The Independence of the Republic of Texas - 2 March 1836

TO-NIGHT PASSES INTO TO-MORROW, WHICH MEANS THAT WE CELEBRATE THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF TEXAS IN THE FACE OF ALL ODDS, AND AGAINST THE PRESENCE OF ONE OF THE BEST  (and worst) ARMIES ON THE PLANET AT THE TIME.

There were seven general officers, six of whom were either high mediocre to extremely competent leading the Expeditionary Force.  There were 13,000 troops, either front-line or close support and reserve, of whom, probably 9,000 were high-mediocre to excellent in terms of combat efficiency.  The Texians could not comprehend the rapidity of movement and placement that the Mexican Centralist forces covered in the length of time that they used.

     The Texians could muster, at best, no more than 3,000 actives, very few of whom had ever served in anything beyond a militia.   Among the Latin elements, there were several hundred who had had experience in drill, tactics, supply, strategy formation and the like.   But the Anglo element was good with a rifle, but not easily trained.   There were a few officer level and command Sergeant level who could serve as a brain and nervous system for any Army, but the heart, muscle, soul, and will of the Army would have to come from yeomen.   Geographic understanding, cavalry, forage, and infantry would be provided by the Latins who knew the territory from about 70 - 100 years of occupation of the land under dispute by the 1824 Tricolour people who were opposing the Centralists under Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna.

 

     Then as now, the Texians made some foolish mistakes.  They thought that because they had removed a fairly strong force of Centralists under the command of Lopez de Santa Anna's brother-in-law, Gen. Perfecto de Cos, that they could handle anything coming out of Mexico City in future.  Interestingly, he was foisted finally, from the grounds of the Mission San Antonio de Valero (The Alamo) during a spirited several day battle in December, 1835.  Then when confronted with an invasion, they foolishly determined to defend a place that strategically, was neither worth defending nor offending.   Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna, luckily for Texas, was foolish and egotistical enough to waste the flower of his particular element of the overall Army in the taking of the Alamo, which will fall four mornings ahead of now.   The Texians lost perhaps the best combination of irregular integrated infantry in the world at that time....178 - 208 men.

     Why the number difference?   Bodies were burned, save for one.  And the Latin roster that was recovered revealed the names of 19 persons, although various other accounts from surviving dependents who were inside the Alamo, Latin and Anglo said that other Latins had been present in the defence, who had come from the Yorktown area and entered three or four nights before the battle.   Others had come in from Castroville without registering with the Fort's Comandancia, either Bowie or Travis.   That is why people see different levels of numbers of defenders. 

      It is known that Lopez de Santa Anna lost at least 600 dead from the 13 days of siege and repeated assaults.   It was a foolish blunder by a man who styled himself as "The Napoleon of the West". 

      Once again, it is to be repeated that the fellows inside the walls of The Alamo never knew that Texas had "gone Independent".   Tomorrow marks the Day of the Declaration, written in large part by Lorenzo de Zavala, the first Vice-President of the Republic....the Alamo would fall four days later.

 

The new Enemy of Texas comes from the East and not the South so much.   It would have been so much better to never have joined their union and just decided to stay close, be friends, and be forever independent from things such as what are going on in Washington D.C. in these times.

 

Independencia y Libertad

El Gringo Viejo


This up-date, penned 1 March 2014.  We have complete the third reading of  The Blood of Heroes  by James Donovan.   This will constitute the 20th complete book-length work that has been read concerning The Alamo, the Revolution against the Mexican Centralists, and the First Texian Republican Period 1836 - 1845, by El Gringo Viejo.   It is a recommended work, although diverges on ten or twelve points of common understanding held by both sides in this Epic Battle.   The several hundred thousand other points and statements of knowledge worthy facts are worthy of OROGs' attentions. 

A shudder moved through the room....

