Back to Basics

Photoshop: Conservative Arts

America’s voter rolls are a mess. But you can’t count on the Department of Social Justice and corruptocrat Attorney General Eric Holder to clean them up. It’s another job the feds won’t do. Time for ordinary citizens to step up to the plate. Thanks to a provision in federal law, you can pick up the slack.

Former DOJ attorney/whistleblower J. Christian Adams fills you in at Pajamas Media:

In November 2009, political appointee Julie Fernandes told the entire assembled DOJ Voting Section that the Obama administration would not enforce the list maintenance provisions of Section 8. Section 8 “doesn’t have anything to do with increasing minority turnout,” Fernandes said. “We don’t have any interest in enforcing that part of the law.” End of story.

At the same time, Fernandes stressed that the DOJ would vigorously enforce the welfare agency registration provisions of Section 7.

She made these lawless instructions in front of me and dozens of other shocked Voting Section lawyers. The DOJ has never once denied that Fernandes gave these instructions, nor has the DOJ countermanded them.

This lawless policy couldn’t have a partisan motivation, could it?

Now, Americans are left to clean up the voter rolls on their own. Thankfully, Motor Voter provides a private right of action — that means private citizens can bring lawsuits against states and voter registrars who are allowing dead and ineligible voters to taint the voter rolls.

Americans are used to getting the job done themselves. Reliance on government tends to disappoint.

Using this private right of action, I have given sixteen states the legal notice required to alert them that they have violated Section 8 of Motor Voter. I am working with private citizens across the nation to help ensure that the elections in November aren’t plagued by ineligible voters…

…Every two years, states must report to the Election Assistance Commission (EAC) information about their voter rolls. The latest report is troubling. South Dakota, Texas, Mississippi, Kentucky and Indiana report in excess of a dozen counties with more registered voters than living people old enough to vote. Having more voters than living humans tells you something is wrong. In West Virginia, one county reported 113% of the voting age population was registered to vote. Baltimore, Maryland, reported 104% of voting age citizens on the rolls. Iowa and North Carolina also reported counties with more voters than living citizens of voting age.

All of these states received a notice letter.

Ponce de Leon wasted his time looking for the fountain of youth in Florida — he should have gone to Maryland, Arkansas, Massachusetts, Oregon, or Tennessee. These states report that they didn’t remove a single dead voter from 2006 to 2008. Some of the dead registered voters were resurrected on election day and cast ballots.

These states also received a notice letter.

Much more at Election Law Center.

Nicole Marrone, another former DOJ attorney, has related reporting at PJM on Philly’s dirty voter rolls.

Another swamp in need of do-it-yourself grass-roots draining.

The older you get the faster time seems to speed by. One minute you’re talking about the Baby Boom generation, 1946 to 1964, and the next it’s Generation X, 1965-1983. If the Boomers thought the world owed them a living, the Gen X’rs were all about “relationships” and the “environment.”

Before you knew it, it was the Generation Y, often referred to as the Millennials, 1984-2002, that everyone was talking about and trying to sell crap to. The oldest of these are age 26 and the youngest age 8. Most young people think the world exists for them, but Generation Y has more reason to believe this than their parents and grandparents.

Their parents doted upon them, insisting on every safety device known to man be used to protect them from scraped knees or concussions. Television networks have entire channels devoted to them such as Disney, Nickelodeon, or Discovery Kids. Their parents had to get by with MTV. Like their parents, they have been demographically targeted as a consumer group.

The federal government is so concerned for them that it came up with No Child Left Behind. Never mind that most earlier programs like Head Start and other social inventions have a record of failure. Whatever is gained in Head Start is rapidly lost when they enter our dreadful school systems.

I have been reading one of the scariest books (remember books, printed on paper, between two covers?) I have received in a while. It’s Dr. Tim Elmore’s “Generation iY: Our Last Change to Save Their Future.” (www.SaveTheirFutureNow.com).

In February 2010, The Kaiser Family Foundation reported that kids between eight and eighteen were spending seven-and-a-half hours each day in front of a computer screen. This is the MySpace, Facebook, and Twitter generation, sending and receiving an average of 1,742 texts per month!

