A MILLION HERE, A MILLION THERE ADDS UP TO REAL MONEY....

Special to El Rrun-Rrun

Reports and watchdog estimates suggest that Donald Trump’s golf trips have cost U.S. taxpayers tens of millions of dollars, with some estimates exceeding $70 million during certain periods.

Much of the cost comes from Secret Service protection, Air Force One flights, local law enforcement, and securing private golf properties.

Critics argue that this is excessive public spending on presidential leisure, while supporters say similar security costs apply to any sitting president.

The debate raises a simple question: How much should taxpayers pay for presidential golf trips?

GUEST EDITORIAL: BROWNSVILLE IN SEARCH OF ANSWERS THAT MATTER

By Dr. Laura E. Cisneros
Candidate, Texas State Rep., D-38

Brownsville deserves more than promises. It deserves solutions.

For more than three decades, I practiced medicine. As a physician, I learned very early that before you can treat a problem, you first have to understand what is causing it. If a patient wasn't getting better, I

couldn't simply repeat the same treatment and hope for a different result. I had to ask questions, review the evidence, consult when necessary, and sometimes reconsider the original diagnosis.

I believe government should approach problems with that same seriousness.

Brownsville faces challenges that affect families every day: flooding that repeatedly threatens homes and businesses; young people struggling to find a pathway from the classroom to a good-paying career; rising property taxes; healthcare access; aging infrastructure; and the long-term security of our water supply. 

These problems didn't develop overnight, and they won't be solved with slogans.

Over the coming weeks, I want to use this column to examine the issues that matter to Brownsville families and to ask some basic questions: 

*What is actually causing the problem? 

*What has already been tried? 

*What worked? 

*What didn't? 

*Who is responsible? 

*And, most importantly, what can we do differently?

Take flooding.

Brownsville residents have watched familiar streets flood after heavy rainfall. We repair roads, reconstruct intersections and build new projects, but families understandably want to know whether the underlying drainage problems are being solved.

Flooding remains one of the most persistent concerns facing Brownsville families and businesses. 

We need to look beyond temporary fixes and ask whether our road, drainage and infrastructure investments are addressing the underlying problem – and what additional resources and coordination are needed from Austin.

Education

The same approach should apply to education.

If a young person repeatedly struggles to pass a college-readiness examination, our first response shouldn't simply be, "Take it again."

We should ask why. 

*Is the student academically unprepared? 

*Was there an unidentified learning disability? 

*Does the student need a different instructional approach? 

*Are we unintentionally creating barriers between capable young people and careers in which they could excel?

Those are questions worth asking.

Economic Development

Economic development deserves the same scrutiny. When we celebrate millions – or billions – of dollars in new investment coming to our region, we should also ask:

* How many Brownsville residents are being trained and hired for those jobs

*What those jobs pay, and 

*Whether that investment is improving the lives of families who already call this community home.

Answers, not the "blame" game

This isn't about finding someone to blame.
It's about finding what works.

As your State Representative, that is the approach I would take to Austin: listen first, gather the facts, bring the appropriate people to the table, identify solutions, fight for the necessary resources, and then measure whether those solutions actually worked.

In the coming weeks, I will discuss some of the challenges affecting our community and the practical role state government can play in addressing them. I won't pretend that every problem has an easy answer. But I do believe every problem deserves serious attention. 

And when something isn't working, we shouldn't be afraid to ask why – or to find a better way. Brownsville's future deserves that kind of effort.

VILLARREAL'S CRUSADE TO ABOLISH PORT TAX BEGINS TODAY!

 

YUP. IT IS PEDRO CARDENAS' OLD LADY'S CADDY, MERCEDES AT RIGHT

(Ed.'s Note: After we posted the parking woes story yesterday, a lively debate ensued of whether we had correctly identified the Cadillac Escalade belonging to City Commissioner's (ex?) old lady that is parked in front of their business at The Sip Society in the old Coca Cola building using parking spaces exclusively meant for Da Mayor and the city commissioners across from City Hall in the old federal building at the corner of Elizabeth and 10th streets. OK, according to our debaters, it is a Caddy on the left and a Mercedes on the right, both belonging to the Cardenases and used to carry on business downtown without facing the parking hurdles that we mere mortals have to endure. The commissioner's parking space is used at all times during the business day, whether there is a commissioners' meeting or not. Must be nice being a public servant. The perks of public service, or regal arrogance?)

