DON’T MESS WITH TEXAS: The Attorney General of Texas Slaps Down the UN.  I hear Alabama has also served warning UN observers not welcome.  What I wonder is what is wrong with the other states, including mine.  Guys, if it’s not clear to you, the UN is in the grip of the thugocracies of the world.  It was predictable.  There’s more of them than of us.  Their hatred of the only liberal democracy in the Middle East is proof of this, if you need it.  Why we still fun this naive project is something else.  Nostalgia for past illusions?

UPDATE: From Reader Mark Lardas:

I am an election judge in Galveston County on Nov 6, so I have a dog in the fight.

There is both less and more than meets the eye on this story. Greg Abbott, the Attorney General of Texas informed these UN “Observers” of Texas State Law.

Basically, in Texas no one can remain within 100 feet of the entrance to a polling place if they do not have business there. What groups are permitted to remain?

1. Voters and those assisting a voter until the vote has been cast.
2. Election workers (this includes the staff running the polling place and county and state officials involved with running the election)
3. Appointed Poll Watchers
4. Federal election observers
5. Individuals whose normal activities require them to be at the polling location. (One example — teachers and students at a school being used as a polling place.)

Since they are unlikely to be voter, election workers, Federal election observers or have jobs at polling places, the only way they can remain at a polling place is if they are appointed poll watchers.

Who appoints poll watchers? Any political party, candidate, or ballot initiative interest group (pro or con) can — if the party, candidate or initative is on the ballot being voted. So, if the UN Observers qualify as poll watchers, they can be appointed by a relevant interested party. What does it take to qualify as a poll watcher? You have to be a qualified voter in the county in which the polling place is located. (For the full legal language see Chapter 33 of the Texas Election Code.) So the only UN Observers that can enter and remain within a polling place as poll watchers must be qualified voters in the county in which they choose to observer. And they are not admitted as UN Observers, but as appointed poll watchers representing a party, candidate or initative group. (I suppose they could arrange to assist voters — assistants do not have to be qualified voters or even US citizens, but assistants have to leave after that voter casts a ballot.)

As an election judge, if I observe anyone who does not have business within the polling place loitering there it is my responsibility to see that these individuals leave. I start out by informing them of the law and asking them to leave. If they refuse, I call the local police and have them removed. It does not matter whether the individual is a drunk trying to make sure their spouse votes “the right way” or the Secretary General of the United Nations.

Mark Lardas
League City, TX

UPDATE: Because this year I’m a poll observer, I’m a little more cognizant than I would otherwise have been, so I asked Mark if TX, unlike CO, does not require observers to be registered to vote in the state (in some states in that county.)  He checked, and yes TX does.  (He never needed to know it because if people present credentials he assumes they’re allowed to be there.)  The only way non citizens can be around is if they’re engaged in “voter assist.”  This of course makes me wonder why CO hasn’t protested the UN “observers.”

WALTER RUSSELL MEAD: News From Obama’s Home State.

Three states form the base of Democratic political power in the United States: California, New York and Illinois. All three states are locked in an accelerating economic, demographic and social decline; all three hope that they can stave off looming disaster at home by exporting the policies that have ruined them to the rest of the country.

Mary Williams Walsh, a talented reporter who is doing much to sustain the luster of the New York Times brand these days, has a must-read piece on the mess that is Illinois, and it is a compelling description of the misery and ruin that well-intentioned liberals combined with aggressive public sector labor unions inflict on the poor they ostensibly want to serve. . . .

This of course is President Obama’s home state; one wishes that he spent more time on the campaign trail describing his horror and remorse at what decades of bad government have done. Apparently, the subject holds no interest for him: no lessons to be learned here about where blue governance ultimately leads.

No, it’s more like Apres moi, le deluge.

CHANGE: White voters poised to abandon Obama in droves.

If so, here’s a sneak preview of how the postmortems will read.

RELATED: Obama campaign positions minorities, women behind president at most rallies.

BUT OF COURSE: Spending At State Dinners Soars Under Obama.

