Broken Record

Mexican leftist losers: "Blah, blah, blah, blah, election fraud, blah, blah, blah." Give it a freaking rest.

Sunday's vote for governor in the oil-rich southern state of Tabasco was seen as a key test for Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador and the Democratic Revolution Party, or PRD, which blockaded Mexico City streets and led mass marches after alleging dirty tricks had robbed him of the presidency.

The streets in Tabasco were calm Monday after a campaign that had been marred by street fights and arrests of supporters of both candidates.

PRD officials said they would appeal the results of Sunday's election, which showed Andres Rafael Granier of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, defeating Democratic Revolution candidate Cesar Raul Ojeda by 10 points.

A second count of vote tallies was scheduled for Wednesday, but it was unlikely to change the result.

10% and they are still shooting off their mouths. On the bright side, at this rate they should pull in around 12-13 votes in the next election. Total.

Reid’s Troubles

Well, the MSM may be pretty well leaving Harry Reid alone on his ethical problems, but Ed Morrisey sure isn't. It turns out that Reid had more land parcel dealings that were not disclosed, not just the first one the AP reported.

Harry Reid went on offense yesterday … of a sort. Claiming that his failure to properly disclose his partnership with Jay Brown — an attorney with ties to a zoning-commission bribery case and reported links to organized crime — amounted to a Republican plot to make him look dishonest, Reid filed amended disclosures five years after the fact to note the transfer of his properties into his and Brown's LLCs. His big offensive ground to a halt, though, when he revealed two other land transactions that had never been disclosed, and another mini-scandal erupted involving his use of campaign funds:

….

Let's get this straight. Reid's failure to follow the Senate rules on disclosure in 2001, when he sat on the Ethics Committee, somehow got set up by the Republicans. Reid's connection to an attorney involved in a bribery case that directly related to zoning decisions in Clark County, where they both owned property, was a Rovian plot set in motion in 1998. And now Reid's new disclosures of property in an area where he has taken an intense legislative interest somehow relates to Republicans, when no one even mentioned the parcels in question — because Reid failed to disclose them during his entire time as Senate Minority Leader, while he has castigated Republicans for alleged ethical lapses.

Like Captain Ed, I think an ethics committee investigation is really necessary here. There is a raging double standard at work here. Reid wants everyone in the opposition party to adhere to rules but flouts those same rules himself. That needs to be looked into.

Why Too Much Alcohol Is Bad For You

Excessive drinking may lead to jail time. Even if you have to break into the jail to get it.

OSLO, Norway - In a different kind of jail break, a very drunk young man surprised prison guards by breaking into their northern Norway jail. "You might say we were a bit perturbed to find this person on our turf," prison warden Geir Broen said on the state radio network NRK on Monday.

Broen said the district prison in the Arctic town of Bodoe is rebuilding its outer fence, and that the man broke through a section of temporary fencing.

The weak fence is of no help to real prisoners seeking a way out, since they are confined within the walls of the jail compound.

The Norwegian, identified only as being in his 20s, was apparently was trying to find his way home after a Friday night party.

"I don't think this guy knew where he was, and he was pretty well under the influence," Broen said on the radio.

There is no word on whether the would be inmate was obeying the dress code or not.

EVANSVILLE, Ind. - Revealing tops are out and bras are now a must for women visiting prisoners at the Vanderburgh County Jail. Jail officials imposed a new dress code policy after several incidents in which women visiting the jail exposed themselves to male prisoners.

The new policy, posted at the jail's front desk, states that women cannot wear halter tops, sleeveless dresses and shirts, see-through garments, revealing dresses, and shorts cut higher than 2 inches above the knee.

Spandex and "extremely tight fitting" jeans or pants also are frowned upon.

"Adult female visitors, as well as females who would have need of a bra, shall be required to wear a bra," the draft policy also states.

Since the draft policy was posted last month, the jail has turned away a few women, said Katie Roy, a receptionist. Those include two women who tried to get in with low-cut shirts with spaghetti straps.

"When they came back, they had on hooded sweat shirts," Roy said. Unfortunately for those two, the jail also forbids hooded sweat shirts because they can conceal contraband.

Wearing a hoodie while visiting a hood is right out. They could always try breaking in, one supposes.

Cash On Hand

The Washington Post points out a potentially jarring note for all the people cheerleading a Democratic victory in the midterms. Despite the pronouncements of the Greatest Defeat In Modern Electoral History™, it appears that the Republicans have substantially more money on hand in close races than the opposition. That is not usually considered a sign of impending defeat.

