One of our customers, Jan, read the story about the voter registration receipt.  She sent me a copy of her poll tax in Travis County – that’s Austin – from 1963.  It cost her $1.75 to vote.  That was when gas was 30 cents a gallon and milk was 49 cents.  Click the little one to get the big one.

Jan, who now has a different last name and doesn’t live at that address, says …… speaking of poll taxes, I still have mine from 1964 which I have saved for half a century because I knew it was important.

I paid it at Travis Cty courthouse on Jan 31, 1965, which was 8 days after the 24th amendment outlawing poll taxes was ratified. I had to present it 9 months later when I went to the polls to cast my first nat’l election vote (for LBJ of course). The old lady who filled it in could not spell the state of my birth (Illinois) although I remember trying to tell her how to do it. Luckily Texas no longer had a literacy test then or I doubt that she could have passed it.

Jan and I both wonder how many people would pay the equivalent of $13.41 to vote.

Thanks to Jan for the heads up.

Congressman Phil Gingrey from the state of Georgia, is powerfully concerned about all these children streaming into our country with all manner of horrible diseases, like swine flu, ebola, dengue fever, and some of them might even be gay.  Okay, I made up the gay part but it does seem likely he’d say that if he’d thought about it.

He is a medical doctor so he is also very concerned about preventable diseases they bring:

“Many of the children who are coming across the border also lack basic vaccinations such as those to prevent chicken pox or measles.”

Okay, first off, that’s not true.

As the Texas Observer points out, when it comes to measles, children in Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras are more likely to be vaccinated than children in the United States. None of those countries have recorded an outbreak of measles in 24 years. Kids in Marin County are more at risk.

But even more fun, the congressman/doctor “has long-standing ties to the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, a far-right medical group that opposes all mandatory vaccines. The organization touts access to Gingrey as one of its membership perks.”

So, let me get this straight — you don’t believe in vaccinations but you don’t want to be around kids who don’t have them?  No, there’s gotta be more than that.  You think kids with vaccinations are bad but those without who are even badder?  No, no, that can’t be it.  You think kids who speak Spanish need vaccinating but kids who … jeepers, this is hard to figure out.  Hummm … You are a total jerk who will say anything to get attention.  Bingo!

Thanks to AlanInAustin for the heads up.

Is it irony or is it insanity?  Sometimes it’s real hard to tell.

Former Vice President Dick Cheney, who apparently had a Chatty Cathy doll installed with his new heart, has made it very clear that Barack Obama is the worst president ever.   Okay, so he didn’t say “ever.”  He said “in my lifetime,” which is fundamentally ever.  Cheney will say that to anyone with earlobes.

Not so fast, Dick.

The History News Network conducted an informal poll on Thursday asking American historians from the nation’s top research universities and liberal arts colleges to grade the presidency of George W. Bush on an A-F scale, based on fourteen different metrics, ranging from foreign policy to the economy to transparency and accountability.

Wanna know how ole W did?

Sixty-four historians responded. Thirty-five — over half — rated his presidency an outright failure.

“Thank you, God, for this opportunity,” one professor, a faculty member at one of the service academies, wrote in a comment. “He was not qualified to be president and it showed for eight long years.”

You can read more here and see how historians think the same thing you do.

Thanks to Larry for the heads up.

Does anybody know what the state motto for Arizona is?  I’m just asking because I’m pretty sure it’s Land of the Roaring Dumb Butts.

Republican congressional candidate and state legislator Adam Kwasman, who obviously spent his childhood years working in the coal mines, decided to get some free press by protesting an incoming bus of migrant children.  You know, to make them cry.  Because that’s fun.

He even tweets it —

He dashed to the bus and then ran straight to the tv cameras and newspapers where he said he saw the migrant children, “I was actually able to see some of the children in the buses. The fear on their faces…. This is not compassion,” he said.

Come to find out, that was not migrant children.  It was … wait for it … the YMCA bus headed for summer camp.  And, they weren’t afraid, they were laughing at the demonstrators and taking pictures with their camera phones.

Honestly.

So a local teevee reporter has more fun than is allowed by law in most states, but we make an exception for Arizona.  It’s called “The Oh Dear God, John McCain Picked Sarah Palin Rule” and gives three free on camera humiliations to every reporter in the state.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QGVzVlKd2y8

So, yeah, this is not about the rule of law.  And its only about children because it’s easier to scare children.  This is a hate contest.  This is Republican politicians measuring their winkies by the level of hate they can spew.

Adam Kwasman won yesterday.

Thanks to everybody for the heads up.

I don’t have time to write about this right now, but, Darlin’, this is going to be a great story.

Two Republican Attorneys General have been arrested.  The learned nothing from Jack Abramoff.

A Michigan woman shot herself in the face.  With a damn shotgun.  Sounds impossible, doesn’t it?

Imagine you’re a police officer …

Upon arrival, deputies found that a family dispute had taken place and the victim, a 51-year-old woman, told officers that she had taken a shotgun out to “make a point.”

She told police she slammed the butt end on the floor, the gun discharged, and she was shot in the face.

I think she made her point. Don’t be jacking around with a shotgun.

It was 10:00 am on a Monday.  Helluva way to start the week.

Thanks to Irene for the heads up.