Kouri-Syrian attack on Israeli patrol results in retaliation & North Carolina group exposes illegal voting practices

(Jim Kouri,CPP, is a long time friend and columnist for The Morning Zone on AM650 KGAB and at online radio www.kgab.com Jim is the fifth Vice President and Public Information Officer of the National Association of Chiefs of Police, has served on the National Drug Task Force and trained police and security officers throughout the country. 

~~By: Jim Kouri~~

Within 48-hours of President Barack Obama's ending his first trip to Israel as America's leader, which ended Friday, Israeli government officials reported that gunshots aimed at an Israeli patrol early on Sunday compelled a quick military response, according to the Israeli government.

"The shooting endangered the lives of our soldiers, and we were forced to attack and destroy the position from which the [gunfire] came, " Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz, a commander with the Israeli Defense Force (IDF), told members of the news media.

It was "a reminder of the sensitive reality" that now exists on Israel's northern region, Gantz noted.

Members of an IDF unit fired a guided missile that struck and destroyed Syrian soldiers who had set up an outpost. The missile reportedly took out a machine gun nest, during a brief cross-border exchange of gunfire that erupted after an IDF patrol came under fire in the Golan Heights.

Violent incidents along the Syrian border have risen since the rebellion against Syria's dictator, Bashar Assad, began two years ago.

Meanwhile, the Syrian government claims that the deadly bombing that tore into a mosque in the center of the populated Syrian capital of Damascus killing a revered Islamic scholar a day earlier possessed the earmarks of an al-Qaeda attack.

The terrorist act entailed a suicide bomber blowing himself up inside al-Iman Mosque in Damascus while Mohammad Said Ramadan al-Bouti was lecturing dozens of worshipers. Besides the religious scholar, 49 people were killed and 84 others were wounded.

Syria accused the rebels of blasting the mosque in order to "terminate" al-Bouti, who is known in the Middle East for being anti-terrorist and critical of the many of the rebel groups.

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~~By: Jim Kouri~~

The North Carolina State Board of Elections intends to prosecute five suspects who allegedly voted in both Florida and North Carolina during the November 2012 election cycle, according the leader from the Voter Integrity Project of North Carolina in an interview with Fox News Channel's Eric Shawn on Sunday morning.

Lt. Col. Jay DeLancy (U.S. Air Force-Ret.) noted that his group investigated and identified the voters to both states’ election offices earlier last month.

"Thanks to the relatively accessible election records in both Florida and North Carolina, this research was possible,” said Col. Jay DeLancy, who serves as executive director of VIP-NC, “but we have every reason to believe this is only the tip of the iceberg.”

The group thoroughly examined Florida's election records to identify November 2012 voters who listed an alternate address in North Carolina and then compared that list with the N.C. voter history files. They found over 300 who appeared to be registered in both states and 33 who appeared to have voted in both state’s elections, which is a felony, DeLancy told FNC's Shawn.

“We turned our list of 33 suspects over to both the Florida Secretary of State’s office and the North Carolina Board of Elections office and asked them to investigate,” said Delancy. “Don Wright, the chief counsel for N.C. State Board of Elections gave us the news that five of our suspects had matching signatures in both states and that his office would refer them [to the state's attorney general] for prosecution.”

Under N.C. law, the State Board of Elections can prosecute election finance crimes but not election fraud laws and the Voter Integrity Project of North Carolina has asked the State Legislature to change that condition, according to the Fox interview.

“It is up [to] the respective District Attorneys if they intend to prosecute the cases,” wrote Don Wright in an email to the VIP-NC, dated March 5, 2013. The agency is yet to release the names or counties of the suspected felons.

Col. DeLancy attributes lack of prosecution authority at the state's election as a key factor in the public claims by many groups that “no vote fraud happens in NC” and that “voter ID is a solution in search of a problem,” as many voter ID opponents have often repeated.

“Vote fraud deniers make nice poetry and they give good sound bites,” said DeLancy, “but the idea is as absurd as claiming that no speeding happens on I-40 unless the Highway Patrol writes tickets.”

The group also used their findings to press for NC to join a multi-state voter history database that was established by Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach.

“The multi-state data base would bring transparency to cases of college students and snowbirds that live in two states and vote in both of them,” said DeLancy. “Except in open-information states like Florida and NC, this type crime has been very difficult if not impossible to detect.”

The group believes the data base would help bring “driver license type controls” to the public’s voter registrations.