     Things like this can frighten small incompetent, self-centred little bullies.   People like Obama, Hillary, Holder and their types.   Throughout uniondom and all the little bailiwicks of the hopelessly morally challenged in terms of handling other peoples' money, like Chicago, can see this news and tremble.    There is some irony because this woman was the arch-nemisis of Josephina Mota, the conservative candidate in the last Presidential elections.   She went into Gloria Alred mode against the female conservative candidate, especially because of the educational and union reforms Josephina had been proposing.   The irony?   The winner of the election, Enrique Pen~a Nieto of the centrist PRI party essentially adopted the same reforms and union rules and procedures overhaul, passed it all through Congress with the PRI and the conservative PAN joining to make a 4 to 1 majority against the thoroughly marxist PRD.
     We include the Business Insider article below.    This psychotic hag did much to destroy what had been a pretty nice educational system, especially during the last six to eight years of her erratic, rapacious terms of service.  The union "leaders" in the United States might do well to consider what has befallen this, "the most powerful woman in Mexico".
     This is a woman who frequently said that she did not serve Mexico, but rather Mexico served her.....and that there will never be a President who could boss her around.     During the previous term of Felipe Calderon Hinojosa,  the investigations began.   Incredibly, the new administration took the information, kept the prosecutors and investigators as hold-overs and pursued the case to this point.   

 

 

Gordillo has a strange resemblance to another woman who
has done so much for women.

 

ATTRIBUTION:  BUSINESS INSIDER 28 FEBRUARY 2013 

The Alleged Extravagances Of Mexico's Most Powerful Woman Are Something To Behold

Adam Taylor|Feb. 28, 2013, 7:08 PM|3,878|5

Share on Tumblr

 

Share on Tumblr

digg

 

REUTERS/Imelda Medina

Elba Esther Gordillo, the head of Mexico's powerful, 1.5-million strong national teachers’ union, was arrested earlier this week on charges related to corruption.

Many see the arrest as an attempt by Mexico's new president, Enrique Peña Nieto, to put his foot down on a woman who had pretty much become a kingmaker in the country — able to send 1.5 million votes to whomever she wished.  Either way, allegations about Gordillo's luxurious lifestyle have been widespread over the past few days. It's something to behold.

      While she was born into poverty, Gordillo currently holds the title of “president for life” of the teacher's union. She has been its leader for 24 years.  Officially, her monthly salary is around $6,000, according to the Independent. However, in the past the Mexican press has asked how she could afford an outfit that included $1,200 shoes and a $5,500 purse.  She appears to frequently get plastic surgery, and is also reported to own a $1.6 million home in La Jolla, a San Diego. Calif., suburb.

     Gordillo was arrested on Tuesday as she got off her private jet, flying between San Diego and Mexico City. Gordillo and two allies were accused of being siphoning off $200 million of union money, a figure investigators claim is only 10 percent of the money missing.   According to Mexican blog Animal Politico, that money was reportedly linked to $17,000 of plastic surgery, $650,000 paid to an art gallery, and a $2.1 million shopping spree at the Neiman Marcus store in San Diego. Other questionable expenditures included bills for hangar rental and aircraft maintenance, according to the Miami Herald.

     Gordio's generosity to her staff was famous. In 2006, Gordillo was reported to have taken 125 of her employees and their children on a seven-day Pacific cruise. She was later reported to have given a fleet of Hummers to regional bosses in 2008. (They were later raffled for charity.) The Miami Herald reports that she had even been planning to take union leaders on an all-expenses paid cruise to the Caribbean from Miami late last year, but cancelled when she heard of education reforms.

     Gordillo has fended off threats before, in her own idiosyncratic way. According to the Guardian she claims to have "held off an imminent attempt to depose her in the late 1990s with the help of a witchcraft ceremony up a Nigerian mountain in which she was clothed with the pelt of a white lion that had been skinned alive."

     It doesn't seem likely she'll go down without a fight — according to the BBC, Gorio wants her tombstone to read: "Here lies a warrior, and as a warrior she died.

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/elba-esther-gordillos-extravagent-life-2013-2#ixzz2MJqDBrmf

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

It is very doubtful that she will leave prison until she is well into  advanced dementia.

El Gringo Viejo

Let's Celebrate a little, before the ship sinks....

    A bit of a rough patch for the White House is a cause for at least a sickly smile.   Water is pouring in below-decks and the emergency horns are sounding doom for all who remain aboard.  Inundation is imminent, and the band bravely plays through "Nearer My God, to Thee".

