full of contradictions, but it will tell you all you need to know about who today’s Republican Party is. And it ain’t your grandaddy’s Republican Party.

"No peril justifies the regulatory impact of Obamacare on the practice of medicine, the Dodd-Frank Act on financial services, or the EPA’s and OSHA’s overreaching regulation agenda. A Republican Congress and President will repeal the first and second, and rein in the third." (The 2012 GOP Platform)

The other great financial calamity that befell the United States, the "Great Depression," lasted a decade -- ten years for my math challenged Republican friends. It took massive deficit spending to recover. After obstructing every effort that President Obama made in good faith to put us on the road to economic recovery, Republicans are now asking that we put them back in charge of the government -- a government they disdain, e.g., "Government is not the solution to our problem, government is our problem." Remember Ronald Reagan saying this in 1981? I remember, because it was the year I retired from the US Air Force. But Reagan also said this at that time, "The solutions we seek must be equitable, with no group singled out to pay a higher price."

But today's Republican Party is not the party of Reagan. Reagan was too moderate. It's the party of Bachmann, Santorum, Huckabee, Palin, Perry, Arpaio, and Limbaugh. It's an anti-science party, an anti-democracy party, an anti-everything but big business party.

The Republican Party is a party with the arrogance to believe that enough of the American people either have short memories, or are just stupid enough to ignore their record, their obstructionism, and their failed policies, and put them back in charge.

I hope to God they’re wrong! 

The Election for Washington Commissioner of Public Lands

Washington State’s Department of Natural Resources (DNR) has one of the most complex missions in state government. Managed by the Commissioner of Public Lands, DNR administers a $625 million, two-year budget.

Peter Goldmark is finishing his first 4-year term as Commissioner and will be facing Clint Didier (who filed at the last minute) in the 2012 election for the position.

In order to assess which candidate is best qualified to lead DNR as Commissioner, Goldmark or Didier, it's important to understand what the Commissioner and DNR does.

What is the job?

As Commissioner, Goldmark chairs the Board of Natural Resources, which sets policy for the management of state trust lands. These lands include some 5.6 million acres of publicly owned forests, agricultural and grazing lands, and commercial properties. The Board’s functions include: approving trust land timber and mineral sales; establishing the sustainable harvest level for forested trust lands; approving of sales or exchanges of trust lands; and guiding DNR’s stewardship of state Natural Area Preserves, Natural Resources Conservation Areas, and aquatic or submerged lands.

State lands raise millions of dollars each year to fund the construction of public schools, colleges, universities, and other government institutions, as well as county and state services. In fiscal year 2007 alone, the lands managed by DNR under the leadership of the Commissioner, produced more than $209 million in revenue for trust beneficiaries.

DNR is also responsible for approximately 2.6 million acres of aquatic lands, which include shorelines, tidelands, lands under Puget Sound and the coast, and navigable lakes and rivers and natural lakes, generating nearly $35 million every two years.

The Commissioner must ensure that DNR monitors cleanup and restoration efforts from mining operations, and assists communities by providing scientific information about earthquakes, landslides, and ecologically sensitive areas.

Science is the basis of DNR’s work and the Commissioner must be sufficiently conversant with the various disciplines used by DNR foresters as they use techniques based on science to help manage state forests, including trust lands, for long-term public benefit. They regulate timber harvest practices on state and private forestlands that reduce timber losses, and protect clean water and habitat. DNR foresters also help small forestland owners improve forest health and reduce wildfire risks, and maintain public access to recreation on state lands, and they protect natural, undisturbed, and unique ecosystems.

DNR scientists provide a wide range of research, monitoring, data, information, and expertise that support state policy, resource management, and resource protection programs. They work on riparian restoration and management, conservation and preservation of natural areas, silvicultural prescriptions and resulting forest stand treatments, Washington’s geological survey, watershed analysis, and endangered species conservation strategies, to name a few. Sciences essential to DNR’s work, and for which the Commissioner must have more than a passing knowledge, include forest entomology, forest health, aquaculture, geology, biology, hydrology, and other natural resources sciences.

DNR aquatic staff work near the waters of the state with businesses, government, communities, and volunteers to manage and protect these precious resources for long-term public benefit. Aquatic responsibilities also focus on public recreational access, navigation, commerce, environmental issues, aquatic leases and easements, and special projects. 

DNR engineers build forest roads, bridges, culverts, and fish barriers and crossings that protect streams and habitat. They produce data and products to assist with management of trust lands and regulatory functions. DNR engineers also create aerial maps, and identify and maintain a statewide repository of land boundary information, along with other responsibilities. 

DNR also manages the largest on-call fire department in the state. DNR forest fire fighter crew members and natural resource workers perform pre-suppression and suppression activities in order to protect 12.7 million acres of non-federal land including private, state-owned, and tribal land from wildfires. The Commissioner of Public Lands chairs the state Forest Practices Board, which sets regulations concerning private timber harvests, forest road building, and other forest operations.

What are the candidates' qualifications?

Peter Goldmark is the current Commissioner of Public Lands and has held that position for the last 4 years. He earned his BA from Haverford College, near Philadelphia, in 1967, and earned his PhD in Microbiology from the University of California at Berkeley in 1971. He was also selected for a post-doctoral fellowship in Neurobiology at Harvard.

Goldmark has had a lifelong involvement with agriculture, science, education, and public service. To this day he maintains a small scientific research facility at his ranch and has published scientific articles in national and international journals. He currently maintains a wheat-breeding program at his facility and has recently released new varieties for Washington wheat farmers.