For all this communication, I suspect they are as clueless as their parents who, after all, probably voted for Barack Obama in the name of “diversity” and “multiculturalism.” Generation iY is even less prepared to be adults than their parents. “These kids have been online since preschool,” writes Dr. Elmore, “and can’t imagine life any other way.”

There is some good news about those born between 1983 and 2003. Early statistics indicate that teen pregnancy rates are down, drug abuse was lower than their parents, violent crime among this age group is its lowest in twenty years, education and civic involvement was at a record high, and as students they are optimistic about their prospects of changing the world.

Most of the news about this newest generation, however, is not good. They are overwhelmed. According to an American College Health Association random sample study released in 2007, 94% reported feeling overwhelmed by their lifestyles; 44% said they felt so depressed it was almost difficult to function; and almost 10% said they had considered suicide in the past year.

Generation Y is, despite the stereotype, quite competitive and wants to be the best, having been told they are the best from their earliest years.

As the first of the 80 million Baby Boomers have begun to retire, it has become increasingly apparent that the United States is facing a pension crisis of unprecedented magnitude.  State and local government pension plans are woefully underfunded, dozens of large corporate pension plans either have collapsed or are on the verge of collapsing, Social Security is a complete and total financial disaster and about half of all Americans essentially have nothing saved up for retirement.  So yes, to say that we are facing a retirement crisis would be a tremendous understatement.  There is simply no way that we can keep all of the financial promises that we have made to the Baby Boomer generation.  Unfortunately, the crumbling U.S. economy simply cannot support the comfortable retirement of tens of millions of elderly Americans any longer.  The truth is that we are all going to have to start fundamentally changing the way that we think about our golden years.

Once upon a time, you could count on getting a big, fat pension if you put 30 years into a job.  But now pension plans everywhere are failing.  State and local governments are cutting back and are raising retirement ages.  A majority of Americans have even lost faith in the Social Security system, which was supposed to be the most secure of them all.

The reality is that we are moving into a time when there is not going to be such a thing as “financial security” as we have known it in the past.  Things have fundamentally changed, and we are all going to have to struggle to stay above water in the economic nightmare that is coming.

Part of the reason we have such a gigantic economic mess on the way is because we have promised vastly more than we can deliver to future retirees.  When you closely examine the numbers, it quickly becomes clear that a financial tsunami is about to hit us that is going to be so devastating that it will change everything that we know about retirement.

The following are 22 statistics about America’s coming pension crisis that will make you lose sleep at night….

Private Pension Plans And Retirement Funds

1 - One recent study found that America’s 100 largest corporate pension plans were underfunded by $217 billion at the end of 2008.

2 – Approximately half of all workers in the United States� have less than $2000 saved up for retirement.

3 – According to one recent survey, 36 percent of Americans say that they don’t contribute anything at all to retirement savings.

4 – The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation says that the number of pensions at risk inside failing companies more than tripled during the recession.

5 – According to another recent survey, 24% of U.S. workers admit that they have postponed their planned retirement age at least once during the past year.

State And Local Government Pensions

6- Pension consultant Girard Miller recently told California’s Little Hoover Commission that state and local government bodies in the state of California have $325 billion in combined unfunded pension liabilities.  When you break that down, it comes to $22,000 for every single working adult in California.

Could it finally be sinking in who exactly is going to be paying for all this alleged “free” stuff?

WASHINGTON — Young voters who had been enthralled by Barack Obama’s “Yes, we can” message are now saying “Maybe not” — and are backing away from the president in a worrisome new poll for the White House.

Obama is losing in a match-up against a generic Republican challenger by 37 percent to 34 percent among voters in the 18-34 age group, according to a stunning Quinnipiac University poll released yesterday.

In March, voters in this group approved of Obama by 54 percent to 37 percent.

“The youngest age group may be the most impatient and the most easily disillusioned among all age groups,” said Molly Andolina, a youth-vote expert and DePaul University political-science professor.

“Easily disillusioned” is sociology-speak for “sucker.”

