AFN Public Service Announcement

This morning at the mess hall here in Iraq, I was watching the Armed Forces Network(AFN) when a Public Service Announcement came on (they don’t have paid advertising so this is what we get instead) that was reminding Military members that the APO/FPO (Military Post Offices) have delivery confirmation at that it is recommended to use that on your absentee ballot so that you know your ballot was received by your state.

This got me wondering how bad is it for Military Overseas ballots during elections?  So I did some checking and discovered that during the 2006 election roughly 70% of Military Overseas Ballots were not counted.  This was due to various reasons such as, ballots did not arrive on time, ballots mailed to the wrong place, ballots filled out wrong, ballots not mailed back and never received, there are some that are just not mailed back at all and in some cases you have political attempts to disenfranchise the military vote (A poll shows troops favor McCain 68%).

This is just part of the problem.  CNN is even reporting on this issue and had this to say about Overseas Ballots:

“It’s disenfranchising our military and frankly I think it’s very unpatriotic,” said retired Navy Lt. Melissa Cox Boss.

A part of the problem is that each state has its own rules for absentee voting, and those rules can change in the middle of an election season.

In Virginia, for example, the federal write-in ballot required a witness’ signature and address. That proved confusing for soldiers overseas because there was no box provided for a witness address.

At least in the Virginia case listed above they discovered the problem early and the Secretary of State said don’t worry about it count their votes.

This is truly a sad deal when our brave Men and Women in uniform risk their lives, yet have to add the cost of delivery conformation to ensure their ballot is counted.

Obama’s Past Connections with Marxism and Socialism (Updated!!)

FoxNews.com has a great article today talking about Obama’s Affinity for Marxism is nothing new”

Barack Obama laughs off charges of socialism. Joe Biden scoffs at references to Marxism. Both men shrug off accusations of liberalism.

But Obama himself acknowledges that he was drawn to socialists and even Marxists as a college student. He continued to associate with Marxists later in life, even choosing to launch his political career in the living room of a self-described Marxist, William Ayers, in 1995, when Obama was 34.

Obama’s affinity for Marxists began when he attended Occidental College in Los Angeles.

“To avoid being mistaken for a sellout, I chose my friends carefully,” the Democratic presidential candidate wrote in his memoir, “Dreams From My Father.” “The more politically active black students. The foreign students. The Chicanos. The Marxist professors and structural feminists.”

Obama’s interest in leftist politics continued after he transferred to Columbia University in New York. He lived on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, venturing to the East Village for what he called “the socialist conferences I sometimes attended at Cooper Union.”

If that isn’t bad enough here is some more:

“In search of some inspiration, I went to hear Kwame Toure, formerly Stokely Carmichael of Black Panther fame, speak at Columbia,” Obama wrote in “Dreams,” which he published in 1995. “At the entrance to the auditorium, two women, one black, one Asian, were selling Marxist literature.”

Obama supporters point out that plenty of Americans flirt with radical ideologies in college, only to join the political mainstream later in life. But Obama, who made a point of noting how “carefully” he chose his friends in college, also chose to launch his political career in the Chicago living room of Ayers, a domestic terrorist who in 2002 proclaimed: “I am a Marxist.”

Also present at that meeting was Ayers’ wife, fellow terrorist Bernardine Dohrn, who once gave a speech extolling socialism, communism and “Marxism-Leninism.”

Obama has been widely criticized for choosing the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, an anti-American firebrand, as his pastor. Wright is a purveyor of black liberation theology, which analysts say is based in part on Marxist ideas.

You add all this up, Obama’s own words in his book, his associations that he admits he “careful chose” ,the tape from 2001 and Obama’s comment to Joe the Plumber about “spreading the wealth” and you have a pretty strong case that Obama has beliefs as a Marxist/Socialist.  Is this who we really want as our next President?

Update:

Freerepublic has more on this:

Obama was speaker at 1996 meeting of the Democratic Socialists of America
University of Chicago Democratic Socialists ^

Posted on Friday, October 10, 2008 9:17:51 PM by bw17

The Democratic Socialists of America Present The First Chicago Town Meeting on Economic Insecurity

EMPLOYMENT AND SURVIVAL IN URBAN AMERICA a discussion of policy, problems, and possibilities

with

WILLIAM JULIUS WILSON, Director, Center for the Study of Urban Inequality at the University of Chicago

MICHAEL DAWSON, Professor of Political Science, University of Chicago

BARACK OBAMA, Candidate, State Senate, 13th Legislative District