For the second time in a few days, a court has ruled against the top election official in a key swing state forecasted to play a crucial role in the upcoming presidential election.

Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner received her second court defeat of the month, when a federal judge in Columbus ruled that she is breaking federal law by not giving county election boards the opportunity to screen new voter registrations for fraud.

Brunner’s office has been verifying the registrations but not making the names available to the state’s 88 county election boards, a violation of the 2002 Help America Vote Act, which specifically requires states to provide counties with the names of new voters whose records did not match the state Motor Vehicle Bureau or the federal Social Security Administration.

The judge (George Smith) gave the secretary of state a week to comply, pointing out that “it is hard to imagine a public interest more compelling than safeguarding the legitimacy of the election of the president of the United States.”

Last week the secretary of state got spanked by Ohio’s Supreme Court, which unanimously ordered her to stop rejecting applications for absentee ballots because of an unmarked box. Brunner had ordered county election officials to reject thousands of absentee ballot applications, sent to voters by the John McCain campaign, if a box was not checked off at the top.

Each application had a line at the top next to a box that read: “I am a qualified elector.” Brunner claimed that failure to check the box left both the applicant and the board of elections without verification that the applicant was indeed a qualified elector.

The Ohio Supreme Court disagreed, ruling that under the law the secretary of state misdirected the members of boards of elections as to their duties. No public purpose or public interest is served by rejecting electors’ applications for absentee ballots because of an unmarked check box next to a qualified-elector statement, the ruling said. It further points out that there is no evidence of fraud.

A New York councilman whose home was bombed by Barack Obama’s friend and political mentor chastised the Illinois senator’s close relationship with the violent, Vietnam-era radical who was once a fugitive from U.S. justice.

Obama has worked hard to distance himself William Ayers, the co-founder of the domestic terrorist group Weather Underground, and who could blame the Democratic presidential candidate? For years a fugitive from U.S. justice, Ayers has proudly admitted planting bombs on the Capitol, Pentagon and other government buildings to protest U.S. policy.

Ayers publicly says that he doesn’t regret setting bombs and that in fact his group “didn’t do enough.” Now a professor at a public university in Chicago, Ayers proudly sports a tattoo on his neck featuring the rainbow and lightning weatherman logo that appeared on letters taking responsibility for the bombings.

Ayers has long supported Obama’s political career by donating money to his campaigns and hosting fundraisers at his home. The men hang out in the same political and social circles, live in the same Chicago neighborhood and for years served on the board of a Chicago nonprofit.

Initially Obama said that he didn’t know about Ayers’ radical past but lately the senator has offered a different explanation; that he was only 8 years old when his buddy terrorized America. Yonkers Councilman John Murtagh, whose home was firebombed by Ayers’ group when he was 9, is offended by the rhetoric.

Murtagh’s dad was a New York Supreme Court justice when his home was targeted by the Weather Underground because his father was presiding over the trial of the “Panther 21,” members of the Black Panther Party indicted in a plot to bomb New York landmarks and department stores.

The councilman reminded Obama this week that his friend and longtime supporter tried to kill his family. “I’m not questioning what Barack Obama was doing when he was 8 years old,” said Murtagh, an attorney who also teaches public policy at Fordham University. “I’m questioning his behavior as an adult to choose his friend, mentor and longtime personal and professional colleague.”

Obama’s effort to erase Ayers from his past includes censoring television ads highlighting his decades-long relationship with the terrorist. Besides warning television stations across the nation to pull the incriminating spots—paid for by a conservative nonprofit—Obama asked the Justice Department to intervene. He also tried bullying advertisers to pressure stations that ran the commercial.

A seldom-reported fact that has greatly contributed to the nation’s financial crisis is that millions of illegal immigrants across the U.S. have fraudulent home mortgages and many have defaulted.

The illegal aliens obtained the loans from banks that were pressured by the government to offer them. In fact, the agency in charge of preserving and promoting public confidence in the nation’s financial system, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), began pushing banks to offer services to illegal immigrants a few years ago.

As a result, some 5 million fraudulent home mortgages are in the hands of illegal aliens, according to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), a cabinet-level agency that strives to increase access to affordable housing free from discrimination. Now U.S. banks routinely offer services to people without Social Security numbers by accepting the Mexican identification called matricula consular to open accounts.

Mexican border states and sanctuary cities have been hit especially hard by mortgage foreclosures although every region has been negatively impacted by the federally-encouraged illegal immigrant loan scam. One of dozens of examples features an illegal alien in Arizona arrested after using a stolen Social Security number to buy two homes and rack up nearly $1 million in debt.

The loan default rate among illegal immigrants is high because they are inherently unreliable, prone to fraud and may be forced to return to their home nation, according to a congressman representing a state that operated a mortgage fraud ring with hundreds of unqualified borrowers that used fake identities to get money.

Now the $700 billion government bailout of the nation’s financial system will help illegal immigrants who can’t afford their home loans. Isn’t it enough that U.S. taxpayers are already spending tens of billions of dollars annually for their education, health care and other costly social services?

An internal government investigation reveals widespread fraud in a special visa program that allows U.S. employers to hire educated foreign guest workers for specialty occupations.

Designed to enable foreign professionals—such as engineers, doctors, scientists and lawyers—make valuable contributions to the American economy, the H-1B visa permits U.S. companies to sponsor them for up to three years. The government annually grants 65,000 H-1B visas, which allow holders to subsequently apply for permanent U.S. residency (Green Card).

But the program is rife with the sort of corruption that undoubtedly compromises national security. A 15-page report, published by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) and made public by an Iowa senator this week, reveals that foreign workers forge documents, provide fake degrees and even nonexistent U.S. companies with bogus locations.

