Mexican Elections

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     The Mexican by-elections for several thousand positions including a few Congressional seats, several hundred Municipal Presidencies (a cross between Mayor and County Judge in Texas, depending on the community and whether or not the County Seat is overwhelming the predominant community in the County), and State Congress representatives.    Thirteen of the 31 States were holding these elections.

      We shall concern ourselves with Tamaulipas, which is a border State with the Republic of Texas.  It is also an ethnically complicated and complex State, with a wide range of geographic and historical characteristics.  Furthermore it is the place wherein one might encounter a little mud hut with the name of Quinta Tesoro de la Sierra Madre.

       During the last presidential elections in Mexico, last year, it was this writer's certain opinion that my favoured candidate from the Partido de Accion Nacional was very probably going to win the national election.  Surrounded as we were by people who have ALWAYS voted Partido Revolucionario Institucional in presidential processes....it was amazing to note that the scuttlebutt was overwhelmingly in support of the female PAN candidate....and amazingly she carried the State convincingly.  My failure had been in projecting what was surrounding me onto the rest of the nation.

 

      This time around, once again, it seemed to El Gringo Viejo that the PAN was poised to do "pretty well" in these more localised elections, and they did.  They actually carried the major cities/counties of Nuevo Laredo and Matamoros, barely missing the premio gordo (first prise) in the biggest city, Reynosa, and the Capital, Victoria)....but then carrying 6 other counties.   These last named six counties are real rural....hillbillies, rustics, small farmers, traditionalists....but historically pr0-PRI.   Attitudinal studies place these people almost totally within the Tea Party - Fundamentalist  American equivalent grouping.

     So, there was some surprise, but then an acceptance, that we may have seen a final, radical rupture between this heretofore dependable PRI voting bloc from these counties into the more conservative PAN.   Call it the revenge of the Reagan Democrats a la Mexicana.   Oddly, of these six, five had names that began with the letter "M"....Miquihuana, Morelos (Antiguo), Miquel Aleman, Mier, and Mainero....and one with an "X" which is Xicotencatl.   That was interesting, but there is always "....rest of the story".  (Xicotencatl is Alvaro's home area, by the way.)

 

    For the last five or six election cycles, it is never quite over until it is over.  Before, everything was better because everything stunk.   The people were allowed to vote....even urged and forced to vote in some cases.   But there was little point behind the effort because the victor was already known, even before he had been named as a candidate.   It would be a member of the Partido Revolucionario Institucional.   That day is gone.

     We tire of the already written story (before every election) about how these by-elections and even the Presidential and Gubernatorial elections do not engender any real interest. The Mexicans are apathetic, according to the Obsolete Press, regarding all candidates as corrupt...and most Mexicans do not even bother to register, much less vote.   Knowing looks by the Euro-reporters and their American counterparts are exchanged along the bar at the 3rd best saloon in Mexico City....(safely removed from the real wealthy, middle, and working class neighbourhoods known as reality)....safe in their notion about the Mexican attitude and action.   "I know it is true because a Mexican professor told me all about it.   And he teaches at the National Autonomous University, he is the deputy dean of the College of Sociology."  This is a statement that should read, "I know it is true because I'm a pinko and the professor is a pinko and we agree with each other".

     There is only one problem.   The Mexicans have a much higher registration and participation in their elections of the same or similar level than do the Americans.   And the Mexican Credencial Federal Electoral is the most zealously guarded personal document held by a Mexican.   And it is all but un-duplicatable.   We have written about this matter before, even if before an incredulous audience.  In my son's lifetime, Mexican elections have gone from laughable exercises including the hauling around county employees in dump trucks to vote at various sites.....to what is now perhaps the best procedure in the world.   Our procedures in the Republic of Texas pale...pale to bright white, compared to the Mexican process.

 

     So, there is at least one last event in the panoplia de comicios of the last procesos electorales en Tamaulipas.    That event is the rejection of the first count of the votes from last Sunday which showed the PRI candidate defeating the PAN candidate very, very narrowly in the city and county of Tula.   El Gringo Viejo's team, the PAN, stewed for a few hours and then "hit the road" so to speak.   They opted to resort to the common recourse used by communists and other leftists in the southern half of Mexico especially;   the closure of highways and byways by the strewing of hundreds or even thousands of irregularly space large rocks and small boulders across the entire highway right-of-way and pavement.

