It’s funny watching all the Bush administration alums on Fox despairing over the necessity of outreach to the Hispanic community. (Also at PJ Media, “Yes, George W. Bush Might Well Be the Last Republican President.”)  These were the same people who refused to “dignify” the rabid coordinated leftist attacks on President Bush with a response. It would “just prolong the story,” they told us.

We are still suffering from their failure to understand the left and fight back, as seen by the fact that Ohio exit polls showed voters still blamed Bush for the bad economy. That’s what I call prolonging a story.

All the talk about “appealing” to Hispanics by rewarding the lawlessness of illegal immigration is another example of some Republicans failing to understand the enemy on the left.  Racial interest groups beholden to the Democrat Party will not stand down simply because the Republican Party endorses a form of amnesty.  To hope that Hispanics will politically drift to the GOP after immigration concessions overlooks the racial stranglehold groups like the NAACP and La Raza (yes, “The Race”) have over political dialogue and organizing.

I saw the same Bush-era racial naivete play out in 2006 when Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act was up for renewal.  Many in the GOP viewed the renewal as a “chance to reach out to minorities.”  Sound familiar?

The Bush administration and the then-chairman of the House Judiciary Committee deliberately decided to give the NAACP and the other racial groups whatever they wanted in the reauthorization of the Voting Rights Act.  The offer was accepted and the NAACP and MALDEF asked for the reversal of two Supreme Court cases by statute that had the effect of allowing “any” discriminatory effect to justify an objection to a law under the Voting Rights Act. (I have written about the complicated legal changes extensively here at PJ Media and will not do so again in this post.)  This 2006 change was directly responsible for blocking voter ID laws in Texas and South Carolina in 2010 and citizenship verification laws in Georgia in 2009.

The Republicans were proud of their minority outreach in the summer of 2006.  President Bush signed the law in a White House ceremony with the race hustler Al Sharpton and other familiar faces in attendance. Surely this “outreach” would buy peace for the Republicans, right?

Wrong. No sooner had the ink dried on the paper than all of the race groups turned on President Bush. The next two years heard a constant drumbeat in the media and from some of the same people invited to the signing ceremony that Bush was an “enemy of minority rights.” The racial groups were particularly venomous toward the administration.

The only thing I can say good about tonight is I am going to keep selling a lot of copies my book Injustice.  But I’d gladly trade having a New York Times bestseller for a president who respects the Rule of Law.

One wonders how Romney lost this election.  Unemployment and gas prices were up.  Respect for American power was down.  There are probably many plays which should have been called differently, but others will sort that out.

So what happens next?  The Founders gave us a Constitutional architecture which was designed to delay the arrival of demagogues.  And make no mistake about it, Obama is a demagogue.  He has totalitarian tendencies which manifest over and over and over again.  Whether attacking religious liberty, or secured Chrysler bondholders, this man comes from a worldview distinctly un-American.

Thankfully the Constitution still is operative.  Some of the liberties the Founders secured are still ours to treasure.  The press remains free.  We can still assemble. And I suspect after tonight, gun ownership will substantially increase.

But another part of our Constitutional architecture provides solace tonight – the 10^th Amendment. Sure, we’ve heard the 10^th thrown about for years.  But tonight it ripened. Whatever powers aren’t given to the federal government, it doesn’t have.  And the states are empowered to push back against federal power.

Vicki McKenna tweets this photo of a Milwaukee (WI) Department of Public Works van delivering voters to a poll in Wisconisn.

Texas GOP Vote has the full press release:

In addition, we have seen the reports that many of you saw on Townhall.com, the Drudge Report, and local media regarding events at the Acres Homes polling location on Friday and the inappropriate behavior by the NAACP. Any means of pushing a candidate or issue within the boundaries of the polling site violates Texas law. It is a well-known and enforced law; therefore, there is little excuse for the NAACP regarding this behavior. Harris County has measures in place to assist voters who have difficulty standing and the NAACP should not cherry-pick which voters deserve to go first. Harris County runs the election process, not the NAACP. If the NAACP plans to have people around the polls, they should properly train them on what is legal and appropriate behavior just as the rest of us do with our workers. We urge the County Attorney Vince Ryan (D) to take appropriate action

What happened inside these polls is almost certainly a crime.  The NAACP representatives allowing some voters to cut lines, regardless of the reason, were probably there illegally.  What is most troubling is how Harris County Attorney Vince Ryan’s office seems to be running interference for the lawbreakers, providing excuses and alternative explanations for the illegal conduct. 

