GINA COBB

Time to Require Proof of Citizenship to Vote? Absolutely

Requiring proof of citizenship to vote should not be a "battle," as the New York Times describes it. 

The battle over voting rights will expand this week as lawmakers in Missouri are expected to support a proposed constitutional amendment to enable election officials to require proof of citizenship from anyone registering to vote.  . . . .

Sponsors of the amendment — which requires the approval of voters to go into effect, possibly in an August referendum — say it is part of an effort to prevent illegal immigrants from affecting the political process. Critics say the measure could lead to the disenfranchisement of tens of thousands of legal residents who would find it difficult to prove their citizenship.

Voting experts say the Missouri amendment represents the next logical step for those who have supported stronger voter ID requirements and the next battleground in how elections are conducted. Similar measures requiring proof of citizenship are being considered in at least 19 state legislatures. Bills in Florida, Kansas, Oklahoma and South Carolina have strong support. But only in Missouri does the requirement have a chance of taking effect before the presidential election.  . . . .

Already, 25 states, including Missouri, require some form of identification at the polls. Seven of those states require or can request photo ID. More states may soon decide to require photo ID now that the Supreme Court has upheld the practice. Democrats have already criticized these requirements as implicitly intended to keep lower-income voters from the polls, and are likely to fight even more fiercely now that the requirements are expanding to include immigration status.

“Three forces are converging on the issue: security, immigration and election verification,” said Dr. Robert A. Pastor, co-director of the Center for Democracy and Election Management at American University in Washington. This convergence, he said, partly explains why such measures are likely to become more popular and why they will make election administration, which is already a highly partisan issue, even more heated and litigious.

The Missouri secretary of state, Robin Carnahan, a Democrat who opposes the measure, estimated that it could disenfranchise up to 240,000 registered voters who would be unable to prove their citizenship.

In most of the states that require identification, voters can use utility bills, paychecks, driver’s licenses or student or military ID cards to prove their identity. In the Democratic primary election last week in Indiana, several nuns were denied ballots because they lacked the required photo IDs.

Measures requiring proof of citizenship raise the bar higher because they offer fewer options for documentation. In most cases, aspiring voters would have to produce an original birth certificate, naturalization papers or a passport. Arizona and Missouri, along with some other states, now show whether a driver is a citizen on the face of a driver’s license, and within a few years all states will be required by the federal government to restrict licenses to legal residents.  . . . .

Aside from its immediacy, the action by Missouri is important because it has been a crucial swing state in recent presidential elections, with outcomes often decided by a razor-thin margin.

Supporters of the measures cite growing concerns that illegal immigrants will try to vote. They say proof of citizenship measures are an important way to improve the accuracy of registration rolls and the overall voter confidence in the process.

State Representative Stanley Cox, a Republican from Sedalia and the sponsor of the amendment, said that the Missouri Constitution already required voters to be citizens and that his amendment was simply meant to better enforce that requirement.

“The requirements we have right now are totally inadequate,” Mr. Cox said. “You can present a utility bill, and that doesn’t prove anything. I could sit here with my nice photocopier and create a thousand utility bills with different names on them.”  . . . .

In 2006, the Missouri legislature passed a photo identification bill that the State Supreme Court later ruled unconstitutional because it placed too much of a burden on voters. It was that ruling that has spurred state lawmakers to try to change the constitution.  . . . .

If passed this week, the amendment clears the way for a pending bill that would require some kind of identification in order to prove citizenship and to register to vote. But many questions about the bill — like whether current registered voters will have to obtain a new form of identification — have not been resolved.  . . . . 

Supporters of citizenship requirements, however, say the threat of voting by illegal immigrants is real. Thor Hearne, a lawyer for the American Center for Voting Rights, a conservative advocacy group, cited a California congressional race in 1996 in which a Republican, Bob Dornan, was narrowly defeated. Mr. Dornan contested the results, claiming that illegal immigrants had voted.

After a 14-month investigation by state, county and federal officials, a panel concluded that up to 624 noncitizens may have registered to vote. The report came to no firm determination of whether any of those people had actually voted.

Mr. Hearne said the requirement would not pose a significant hardship on voters.

“There were a lot of the same alarmist charges regarding Indiana voter ID law and how it would disenfranchise so many people,” Mr. Hearne said, “and those allegations were not accepted by the Supreme Court.” He added that if states actively provided a free form of identification proving citizenship, the number of people who would be disenfranchised would be very low.