Despite a rush of campaign donations to Democrats earlier this year, Republican incumbents in highly competitive races in the House have a substantial cash advantage going into the final weeks before the midterm elections.

Democrats spent more heavily over the summer and early autumn than their Republican rivals in pivotal House districts, leaving themselves at a disadvantage of more than 2 to 1 in money on hand, according to a Washington Post analysis of the latest campaign disclosures.

"What this means is that Republicans have the wherewithal to slow down the tide that's been running against them this year," said Michael J. Malbin, executive director of the nonpartisan Campaign Finance Institute, which tracks election funding.

To capture control of the House on Nov. 7, Democrats need to gain 15 seats. Analysts in both parties acknowledge that Republicans are virtually certain to lose at least a handful of seats. But whether that number falls short or surpasses the 15-seat threshold, they agree, could hinge on campaign fundamentals such as the amount of money available to candidates.

At the same time, Democrats are on a better financial footing in open seats — those in which an incumbent is not running. Of the 12 open House races considered tight, Republicans have more cash on hand in seven of them and Democrats are ahead in five, the Post analysis shows.

Election experts noted that funds raised by candidates are only part of the overall picture. This year, in particular, outside groups and the parties have been spending heavily in districts considered up for grabs.

But the cash in candidates' coffers is a significant factor in congressional contests, said Kent Cooper, co-founder of PoliticalMoneyLine.com, a campaign finance Web site. "It's also the best sign we have now" about which candidates hold an edge as the elections near, he said.

As I have said repeatedly, I am of two minds on the outcome of this election. I do not believe the cheerleading media reports, however. Many of those reports completely defy history or logic and appear to be running on straight wishful thinking. I'm taking all of the reports with a grain of salt the size of Detroit at the moment. If the Republican local candidates can refuse to rise to the bait and run a national campaign in the local races, the Democrats may get an unpleasant surprise in a few weeks. That cash on hand will be a vital part of that strategy.

UPDATE: Others: OTB, RWN, TMV, AJ Strata,

WaPo Coverage Of UNSC Balloting

The Washington Post calls the surprisingly lopsided voting results between Venezuela and Guatemala in the Security Council balloting a slap in the face for (T)Hugo Chavez. Prior to the actual voting, many experts had been predicting a walkover for the budding dictator. Alas for (T)Hugo, it appears to be a losing proposition.

Delegates at the United Nations had predicted that Venezuela would easily receive enough support for the seat, but the opening ballot showed Guatemala ahead 114 to 74. Venezuela gained votes through the day but never did better than a 93 to 93 tie with Guatemala. Afterward, several envoys expressed surprise that Venezuela had fared so poorly.

The result came as a relief to the United States, which had lobbied actively on behalf of Guatemala. Chavez's government, U.S. officials warned, would play a destructive role on the council, lending its support to those countries, including Iran, Sudan and North Korea, that have defied the United Nations.

It also represented a personal blow to Chavez, who had run a costly political campaign that involved millions of dollars in aid to poor countries as well as state visits to Russia, China and the Middle East.

Chavez may have undercut his country's chances with a provocative speech last month before the General Assembly, in which he described President Bush as "the devil." And once-solid support for Venezuela in South America, from countries including Chile and Paraguay, wavered after Chavez's government entered into a military pact with Bolivia, which has lost territory to both those countries.

That Chavez is a ham-handed interventionist in Latin America is really damaging him. That he is a boorish thug in the halls of the UN may be what really sank him. Judging by the way the balloting has progressed, there will have to be a compromise candidate unless Guatemala can secure an additional 15 votes. Since Chavez appears to have the dictator vote sewn up, that may be difficult. Where this really may damage Chavez is in the upcoming presidential election, however:

Alberto Garrido, an author and analyst in Caracas who has written several books on Chavez, said the vote is a serious setback for Chavez's campaign to project Venezuelan influence beyond Latin America.

Venezuela has bought foreign debt from Argentina, sold crude oil at cut-rate prices to smaller Caribbean islands and provided aid to Africa — all efforts designed, in part, to counter U.S. influence.

"This is a big setback in Chavez's strategy," said Garrido, whose latest book, "Chavez's Wars," deals with the president's conflicts with the Bush administration and other foes. "He had a plan to become the institutionalized voice of the south, if he had gotten that seat. This is a blow, perhaps the biggest blow in his geopolitical strategy."