 

 

 

 

 

Around the country, Democrats and their handmaidens in the media are attacking conservative groups who will watch the polls under various state laws. The Democrats don’t want them inside the polls for reasons we all can predict. Democrats have lied and said these pollwatchers will hassle voters.

In Virginia, one state where conservative poll watchers will be active by the thousands, the law doesn’t even allow pollwatchers to engage voters.

But like so much about the modern Democratic Party, the law is but an obstacle to be circumvented. In Virginia, Democrats tried to do it in court.

Democrats sued Fairfax County in an effort to allow their pollwatchers to do what they are falsely accusing conservative pollwatchers of planning – aggressive interaction with voters.

The Democrats dragged Cameron Quinn, the busy county administrator, to court in the week before Election Day in a spurious lawsuit. They claimed instructions not to talk to voters were a violation of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and Virginia law.

But the Democrats couldn’t back up their claims and the case was tossed.

This is the latest failed attempt by the Democrat Party to influence the administration of the election by hook or crook. They seek to exclude conservatives from exercising legal rights to observe the election by falsely characterizing a vast voter intimidation conspiracy. Yet then the NAACP breaks Texas law inside a Houston poll and the Democrats fall silent.

Maybe they are too busy falsely accusing True the Vote of nefarious voter intimidation plots.

Intimidation of voters is a serious issue. But in their training, True the Vote ensures that their poll watchers do not talk to voters at all. Poll watchers are there to ensure election officials do their jobs. Having poll watchers of any party talk to voters would amount to electioneering inside the polls and possibly even intimidation.

But that is precisely what the Democrats in Virginia brought a lawsuit to do.

Democrats asked the court to overrule the nonpartisan election officials and allow their lawyers rights to roam the polls and chat with voters.

Imagine it: a lawyer in an expensive three-piece suit will be telling people how to vote.

Does anyone think partisan poll watchers for Obama are going to be as helpful to voters who are voting for Romney or other candidates as for Obama? Does anyone really believe that partisan poll watchers won’t electioneer for Obama inside the polling places?

That is why all of True the Vote’s training is adamant that poll watchers should not even tell a voter where the restroom is. They are at the polling places to observe election officials and document what happens. It is ironic that the Democrats who are claiming intimidation by True the Vote-trained poll watchers before the election are asking a judge for the right to interact with voters inside the polls.

The whirlgig of time is bringing revenge on the Democrats. A few weeks ago, they were in a swivet about Tea Party poll watchers by the tens of thousands standing silently in the polls with clipboards. Then the Democrats sued to interact with voters in Virginia. You just can’t beat the hypocrisy.

Fox Boston has the story.

When police arrested Joel Santiago-Vazquez last year, they found a stash of powder and crack cocaine hidden in a false bottom of a Pringles potato chip can.

Police also found, according to their report, that federal immigration authorities had “no record of (his) entering the country”. A detainer was issued, and Santiago-Vazquez became one more illegal immigrant caught in the crosshairs of the federal government.

But FOX Undercover found out something else about Santiago-Vazquez. He’s been registered to vote from his home address in Lawrence since 2010.

Here’s the worst part – Massachusetts election officials don’t seem to care.

Lawrence mayor Willie Lantigua wouldn’t return our phone calls, so FOX Undercover investigative reporter Mike Beaudet caught up with him outside City Hall.

“Wanted to talk to you about the voter list in the city,” Beaudet said, but Lantigua just said “Hello” and continued walking to his truck.