President Obama has spent far more lavishly on White House state dinners than previous chief executives, including nearly $1 million on a 2010 dinner for Mexico’s president, according to documents obtained by The Washington Examiner. Presidents have long used formal dinners to court foreign heads of state and to dish out fine food and wine to reward political, financial and show business celebrities and supporters.

But current and former government officials said the documents obtained by The Examiner point to an unprecedented upsurge in White House spending on such events.

The Obama extravaganza two years ago for Mexican President Felipe Calderon, which included a performance by pop star Beyonce, cost $969,793, or more than $4,700 per attendee, the documents show.

The Calderon dinner was held on the South Lawn in a massive tent adorned with decorated walls, hanging chandeliers, carpeting and a stage for Beyonce’s performance.

The dinner for the prime minister of India — which was famously crashed by Virginia couple Michaele and Tareq Salahi — cost nearly half a million dollars. Dinners for Chinese Premier Hu Jintao and British Prime Minister David Cameron were of the same level of extravagance.

A knowledgeable government official who made the documents available to The Examiner said the extravagant spending seemed unfair with so many Americans out of work.

Nonsense.

WAR ON MEN:  Mistresspieces: why switching art by men and women doesn’t work.  Thank heavens, in the coming matriarchy women are sensitive and refined and won’t do anything as crass as… Oh, forget it!  Even sarcasm hurts.

GET IN THEIR FACES; PUNCH BACK TWICE AS HARD, THE PRESIDENT ADVISED: Ugly: Liberals Turn to Dirty Tricks, Violence as Election Approaches.

RELATED: The Era of the Thug in American Politics?

DOES THE NFL observe its tax-exempt status?

SO YOU WANT TO DRIVE AN AMERICAN CLASSIC: Ford may have just the ticket for you, brand new modern steel-reinforced, welded and rust-proofed 40 Ford Coupe bodies. It’s part of a restoration line that includes the 32 Deuce Coupe and the 65-70 Mustangs. All you add is a powertrain – “that thang got a Hemi?” – an interior, and a chassis, and you’re in business. See, free markets satisfy customer needs, dreams AND memories!

AT AMAZON, fall markdowns on laptops and desktops.

WHEN AMERICANS SAW THE REAL OBAMA: Peggy Noonan on “Why the Denver debate changed everything:”

Mr. Obama’s was a White House that had—and showed—no respect for Republicans trying to negotiate with Republicans. Through it all he was confident—”Eric, don’t call my bluff”—because he believed, as did his staff, that his talents would save the day.

They saved nothing. Washington became immobilized.

Mr. Woodward’s portrait of the president is not precisely new—it has been drawn in other ways in other accounts, and has been a staple of D.C. gossip for three years now—but it is vivid and believable. And there’s probably a direct line between that portrait and the Obama seen in the first debate. Maybe that’s what made it so indelible, and such an arc-changer.

People saw for the first time an Obama they may have heard about on radio or in a newspaper but had never seen.

They didn’t see some odd version of the president. They saw the president.

And they didn’t like what they saw, and that would linger.

But all of this was known to half the country by the fall of 2008. Why didn’t it penetrate Peggy’s radar back then?

THE MONTH ISN’T OVER YET, THOUGH: October ‘surprises’ flop; White House race unchanged.

RELATED: Wes Pruden on “Throwing the kitchen sink,” and the history of October surprises through the years.

VOTER FRAUD UPDATE: Criminal investigation underway in Moran voter fraud case. “Patrick Moran resigned from his father’s reelection campaign after Project Veritas released video showing him coaching someone on how to commit voter fraud, and now the police are investigating the case.”

BACKWARD RAN THE PROGRESSIVES UNTIL REELED THE MIND; where it all ends knows God.

I QUESTION THE TIMING: U.S. to Pay to Replace Flood-Damaged Buildings at U. of Iowa.

DOES ANYONE TELL THE TRUTH ABOUT THIS STUFF? University lied about racial admissions, study says.

Related: “Independent Study” Shows UCLA is Cheating on Admissions.

