MaxRedline

No ID Required

Three states asked a federal commission to allow them to ask voters for proof of citizenship; naturally, the bureaucrats refused.

“The EAC finds that granting the States’ requests would likely hinder eligible citizens from registering to vote in federal elections, undermining a core purpose of the NVRA,” the commission said in its ruling, referring to the National Voter Registration Act, or motor-voter law.

Ah yes, they're trotting out the old "disenfranchisement" boogeyman again. There's no evidence to back their contention, it's just how they feel. So, once again, they're going to insist upon burning through more taxpayer dollars via the courts. And there's no question that it will be hashed out once and for all in federal courts:

Indeed, the states’ request to the EAC was in part spurred by a Supreme Court ruling last year. In that case, the justices said Arizona couldn’t refuse to accept the federal registration forms.

But Justice Antonin Scalia also specifically said Arizona could ask the EAC to include the request on forms distributed in that state, and said if the EAC refused, the state could come back to the courts.

When Democratics enacted that stupid "motor-voter" law back in 1993 (at the behest, of course, of liberal activists Piven and Cloward), those folks with functioning brains understood - and warned of - the potential for rampant fraud. Twenty years later, an abundance of evidence validates our concerns. When every state on the west coast cheerfully hands out drivers' licenses to illegal aliens, there's certainly no reason not to sign them up to vote as well. And twenty years on, Democratics are determined to keep it going.

After all, laws and little things like integrity are for Republicans and other idiots.

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Well, There They Go Again

Porkland City Council is mulling over half a dozen possible additional changes to its new head "arts" tax today. They've been tweaking at it ever since they conned Porkland voters into approving it last November; most voters were completely unaware of the fact that what was portrayed at the time as a funding measure to restore arts classes in public schools For The Children™ was in fact set up to divert half of the funds thus obtained to civic organizations with established endowment funds, such as Porkland Symphony and the Opera, among other selected trough-feeders. Because, after all, those black-tie affairs are so important to children.

Now the Council's considering additional tweaks:

The options range from leaving the arts tax "as is" to upending it by calculating taxes based on taxable income, which could lead to big bills for the city's highest earners.

We're still waiting to see how the legal action by Lewis & Clark tax law perfesser John Bogdanski challenging the constitutionality of the thing pans out, but in any case, we aren't paying because the wording of the measure provides a loophole big enough to drive a semi through:

You are generally considered a Portland resident (even if you live outside Portland) if you are “domiciled” in Portland. If you think of Portland as your permanent home, the center of your financial, social and family life, and Portland is the place you intend to come back to when you are away, you are considered to be domiciled in Portland.

Obviously, this wording was adopted in an effort to strong-arm residents of unincorporated Washington County (think Garden Home), Multnomah County, and even Clackamas County into paying up because they happen to live at or near the boundaries of the City of Porkland. However, the wording works in ways that they hadn't considered, as well: as an example, we happen to live barely inside the boundary of Southwest Porkland, but we do all of our grocery shopping, clothes shopping, automotive, banking, home improvement, and other shopping exclusively in Washington County. Our friends live for the most part in Washington County and Clark County. And so we don't think of Portland as your permanent home, the center of our financial, social and family life.

Inasmuch as we don't meet those criteria, there's no reason for us to pay their new tax.

And in any case, if the city still has to fiddle around with the thing a full eight months after they sold it as For The Children™, it clearly needs to be dumped, rewritten, and re-sold. And this time, not as a pig in a poke.

UPDATE: Bogdanski has filed an appeal with Oregon Tax Court.

Van Dyke was joined by Commissioner Nick Fish in his optimism that the tax would continue to withstand legal challenges. (Van Dyke did also suggest that making the tax more progressive would help that cause.)

But Commissioner Steve Novick was quick with a potentially applicable bromide, noting how resounding victories in one court can sometimes turn into resounding defeats in higher courts:

"As Yogi said, 'It ain't over 'til it's over.'"

Van Dyke is the city attorney; it's interesting that he favors a scheme, some eight months in, to amend the tax to make it "more progressive" - and thus more likely to withstand the legal challenge. As it was written, the new tax does appear to be a $35-a-head tax, which is unconstitutional in Oregon. By rewriting it to make it "more progressive", the city might be able to negate that argument entirely. On the other hand, it remains that what they've been doing, in tinkering around with it, renders it completely different from the tax proposal that they sold to gullivle voters.

UPDATED 4:33 PM.

 

 

#Korrupt Kate On Voter Registration

Kate Brown OR

Our corrupt Secretary of State's not happy with the old "motor voter" law and its subsequent iterations that provide opportunities for would-be voters to register to vote while at the DMV or applying for food stamps or applying for welfare or.... Nope, Kate Brown's pushing to have every holder of an Oregon drivers' license automatically registered to vote. She'd be willing to send each new licensee a letter with instructions on how to cancel their voter registration, or to affiliate with a political party, but she thinks the right to vote should be automatic.

Evidently, there's not enough election fraud going on already in this state - or not enough to suit the fiercely partisan Democrat SOS.

“Voter registration should be the responsibility of citizens, not the responsibility of state agencies,” said Sandy Raddue of Beaverton, who leads the Oregon Republican Party’s election integrity efforts. 

