Category: 2012 election

I know this is bound to anger some of the members and attract some trolls, but the Washington Times reports that the membership of the group Rolling Thunder which sponsors the annual rally in DC, arguably the largest annual rally in the Capital has voted to endorse Mitt Romney’s candidacy for the president. I doubt that at this point it will change much.

According to the release, 90 percent of conference delegates voted in favor of Mr. Romney, a decision that Executive Director Artie Muller attributed in part to their dissatisfaction with current health-care costs and quality of benefits for veterans returning from Afghanistan.

The Rolling Thunder motorcycle ride has become a staple of the Memorial Day weekend in Washington, drawing an estimated 400,000 riders this year during a weekend full of vigils, concerts, speeches and other events.

The group is mostly veterans, but not completely. I’d say that 90% of the delegates was pretty convincing.

According to Stars & Stripes‘ Joyce Tsai, after decades of declining numbers of veterans in Congress, recent era veterans are set to surge there this election season;

Currently 92 members of the House are veterans, Lynn said. Of the 189 veterans who have received their party’s Congressional nomination this year, between 92 to 100 are expected to win, unless there’s a surprise sweep of the House by Democrats in Republican-leaning districts, according to the analysis.

[…]

Only 10 members of Congress currently serving were deployed to the Middle East and Asia in support of the recent wars. All but one of them are Republicans.

For this election cycle, 38 House candidates and four Senate candidates with warzone experience are vying for office, by far the most representation that the Iraq/Afghanistan generation of veterans has seen in national elections since the start of the wars. Thirteen of the 42 hopefuls are Democrats.

This can only be good for the country, irrespective of the party they come from.

Former special operations troops are going into Philadelphia today to counteract the effect of any Black Panther folks who might be tempted to repeat their performance of the last election there and try to intimidate voters since the Justice Department doesn’t seem willing to protect voters, according to the Philly Post;

Former Navy Captain Benjamin Brink is leading the operation. “The nation saw the video of members of the Black Panthers in Philadelphia intimidating people trying to vote in 2008,” Brink told me when I interviewed him during my radio show on IQ 106.9. “We are going to try and make certain that nothing like that happens this year.”

Brink claims to have over a hundred former Army Rangers, Navy Seal, Delta Force, Green Berets and others who have volunteered for duty. The idea of Navy Seals and Black Panthers getting into it at a Philly polling site gives a whole new incentive for casting a ballot. “Our guys aren’t easily intimidated,” adds Brink.

Don’t let the bravado fool you. The mission, according to the Captain, is to observe and report, not to engage. “We are going to watch for intimidation, videotape it, if possible, and report it to the proper authorities.”

Although Philadelphia will be one of the cities where the organization “Get Out the Vet” will have poll watchers, they’ll be spread out across the country. Brink claims that you probably won’t notice the folks watching your polling place “These men are trained to be ghosts”.

Thanks to Barnabas for the link.

500 retired flag officers are sponsoring an ad in the Washington Times today endorsing Mitt Romney for President.

In plain terms the officers, who paid for the ad themselves, said they support Mr. Romney: “We, the undersigned, proudly support Governor Mitt Romney as our nation’s next president and commander-in-chief.”

The ad then goes on to list all of the officers, in alphabetical order, in four columns of print.

OK, that’s great, but where have you guys been the last four years? It seems to me that 500 flag officers endorsing Romney could have done a lot more by spreading out across the country talking for him than a simple list in a conservative newspaper. But, I’m sure it’s just a way to piss off Marty Dempsey who thinks we should all sit down and shut up when we’re talking about his boss.

Not on the list is Colin Powell, of course, because he’s his own man who votes his conscience (snickering here).

In other not-news, John Hawkins of Right Wing News polled conservative bloggers yesterday for our choice, and *surprise!* 92.6% of us are admitting that we’re voting for Romney and we expect Romney to win.

So I guess the election is all sown up since everyone you expect to vote for Romney is still voting for him.

By the way, by popular demand, TAH will be live-blogging the election returns tomorrow night, so mark your calenders.

You see a lot of stories about voter registration that make you shake your head as elections near.  This year is no exception.  But most aren’t that surprising.

Then you read something like this story.

I just don’t think this is exactly what the 1993 National Voter Registration Act had in mind.  But where there’s a way to exploit a loophole or commit fraud, someone will eventually take it.

Words fail me.  Except to say that, under North Carolina law, it looks like someone may have some ‘splainin’ to do (see the last 2 paragraphs of linked story).