  

"That is definitely not a "Caddy" in your top photo. Ford!!!. Shit, if you can't even get that right..." Commenter Kok

Hey KOK, you may have had one or two many “deposits” in your eyes… but on the top photo that is clearly an Escalade, which is not made by Ford, idiot!! Response to Commenter above

10:40 It is a Caddy. Get your glasses or enlarge the screen. Another response to Kok

WHAT, WE WORRY? ACTUALLY, WE SHOULD HAVE WAY BACK IN '91!

Special to El Rrun-Rrun

This newly resurfaced comic from Mad Magazine’s January 1991 issue shows that public perception of certain figures has a incredibly long paper trail. 

The classic satirical illustration swaps a traditional fairytale setting for a biting critique of Donald Trump's public persona from over three decades ago. Parodying The Wizard of Oz, the cartoon depicts a caricature of Trump approaching Dorothy, offering her a penthouse, a limousine, and "ten grand a week" to be his "steady bimbo" once she "fills out."

 Dorothy’s response delivers the ultimate satirical punchline, calling out the words of a "sexist oaf who only considers women to be property" before ironically accepting the offer anyway.

​Looking back at this archive, it is striking how consistent the public commentary surrounding his rhetoric and attitude toward women has been. Long before his entry into formal politics, pop culture was already openly lampooning the exact same traits that would define his later media coverage.

For many online observers, the 1991 comic serves as a fascinating time capsule proving that these characterizations aren't a recent political development—they were mainstream satire 35 years ago. It highlights the enduring power of political cartoons to capture the cultural zeitgeist and leave a permanent, unchangeable record of how public figures were viewed in their own time.

BLANCHE PLEDGES TO REMAIN INDEPENDENT OF THE U.S. CONSTITUTION

La Cebolla

WASHINGTON—Assuring the American people he would not let the legal system sway his judgment in any decision he makes, recently sworn-in Attorney General Todd Blanche vowed at a press conference Monday to remain fully independent of the law. 

“The autonomy of the Office of the Attorney General is paramount, and I will defend it against any act, statute, ordinance, or even basic common-law principle,” said Blanche, emphasizing that no federal law or constitutional restriction would have any influence whatsoever upon his investigations, prosecutions, or other official actions. 

“For far too long, the Department of Justice has displayed a prominent pro-law bias, but under my tenure that will be rectified immediately. As of this morning, I have shelved all cases against those accused of crimes and launched inquiries into several people toward whom the president has expressed a slight personal distaste.” 

Blanche added that he would wholeheartedly defend President Donald Trump from any attempt to restrain his actions using the U.S. Constitution.

IT'S WEDNESDAY! NOCHE DE KARAOKE, BAILONGO EN EL ELKS

DOE-SI-DOE AND THEN SEE-SAW, DJT IS TURKEY IN THE STRAW

 

PARKING WOES DOWNTOWN COMPOUNDED BY CITY AND OFFICIALS' PERKS

No problem parking for this shop owner who owns that white Caddy on the right. Notice that the entire block on the west side along 10th Street between Elizabeth and Washington is reserved for the mayor and city commissioners while attending meetings or conducting city business. Unless, of course, you are married to a city commissioner like the owner of The Sip Society in the old Coca Cola building who is married – despite the faux divorce to obtain BCIC grants – to commissioner Pedro Cardenas. What would happen to you if you get caught parking on those spaces? So why hasn't the Caddy – which is seen parked in that spot daily, if she is not using their other ride, the Mercedes – gotten a parking ticket? Have the city parking meter personnel been told to ignore the infraction because it belongs to an influyente?

Special to El Rrun-Rrun

Commenter 1:

"I had a yen for a plate of camarones con nopalitos en chile rojo recently, and since this dish was usually associated with Easter, had to look high and low for a restaurant that served it during the rest of the year.

"I hit upon one, Cafe 911, where the old Lucio's Cafe on Washington Street used to be. But even after having found the place, I had to go two or three times around the two-block square area trying to find a parking place. No luck. The city public parking lot at the corner of 10th and Washington was full, as were the spaces along the downtown streets. With the clock ticking, I had to settle for driving to a Whataburger on International and forget about trying to eat downtown. I didn't get my desired meal, and the restaurant lost a customer."

Commenter 2:

"I had to go to try to get some fabric at El Conquistador on Washington between 12th and 13th streets for my wife and tried to get as close as I could to park. After circling the block two or three times, I gave up and ended up going to a craft shop on Morrison Road next to the Target store. No parking problems, and was in and out in minutes. Forget downtown!"  

Multiply the experience of these two would-be downtown shoppers by 100 or more daily and the lack of accessible parking downtown emerges as one of the biggest obstacles to conduct commerce for businesses there. Throw in preferential parking for some city officials and their relatives, handicapped spaces, and broken parking kiosks, and the problems become glaringly obvious.

