Posts on Indiana

The Supreme Court’s decision upholding Indiana’s partisan voter-ID law, like other recent cases with conservative outcomes, received generous praise from the Right. “This victory continues conservatives’ good run of Supreme Court decisions dating back to last term,” wrote Human Events columnist Sean Trende, who called the case evidence that John Roberts’s appointment as Chief Justice “mark[ed] a sea change” in pulling the court “rightward.”

Paul Weyrich praised the Court and called objections to the law—which closes access to the ballot box for many otherwise eligible voters, primarily minorities and the elderly, in pursuit of the phantom threat of voter fraud—“overblown and sensational,” adding, “We do not compel people to vote.” (As Weyrich said in 1980, “I don't want everybody to vote. … [O]ur leverage in the elections quite candidly goes up as the voting populace goes down.”)

And Gary Bauer boldly asserted that “all citizens have photo I.D.s, and the only people who don’t are illegal aliens, who are, by definition, not allowed to vote. The only ones disenfranchised by the photo I.D. requirement are those who should not be voting anyway.”

Of course, by the time Bauer sent that remarkable claim out to his e-mail list, the AP was already reporting on some of these people he said “should not be voting”:

About 12 Indiana nuns were turned away Tuesday from a polling place by a fellow sister because they didn't have state or federal identification bearing a photograph. …

The nuns, all in their 80s or 90s, didn't get one but came to the precinct anyway.

"One came down this morning, and she was 98, and she said, 'I don't want to go do that,'" Sister McGuire said. Some showed up with outdated passports. None of them drives.

They weren't given provisional ballots because it would be impossible to get them to a motor vehicle branch and back within the 10 days allotted by the law, Sister McGuire said. "You have to remember that some of these ladies don't walk well. They're in wheelchairs or on walkers or electric carts."

Tony Zirkle’s 15 minutes of swastika-draped fame were widely reported last month, when the Indiana congressional candidate spoke at an American Nazi Party celebration of Adolf Hitler’s birthday. Zirkle, whose campaign warns of a link between Jews and pornography, offered the comical explanation that, despite the oversize Hitler portrait and Nazi flags directly behind him, the swastika armbands of the men on either side of him, and the words “Seig Heil” on the cake, “he didn't believe the event he attended included people necessarily of the Nazi mindset, pointing out the name isn't Nazi, but Nationalist Socialist Workers Party.” The candidate was duly reviled by his opponent in the Republican primary race, as well as by everybody else, as an isolated racist crackpot.

However, the report on the matter by the right-wing WorldNetDaily—a product of the anti-Bill Clinton Arkansas Project that now hosts columnists such as Ann Coulter, Pat Buchanan, and Chuck Norris—offered an unusual twist. After reviewing the story and printing a number of random comments from other websites (a common journalistic technique at WND), the article tried to put it in a kind of context: "Other congressional candidates have raised eyebrows with their speeches, too," it stated. But its only example was a quote from Rep. Keith Ellison comparing the time after September 11, 2001, when the Bush Administration asserted new executive privileges, to the time after the burning of the Reichstag, when Hitler consolidated his powers.

While Ellison took heat for using the metaphor, there is, to put it mildly, a pretty obvious distinction between making a rhetorical comparison of your opponents' tactics to historical events in Nazi Germany, and actually forging an alliance with present-day Nazis based on apparently shared values. So why did WND choose this as its only attempt at context?

Ellison, of course, was the first Muslim member of Congress, and after his election in 2006, the Right launched an effort to portray his presence in Washington as a dire threat to the nation. WorldNetDaily offered obsessive coverage through dozens of flimsy, paranoid articles with titles such as “Doubts grow over Muslim lawmaker's loyalty” and “Muslim congressman called 'security' issue.”

Since WND is so desperate for an example of an anti-Semitic political figure, it’s fortunate that Ted Pike provided a timely reminder. Pike, head of the National Prayer Network, has been a frequent source of quotes for WND whenever the site covered proposed federal hate-crimes protections, most recently in December.

Pike is best-known, however, for pushing out anti-Semitic propaganda along with his father, a radio talker in the 1980s. As People For the American Way reported in a press release from 1989, Pike was warning that there was “a tendency toward Jewish domination of society,” that “Jewish international bankers” were behind the Bolshevik Revolution, and that the state of Israel was “the first stage in Satan’s plan to take this world from Christ and give it to the Antichrist.” Twenty years ago, Pike was warning that the Jewish motivation behind hate-crimes legislation was to silence churches; today, he warns of the “homosexual agenda.”

We were reminded of Pike—and his place as a privileged WorldNetDaily commentator—after he sent out an e-mail alert two weeks ago complaining that the Southern Poverty Law Center had cited the National Prayer Network as a hate group:

Jewish activist groups want to increasingly broaden the terms "hate" and "anti-Semitism" to include evangelicals. …

Jewish activists thus display a truly hateful intent—to harm Christians and deprive them of freedom. Such activists work to warp public and government perceptions of Christian conservatives—demonizing us as potential sources of “homophobic,” anti-Semitic bigotry and possible violence. SPLC alleges a 48 percent increase of threat from the "radical right" since 2000. Jewish attack groups such as the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith, American Civil Liberties Union, and People for the American Way, smear “homophobic” evangelicals as being part of this “threat.”

