Over at Facebook on my personal photos page, I've posted some photos from the 2nd Annual Sam Adams Sammies Awards. The awards reward solid citizen activism and journalism at the local and regional level, and are a worthy cause. Kudos should be given to the citizens honored though - they are fighters for truth and citizen empowerment. I was particularly fascinated by the story of William Carlin Walker of Liberty, Missouri for exposing misuse of credit card accounts by administrators in the local school district. That story is not unique - over OutsideLansing.com, I've reported on Macomb County's own Chippewa Valley school's misuse of credit cards, which has resulted in proposed legislation by Marty Knollenberg and others (HB 4666 is here). And we just learned of this debacle in Flint - for those who suggested our action might be "trivial," I say two things. 1) Do you see a pattern developing? 2) Even if only a small number of administrators do this, and I suspect that somewhat true, reform begins with little change and builds. Further, if the people set a precedent of allowing "minor" indiscretions, the symbolism encourages public employees into larger takings and indiscretions. When you get a speeding ticket, telling the judge that you were the only one caught of hundreds or it was just a few miles over the limit isn't a proper defense.

Paul Jacob, a supporter of Sam Adams, over at CommonSense has this fascinating analysis of Mississippi's fascist attempt to ban restaurants from serving fat people. What's sad is that a Republican embarrassingly co-sponsored this nanny-state bill.

Paul Jacob and two others now known as the "Oklahoma Three" are now free from charges brought by Oklahoma Attorney General Drew Edmondson, a Democrat, who sought to retaliate against the three for a failed 2005 anti-tax petition drive. The drive failed after a special master of the Oklahoma Supreme Court found too many signatures were collected by individuals he didn't believe "intended to reside permanently" in Oklahoma. Two years later, in 2007, Jacob and other organizers were indicted for a 10-year felony charge of "conspiring to defraud the state" - a vague catchall statute on the theory that they intentionally violated residency requirements and that intentional violation amounted to 1) a conspiracy and 2) defrauding the state (so literally, any group effort that violated complex Oklahoma rules could become a 10 year felony). While the state criminal case proceeded in early discovery phases, a federal Constitutional challenge to the residency requirement - on First Amendment grounds - was raised.

Jacob's case is important nationally as Oklahoma became a "dead zone" for petitioners - chilled by the prospect of 10 years in prison. No ballot initiatives qualified in 2008 through the process, and efforts such as Ward Connerly's Oklahoma Civil Rights Initiative was quelled because of the chilled environment and a number of other difficulties all coming to together. The 10th Circuit's refusal to rehear the case and Edmondson's decision not to appeal to the US Supreme Court, puts the 10th Circuit in among other circuits and regions with similar rulings. Here, in the Eastern District of Michigan, Leon Drolet's Michigan Taxpayer's Alliance successfully fought residency requirements in the Andy Dillon recall battle. While the Dillon effort paid off for Dillon by delaying the recall until the regular election, and thereby changing its dynamic, the impact of the residency ruling will be broader ranging for future petition rights, at least until another Circuit disagrees and a case somewhere reaches the US Supreme Court.

In the current legal and political environment, one should never rule a frivolous suit being successful, particularly regarding the civil rights initiatives lead by Ward Connerly. Lawsuits are even repeated exactly verbatim in the same state even after opponents lose, as was the case recently in Missouri challenging MoCRI's attempt to requalify for 2010.

But in Nebraska where voters approved the initiative in 2008, the game clock appears to be winding down with a positive result. NbCRI appears to have won on both late "signature ethics" challenges (the usual meta-"word game" the left plays with "affirmative action" and "deception") and the so-called "single subject rule." In fact, the judge's ruling on that issue is very important, as it represents a common-sense rebuff to the left on an old strategy they played somewhat successfully with the Florida Supreme Court in 2000, and it has bearing on several future states CRI's might appear in.

Below the fold I'm including the raw text of the decision as well as NbCRI's press release. Enjoy.

Read more »

Congratulations to President Barack O'Bama on his historic moment. His inaugral speech hit mixed notes in my mind, I'll point to two.