“To those who have spent great energy opposing some of the voter registration or voter identification requirements, I would say their energy would be much better spent working toward trying to provide identifications to those who need them or assisting these people with getting registered,” Mr. Hearne said.

But organizations working in Arizona say they are doing just that and running into problems.

“The requirement is having a devastating effect on our voter registration work in Latino communities because so many citizens simply don’t have a passport or original birth certificate,” said Michael Slater, deputy director of Project Vote, a liberal advocacy group that is working with Acorn, a national organizing group, to sign up new voters in Arizona.

But Arizona officials say the measure is broadly popular in the state

“The voters of Arizona feel strongly about proof of citizenship when registering to vote as a basic eligibility requirement,” said the secretary of state, Jan Brewer, a Republican, testifying before Congress in March.

Requring that only citizens vote is simple justice and common sense.  Resident aliens often have no knowledge of American history or government.  They may or may not have America's best interests and national security as their priorities. 

Allowing illegal alien votes to cancel out the votes of citizens cannot be allowed to continue.  Absentee ballot voting and the total lack of any requirement of proof of citizenship make it far too easy to steal elections.  Undermine the integrity of our elections, and we are a democracy no more.

Something to Think About While You Fill Your Gas Tank

Gateway Pundit adds:  This Will Be The #1 Issue in the 2008 Elections-- And, It Goes to Republicans

Over the past 30 years:

Which party blocked the development of new sources of petroleum?-- Democrat
Which party blocked drilling in ANWR?-- Democrat
Which party blocked drilling off the coast of Florida?-- Democrat
Which party blocked drilling off of the east coast?-- Democrat
Which party blocked drilling off of the west coast?-- Democrat
Which party blocked drilling off the Alaskan coast?-- Democrat
Which party blocked building oil refineries?-- Democrat
Which party blocked clean nuclear energy production?-- Democrat
Which party blocked clean coal production?-- Democrat

One Year Ago Today on GINA COBB: Democrat Harry Reid: "This War is Lost"

Originally posted on April 20, 2008:  Democrat Harry Reid: "This War is Lost"

Democrat Harry Reid: "This War is Lost"

"We can't win."  "We've already lost." 

This is how losers talk.

Democratic Senate majority leader Harry Reid is the baseball "fan" who declares his team defeated when it's still a tie in at the bottom of the 7th inning.

Harry Reid is the surgeon who declares his patient dead when the man is still on the operating table with a beating heart.

Harry Reid is the sales rep who gives up after the sixth customer says no.

Harry Reid is the head of the cheerleading squad who rallies the fans to boo their own coach.

Harry Reid is the lawyer who realizes his client is unpopular and the trial will be difficult, and promptly withdraws from the case.

Harry Reid is the man who hears of deep evil being done to innocent people in a faraway land -- a place like Darfur or the Phililpines or Iraq -- and immediately returns his attention to the more pressing problem of his hangnail.

Harry Reid is the military officer who stares into the faces of vicious enemies who hate freedom and life itself . . . and concedes the battlefield.

Harry Reid is living up to the defeatist parodies of himself -- except that it isn't just himself and his party he is giving up on this time.  It is his country.

~ ~ ~

Let us recall how true leaders speak and act, even in difficult times. 

You no doubt remember the words of Winston Churchill during World War II on the subject of never giving up. 

Here is an excerpt from that speech given on October 29, 1941 by British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, while visiting Harrow School.  Although some of the names have changed, the story is the same:

You cannot tell from appearances how things will go. Sometimes imagination makes things out far worse than they are; yet without imagination not much can be done. Those people who are imaginative see many more dangers than perhaps exist; certainly many more than will happen; but then they must also pray to be given that extra courage to carry this far-reaching imagination.

But for everyone, surely, what we have gone through in this period--I am addressing myself to the School -- surely from this period of ten months, this is the lesson:

Never give in. Never give in. Never, never, never, never--in nothing, great or small, large or petty--never give in, except to convictions of honor and good sense. Never yield to force. Never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy.

We stood all alone a year ago, and to many countries it seemed that our account was closed, we were finished. All this tradition of ours, our songs, our School history, this part of the history of this country, were gone and finished and liquidated.

Very different is the mood today. Britain, other nations thought, had drawn a sponge across her slate. But instead our country stood in the gap. There was no flinching and no thought of giving in; and by what seemed almost a miracle to those outside these Islands, though we ourselves never doubted it, we now find ourselves in a position where I say that we can be sure that we have only to persevere to conquer.

