Suddenly I’ve become very aware of the very same thing on the right.  For several weeks it’s been lock step slamming of Huckabee with virtually the same language.  I noticed the consistency a couple of weeks ago but today I noticed a new twist and it follows the exact same pattern the left uses.

On caucus night I noticed that Laura Ingraham started calling Huckabee a populist.  Then she tied Huckabee to Obama with the populist label.  Since then I’ve seen the same language used by virtually every commentator on the right, including the comparison between Huckabee and Obama. 

Earlier this evening Laura Ingraham was filling in for Bill O’Reilly on FOX News.  She coined a new term, Barack-abee, saying Huckabee and Obama are both populists and implying that there is no difference between them.  Later this evening, on the way to the store, I was listening to the Rusty Humphries show on the radio.  He followed the same pattern but he took it a step further.  Humphries made the statement that populism always leads to something like Nazism.

The level of the rhetoric is escalating.  I mentioned in a previous post that I thought the tone was moderating.  It appeared so on caucus night but that is most certainly not the case.  I don’t know who’s writing the talking points but whoever it is is definitely afraid of Huckabee.  I can’t remember there ever being such a concerted effort on the right to derail a Republican.  And if they can’t do it with the facts they are perfectly willing to resort to demagoguery.  That’s just what this is.

I have no problem with anyone who has made up their mind for someone other than Huckabee.  After all, we’re all different and not everyone is going to agree.  But I have a real problem with demagogues whether they’re on the left or the right.  And I’m rapidly losing respect for a number of commentators on the right whom I’ve previously had tremendous respect for.  If Rush jumps on the same bandwagon come Monday I may have to give up talk radio altogether.

It seems that jetBlue is a sponsor of the yearly KOS convention.  You know, the web site that promotes views like the world would be better off without Tony Snow when he came up with cancer again.  Or how about promoting the idea that radical Islamic fascists have a right to attack US forces?  Or the Pope is a primate?  Or “better luck next time” when there was an assassination attempt on Vice President Dick Cheney?

jetBlue has had its problems and last year it nearly went belly up.  Still, I supported them because they benefited consumers.  Now, the new CEO has decided that the way to promote his airline is to get in bed with radical leftist web sites.  I think they’ve made a huge mistake.

Ford Motor Company has been sinking for over a year because of a boycott sponsored by the American Family Association due to Ford’s sponsorships of gay events.  But Ford is big enough to take it for a while.  JetBlue isn’t.  I can tell you that I will fly ANY airline except jetBlue.  There is no chance at all that I will spend my hard earned money with a company that actively supports such extremism.  And I think lots of other people will agree with me and vote with their wallets.

I’m not the sort to go after someone because they don’t agree with my views.  I’m a fan of Google, even though Google is clearly run by liberals.  But there is a line between holding differing opinions and promoting hate of the sort that DailyKos spews every day.  The DailyKos may be a very successful web site but that doesn’t change the fact that they are sickos who want to see America destroyed.  They don’t just hold a different opinion.  They want all those who disagree with them to die!  And they aren’t shy about saying so!  I don’t care how broad the exposure is, I could never ethically justify sponsoring such a web site just to advertise my product or company.  jetBlue clearly thinks it’s okay.  What do you think?

UPDATE:

Thanks to Jenn Sierra for tipping me to this update on billoreilly.com.  It seems that jetBlue has changed its position.  According to the article, jetBlue has a long history of supporting the troops.

So it appears that there is a happy ending to this one.  jetBlue has seem the error of its ways.  I suspect that the sponsorship was the result of a lack of knowledge of what the DailyKos actually is.  Now they know!

Conservatives like me have stood by the President in spite of some pretty awful stuff. Take No Child Left Behind or his signing of Campaign Finance Reform or the Medicare Prescription Drug Benefit. In spite of these many things that were hardly conservative, we’ve stood by our President.

Now, when both Republicans and Democrats have a big problem with Comprehensive Immigration Reform, is the President willing to be loyal to those who have consistently supported him? Not on your life. He doesn’t even allow that our’s could be principled opposition. Instead, the President, McCain, Graham, et.al., characterize us as xenophobes and bigots.

I scratch my head every day wondering why the President and others in the Republican Party are so determined to jam this through no matter how much opposition there is. I can understand that the Republican Party does not want to be seen as anti-Hispanic. But in the end the President and his cadre are doing two things that are extremely harmful to the future prospects of the party.

First, they are jamming a wedge into the party. Some have characterized it as tearing the party apart and that may be an accurate description. There is a war within the Republican Party today and it is being waged primarily by President Bush and his accomplices. They are at war with the rank and file of the party and that does not bode well the Republican prospects in ‘08.

Second, it is virtually indisputable that the vast majority of current illegals that ultimately become voting citizens will be Democrat voters. Clearly Ted Kennedy and the Democrat Party understand this. That’s why they’re willing to stand up to the unions on this issue. It takes something that big for the Democrat Party to stand up to unions.

The bottom line is, Republicans are screwed for a generation or more if this travesty of a piece of legislation makes it into law. Why then is the President doing it? Why is he willing to demagogue this issue? Why does he feel justified in calling those of us who oppose this xenophobes and bigots when he knows full well that isn’t true?

The only thing I can figure is the President is working on his legacy. He is as much a lame duck President as any ever was. His popularity is in the tank and it’s likely to go lower still with no rebound in sight unless there is a dramatic turnaround in Iraq. But if he can ram this down our throats he will be the President that dealt with the immigration problem. That’s what he’s counting on. The President wants his legacy and he’s willing to sell us out to get it! To hell with loyalty to the party or his supporters at the polls. His legacy takes precedence over loyalty. So tell me, why should anyone hold any loyalty to him?

I’ve never believed that Bush was a conservative. During his 2000 run I was not impressed and did not voter for him in the primary. But he got the nomination and I voted for him in the general election. Again in 2004 I voted for him just like millions of conservatives all across America who held their noses and checked off his name. We got some good for it. We got some good justices on the Supreme Court and we got tax cuts. But there is little else to show for our support.