    But, for those of us still singing "On the Road to Mandalay", and "God Save the King" in the first class saloon, emptying out 100 year old cognac to serve as anti-freeze for our soon-to-be necessary Polar Bear Swim....we have a bit of celebrating left to do.
 

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tN9EC3Gy6Nk

 

    Let us celebrate Perfect Hypocrisy.   Obama and his minions and sycophants are terribly concerned about violence provided by the availability of firearms in the United States.   We have known that all along.  His groups have always made it clear that they really hate gun violence.   All the places his types of adminidregs have controlled for more than two generations all have gun laws that prohibit even thinking about a gun.   If a child in a school in Chicago throws his t-shirt into a laundry basket and it casts a shadow that looks within 30% of the resolution of what might be a Hopalong Cassidy cap-pistol,  then the six year old child is immediately taken to prison for nine years, and all the children in his elementary are taken to Summer Camp for three months of grief counselling.   His parents are spayed and neutered, and that is why Chicago, Los Angeles, Baltimore, New York.....name any of a number of fine progressive places.....are slaughterhouses.   Because progressives know that guns kill, and that soulless creatures born into the poverty of dependency upon government programs have no catechism, with no earthly concept of deferred gratification cannot be blamed for the fact that George Washington owned slaves.   It's obviously the fault of white people who have more money than they need and who do not wish to pay their fair share.

     And while we worry about "African-Americans" (do we really have that many people from Morocco in the United States?) and "Hispanics", why don't we shovel a score-thousand fully automatic arms into Mexico, with no way to trace their movement through the hands of some of the bloodiest scum existing.   And why don't we do it, hoping that one or two of those automatics will be used in the killing of a few Americans, or better yet, some American law officers?   Then, don't you see, we will be able to say..."We traced this gun back to a gun dealer in Arizona, therefore all gun dealers are now closed down in order to protect the American public."
     And like a much greater American....Corkscrew Sir Edmund Hillary....said at one time, during a moment of great profundity, "What difference does it make?''
      The progressives moan and pour forth their crocodile tears for all the funny looking little dark people they have to feed and care for with other peoples' money, and those of us at the bar on the sinking ship are certain that Eric Holder and all his marxist buddies were really disturbed that over 400 absolutely uninvolved Mexicans were slaughtered by these weapons, and that, miraculously he knew nothing about it, the ATF - E knew nothing about it, no one can be found to have authorised the program, George Bush did it,  and "I can't remember". Even when it is determined that there were American law enforcement casualties derived from this illegal program....no one can be found to be charged with felony manslaughter within the ranks of the Obama government.   A death occurring because of the execution of an illegal act will be considered an act of murder, and prosecuted according to the degree of aggravation of the circumstances. But tsk, tsk, boys will be boys, and criminal thug, government union, pro-marxist totalitarians really shouldn't be held accountable for every little detail.
      What difference does it make?   My God, they were just a bunch of dirty Mexicans.  Good Grief.   Mountains and molehills.


     But let us return to the bar,   Look there's a bottle of Henri Jayer Richebourg Grand Cru, Cote de Nuits, France that needs to be emptied before we take our chilly swim.   See if there is another, while we remember the New York Times reporters whose bones were used for trampolines by Obama campaign staffers of import.   Why?   We tend to forget....but they committed the offense of saying that Joe the Plumber was a bit put off by the socialist flavour of the comment by Barack Hussein Obama's question to Joe about wealth, suggesting that it might be good to "....spread it around"...during a brief conversation with Joe during a neighbourhood walk-around in Ohio.   Joe found the suggestion peculiar and offensive.
     And while the rest of the Obsolete Press compliantly went about trying to destroy Joe the Plumber by digging up any and every speck of anything negative or even neutral against Joe the Plumber and airing or printing it for the next 318 years....the New York Times of all entities was singled out by the union-thug, Chicago-style threatmeisters.   "Don't you dare use the word 'socialist' when referring to our campaign for Hope and Change.  You'll regret it."  Many of us have forgotten that,  but not El Gringo Viejo...here at the bar, listening to the band play,and a few of the brave are at song.   Let's listen while we clear the rest of the  supplies here. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MEW3KvNFR5w