     So, on the same highway we used to go and come between Victoria and Mexico City a couple of weeks ago, at the exit for the town of Tula, Tamaulipas the passage to and from was closed.   It was closed for two days. Four hundred first-class and deluxe busses were trapped.   Three hundred departures both ways were cancelled, six hundred total.   Nine-thousand transport trucks and almost five thousand private vehicles were trapped.

     In these events one must think, "Should I wait here or turn around and find a comfortable place to wait?"  There is no way to know.  There is no news, only rumour.   Even when the police and/or Army arrives to clear the area, there might still be several hours of negotiation.   It is an abuse of third parties who have absolutely nothing to do about the issue.

 

This is the scene just before the Federal Civilian
Police, the State Police, and the Army came to an
accord with the protestors and moved out
 the "highway invaders".  It helps a little
 to know that the candidate concerned
came into the mess early on
 and urged his supporters
 to desist and move on.

 



 

    In 99.9% of the cases when this tactic is employed (thankfully less and less as days go by) it is truly done by extreme leftists who are proud of their willingness to cause misery to the "rich" who can afford to travel or profit from roads built to "exploit the poor".   This time it is my guys.  And this time, my guys are wrong....even if their complaint is justified.  There is a reasonable arbiter for the resolution of this matter, with the State Election Commission.   It has been used in the past and has functioned reasonably.

 

   So, shame on my team.  Technical foul.

 

El Gringo Viejo

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Keeping Our Eyes on the Ball

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   The issues simply seem to evaporate.   Our attention is redirected on an hourly basis from Benghazi to the NSA.....to "What difference does it make?" and then Internal Revenue Service violations and corruption....which crowds out the daily mendaciousness of the entire Administration.....that long ago buried from view the issues presented by "Fast and Furious".

 

Alexis de Tocqueville



 

Benjamin Franklin

     Much of the above is specific material, referring to one issue or series of issues that unfold as might a really bad five-act play that is about 9 hours too long.   Such has been the nature of these past five miserable years.   But, baseball taught us all to "keep our eyes on the ball".    Fielders, batters, people in the stands, fellows in the coaches' boxes, runners, staff and players in the dugouts and bullpens.....all those places are subject to being shelled at any given second by a 108 stitch,  5 ounce cannonball travelling 150 miles per hour.
 

      Our attention must be maintained over the public organisms that have delivered us to the point of our perdition.   As in the sacred Anglican admonition concerning the Decalogue .... the American civil catechism requires the knowledge of the First and Greatest Commandment, which is Franklin's declaration to the enquiring citizen..."We have given you a Republic, if you can keep it!".   And the second Commandment is like unto it, that being the warning from the brilliant Frenchman, Alexis de Tocqueville who feared that the Americans would lose their marvellous Republic at that point when some grouping of parasites, forming a majority learned that, through democracy, they could invade the Public Treasury to destruction driven by the "Let them eat cake" vote buyers.

 

 

 

   The Central Government, through its labyrinth of secretariats, agencies, bureaus, and commissions has become the Nouveaux Simon Legree, directing our birth and all other of our private and public affairs, up to and including the price our exit payment.   We have become the slaves we were designed to become....clamouring at each calamity for the intervention of Simon to bring money and further bondage so as to abate our misery.

     To enjoy Marse Simon's largesse, we must sacrifice our daughters and dignity at times.  At other times we must face and endure the whip and cane, so as to placate Marse Simon's desire to inflict a little pleasurable pain upon his chattel.

 

    Save me from those who wish to help me when I have not called for help.

 

El Gringo Viejo

 

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After Good Rains, Hot Days, and Very Cool Nights and Early Mornings

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    This small collection of photos is included so that folks can see what happens with 91 degree afternoons, 56 degree overnights, and about 14 inches of rain over a three week period. In our nearby mountains, four or five miles to the west, there have been the typical prodigious rains....one hears that as much as 30 inches have fallen at the middle and upper elevations during the same period.   Nothing too phenomenal....rather normal....but normal is good.

 

 

 

    It is rather a pleasant matter to deal with the tonnes of butterflies and birds that advantage themselves of the proliferation of flowering things, the new minerals that are found at the edge of numerous puddles, and just the generally pleasant ambience.

