Obama, Sex Toy Sellers, and Fake Military Voting Rights
Few organizations are as skilled at spending billions of dollars while accomplishing little as the federal government is. The Obama administration’s failure to protect military voters demonstrates this — across America, ballots have failed to mail on time to overseas service members. It is a mistake that keeps repeating every two years, and Americans should demand it never happens again.
When you learn more about the rogue’s gallery the Obama administration counts as engaged, you’ll understand the administration’s failures better.
But let’s start with our old friend Eric Holder. Sadly, multiple states failed to send military ballots by the September 22 deadline established by federal law. In the subsequent 26 days, his Justice Department filed precisely one lawsuit against offending states and counties to protect military voters.
Holder’s lone target? The hotly contested state of Vermont.
Federal law gives Eric Holder monopoly power to sue states or counties that fail to mail military ballots on time. Some, including the Military Voter Protection Project, want to give soldiers a right to sue, instead of just Eric Holder. A stuck-on-stupid policy in the DOJ Voting Section, where I used to work, refuses to sue the county election officials who are chiefly to blame for disenfranchising military voters. This dumb, stubborn policy means that the Justice Department only sues states — which have attorneys general with well-stocked offices of lawyers. Vermont, for example, is fiercely fighting Eric Holder’s lone lawsuit.
Others stuck in the civil justice wars of the 1990s oppose giving service members the right to sue. They prefer that only Washington bureaucrats have the power to protect military voters, because they don’t want to create a new federal tort.
But DOJ’s abdication of effective enforcement is so bad that Michigan Secretary of State Ruth Johnson sued her own counties to stop disenfranchisement, because the DOJ would not.
Meanwhile, multiple states have failed to mail military ballots on time, and Eric Holder doesn’t act. Take Massachusetts: the Bay State has grossly violated federal law. Dozens of towns never sent military ballots on time, but Holder has done nothing. After all, GOP Senator Scott Brown is up for reelection.
Unfortunately, Massachusetts is not alone. Other states have failed to mail military ballots on time, including Wisconsin, where recent polls show a slim lead for Mitt Romney.
If Mitt Romney becomes the next president, it will be essential once and for all to remove the problems inside DOJ which have given us the bi-annual military ballot mess.
The Pentagon deserves even stronger criticism. An entire unit inside the Pentagon is tasked with helping service members vote — the Federal Voting Assistance Program (FVAP). Naturally, FVAP is also failing to deliver.
Consider the bipartisan MOVE Act, passed in 2009. It required FVAP to open up voting assistance offices on every military installation worldwide. A recent DOD Inspector General report found that less than half of the mandated offices are actually open. To achieve this fail, the Pentagon blew through $75,000,000 that Congress allocated for the opening of the offices.
Internal FVAP sources tell me that before the legislation passed, the head of FVAP was opposed to opening the offices to help service members. After MOVE passed, FVAP bitterly slow-walked the unwanted voting offices.
Fewer than half were ever opened. Such are the priorities of the Obama presidency.
The most outrageous part of this saga is that those in leadership at FVAP genuinely don’t believe they screwed up. Current and former FVAP staff have been hawking the narrative that everything is rosy, despite the IG’s spanking and despite declining participation rates by military voters in 2012.
Pam Mitchell, the head of FVAP, actually says the number of service members who vote successfully isn’t a good measure of success. “Participation rates alone are poor indicators of the effectiveness of voting assistance given that interest in voting fluctuates with each election,” Mitchell told the House last month.
Some on Capitol Hill who should know better have fallen for it.
But Defense Secretary Leon Panetta isn’t buying his underling’s spin. Panetta issued a statement demanding accountability at FVAP and wondering how officials there blew through 75-large but failed to get fewer than half of the required voting offices open.
For 22 years of active duty service, a unit officer was appointed as the Voting Officer. Usually, the newbie Butter Bar…. He had to answer to a commanding officer–that had input to his report card. This isn’t hard and we don’t need a $100M office to make it happen. We need a leader in the Pentagon who isn’t wasting his time calling preachers in Florida. Hold the chain of command responsible. It is their job! If they are unable to do their job, then ya just have to let ‘em go…..Dempsey needs to go!
That’s one dead nail, jimd – you hit it squarely on the head. As one of those ‘newbie butter bars’ that was the unit voting officer, it was made very clear to me by my commander that the duty was equal in importance to my primary duty. Party affiliation mattered not – everyone was to be contacted and assisted as required. I enjoyed the job and continued to volunteer to do it until told that I needed to give more junior officers the opportunity to excel.
Your closing statement is also spot on. Leadership starts at the top, and until we get non-political officers in senior command positions I’m afraid those days I knew about 20 years ago are to be just a fond memory.