Parking downtown has been a headache for city officials and residents forever. But it's not just the crush of shoppers that creates the problem. It has been compounded by some factors that were self created by city officials.

Take, for example, the 375-plus free parking tags for selected city employees that allow them to use a parking space in the downtown area to attend to their employment and duties. Two years ago, former City Manager Helen Ramirez said the city had issued that many. Has that number increased since then?

With that many spaces taken from general use, the number of parking spaces available to the public is greatly reduced. Throw in the employees of downtown businesses who scurry out every few hours to renew their parking spaces and it also reduces the available parking spaces for the general public. Then, a number of parking lots is also reserved for city office workers and first responders and administrators in critical spaces in the downtown area.

And if you are lucky enough to find a space, be careful not to overextend your shopping because it will cost you a $10 parking ticket. And if you have friends in City Hall and happen to be an E-Bridge member or customer, you can get your ticket "validated" and park for free. 

But it isn’t the same problem for everybody. City employees park free. City customers have free parking available. If you work for a small business downtown, you pay to park or find somewhere farther away.
If you’re a customer trying to spend money at a downtown business, you pay.
And when you look at how many government employees, buildings and customers are concentrated within just a few downtown blocks, the difference becomes hard to ignore.

More City-owned buildings and publicly supported facilities are now being used downtown, bringing more employees, customers and visitors into the same limited parking area. And according to information provided by Ramirez then,  former employees aren’t required to return their parking tags and expired tags can remain outstanding.

So how many tags are actually out there today? Or, more importantly: How many convenient parking spaces does that leave for everyone else?

LOOK AT WHAT IS CONCENTRATED WITHIN WALKING DISTANCE

Start around City Hall and Market Square:

City Hall — 1001 E. Elizabeth

City Plaza — 1034 E. Levee

Market Square / City Market

Cameron County Levee Annex / Tax Office — 835 E. Levee

Dancy Courthouse — 1100 E. Monroe

Constantino Building — 1006 E. Monroe

Judicial Courthouse — 974 E. Harrison

District Attorney’s Office — 964 E. Harrison

Veterans Building — 1124 E. Madison

Elections Building — 1050 E. Madison

Detention Center No. 1 — 1145 E. Harrison

And just beyond that immediate cluster:

eBridge / BCIC / UTRGV — 1304 E. Adams

Visitor Center / Convention & Visitors Bureau — E. Adams

Brownsville Police Headquarters — 600 E. Jackson

City Engineering — 404 E. Washington

Brownsville Metro / downtown transit operations

Capitol Theatre — E. Levee

If you put those addresses on a map (above), a huge amount of government activity is concentrated within walking distance. A City employee can drive downtown, park free, leave the vehicle there and walk between nearby City and County buildings for meetings. That’s convenient. But the car doesn’t move.

No problem for city commissioner Gus de Leon finding a parking space close to the door of City Plaza either. Elected office carries its perks, among them the right to ignore the handicapped parking space designation. Those pampered handicapped can walk around him if they want to access City Plaza.  

One City employee can occupy a parking space for most of the workday. On the other hand, a restaurant needs that space to turn over. So does a coffee shop, retailer, barber or professional office. One free employee parking space may serve one vehicle for eight hours. That same space could serve customer after customer at surrounding businesses.

And those customers are spending money downtown. That’s why parking turnover matters. Every parking space occupied for free by a City employee is a space that could otherwise generate parking revenue or serve paying customers throughout the day. Someone is giving up the value of that space.

Multiply that by the 375+ free City employee parking tags reported by the City Manager two years ago, and suddenly “free parking” has a real economic value. And we still don’t know how many additional tags have been issued since then.

On top of hundreds of free City employee parking tags and free parking available to City customers, look at the sign at eBridge: “PARKING TICKET VALIDATION ONLY FOR eBRIDGE MEMBERS.”

Government-owned and publicly supported operations clearly understand that free and convenient parking has value. It helps employees. It attracts customers. It removes a cost and makes a location more convenient. So what about the privately owned business next door?

Parking ticket fines are now $10. Even though the color of the tickets change periodically, if you manage to be lucky enough to find one, make sure you came back in time or you'll find one of these tags on your windshield. Unless, of course, you are a favored city employee, elected official, or eBridge member or client.

If free parking is important enough for an eBridge member, why isn’t it important for the customer trying to spend money at the restaurant, coffee shop, retailer or professional office next door?

And taxpayers should also know: Who pays for those eBridge parking validations? Does eBridge pay?
Does BCIC pay? Does the City waive the charge? How much does it cost each year? Because once again: Free parking isn’t really free.