“We found some problems there are people who are registered – you’re not going to talk to us sir. Aren’t you the mayor of the city? Sir why can’t you just answer some questions?” Beaudet said as Lantigua got in his truck and drove away.

 

We can learn a lot from Democrats by what they oppose. While Maryland Congressman Elijah Cummings tells us there is no vote fraud, fellow Maryland congressional candidate Wendy Rosen is committing federal felonies by voting both in Maryland and Florida. While the NAACP is leading the charge against photo voter identification, Lessadolla Sowers from the NAACP heads off to prison for voting for dead voters. While Brian Moran, Virginia’s Democrat chair, rails against voter integrity, his nephew Pat is caught on camera plotting the use of forged documents at the polls to help President Obama.

Indeed, we learn much by what they oppose. It certainly explains their existential opposition to True the Vote’s training of the poll-watching army on Tuesday.

But this year, their hypocrisy has reached a diabolical crescendo. The Obama campaign has sought to unleash law enforcement officials across the United States against law-abiding citizens who exercised state and federal laws to clean up the voter rolls and monitor the polls.

It is bad enough when Eric Holder refuses to enforce laws to maintain the voter rolls. It is even worse when his political buddies like Obama campaign lawyer Robert Bauer try to intimidate people who clean up Holder’s mess by badgering state election officials.

As Michael Barone aptly identified this crowd years ago – Obama runs a thugocracy. For that reason alone, in a land that loves liberty, they must be removed from power on Tuesday.

The Obama thugs have infiltrated every corner of the nation – from Sowers at civil rights groups like the NAACP, to the spokeswoman Tracy Schmaler at the Justice Department who smoothed over the bloody Fast and Furious mayhem; from Malik Zulu Shabazz getting a pass on voter intimidation, to the petty, small, impersonal lifelong bureaucrat Steve Rosenbaum at the DOJ who made it happen. Each person plays a small part in making the thugocracy function.

Because America is a land with chords of memory which find thuggery anathema, Obama will lose on Tuesday.

I first experienced the rising thugocracy watching a famous Hollywood celebrity lead a rally where Republican voters were intimidated from entering the polls to vote. I was in West Palm Beach, Florida, in 2004 at the early voting site on Military Trail. There, a giant purple SEIU rally stood in front of the single entrance. Danny DeVito led the mob.

I watched Bush voter after Bush voter (known by bumperstickers) at DeVito’s rally suffer identification by a SEIU member posted in the parking lot. As each voter exited their car, the SEIU thug pointed and followed the person, announcing to the mob that they were a voter for Bush.  The mob made passage difficult to impossible.

I was not alone in watching DeVito’s SEIU mob block the polls. National Review had this to say at the time:

We’re already witnessing the organized bullying of voters in the hotly contested swing state of Florida. According to a disturbing report in the South Florida Sun-Sentinel: “With early voting taking place in busy public places like City Halls and libraries, voters are voicing complaints of being blocked by political mobs, or being singled out for their political views. Others say they have been grabbed, screamed at and cursed by political partisans of all stripes.”

“Special-interest groups are trying to whip everybody into a frenzy and get everybody upset,” LePore said. “Campaigns and their observers are confronting the workers and the voters. Things have gotten nasty and ugly.”   “LePore said campaign workers followed voters into polling places and handed out literature next to the voting machines. Other voters standing in line were told the machines don’t work and that they should vote absentee.”

Actors Danny DeVito and Rhea Perlman led a rally at the entrance to another polling location, prompting poll watcher Lawrence Gottfried to intervene. “I said, ‘Look Mr. DeVito, I’m a big fan of yours and Rhea’s, but you are blocking the entrance.

I was there. The account in National Review is accurate. Danny DeVito egged on union thugs who were preventing Republicans from entering the polls.

*Hurricane Sandy isn’t the only storm approaching Washington. So is an electoral storm. President Obama’s job approval has fallen a stunning seven points in just three days. Overnight, Sandy’s minimum central pressure plunged to a staggering 951 mb. That’s lower than the snow bomb that wrecked the East Coast in 1993. Other ominous signs have appeared.