I am finished being loyal to President Bush or any other Republican who puts his own interests ahead of his constituents. Lindsey Graham certainly falls into that category. Let this be a warning to Republican officials and candidates. We conservatives are not willing to be your lapdogs any longer. If you think I’m some lone malcontent, think again. There are many more just like me who will not continue to vote for you if you are unwilling to take a stand for conservative principles. We want to see a victory in ‘08. We don’t want to see Hilary in the White House. But we will not be lemmings. If you expect loyalty from us you’d better be prepared to be loyal to us!

Listening to Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter tell about his father and brother immigrating here was just wonderful. What an inspiring story. But what on Earth does it have to do with the situation at hand? Specter’s father and brother immigrated here legally. They came here, submitted to processing, filled out the paperwork and followed our immigration laws. They learned English and worked to assimilate into American society.

South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham did precisely the same thing last week. The video is below in this blog. He talked about a Hispanic guy in the Air Force that was an inspiration to him. Great! No problem! Does anyone believe that Hispanic man in the Air Force was an illegal alien? Did he sneak across our border and join the Air Force? Of course not. If he was an immigrant at all he was a legal immigrant.

This in contrast to the ever growing flood of illegal aliens crossing our borders. They are not interested in becoming Americans. They have no desire to learn English or assimilate into American society. Mostly they want to take advantage of the services offered here and send money back to their home countries. Did you know that one of the biggest aspects of the Mexican economy is money sent home from America? That’s certainly one reason the Mexican government has been so opposed to any effort on our part to do something about the border.

The Congress can’t seem to understand why the American public doesn’t trust them on this. Could it be that we have been here before? We were told we’d have border security with the immigration reform in the ’80s. Did we get it? Does 12-20 million illegal aliens in this country look like we got it?

Now, rather than engage in an honest debate, they prefer to lie about those of us who oppose this measure. They say we are bigots and xenophobes. They do not acknowledge that there is a difference between illegal and legal immigration. In short, they lie to support their position and, apparently, they believe that if they lie long enough we will buy the lie. Small wonder we don’t trust Congress!

If you guys in the Congress want to gain some credibility, stop trying to shove this sham of a bill down our throats and instead, ENFORCE OUR CURRENT LAWS!! If you do that consistently for a period of time, you might just build up a little credibility. But so long as you insist on playing politics with the American people, so long as they continue to lie and mischaracterize those of us who oppose their position, they have no credibility.

Don’t hold your breath waiting for them to change though. Graham, Specter, McCain and all the rest of the Republicans pushing so hard on this issue are not concerned with what we, the people they represent, think. They somehow think that doing this will enhance their future electability. As for Graham, I think he’s angling for the VP spot with McCain. The problem for Graham is, McCain doesn’t stand a chance of getting the nomination and Graham doesn’t stand a chance of keeping his Senate seat in ‘08. His political career as a Republican is all but over. He is already a lame duck and he is blind to the fact.

I can think of no better reason for resurrecting the issue of term limits. Career politicians are the biggest problem in this country. They are far less concerned with what is actually best for this country than they are about the next election. So long as power is the motivating factor, do not expect most of our elected officials to actually honor their promises and act in an ethical, principled manner.

I was on the phone with my father in Georgia last night. He’s been a big supporter of Georgia Senator Saxby Chambliss. But Chambliss is one of those Republicans working so hard to sell out this country. My dad can’t believe it! I don’t know what all the backroom deals have been. I know President Bush is looking for a legacy in a lame duck presidency and who can imagine what he has promised to Republicans who toe the line on this.

Here’s what I do know. If Republicans allow this legislation to become law, the Republican party is finished for the foreseeable future. All of Harry Reid’s predictions of massive Democrat Gains in the Senate will come to pass. Nancy Pelosi will be Speaker of the House for the next ten years at least. Maybe a solid conservative like Fred Thompson will be able to pull out the White House, I don’t know. But I’d lay odds that we will again be saying President Clinton and that is a future I don’t relish.

Finally, if this legislation becomes law, the Democrat party will be the ultimate winner. The vast majority of the illegal aliens in this country are already indebted to Democrats for the services they currently receive. The Democrats will continue with their vote buying legislative agenda. It could be a generation or more before the Republican party can recover, if them. Why congressional Republicans can’t see that simple fact is quite beyond me.

On another front, Reid again shot himself in the foot. This week at the National Press Club Reid said that the war in Iraq is lost.

Click here to view the embedded video.

So Reid believes that the war is lost and the the Secretary of Defense and the Secretary of State know this to be true. At the same time, Reid does not support withdrawing funding for the war. This is the height of hypocrisy and Harry Reid is on the verge of committing treason. Democrats in general have constantly engaged in activity that encourages our enemies for the purpose of consolidating political power. Now Reid has given considerable aid and comfort to our enemies by declaring that we have lost this war.

Harry Reid is either a moron or he is so consumed with political power that he will do and say anything to gain it. Either way he has no business being in the Senate. His constituents should do whatever it takes to replace him. Tom Daschle discovered that there was a price to pay for demagoguery and it is high time his replacement made the same discovery.

Speaker Harrell goes on to promote McCain as a conservative. My question is, what is Speaker Harrell’s definition of conservative?

It seems that the term conservative, much like many other terms in our day, has undergone a redefinition. Apparently it no longer means committed to limited government. It no longer means being dedicated to the Constitution of the United States, as written. If John McCain can be considered a conservative then the very word conservative has lost its meaning altogether.

You will remember that McCain, in his misguided attempts to blame his own shortcomings on others, managed to bulldoze through McCain-Feingold Campaign Finance Reform. That legislation represents the single biggest assault on constitutionally protected political speech in my lifetime, perhaps ever! But Senator McCain was convinced that we needed it. In fact, he is not satisfied to stop there and now wants to go after the 521s that resulted from his previous legislation.

What McCain has done is make it more difficult for anyone to challenge incumbents while severely limiting the ability of individuals to make their voices heard when it comes to politics. If the First Amendment’s free speech clause protects anything, it protects political speech in all forms but John McCain, apparently, disagrees or doesn’t care. His view of things takes precedence over the Constitution it seems.

John McCain, who has worked hard to build his reputation as a maverick, is anything but a conservative. He is an opportunist. He wants to be President and has done everything in his power to keep his face in the news to that end. His protege, Lindsey Graham, is following close in his footsteps. Neither is a conservative and neither will ever have my support.