You sang here a verse of a School Song: you sang that extra verse written in my honor, which I was very greatly complimented by and which you have repeated today. But there is one word in it I want to alter - I wanted to do so last year, but I did not venture to. It is the line: "Not less we praise in darker days."

I have obtained the Head Master's permission to alter darker to sterner. "Not less we praise in sterner days."

Do not let us speak of darker days: let us speak rather of sterner days. These are not dark days; these are great days--the greatest days our country has ever lived; and we must all thank God that we have been allowed, each of us according to our stations, to play a part in making these days memorable in the history of our race.

~ ~ ~

We are not losing in Iraq, Senator Reid, despite your efforts to deprive Iraq and America's troops of victory when it is almost within their grasp.

We are winning in Iraq.

This is how winning feels, in the early stages.  It feels like scorching heat, freezing cold, sweat, pain, agony, injury, and loss of life.  That is always how it feels in wartime before victory comes.

Did you think it would be easy?

Did you think it would be easy when you voted to authorize the Iraq war? 

Did you imagine that America would win a war against vicious, determined foes without any real loss of life, without enough funding to put a dent in the budget, and without any real inconvenience to anyone?

Sometimes winning a war is easy. 

More often, it is not. 

A wise leader, and a wise nation, are prepared for either possibility, and do not flinch from their duty when it is hard.

The blood of every American soldier who ever died on the battlefield cries out that winning a war is not always easy.

The blood of every victim of Islamic terror cries out too.  Can't you hear it, Senator Reid? 

Can't you hear hundreds of thousands of victims of Islamic terror around the world -- including thousands of Americans -- crying out?

In Iraq, we are fighting terrorists who are evil enough to booby-trap children's toys with shrapnel and saw off men's heads to place them in fruit boxes around town.

And you, Senator Reid, would let them win.

In fact, you want to make sure they win -- by abandoning the battlefield.

What spineless sea of jellyfish did you float in with, that you lack the backbone to see this difficult, necessary, sacred duty through to victory?

_________________________________________

Update:  Messages from the troops to Harry Reid in the wake of his shameful comments are here and here.  Kim Preistap at Wizbang points out that Reid's declaration of defeat is both predictable and premature -- since the surge has barely begun.

The New York Times, the Paper of Record for Losing the War, covers Reid's Defeat-o-crat talk here.

From Scrappleface:  Reid Supports the Troops Who Lost the War

"We can't win."  "We've already lost." 

This is how losers talk.

Democratic Senate majority leader Harry Reid is the baseball "fan" who declares his team defeated when it's still a tie in at the bottom of the 7th inning.

Harry Reid is the surgeon who declares his patient dead when the man is still on the operating table with a beating heart.

Harry Reid is the sales rep who gives up after the sixth customer says no.

Harry Reid is the head of the cheerleading squad who rallies the fans to boo their own coach.

Harry Reid is the lawyer who realizes his client is unpopular and the trial will be difficult, and promptly withdraws from the case.

Harry Reid is the man who hears of deep evil being done to innocent people in a faraway land -- a place like Darfur or the Phililpines or Iraq -- and immediately returns his attention to the more pressing problem of his hangnail.

Harry Reid is the military officer who stares into the faces of vicious enemies who hate freedom and life itself . . . and concedes the battlefield.

Harry Reid is living up to the defeatist parodies of himself -- except that it isn't just himself and his party he is giving up on this time.  It is his country.

~ ~ ~

Let us recall how true leaders speak and act, even in difficult times. 

You no doubt remember the words of Winston Churchill during World War II on the subject of never giving up. 

Here is an excerpt from that speech given on October 29, 1941 by British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, while visiting Harrow School.  Although some of the names have changed, the story is the same:

You cannot tell from appearances how things will go. Sometimes imagination makes things out far worse than they are; yet without imagination not much can be done. Those people who are imaginative see many more dangers than perhaps exist; certainly many more than will happen; but then they must also pray to be given that extra courage to carry this far-reaching imagination.

But for everyone, surely, what we have gone through in this period--I am addressing myself to the School -- surely from this period of ten months, this is the lesson:

Never give in. Never give in. Never, never, never, never--in nothing, great or small, large or petty--never give in, except to convictions of honor and good sense. Never yield to force. Never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy.

We stood all alone a year ago, and to many countries it seemed that our account was closed, we were finished. All this tradition of ours, our songs, our School history, this part of the history of this country, were gone and finished and liquidated.