     And, as we left port, long before the iceberg jumped in front of us,  many were commenting about the last round of the Crisis Crisis, that never ending factory of calamity discovery that is housed somewhere on the grounds of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, District of Columbia.   It seemed that stew of concern among the public was not bubbling over into the fire.   There did not seem to the  crowd scene of wanton terror.   The vast majority of the population was not buying the White House's increasingly dire diagnosis of the impending collapse of all natural processes and the death of Lesbian Male Bull Shark Polar Bears in the Amazon because of Republican unwillingness to make the millionaires and billionaires  pay their fair share.
     And....watch gravity cease to function...Bob Woodward says that (1) Obama said that he invented sequestration, (2) that Obama moved the goal posts by suddenly lumping tax increases into the sequestration issue, (3) that the White House thugs had threatened him for having blown the whistle on the first two points.
     It is Napoleon I in the Winter of his discontent, withdrawing from Russia....but painted in the dull, marxist greys of Obama's face.   The anger Obama must feel about his low-information, stupid voters not being sufficiently intelligent to understand that they must charge the Bastille once again....they must restring the blade of the Guillotine hourly....they must buy more and more Frida paintings....they must poop on more police cars and break more and more windows of MacDonalds and destroy more and more private property.  Oh! Woe is Him.  So, even though it is too late to save the Republic, perhaps even as we finish off these last bottles, and our shoes are ruined and our ankles....soon our knees...are becoming soggy....it is good to know that the Republic  Obama wanted to ruin was already ruined. 
     Soon the people he led to do the ruin will soon turn on him, just like they turned on Robespierre, using his neck to redden the blade as well.   Frida laughing at the image of Trotsky with a hachet in his head....

     "Pass me down that last bottle.  I'll take it with me on the way down.   Listen!  The band is playing the National Anthem!  Glory Be!!!"

                                                http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=prBXNwxjU4I


EL GRINGO VIEJO

 

     We have always enjoyed this picture of my father when he was a boy, just moved down from Gwinner, North Dakota...four or five years earlier....to Ed Couch, Hidalgo County, Texas playing with his not-quite-fully-grown pet racoon, named Bandit.  There is a later picture that shows Bandit fully grown, a 90 pound male four-legged disaster area.  His favourite thing to theive was 50 cent pieces.   He would bypass stainless steel, aluminum, and pewter....always selecting the items made of pure silver.   But to steal...50 cent pieces.   He would take them to the horse trough to wash and then bury them nearby.


That's actually all we have right now.   Later we'll back in saddle spewing bile and venom.   The date of this photo is 1919. The pick-up in the background would be a real neat-o thing to have in the garage now, no?

 

 

 

El Gringo Viejo  





The Case for Impeachment and Conviction

     We do not advocate this procedure nor do we think it will happen.

    It is warranted.  Were it to be George Walker Bush or Ronald Wilson Reagan, the filings would have already been made.   Democrats were hot on the trail of the procedure against Richard Milhouse Nixon, long before the Watergate incident.   Because of Nixon's humiliation of the Hero of the Left, Ho Chi Minh, and the apparent success of the bombing and general stepped-up pressure against the communist government of North Viet Nam....Frank Church and most of the Democrat majority in Congress agreed among themselves that they were going to have to "get" Nixon.

Hanoi Jane Fonda, at AAA
battery in Hanoi.  She also
 visited the Hanoi Hilton POW
prison, where she berated
prisoners for being "war
criminals".  
 

     Once again, long before Watergate's famous break-in, other actions were afoot.  Nixon had begun a process, by his authority as head of the Executive division of the government of the United States, that would begin the process of returning unspent fiscal allocations from the ending fiscal year back to the United States Treasury.   The HOWLING commenced immediately.

     Usually, the various dependencies and secretariats of the United States government counted on the idea that unspent money would be lumped in as something called "carry-over" from this fiscal year's Congressional allocation, and then aggregated to the new fiscal year.  Nixon argued that unspent money indicated that the allocation was a "misestimation" in the amount that should have been allocated, so the un-used money properly belonged to the Treasury of the Republic, in the interest of stewardship on behalf of the American peoples' resources.