I still subscribe to a more traditional definition of conservative. I believe in limited government and individual responsibility to go along with individual rights. I believe, as did most of our founding fathers, that a religious electorate is necessary to a republican for of government. I believe that political speech is protected by the first amendment but pornography is not. Call me old fashioned but that is how I view conservatism. John McCain has a different view. He opposed the tax cuts that he now thinks should be extended but he will not say that he was wrong in opposing them in the first place. He supports the troop surge but it that appears to be political expediency. While his position cost him support initially, he has clearly gain conservative support as a result. He is attempting to remake himself in a conservative mold. He has rightly judged what most in the Republican party have missed. That is, that conservatives have had it with Republicans who abandon conservative principles. Had John McCain stood for these things all along he would have me in his camp. But not only has he NOT stood for these things, he will not repudiate his prior positions.

John McCain does not meet my definition of a conservative. He never has and I expect he never will. I still do not believe he can get the Republican nomination but if I am proved wrong, I will have to do a lot of soul searching before I could vote for him. His motivation is his personal aspirations. He is not motivated by principles and I cannot support anyone who votes for or opposes anything based on how it will reflect on him personally.

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I mentioned in the comments of the Christian Dilemma post that I was going to write about the Social Gospel Movement. A movement that began in late 19th century, the social gospel teaches that Jesus can’t return until social justice and equality are achieved on earth through human effort. Various offshoots exist that may or may not relate to Jesus return but that still focus primarily on social justice, equity and other social problems.

Proponents of the Social Gospel and its variants tend to believe that people are poor because the rich have exploited them. Phrases such as “on the backs of working people” are common. The belief seems to be that any equitable system would ensure that everyone has pretty much the same thing. Indeed, most efforts appear to be geared more toward punishing those who have more rather than enriching those who have less. Little emphasis or thought seems to be given to exactly how the poor became poor in the first place.

I need to start off saying I don’t believe that we can achieve much of anything of lasting importance on our own. The notion that mankind can achieve some sort of utopia with our own effort is contrary to scripture and contrary to human nature and all of human history. To date, every Utopian thinker has been demonstrated to be wrong.

Lest anyone think I am just biased against anyone who happens to be classified as poor, let me say I understand that there are those who fall into poverty through little or no fault of their own. A woman whose husband leaves her with no means of support or whose husband dies are possible examples. Life for someone like that can be very difficult. Still, people in such situations have options. In the short term those options may not be very appealing but they still live in a society with class mobility. With the proper determination they have the power to change their circumstances. They also need and deserve help from those around them and as Christians we have an absolute obligation to provide help.

On the other hand, it is my heartfelt belief that most of the poor in this country are poor by choice. That is not to say they woke up one day and thought, “hmm, I think I want to be poor.” Rather, they simply refuse to do anything to raise themselves up. Manual labor is “beneath” them and there are plenty of jobs their “dignity” won’t let them do. How their “dignity” lets them take handouts rather than earn an honest living is beyond me.

Scripture has much to say about poverty. Following are but a few passages.

Prov 14:21
Whoever despises his neighbor is a sinner,
but blessed is he who is generous to the poor.

Prov 14:31
Whoever oppresses a poor man insults his Maker,
but he who is generous to the needy honors him.

Prov 19:17
Whoever is generous to the poor lends to the LORD,
and he will repay him for his deed.

Prov 20:13
Love not sleep, lest you come to poverty;
open your eyes, and you will have plenty of bread.

Prov 21:13
Whoever closes his ear to the cry of the poor
will himself call out and not be answered.

Prov 23:21
for the drunkard and the glutton will come to poverty,
and slumber will clothe them with rags.

Prov 28:19
Whoever works his land will have plenty of bread,
but he who follows worthless pursuits will have plenty of poverty.

Ezek 16:49-50
49 Behold, this was the guilt of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters had pride, excess of food, and prosperous ease, but did not aid the poor and needy.

Matt 25:37-40
37 Then the righteous will answer him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? 38 And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? 39 And when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?’ 40 And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.’

Luke 3:11
11 And he answered them, “Whoever has two tunics is to share with him who has none, and whoever has food is to do likewise.”

Acts 20:35
In all things I have shown you that by working hard in this way we must help the weak and remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he himself said, ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’”

James 1:27
Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.

James 2:15-16
15 If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, 16 and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and filled,” without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that?

1 John 3:17-18
17 But if anyone has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God’s love abide in him? 18 Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth.

From these and other passages it is inescapable that we, as Christians, have a duty to help the poor. I have never argued otherwise. But many of these passages also indicate that some poor are responsible for their own plight.

I argue that as Christians we have a duty to ensure that what “help” we provide, as far as we can determine, is actual help. In other words, I believe we have a duty to make sure we aren’t actually making matters worse.

It would be simple if all we had to do was give some cash to whatever poor person crossed our path. We could do that without giving much thought to the matter. Knowing nothing about their situation we may be helping them to continue the behavior that got them into poverty in the first place, whether alcoholism, drug abuse, gambling addiction, etc.

The point I’m making is that we cannot escape our responsibility to be “our brother’s keeper” by simply throwing money at them. At root, their problems are not financial, they are spiritual. Money isn’t the solution to our national problems and it’s not the solution to an individual’s problems either.

You may suspect, based on everything I’ve said so far, that I believe I have it all worked out. Nothing could be further from the truth. I’m struggling with this issue. I just believe that ignoring the poor or throwing money at them are equally unproductive approaches. Somehow we have to engage the poor on an individual basis and offer help that really helps. And I’m convinced that sometimes that will involve things that the individual may not appreciate at the time.

For example, I’ve run across a panhandler asking for money for food. When I offered to buy him a meal, he declined. He didn’t want the meal, he wanted the money. I wasn’t willing to just hand him money but I was more than willing to feed him. He wasn’t too happy with me but he did see that I cared enough to take him somewhere and buy him a meal. I don’t know if that ultimately made any difference or not.

I’m reminded of the commercials that say “friends don’t let friends drink and drive.” Have you ever tried to take the keys away from a drunk friend? If you have you know that often they are not appreciative in the least. They may become belligerent and combative. They may scream and yell at you. If you are more concerned about them being mad at you than you are about their safety, you may give in and let them drive. If you do that, whose best interest are you looking out for? True love requires that we think about what’s best for our brother, not how it makes us feel.

