Illegal Voters May Decide Fate of Senate

Phyllis Schlafly / Townhall Columnist

Control of the U.S. Senate is up for grabs on Nov. 4, and illegal voters may tip the balance. Estimates are that more than 14 percent of non-citizens were registered to vote in the elections of 2008 and 2010, and that could now easily exceed the margin of victory in many tight Senate races.

Democrats typically win more than 80 percent of the votes cast by non-citizens, so votes cast by non-citizens produce a net bonanza of additional votes for Democrats. Democrat Al Franken won a Republican U.S. Senate seat in Minnesota by a margin of only 312 votes in 2008, and with the immense power of incumbency he is expected to cruise to reelection this time.

New non-partisan research by professors at Old Dominion University uncovered the shocking amount of voting by non-citizens, as published by the Washington Post last Friday. Their work did not choose sides in the debate over whether non-citizens should be allowed to vote, which Congress has already answered in the negative by sensibly limiting voting in federal elections to only American citizens.

This study concluded that voter ID alone will not eliminate voting by non-citizens, because voter ID does not require proof of citizenship, such as a passport or birth certificate. But that loophole is easily closed by requiring proof of citizenship to register to vote, just as one must show proof of citizenship in order to obtain a passport.

Several states enacted common-sense provisions in order to strengthen voter integrity in this year's election. The U.S. Supreme Court denied an attempt to block voter ID from going into effect in Texas, so at least the Lone Star state will be able to limit mischief at their polls in this election.

Other states are not so fortunate. Wisconsin passed a voter ID law that was upheld by the Seventh Circuit, but the U.S. Supreme Court then blocked that good law from going into effect this November.

In July, three non-citizens were indicted for illegal voting in Ohio in the 2012 presidential election.

But most illegal voting cases end in a plea bargain that results in erasure of the convictions after a year if the defendant stays out of additional trouble for that long.

In Colorado, which could decide which party controls the U.S. Senate, votes are now cast entirely by mail with little protection against voter fraud. A total of 3.6 million ballots were sent to Coloradans based on addresses as old as 2008, which is six years ago.

One Colorado state senator said he has been to households that have received as many as seven separate ballots, and the person now living there could vote all seven ballots without anyone noticing.

Paid political activists, known as "harvesters," can gather up to 10 ballots of others and then dump them all in an unguarded drop box, and there is nothing that stops harvesters from gathering and voting even more.

What happens to unused ballots that people throw out after receiving them in the mail? Most people do not shred their trash, so many unused ballots inevitably end up in apartment complex garbage bins where they are available to be filled in and sent in by unscrupulous party workers.

The lack of voting integrity makes it far from clear whether the election outcome will reflect the will of the voters. The essential role played by poll watchers is impossible in Colorado's system of mail-only balloting.

The corrupt practice of counting votes that were cast in the names of dead people reemerged in North Carolina in 2012. The executive director of that state's election board reported that the votes of 81 dead people were counted, most of whom had died before it was possible for them to cast absentee ballots.

A shocking total of 35,570 voters in North Carolina had the same last and first names and birth dates of voters who also cast ballots in other states. Many hundreds of those voters even had the same last four digits of their Social Security numbers as people having identical names and birthdays who also voted in other states.

Reforms passed in North Carolina are not effective in time to ensure voter integrity in this election, where there is a close race for the U.S. Senate seat. No voter ID is yet in effect there.

The top priority of Obama's Department of Justice has been to oppose voter ID laws passed by various states. But Attorney General Eric Holder has announced his resignation, and the Senate should not confirm any successor who opposes state efforts to improve voter integrity.

Who Says Obamacare Isn't A Major Factor in Midterms

Byron York / Townhall Columnist

Some Democrats and their advocates in the press believe Obamacare, a year into implementation, is no longer much of a factor in the midterm elections. But no one has told Republican candidates, who are still pounding away at the Affordable Care Act on the stump. And no one has told voters, especially those in states with closely contested Senate races, who regularly place it among the top issues of the campaign.