 

We catch Alvaro working on the land down
under, surrounded by near jungle-like scenery

 



This and the picture below, essentially gives
 the OROG anunderstanding of how wooly, green,
 and "filled-in" things have become during this wet,
 hot, and cool mixture of ambient influences came
 to us, sent by a happy choir
of angels.



This is a carnivorous cactus flower, a bug eater.  Not exactly
the fragrance to build a perfume company on, but an inter-
esting plant to be sure.   The locals call it "starfish cactus" or
"paper flower" cactus.

This is how Flamboyan tree blossoms appear, up
close and personal.   This is a late bloom, due to
the late arriving, but bountiful, rains.

 



Once again, just a few pleasant scenes so that you all will know that we are not completely stewed in battery acid and No-Doze.    We shall have a bit more commentary in the next few days.   By-elections in Mexico deserve some comment, as well as the activity around our little mud hut.   Thanks for the interest.

El Gringo Viejo

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Voting Rights Act, and Other Pertinent Odds and Ends

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The Voting Rights Act, which mandated Federal preclearance of the states before changing election laws, was in effect struck down by the Supreme Court.  Essentially, the Court said the Act was unconstitutional as pertains to section 4 which singled out several states and other municipalities for application.  Section 5 of the Act set the requirement for preclearance.  Without the scope of the Act set in section 4, section 5 becomes meaningless.

The scope of the Act in section 4 was set at the discretion of the Attorney General based on arbitrary civil rights records.  On June 25, Eric Holder announced he was “deeply disappointed” in the Court’s 5 to 4 decision.  Obama also expressed he was deeply disappointed.

 

Being from one of the states hog tied by the Act, Texas immediately responded that it would put into effect the Voter Identification law requiring photo ID.  Greg Abbot, Texas’ Attorney General, said that the redistricting maps would not need Federal approval and would also be immediately be recognized as law.

 

This ruling by the Supreme Court does not invalidate the discrimination sections of the Act.

 

This is good news for Texas as well as those states and political entities where voter corruption is a problem.  In addition this is a baby step toward stabilization of the “immigration problem”… at least as far as Texas is concerned.  Texas Senator Ted Cruz who supported strong opposition to the Voting Rights Act, actively supports insertion of a national voter ID in any immigration bill.

 

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Speaking of Senator Cruz we are in agreement with El Gringo Viejo’s observation (see Daily Journal 07/09/2013) regarding the “sucker punching of Marco Rubio” and we also have not lost faith in Senator Rubio; however, we are concerned that he has now become somewhat damaged goods as concerns a run for the Presidency in 2016.  He was number one prior to his fall from grace with the immigration bill and has been supplanted by Senator Cruz by most Tea Party conservatives.  Marco is still a remarkable Senator but the perception usually becomes reality.  The Democratic Party has done what it does best by casting doubt on our most promising hopes for the future.  Marco may be able to redeem himself because we have three and a half years until the next election.  But, Ted Cruz is not a runner-up.  He is the real deal and does not earn a favorite status by default.

 

The Democrats and faux Republicans will not quit beating on Marco but should soon turn the machine on Ted Cruz.  If there is a lesson to be learned we hope Senator Cruz has vicariously learned a very important one.  There is no “reaching across the aisle” with these people.  There is no compromise.  Conservative values cannot be altered.

 

A change of subject suggests a surreal idea.  This is the machination of an over active-imagination:  Rick Perry has announced he will not run for another term as Texas’ Governor.  How about Ted Cruz for Texas Governor, (errr, - uh... “President” of Texas)?  Let the idea take you where it will.  Crazy, huh?

 

Z

 

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The Sucker-Punching of Maro Rubio

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    We have witnessed a fairly effective sucker-punching of the junior senator from Florida, the Hon. Marco Rubio. While Mr. Rubio is an effective politician, well experienced in the art and science of political manoeuvring and combat, he was possibly un-prepared to deal with the kinds of  treachery practiced by the Democrats of the United States Senate.  Those individuals, when teamed with the Alinsky-trained community organisers in the White House and SEIU activists and rabble rousers, can be formidable .