You are absolutely correct. I was a Squadron Commander in the AF….we were measured on everything. If the Squadron Commander put an emphasis on the voting access and rights, then his/her team heeded it. Everyone’s job and ‘report cards’ depended on the metrics. So to me, there is a easy fix….do it like the CFC – have positive contact between the Voting Assistance action officer (or NCO) be an officially measured item for the Commander. You can’t force them to vote, but you can measure whether or not they’ve been contacted about what they have available to them to vote. You could even measure follow-up contacts.
This would save a lot of money – you wouldn’t need the FVAP head guy flying around to receptions. You would hold the commanders responsible and discipline as necessary…..
I can also attest to what’s been written on this thread. Eight years in the USAF during the ’80s. Every unit had a contact person for voting assistance (junior officer in large units, senior NCO in smaller units). I always got the help I needed to get an absentee ballot or register in the county where I was stationed.
Leave it to the government to take something simple and make it impossibly complicated.
What is needed is a revision of the law, where the offenders go to prison without possibility if parole or pardon.
I have just one problem with this article, sir: Your description of the deliberate mass suppression of military voters in every single election since 1996 as “a mistake”. There’s nothing “mistaken” about it. Military voters tend to be Conservatives. The very last thing the Dhimmiecrats want is a large bloc of Conservative voters who actually know what’s going on in the Middle East to have any voice at all.
Since you’ve picked the nit, I also never said “suppression” of military voter. Voter “suppression” is largely a term used inappropriately by those who use it. So I don’t.
Oh,yes. The way to get the military on board is to call in the Joint Chiefs of Staff and say make this happen as if your careers depend on it! Because they do!
Panetta runs the Pentagon. I am not surprised at the inaction. What is the state of Romney’s sut against Wisconsin? Does he have a chance of winning it? (This could/should also be an issue in Oh, Iowa, Pa, and Colo)
That slimeball Panetta has been saying one thing while doing the opposite his whole scummy, corrupt career.
The perfect Defense Secretary for Ostupidhead.
He can’t do anything because he “lacks funding”, yet jets home every weekend, in a private jet, on your dime. I’m so glad the military is cutting back and going green, aren’t you? Remember that when you’re freezing in the dark this winter.
Typical Lying Commie skunk.
Disgraceful. Thank you for your reporting.
I offer a minor correction. Even though the Chinese internal energy arts can be spelled multiple ways, i.e. “qigong” or “chi kung”, I have never seen it spelled as above, “quigong”. The Twitter marketer used “qigong”.
What we need is a waiver of all Federal and State income, property and payroll taxes until the next election for every service member whose vote isn’t counted. It only matters if it costs them money.
This isn’t new. Jimmy Carter had been elected for three days when my absentee ballot showed up.
That’s certainly one way to get a lot of rich lefties who won’t fight into the Army.
obama’s disenfranchisement of military voters is still running full speed ahead. I’m sure libs will say it’s not that many votes but if their vote isn’t counted, how do they know how many “non-votes” this represents. I’m sure they will release a report……..
If it’s no big deal because it’s only a few votes, then I guess it’s no big deal if a few Democrats can’t get photo IDs in order to be able to vote in time for election day. After all, if it’s good enough for the military, who sheds sweat and blood for our sake, it’s good enough for city-dwellers who don’t.
FEW should have any doubt left, as to the intentions of the Radical-in-Chief and his Racialist AG.
When they are not busy stirring up racial divisions, they work towards labeling – one way or another – right wing patriots as terror threats.
On the other hand, when military personnel are gunned down by Islamists serving in the military – and out of uniform too – the lawbreaking duo can’t bring to bear ANY proper outrage. Moreover, when the Black Panthers are caught inciting to murder ‘whitey’, as well as committing menacing acts against voters, if they do not vote for the Thug-in-Chief, the AG is mute. The list/indictment goes on.
So, the fact that military personnel are getting the shaft via voting, is of piece with their anti-American game plans.
Parasites who empower American’s foes, but treat American heroes/patriots as the enemy are capable of anything – http://adinakutnicki.com/2012/10/01/u-s-heroes-are-targeted-under-the-thuggish-reign-of-barack-hussein-obama-addendum-to-lt-colonel-lakin-a-hero-a-role-model-commentary-by-adina-kutnicki/
The thugs in charge of the People’ House,as well as the entire legal system, are beyond dangerous. They are lethal.