In Arkansas, Republican challenger Tom Cotton is pulling ahead of incumbent Democratic Sen. Mark Pryor partly on the strength of a relentless focus on Obamacare. Cotton's newest ad attacks Pryor over the law, as did two of Cotton's four previous ads.

"In our polling, (Obamacare) continues to be just as hot as it's been all year long," says a source in the Cotton campaign. "If you look at a word cloud of voters' biggest hesitation in voting for Mark Pryor, the two biggest words are 'Obama' and 'Obamacare.' Everything after that is almost an afterthought."

Republican Rep. Bill Cassidy, challenging incumbent Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu in Louisiana, is pushing just as hard. "Sen. Landrieu, I voted for you before, but when you voted for Obamacare, I knew I'd made a mistake," says a woman in a Cassidy ad featuring Landrieu voters who say her support of the health care law turned them away from Democrats.

Joni Ernst, leading the Senate race in Iowa, is pushing hard on Obamacare, too. And in North Carolina, where Republican Thom Tillis is trying to catch up to incumbent Democratic Sen. Kay Hagan, Obamacare is not just a bad law leading to higher premiums, high deductibles and narrower choices of doctors -- it's also a window into Hagan's character.

"Its importance is not only in the policy itself, but more so in the fact that Sen. Hagan said at least 24 times that 'if you like your health care, you can keep it,'" says a Tillis campaign source.

So Republican candidates bash Obamacare and move up in the polls. Given that public opinion remains firmly against the health care law -- as it has been for years -- that's not a shock. Democratic beliefs to the contrary are probably wishful thinking.

Polls suggest that more and more, opposition to Obamacare is based on voters' personal experience, and not just on what they have heard or read about the law.

Since Obamacare was enacted in 2010, the Gallup polling organization has asked people whether the law has helped or hurt them personally, or whether they haven't been affected at all. In the latest survey, most people -- 54 percent -- said they have not been affected. But 27 percent said they have been affected and hurt, while a smaller group, 16 percent, said they have been helped.
 
"Since the start of this year, the percentage saying the law has helped them has increased from 10 percent to 16 percent," Gallup noted, "while the percentage saying it has hurt them has also gone up, and by a similar amount, from 19 percent to 27 percent."

The trend is pretty clear: more people hurt then helped.

Gallup found an intriguing partisan gap in its results. Looking just at those who said they have been affected by Obamacare, 27 percent of Democrats said they had been helped, while 15 percent said they had been hurt. Among independents, the numbers were almost the opposite: 16 percent said they had been helped, while 27 percent said they had been hurt. And among Republicans, just 4 percent said they had been helped, while 40 percent said they had been hurt.

It's unclear whether poll respondents were inserting their political biases into what they said were their personal experiences, or whether Obamacare has helped more Democrats than anyone else. The latter could make sense; after all, the law was designed by Democrats, passed on strict party-line votes, and directed in significant part toward Democratic constituencies.

But helping Democrats isn't enough to win an election. So Democratic candidates respond to voter unhappiness by pledging to "fix" Obamacare. But their hearts don't seem to be in it. At a recent debate in New Hampshire, incumbent Democratic Sen. Jeanne Shaheen was asked to list her proposed fixes, and all she could come up with was a suggestion to name a committee to study problems with the Obamacare website.

That does almost nothing to address voters' concerns, which remain a potent factor in the campaign.

The bottom line is, there's a reason Republicans keep pushing so hard against Obamacare: So far, it's working.

Hamas-CAIR pressures Arizona school to drop Pamela Geller speech tonight

Pamela Geller / Atlas Shrugs

A wolf cries tears. It’s ok for Hamas-CAIR to fund the arming of savages like Hamas in the cause of jihad and Islamic Jew-hatred (as proven on the Holy Land Foundation trial), but infidels defending themselves — that is haram.

