Archive for April 26th, 2019

You’re going down in flames, you tax-fattened hyena! (#55 in a series)

Friday, April 26th, 2019

We have now come to the point where I have done as many of these as I have “Art, damn it, art!” watches. (And more of these than Art Acevedo watches.)

The mayor of Edinburg, Texas, and his wife have been arrested on charges of election fraud and illegal voting.

Edinburg is in the southern part of the state, in the area generally called the “Rio Grande Valley”.

The Rio Grande Valley has been a particular point of focus in Texas conversations about voter fraud. Two-thirds of the 91 Texas election fraud cases prosecuted from state investigations between 2006 and 2016 were in counties south of San Antonio. Only four of them involved in-person voter impersonation.

More:

Nearly 20 people have been arrested since last year in connection with the fraud case. Prosecutors said the scheme — involving Mr. Molina, his wife and paid campaign workers — was largely carried out by having numerous voters who did not live in Edinburg claim they were residents, including many who stated they lived in an apartment complex Mr. Molina owns.
According to court documents, Mr. Molina and his wife were both registered as volunteer voter registrars in the 2017 election and were authorized to help people fill out voter registration applications. Several of those with false addresses were signed by Mr. Molina and included his voter registrar number, according to the criminal complaint.

This does not exactly strike me as being a genius scheme.

“I feel that he didn’t steal the election away from me — he stole the election away from the community,” said Mr. Garcia, a lawyer. “The suspicions arose, when you started seeing, in checking the lists on the last days of the election, you started seeing a lot of names with the same address. There was one little house — it’s a 400- or 500-square-foot little one-room place — and there was maybe 20 people registered to that address.”

The Mr. Garcia mentioned above is Richard Garcia, the former mayor, who Mr. Molina defeated by 1,240 votes in the 2017 election.

NYT. Statesman. HouChron. The Monitor.

Posted in Law, Politics, Texas | Comments Closed

Bang! goes another kanga on the bonnet of the van…

Friday, April 26th, 2019

I live fairly near Wimberly, TX. The surrounding area is pretty nice: there’s a fair amount of undeveloped land, and a few ranches.

One of the local ranchers specializes in “exotic animals”. He brought a kangaroo down to his ranch: “This was something of a trial run by him for kangaroos.”

The trial run is not working out so well: the kangaroo has busted out and is on the run.

Helm said he and others have been going out every couple of hours to take a gander at the kangaroo as it bounds across the rural locale, munching on grass and flowers. He said the area is the perfect habitat for the animal, which is native to Australia.
“He’s not hurting anybody,” Helm said. “He’s healthy, and he’s eating good.”

The authorities would prefer that you not try to pet, capture, feed, or otherwise approach the roo:

Helm said the animal really doesn’t like humans, and won’t let anybody get closer than about 80 feet before taking off.
“You better wear a cape and an ‘S’ on your chest if you want to catch this thing,” Helm said. He said it will likely take someone with a tranquilizer dart and dogs to be able to capture the animal. Even after being sedated, Helm said the kangaroo could probably cover a couple of miles in a matter of minutes. “I’m afraid if anyone even got close enough to put a rope on it, they’re going to end up in the emergency room real fast.”

I seem to remember having kangaroo meat once, at a restaurant on the Riverwalk in San Antonio. Oddly, I don’t remember the name of the place, and it’s probably gone by now anyway.

After the jump, subject line hattip and musical interlude.

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Posted in Mammals | 1 Comment »