     It is very probable that Marco Rubio wished nothing more than to take an ill-defined problem and come up with a reasonable and well-defined solution.   As a freshman on the floor, he might have been unconvinced of the of the all-but-total corrupt nature of the Democrat Party and its convened presence in the United States Senate.
     The first and foremost issue before those Democrat Senators who formed part of the "Gang of Eight" was never to  help out a hapless bunch of poor, picked upon, discriminated-against, exploited illegal aliens.   Their mission was to destroy Marco Rubio and his standing with the movement conservatives in the GOP and those people generally typified as Tea Party activists.    People like Senator Schumer should and must be measured closely.   What they say is almost never what they mean. Their number one goal is to maintain the greatest number of people on the dole as possible, so as to ensure their own place in the Hamptons and in the Senate restaurant.
    This is done first by convincing the folks who "feel" rather than "think" that the Schumers of the world are genuinely concerned about feeding the children, "women's issues", and the heartbreak of psoriasis among lesbian water buffaloes in Bangladesh.....and of course, bullying.   The proof of this is simple to demonstrate.   Every program they propose and then put into action almost always results in cost overruns and a worsening of the original "problem" that did not really exist in the first place.

Debbie Wasserman
52nd Chairman
Democrat National Committee

     Student loan guarantees for college students....only fair and reasonable.   Everyone could do with a little help from Uncle Sam in order to pick up a college education.    Everybody wins....right?   Wrong, of course. More debt, ever rising tuition charges due to the availability of more money being flooded into the food chain....free money that doesn't cost anybody anything is the inevitable result.  It all feels great until the hangover hits.   Like Medicaid and Medicare and Social Security.....all broke....breaking the nation....never solved anything.... but it does give the Democrats the perpetual stick to drag out and beat the Republicans every two years,"....and the Republicans want to cut your Social Security and Medicare!   Roll Grandma to the cliff and throw her and her wheelchair into the chasm of Republican Greed....Just like Romney making that poor old lady die of cancer by closing down the company where her husband had worked all his life!!!"




     Such is the nature of the beast.   So, Marco Rubio forgets the rules.   He knows how they operate in Florida.   Just think of Debbie Wasserman's wild and wooly Whopper-rama during the last couple of years.   Think of the demonic glint in the eye of Barack Hussein Obama when he exhorted his crowd of low information and intelligence followers..."Get your revenge by voting.  Get your revenge!!"
   But, just for an instant,  Marco decides to be kinder and gentler....reaching across the aisle.  What could be wrong with a bit of bi-partisan co-operation and reasonability?    And, the answer as usual, is "Just about everything".

     El Gringo Viejo feels...or knows....that the Democrats simply set up Marco Rubio.   They knew that any efforts on Marco's part to "work across the aisle" would diminish him with the  hard-core rightwingers such as El Gringo Viejo and about 30,000,000 other of Marco's supporters, thereby injuring Marco's chances to destroy the Democrats in 2014 and 2016 with his good looks and conservative message to Americans of all ethnic and racial stripes.  Marco was invited into the  "Hispanic Outreach" and "immigration reform" racket, and he made the mistake of walking into the mess and staining himself.   It is a set-up that the Democrats prepared for him.   It is called, in boxing, the "sucker punch".

 

    We still support and defend him, and see his errors in these matters as being caused by unjustified optimism and goodness of spirit.   We are certain that the immigration reform efforts are undertaken, not to improve any situation, but rather to make the situation worse.   Nothing that has been proposed has anything to do with the problems we face here on the border, nor in the hinterland with people who have little or no interest in self-improvement and good citizenship.   We know very well that it can only serve to  invalidate that Latin group that has been here long and/or legally.

 

     Public assistance, provided by government workers who are usually unionised, has brought upon us a plaque that will finally ruin the republic.  The body count in Chicago and Detroit serves as a demonstration of this fact.  The last amnesty unleashed an inundation of unfathered gang members throughout the Borderlands and the border States that could not have  been  comprehended by those of us who are native here and who can remember life here in the 1950s.

 

     El Gringo Viejo retires from the page with the hope that another bill is not passed through the Congress that we have to read after it is approved to find out what civic horrors we have approved while sleepwalking.

 

El Gringo Viejo

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EL ZORRO rides....

As we speak today, it is obvious our president is totally out of his depth (if not intentionally destructive) in all things foreign and domestic. The conservative media has nailed it while the liberal media is asking "Uh, what?" The talks between Vladimir Putin and Barrack Hussein Obama were embarrassing for Americans and a joke for the rest of the world. Body language notwithstanding our President showed just how pathetic our leader is.