In Venezuela, the government's failure to secure a seat was called "an embarrassing defeat" by Manuel Rosales, who is running against Chavez in December's presidential election. The president retains the support of a majority of Venezuelans, recent polls have shown, but opponents accuse him of ignoring spiraling crime, chronic unemployment and poverty while he focuses on making a name for himself abroad.

Note that it is Venezuelans criticizing Chavez. That could be a serious danger sign for him. One hopes.

UPDATE: Others: Publius, Wizbang, A Blog For All, Tigerhawk, Babalu, Fausta,

UPDATE: Tuesday voting still has Guatemala far ahead at 107-76, 8 abstentions.

A Lesson To Pay Attention To

John Tierney has an opinion piece in the Kansas City Star that provides a little bit of perspective on environmental scares. It is worth keeping in mind as the global warming debate continues.

In 1968, the year after the U.S. population reached 200 million, Linus Pauling, Jonas Salk and other scientific luminaries signed a full-page newspaper ad. It pictured a beatific baby in diapers who was labeled, in large letters, “Threat to Peace.”

“It is only being realistic,” the scientists warned, “to say that skyrocketing population growth may doom the world we live in.”

They shared the concerns of Paul Ehrlich, who was on the best-seller lists warning of unprecedented famines overseas in the 1970s and food riots on the streets of America in the 1980s.

Today, when the 300 millionth American is born, the parents will not be worrying about a national shortage of food. If anything, they’ll worry about their child becoming obese.

“Overpopulation” is history’s oldest environmental crisis, and it’s the most instructive for making sense of today’s debates about energy and climate change.

Four decades ago, scientists were so determined to prevent famines that they analyzed the feasibility of putting “fertility control agents” in public drinking water. Physicist William Shockley suggested using sterilization to impose a national limit on the number of births.

Those intellectuals didn’t persuade Americans to adopt their policies, but they had more effect overseas.

Tierney goes on to point out the untended consequences of the one child per family rule adopted by China. They are facing a shortage of workers to help support the rest of an aging population. The focus on short-term solutions is having - and will continue to have - long term negative consequences.

Tierney is not doing this to negate any attempt at solutions to the issue of global warming. He points it out to remind people that many of the short-term radical solutions being championed right now may have dire future consequences. It would be a very good idea to remember that as solutions are advanced in the policy arena. Some "solutions" will have severe negative effects on the economy and the standard of living.

Signs Of Awakening

A British Labor MP, Denis MacShane, writes an op-ed for the Telegraph that indicates that some people are waking up to the fact that Britain has a serious problem. It all started with Jack Straw's declaration that he asks Muslim women to remove their veils before he will speak to them. It has now started to gather steam. The people talking about it are drawing a hard distinction between Islam as a religion and Islamism as a political movement. (I make that distinction myself here. I do not believe the Islamists are advancing Islam. Rather, they are hiding behind religious trappings in a search for temporal power).

At long last, the debate on Islamism as politics, not Islam as religion, is out in the open. Two weeks ago, Jack Straw might have felt he was taking a risk when publishing his now notorious article on the Muslim veil. However, he was pushing at an open door. From across the political spectrum there is now common consent that the old multicultural emperor, before whom generation of politicians have made obeisance, is now a pitiful, naked sight.

The 10,000 Muslims in my constituency of Rotherham can only benefit from removing the dead hand of ideological Islamism – allowing their faith to be respected and their children to flourish in a Britain that finally wakes up to what must be done. Despite the efforts of extremists to prevent any sort of rational debate about the place of Islam in Britain, it is at last happening.

A fight-back is beginning to reclaim Britain from the grip of those who refuse to acknowledge the centrality of British values of tolerance, fair play and parliamentary democratic freedoms – notably those of free speech and respect for all religions, but supremacy for none. Voltaire noted this attribute of the English three centuries ago, when he wrote: "If there was just one religion in Britain there would be despotism. If two, there would be civil war. But as there are 30, they all live at peace with each other."

