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Border bologna busters; GOP supports own vote by mail; fair food and Big Tex are back.
In the same week that the Republican Party of Texas asked the Texas Supreme Court to stop Harris County Clerk Chris Hollins from “compromising the integrity of elections” by sending unsolicited absentee ballot applications to all voters, the Texas GOP sent out
unsolicited absentee ballot applications to some voters. Bearing images of President Donald Trump, who has said mail-in voting will lead to the “most inaccurate and fraudulent election in history,” the mailer asks voters to fill out the form and join in the fun. This enticement to alleged criminality would be your run-of-the-mill political hypocrisy if it weren’t part of a long pattern of voter suppression efforts by some in the GOP, who seem to want to keep voting in the family. That said, making it harder for people to vote safely in November during a global pandemic cut down on lines and make social distancing easier at the polls, but, surely, not even Attorney General Ken Paxton would be shameless enough to sell voter disenfranchisement as a pandemic safety measure. Surely.
Never mind the Texas Supreme Court’s decision on voting by mail, the state’s highest authority has already spoken. On Wednesday, H-E-B head Charles Butt sent a letter to the justices supporting Hollins’ plan. In his best “I’m just a country boy from San Antonio so far be it from me to school you” tone, Butt proceeded to school them that “the more people who vote, the stronger our democracy will be” and that while his “knowledge of the judicial world is not deep” it was important that the courts “retain their nonpartisan reputation.” Some may see this as butting in, but H-E-B has shown it’s there for Houstonians in times of need, so its foray into voting rights advocacy is pretty on-brand. There’s no pithy transition here, but maybe the smart folks at Rice could help us develop one. After all, the university just announced a $100 million gift from the Robert A. Welch Foundation to establish an institute for advanced materials research, the first of its kind in the United States. Advanced materials, such as semiconductors, are an essential part of nearly all technology and the hope is to attract multidisciplinary talent from around the world to make Houston a destination for innovation. Rice already has a Nobel Prize for discovering a new form of carbon. Is it too early to clear shelf space for the next one? There’s no telling what kind of advanced material Mexican bologna comes from. What we do know is that due to pork import regulation, it can’t cross the border. That doesn’t stop people from trying, though. A story out of El Paso’s KTEP reports that the Mexican mystery meat packed in red rolls is a staple of smuggled items. “They call them chubs, those round rolls,” said Customs and Border Protection supervisory agriculture specialist Katherine Vasquez, in what should be the opening line of a best-selling book ’bout bologna. Officials said they incinerate the rolls at the ports of entry. No wonder we hanker for a hot dog at the border.
If the thought of a delicious unhealthy treat sounds good, the State Fair of Texas has you covered. While the pandemic has shut down the annual celebration in the Big D, organizers have distilled the fair experience to its essence: crowding in a car with your family to go eat giant turkey legs and take a photo with Big Tex. Starting Sept. 24, there will be a drive-thru event selling fair food favorites including Corny Dogs, cotton candy, kettle corn and fried Oreos. The Thumbs are excited the fair hasn’t been completely scrapped, but the limited menu means no loaded baked potato funnel cake or deep-fried chicken cordon bleu waffles this year. Oh, well. At least our cardiologist is happy.