After defaming Christians as "haters," Jewish supremacists want to actually outlaw Christian political activity and evangelism. The ADL created hate crime laws that will particularly outlaw reproof of sodomy and evangelism of non-Christians, especially Jews.

(Photo: The Times of Northwest Indiana.)

A congressional staffer has taken to the pages of the right-wing Human Events to assert that voter fraud is a “Stunning Reality” in the U.S., and that therefore, the Supreme Court should uphold an Indiana voter-ID law. Published under the “pen name” of “Wright Talley,” this “long-time congressional employee” claims that voter fraud is “very real,” citing “numerous cases” that have been “reported by the media.”

Your right to vote will be at stake when the Supreme Court decides this case next year. It is now endangered unless there are adequate safeguards against voter fraud such as Indiana’s voter ID law.

“Talley” isn’t the first to make an anonymous pitch for voter ID laws.  Remember Hans von Spakovsky? He’s the controversial Bush nominee to the FEC who secretly published an article advocating a voter ID law in Georgia while serving as a senior appointee in the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division. Spakovsky later approved the law over the objections of career civil rights attorneys.

“Talley” offers as proof of fraud the result of “a casual look at news reports over the last 10 years.” This “casual look” provides him with a few examples of allegations of fraud, but a closer look—without too much effort—shows that most of those allegations simply didn’t pan out.

For example, “Talley” cites “a probe by U.S. Attorney Steve Biskupic and Milwaukee County District Attorney E. Michael McCann that found clear evidence of fraud in the election, including more than 200 felons who voted illegally and another 100-plus people who voted under bad addresses or false names or who voted twice.” Biskupic made national news recently as one of the U.S. attorneys controversially targeted for dismissal by the Justice Department, “after complaints from Rove that he was not doing enough about voter fraud.”

In fact, Biskupic aggressively pursued allegations of voter fraud; he just didn’t find any evidence of it. While Biskupic originally alleged hundreds of instances of fraud, what “Talley” fails to mention is that he only prosecuted 14. Only five people were convicted. Scraping the barrel, Biskupic managed to put a grandmother in prison who voted while on probation.

Ms. Prude said she believed that she was permitted to vote because she was not in jail or on parole, she testified in court. Told by her probation officer that she could not vote, she said she immediately called City Hall to rescind her vote, a step she was told was not necessary.

“Talley” also cites Washington’s narrow 2004 election. Republican candidate for governor Dino Rossi filed a lawsuit alleging thousands of fraudulent votes were cast; the court ended up taking away four of his own votes. In the end there was one conviction for double voting.

Between 2002, when the Bush Administration made tackling voter fraud a top priority, and 2005, there were 24 convictions of individuals casting votes while ineligible, out of hundreds of millions of votes cast, making it more likely a voter will be struck by lightning than commit fraud.

For the last few months, right-wing news sites have posted occasional, worried updates about the apparently growing presence of foot-washing facilities in public restrooms—a threat to the American way of life perhaps even greater than that of the bidet. For some, such as Islamist Watch and the Family Research Council, the issue was one of “preferential treatment” for Muslims who wash their feet before prayer. For others, this sanitary threat is far more sinister. In the American Family Association’s OneNewsNow, Minnesota activist Jan Markell of Olive Tree Ministries warned of an “Islamic Republic of Minnesota”:

Markell believes the demand for special accommodations at airports is part of a bigger agenda. "My question is, since they came here and they don't want to adjust to American culture, what do they want to do? They don't want to go back [to] wherever they're from, but what do they want to do?" she asks.

"Some of us," she adds, "are concerned that what they want to do is 'Islamicize' the United States."

And Indianapolis pastor Jerry Hillenburg is planning a rally this weekend to protest plans to include foot-washing facilities in a new terminal at city’s airport. From WorldNetDaily:

"How do you eat an elephant?" Hillenburg asked during an interview with WND. "One bite at a time. And this is just the first bite of the elephant, a step towards Islam's desired goal, which is to thrust the entire world under one single Islamic caliphate under sharia law."

He told the Indianapolis newspaper that such actions reflect a "fraternization" with enemies during a time of war, and he's calling on Mayor Bart Peterson to halt the installation of the facilities.

"When will the PC bureaucrats get a real clue from history and religious studies that appeasement is the worst way to counter the growing threat from Islamic radicals? To the PC crowd: 'Muslim appeasement' [equals] 'showing weakness and thus vulnerability,'" added Missy Holtheofer, a “longtime [Kansas City International Airport] user.”

Anti-abortion activist Bryan Brown is leasing now-vacant Indiana building.

Eli Lilly concerned Indiana would be seen as intolerant; Focus calls this a “smoke screen.”

“It really is a form of fascism."

For 43 states.

Chris Simcox on a ten-state tour for Minuteman PAC. Also: Grassfire.org scores GOP as party of “stopping illegal immigration.”

So-called “family policy councils.” More here.

Pat Robertson says situation should be a “wake-up call” for Republicans. Watch: Broadband or Dial-Up.