Very different is the mood today. Britain, other nations thought, had drawn a sponge across her slate. But instead our country stood in the gap. There was no flinching and no thought of giving in; and by what seemed almost a miracle to those outside these Islands, though we ourselves never doubted it, we now find ourselves in a position where I say that we can be sure that we have only to persevere to conquer.

You sang here a verse of a School Song: you sang that extra verse written in my honor, which I was very greatly complimented by and which you have repeated today. But there is one word in it I want to alter - I wanted to do so last year, but I did not venture to. It is the line: "Not less we praise in darker days."

I have obtained the Head Master's permission to alter darker to sterner. "Not less we praise in sterner days."

Do not let us speak of darker days: let us speak rather of sterner days. These are not dark days; these are great days--the greatest days our country has ever lived; and we must all thank God that we have been allowed, each of us according to our stations, to play a part in making these days memorable in the history of our race.

~ ~ ~

We are not losing in Iraq, Senator Reid, despite your efforts to deprive Iraq and America's troops of victory when it is almost within their grasp.

We are winning in Iraq.

This is how winning feels, in the early stages.  It feels like scorching heat, freezing cold, sweat, pain, agony, injury, and loss of life.  That is always how it feels in wartime before victory comes.

Did you think it would be easy?

Did you think it would be easy when you voted to authorize the Iraq war? 

Did you imagine that America would win a war against vicious, determined foes without any real loss of life, without enough funding to put a dent in the budget, and without any real inconvenience to anyone?

Sometimes winning a war is easy. 

More often, it is not. 

A wise leader, and a wise nation, are prepared for either possibility, and do not flinch from their duty when it is hard.

The blood of every American soldier who ever died on the battlefield cries out that winning a war is not always easy.

The blood of every victim of Islamic terror cries out too.  Can't you hear it, Senator Reid? 

Can't you hear hundreds of thousands of victims of Islamic terror around the world -- including thousands of Americans -- crying out?

In Iraq, we are fighting terrorists who are evil enough to booby-trap children's toys with shrapnel and saw off men's heads to place them in fruit boxes around town.

And you, Senator Reid, would let them win.

In fact, you want to make sure they win -- by abandoning the battlefield.

What spineless sea of jellyfish did you float in with, that you lack the backbone to see this difficult, necessary, sacred duty through to victory?

_________________________________________

Update:  Messages from the troops to Harry Reid in the wake of his shameful comments are here and here.  Kim Preistap at Wizbang points out that Reid's declaration of defeat is both predictable and premature -- since the surge has barely begun.

The New York Times, the Paper of Record for Losing the War, covers Reid's Defeat-o-crat talk here.

From Scrappleface:  Reid Supports the Troops Who Lost the War

We Love to Fly and It Shows

Charter School Using Taxpayer Money to Teach Islam; Christians Take Heed

The Minneapolis Star-Tribune reports that a charter school is apparently taking taxpayer dollars to run what is for practical purposes an Islamic school:

Recently, I wrote about Tarek ibn Ziyad Academy (TIZA), a K-8 charter school in Inver Grove Heights. Charter schools are public schools and by law must not endorse or promote religion.

Evidence suggests, however, that TIZA is an Islamic school, funded by Minnesota taxpayers.

TIZA has many characteristics that suggest a religious school. It shares the headquarters building of the Muslim American Society of Minnesota, whose mission is "establishing Islam in Minnesota." The building also houses a mosque. TIZA's executive director, Asad Zaman, is a Muslim imam, or religious leader, and its sponsor is an organization called Islamic Relief.

Students pray daily, the cafeteria serves halal food - permissible under Islamic law -- and "Islamic Studies" is offered at the end of the school day.

Zaman maintains that TIZA is not a religious school. He declined, however, to allow me to visit the school to see for myself, "due to the hectic schedule for statewide testing." But after I e-mailed him that the Minnesota Department of Education had told me that testing would not begin for several weeks, Zaman did not respond -- even to urgent calls and e-mails seeking comment before my first column on TIZA.

Now, however, an eyewitness has stepped forward. Amanda Getz of Bloomington is a substitute teacher. She worked as a substitute in two fifth-grade classrooms at TIZA on Friday, March 14. Her experience suggests that school-sponsored religious activity plays an integral role at TIZA.

Arriving on a Friday, the Muslim holy day, she says she was told that the day's schedule included a "school assembly" in the gym after lunch.

Before the assembly, she says she was told, her duties would include taking her fifth-grade students to the bathroom, four at a time, to perform "their ritual washing."

