Springtime In South Texas

I left my home in Central Texas early this afternoon. It was a beautiful spring day. The morning air was so crisp and pure that we opened all the windows and aired out the house. The sky was a deep, deep, wonderfully vibrant shade of blue that made me want to sing, or do cartwheels, or both (disregarding the fact that I can't do either). Birds were singing, butterflies were flitting about, squirrels were chattering ... I even heard a turkey gobbling.

Every plant was some shade of verdant green, and they were all budding, blossoming, or blooming. The wildflowers ... ah, God, the wildflowers ... they are beyond my poor powers of description. After the last couple years of drought, we've had a decent amount of rain this spring, and the wildflowers have responded, bursting forth with long-delayed passion.

When I climbed into my truck the temperature was in the high 70s and the humidity was in the mid 40s. You couldn't ask for a better day.

I rolled down the windows, cranked up the stereo, and headed south.

Sigh...

Three short hours later the temperature was 98 and the humidity was somewhere around 75. Semis were roaring hither and yon, leaving whirlwinds of dust and gravel in their wake (I've replaced one windshield and filled three chips in the new one, all in the last three months). Yes, the Eagle Ford shale play has been a great boon for the South Texas economy, but it does come at a cost. Part of that cost is a degradation of the quality of life down here. IMO it's a tradeoff worth making, but that doesn't make it any less palatable.

 

So my incredibly spirit-renewing absolutely drop-dead gorgeous spring day lasted about four hours. To top things off, tomorrow I have to face 100+ college students whose performance on last week's exam was flat-out dismal.

Usually crushing their hopes and dreams cheers me up, but after today's transition from paradise to Hades it's going to take more than that.

Like Shiners.

Many, many Shiners...

Vote Early And Vote Often

An article in Monday's San Antonio Express-News noted that "Sixteen small counties across Texas appear to have more registered voters on their rolls as of 2010 than qualified citizens of voting age." The article carefully skirts the issue of voter fraud, much less the controversy over Texas' voter ID law that is currently being tortured to death in the courts. However, other commentators have noted the long and colorful history of the somewhat informal approach to voting in South Texas.

... elections in South Texas have not always been left to chance. In May, Texas Watchdog, an independent investigative website, provided a startlingly detailed look at political corruption in Jim Wells County, due south of San Antonio and named after a nineteenth-century Democratic boss. Reporter Steve Miller showed how the grunt work of vote harvesting is performed by politiqueros, tactfully translated as “canvassers” (“fixers” if you’re politically incorrect).

One of the politiqueras, Zaida Bueno, not only went on the record but, with cameras rolling, also showed Miller how the process of vote-coaching and absentee ballots actually works. At the going rate of three dollars for every successfully returned ballot, personal contacts generate volume — and volume counts. Meant to aid the aged, the infirm and the illiterate as well as genuine absentees, Ms. Bueno was forthright about why manipulation of the less fortunate is modest but steady work. “I have to push [the candidates]…to push their name.” While the voter may ask for suggestions, “…I vote for the one I want, the one I am helping.” And finally, “They say ‘yes,’ I put [the ballot] in the envelope, and nobody knows but me, you.”

Jim Wells County keeps popping up in South Texas voting fraud lore.

The complaints filed by Jim Wells County residents have a familiar ring ... residents said they went to the voter polls on Election Day 2008, only to discover that they had already voted ... This is a scenario that has been seen before.

In 2006, Duval County officials said that nearly half of the ballots cast in that year’s primary — 2,800 out of 5,445 primary votes — were by mail-in ballot. A woman said that her deceased father’s name was among those that showed up on a mail-in ballot.

Of course, the most famous - or infamous - South Texas ballot fraud of all time took place in 1948 when Lyndon Johnson first ran for the U.S. Senate. It appeared that he had lost the primary, until all of a sudden Box 13 from Jim Wells County appeared out of nowhere. It contained 203 ballots, 202 of which were for LBJ ... in the same ink ... and the same handwriting ... and in alphabetical order. That resulted in a new nickname for him: Landslide Lyndon.

South Texas aside, the democrats have been carrying on similar shenanigans across the nation.

...four Democratic officials in Indiana were hit with felony charges related to petition fraud in the state's 2008 primary ... Without the phony signatures, there's a significant chance that Obama would not have qualified for the primary ballot -- throwing the validity of the entire election into question.

... a New York judge set new trial dates for Democratic officials and political operatives accused of another ballot fraud conspiracy...

... in Wisconsin, the state's Medical Examining Board decided last month to investigate 11 additional doctors for writing fake sick notes for public union teachers who ditched their classrooms to protest GOP Gov. Scott Walker. Nine other medical professionals have already received slaps on the wrist.

There's more, of course. One of the most notorious locations for old-style machine politics is Chicago, obama's home town. And one of the most notorious examples took plaice in 1982, resulting in "one of the largest voter fraud prosecutions ever conducted by the U.S. Department of Justice ... the U.S. Attorney in Chicago at the time, Daniel Webb, estimated that at least 100,000 fraudulent votes (10 percent of all votes in the city) had been cast. Sixty-five individuals were indicted for federal election crimes, and all but two (one found incompetent to stand trial and another who died) were convicted"

So the next time some head-in-the-sand liberal says there's no need for voter ID laws because there's no evidence of fraudulent voting, just refer him to South Texas ... and Indiana ... and New York ... and Chicago ... and the list goes on ... and on ... and on...

Not Forgotten

Go here and give this gal her props...