Remember, that number doesn’t include County employees. It doesn’t include University employees. It doesn’t include other publicly supported operations downtown.

Taxpayers deserve to know the value of the parking being provided free. How much potential parking revenue is being given up? How much is being spent or waived on parking validation?

How much business is being lost because customers can’t find convenient parking? Someone who needs to visit City Hall will probably keep looking for a space. Someone deciding where to eat lunch, shop, buy coffee or get a haircut doesn’t have to. They can take their money somewhere else. The parking meter doesn’t measure that loss. The small-business owner feels it at the cash register.

If you account for free city employee parking, free city customer parking, reserved government parking, County and University demand, and eBridge parking validation, then tell downtown businesses what’s actually left. Brownsville wants private businesses downtown. Those businesses pay rent, payroll, utilities, insurance and taxes. They invest their own money and take the financial risk every day they open their doors.

The City already understands that free and convenient parking helps attract customers and retain employees.

That’s why it provides it. eBridge understands the value, too. That’s why it validates parking for members. And downtown Brownsville’s small businesses are paying the biggest price.

O CAPTAIN! MY CAPTAIN! THY LIPS ARE PALE AND STILL...(WITH) NO PULSE OR WILL

 

STEALING BIDEN'S THUNDER: NOW YOU SEE IT, NOW YOU DON'T

Trump and the White House show off Photo of "Prescription Drug Prices Record Sharpest Drop in More Than 60 Years" headline – but article credits Joe Biden policies 

The Other 98 %

Donald Trump waved a printout at reporters on Friday to prove he lowered drug prices. The article credits Joe Biden, not him.

The headline was real. Prescription drug prices posted their sharpest drop in more than sixty years, the largest annual decline since March 1963. Trump read it aloud to the cameras, held the page out wide like he'd pulled a rabbit from a hat, and asked, "What else do I have to say?"

Here's what he could have said. 

The reporters who wrote that story called up economists to find out what was actually moving the numbers, and the economists pointed at a law he had nothing to do with.

That law is the Inflation Reduction Act. Biden signed it in 2022, and it did something no president had pulled off before: it gave Medicare the power to sit across the table from the drug companies and negotiate prices instead of paying whatever the sticker said.

The first ten negotiated prices took effect on January 1 of this year. Those ten are drugs millions of seniors actually take, which is exactly why they show up in the numbers Trump was crowing about.

Richard Frank, a Harvard health economist, told the Washington Post that if he were betting on what mattered most, it would be the Biden law. Trump's own efforts, he said, "wouldn't be where I'd place my money." A Vanderbilt professor told the paper the same thing.

Not a single Republican voted for that law. Not one, in either chamber. And the moment it passed, they started filing bills to repeal the exact negotiation power that is now driving prices down. The policy blueprint written for his second term called for gutting it.

So the man mugging for the cameras Friday was taking a bow for a result his party voted against, tried to kill, and would kill tomorrow if the polling ever let them.

This is the whole trick, and once you see it you can't unsee it. Someone else does the work, fights the fight, eats the political cost. Then the guy who stood in the doorway the entire time walks up afterward, lifts the trophy off the shelf, and holds it over his head.

The receipt was the printout in his hand. He brought it himself. He stood in front of the press pool and read out loud the proof that it wasn't him, then grinned and asked if everybody got the shot.

Everybody got the shot.

OUR I.C.E. GOONS IN ACTION! WE DON'T NEED NO STINKING WARRANT

 

These ICE agents, by the way, are the same team that arrested a bakery owner and his wife at a Los Fresnos panaderia.

AND NOW, A WORD FROM PEOPLE WHO ARE NOT COMPLIANT

Special to El Rrun-Rrun

Dear Porkchop,

You miserable fucking apostle of human misery.

We thought we’d reached the bottom of your particular moral septic tank somewhere between family separation, CECOT, Alligator Alcatraz, mass detention, deportation raids, threats against sanctuary cities, and your remarkable insistence that physical appearance can enter the “totality of the circumstances” when immigration agents develop reasonable suspicion.

And now?
Electric-shock gloves.

It’s been widely reported that ICE intends to spend as much as $20 million putting electric-shock gloves directly onto immigration officers’ hands, and naturally your furious oversized head emerged from the federal enforcement machine to defend the idea. 

Because somewhere in America, Porkchop, there apparently remains a human being insufficiently terrified of ICE, and you simply cannot fucking have that.

You explained that the devices provide officers another option short of deadly force. Then you opened your mouth and reminded everybody exactly who we’re dealing with: “It’s another device to help someone get compliant when they are not.”