The same reasoning, I would argue, applies to everyone, poor people included, who is doing things to make their own situation worse, not better. In the end you may not be able to help them. That’s the rub. In the end, people have to be willing to help themselves before they can receive help. Just like forcing a drunk into rehab isn’t likely to get them sober, attempts to help people who will not accept any responsibility for their situation are unlikely to be truly helpful. They may make us fell better about ourselves but who is being helped then?

So I still don’t arrive at ready solutions. The panhandler on the street is still panhandling and my offer of a meal didn’t change that. I may see him again and if he approaches me I will offer again to feed him. Who knows, maybe he’ll take me up on it next time and I’ll get a chance to sit down with him over that meal and get to know him. Perhaps then I’ll be in a better position to give some real help.

This presents a dilemma for Christians. We certainly want to help this woman and others like her and we really want to help her children. The question is, how? How, in fact, do we define help and then deliver it? That’s not as easy to answer as some might think.

The gut reaction of some will be that we should do all we can to help her pay her bills and feed her children. On the surface this may seem to be help but is it? I submit that it is not help at all. To explain let’s look at a completely different but analogous situation.

Say you know a man with a bad drinking problem. He spends his pay checks on booze and it is costing him all he has. How do you help this man? Will paying his bills help him? Or is paying his bills simply enabling his destructive behavior and making the problem worse? I submit that the latter is true.

The same can be said for Brenda Kelly. Kelly’s first marriage ended in divorce and her ex-husband has custody of the two kids they produced. Of the other two men that Brenda had children with, one is in prison and the other also works a $6.00/ hour job and he’s already paying $75/week child support to another woman with whom he fathered a child. Do you see a pattern here? Brenda seems to have a lot of trouble making good decisions. She keeps picking losers and having children with them!

On top of that, Brenda (who is about to be evicted from her house because she refuses to pay rent any more), would qualify for public housing assistance but she’s tired of filling out paperwork so she won’t apply. She works 40 hours per week and, apparently thinks that’s plenty and won’t take on additional work. Oh, did I mention that at one point she made over $35k/year as a store manager? Yeah, she quite that job to spend more time with her kids.

The problem here is NOT that life is stacked against Brenda. The problem is that Brenda blames everyone else for her problems instead of taking any responsibility for them. In short Brenda is irresponsible. Clearly, providing direct physical assistance without any accountability is not real help. It is, as with the drunk, enabling the destructive behavior that put her in the position she is in. Providing assistance without strings only makes her situation worse, not better.

The real problem comes with her children. They are in no way responsible for the situation they are in. Their mother is responsible. What do we do about the children. Do we simply leave them in this unfortunate situation? Tough questions.

Christians and conservatives generally believe that children are better off with their mother. I presume that in this case many would say precisely that. I would disagree in this case. I think that Brenda should lose her children. They should be placed in foster care or with relatives who are capable of taking care of them. Brenda clearly is not capable of taking care of herself, much less her children. Of course, it is likely that Brenda will just have more children for others to have to take care of. But lets leave that for another post.

Brenda presents some difficult questions for Christians. How do we live up to Christ’s expectations with this woman? How do we show the love of Christ to her? I submit that tough love is called for. Brenda must live the consequences, all of them, of her bad choices. In this way, perhaps, Brenda can learn from her mistakes and work to improve her life. And at the point where Brenda has taken responsibility for her situation and is working hard to improve her life, then it would be Christian love and charity to provide financial and other assistance to her. But until she reaches that point, there is nothing anyone can do to help Brenda. She has to be willing to help herself first.

That is the bottom line. No one can be helped who is unwilling to help themselves. All the attempts to help end up doing more harm than good. Any parent knows this from experience. The child who is constantly bailed out of every situation never learns to take responsibility. Instead they learn the opposite. They learn that they never have to take responsibility so they can do whatever they want. Is that the lesson we really want to teach people?

The state approach to public assistance is completely flawed precisely because it typically comes without strings. It ends up encouraging that behavior the caused the need in the first place. It is self perpetuating and contributes to a dependent class rather than helping people get on their feet so they no longer need assistance. That, to me, is anything but a Christian approach in spite of what social gospel advocates may think.

My heart goes out to Brenda and her children. I genuinely feel sorry for them. But I do not believe that more public assistance will help them. The only thing that can help Brenda is suffering the consequences of her decisions.

The question remains, regardless of what most Americans believe or don’t believe, what are the realistic options regarding this war? Is a pullout, or as Democrats like to phrase it, a phased redeployment, actually a viable option? What can be expected if we do pull out? I think there are a couple of obvious answers that cannot be easily swept away.

First, American credibility will be decimated for the foreseeable future, regardless of who controls Congress or the White House. We have already had too many instances where we did not follow through with our commitments and the world already suspects that we cannot be depended upon to do what we say we will do. Perhaps that is a consequence of our form of government, although historically we had a much better reputation. From here on out we will not be able to gain allies in any serious international endeavor because the world will now that when it gets tough we bail out.

As serious as such a consequence may be, it is not as serious as the second difficulty with the redeployment strategy. As noted above, much of the world already expects that when it gets really tough the US will run. Indeed, Osama bin Laden said as much following our exodus from Somalia and that has been the stated strategy of Islamic fascists the world over. They know they cannot beat the US in a military sense. So their strategy has been to make it too costly to continue to engage them. They understand that the longer they drag this out the less support the President will have at home and, eventually, that support will dry up and he will have little choice but to withdraw.

So what happens then? The Islamic fascists declare their victory over America to start with. And as much as politicians may want to deny it, the claim will be valid. And with that victory will come an incredible increase in the ability of the Islamic fascists to recruit. Their approach will have been fully validated and new recruits will flood in in numbers never before imagined.

And who will be running this new army of Islamic terrorists? Probably Iran. And since we already know what Iran’s goals are, it will not be surprising if shortly thereafter the incidents of terrorism in Israel increase dramatically. Of course, Israel will only be the next step, not the last step. The Islamic fascists refer to Israel as the little Satan. Great Satan is reserved for the US. And if you labor under the false belief that they will change that view if we pull out of Iraq, lets just dispel that right now. Make no mistake, They WILL come after us here on American soil and their goals will far exceed 9/11.