In my mind, this is the most interesting passage of the speech (which had no "zingers" like "fear itself" or "ask not"):

For we know that our patchwork heritage is a strength, not a weakness. We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus - and non-believers. We are shaped by every language and culture, drawn from every end of this Earth; and because we have tasted the bitter swill of civil war and segregation, and emerged from that dark chapter stronger and more united, we cannot help but believe that the old hatreds shall someday pass; that the lines of tribe shall soon dissolve; that as the world grows smaller, our common humanity shall reveal itself; and that America must play its role in ushering in a new era of peace.

There's a definitely an element of the diversity and multi-cultural "speak" in this, but I'm drawn to the way it is not written. It is not written as an attack on America's past, but as a recognition of the past as perhaps a proof that the "other old hatreds" (Arab-Israeli conflict, the religious battle lines that dominate foreign affairs, and simpler, smaller hatreds that dot the world) can be overcome. His line "the lines of tribe shall soon dissolve" is certainly hopeful and could be construed in a conservative and individualistic light, but it is unclear where O'Bama would deviate the tribalist policies many in his party support or how he intends to get us there.

Here's the second:

The question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works - whether it helps families find jobs at a decent wage, care they can afford, a retirement that is dignified. Where the answer is yes, we intend to move forward. Where the answer is no, programs will end. And those of us who manage the public's dollars will be held to account - to spend wisely, reform bad habits, and do our business in the light of day - because only then can we restore the vital trust between a people and their government.

The first sentence is interesting in that while it seems to be an attempt to change the paradigm debate on "big v. small government" to "effective government." But if the question is "whether it works" and the answer is "no" much more often than it is yes, will we truly see the programs end? Of course, the reason small-government conservatives are for small government is not just for the sake of liberty - it is because we believe, more often than not, bigger government doesn't work. He's set himself up for a test here - does government work? Will Barack O'Bama's version of government work? If it does not, then we must "hold to account" the leader. If he fails to "spend wisely", to "reform bad habits", or most importantly do business "in the light of day" - he must be held accountable. As a fervent believer in open records and meetings, I wish him the best of luck in increasing government transparency - if that is what he means. And if he "spends wisely" and does those things, he'll be hard to beat.

That is the test he should be held to in 2012!

Check out this stunning google visual I've created comparing four trend lines using google trend statistics, using the last four presidential nonimees (Bush, Kerry, McCain, O'Bama). Barack O'Bama quickly became the darling of both the media (bottom) and the new internet media (top). It says much about the internet and how Democrats dominated the new media this year, but it also says something about how well the candidate integrated his campaign with the new media. Clearly, O'Bama benefited in media presence from the extended primary battle, but even after the conventions he maintained healthy command in search data statistics and more importantly in mainstream news searches. It was during the downstretch of the campaign that his name ID spiked, relative to both McCain and the previous 2004 George Bush-John Kerry contest.

To conservatives - heed this data.

Over at the fabulous "Empirical Legal Standards" blog, a new program unveiled by the University of Michigan Law School called "Wolverine Scholars" is criticized as a move away from standards and a "rankings grab" designed solely to artficially bump U-M's average Law student GPA so as to also bring U-M up in national prestige rankings (which include GPA as a criteria).

One of ELS's comments points out the "elephant in the room," that the program, which would allow only U-M undergrads with a GPA greater than 3.80 who have not yet taken an LSAT to apply to Law School under "holistic review", would give U-M a perfect opportunity to bypass Proposal 2 (since it can't ask other undergrad schools for racial IDs, and since a student on U-M's own campus will have a reputation including racial identity that can be easily ascertained by fellow U-M Law School admissions officers with a few phone calls) because it further clouds the process and eliminates a standard of measurement (the LSAT test, meaning that future racial compositions couldn't be easily challenged because some of students wouldn't have comparative LSAT data EVEN AVAILABLE for review). The nice think about ELS's though, in a way, is that it ignores the race preference issue and is critical of U-M solely because the new system is standardless and will create other unintended consequences.

