lb - Community Shoppers, Inc.

OUTLOOK
8A Walworth County Sunday Sunday, November 30, 2008 Place Your Ad Today!!
FIRST AMENDMENT TO THE CONSTITUTION
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment
of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,
or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or
the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to
petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
THE WAY WE SEE IT
Gift-wrapped
shopping
opportunities
Don’t forget the businesses
in your own back yard
W ith
another busy holiday season
upon us, we’re reminded, as shoppers
take to area stores, that
American consumers have never had as many
options as they have today.
This is a good thing, to be sure. Retail competition
— fueled increasingly by the Internet
— is fierce, and the result is a commercial
environment
that stresses
customer service,
quality and
affordability.
But as consumers
take
advantage of
proliferating
choices — and
Walworth County, Wis.
U.S. Senate
Sen. Herb Kohl, Democrat
(202) 224-5653
senator_kohl@kohl.senate.gov
Sen. Russ Feingold, Democrat
(202) 224-5323
russell_feingold@feingold.senate.gov
U.S. House
Rep. Paul Ryan 1st Dist.
R-Janesville, (202) 225-3031
www.house.gov/ryan
Rep. Tammy Baldwin 2nd Dist.
D-Madison, (608) 362-2800
http://tammybaldwin.house.gov
Our view
■ Local businesses are
working hard to be
effective alternatives in a
competitive marketplace.
mull shopping trips to far-flung malls — it’s
important to remember that the best option,
particularly at a time when the economy is
staggering under the weight of a credit crisis,
just might be in your own back yard.
Local businesses in many of our communities
have responded to the changing marketplace
and current economic climate in myriad
ways, stressing convenience, customer service
and niche products. They’ve also joined forces
to promote their shopping districts with an
eye toward creativity and family fun. We urge
you to take advantage of such events this
Christmas season to see what these hardworking
retailers have to offer.
We’re not asking local residents to support
these businesses simply because they’re here
— but because they offer legitimate alternatives
to high-profile shopping magnets in
larger metropolitan areas. At the same time,
you’ll be supporting business owners who
employ our friends and neighbors, and thus,
who are vital to our local economies.
“Shop locally” is a hollow exhortation only
when local shopping is an exercise in futility
and unwarranted expense. Clearly, that’s not
the case in the communities of southern
Wisconsin and northern Illinois.
Line to your legislators
State Senate
Sen. Neal Kedzie, 11th Dist.
R-Elkhorn, (608) 266-2635
Sen.Kedzie@legis.state.wi.us
Sen. Judith Robson, 15th Dist.
D-Beloit, (608) 266-2253
sen.robson@legis.state.wi.us
State Assembly
Rep. Stephen L. Nass, 31st Dist.
R-Whitewater, (608) 266-5715
rep.nass@legis.state.wi.us
Rep. Thomas A. Lothian, 32nd Dist.
R-Williams Bay, (608) 266-1190
rep.lothian@legis.state.wi.us
Ensuring that only citizens vote
How many noncitizens voted illegally
on Nov. 4? We may never know.
A report on FOX affiliate WFLD-TV
in Chicago that aired just before the
election showed how easy it is for noncitizens
to register: They used a hidden
camera in a DMV office to show a
Chinese citizen illegally registering to
vote as she obtained a driver’s license.
However, American citizens recently
won a significant victory that could help
insure the integrity of future elections
and prevent noncitizens, both legal and
illegal, from stealing their votes. That’s
probably news to you, though, because
the major media organizations all but
ignored it.
On Aug. 20, a federal district court
judge in Arizona upheld the Arizona
Taxpayer and Citizen Protection Act,
i.e., Proposition 200, which requires
proof of citizenship to register and proof
of identification to vote in person.
Despite the fact that almost every
elected official in Arizona opposed
Proposition 200 in 2004, Arizona citizens
passed it overwhelmingly. In typical
fashion, the plaintiffs (including the
usual suspects: ACORN, Common
Cause, the League of Women Voters,
LULAC and People for the American
Way), claimed every possible violation of
voting and civil rights laws, as well as
the Constitution.
Just prior to the 2006 election, they
tried to get a preliminary injunction to
stop the law from taking effect; when
the district court refused, they appealed
to the nation’s most liberal appeals
court: the Ninth Circuit. Naturally, the
Ninth Circuit (despite the lack of evidence)
issued an injunction. This was
promptly dissolved by the U.S. Supreme
Court, which sent the case back down to
district court for a trial.
There are numerous reported cases of
noncitizens registering and voting in
American elections. We basically have
an honor system, in which we assume
that individuals who aren’t U.S. citizens
will follow the law. Of course, there is
also evidence that some third-party
organizations deliberately turn a blind
Pentagon as bloated as Wall Street
Our government is sinking $700 billion
in taxpayer dollars into a system
riddled with waste, and often incapable
of tracking where the money goes. No,
I’m not talking about Wall Street. The
teetering enterprise in question actually
is the Pentagon.
The U.S. defense establishment is in
dire need of a rescue. But unlike Wall
Street, where we threw billions of dollars
at the problem, a Pentagon bailout
requires taking money away — quickly.
Late in September, when America’s
attention was consumed by the presidential
election and the collapse of the
financial sector, the House of
Representatives passed a defenseauthorization
bill totaling $612 billion.
Our overall defense spending, factoring
in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan,
has been stretching toward the $700
billion mark for some time now, the
highest level since the end of World War
II.
Where does all this money go? That’s
hard to say.
The Pentagon Inspector General has
unsuccessfully tried to audit our military
finances since 1990 and estimates
that a review won’t be completed until
at least 2016. Reports show that the
U.S. Army could not account for about
$1 trillion in 2007. The nonpartisan
General Accountability Office revealed
last spring that 95 major Pentagon
weapons systems and sweetheart procurement
projects all were behind
schedule and breaking budgets by $295
billion.