While many Americans have fallen for the ridiculous assertion that Iraq has been a distraction from the war on terrorism, nothing could be further from the truth. Whatever you may believe about the start of the war, whether justified or not, the Islamic fascist themselves claim that Iraq is now the central front in that war. Anything short of complete and total victory there will be disastrous for the US and the world.

I am not the best prognosticator around and I don’t claim to have any sort of crystal ball. But I know this much, the troop increase that President Bush is starting to implement is, at worst, the minimum required at this moment. Regular readers will know that I am not a Bush cheerleader. He has often disappointed me because he is not a conservative. But he is the Commander in Chief and he is the only person in the world who is capable of waging this war, a war that absolutely must be waged. I don’t know if Bush will use these additional troops in an effective way. My gut instinct is that he won’t because America simply does not have the stomach to do what needs to be done. Still, the alternative to adding troops is far worse.

I urge all Americans who value freedom to support the President now. I’m not asking you to like him or approve of his overall job as President. I don’t approve of his overall performance. But he, our troops and the world need us to stand as one and win this conflict. The consequences of failure are simply too dreadful to contemplate.

While there are some good measures included, like earmark reform. Of course, we’ll have to wait and see if they are serious about that. One measure of particular concern, masked as ethics reform, is legislation called lobbying reform. While there my be some actually lobbying reform in the legislation, it will impose vast restrictions and reporting requirements on grassroots organizations. It amounts to an attack on the First Amendment rights of free speech and the right to petition the government.

No one should be surprised that Congress would be willing to assault the First Amendment this way. McCain-Feingold was a direct attack on free speech, yet Congress passed it and President Bush signed it. Unlike McCain Feingold which needed to be pumped up to generate interest among the electorate, the lobbying scandals and apparent corruption in Congress make this almost a slam dunk. The problem, as pointed out at Opinion Journal.com, is that this approach is backward.

As for the bad, most of the rest of these “reforms” are about controlling the lobbyists, not the Members, which gets it exactly backward. Putting restrictions on the right of citizens to petition government is a strange way of handling ethically challenged politicians. If a Member can be bought with a free lunch or skybox ticket from a lobbyist, he shouldn’t be in Congress anyway. And even as they’re forgoing lunch, the Members will still be telling corporate lobbyists they’d better ante up that PAC money, or else.

This is precisely the rational behind McCain-Feingold. John McCain was caught up in the Keating Five scandal which involved corruption of members of Congress so his approach was to restrict the public rather than those who were actually corrupt, including himself. Now we see it again. It has been said that those who fail to learn the lessons of history are doomed to repeat them. Nowhere is that truism better illustrated than in the present case.

There is, however, a more insidious side to this whole issue. It seems that the current legislation predominately affects only conservative organizations. Unions and corporations are exempt! From Rev. Lou Shelton of the Traditional Values Coalition,

The legislation being proposed by Speaker Pelosi and Public Citizen will seriously undermine free speech and place incredible time and financial burdens on small grassroots organizations, noted Rev. Sheldon. “It would require these groups to detail the organization’s expenditures in contacting the grassroots, the issues focused on, and the Members of Congress and other federal officials who are targeted for lobbying.

“This legislation is obviously a thinly veiled effort to hamstring only conservative groups. Why? Because it cleverly exempts trade unions and corporations from communicating with their members,” said Rev. Sheldon (emphasis in the original).

As Opinion Journal pointed out Democrats, for the most part, as doing what they campaigned on. Since they won the elections, we should expect them to do what they said they would do. But Opinion Journal also had this to say.

The country spoke loud and clear on behalf of Democrats last November, but we doubt this means it voted for everything on the party’s partisan wish list. Attempting to shove these measures through the House without allowing votes on amendments or alternatives isn’t the way a confident majority behaves. We guess this is why the Founders created the Senate.

Folks, there’s a lot more where this is coming from. Over the next several days I’ll be writing about various aspects of this 100 hour plan, much of it harmful to our economy and to our Constitution. Pelosi said she would “drain the Republican swamp’ in the first 100 hours but it looks like she wants to replace it with a sewer.

From what we’ve already seem we cannot expect Bush to whip out his veto pen with any sort of regularity. In fact, he will actively support much of the Democrat agenda! If you care about this country you need to make sure you are educated on the issues and you need to make you voice heard with your member of Congress, particularly if your member is a Democrat. They have the majority and that gives them the right to govern. But it does not give them the right to destroy it in the process. Only we can stop it!

In Kennedy’s view, “the atmosphere of tension and hostility towards the whole Soviet people was being fuelled by Carter” as well as by some key advisors, the Pentagon and the U.S. military industrial complex.

(…)

While Soviet troops occupied Afghanistan in 1980, Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) worked in close concert with high level Kremlin officials to alter the direction of U.S. policy, according to documents made available through a KGB defector.

This information come to light through Soviet defector Vasiliy Mitrokhin who defected to Britain in 1992. “The Mitrokhin papers highlight a meeting that took place at the behest of Kennedy between former Sen. John Tunney (D-Calif.) and KGB agents in Moscow on March 5, 1980.”

Mitrokhin filed a report with the Cold War International History Project of the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington D.C. which revealed the details of Kennedy’s actions during the 1980s. Kennedy attempted to undermine the foreign policy of both the Carter and Reagan administrations.

According to Charles Dunn, dean of the Robertson School of Government at Regent University:

The secret overtures to the KGB during the Reagan years were particularly insidious, Dunn said, because Tunney and Kennedy were working to undermine what ultimately proved to be a very successful policy that brought an end to the Cold War.

“If another country gets the idea that it can deal outside of official channels then that undermines presidential leadership,” he said.

Dunn went on to say that Kennedy’s activities were a “clear violation of the U.S. Constitution and at the expense of presidential authority.”

Paul Kengor, author of The Crusader: Ronald Reagan and the Fall of Communism, said “The pattern of behavior should concern members of both political parties, Kengor said, because it shows Kennedy was willing to work against American foreign policy, regardless of who occupied the White House.”

The question now is, will anyone in a position of authority take any action based on these revelations? Or is Kennedy, for all intents and purposes, bullet proof? With Democrats having gained control of both houses of Congress, I wouldn’t hold my breath. Of course, there is little reason to suspect Republicans would pursue this had they retained control because of the perceived political price it might cost them. Is it too much to ask that our elected leaders take justice and the law seriously? Is it to much to ask for those who work against this country’s best interest to pay for their illegal actions? Perhaps it is.