Read the whole analysis, and you'll get the gist of what's going on. We're following the story deeper as well, so stay tuned.

Where Ward Connerly's civil rights initiatives have qualified (Nebraska, NCRI, and Colorado, CoCRI), he is facing the sharpest personal attacks yet to be aired on TV against him. The ads get nasty, with stretched claims about how he's made money (so what) working for his causes. Linked is the YouTube video by user "BigMoneyConnerly".

What's interesting is that the ads were put out by the so-called Ballot Initiative Strategy Center (BISC), according to this The Daily Voice story. We recently discovered that the BISC Foundation (the 501c3 tax-deductible arm, as opposed to the 501c4 BISC which is non-tax-deductible) gave money directly to the failed Health Care for Michigan ballot drive.

The irony of BISC's attack on Connerly's funding is that one could equally criticize it for its funding sources. Funding simply has nothing to do with the issue Ward raises - is it right, or wrong, to give preference based on race or gender? In each case, only the voters of the state ultimately decide - if their government doesn't short-circuit the process before they can.

Ward Connerly and Valery Pech Orr have one less obstacle in Colorado now that the parallel "twin" amendment sponsored by opponents of the Colorado Civil Rights Initiative (CCRI) has failed to qualify with enough signatures.

An initiative that would have preserved affirmative action programs in Colorado fell short of the required number of signatures to make November's crowded ballot, the secretary of state's office said Wednesday.

Initiative 82 was nearly 8,000 signatures short following a line-by- line verification of the petitions, according to Secretary of State Mike Coffman.

There are 18 statewide issues on the Nov. 4 ballot, in addition to local ballot questions and races, state legislative contests, and U.S. House, Senate and presidential races.

The technique was an interesting one - the twin amendment copied CCRI in almost every word except for a rider at the end allowing programs that are already allowed by federal law. The rider might effectively nullify CCRI, assuming the twin amendment received more overall votes than CCRI.

Oh, and 18 ballot proposals is ridiculous. Michiganders complain that Michigan's ballot procedure is "too easy" or one that it was one of the "easiest in the country," need only look to Colorado, which truly is among the easiest. Michigan never qualifies more than 5-6, and even in 2006 one of the five was placed on by the legislature. Our average is 2-3.

The Associated Press wire, here through AzironaCentral.com, reports that AzCRI has dropped its legal challenge to recover signatures. While we had recently received a press release from Jennifer Gratz suggesting AzCRI had very optimistic possibilities in bona-fide challenges to recover valid signatures, it appears that one of the county recorders made voter file access exceedingly difficult in the period of time allowed by Arizona law once the Secretary of State made her ruling a week and a half ago. The re-challenge period would have been 10 days, expiring this coming Wednesday, but AzCRI claimed that the recorders were allowing only access to two voter file computers because of an upcoming Tuesday primary which necessitated that the Recorders' have access to the remainder in the interim.

This brings to three the total of signature drives that fell just short of their mark, but both Colorado and Nebraska did successfully make the ballot. It takes patience to end preferences.

In a disheartening development, according to Arizona Republic, the Arizona Civil Rights Initiative (AzCRI) petitions were, after review by County Recorders (Clerks), rejected because a number of signatures were found to be invalid. AzCRI is the third of five to fail to obtain sufficient signatures, and rumors of paid "blockers" who intentionally signed false signatures on a large scale preceded today's development, suggesting that a new era in blocking and how signature-gathering operations teams will need to respond to it, has emerged. Three other petitions in Arizona apparently failed this year, no petitions in Oklahoma have succeeded since the Democrat Attorney General Drew Edmonson indicted a petition-operation management team for work they did 3 years ago, and others failed in Missouri, to name a few.

The Arizona Civil Rights Initiative initially submitted 334,735 signatures to the state. But following petition reviews by the Secretary of State's Office and the state's 15 county recorders, that number was whittled down to 194,961 valid signatures. That's short of the 230,047 required for a Constitutional amendment.

In positive news though, Nebraska appears to have been sufficient and qualified, according to NCRI's campaign manager Doug Tietz, on KPTM Fox 42's online site reprinting AP wire reports.