Serious violations are so common, according to the report, that one in five visas is affected by either fraud or other “technical” violations. In some cases foreign employees worked at jobs that differed from what they claimed on the visa application.

One supposedly highly educated professional from an unnamed country was caught working at a laundromat doing laundry and maintaining washing machines. The report rightfully concludes that the violations represent a “significant vulnerability,” which may seem like somewhat of an understatement.

A week after the $700 billion government bailout passes, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is calling on her colleagues to approve an additional $150 billion economic stimulus package to increase food stamps, extend benefits for the long-term unemployed and prevent cuts in public healthcare coverage for the uninsured.

The veteran San Francisco lawmaker led a similar effort last month that would have allocated around $60 million to fund those programs but Senate Republicans killed it after House approval and the president would have surely vetoed it.

The monstrous government bailout of the nation’s financial system and the Federal Reserve’s half-point interest rate cut this week are not enough to help struggling poor Americans, according to Pelosi who claims that much more must be done urgently to boost the economy and bring relief to families.

Madam Speaker is considering calling lawmakers back to Washington after the November 4 election to work on her brilliant multi billion-dollar stimulus package. If Barack Obama becomes president, her mission will be a lot easier since Republicans, especially President George W. Bush, are reluctant to further spending to boost the economy.

Pelosi stressed the dire urgency of her plan during a visit to Colorado, a presidential election battleground state, to praise a Denver hospital that has provided billions of (taxpayer) dollars worth of free care to uninsured patients. The Speaker claims that the hospital, Denver Health, is a model for the country’s future (socialized?) health care system.

Known for conducting fraudulent voter registration drives nationwide, the taxpayer-funded community group that Baracak Obama once worked for had its Nevada offices raided by state authorities after submitting forms with bogus names, including pro football players from another state.

It marks the third time in weeks that the Chicago-based Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) has been busted for falsifying voter registration forms. A few weeks ago the group, which strives to register low-income citizens, submitted fraudulent voter registration cards in the key battleground state of Florida, days after doing the same thing in New Mexico’s most populous county (Bernalillo).

In Nevada ACORN, which endorses its former star community organizer for president, submitted multiple voter registrations with false and duplicate names. Some forms contained fake addresses and others the names of famous personalities. The secretary of state’s office launched an investigation after noticing that names didn’t match addresses and that practically the entire Dallas Cowboy football team registered to vote for the November election in Nevada.

This could have something to do with the ground soldiers conducting these famous drives, which have reportedly registered more than a million new voters—mostly Democrats—across the country. It turns out that ACORN hired convicted felons to register voters in Las Vegas and in fact got many from a transitional housing facility operated by the Nevada Department of Corrections. In the Las Vegas search warrant affidavit one ACORN employee said many of the canvassers were “lazy crack heads” who were not interested in working and just wanted the money.

No wonder ACORN has been in trouble for falsifying information to register new voters across the country, including Milwaukee, Missouri, Ohio, North Carolina and Colorado to name a few. Last year the group settled the largest case of voter fraud in the history of Washington State after seven workers were caught submitting about 2,000 fake registration forms.

The son of a Democrat Tennessee legislator involved in Barack Obama’s presidential campaign has been indicted for hacking Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin’s personal electronic mail and posting the private information on a public web site.

The 20-year-old college student, son of Memphis state Representative Mike Kernell, was indicted by a federal grand jury in Knoxville for intentionally accessing without authorization the Alaska governor’s private e-mails. Not surprisingly, Papa Kernell, the chairman of Tennessee’s House Government Operation Committee, says he had absolutely nothing to do with the crime.

It turns out that the younger computer hack master Kernell, David, may also have connections to Obama campaign manager David Plouffe, a top Democratic strategist who incidentally accused the Clinton’s of widespread dirty politics during the primaries.

According to the indictment, David Kernell accessed Governor Palin’s account after answering a series of security questions that allowed him to reset the password. Then he made screenshots of Palin’s mail directory, mail content and other personal information. David Kernell then posted the information on a public web site.
The University of Tennessee economics major faces five years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

A Connecticut federal judge has ordered hearings to determine whether the Constitutional rights of illegal immigrants—some of whom ignored deportation orders—were violated by federal agents who arrested them.

The case involves last summer’s arrest of 31 illegal immigrants by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents in the New Haven area. More than half had pending court cases in Hartford and five had been previously deported yet continued living in the area.

During a regional roundup of such violators, federal agents arrested the group last June and immigration advocates immediately accused authorities of racial profiling. Attorneys representing the illegal immigrants argued that the federal agents violated the U.S. Constitution’s fourth and fifth amendments by conducting illegal searches, lacking probable cause and arresting people based on race.

Like many of his colleagues around the country, a federal immigration judge (Michael Straus) in Hartford sided with the illegal aliens’ pro bono advocate attorneys and ordered the hearings this week to determine the constitutionality of the raids. They are scheduled to begin before the end of the month.

New Haven offers illegal immigrants sanctuary which means police or city officials won’t report them to federal authorities for deportation. Last year the city became the first in the U.S. to issue municipal identification cards to illegal aliens so that they could enjoy public services and integrate into the community.

Similar illegal immigrant sanctuaries exist across the nation and a growing number openly offer taxpayer-financed services to undocumented residents. Texas alone has about a dozen illegal immigrant sanctuary cities and practically every municipality in California—most notoriously Los Angeles and San Francisco—is a sanctuary. Other well-known sanctuaries include Chicago, Phoenix, New York and New Jersey.