The polls show a president on the run. Romney is ahead or pressing hard in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and even Michigan. Virginia and North Carolina seem lost to Obama. So does Florida.

James O’Keefe has released videos showing Democrat campaign operatives assisting voter-fraud schemes and explicitly relying on Obama election-protection lawyers to advocate for the fraudsters inside the polls. A foolish and embarrassing video was cut with happening-girl Lena Dunham comparing voting for the president to something else.

Show that advertisement to fathers of daughters across Pennsylvania, Ohio, Wisconsin, and Michigan and tell me it is a net positive for Obama.

Look in, to the eye of the storm,

Look out, to the force without form.

This is the state of the Obama campaign. Disarray, criminality on tape, and retreat. Frankly, there hasn’t been a bigger disintegration the last few weeks of a campaign in my lifetime. The Obama campaign hasn’t been on offense since the disaster of the first presidential debate.

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:

Moran: I think the poll will be pretty trained up on it because they’ll be ready for all the voter protection. They’ll be cracking down.  You’ll have somebody in house that if they feel that what you have is legitimate they’ll argue for you.  And I imagine that…

Plant:   The OFA lawyer?

Moran: The OFA lawyer, yeah, or provided by the communities or the committees. 

Take note – Moran explicitly says the lawyers from Obama’s Organizing for America, the communities, or the committees would be in the polls who will “argue for” the phony utility bill to be counted. “Voter protection” refers to the efforts by civil rights groups to place lawyers at the polls to push through and advocate for voters with questionable eligibility.

If we ever saw a reason why states should enact real photo-identification requirements, Pat Moran just gave it to us. Not only is the system vulnerable, but top Democrat field operatives understand how the civil rights groups in the polls combined with criminal behavior could result in illegal voting.

O’Keefe’s plant also says “there’s a law and then there’s enforcement.”

Moran lets loose:

And there will be a lot of voter protection.  So if they just have the utility bill or a statement  … but they can fake a utility bill with ease.

And

But it has to be like a utility bill or something like that.  So you have to forge it.

To make sure that the voters don’t actually vote, Moran urges the plant to call them ahead of time. “And then identify.  I think that first sweep, just call, hey, I’m calling up … you can even just call and be like a pollster.”

Now we know why these civil rights groups don’t want True the Vote and Tea Party groups in the polls on Election Day.

Moran’s suggestion ensures the criminal only votes for voters who never planned to vote.

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. We know for sure that this top field operative saw poll monitors from groups like the NAACP and the Lawyers’ Committee as the final component to ensure that voters possessing utility bills forged on Microsoft Word would cast a ballot in a key swing state.

Two weekends remain before election day – just enough time for movie fans to pop in a couple of flicks. These suggestions aren’t obvious election-related films like 2016, or Occupy Unmasked.  For starters, these movies aren’t necessarily as depressing. They can instead be hilarious, uplifting, and fascinating. But each one has something to say.

1. Avalon 

Avalon is the gorgeous Barry Levinson story of Russian-Jewish immigrants who came to America, and who came to love America. They proudly sought America’s material promise and spiritual freedom. They built things, they raised families, they dreamed. They realized that no place on Earth offered the same life to those determined to work hard. Sometimes they failed, but that didn’t stop them. Sometimes they made mistakes, but they learned. Avalon is the story of what happens when the goodness of a nation is matched with good people. It is a story of what makes our nation great and what Americans have treasured for generations.

2. Idiocracy

If Avalon is poetic and beautiful, this Mike Judge comic farce is ugly and lowbrow, except it really isn’t. Idiocracy is the story of an “average” American who is frozen 500 years and awakens to a totally transformed America. Law, culture, morals, ambition, intelligence, initiative, thrift, industry and competence have all rotted away. The movie is a comic romp through the resulting society. Planes fall from the sky, government planning leads to near famine, and sugar drinks flow through tubes to millions watching TV on the couch.