While many Americans will park in front of their televisions to watch football on Super Bowl Sunday, others will tune in just to see the commercials. Unknown to most Americans, one commercial will be seen only by members of the U.S. military deployed overseas. Sadly, it’s a spot that probably needs to be shown to federal, state and local election officials, too.

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen has arranged for a public service announcement (below) to air on the Armed Forces Network’s commercial-free broadcast of Super Bowl XLV in Dallas. The objective of the PSA produced in conjunction with the Federal Voting Assistance Program is to remind overseas military of their right to vote.

Why should the FVAP spot be shown to election officials? Because election fraud, electioneering, vote fraud — call itwhat you will — seemed to run rampant during the 2010 election cycle.

Prior to the 2010 general election, several reports surfaced about problems with absentee ballots for military members stationed outside of their states of legal residence:

• BigGovernment.com reported about Illinois soldiers waiting for ballots;

• The Buffalo News reported on ballots being mailed after the federal deadline had passed;

• Pamela Geller reported on multiple cases of military ballots not being counted; and

• Investors Business Daily published an editorial, Denying Our Soldiers the Vote.

The four articles above stand as but a few examples of the voting problems faced by servicemembers deployed to other states and overseas in places like Afghanistan and Iraq.

Not surprisingly, the subject — “Allegations of fraud, including illegal voting by felons and a formalized refusal by some states to follow election law regarding ballots for the military, raise the dark possibility of the manipulation of elections.” — finished in sixth place on World Net Daily’s list of most covered-up stories of 2010.

Let your elected officials know you want to ensure members of the military have their votes counted. Send each of them a link to this post!

Congratulations to the editors at the Washington Post.  Seventeen months after the Eric Holder Justice Department dismissed a slam-dunk case against the New Black Panther Party for voter intimidation, the Post gets around to printing a thorough vetting of the dismissal.  The story is slated for Saturday’s print edition.  While other media like Breitbart/The Bigs, Fox News, the Washington Times, the Weekly Standard, Pittsburgh Tribune Review, Investors Business Daily, Pajamas Media, and Drudge have had dozens of stories on the corrupt New Black Panther dismissal, the Washington Post at last is in the game.

The story is a shocker too.  The shock comes from the middle of the road and factual nature of the story.

There are small problems with the story.  For one, the Washington Post is the only outlet that calls King Samir Shabazz by his old “slave name” (Shabazz’s own words) of Maruse Heath.  Even Heath doesn’t call himself Heath.  Of course this takes some of the sting off Shabazz’s rants against Jews and calls to kill “cracker babies in their crib.”

The Post’s decision to change a man’s name for him is controversial.  It has no place.

But overall, the story is very bad news for Eric Holder.  It debunks many of the myths spun by the administration.  Inside DOJ sources describe deep hostility to protecting whites at Justice.  DOJ sources say panther prosecutor Christian Adams never allowed his conservative views to influence his work, contradicting administration spin.  And perhaps most damning of all to Holder, sources defending the administration defend the idea that whites aren’t protected by the Civil Rights laws.  The latter is the blockbuster news in the Post piece. (more…)

A gray beard and a 2008 Nobel Prize in Economics go a long way to establishing a fellow’s credibility in discussing the current situation in Greece and how it relates to the U.S. economy.  In his May 13 New York Times op-ed piece, “We’re Not Greece,” Paul Krugman gives us permission to breathe a collective “there-but-for-the-grace-of-Zeus-go-we” sigh of relief. “America’s fiscal outlook over the next few years isn’t bad,” Krugman calms.

No one can deny the soft-spoken economist’s brilliance nor his passion. Nevertheless, one can’t help thinking: what if Paul Krugman is wrong?

Like a good Socratic dialectician, Professor Krugman lays out the opposing point of view at the top of his essay before assailing it:

The crisis in Greece is making some people — people who opposed health care reform and are itching for an excuse to dismantle Social Security — very, very happy. Everywhere you look there are editorials and commentaries… asserting that Greece today will be America tomorrow unless we abandon all that nonsense about taking care of those in need.

In Krugman’s words of would-be reassurance, “America is not Greece.” No, not yet. But is it really true that our current fiscal road doesn’t eventually lead directly to Athens? More Krugman reassurance:

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After Senator-elect Scott Brown’s resounding win in Massachusetts, it is clear that when Americans have the facts, they make informed decisions and let their voices be heard about the important issues facing our country.  Our founders understood how important information is to our Republic.  Thomas Jefferson once said:

It is to me a new and consolatory proof that wherever the people are well-informed they can be trusted with their own government; that whenever things get so far wrong as to attract their notice, they may be relied on to set them to rights.

Last year, I started the Media Fairness Caucus (MFC) in Congress to help ensure that Americans stay well-informed and get the facts on important issues.  The purpose of the MFC is not to censor or condemn, but to encourage the media to adhere to the highest standards of reporting and provide the American people with the facts, balanced stories and fair coverage of the news.  The Caucus also points out examples of media bias and I present a “most biased media story of the week” award regularly on the House floor. (more…)