Afterward, Getz said, "teachers led the kids into the gym, where a man dressed in white with a white cap, who had been at the school all day," was preparing to lead prayer. Beside him, another man "was prostrating himself in prayer on a carpet as the students entered."

"The prayer I saw was not voluntary," Getz said. "The kids were corralled by adults and required to go to the assembly where prayer occurred."

Islamic Studies was also incorporated into the school day. "When I arrived, I was told 'after school we have Islamic Studies,' and I might have to stay for hall duty," Getz said. "The teachers had written assignments on the blackboard for classes like math and social studies. Islamic Studies was the last one -- the board said the kids were studying the Qu'ran. The students were told to copy it into their planner, along with everything else. That gave me the impression that Islamic Studies was a subject like any other."

After school, Getz's fifth-graders stayed in their classroom and the man in white who had led prayer in the gym came in to teach Islamic Studies. TIZA has in effect extended the school day -- buses leave only after Islamic Studies is over. Getz did not see evidence of other extra-curricular activity, except for a group of small children playing outside. Significantly, 77 percent of TIZA parents say that their "main reason for choosing TIZA ... was because of after-school programs conducted by various non-profit organizations at the end of the school period in the school building," according to a TIZA report. TIZA may be the only school in Minnesota with this distinction.

If this report is true, TIZA is being run much like a private Christian school.  The only difference is that TIZA is being paid for by taxpayers, establishing a governmentally-sponsored financial advantage for Muslims over other religions.

As Robert Spencer has written:

Can you imagine a public school founded by two Christian ministers, and housed in the same building as a church? Add to that -- in the same building -- a prominent chapel. And let’s say the students are required to fast during Lent, and attend Bible studies right after school. All with your tax dollars.

Inconceivable? Sure. If such a place existed, the ACLU lawyers would descend on it like locusts. It would be shut down before you could say “separation of church and state,” to the accompaniment of New York Times and Washington Post editorials full of indignant foreboding, warning darkly about the growing influence of the Religious Right in America.

But such a school does exist in Minnesota, in a different religious context, and so far the ACLU has uttered nary a peep.

Christian schools in Minnesota should take heed and re-establish themselves as charter schools, using all the same tactics TIZA does.  Something good will come of it.  Either Minnesota will be forced to bring TIZA into compliance, or it will have to allow all religions to operate charter schools.

Obama Mandingo?

By DemocracyRules

The next few months will challenge America and the billions who sit as onlookers with the most challenging issues of racism and sexism that they have faced in decades.

Earlier, I predicted that Obama would accuse all his critics of racism, and use it to crush Billary.  This strategy has worked fairly well until now.  Then the MSM suddenly became aware of Reverend Wright.  Of course, Wright’s antisemitism, supremacist black racism, and support for Islamist extremists have been sitting in plain view all along.

I also predicted that Obama’s enemies would use the “Mandingo effect” against him.  Mandingo was a mind-numbingly bad movie from the 70's about slavery in the Antebellum South.  It piles up every imaginable racist stereotype about American blacks.  They are savages: ignorant, wild, uncontrollably violent, devil-worshiping heathens without morality, conscience, or sexual self-control who constantly lust after whites.   But blacks are also wildly erotic beings, exuding the ability to satisfy their lovers with powers that Eliot Spitzer could only dream about.  Pamela Anderson is beautiful, but Halley Barry is better, because she ‘has the spice’.

Ken Norton, a famous boxer in his time, did a credible job as ‘Mandingo’, and the movie even throws in the part about the majestic slave fathering a child by the plantation owner’s daughter. (It wasn’t her fault, she couldn’t control herself.) 

Thus, sooner or later, someone would counter Obama’s “every statement against me is racist” strategy with, “Obama is Mandingo”.  Obama may present well with charm and pleasant manners, but underneath he is a black racist savage, boiling with hate for the white man, ignorant, wild, drug crazed, a devil-worshiping heathen without morality, conscience, or sexual self-control.

Of course these stereotypes are dangerously false, but Whites, Asians, Chicanos and even Blacks are prone to believe at least some of them.  Most racist sentiment against blacks is based on these stereotypes, and racism runs silent, runs deep. 

Liberia, an African country started and populated by American freed slaves, just had a ‘Mandingo moment’.  A rebel leader recounted in court that he had cooked and eaten some of his enemies.

And Obama is vulnerable to this stereotype, without a doubt.  On the surface, he seems fine, but underneath he is an entirely different person.  No amount of genteel speeches will convince me that Obama abjures the teachings of Rev. Wright.  If Obama kept Wright as his close personal friend, adviser and confidante for 20 years, but knew nothing of his political philosophy or world view, then Obama is at least a nincompoop.  Nincompoops should not sit as the US president. 