Compliant.
There it fucking is.

That word could be carved into the monument eventually erected to this obscene chapter of American history because compliance is the gravitational center of the Tom Homan universe.

Government commands, human complies.

Government grabs, human complies.

Government detains, human complies.

Government separates parent from child, human complies.

Government puts you on an airplane, locks you in a concentration camp, or removes you to foreign 

confinement while lawyers race desperately through American courts trying to determine what remedies remain available, and human fucking complies.

Now ICE wants electricity available literally at its agents’ fingertips.

That’s your magic trick. You take human suffering and run it through the bureaucratic meat grinder until it comes out sounding administrative.

A terrified father becomes an alien.

A crying child becomes a dependent.

A raid becomes an enforcement operation.

A cage becomes detention capacity.

A deportation becomes a removal.

A foreign prison becomes a destination.

The Fourth Amendment isn’t particularly useful when every officer is correct.

These protections exist precisely because governments make mistakes, abuse power, become frightened, become angry, lie, and often become populated by men so absolutely convinced of their righteousness that they begin mistaking obedience for justice.

And no amount of yelling can make us forget it.

Sincerely,
The people you haven’t managed to make compliant.

AIRPORTS? HOW ABOUT SCHOOLS? ABBOTT'S HYPOCRISY KNOWS NO BOUNDS

The airport has offered two ablution stations on the post-security side of Terminal D since 2019, when it relocated and expanded its interfaith chapel near Gate D40. Common Locations: Places of Worship: Found in mosques and Islamic community centers. Public Hubs: Installed in multi-faith prayer rooms at international airports, universities, and large hospitals

By Ahmed Humble

The Chron

(After Herr Abbott's furor over the stations), the VFW Airport confirmed it has scrapped the project proposal. A spokesperson shared the following statement with Chron:

"Like all proposed projects, the airport ultimately considers the operational benefits, customer service impacts, operational risks and costs before approving them," the statement read. "While that evaluation was planned, the airport accelerated its review due to elevated public interest this week and has determined not to proceed with the project as it would not deliver the originally anticipated operational benefits."

Meanwhile, Gov. Greg Abbott escalated the issue by directing a review of state grants awarded to entities that operate Texas airports, including DFW and Houston's George Bush Intercontinental Airport, over what his office described as possible religious discrimination.

In a letter to Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, Abbott also asked the Department of Transportation and Federal Aviation Administration to review religious facilities and accommodations at both airports, including a previously installed ablution facility and prayer room at IAH, despite both having been around for years.

"These ablution facilities appear designed to single out one subset of the population for special treatment based on religion. That is illegal," Abbott said in a statement. "Both airports are government-owned facilities. The federal and state constitutions prohibit government from facilitating this sort of discrimination. Just as the government cannot favor the secular over the sacred, it also cannot favor one religious view over all others."

(Really, Greg? How about the state-mandated posting of the Judeo-Christian 10 Commandments in government-owned schools? So is you're a Jewish, Native American, Muslim, atheist, or a Jehovah's Witness Texa and don't agree with this, tough luck because Abbott and his MAGA Legislature have apparently chosen to extend this special treatment that favors one religious view over all others.)

TRUMP BOMBS OUT IN DESPERATE SEARCH FOR MISSING MUNITIONS

La Cebolla

WASHINGTON—Surrounded on all sides by overturned furniture, ripped-out desk drawers, and dozens of loose items flung wildly from their shelves, President Donald Trump reportedly tore up the White House on Thursday in a frantic search for more munitions. 

“Come on, come on, there’s gotta be one of those interceptor things around here somewhere,” said Trump, desperately hoping that the large Oval Office portrait of Andrew Jackson he heaved onto the splintered Resolute desk concealed a missile storage tube built into the wall. 

“Gimmie one tank shell, a machine gun, a couple of bullets, anything. Okay, I already cut through the mattress in the Lincoln Bedroom, slashed all the upholstery in the Red Room, and pried up the floorboards in the Cabinet Room. Nothing. And I don’t know where armaments could be hiding in the East Wing, since it’s pretty much just a giant pit right now. I mean, I guess I could punch a few more holes in the ceiling of the State Dining Room but—goddammit, Donald, think. Think!” 

At press time, sources confirmed a crazed Trump was about to swing a sledgehammer at a grid of monitors in the Situation Room when he suddenly recalled with an embarrassed chuckle that he had access to 5,000 nukes.

WITH THE START OF SCHOOL, AN UNERASABLE MEMORY

By Juan Montoya

Years ago, when we still had one kid – our youngest girl – at Hudson Elementary when Dr. Rita Hernandez was principal there, it fell on my lot to go shopping for school supplies a day before the school year began (This 2026, it would have been Sunday}.