And what did I say? I warned any homicidal jihadi that there would be defensive measures taken. Unlike Hamas-CAIR, we do everything within the law. Why has hasn’t Hamas-CAIR ever addressed the hundreds of death threats we get as part of standing against jihad? If they denounced those, maybe counter-jihad speakers wouldn’t have to have armed police at our events.

After the Oklahoma beheading and last weeks daily acts of jihad in Canada and New York, Americans would do well to be prepared.
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Ex-counterterror official: “We don’t have enough FBI agents who understand Islam”

Robert Spencer / Jihad Watch

 

In October 2011, the Obama Administration banned all mention of Islam and jihad in connection with terrorism from counterterror training, for the FBI as well as other agencies. Three years later, the former Director of the National Counterterrorism Center laments that we don’t have enough FBI agents who understand Islam.

But that is what the Obama Administration wanted. They wanted an FBI full of agents who didn’t know anything about Islam, because they wanted to pretend that Islam had no connection with terrorism. Counter-terror materials were scrubbed of all mention of Islam and jihad, and FBI trainers (including me) who spoke about the motives and goals of the jihadists were dismissed. And now Leiter wonders why agents don’t know anything about Islam.

Leiter’s solution? More Muslim agents. And no doubt when they are hired, there will be no serious attempt to determine whether these agents have any sympathies for or ties to the global jihad. The vetting agents won’t know how to make such determinations, and to make too thorough an investigation would be “Islamophobic.”

“Former Counterterror Official: ‘We Don’t Have Enough Muslim FBI Agents,'” by Melanie Hunter, CNS News, October 27, 2014 (thanks to Jerk Chicken):

(CNSNews.com) – Former Director of the National Counterterrorism Center Michael Leiter told NBC’s “Meet the Press” Sunday that the FBI does not have enough Muslim agents or agents who understand Islam.

“We don’t have enough Muslim FBI agents. We don’t have enough FBI agents who understand Islam, and we don’t have enough people in government who are doing counterterrorism, who understand 15-to-29-year olds. They’re disengaged, and this is also the group which is likely to be most violent. It can’t just be Nancy Reagan with, ‘Say no to drugs.’ You have to do engagement with that demographic,” said Leiter.

Leiter acknowledged that the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) is using social media more so than al Qaeda did. He said ISIS tries to recruit “Jihadi Cool,” a new form of militant Jihadism designed to appeal to young people as something fashionable or cool….

Op-ed:
Merging the Caliphate with the NWO...The Truth Exposed
By: Diane Sori and Craig Andresen (RIGHT SIDE PATRIOTS)

The specter of the Muslim Brotherhood gaining control of an entire nation in the Middle East is again raising its barbaric head but NOT high enough to become radar visible…until now that is.

In this investigative article, we will expose Obama’s planned efforts to once again install his islamic counterparts into the mix. Consider this a 'make-good' for losing Egypt to the secular el-Sisi government after the Muslim Brotherhood/Obama led coup toppled Hosni Mubarak from power.

This time the target is Jordan and this time Obama’s doctrine has a decidedly different twist.

Rather than simply forcing a vacuum of power to be filled by whatever branch of 7th century barbarians who get there first, this coup will have the earmarks of a ‘peaceful’ transition to a more western friendly, more western form of government...something which, unless you know the truth, will be more accepted by the general population.

Rest assured where Obama is concerned…when he has HIS hand in the pot stirring up trouble...the wolf will be far worse and the sheep’s clothing will be far more tailored.

As we pointed out in our co-written series of articles, 'Israel's Allies and Enemies: The Truth Exposed...' published in both 'The National Patriot' and in 'The Patriot Factor' in August of this year, King Abdullah II of Jordan is on shaky ground, as we exposed his connection to the Muslim Brotherhood along with his anti-Israel stance despite the facade he presents to the rest of the world.

We now know, via our Middle East contacts, that Abdullah's grip on power is deteriorating more rapidly than we believed just a few short months ago, and we also know that he is in the process of liquidating his assets…essentially selling off his personal and substantial holdings, including a portfolio of real estate holdings and other assets around the world.