My Senator form Texas, Sen. John “Strongly Worded Letter” Cornyn wrote the Move Act and he is very proud of it. Pats himself on the back every chance he gets. However, if you call his office and ask what,if anything, he is doing to defend his legislation or the votes of the military, all you get is the ” I wrote a strongly worded…”
Sen. Cornyn has both written and passed more than one law that places more power in Holder’s hands. I don’t know if Sen Cornyn hopes to one day be the head of the DOJ or if he is too busy spouting off as head of the Republican Senatorial Committee. What he should be planning is his reelection considering that he will most certainly be primaried.
Yet, Cornyn approved Holder. Even though he knew he had a soft spot for terrorists. John Cornyn has lost credibility. He should have known with Holder’s past, what would happen. He did it, I assume because the big, bad, media monsters, would come and get him.
I’m glad to hear he’ll be primaried.
It seems that the Justice Dept, and current administration are more concerned in letting non-documented, unidentified individuals to vote over us military members who have sacrificed so much for our country.
One main reason many military members tend to be more conservative is simply this:
If your decisions and work directly affect life and death for you and those around you, you go with what works, not some academic “pie in the sky” B.S.
On the other hand, from this bunch who is on record for calling the Constitution “some old fogies’ super-annuated piece of paper”, or words to this effect, who has aided and abetted voter fraud under the pretext of “voter-empowerment” (voter ID laws negated or suppressed), what else did we expect?
If Romney/Ryan do win by a slim margin, it will in fact have been more like a land-slide, only nobody will know how much. — These Admin. people are crooks, from the top down. Thanks for standing up to them, calling things as you see them!
They don’t want ordinary citizens to show pix ID, but the men & women who are putting their lives on the line for this country & all of us, they don’t deserve a vote?
What is the matter with the generals? Why don’t they grow a pair & refuse to send their men/women out until they get their ballots?
I’d do it!
i believe i have found the dem’s playbook, it reads:
1. do/say something absolutely stupid w/terrible potential ramifications – for some stupid (or criminal) political point
2. when found out, lie about it, try to spin it
3. when the lie is discovered, lie some more, then try to cover it up
4. when nobody believes that lie either, say or do something just as stupid as evidence of the first stupidity, then lie some more.
optional – deny, deny, deny, and if the crime trail starts heading up the ladder too far, scream executive privilege
of course, all the way through, the msm cheering section must be pushing the same lies, or not reporting it at all. you also need the dense/simple minded (like most of hollywood) to follow along like sheeple.
some recent examples:
1. fast & furious
2. voters are hurt by having to have i.d. (this one is so stoopid i still get a laugh out of it) too bad they all aren’t funny.
3. libyan debacle
4. shameful behavior in trying to screw up military voting
this appears to be the limits of their playbook. of course, common crimes like fraud, cheating, and destroying evidence are notes in the margins on each page. makes one wonder what other stoopid sinister slimy stuff lies ahead for us.
I can’t say if my voting process was at all normal, but I am exactly who this article is talking about. US Servicemember stationed overseas in hostile remote location.
I can only speak anecdotally but the voter assistance program here worked just fine for me, and for the few who I know have also voted. We didn’t have any kind of ‘office’ set up. An officer within the battalion was named voter assistance rep and was tasked with putting the word out.
Honestly I didn’t even need their help, just the website. FVAP.GOV. I applied for my ballot with home of record, and in a few days they e mailed it to me. I printed it out and mailed it back. All in all it was very easy.
This is a must read.
The Blago File
http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/blago-file_655072.html
First, my compliments to your bravery, honor and dedication, Mr. Adams.
But isn’t the amount of money a thousand times greater than “75-large?” Isn’t 75-large 75 thousand dollars? Wasn’t the budgetary allotment 75 Million dollars?
Nope. On the day I wrote the article, large means million. Couldn’t be otherwise becuase you can’t use thousand and large in the same line when talking about the feds. But I am always amazed at the nits picked.
26 year Marine here, yes there is a voting assistance officer but that alone does not ensure your absentee ballot is being counted. They are sent in bulk normally to the appropriate state ballot office but there is no evidence the ballots are not simply shredded. I am in favor of electronic voting for military personnel, on base, on election day. (This would also increase participation, something we should all wish to increase) It isn’t as though the technology does not exist, the issue is, along with positive ID electronic voting would reduce the possibility of fraud. Commanders could ensure every member had the opportunity to vote regardless of shift or duty station. Military members have no issues with presenting photo ID to vote so fraud on military bases would be non-existent. Dependents also have ID. I will call on Romney’s administration to fix this. Let the military lead by example.
It passeth all understanding that with all the stuff you read about in the above blog responses, that there are so many ordinary whites who swallow the Obama line Hook Line and Sinker and abett the destruction of our country.
Superb suggestions =) Thanks