This was always an unpleasant task and I always left it for the last  minute because you would invariably find yourself pawing through piles of left over pencils, composition books, rulers, folders, dividers, etc. to try to get everything on the list the teachers ask parents to get for their students.

That was bad enough.

But when you consider that you are trying to do this against other desperate parents (especially pushy moms) who procrastinated just like you and find themselves trying to scratch off every last item from their list, it becomes a pitched battle on the school supply pile at stores like Walmart, Kmart when there was one, the Family Dollars, Target, etc. by parents with their back against the clock and a fast-approaching deadline.

The moms were the worse. They weren't above edging past you in the line and pushing you aside as they grabbed for that missing three-hole binder (had to be black), or the safety scissors they needed for their list.

To make the long story short, as 10 p.m. approached, things were getting desperate. Still unscratched on the list were two combination blue-and-red erasers. Everywhere I went, they had an eraser of one color, or some other types, some of them with a small brush at one end, and instead of the lead, it was an eraser point like a pencil.

I gave up after the stores started closing and the elusive erasers were nowhere to be found. I had failed.

This had never happened before and I arrived at the house with my different bags from the different stores bulging over with supplies. But no double-color gum erasers.

The little one was at the living room coffee table drawing something on a paper with a crayon when I arrived. She looked up and saw the supplies looking at me expectantly as she filled in her drawing with the crayon. There was no way out. I fessed up, a bit defensive, even as I tried to hide my exasperation.

"Nana, It took me half the night and I got everything on the list except for one thing, those erasers with the two colors, you know, the red and the blue. I went to the four Walmarts and everything is gone. Then I went to the Target, the Family Dollars, all of them. There are no two-sided erasers left in the city. I'm sorry."

God made little girls different.

She eyed me somewhat distractedly, looked up from her creation and said: "Erasers? Oh, don't worry about that Dad. I won't need them. I'm not going to make any mistakes."

FOR WHOM THE POLLS TOLL; THEY TOLL FOR FOR YOU, GREG

Team Gina

Nine weeks ago, this same poll had us trailing Greg Abbott by 6 points. Now, that gap is down to 1.

This is a completely separate survey than the Fox News poll that broke recently — Texas Pulse, conducted by Texas A&M’s Bush School for Government — and it found the exact same thing: Abbott 46 percent, me at 45 percent.

Three different pollsters showing identical results in the same week is not a fluke. It’s a trend.

 
Here's what’s changed since the June poll showing us down 6: Texans are getting to know me. In June, more than half of voters didn’t know enough about me to have an opinion. Now it’s less than a third. And the more they learn, the more they like what they see. My favorability has climbed from a net +13 to a net +18 in just two months.

Meanwhile, Abbott’s numbers are going the other way. His approval rating is underwater, 47-51 percent. His favorability is underwater, 46-50 percent. Twelve years as governor, and Texans are done.

I don’t need to tell you why. You’re living it. Rising grocery bills, rising premiums, rising property taxes. Data centers flooding our state. And a governor who’s spent over a decade protecting the people at the top instead of the Texans footing the bill.

We have momentum. We do not have the resources to match it — not yet, not without your help. Abbott’s campaign has nearly $70 million sitting in the bank, and they are going to spend every dollar of it trying to make sure Texans who are ready for change don’t show up in November.

Chip in right now to help us take the lead in this race.

TRUMP'S DEFLECTING..ERR, REFLECTING POOL LIES REVEAL SHALLOW MAN

 

LOOKING FOR DONA ESTEFANA ALONG MILITARY HIGHWAY

 

By Juan Montoya

As children living in San Pedro, west of Brownsville, we used to go picking wild raspberries from several bushes growing near an old cotton gin that used to stand across a ditch west of where Riverside Golf Resort is today.

Off in the distance in the cotton fields adjacent to the gin we could see several headstones from an old, abandoned rural cemetery, one of many dotting the side of the road historically used by the U.S. Army to shuttle between Ft. Brown in Brownsville and the Ringgold Barracks in Rio Grande City.

Whoever used that cemetery were long gone, and after a few decades after the berry bushes and the gin were also gone, the river levee was moved, the Border Wall built, and the cemetery disappeared under next year's cotton crop.

It wasn't until much later – in 2007 – that I was told by the late Praxedis G. "PG" Cavazos, that the State of Texas' Historical Commission was erecting a marker along Military Highway near the ancient cemetery which had belonged to Estefena Goseascochea de Cavazos y de Cortina, the descendant of   Salvador De la Garza, the original recipient of the "El Potrero  del Espiritu Santo" by King Charles III of Spain on September 26, 1781. 