Abdullah is sensing the inevitable. He knows his days in power are numbered and...we believe...he knows that he will most likely, before the end of Obama’s dictatorship in 2016, be unwelcome in his own country. Having cash on hand will allow him to live anywhere he chooses in the opulent lifestyle to which he and his family are accustomed.

Now let's look through this scenario in the terms of three important questions and the most plausible answers.

First question...when are things going to happen?

Answer: According to our inside sources things are happening very quickly to the effect that Jordan's King Abdullah might possibly fall in 2015...systematically deposed by the Obama administration and very despised by the Palestinian majority. The fact that Abdullah openly would NOT join the war on ISIS up to two days before the war began shows that his American controlled army basically joined the war without his consent and confirms the fact that he is just a figurehead with Obama's administration pulling the strings. When you are an American controlled dictator and you do something extreme, history teaches us that the U.S. will NOT have a problem letting you go.

And while there are some who believe Abdullah's rule may possibly last another two years, we believe that Obama will do everything he can to accelerate that timeline. Remember, Obama's goal is to make sure the caliphate is in place throughout the Middle East while he is still in office.

We also believe that Obama's timeline for replacing King Abdullah is at most one year and he would prefer to have this accomplished sooner rather than later because he does NOT want this to become a 'feature' of the 2016 election, that is unless he can install a new leader in Jordan who can be presented to the public as a moderate as that would provide a plank for his party's election bid in 2016. Without a doubt such a transition must be complete and take root in Jordan before a pro-Israel Republican takes the White House otherwise the future of the caliphate will be severely compromised.

Second question...how will Obama orchestrate this 'transition' on behalf of the caliphate?

Answer: As usual, Obama will try to divert and deflect our attention away from the happenings in Jordan by forcing us instead to focus on events occurring in the Egyptian controlled Sinai Peninsula. Basically ignored by the Obama controlled media until now...or given a cursory mention at best...is the fact that in the last four days two attacks have occurred in the Sinai where at least 31 Egyptian soldiers were killed by islamic terrorists. The first attack, near the town of Sheikh Zuwaid, happened around 2pm this past Friday when 28 soldiers were killed and 28 others were wounded in what appears to have been a 'payback' attack by components of the Muslim Brotherhood for the ouster of Mohamed Morsi. The other three soldiers killed happened in the nearby town of El Arish, when islamic militants opened fire on a military checkpoint.

And the root cause of all this is Egypt's new secular government, their outward rejection of the caliphate, and their new alliance with Israel.

The United States has a long history of choosing and backing new leaders in that volatile part of the world and have used covert involvement by the CIA to accomplish regime change. While these efforts NEVER seem to pan out in the long run, short term goals have none the less been achieved. Cases in point include the Shah of Iran, the tenuous backing of Saddam Hussein during the Iran/Iraq War, and the support of Mubarak in Egypt while he was in power. And make NO mistake the CIA and Obama's hands will be all over the upcoming changes in Jordan including, we believe, a possible offer of refuge here in the U.S. for Abdullah and his family.

Questions three...who will be Obama's hand-picked successor to Abdullah?

Answer: According to our Middle East sources, Obama and the CIA will push for the wrong man for Jordan but the right man for the caliphate after the king leaves. We believe Jordanian-Palestinian Taher Nashat al-Masri will be the Obama regime's choice to lead a new Jordan. And while biographical information including his positions held within the Jordanian government is plentiful on the internet, al-Masri's current political ties and allegiances have all but been wiped clean leading one to wonder...why.

