{"id":17676,"date":"2016-10-23T00:48:44","date_gmt":"2016-10-23T00:48:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=17676"},"modified":"2016-10-23T00:48:44","modified_gmt":"2016-10-23T00:48:44","slug":"dont-mess-with-texas-polling-places","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=17676","title":{"rendered":"Don&#8217;t mess with Texas polling places"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/Screen_Shot_Russian_Consulate_in_Houston_jpg_800x1000_q100.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-17677\" src=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/Screen_Shot_Russian_Consulate_in_Houston_jpg_800x1000_q100-300x200.jpg\" alt=\"screen_shot_russian_consulate_in_houston_jpg_800x1000_q100\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" srcset=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/Screen_Shot_Russian_Consulate_in_Houston_jpg_800x1000_q100-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/Screen_Shot_Russian_Consulate_in_Houston_jpg_800x1000_q100-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/Screen_Shot_Russian_Consulate_in_Houston_jpg_800x1000_q100.jpg 800w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>A motto designed to call attention to littering in Texas long ago took on new life as a macho mantra: <em>Don&#8217;t mess with Texas.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Well, I guess I ought to\u00a0apply the perverted\u00a0definition of that motto here.<\/p>\n<p>Don&#8217;t mess with Texas polling officials and places. This warning goes to the Russian government, which has declared its desire to &#8220;monitor&#8221; the U.S. presidential election that will occur on Nov. 8.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.texastribune.org\/2016\/10\/21\/texas-russian-official-dont-tread-our-polling-plac\/\">https:\/\/www.texastribune.org\/2016\/10\/21\/texas-russian-official-dont-tread-our-polling-plac\/<\/a><\/p>\n<p>The state&#8217;s top elections official, Secretary of State Carlos Cascos, has declined the Russian request to place observers at polling places in Texas.<\/p>\n<p>Good call, Mr. Secretary.<\/p>\n<p>As the Texas Tribune reported: \u201cPlease note that only persons authorized by law may be inside of a polling location during voting. All other persons are not authorized and would be committing a class C misdemeanor crime by entering,\u201d Cascos <a href=\"https:\/\/static.texastribune.org\/media\/documents\/DOC093016_1.pdf\"><u><span style=\"color: #0066cc;\">wrote last month in a letter<\/span><\/u><\/a> to Alexander K. Zakharov, the Russian consul general in Houston. \u201cWe are unable to accommodate your request to visit a polling station.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Frankly, I consider the Russian request to be the height &#8212; or perhaps the depth &#8212; of hubris.<\/p>\n<p>Has the Kremlin bought into Republican presidential nominee Donald J. Trump&#8217;s allegation that the\u00a0vote-counting will be &#8220;rigged&#8221; to produce Hillary Rodham Clinton&#8217;s election as the next president?<\/p>\n<p>Indeed, U.S. intelligence officials across the board have stated their belief that Russia has been orchestrating the WikiLeaks barrage of e-mails that have sought to damage Clinton&#8217;s campaign.<\/p>\n<p>So, they want to take a peek at our electoral process?<\/p>\n<p>Give me a break, man!<\/p>\n<p>The Russians should tend to their own issues. What&#8217;s more, imagine the Kremlin&#8217;s response if American officials sought\u00a0permission to look over the Russians&#8217; shoulders.<\/p>\n\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A motto designed to call attention to littering in Texas long ago took on new life as a macho mantra: Don&#8217;t mess with Texas. Well, I guess I ought to\u00a0apply the perverted\u00a0definition of that motto here. Don&#8217;t mess with Texas polling officials and places. This warning goes to the Russian government, which has declared its &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=17676\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Don&#8217;t mess with Texas polling places<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,13,14],"tags":[1424,2139,2696,4699,4728,6640],"class_list":["post-17676","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news","category-national-news","category-political-news","tag-donald-trump","tag-hillary-clinton","tag-kremlin","tag-texas-secretary-of-state","tag-texas-tribune","tag-wikileaks"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17676","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17676"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17676\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17678,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17676\/revisions\/17678"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17676"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17676"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17676"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}