It encompassed fifty-nine and one-half leagues (263,369.9 acres) including almost all of what today is Cameron County, Texas. 

The marker was placed along Military because just about all traces of her original ranch was gone, as was the cemetery which she established on that land and where she was buried upon her death in 1867 as per her wishes.

Her request was that she was buried in "El Campo Santo que yo tengo en este rancho de mi propiedad" (cemetery that I have on this ranch of my property), near where her home once stood. Her funeral was largely attended.

Before she died, however, she had built a substantial home on the property near Santa Rita, the first seat of Cameron County. She had also built a church so ranch hands and neighbors could attend. 

P.G. was the family genealogist and a member of the Cameron County Historical Commission and the driving force to get the marker near his ancestor's ranch site and cemetery.

I remember when he – before his death in 2014 – took me to see it after its erection along Military in 2007.

"The original ranch and its church and cemetery stood behind the Border Wall and the levee toward the river," he told me pointing toward the site of the old gin where we picked raspberries as kids. "That's all gone, too."

Fast forward to 2026, when author/researcher Dr. Marie Theresa Hernández, a professor at the University of Houston's World Cultures & Literatures Program Department of Modern & Classical Languages, who is doing research on a book of her son Juan Cortina, that the subject of the El Carmen ranch and cemetery came up an we decided to go look for any trace of either.

This past Tuesday, we went up and across the levee entry where the gin had stood and were able to drive along the cotton field looking for any sign of the cemetery or buildings. 

Everything was gone, but as we passed a spot near where the rural cemeteries register indicated the campo santo should be we spotted a bare spot not visible from Military or the levee with a lone marble tombstone surrounded by the cotton. It wasn't Doña Estefana's, but of another ranchito dweller who had been buried there in 1929, decades after she had been buried there in 1867.

To the ranchers' credit, they have respected the only small patch of dirt in the field that indicated a cemetery had been there and have farmed around it. That is the only thing left of her ranch, the cemetery, and the El Carmen Ranch House.

The Espiritu Santo grant no longer exists, having been broken up and lost by Doña Estefana's descendants in the years after her death. The process of dispossession involved lawyers, the courts, land-hungry speculators, the murderous Texas Rangers, and other newly-arrived Anglo adventurers.

Dr. Walter Prescott Webb in his book, "The Texas Rangers", published in 1935 wrote: "Not only were the Mexicans bamboozled by the political factions, but they were victimized by the law. 

"One law applied to them and another, far less rigorous, to the political leaders and the prominent Americans. The Mexicans suffered not only in their persons but in their properties. The landholding Mexican families found their titles in jeopardy and if they did not lose in the courts, they lost to the American lawyers."

Such was the case of Doña Estéfana, members of her family, and their grant. In 1852, Charles Stillman, after taking over a valuable portion which included the 1,500 acres in the present city of Brownsville and Fort Brown, from the Espíritu Santo Grant, continued his assault on the grant, leading to the Cortina Wars, the worst border disturbances in Texas history.

Her son Juan N. "Cheno" Cortina is one of the most disputed figures in border history. Because Doña Estéfana’s son would not submit to intolerance and had the courage to stand against tyranny and oppression, he was branded a bandit (especially by his enemies) and by others a Latin Robin Hood. 

A military figure, he once captured Brownsville (September 28, 1859) and held it for 13 hours when he became incensed at American treatment of Mexicans whose lives were being destroyed by the post-Mexican War occupation. 

Today, Doña Estefana and "Cheno" are gone, but her legacy as Cameron County's largest land owner and pioneer settler remains on the same ground where she rests today.

IT'S MOVING DAY AT MAR-A-LARCENY...

1ST GAME OF TEXANS PRE-SEASON FOOTBALL, BOTANA, AT ELKS TONIGHT!

 

COMING TO A TELEVISION SCREEN NEAR YOU THIS SATURDAY!

 

BREAKING FOOTBALL NEWS:

The DALLAS COWBOYS practice was

SUSPENDED  for two hours yesterday

after a PLAYER discovered a 

Mysterious WHITE POWDER on

the FIELD

The TEAM immediately SUSPENDED

PRACTICE and called POLICE and FBI.

After a thorough investigation, experts

identified the unfamiliar substance  as

THE GOAL LINE

Practice RESUMED once authorities

 assured the COWBOYS they were UNLIKELY 

to ENCOUNTER it AGAIN for the

REST OF THE SEASON!