CHANGE: Pew: GOP Enthusiasm for Presidential Race at All-Time High.

HOLES IN THE HULL: In his Friday column, Jonah Goldberg writes that Obama’s military rhetoric in the third presidential debate, was “an example of how thoroughly liberalism has confused sneering for intellectual confidence…Obama’s argument — if that’s not too generous a word — is that the Navy in particular, and the military in general, can do so much more because of technological advances:”

What innovation does he have in mind? Many of our warplanes and nearly all of our major naval vessels are much older than the pilots and sailors flying and sailing them. It’s great to talk up the benefits of innovation, but that argument starts to sputter when you realize we are often relying on the innovation of older generations. For all his talk about the game Battleship, we haven’t built a real battleship in almost 70 years, and the Navy hasn’t had one in its arsenal for decades.

(more…)

OBAMAS DID MILLION-DOLLAR MEALS IN THE WHITE HOUSE WHILE JOBLESS AMERICANS LOOKED FOR WORK: And trust me, there is much more to this story than a president and First Lady using tax dollars to make like Gatsby. Today’s piece in The Washington Examiner is just the first course, so to speak.

CHRISTIAN ADAMS: Pat Moran Relied on Civil Rights Lawyers for Voter Fraud.

Now we know why civil rights groups like the NAACP, ACLU, and the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights are so upset about election integrity groups like True the Vote monitoring the polls on November 6. Pat Moran gave us a clue yesterday.

Moran revealed on James O’Keefe’s undercover video why these groups have been so dishonest, ugly, and desperate to smear True the Vote and keep them out of the polls.

Simply, the “election protection” operation of these civil rights groups was seen, at least to Moran, as the final step in committing voter fraud.

Moran was the field director of his father’s reelection campaign and worked out of the joint campaign office for President Obama and Democrat Senate candidate Tim Kaine in Virginia.

Let’s look at the full video of Moran that led to his firing from the campaign.

In the video, O’Keefe’s plant tells Moran that he has a pile of names of inactive voters. The plant wants to drive a van around and vote for them. Because Virginia’s voter ID law is a joke, and a utility bill will suffice, the plant intends to use phony utility bills. Moran suggests ways to advance the scheme, including forgery using Microsoft Word.

Enter the “election protection” efforts of the civil rights groups. In case these phony utility bills create a stir inside the polls, Moran has the solution – the army of left-wing lawyers who will be embedded inside the polls from groups like the ACLU, the NAACP, and the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights.

The plant doubts Virginia “will be really strict about enforcing” the new pseudo-voter ID law.

Moran has just the ticket for questionable phony utility bills – the “election protection” lawyers from the left. . . . There is no way, of course, to know if the civil rights groups consider themselves cogs in a voter fraud machine. But one thing we do know for sure is that a top Democrat Party field operative does consider them so.

I think we’re going to find that things are rottener than we ever realized.

HOW’S THAT HOPEY-CHANGEY STUFF WORKIN’ OUT FOR YA? (CONT’D): 8,803,335: Another New Record for Disability—Up 975 Per Day Under Obama.

LAWYERS VS. PROSTITUTES, A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS. A larger percentage of the latter’s clients leave happy and relaxed, I’d say. . . .

AN INCONVENIENT REPORT:  “Current TV, the ratings-challenged cable network started by former Vice President Al Gore, has put itself up for sale, The Post has learned.”

Perhaps Al had second thoughts about the direction of his life after this recent headline at Reason.

#SANDY SMACKS CARIBBEAN, EAST COAST BRACES FOR IMPACT; 11 people in Cuba have died due to Hurricane Sandy, according to CNN, quoting Cuban state news. Much more, including photos, at Twitchy.

HOW’S THAT HOPEY-CHANGEY STUFF WORKIN’ OUT FOR YA? (CONT’D): Iconic NY Steakhouse “Gallagher’s”, Which Survived The Great Depression, Is Closing.

SOMEBODY TELL JOE BIDEN HE NEEDS TO WORK OUT: Exercise May Stop Brain Shrinkage.