A former Justice Department lawyer is writing a book about his experiences as a Justice Department lawyer and the inside story of protecting the right to vote in Mississippi and other places.  More at ABC.

Full story.

A boy, a war, an ocean journey and a miracle. 

No story today about elections could be a better read than this American Thinker piece.

Incoming state Representative John Rizzo from Kansas City, Missouri, may be denied his seat in the legislature by the Missouri Speaker of the House because of voter fraud in the Democratic primary.  Rizzo defeated his opponent by a single vote in the primary.  Rizzo was presented with a 100 page document detailing voter fraud which occurred in the Democratic primary.  St. Louis today has the story:

“Clearly there’s a lot of smoke,” Tilley said of Royster’s allegations, which include that relatives and supporters of Rizzo’s who live outside the district illegally cast votes and that a group of Somalis who couldn’t speak English were instructed how to vote by a Rizzo supporter.

Among the allegations:

• Throughout primary election day, an unidentified Rizzo supporter brought groups of voters to various precincts who appeared to be Somalis who did not speak or read English. According to affidavits from several election judges, the Rizzo supporter handed out the ballots and told the Somalis to vote for Rizzo.

• Several Rizzo campaign supporters, including relatives, voted in the election even though in campaign documents they list home addresses that are outside the 40th District.

• A total of 14 ballots weren’t signed by any election officials, as required by law.

One of the most wonderful Christmas stories appeared in the Wall Street Journal a few years ago.   “A Christmas Tale – 1919″  by Hans von Spakovsky is the son’s story of a father’s escape from tyranny and certain death in a Russian forest on Christmas night.  Thousands of stories like it no doubt exist, for tyrants throughout time have forced heroic escapes by those who love liberty. 

It is a story of Christmas in a snow covered forest, in flight from the vile madness that was becoming the Soviet Union.   It is a story of a cold night remembered each Christmas.  It is the story of hope and faith, when circumstances would seem to allow neither.

America is blessed with immigrants who have experienced what it means to live in lands where law, human dignity and individual freedom don’t exist. They come to America where each person is recognized as endowed with individual dignity.  

Even that is a Christmas story of sorts.

The ACLU has threatened to sue Yakima Washington under the Voting Rights Act.  They want Yakima to move to single member districts and create a majority Hispanic district.

One little problem, you can’t draw a district in Yakima with 50 percent plus one Hispanic CITIZEN population in Yakima.  If the ACLU follows through on this threat, it will have the effect of forcing the creation of a noncitizen Hispanic majority district.  The Voting Rights Act was not designed to award political representation to non-citizens.  It was designed to remedy wrongs to racial minorities.  Yakima is in no mood to back down:

“‘Go ahead and sue,’ [the mayor] said Wednesday, the day before county election officials say they must have ballot language in hand from the city to add anything to the Feb. 8 strong-mayor special election.”

The mayor is right, and the ACLU would be on the hook for Yakima’s attorney’s fees if they sued and lost.  If you can’t satisfy Gingles One with adequate Hispanic citizen population, then you can’t win your case.  This seems like a poor place for the ACLU to burn scarce resources.

Arizona’a Statebrief.

“The federal government dealt noteworthy blows to local self-government and direct democracy earlier this week, when a district court in D.C. dismissed LaRoque v. Holder, a case that challenged the constitutionality of Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, a law enacted by Congress to prohibit racial discrimination in elections.  While racial prejudice in the voting process is, as a matter of principle, a social evil that ought to be exorcised by appropriate and lawful means, the problem is that this particular law, in actual practice, is subject to abuse by public officials in the federal government who can—and do—exploit it for undue political gain.  To be sure, one significant political pretext for the lawsuit was that the Obama Administration used Section 5 to advance an agenda that has no plausible connection to the prevention of racial discrimination in the democratic process.”

The story below on the James Cole nomination has been updated.  Senate sources tell ELC that the nomination of James Cole to be the Deputy Attorney General at the Justice Department is DEAD with the Senate going out of session and after his nomination was blocked on the floor yesterday. 

Not one news report, except in the Washington Times, reported accurately that the nomination was blocked because Texas Senator John Cornyn put a hold on the nominee. 

Kudos to Senator Cornyn for refusing to budge in the face of overwhelming pressure from all corners to lift the hold.  Senator Cornyn made the DOJ pay a price for the incompetence and bumbling of the Voting Section’s inability to aggressively enforce military voting protections in 2010.  Because of the ineptitude, James Cole will not be confirmed as the Deputy Attorney General.  Hopefully the bureaucrats responsible are held to account because of the failed nomination.  Hopefully the bureaucrats left standing learn there is a price to be paid for failing to protect military voters, both administratively and at the ballot box.

Politico.

The Washington Times has this news story on the Kinston dismissal.  What is interesting is the comment from someone who appears to be the plaintiff in the case, and has posted before at the Times appearing to be the plaintiff.  He announces in the comments that the case “will be appealed.”