But this is where the challenge lies for America.  Is Obama Mandingo, or a nincompoop?  I predict that to their credit, the American people will choose the latter.

One Year Ago Today on GINA COBB: A Confession From Khalid Sheikh Mohammed -- Sept. 11 "Mastermind" and Murderous Moral Idiot

Originally published on March 15, 2007:  A Confession From Khalid Sheikh Mohammed -- Sept. 11 "Mastermind" and Murderous Moral Idiot

A Confession From Khalid Sheikh Mohammed -- Sept. 11 "Mastermind" and Murderous Moral Idiot

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who is being held at Guantanamo as an enemy combatant, has admitted to planning the 9/11 attack and planning or assisting a total of over 30 attacks.

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the suspected mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks, confessed to that attack and a chilling string of other terror plots during a military hearing at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, according to a transcript released Wednesday by the Pentagon.

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who is being held at Guantanamo as an enemy combatant, has admitted to planning the 9/11 attack and planning or assisting a total of over 30 attacks.

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the suspected mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks, confessed to that attack and a chilling string of other terror plots during a military hearing at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, according to a transcript released Wednesday by the Pentagon.

Two Years Ago Today on GINA COBB: American Hostage Tortured and Killed; Activists Can't Work Up Any Moral Outrage

Originally published on March 11, 2006:  American Hostage Tortured and Killed; Activists Can't Work Up Any Moral Outrage

Two Years Ago Today on GINA COBB: What's Good About America, In Case You Forgot

Originally published on March 8, 2006:  What's Good About America, In Case You Forgot

I'm Predicting a Painful Learning Experience for the NYC Recruiting Center Bomber

Someone seems to think that bombing a military recruiting center and mailing a 20-page manifesto railing against the Iraq War to Democratic Congressmen is a smart move.

The man who did this will very likely be apprehended.  He has already left too much evidence, from an eyewitness to video showing a bicyclist fleeing Times Square, to an abandoned bicycle, to multiple letters and envelopes mailed to Congressmen.

The bomber has crossed the line from peaceful protest to violent direct attack on the United States government.  That is not a smart move.  The risk/reward ratio can be ruinous, as he will soon find out.  It will probably be the most painful learning experience of his life.

Update:  The letters to Congressmen may not be linked to the bombing.  Officials are saying today that the letters were mailed weeks ago and delayed by Congressional mail screening.  That still leaves a fair amount of evidence that can be used to hunt for the bomber. 

One Year Ago Today on GINA COBB: Democrats Want to Bring Terrorists to America

Originally published on March 7, 2007:  Democrats Want to Bring Terrorists to America

1888 Photo Offers Glimpse of Helen Keller at Age 8

A rare 1888 photo found in a New England family album offers a glimpse of Helen Keller at age 8, with her teacher, Anne Sullivan.

You do know the story of Helen Keller's life, don't you?  Most Americans do, but if you live in another country or if you're young, perhaps it's not a familiar story.  In that case, do yourself a favor and read Helen Keller's story or watch The Miracle Worker.

Muslim U.S. Sailor Convicted of Spying for Terrorists

A Muslim U.S. sailor has been convicted of providing material support to terrorists and disclosing classified national defense information.

Two Years Ago Today on GINA COBB: Guantanamo Inmates Despair of Ever Leaving to Rejoin the Jihad

Originally published on March 5, 2006:  Guantanamo Inmates Despair of Ever Leaving to Rejoin the Jihad

One Year Ago Today on GINA COBB: More Iraqi Terror: Let This Strengthen Our Resolve

Originally published on March 4, 2007: More Iraqi Terror: Let This Strengthen Our Resolve

Hand Her an Oscar; Suddenly She's an Expert on Everything

Best actress Oscar winner Marion Cotillard says the 9/11 attacks were made up and that the World Trade Center towers were destroyed because they were obsolete. 

Oh -- and she also questions the 1969 moon landing.

Clearly, being a logical thinker is not a prerequisite to achieving the highest levels of peer recognition in Hollywood.

This is a good iillustration of the potential hazards of listening to experts on subjects outside their areas of expertise.

If you want good advice on how to become an award-winning actor, ask Ms. Cotillard.  But if you want good advice on the worldside Islamic jihad or the space program, she clearly is not your go-to gal.  For that you're going to need someone who actually has a clue.