At this point, the US has nothing to offer the Russians or the rest of the world for that matter. No bargaining chips. Whether by stupidity or by design, he is destroying America. He looks the fool; however, either he really is a fool or he just hates America… the result is the same. President Obama wants to arm the rebels in Syria. That worked out really well in Egypt. We don't even know who the rebels are... well, yes, I guess we do (can you spell Muslim Brotherhood) and they are not our friends. The armament we provide will end up in either the hands of the rebels who will ultimately end up using them against the free world or in the hands of the current regime who will ultimately use them against its own people. A lose-lose situation for the US. He reaches out to the Muslim radicals at the expense of friendship with and support for Israel which has been our strongest ally in the middle east. In the meantime we are facing a pull out in Afghanistan which will allow the Taliban to return to their previous strangle hold on that country and undo all the gains we made and could have kept except for Obama's unbelievable audacity. At home, the government is empowering itself at the speed of light. The IRS will soon have total power over our health, wealth, and happiness. The NSA has, by direction of the administration, assumed the power to access personal information on every American without Constitutional authority. The President has already denied local authorities the ability to enforce immigration laws and is on the path to permanently allow illegal immigration. The republicans, for some not understood rationalization, have joined in with the democrats to give amnesty to illegal immigrants. The Attorney General continues to abuse his office (Fast and Furious, James Rosen's prosecution, etc.). So many abuses by cabinet members and non-elected bureaucrats not to mention the Executive agencies running amuck: Department of Agriculture, Department of Commerce, Department of Defense, Department of Education, Department of Energy, Department of Health and Human Services, Department of Homeland Security. Department of Housing and Urban Development, Department of the Interior, Department of Justice, Department of Labor, Department of State, Department of Transportation, Department of the Treasury, and Department of Veterans Affairs These are not an all-inclusive list of Presidential branch departments nor do they include the sub-agencies. Just to list them is exhaustive. The President has all of the departments reporting to him and under his authority by which he convoluted the Constitution by intimidation and Executive order. This one man of average IQ and radical ideology is ruining the United States with the assumption of power not granted by the people or the Constitution. The people by the polls approve of the President personally by a very small margin but his job approval rating is in the mid 40 percentile and dropping. He and his appointees have run out of spin to justify the outrageous programs and unconstitutional activities of the past four years. Internationally the United States is viewed as a declining power. The middle eastern radical Muslim countries are simply waiting for our policies fall apart and our military support to withdraw so they can resume their extremist regimes. They know the US is a paper lion. China and North Korea are biding their time as well. Russia knows there is nothing to fear from us militarily or financially. Nationally, our rights are being taken from us or being forfeited by apathy and ignorance. The "low information" class is growing. The welfare state is overtaking the working class. Our greatest enemy is the inability of educated conservatives and reasonable libertarians to reach the majority of our people who will not listen or even try to understand the severity of the situation. Possibly this is the end of the greatest system of government ever on the face of the earth. In the struggle between good and evil, it appears evil has a better than even chance to prevail. To pull this out, every American has to wake the hell up and look at what is happening! The current administration has to go! We have to get rid of every Obama disciple and appointee as well as the progressive ilk who have been sucking the blood of our beloved country. Read, study, be aware, look into your heart and mind, pay attention to those things that are ruining our country. It starts with Obama who singlehandedly rammed through the ObamaCare abortion and by executive order is whittling away at your liberty. It follows with the Congress and the power-mongering socialists/statists too many to name them all but just a few are: Senate Harry Reid Dick Durbin Chuck Schumer Joe Biden (President of the Senate) Bob Menendez Lindsey Graham John McCain Barbara Boxer Al Franken Dianne Feinstein   House of Representatives John Boehner John Dingell John Conyers Henry Waxman Ed Markey Steny Hoyer Nancy Pelosi Maxine Waters Jerrold Nadler Xavier Becerra Jim Clyburn Lloyd Doggett Sheila Jackson-Lee Loretta Sanchez Gregory Meeks Chris Van Hollen Eddie Bernice Johnson G. K. Butterfield Charles B. Rangel Debbie Wasserman Schultz With Obama goes his Chicago thugs and socialist "Community Organizing" cohorts. With the change in leadership in the House and change of majority party in the Senate, maybe we can turn this catastrophe around. Good luck and God bless America! Z