And there's the problem, in a nutshell: hyper-partisan Democratics like Kate aren't especially keen on that whole election integrity thing. Rachel Madcow and Kate and the other Airhead America refugees figure that if people are too lazy to register on their own, they're sure to vote Democrat.

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What If...

A jury in South Bend, Indiana has found that fraud put President Obama and Hillary Clinton on the presidential primary ballot in Indiana in the 2008 election. Two Democratic political operatives were convicted Thursday night in the illegal scheme after only three hours of deliberations. They were found guilty on all counts.

These are felony convictions. One of the guys was a Board of Elections employee, while the other, a longtime Democrat Party Chairman by the name of Butch, was tagged as the mastermind of the plan. They forged names and signatures on petitions, which were conveniently verified as accurate by the former Board of Elections employee. Slick.

If they hadn't done that, neither Billary nor Barky would have been eligible for the Indiana Primary. Of course, South Bend's only three counties away from Chicago....

Heaven Forbid That We Offend!

Democrat Rep. John Conyers is an idiot. But I repeat myself.

Opening the first immigration hearing of the new Congress, the top Democrat on the Judiciary Committee warned his colleagues not to use the term "illegal immigrant" as the debate goes on.

"I hope no one uses the term illegal immigrants here today. Our citizens are not — the people in this country are not illegal. They are are out of status. They are new Americans that are immigrants," said Rep. John Conyers Jr., Michigan Democrat.

No, Johnny - they're illegal foreign nationals, most properly referred to as illegal aliens. Next thing you know, the loon'll be banging on about how drug dealers are unlicensed pharmacists. It's really long past time to quit pandering to foreign invaders.

Ever notice how, amid all the yapping about a "pathway to citizenship", the Lefty loons never, ever mention something that all actual, legal immigrants must pass in order to gain entry: the health check.

And for an interactive examination into the extent of the illegal alien problem in America, look here. Remember - this map's three years old, and Oregon still had at minimum 160,000 illegals living here.

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Rep. Conyers: Immigrants Aren't 'Illegal' - They're 'Out of Status'

Thanks, Karl!

Karl Rove's group, "American Crossroads", is determined to weed out conservatives in order to protect the sanctity of the Republican elite. In fact, they'll be throwing cash into campaigns to oust TEA party-backed candidates and even sitting congress-critters that they view as "too conservative".

This is excellent news, and should be welcomed by conservatives; we've been forewarned as to whom not to vote for - anybody supported by Rove and his machine can be automatically excluded from consideration.

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As Expected

Barky's spending $2 million in taxpayer cash to fly to Las Vegas to give a speech on his vision of what to do about illegal aliens - which, of course, he could have given from D.C, but that wouldn't have been expensive enough. In his view, it's open borders, instant amnesty, and homosexual couples scoot to the head of the line.

Marco Rubio, meanwhile, takes heat for being part of the "Gang of Eight" who've roughed out some areas of agreement on the subject which includes no language referring to a "pathway to citizenship" but refers, rather, to "earned legal status" - in other words, a "pathway to citizenship".

Jennifer Korn, executive director of the Hispanic Leadership Network, the center-right group that sent the talking points on Monday: "It all means the same thing, but the way you say it matters."

She's got that right.

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Um, why is Obama spending $1.6 million of taxpayer dough for Vegas amnesty speech?

What, At This Point, Is In A Name?

Democratics looking to oust Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell are reaching into the Kentucky TEA party activist movements who wish to accomplish precisely the same thing. Soros-funded Lefty organization MoveOn, together with a Democrat superPAC, have offered to fund and to share organizing expertise with TEA partiers in an effort to weaken or eliminate McConnell in the next primary.

Sarah Durand, president of the Louisville Tea Party, said Democratic donors and activists have told her that they’d be willing to spend seven figures in a GOP primary to help a candidate willing to challenge McConnell. Durand said the challenge for tea party groups is to recruit a candidate who wouldn’t hand the seat to the Democrats, even though, she said, tea party leaders across the state are not satisfied with McConnell’s three-decade tenure in Washington.

Sometimes the stupid - it burns.

While it's one thing to acknowledge that a life-long politician is almost certain to have hung around well past his pull-date, it's quite another to accept funding and "advice" from Leftists. If the TEA partiers in Kentucky take them up, they're really no better than the 30-year incumbent. Only an idiot would believe that the far Left would offer such resources out of the goodness of their collective heart.

They may be out for many things, but one thing is certain: they aren't out to help.

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Mandy: Stick It To Portlanders Again!

Portland City Councilor Amanda Fritz is pushing to reinstate something that voters have already rejected: publicly-financed elections. That turkey was foisted on residents without a vote, though the City Council unbent enough to allow a vote after a few years. As soon as that happened, public financing went out the window. Now she wants to bring it back.

Sure. They aren't paving streets or fixing potholes, there's a new "arts" tax, garbage services have been arbitrarily halved (though residents pay the same). Water and sewer rates, already among the highest in the country, are going up again, and residents in Northwest Portland are being hit with a $60 fee for the privilege of parking on the street in front of their apartments, but we should all be willing to pay for the campaigns of people who want to run for office.

Yeah, that's a winner, Mandy.

Washington, D.C.: Democrats And Republicans Agree

At last, they agree on something: GOP voters are a problem.

As seen from the halls of power, the problem is that Republican voters think it's OK to replace incumbent senators and congressman who don't represent the views of their constituents.