Last I looked, I couldn't tell what someone's thoughts were based on how they looked. And I know its a bad idea to try. But in the never-ending battle of the left to invent great stories of fraud and deception by one of the Civil Rights Initiative (this time Missouri), we have yet another admission by a lefty that its ok to pre-judge people on how they look. St. Louis Today reports:

"He looked like a progressive — he had tattoos, he had an earring, he may have had a mohawk," McKoy said of the petitioner. "He seemed like a left-wing hippie type guy. And he almost got me."

Apparently progressives can spot another progressive when they see them. I didn't know mohawk, tattoos, or earrings were definite signs of progressivism. I know a ton of libertarians, classical liberals, and others who might have such identifying things and are far from modern-day liberals.

What's fascinating about these fraud allegations is how they prove the point the CRIs are trying to make.

But get this - Lee Albright, owner of National Petition Management, a Michigan-firm that is the giant of the industry and being paid to simultaneously block MoCRI (they are strong-arming their circulators not work for their upstart competitor circulating MoCRI) and circulate a casino petition, got a taste of the fraud allegations. Here's the story, from the same paper:

Dave Maus, a retired salesman from Oakville, said a young woman approached him about two weeks ago with the casinos petition. He recalled her saying the measure would raise $105 million for schools.

It wasn't until he got home that he realized the initiative would also do away with wagering caps and limit the number of casinos in the state.

"I know we should always read a petition, and that's nobody's fault but my own," he said.

You have to love the honesty and responsibility the signer took though. But the point - that the left is just as capable of using deception - in this case outright bait and switch - is effectively made here.

Finally, the Columbia Tribune reports that evil "out-of-state" opponents of MoCRI have been imported from guess where? Michigan. Guess who? BAMN.

It’s tough going, though, with collectors reporting they averaged four to 10 signatures per hour. For some it’s even tougher. A Michigan group, By Any Means Necessary, dispatched members to Columbia to disrupt the efforts of people collecting signatures for the Missouri Civil Rights Initiative, a proposed constitutional amendment that would end affirmative action in the state.

For the past two weeks, a cat-and-mouse game has played out as signature gatherers have tried to stay one step ahead of BAMN members, who have discouraged people from signing.

That's right - BAMN has no active connection to Missouri - but it seems they believe its OK now to do things in other states. Shoe on another foot? Of course, the Columbia Tribune didn't make that point quite the way I just did - but ...

Rarely does this site do pitches for advertisers, but Ward Connerly's special to us.  Yes, I worked for him in the past - but this site is an activist site in addition to providing original investigative news and opinion analysis. And Ward Connerly certainly has relevance to Michigan - even though the battle is currently joined in Missouri.  And National Review Online considers Ward's "call to action" news as well, over at the Corner.

At right, I've created a clickable banner ad at the right while the offer lasts.  Ward realizes that when he asks people to work they need at least some compensation - even while they are ideologically motivated. Even left-wing petitioners and blockers pay their people - and in Missouri, the blockers are getting heavily paid, or are permanently payrolled union and BAMN thugs.  The anti-equality forces are throwing all they can at Ward, and he needs committed individuals to go to Missouri to help him collect signatures.  Missouri is a "non-residency" state, so anyone can petition.  And Ward's PAYING TRAVEL and you can easily make a thousand or more a week.

Great opportunity for college students, under-employed, or anyone wanting a couple of weeks "working vacation" learning the politics of another state and what petitioning is all about.  I've create this auto-forwarding e-mail - send your name, phone, and other contact info and it will get to Ward's staff immediately, or call the number on the ad and mention you saw the ad here. 

Been reading the Judge Lawson 55 page tome on why BAMN's (and a novel new ACLU generated argument) convoluted, but I guess creative in its own perverse sense, arguments on why MCRI should be unconstitutional.

What's interesting is this new argument by the ACLU - that amending the Constitution is too hard and that MCRI, by amending the Constitution, has "changed the political structure" in a somehow unfair sort of way such that groups can no longer (as easily) lobby their universities for policy change. By changing the political structure, MCRI has violated equal protection.

