Briefly Noted: December 2012

The Left’s obsession with voter ID laws amounts to “disenfranchisement hysteria,” according to Colorado Secretary of State Scott Gessler (R). Photo ID requirements for voting, whether instituted in America or anywhere in the world, are “correlated with … substantial increased voter turnout, and a whole lot of good things, and I think that shows that some of this disenfranchisement hysteria is, frankly, frankly silly,” Gessler said during a panel discussion at the Heritage Foundation in Washington, D.C.

Democrats enlisted thousands of young illegal immigrants to drag their supporters to the polls last month, the Wall Street Journal reports. Because the workers are already unlawfully present in the United States, presumably all employment they engage in—including electioneering—already violates laws against unauthorized employment. One of the leading groups exploiting the free labor of undocumented workers is the Colorado Immigrants Rights Coalition (CIRC). Illegal campaign workers “are winning the hearts and minds of Coloradans through their efforts,” said CIRC executive director Julien Ross. CIRC is a “partner” with the far-left Center for Community Change and the National Day Laborers Organizing Network.

During early voting last month NAACP activists reportedly took over a Houston, Texas polling station, urged voters to vote for the Obama-Biden presidential ticket, and also gave them rewards to do so. True the Vote-trained poll watcher Eve Rockford said members of the group appeared at the polling place wearing NAACP-labeled clothing. She said activists handed out water bottles to individuals standing in line waiting to vote and were also “stirring the crowd” and “talking to voters about flying to Ohio to promote President Barack Obama.” NAACP members also moved Obama supporters to the front of the line, she said.

The U.S. Supreme Court declined to review the terrorism convictions of four leaders of a defunct U.S. Muslim charity. The men were found guilty in 2008 of using the Holy Land Foundation to funnel millions of dollars to the Palestinian organization Hamas, which the State Department labels a terrorist group. The foundation was closed by the government after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) was named as an unindicted co-conspirator by the judge at the original trial.

An attorney for an all-nude Latham, N.Y. strip club called Nite Moves contends the establishment is a tax-exempt entity because state law gives tax exemptions for “dramatic or musical art performances” at a “cabaret or similar place.” Lawyer W. Andrew McCullough told the state’s Court of Appeals that “the state of New York has no business differentiating between the Bolshoi and what we do.” The Nonprofit Quarterly opines, “Possibly tempering [club owner Steven] Dick’s credibility as a First Amendment defender is the fact that his passion in this arena seems to have coincided with his realization that he owed the state hundreds of thousands of dollars in outstanding sales tax payments.”