Friday, January 30, 2009

2nd post of 2009

So many opinions, not enough time to go over them

1) Obama's inauguration.His oath was shown live on TV 7am Hawaii time. That happens to be the same time so many people here tend to be stuck in rush hour traffic, so not everyone got to see the 1st Hawaii-born President take the oath!

As for me, after Obama took the oath of office, I had to leave home or I would've been late for work.

However, the bus I took that morning was so fast(most days I'm not so lucky), when I walked into the school's office, the worker's computers were playing Obama's inaugural speech live!

Also, on the bus ride, I passed by the apartment building where Obama's grandma lived until her death. I could see downstairs, people huddled around a TV!

I got to see the re-runs of the whole thing live in the afternoon!

It was history in the making

2) Where was I on 11/4/2008, when it was announced Obama won the Election?

I was at home @ 6pm Hawaii time. I was watching several stations to see how they covered the results.

The TV was on Fox, and I was about to wash the dishes.

Then Sheppard Smith made a special alert! Barack Obama was going to be President Elect!

Obviously, the dishes waited a few hours as I watch history unfold @ Chicago, Phoenix (McCain's concession speech) as I watched pundits on Fox, NBC, and CBS discuss the results

3) Earlier this decade, some on the Left claimed requiring IDs for voting is "disenfranchising minorities" . (Nevermind that the most non-white state, Hawaii, required voters to show ID -- without a problem)

The results are in --- States with voter ID seen INCREASED turnouts in the polls!

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123327839569631609.html

The two states with the strictest voter ID requirements are Indiana and Georgia. Both require a government-issued photo ID. According to figures released by Prof. Michael McDonald of George Mason University, the overall national turnout of eligible voters was 61.6%, the highest turnout since the 1964 election.

(skipped paragraphs)

So what happened in Georgia where the ACLU, the NAACP and other such groups claimed the state's photo ID law was intended to depress black turnout? According to figures released by Curtis Gans at American University, Georgia had the largest turnout in its history, with nearly four million voters. The Republican turnout was up only 0.22 percentage points; the Democratic turnout was up an astonishing 6.1 percentage points, rising from 22.66% of the eligible voting population to 28.74% of the eligible population.

(skipped paragraphs)

The claim that Republican legislatures in Georgia and Indiana passed voter ID to depress Democratic turnout is demonstrably false. But even if it were true, they obviously failed miserably to achieve that objective given the huge increases in Democratic and minority turnout in both states.

I guess liberals will now claim that their historic increases in turnout would have been even higher if not for voter ID laws. But that would be an absurd argument, given the states' performance in comparison to other states without voter ID laws.

With every election that has occurred since states have begun to implement voter ID, the evidence is overwhelming that it does not depress the turnout of voters. Indeed, it may actually increase the public's confidence that their votes will count.

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If you're truly dedicated to voting, you would get your ID's. Sure getting an ID can be an inconvenience, since you might have to take time away from work. But MILLIONS of Americans of all races have done it! In the bigger scheme of things, it's not the most difficult thing in the world

4) I'm running out of time! Have a nice day