Voter ID Nonsense

Not too long ago, I went to a restaurant with my son. When he ordered a beer, the waitress asked for his ID. A few days back, I was at a convenience store when a young man asked the clerk for a pack of cigarettes. They carded him as well. When I picked up my prescriptions at the drug store they required a proof of identity before they would give the medicine to me.

With these facts in mind, I wonder. How do seniors and minorities manage to buy alcohol? How do get the store to give them cigarettes? And how do they get the drug store to give them their prescriptions?

Well, you say, they simply pull out a driver's license, or another photo ID, and voila!

Really? It's that simple? Huh. 

A judge in Pennsylvania just blocked a PA voter ID law because he thinks its too hard for seniors and minorities to get an ID in time for the elections. How do they get around? They must all take public transportation. And they don't smoke, and they don't drink.

Democrats say any law requiring voters to show proof of identity is an attempt to prevent minorities and seniors from voting for Obama.

With that logic,

Minorities and seniors must have the lowest lung cancer and alcoholism rates in the world.

Good thing too. They'll never be able to pick up a prescription.

Don't Judge the Player by the Team

I don't know the reasons behind the current strike by National Football Referees, but it sure has raised eyebrows and blood pressures. Officiating sporting events, professional or amateur, has never been an easy thing. Nor has it ever been without controversy.

I suspect that the majority of those who officiate professional sporting events receive hate mail, possibly even death threats. Players who commit errors that lead to their team's defeat do.

Fans gather after a game to scrutinize every play, every decision on and off the field, and every call made by every official. Heated arguments erupt between fan bases of opposing teams. Rivalries sometimes boil over into violence. Sports fans can be very devoted, spending a great deal of their time examining the statistics of an individual player and his or her importance to the game.

So why don't we see the same devotion and passion among people when it comes to choosing their political representatives?

I'm an Orioles fan. I like to know if Adam Jones can hit sliders down and away. I want to know how Matt Wietters bats against left handers.

Politically, I want to know if my congressman will support my views. I want to know my representative's stand on the issues. And, just as I will demonstrate my support for a good ballplayer and my lack of support for a poor one, I will support those who prove to me that they will represent my views in congress.

To do that, I need to understand the issues. I need to see how a given politician reacts to these issues. How else can I make an educated vote? I read the opinions of sports analysts from different organizations to better understand a play or player. I need to do the same with issues and politicians  before I vote.

Sadly, a great many people I know don't see past the party affiliations of the candidates. It's like rooting for a player on your home team regardless of his lack of hustle, his lackluster play on the field, or his inability to follow the manager's orders.

I appreciate ballplayers on many teams. I want my home team to win, but that doesn't stop me from acknowledging the fine play of a player on another team.

If we followed the issues and the politicians as strongly as we follow our sports heroes, we might not be in the fix we're in right now.

Oh So Special Interests

Time and time again, we read of "special interest groups" lobbying Congress. President Obama derided special interest groups during his election campaign, declaring they would have no place in his administration. The political left, and I would include the President in this category, are particularly vociferous in their condemnation of special interest groups. Over and over again, the print media and the major television broadcast networks fret over the meddling influence of "big business" over Capitol Hill.

What goes unspoken through the vast majority of these outlets is the influence of left leaning organizations.

The latest salvo in the influence peddling and meddling wars comes from the Service Employees International Union, a 2.1 million member strong organization that spent $85 million in support of the current president's election, and plans to spend an equal amount on his re-election.

The union hopes to field 100,000 workers in eight key battleground states to push our sitting president into another term.

For his part, President Obama has reached out to plenty of special interests during his administration. After deriding Mitt Romney for dealing with private equity firms, the president sidled up to the head of the Blackstone Group, garnering a fundraising dinner.

ABC News' Political Punch commented,

The Obama campaign has framed its about-face decision to support a pro-Democratic super PAC as an effort to counteract “unlimited money from special interests,” particularly corporations, allowed in the wake of the Citizens United Supreme Court decision.

So in framing the argument, the president sees all interests other than those supporting his agenda as special interests. His comments are disingenuous at best. In February of 2011, he banned contributions from

"corporations, political action committees and federally-registered lobbyists offering to help pay for the event. (referring to the 2012 Democratic National Convention)."

It was good PR. But the ban on PAC money only referred to the convention, and in that regard, the president has been true to his word.

http://votesmart.org/interest-groups

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2012/06/19/labor-union-limits-focus-to-8-battleground-states/

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/05/obama-courts-private-equity-cash-at-new-york-fundraiser/

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/02/obama-to-benefit-from-special-interests-via-super-pac/

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/02/04/obama-ban-2012-convention_n_818992.html