Included among Goldmark’s many public service positions are the following:

• Director of Agriculture for State of Washington, appointed by Governor Lowry in 1993
• Chairman of the Governor's Council on Agriculture and the Environment in 1994-1996
• Governor's Council for a Sustainable Washington in 2002-2003
• Governor's Council on Biodiversity in 2004-2005
• Founding board member and past Chairman of the Board of Farming and the Environment, a unique coalition of farmers, ranchers, and conservationists founded in 1999
• Board of Regents of Washington State University, 1996-2005; President of the Board in 1999-2000
• Board of the Washington State University-University of Washington William D. Ruckelshaus Center, 2003-present 
• Okanogan School Board, 1998-2005
• Wildland firefighter, Okanogan County, Fire District No. 8 - 30+ years
• Commissioner of Public Lands, 2009 to present

Goldmark has been endorsed by Washington environmental groups, labor unions, Native American tribes, and all Washington's major elected leaders (for a full list click here).

Clint Didier is a farmer in Eastern Washington near Pasco, and owns and operates an excavation company. He earned an Associate of Arts degree from Columbia Basin College in Pasco, and a BA in Political Science from Portland State University, where he excelled in football.

After graduating from PSU, Didier played professional football for the Washington Redskins for 7 years, during which time he participated in three Super Bowls, and then played another 2 years for the Green Bay Packers.

Didier was assistant coach for the Connell High School football team for 9 years. He stepped down in 2009 to run for the US Senate against Patty Murray.

Didier has been endorsed by the Tri-Cities Tea Party, the Spokane Homebuilders, the Gun Owners Action League of Washington, the Franklin County Farm Bureau, and Pastor Fruiten's Picks, among others (for a full list, click here)

Voter ID is Common Sense -- Isn't It?

Let's be honest. Republicans have never been keen on extending voting rights to all the citizens of this nation. Their reasoning is straightforward. If the poor, the elderly, and the disabled are allowed to vote, they'll vote themselves a big piece of the treasury pie. This will require raising additional revenues to pay for the government services and handouts that this demographic of the citizenry will demand. That, in turn, will cause taxes to go up, and as we all know, only about half of all Americans pay taxes, those being hard-working Republican businessmen -- the job creators -- who need tax breaks for outsourcing jobs overseas.

To claim, as some do, that Republicans are racist because their attempts to disenfranchise poor voters tends to discriminate against African-Americans and Hispanics, is just plain unfair. No one made minorities poor. They made themselves poor by failing to be white.

"Voters were turned away from the polls because their race didn't match the election supervisor's records. But race isn't even on our identification cards, so why would this be an issue at all? I personally had a problem at the polls - I had to be very insistent that I could vote. That happened to me, and I consider myself pretty informed” (Adora Obi Nweze, President of the Florida NAACP, November 4, 2000).

Elderly people have had their chance to vote and now that they've reached an age where they're eligible for Social Security and Medicare, they should stop voting, because they no longer contribute to a vigorous economy. They are on the dole and it's only right that they let people who are still working make the decisions about what elected official is going to eliminate their entitlements.

Now Republicans have nothing against the disabled, per se, but letting them vote seems imprudent, as many of these people are demonstrably challenged when it comes to intelligence, which is demonstrated by them voting Democratic. Furthermore, they are also dependent on things like health care, which hard-working Republicans strongly believe should be the right of everyone to pay for.

It would be difficult for Republicans to pass a constitutional amendment limiting the right to vote to people making over $250,000 per annum, or to simply deny the right to vote to certain select members of society (see above), and so Republicans are ramming voting laws through Republican-controlled state legislatures that accomplish much the same thing, although with some inevitable leakage. These laws require people wanting to vote to produce a government approved identification, preferably stamped with their party affiliation, which would allow precinct workers to quickly determine which IDs are likely to be fraudulent, i.e., those produced by Democratic voters.

In order to assist those intrepid soles attempting to obtain said government approved ID, states passing voter ID laws have issued on-line information for all the poor, elderly, and disabled would-be voters with access to and technical know-how on computers and the Internet. For example, Floridians must show:

• Florida driver’s license showing that you are an organ donor and have donated an organ to a Republican candidate.
• Florida identification card issued by an office of the Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles, which if you live in a predominantly Democratic district, has been closed.
• United States passport showing that you have not visited any socialist countries, Muslim countries, or countries whose national debt is less than ours.
• Debit or credit card, that can be verified as having been used for a contribution to a Republican candidate.
• Military identification accompanied by a statement that you do not have PTSD and oppose repeal of “don’t ask, don’t tell.”
• Student identification with an expiration date, and with confirmation that you are a business major and have never taken a social sciences course.
• Retirement center identification, with a stamp certifying that you have met a death panel.
• Neighborhood association identification for any neighborhood in which the medium income is $250,000, or above.
• Florida public assistance identification that includes a photo of you in the nude.

Florida Governor Rick Scott is going a step further and "purging" the state's voter registration rolls of questionable registrants, despite the Department Justice’s concerns that his plan might actually disenfranchise legitimately registered voters. Apparently, the risk of dropping a few thousand questionable (read Democratic) voters is worth the reward -- delivering the state to the GOP in November.

Although in-person voter fraud, the type of fraud photo ID is meant to curtail, is vanishingly rare (.0004%, as measured), Republicans believe strongly that prophylaxis in our voting laws, if not in our bedrooms, is absolutely necessary. Thus, the plethora of voter ID laws, which Republicans feel are especially important in swing states, like Florida and Michigan. They feel that if they can suppress the vote there -- I meant to say, authenticate the vote there -- and perhaps in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, well who knows what might be achieved? A one-term Obama presidency?

Hasn't that been the objective all along?