It is rather a long piece, but worth taking the time to read. The debate in Britain is being refocused. They appear to be moving away from knee-jerk multi-culturalism and questioning the political motives of those who spew hate. This is a good thing, I think. Many of us have been quite fearful of what we have seen happening in Britain over the past few years. It is time to wake up and start addressing the real issues. Another interesting bit from the op-ed:

An all-party commission on anti-Semitism that I chaired reported recently. Our most worrying discovery was the complacency on many university campuses about harassment of Jewish students. Jew-baiting behaviour that would have had the Left outraged in the 1930s is now actively encouraged by an unholy alliance of the hard Left and Islamist fundamentalists, and the odious anti-Semites who have infiltrated some lecturers' unions. Ruth Kelly, whose fealty to her faith matches that of any deeply religious British Muslim, is right to make clear there are now limits which must not be overstepped.

The apparent alliance between the left and the Islamists has long been commented on by various pundits. That it is now out in the open in political discourse in Britain is another hopeful sign.

WaPo Essentially Writes Off Lamont

The Washington Post writes about the political debate in the Connecticut Senate race held yesterday. For all intents, it might as well be an obituary for the Lamont campaign.

STAMFORD, Conn., Oct. 16 — Democratic Senate nominee Ned Lamont and Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (D-Conn.) met here Monday for their first general election debate, and the insurgent candidate did not get one direct question about the issue that dominated the August primary, the war in Iraq.

It was symptomatic of the predicament Lamont has found himself in since his stunning victory two months ago.

Then, he was hailed on the left as a political giant-killer who had demonstrated the power of national dissatisfaction with President Bush and the war. Today, his campaign is emblematic of the pitfalls of trying to marry a political insurgency with the party establishment. Tugged and pulled in different directions by old and new advisers, the wealthy businessman has been struggling to refocus his candidacy.

Monday's debate, which also included the Republican nominee, Alan Schlesinger, continued the war of words Lamont and Lieberman have conducted on television and by news release since the primary.

Lamont attacked Lieberman as a prisoner of the status quo on Iraq, health care and other issues. He chided Lieberman for going back on a pledge made in 1988, when he first ran for the Senate, not to serve more than three terms. "Well, Senator, it's been three terms, it's been 18 years," Lamont said. "Now you're part of that problem. Time's up."

Lieberman said Lamont would only deepen partisan divisions in Washington. "His finger-pointing, partisan blame-giving, petty political accusations is the last thing Washington needs more of," Lieberman said.

Now, given the sorry state of political reporting this year, I can't say as I put too much stock in anything I'm reading these days. This, however, does reinforce the other sources that show Lamont struggling. There is also the simple fact that Lamont is getting killed in the fund raising area. That is usually a decisive factor, no matter what you think of the state of political fund raising.

Isn't there a Cher movie Lamont's campaign can quote to magically turn everything around? Oh, never mind. That only works in the movies.

North Korea Declares War On World

North Korea announced that the UN sanctions against it amount to a declaration of war and that they would not yield now that they are a nuclear weapons power. There appear to be indications that the rogue regime is preparing a second nuclear test.

The North broke two days of silence about the U.N. resolution adopted after its Oct. 9 nuclear test, issuing a Foreign Ministry statement on its official Korean Central News Agency.

"The resolution cannot be construed otherwise than a declaration of a war" against the North, also known as the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

The North warned it "wants peace but is not afraid of war" and that it would "deal merciless blows" against anyone who violates its sovereignty.

The communist nation "had remained unfazed in any storm and stress in the past when it had no nuclear weapons," the statement said. "It is quite nonsensical to expect the DPRK to yield to the pressure and threat of someone at this time when it has become a nuclear weapons state."

China has long been one of North Korea's few friends, but relations have been frayed in recent months by Pyongyang's missile tests and last week's nuclear blast.

On Tuesday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao warned Pyongyang against aggravating tensions and said the North should help resolve the situation "through dialogue and consultation."

The verbal volley came as the U.S. pressed on with a round of diplomacy in Asia aimed at finding consensus on how to implement the sanctions. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was expected to arrive in Japan on Wednesday before traveling to South Korea and China.

After landing in Seoul on Tuesday, the U.S. nuclear envoy, Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill, said he couldn't confirm media reports that the North may be preparing for another test explosion.

But Hill stressed that the international community should make the North pay a "high price" for its "reckless behavior."

Hill told reporters he wanted to talk to South Korean officials about reports the North was getting ready for a second nuclear test. Japan's government also had "information" about another possible blast, Foreign Minister Taro Aso told reporters, without elaborating.

But a senior South Korean official told foreign journalists that despite signs of a possible second test, it was unlikely to happen immediately.

North Korea is becoming even more bellicose, rather than less. The tone of Chinese statements is very interesting. They actually do appear to be running out of patience with Kim's behavior.