As a combat veteran, I want to make it clear to anyone in uniform and to their loved ones: my poorly stated joke at a rally was not about, and never intended to refer to any troop.

I sincerely regret that my words were misinterpreted to wrongly imply anything negative about those in uniform, and I personally apologize to any service member, family member, or American who was offended.

It is clear the Republican Party would rather talk about anything but their failed security policy. I don’t want my verbal slip to be a diversion from the real issues. I will continue to fight for a change of course to provide real security for our country, and a winning strategy for our troops.

There you have it. I leave it to my readers to decide from themselves whether that was a genuine apology or self serving crap. Given Kerry’s history, I know where I fall on that question.

Today I write about the response of Democrats to Kerry’s actions. Watching Hannity and Colmbs last night I was amazed to see Alan Colmes defend Kerry, constantly repeating Kerry’s defense as if it was believable! Colmes repeated Kerry’s assertion that it was crazy to think that a war time veteran would ever do such a thing. Selective memory is wonderful thing, isn’t it? Colmes and other Kerry defenders seem to forget that John Kerry has a history of attack our troops in war. Going back to his testimony before a Senate committee during Vietnam, Kerry has repeatedly made baseless accusation against our soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines. Most recently he accused the troups in Iraq of terrorizing women and children in the dead of night! Democrat supporters pretend these and other Kerry fax paux never happened. Even this Senator John Breaux is on TV defending Kerry along with countless Democrat strategists and politicians.

No one but John Kerry is responsible for the words he spoke. He alone can be credited with the content of his remarks. But as the Democrat nominee for President in 2004, Kerry is not just any Democrat. He was the leader of his party and as such, others in his party must deal with what he says. They, however, along with him, continue to defend him and blame Republicans. As I said yesterday, you can tell a lot about a man by his response to his own mistake. The same is true of groups. Do they take responsibility and deal with the situation or do they attempt to blame others, thereby shaming themselves?

The answer in this case is clear. Like Senator Kerry, the Democrats refuse to deal with the issue, preferring to blame Republicans for the fact the issue even exists. Their presidential nominee said what he said but it’s all Republican’s fault. Yes indeed, you can tell a lot about people and groups by how they deal, or fail to deal, with their mistakes. Like Senator Kerry, the Democrat party doesn’t measure up and it will end up hurting them next week.

They obviously understand, on some level at least, that this is a problem for them. Senator Kerry had numerous campaign stops planned for the coming days, stumping for various Democrat candidates. No more. No one wants to be seen with Senator Kerry. Democrats know he was wrong and they know he should apologize. They just can’t bring themselves to say so.

You can tell a lot about a man or a group by how they deal, or fail to deal, with their mistakes.

Technorati Tags: Kerry, Democrats, Troops, Education

Now a new ad in opposition to Amendment 2 has hit the airwaves. The ad features such names as Patricia Heaton, Jim Caviezel and Kurt Warner laying out the problems with the amendment. And the ad has found its way to YouTube so the world can watch it.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Certainly everyone, including the Bush administration, prefers diplomatic solutions over military solutions. But rational people understand that sometimes, diplomacy isn’t enough. Diplomacy failed utterly with Nazi Germany. Was that because Great Britain and others didn’t have effective diplomats? Was it because their approach to a diplomatic solution was the wrong approach and another might have worked? Or was it simply that Hitler was not going to be deterred by diplomacy? Was it that Hitler was willing to milk the diplomatic process to gain more time to achieve his goals.

Generally speaking Republicans subscribe to the second set possibilities. Democrats, it appears, subscribe to the first. They seem to believe that there is no situation that cannot be solved diplomatically. The only question is, what is the correct diplomatic approach? Based on this belief, every situation that results in military conflict is a failure of diplomacy in the sense that whoever directed the diplomatic effort chose the wrong diplomatic course. The implication is that another approach would have been successful.

Interestingly, when a Democrat is in the White House, Democrats in general are much less willing to apply the standard they espouse when a Republican is in the White House. What does that imply? Well, it implies one of two things, neither of which is flattering to Democrats.

The first possible implication is that Democrats don’t really believe what they say they believe. It implies that they agree with us that, in the end, some situations do not have a diplomatic solution and require military solutions. But they are willing to pretend to a belief in order to politically harm a sitting president.

The second possible implication is that Democrats do believe what they say they believe but they are unwilling to apply it to a president from their own party because it would be politically damaging to do so.

Either way, the implication is that, for Democrats, politics trumps belief. Political advantage is more important than principle. Another word for that is demagogue. Indeed, either way you slice it, you come up with Democrats being demagogues.

Yes, there are times when diplomacy fails. Every administration wants to exhaust the diplomatic options before moving on to more hostile, militaristic options. Every administration understands that, while diplomacy must always be pursued, sometimes it will fail. Failure, however, does not automatically mean that the approach was wrong. Sometimes it simply means diplomacy was never going to work. It has to be tried but it will not always work. That means diplomatic failure does not necessarily say anything about the attempt or the administration making the attempt.

Democrats, however, see in diplomatic failure, an opportunity to score political points. Since the greatest good, in their view, is for them to regain power, it is always acceptable to demagogue an issue for political gain. The end justifies the means, in other words.

We now face a dangerous situation with North Korea. One commenter on another site said he didn’t see how Bush could possibly be helped by the North Korean nuclear test. He said, “All it shows is that yet another piece of their national security approach has been a dismal failure.” In his view, Bush is responsible for Kim Jong Il’s actions. It never occurs to him that Clinton’s approach was no better and, arguably, may have been worse.

It must ultimately be accepted that diplomacy has little chance of working with any leader who cannot be trusted to honor the agreements he makes. Kim Jong Il made specific agreements with the Clinton administration. He did not keep them. Is that Bush’s fault? It is not and .iIt is irrational to expect a liar to keep his word.

The situation Bush now faces remains, for the moment, a diplomatic one because we don’t have a lot of military options just now. But eventually we will have to make military options. North Korea is not going to change and if they are allowed to continue in the direction they are headed, it will embolden other megalomaniacal leaders to pursue similar policies.

In the end the real diplomatic failure will be the failure to recognize when diplomacy is at an end. It has been said that war is merely diplomacy by other means. True diplomatic failure is the unwillingness to accept that diplomacy has ceased to be fruitfuland it is time to move on to “other means.”