We also learned from an Associated
HANS ANS A.
VON SPAKOVSKY PAKOVSKY
HERITAGE FOUNDATION
eye to the citizenship of the individuals
they register and that even state officials,
particularly at DMV offices, register
individuals they know aren’t citizens.
I recently received a copy of a
voter application in which the applicant
honestly answered that she wasn’t a
U.S. citizen. Yet Philadelphia election
officials registered her anyway, and she
voted in the 2004 election.
Cases like this show that our honor
system has failed. Arizona’s new state
requirement is the only sure way of preventing
noncitizens from registering to
vote.
Even with twice the number of usual
suspects acting as plaintiffs in Arizona,
they still couldn’t show the court that
any substantial burden was placed on
voters to comply with this citizenship
requirement. Applicants can register
with a driver’s license, birth certificate,
passport, naturalization certificate (or
just the alien registration number on
the certificate), tribal identification or
any other document accepted by the
federal government to prove citizenship.
As in Georgia and Indiana, the Arizona
plaintiffs could produce no one who
either lacked an ID or couldn’t easily
obtain one.
In fact, the named plaintiff, Jesus
Gonzalez, a naturalized Mexican-
American, not only had a copy of his
naturalization certificate, he even had a
U.S. passport. The plaintiffs’ attorneys
were reduced to making the ludicrous
claim that having to provide election
officials with an alien registration number,
which is verified by the state
through the electronic SAVE system
also used by employers, was an unconstitutional
“burden” on the right to vote.
The Arizona plaintiffs made one of
the nonsensical claims consistently
JACK ACK SHANAHAN HANAHAN
MINUTEMAN MEDIA
Press story this month that the Defense
Contract Audit Agency, described as the
“first line of defense” for the billions of
taxpayer dollars that flow from the
Pentagon to private contractors, has
been rubber stamping their investigations
and ignoring abuse.
One whistleblower at the audit
agency summed it up this way: “We
have been basically on the trust system
for years … It did not work on Wall
Street and it is not working for federal
contracts.”
With national defense, however, lives
as well as livelihoods are on the line,
and wasting billions of taxpayer dollars
during an economic crisis puts both at
risk. The result of years of mismanagement
has been smaller forces; fewer
planes, tanks and ships; and all at
greater expense. Pentagon watchdogs
and defense experts have been warning
about the runaway train in defense
spending for years. But now that the
economic crisis threatens the entire federal
budget, even voices within the
Pentagon are sounding the alarm.
According to the Nov. 10 Boston
Globe, a recent report by the Defense
Business Board, an official government
oversight group, concluded that current
Pentagon spending is simply “not sus-
made by opponents of voter ID — that
having to prove citizenship and show ID
would reduce turnout in elections. The
judge held that the findings of the
plaintiffs’ expert were unreliable, but
even that expert asserted that only 2
percent of Arizona’s eligible population
didn’t have proof of citizenship. Another
expert found that the possible reduction
in Latino turnout in the 2006 election
caused by the citizenship requirement
was only 0.06 percent. Out of more than
3.1 million ballots cast in the 2006 primary,
the 2006 general election, and the
2008 presidential primary, only 0.13
percent of the ballots weren’t counted
because voters couldn’t produce ID.
Echoing the Supreme Court’s decision
in the Indiana voter-ID case, the
Arizona court found that preventing
voter fraud was an important governmental
interest that justified the proof
of citizenship requirement, particularly
when the state had actual evidence of
noncitizens who had registered and
voted illegally in Arizona.
The law also was an important safeguard
in protecting voter confidence in
the election process. Proposition 200
“enhances the accuracy of Arizona’s
voter rolls and ensures that the rights
of lawful voters are not debased by
unlawfully cast ballots.” The court dismissed
the plaintiffs’ claim that the
law’s passage itself showed discriminatory
intent under the Voting Rights Act,
pointing out that Prop 200 was concerned
with illegal immigrants only.
Legislators in numerous states have
been watching the Arizona case closely.
Now that a federal court has found a
proof of citizenship requirement lawful,
they hopefully will pass similar measures.
Only if other states follow
Arizona’s example will we know for sure
in 2012 that only American citizens are
deciding who the next president will be.
Hans A. von Spakovsky is a visiting
legal scholar at the Heritage Foundation
in Washington, D.C. and a former member
of the Federal Election Commission.
tainable” and urged the incoming president
to make sweeping cuts across
major programs.
Where should these cuts come from?
We can start with the billions of dollars
that the Air Force has piled up
developing fighter jets like the bloated
and unproven F-35 Joint Strike Fighter
or the F-22 Raptor, whose practical use
has remained hidden since the collapse
of the Soviet Union.
The Army is still pushing Future
Combat Systems, a collection of undeveloped
robotic technologies and ground
vehicles at a cost of $160 billion.
The Navy continues to invest billions
in shipbuilding, including projects like
the Virginia-class submarine and the
DDG-1000 Destroyer that have been
plagued by delays and cost overruns.
Beyond mere dollars and cents, however,
the entire decision-making
process, from the Pentagon and
Congress to the oversight agencies and
weapons-acquisition officials, must be
overhauled to usher in sunlight and
root out conflicts of interest.
As the collapse on Wall Street
reminds us, a culture of easy money
and no accountability eventually endangers
us all. Now that the economic crisis
may finally force our leaders to get our
fiscal house in order, it’s time we
applied that same lesson to the
Pentagon.
Retired Vice Admiral Jack Shanahan is
the former commander of the United
States Second Fleet.