These (ed: the "Cantrell"/ACLU) plaintiffs support their claim that obtaining a voter-approved constitutional amendment is more difficult than successfully petitioning individual university governing bodies to alter admissions policies by alleging, inter alia, the fact that access to the state ballot requires gathering signatures totaling “‘not less than eight percent . . . of the total vote cast for all candidates for governor at the last preceding general election.’” Id. at ¶ 53 (quoting Mich. Const. art. 2, § 9).

Of course, it is true, in an off-hand way, that petitioning individual university governing bodies is "easier" when you happen to control all the lobbying buttons in that arena (from professors to university administrators). The question is - does the ACLU, rife with resources, have equal access to the ballot system? Of course it does. But when you play on an unequal playing field for years, and control all the decision marbles at universities - save one, the voter who ultimately owns the universites - you might suddenly come to think that the world got awfully uneven.

But here's what I take from this perverse ACLU argument, by its own admission - what we accomplished at MCRI was awfully hard. Really, really hard. Of course, that's beside the point, and Judge Lawson thankfully saw through this - everyone has the same obstacles to face in amending the Constitution.

But here's another upshot - a contradiction. It was often argued, and indeed cited as a justification for legislation to make signature gathering even more difficult or impossible (through "buttons" identifying paid status, prohibitions on payment by signature, etc.) -- it has been repeatedly said that "signature gathering is too easy" and rules should be put in place to slow it. Well, from none other than the liberal "Ballot Initiative Strategy Center," a Soros operation that supports liberal ballot drives and helps (try to) utterly crush conservative or libertarian drives, Kristina Wilfore, says that the Michigan process is tough. Really tough.

There is also some ambiguity concerning just how onerous it would be to secure an amendment repealing Proposal 2. Kristina Wilfore, executive director of Ballot Initiative Strategy Center, Inc., a non-profit organization that researches and trains people in the ballot initiative process, has submitted a declaration on behalf of the Cantrell plaintiffs positing that state-wide ballot initiatives are typically expensive and time-consuming and often unsuccessful. She has also suggested that repealing Proposal 2 would be particularly difficult due to unique features in Michigan’s ballot initiative process and specific factors inherent in the subject matter of affirmative action. According to Wilfore, Michigan poses obstacles because (1) it is a “politically competitive state . . . with a large number of initiatives vying for voters’ attention on any given ballot”; (2) its media market is expensive when compared with other states; (3) the state constitution requires filing of petitions.” Cantrell Mot. for Summ. J, Ex. C, Wilfore Decl. at ¶¶ 29-32. In addition, she says that Proposal 2 would be particularly challenging to repeal due to the fact that (1) polling data regarding affirmative action is unreliable, i.e., individuals often behave differently when they get to the voting booth; (2) affirmative action is a tough cause to market because it is complex and elicits emotional responses; and (3) “[t]here is no single obvious financial benefactor who would support the pro-affirmative action policy.” Id. at ¶¶ 36-37.

Other than blatant and bold lied (no "obvious financial benefactor who would support the pro-affirmative action policy") at the end, Wilfore makes amending the Michigan Constitution sound sufficiently difficult. Add that to a list of contradictions MCRI opponents have uttered.

And while I'd admit the process is difficult, it is no more or less difficult than anything else in politics. In fact, in the case of this issue, the pro-Proposal 2 side faced a far more difficult signature-gathering task than a pro-repeal Proposal 2 petition-drive would ever face, at least on the signature end. That one side or the other might face a harder time with the voter is a political question - not judicial one.

Amanda Hamon of the Ann Arbor News picks up the irony with this priceless quote from BAMN member Kate Stenvig, who spoke out against Ward Connerly's appearance as a guest on a Federalist Society panel in Ann Arbor on Saturday.

"We are saying forcefully that he's not welcome in Michigan. We're asserting that every minority and woman student on campus deserves to be here and is equal to any white or male student,'' said U-M graduate student Kate Stenvig, a member of the U-M chapter of the pro-affirmative action group BAMN and the campus' Defend Affirmative Action Party.