Speaker Hastert has asked for a Justice Department investigation, a request that would seem, at first blush, to negate the idea that he was involved with a cover up. Democrats are also calling for investigations left and right. Their motivation, however, is not likely to be the safety and well being of House pages, as evidenced by facts listed below.

What frustrates me is the blatant double standard that exists from one side of the aisle to the other. That double standard is illustrated by the immediate resignation of Foley. When similar or worse events occur surrounding Democrats, resignations are not what follows. Instead, the dems circle the wagons and defend their errant members.

In the 1983 page sex scandal, Democrat Gerry Studds, who had sex with a 17 year old male page, turned his back while the House censure was read. He left those proceedings to go to a press conference where he declared he’d done nothing wrong! He had taken the page to Morocco to have sex with him and, he claimed, since the sex took place outside the US, it was not illegal! He remained in the House until his retirement in in 1996. Conversely, Republican Dan Crane, caught in the same scandal for having sex with a 17 year old female page, at least apologized for his actions and was defeated in the next election.

Additionally, Republicans faced an impossible situation with Foley. If they had taken action against him based only on what they claim they knew, they would have been castigated as homophobes or worse by Democrats and the press. When it comes to Democrat responses, Republicans are always in a “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” situation. As I say, that isn’t an excuse. In fact, knowing that, Republicans should always take the high road since that is not only the right thing to do, it is also the most defensible. Still, it is not difficult to understand how House Republicans might have agonized over what course to take. If they’d only get over their fear and just do what’s right instead of worrying about political consequences, they’d be in a lot better position right now.

Still, it is worth noting that Democrats have a Senator who allowed a girl to die in his car while he went home, a Congressman who ran a homosexual brothel out of his basement, another Congressman who had actual sex with a page, all of whom remained in office. The double standard is so striking as to be beyond belief. How can Democrats get away with so much?

Once more let me say, there is no excuse for Foley’s actions. There is no excuse if Republicans covered up Foley’s conduct. But make no mistake, this is not about what Foley did and it is not about who knew what and when they knew it. It is about politics. Democrats smell the blood in the water and they are going in for the kill. That’s just the bottom line. We’re just about a month out from an election where the balance of power is up for grabs and Democrats are salivating over this. It’s the best news they could have right now and that’s just sad.

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The video is rather lengthy, running almost an hour, but it is well worth viewing.  The constant Democrat drumbeat of Republican corruption is demonstrably disingenuous as evidenced by their own corruption which they continue to deny and cover up.  As with the current scandal surrounding Mark Foley (as despicable as that is) the Democrats have their own perverts out of the closets but their’s remain in their elected positions while ours are forced to resign and even go to jail, as with Randy “Duke” Cunningham.

Yes, there is corruption in the halls of Congress on both sides of the aisle.  The difference is, Republicans are much more likely to effectively deal with their’s while the Democrats cover for their’s.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Whatever you think of Bush’s management of the war, no one honestly argues that he throws his finger in the wind to see what is popular. For good or for ill, Bush leads from principle. You may disagree with his principles but you cannot honestly argue that his positions are unprincipled.

The Democrats, on the other hand, think that polls are the way to lead. Or at least they think that polls show the way to electoral success. Today’s Opinion Journal quotes from a memo sent to Democrats:

A memo sent out to Democrats last week by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner, a strategy group led by former Clinton pollster Stan Greenberg, discusses Mr. Bush’s “failure in Iraq, which energized Democrats and dispirited Republicans.” It urges Democrats: “On Iraq, stress Bush/GOP ‘mismanagement’ and need for a ‘new direction.’ “

The article goes on to say:

Greenberg Quinlan Rosner says it has polled each element of this strategy, and that the poll numbers suggest public support for these Democratic positions. A poll-certified national-security strategy just might work with the out-of-sorts 2006 electorate. But there was a reason for 2002 and 2004. Those Democrats who did get elected channeled their energies into denouncing the Bush anti terror programs and backing the Lamont Insurrection. So there’s a problem with the current hand-the-war-to-us strategy: Their hearts and minds really aren’t in it. They don’t want the war.

Precisely!

The Democrats don’t believe in the war. Indeed, if Move On.org is any indicator, the Democrats don’t believe in national security at all. One could be excused for thinking they don’t even believe in the founding principles of this country. Yet all we hear from Democrats across the land is that they are better suited to prosecute the war and to defend this country!

The last thing this or any country needs is leadership by poll. Bill Clinton was infamous for polling every decision before he made it. That is not leadership. There is a reason we have a republic rather than a democracy. We entrust our leaders with the authority to make important decisions unhindered by the whims of public opinion. It doesn’t always work that way, but that is the idea. When leaders only make decisions based on polls they aren’t leading and we may as well have a direct democracy.

As the recent NIE demonstrates, the American public doesn’t have, indeed can never have, the information necessary to make decisions regarding war and terrorism. While the Democrats never tire or demagoguing the NIE, that is, we don’t know its contents and we shouldn’t. And without such information how can we possibly make rational decisions about what is the right course? We cannot and neither can Congressional Democrats. But then, rational decisions aren’t what they’re after. Winning in November is paramount, above all else.

To be sure, Republicans also holding winning in November to be paramount. But as I’ve said many times before, they are not nearly so prone to mangle to truth to achieve their goals. Certainly there are exceptions but they remain exceptions. Democrats, on the other hand, poll every course they might take to see which will bring them the most popularity. Which ever course wins is their choice. No thought is given to where the poll winner is actually good for this country, good for the war, good for our troops. The only consideration is whether is helps achieve victory.

That is not leadership and it isn’t what America needs. We need leaders and right now, Bush has demonstrated a proven ability to lead.

President Bush has fired back today, saying he will declassify parts of the NIE and make it available at www.dni.gov (look for it possibly as early as Tuesday afternoon) so that everyone can read what it says and decide for themselves. Bush claims the leaked portions of the report have been taken out of context and that it does not support what Democrats claim it supports.