Even “Obama Girl” was struck by reality a few months ago.

This should give little comfort to conservatives, however. Unless the GOP fields worthy opponents, those disenchanted by the failure of rainbows, gumdrops and unicorns to materialize will have nowhere else to go but right back to the same people who continue to promise to deliver Shangri-La… eventually.

But the current drop in youth support isn’t merely due to younger voters finally figuring out that Obama and the Democrats are using their credit card. There’s also what I call “The Peggy Effect.”

Basically “The Peggy Effect” is this: Everybody who voted for Obama because of all the free stuff they’d be getting, such as the famed “Peggy the Moocher” (who was Obama’s freeloading answer to “Joe the Plumber”), have been running to their mailboxes for a year and a half now, and… pretty much nothing. No free mortgage; no free car; no free gas — hell, no free health care yet for that matter. It’s taking a toll on Obama’s approval ratings.

Here’s Peggy back in happier times:

Update: Obama tries to reel some of the disenchanted young lefties back into the Hope fold with this recorded message to the Netroots Convention in Vegas. JWF says: Basic theme of his message is to be patient, he’s working as hard as he can to screw things up.

What we can expect from the government takeover of our health care is already starting to reveal its deadly intensions.

The H1N1 vaccine, purchased by and controlled by the government, was a promise that couldn’t be kept.  There was supposed to be enough vaccine available for all those who were at risk as well as it sounding like for anyone else that wanted the vaccine.  Since early this year the government was telling the public how much of an epidemic the H1N1 flu was going to be and was encouraging everyone to get vaccinated.  But when the time came to pay up the government fell far short of their promises.

The H1N1 is a separate vaccination from the regular annual flu vaccinations.  The regular flu vaccination is controlled by private industry.  Those vaccinations have been produced, distributed and are available at your doctor’s office or clinic for anyone requesting it.  In fact, my family doctor asked at my annual exam if I wanted to receive the vaccination.

However, the H1N1 is a different story.  The vaccine was purchased and distribution is being controlled by the government.  While they promised to have enough to go around they fell far short.  The government is controlling all quantities of this vaccine, including where the vaccines are to be sent and how much.  It is only being distributed to government sponsored agencies, so your doctor probably didn’t even receive the vaccine.  In order to obtain the vaccination you have to go to a vaccination clinic.  Even then, if you are not considered high risk you may be denied the vaccination.  So by the end of this year’s flu season only 25% of the H1N1 vaccine will have been distributed.  The rationing has already begun.

Then this week I read an article from the New York Times about a government task force deciding mammograms for women are no longer necessary until age 50, and then only every other year.  They further decided that self-breast exams didn’t do any good and should be discontinued.  Their recommendation was between 50-75 mammograms should be done every other year and after the age of 75 they haven’t yet decided.  Could this be because they are embracing the ideas of the Obama Czars – that anyone over 75 isn’t worth the cost of medical treatment because they have served their usefulness in society already?

How many people know of at least one woman who is alive today because of early detection and treatment of breast cancer?  How many others hear of the terrible tragedy other women face when the breast cancer was diagnosed in a much later stage and it had spread to lymph nodes or other parts of the body.  Sure, they may not have died from breast cancer, but they died from cancer initially caused from the spreading of the breast cancer.

The proposed government run system denies Americans some of our basic constitutional rights.  It denies us the freedom of choice by ultimately not letting us choose our own healthcare insurance coverage.  It promotes age discrimination by have a government run agency determine if you may obtain treatments based on an age vs. cost factor.  It denies us the freedom of religion by forcing everyone to participate in a medical system when that may in direct violation of ones religious beliefs.  Freedom of religion is one of the core values of this country.  There is at least one religion in this country that does not believe in obtaining medical treatment.  Yet this bill would force them into purchasing an insurance plan the directly violates that belief.  Further, it would require their children to receive immunizations that they currently can deny.  They could have their homes entered by a government mandate and have their children immunized against their will, or risk the possibility that their children would be taken from them.  Our core constitutional rights should not be taken from us!  We should not have to compromise our constitutional rights to make healthcare reforms.