      The professional welfare industry,  LBJ's War on Poverty pimps and organisms, the irrational consumer forces (Nixon is committing genocide against the poor! - Walter Crankcase's World News To-night..."And that's the way it was, this, the 37th day of Hoopla...Goodnight) immediately began preparing an "investigation" because of Nixon's usurpation of the power of the lower house of Congress and its Constitutional prerogatives.   He had "violated the Constitution" and therefore was, along with his criminal prosecution of the War in Viet Nam...acting without authority from either house of Congress with reference to the Cambodian Incursion and the "Bombing of the Dikes" .....it would be necessary to see if there grounds for Impeachment for high crimes and misdemeanours.

     This note:   Bombing of the Dikes meant the carpet bombing of irrigation channels located between Hai Phong and Hanoi by B-52s, along with the bombing of Hai Phong harbour.   It had nothing to do with any attempt to bomb Hanoi Jane Fonda for making propaganda visits and gestures, including mounting an AAA cannon, while dressed in a North Vietnamese Army uniform during one such propaganda filming while visiting Hanoi.

     But, we diverge.   The most important point was, Nixon was being investigation formally by the House Judiciary Committee for several other practises...the fiscal issue and unauthorised deployments...when a third-rate burglary was revealed to have occurred at the Democrat National Committee main offices housed at the Watergate Hotel.   Five or six CIA operatives, including Cuban anti-Castro personalities.
     Likewise, Ronald Reagan was exposed to the ludicrous measures, preparatory to movement towards impeachment and conviction for having "violated the will of Congress" in terms of violating the "arms for hostages" law and for illegally arming the counter-revolutionary "contras" fighting the communist Ortega brother's government in Managua, Nicaragua.  The "Boland Amendment" had been an attachment to a Defence Department authorisation that prohibited any further support for the "Contras", and the Democrats were relishing a chance to impeach Reagan for "violating the law".    The "Boland Amendment" was and is clearly un-Constitutional.

     THIS BRINGS us to the Case of Barak Hussein Obama campaigning with public money, wilfully demonstrating that he will punish the Republican Party by employing measures that are neither called for nor required.   Obama feels compelled, however, because that same Republican Party will not grant him the right to raise taxes against the wealthy for the purpose of advancing his political agenda of punishing the rich.    Obama's stated intention of closing down only certain programs that are considered politically "soft and fuzzy"  can easily be avoided by working out four or five very simple measures, with no new tax revenue.   Likewise, it would not require complicated  measures to achieve the overall, necessary belt-tightening in light of trillion-plus dollar annual deficits run up during the past four years.
     The brazen effort to extort a political objective by blatant and needless bludgeoning, not to mention the mendacious posturing and deliberate misleading of the American electorate and population is clearly dereliction.   The notion of suggesting that an aircraft carrier cannot be deployed because of a 2% reduction in overall allocation....and only because the Republicans do not want their millionaire and billionaire friends to pay their fair share....is the depths of blackmail and misleading politics.   It is a messy game being played on a muddy football field suddenly being transferred to a septic tank.
    It is madness, petulance, and a viciousness resorted to by the smallest type person.   It speaks to the true danger Barak Hussein Obama represents.   Responsible for nothing, blaming all others, and all the while running up the debt that he hopes will cause the Death of the Republic, shortly after he moves back to Kenya.   It has been a game for him.  A game called "Kill the Republic".

We depart for a bit.   The auger turns ever deeper into the muck.
El Gringo Viejo

Where do we start? Where does it all end? And, what difference does it make?

    El Gringo Viejo has delayed comment, awaiting inspiration or insight.   Depression has set in due to his observation of the rise of the monarchical rule by a fool over a parliament of whores, governing an increasingly undiscerning populace that is walking haltingly, like zombies, into the gulag of government-provided security.