The timing of the leak, considering the report came out in April, is suspicious on its face. That we are so close to the mid-term election lend credence to the notion that this is a purely political move. Additionally, the assertion that we were somehow safer when al Qaeda was attacking us on 9/11 is counter intuitive at best. There has been a constant drumbeat that our presence in Iraq is a recruiting tool for al Qaeda. While there may be an element of truth to this claim, it is also true that pretty much our very existence is also an effective recruiting tool. The implication that we should just bring everyone home and mind our own business is naive at best. Such thinking is the epitome of Chamberlain appeasement and it has been shown historically to be disastrous.

What has been interesting in this latest leak is the defense Democrats have offered for it. Repeatedly the claim is made that since the report conflicts with what Bush has been saying, we should see it, implying that leaking it was okay. At least that’s the way their defense is coming off.

This raises an interesting question. Do the Democrats believe that all classified information that does not support the president’s position should be public? If they believe that, do they believe that applies when a Democrat is in the White House?

We seem to have developed an environment in the Democrat party that says leaks are always okay if they undermine the President’s position. Their justification is that the President has been lying to us and we should know that. The evidence, of course, does not support the claim that the President has lied. It may support the assertion that he has been wrong on this or that question but that is not the same as lying.

A further question is, how can a President, any President, conduct a war, foreign policy, or any other function of the executive branch if he does not have the ability to keep classified information secret? I doubt very much whether any President has ever been in a position where all the intelligence at his disposal fully supported his choice of action in a war. How can a President be expected to carry out operations in a war when every piece of intelligence is leaked to the press?

I wrote a piece back in June with the title Some Call it Treason where I made the case that the New York Times should be charged with treason. But the media isn’t the only culpable entity here. Some in the administration are leaking important classified information that is harmful to our military efforts for political reasons and somehow that has to be stopped! The notion that each individual in government is free to make his or her own decisions about what should be public and what should not, based on their own personal opinions about politics is simply dangerous and is not supported in law or the Constitution. It is, in my view, treasonous for individuals in the government to intentionally undermine the military effort in a time of war, particularly for political reasons.

Our US intelligence community and state department are in dire need of a thorough house cleaning. The traitors need to be found, prosecuted and cleared out. We cannot hope to win this war with Islamic fascism, regardless of who the President is, so long as classified information continues to flow freely to the press.

UPDATE:

Hugh Hewitt has an excellent treatment of this subject here.  He quotes Jack Kelly saying:

Attacking our enemies does tend to make them angrier. But they were angry enough to start with, and failing to respond to their attacks can have worse consequences than defeating them in battle.

Anyway, all we know about the NIE is what the leaker and the New York Times want us to know. That’s not enough.

There is, of course, much more.  Hewitt’s column is well worth reading.

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Still, most American’s believe there is an absolute right to vote. Without getting to far into that debate, I want to look at the requirements to vote. The Constitution does have requirements for states if they extend the right to vote. For example, all citizens must be included, no one can be excluded based on race, etc. So what about the requirement to be a citizen?

The House has now passed a bill requiring a government issued photo ID to be eligible to vote. Most Americans intuitively understand that it is reasonable to ask citizens to prove they are who they say they are when they show up at their local polling place. What could be more reasonable?

Democrats, it turns out, think photo ID’s are completely unreasonable. They present a myriad of reasons why this should be so. Cynthia Tucker, liberal columnist for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, thinks there is no reason for such a requirement in the first place. She contends that we don’t have a problem with illegal aliens voting.

Laura Scott of the Kansas City Star says,

Picture this: an immigrant who is in this country illegally marches up to a polling place in November and demands a ballot.

Sound far-fetched? Does to me, too. It sounds like a sure ticket back home, after some jail time. Attempting to vote without the right of citizenship is against federal law.

These people are raising a straw man argument. While voting by illegal immigrants is a concern it is not the primary concern. Concerted and orchestrated efforts at vote fraud are the primary concern and we’ve countless episodes of it in recent elections.

Vote fraud probably goes back to the very founding of our country but it wasn’t until the presidential eliciting of 1960 that it reach such proportions that it became obvious. In that election “tens of thousands of dead people” ended up voting for Kennedy in Mayor Daley’s Chicago.

According to the November 6, 2000 edition of WorldNet Daily, a letter was sent to immigrants who had applied for citizenship but had not yet gained that status that included a card the immigrants were told was a voter registration card. Further, the letter from President Clinton said, all they had to do was sign the card, then go to the polls and vote for a Democrat!

Below that letter is a P.S. that explains: “Here is your personal Voter Identification Card. Sign your name, then detach your card. Bring your card with you to your polling place on Election Day. It will help your voting go more smoothly.”

Apparently all the recipient needs to do with this Voter Identification Card is sign it to be eligible to vote. Keep in mind, this was sent to a previously unregistered voter.

Voter fraud has been on the rise in America and most of it is possible because a photo ID is not required to vote. Such a simple measure as requiring citizens to prove they are who they say they are is being fought tooth and nail by Democrats across this country. Why is that?

I contend that Democrats want voter fraud to continue because they know that it primarily benefits them. And in many cases it is orchestrated by Democrats to begin with as with the Daley voter fraud in 1960 Chicago.

This issue is also an example of why it is so important for Republicans to control the Senate and for Republican to be in the White House. Repeatedly the courts have found that requiring photo ID’s presents to great a barrier to voting for the poor in this country. Even in Georgia where their law provided for state money for the ID’s so low income voters would receive them free, it also provided that the state would come to the voter to make the ID and give it to them. Still, the court found that to be a barrier to voting. What abject nonsense!

In the end it is legal, registered voters who lose. When I, a legally registered voter, cast my vote and that vote gets canceled by someone who votes illegally for another candidate, my franchise has been revoked! That is the case for millions of voters across this country every election cycle. Their votes are canceled by others who vote illegally.

There are, of course, other ways in which vote fraud is perpetrated. Take for example the 2000 election where thousands of absentee military ballots were invalidated for silly reasons. And the thousands more military voters who did not receive their absentee ballots in time to return them on time. The Democrats embarked on a systematic campaign to invalidate as many absentee military ballots as they could in Florida that year.

Then there was the vandalism in Florida and elsewhere of Republican campaign offices. Tires were slashed, windows were broken and union thugs barged into offices and physically attacked Republican campaign workers.

Yes, vote fraud is indeed rampant in this country and it is mostly perpetrated by Democrats. We need solid reforms that insure that each citizen’s right to vote is protected and only citizens vote. Nothing else will do.