What little could be found points to the fact that while al-Masri might appear palatable on the surface because he, like so many others before him who morphed into becoming America's enemies, al-Masri received his education right here in the U.S....garnering a degree in economics from North Texas University. Upon his return to Jordan, al-Masri joined the Independent Party and worked his way up Jordan's governmental ranks to eventually be appointed Prime Minister of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan by then King Hussein. Serving from June 19, 1991 to November 21, 1991, Prime Minister al-Masri strove to change Jordan's election laws. During his time in office he also opposed the American invasion of Iraq during the first Gulf War, but fearing that the continued presence of Iranians on Arab soil could instigate incidents of sabotage by islamic fundamentalists, al-Masri switched sides now wanting the Americans to stay in Iraq to help keep the country "out of the hands of the fundamentalists"...which is quite the opposite of where he now stands.

Coming from a rich Palestinian family known for their loyalty to Jordan's kings and the monarchy, isn't it strange that Jordan's 'supposed' moderate king can have Israel's enemies as his closest allies. Also, the al-Masri family itself is a bit too close for comfort to the Muslim Brotherhood, and when he was Prime Minister, al-Masri closely embraced his kings policy of empowering the Muslim Brotherhood. As of today al-Masri continues to have close ties with the Muslim Brotherhood along with being quite unpopular with the Jordanian-Palestinians themselves. While this is NOT a problem for Obama, it must be noted that al-Masri's close cousin is one of the major share holders of the Arab Bank...a bank which was recently convicted of financing the Hamas terrorist organization. In fact, that cousin testified in favor of the bank at the September trial held in New York.

Also of note is the fact that the al-Masri family had close personal ties to Yassir Arafat and the PLO. And while al-Marsi was serving as the Jordanian Senate Chairman in 2012, the Muslim Brotherhood was in the throes of demanding the king's government postpone its upcoming parliamentary elections due to unrest within the Brotherhood's ranks over its planned boycott of the vote...and guess whose side al-Masri supported.

Worth noting is that Taher Nashat al-Masri is a frequent guest at the U.S Embassy in Amman, including at the high profile July 4th celebration held each year. And U.S. Embassy cables show al-Masri to be one of the embassy's most frequently used 'sources.' Now add in the fact that al-Masri is unpopular with the Palestinian majority because he is considered one of the king's closest allies, and while this is NOT an issue for Obama, it is an issue for the Palestinian-Jordanians because their wanted candidates...candidates such as Mudar Zahran...are being deliberately ignored by this administration.

The deliberate ignoring of Zahran and his people shows that the Obama administration has already decided who Jordan's next head of state will be. Regardless of the name, know it will be someone who will empower the Muslim Brotherhood and that in turn will have a direct affect on U.S. relations in the Middle East. Such an appointment will also jeopardize Israel's borders, and with Israel being the only stable and dependable ally the U.S. has left in the Middle East, Israel will now be forced to protect its own borders instead of helping the U.S. keep the terrorists at bay.

Knowing all this, al-Masri could very well be where the caliphate and the New World Order (NWO) blend together and with the addition of the Muslim Brotherhood and ISIS this could create a force that could become insurmountable. And with ISIS now reportedly raking in more than one million dollars per day in oil revenues, and with them wanting a seat at the NWO table they need al-Masri to be a bridge between radical islam and a more stable recognized government such as that in Jordan. And if Obama has designs to ever sit at the head of that table...which we know he does...laying the groundwork by supporting al-Masri would give him the edge in that regard.

And the bottom line to all this remains a delicate balance of power in the Middle East being overturned with the fall of Abdullah. Currently, untold by the media is that Abdullah is becoming increasingly isolated from his own military in addition to the afore mentioned selling off of his assets. Also remember, Obama's goal is to divide Jordan's neighbor, Syria, into easily controlled quadrants of sorts where it might become possible to if NOT topple al-Assad's government in full to at least target and then assassinate al-Assad making Syria then ripe for the islamic picking.

Ultimately, NONE of this is good for American interests at home nor on the world stage, and all this places our greatest ally in the region... Israel...in dire jeopardy. Until the White House is in Republican, pro-Israel, and anti-islamic hands, it will fall to Israel and Egypt to take immediate NO holds barred joint military action, coupled with monetary and weapons appropriations by a Republican controlled U.S. Congress, to diffuse the ticking bomb of World War III.