     When the jester grabs the sceptre and joyously begins to wave it around, there is little that can restrain him.   Our jester is a marxist who has been carefully prepared by a loose and dark conspiracy of liars, nihilists, and marxists.   He is surrounded by confirming druids from Hell who help him by pointing the way to the dull, pointless lives provided by the socialist state...for free.   Empty your pockets and leave the contents, along with your soul, at the door, please.
     Although Edward R. Murrow and Walter Crankcase were supposedly highly regarded journalists,  the fact is that they were dedicated leftists who carefully designed their reportage to forward the "progressive" movement.  Almost all of the front seat reporters for the triple-letter networks since the 1950s have been lefties who held, and now hold, deep-seated hatred for America and the American way.   Dan Rather, Peter Jennings, and hundreds of others were Knights of the Order of the Hammer and Sickle in the service of King Commissar of Gulagia.
      There were a few exceptions over the years.  Chet Huntley and David Brinkley were no real conservatives, but they did seem to try to report things that happened, in lieu of trying to report justifications for the progressive movement and the sinful iniquity of conservatives and Republicans.    There were a few others, very few, like Liz Trotta.   But almost all were "progressives"

BA'AL

     We bring up these observations so as to point out that during the period of the last half-century, there has been a steady background hum in the ear of America.   "There is inequity. There is no justice. You are a stick in the mud. America is the only nation in the world that is racist.  Slavery. Poverty. Oppression. Corporate Greed. Pointless Wealth. Homelessness. The rich become richer and the poor become poorer. Judgementalism. Puritanical Repression. Abuse of women. Abuse of Indians. Abuse, abuse, abuse by the establishment, repression of the majority."
     The discerning people recently were treated to the scene of the Occupy Wall Street movement declaring that they were the 99 percent, mobilising against the 1 percent.   We thought, "Well, finally the cutting edge of the progressive movement has demonstrated that they are deranged loons, leading vapid, undiscerning focus-group fodder to pointless windmills."
     Nancy Pelosi gave her benediction, declaring, "They are doing god's work".    She was telling the truth....except that  we suspect that she marches to the tambourine and drum noise of a different god.

     Now, however we hover on the tipping point...perhaps we are past that point, I fear...where the mindless and  those incapable of critical thinking can be led to the polling places and told to vote for their selfish interests....instead of the interests of their society, culture, and nation.  If one were speak to that section of the populace and say, "There is a difference between self-interest and selfish interest", those listening would not have the merest notion of the meaning of such a sentence.   Why?   Because they have become accepting of the idea that they should want and certainly deserve to be taken care of and provided for by a supreme power, known as THE GOVERNMENT.    Times have brought us to the point where Providence has become providence.
     And those of us who can think critically have either lost the Republic, or are, as stated before, right on the tipping point.   What difference does it make, if it is so evident that the Tea Party dumboes are cleaner, straighter, more considerate, more responsible, more generous, more respectful, and simply better citizens than the filthy, profane, vile, vicious, invasive, presumptious, socially psychotic Occupy Wall Street people?  The dullards and non-critical thinking carried the day in the last elections because they were mean, crass, and mendacious to the core, and we were nice.

     And the ACORN - OCCUPY - Trumka - Ayers axis of hypocrisy and global warming marches on, leading its army of zombies, recipients, and permanently aggrieved victims....marching ever onward to the big Queen for a Day Contest and Lottery Ticket Dispenser in the New Utopia.    Obama, with his Greek Choir of Dolts lined up behind him in full regalia, assures the populace that he will decide what the correct amount of money is needed by the millionaires and the billionaires and he will continue to fight against the Republicans and the Tea Party and other extremists who want to throw old people into the streets, over  the cliffs and deny Head Start to crippled children and force women to have babies, and starve children...and destroying the planet...and everything.   Obama will ask forever to the doltish masses, "What is wrong with using a balanced approach and asking the millionaires and billionaires to pay their fair share?'   Rule by focus group phrases uttered by dolts.

     And the Republicans refuse to fight.   They refuse to fight them on the beaches.   The echoes become fainter......"......we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender, and even if, which I do not for a moment believe, this Island or a large part of it were subjugated and starving, then our Empire beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the British Fleet, would carry on the struggle, until, in God's good time, the New World, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the old."  (excerpted from Churchill's accounting of the Dunkirk evacuation and general defence of the Island of Democracy - 1940)

El Gringo Viejo