If you apply the rules of English, you might think Stenvig was on the pro-equality (anti-preference) side, but ... I mean, if you are "asserting that every minority" deserves to be there, and that they are "equal", then I'd both agree, and point out that ending preferences would and should change nothing.

There's no question that we talk about the same word in quite different ways.

Cross-posted at EqualityTalk.com.

In an irony trumping most ironies in the defense of the race preference industry, the Oklahoma Secretary of State and liberal critics of the Oklahoma Civil Rights Initiative (OkCRI) are attacking poor, homeless people in an effort to derail the petition drive. According to this AP article relayed by AOL, the OkCRI petitioners submitted a razor thin margin of roughly 2200 more signature than the necessary 138,970 signatures to qualify for the Oklahoma ballot.

OKLAHOMA CITY -- Many names and addresses found on an initiative petition to ban government-sponsored race and gender preferences, or affirmative action, in Oklahoma were duplicated, Secretary of State Susan Savage said.

Her office tallied 141,184 signatures on the petition, which needs at least 138,970 valid signatures of registered voters to get on an election ballot if it also can survive any legal challenges.

"The petition signature pages are replete with duplicate signatures and duplicate addresses," Savage wrote to the Oklahoma Supreme Court.

"Replete" and "many names". Hmm. While that margin of 2200 is razor thin, let's look at the numbers Savage thinks are "replete":

The irregularities were reported to the attorney general to obtain guidance to ensure consistent compliance with the law during the count, she said.

The signature count resulted in an "unprecedented situation" where numerous duplications of names and addresses were discovered well into the signature counting process, Savage said.

The petition had 92 signatures that listed 415 Archer, 415 W. Archer, 415 E. Archer or 415 Ocher in Tulsa as an address, Savage told the court. The signatures were counted unless there was a signature found that didn't comply with the law, she said.

Another 28 signatures listed 800 W. California, Oklahoma City, as an address, she said. Those signatures also were counted, she said.

Folks. That's a 120. Less than 10% of the margin. And less than one-one-thousanth of the total number of signatures. Savage is right. OkCRI's collection was unprecedented. Most petition drives in the past have had 10% or higher error rates. The best the SoS could do here is find only one-tenth of a percent. Anything short of perfection, and OkCRI is "replete" with fraud.

But let's look at those 120 "duplicate addresses". The Tulsa World relays the same AP story but has a comments section. Someone chimed in that one of those addresses was a homeless shelter. Well, it turns out both were (the Oklahoma City address is the City Rescue Mission, the Tulsa one a Day Center for Homeless) if you do a simple internet search.

That's the rub - certainly the Oklahoma Secretary of State could or should be able to figure that out. And since most Democrats advocate for no identification voting access laws, primarily to allow the homeless and minorities easier access to vote; its easy to appreciate the irony and contradiction here. When its a drive run by "conservatives" or disliked by the liberal-establishment, and when they have control over the organs of governmental power and enforcement (the situation in Oklahoma is that the Democratic Attorney General and appointed Supreme Court "referee" control the process - with the AG actually prosecuting petitioners from a 2005-2006 anti-tax petition drive for "fraud" based on allegations circulators were "out-of-state" non-residents), the rights of homeless voters to sign or circulate petitions don't matter. So here, you have a situation where the Democrats are simply abandoning their defense of open and unsecure voting in favor of the highest security. Hypocrisy doesn't come better than that.

But OkCRI's 2200 signature margin is light, and I'll make the editorial prediction that regardless of how good its verification system was (which appears to have been as tight as you can get), politics means it won't matter. The referee would reject it if one signature had a glitch. And while you might blame OkCRI for not submitting a mammoth cushion like MCRI did in 2005, keep in mind the environment. As noted above, the fascist Attorney General in Oklahoma - Drew Edmondson - is prosecuting Paul Jacob and two other organizers for criminal fraud based solely on the notion that they brought out-of-state petitioners into Oklahoma in 2006. In that chilling environment, its a miracle any signature was collected 2007.