TEXAS GOES REEFER MAD: DALES UN CHURRO PA' K SE ALIVIANEN

FOR ALL THE RIGHT REASONS; MAURO GARZA FOR A BETTER FUTURE...

 

OH, YES IT'S LADIES' NIGHT AT ELKS! OH WHAT A NIGHT!

WHEN TACOS AND SPANISH WERE RIDICULED IN LOCAL SCHOOLS

El Taco

By Juan Montoya

Every time Andres passes by the old mesquite tree next to Olmito Elementary by Old Highway 77, he smiles.

He can still remember the small group of boys sitting in its shade under the scalding South Texas sun munching on their school lunch. The fence of the school yard ran next to the tree, and the railroad was a little further away.

The boys had made it a habit to gather under the tree each day at noon to have their lunch. They could well have gone to the cafeteria, but preferred to gather under the tree and chatter. This suited Andres just fine, since he could not have joined in the conversation inside the cafeteria, where teachers and their favorites were always on the watch for anyone speaking Spanish, which at that time was not allowed on school grounds.

Andres had just come to Olmito with his family from nearby northern Mexico. Although his father had been born in central Texas, his parents had taken him to rural San Pedro, Coahuila, where the Mexican government had allotted them farm land in its huge irrigation project in the Laguna region. His father Jose had grown up a Mexican, never realizing his true citizenship. He had met Andres’s future mother, Socorro, whose family from Veracruz was also drawn by the government’s enticement of land and work in Mexico’s cotton belt, and they married there.

For a few years, until Andres was six, both families had prospered in the harsh desert climate. During the day, the searing hot sun would cover the little town in a stifling blanket of heat. At night, the cold winds from the nearby hills would chill him and his brother as they huddled under the blankets to keep warm.

After a few years, the desert started to reclaim the land, and the huge cotton yields started to grow smaller, until both extended families – grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins – left to seek their fortunes in northern Tamaulipas.

Eventually, his father had joined other men to go work in the cotton fields of South Texas, where the pay was in dollars, and where there was always a need for good cotton pickers and farm workers. Pickers from the Laguna area were specially prized as workers, each one picking three rows at a time and singing in the distance in front of the others.

After a time, his father had moved the family to a Mexican border town. He discovered he was a U.S. citizen when he was stopped by a Border Patrol agent when he was caught swimming across the river as he and the other workers had done so often.

“Why are you swimming the river when you’e a citizen and could just as well have walked across the bridge?,” the agent had asked him.
“I never knew I was,” his father had replied. After that, it was just a matter of time before his father’s mother produced the birth certificate from among her stash of family documents.

“You were born near Victoria, Texas, Jose,” she had told his dad. “But it was so long ago, we never really thought about it. You are a citizen of the United States. So are two of your sisters and one brother. The rest were born in Coahuila.”

And so his father had continued working in the cotton farm in Olmito, eventually becoming one of the permanent workers there. With steady work, he undertook the task of bringing his family north. His employer told him that if he was able to cross them over, his citizenship would prevent the law from deporting them.

And so it was that during Charro Days – a bi-national holiday celebrated by the both cities during February – Andres’s mother bundled him and his brothers and sisters, now five in all, to walk across the bridge.

“Mom, why are we putting on three pairs of pants and shirts?,” he had asked.
“You never mind and don’t go around telling anyone,” she had told him firmly. “Just hold on to your little brother’s hand and don’t let go.”

It had been a long-standing tradition fostered by the local chamber of commerce to allow Mexican

residents of the nearby town to cross into the United States to join the celebration. They called it “paso libre” and the Mexican nationals were warned not to go further north than the city limits. However, his father had enlisted the aid of his employer to use his pickup truck with a shell and it was an easy matter to travel through the back country roads to their new home in Olmito.

Life on the cotton farm was an exciting change for Andres and his family. Each morning, truckloads of laborers would arrive at dawn to work in the cotton fields. Many of them were old and bent with age as they got off the back of the truck, where 20 or 30 more of their fellows were crowded together for the trip from the border town to the ranch.

In those days, the Border Patrol turned a blind eye to the daily coming and going of these workers. If they could cross the river – whether with a permit through the bridge or swimming through the treacherous currents of the water – they could go unbothered about their labor on the nearby farms.

In fact, there were recognized places downtown where workers by the hundreds would gather waiting to be picked up by the trucks that would take them to the nearby farms. The Border Patrol would make sure the process went smoothly, assuring the local farmers of a steady supply of labor.

The adults would tease the kids on the farm – many of them there illegally like Andres and his brothers – when the familiar green and white trucks of the Border Patrol would approach on the road.

“Run! Run! Here comes the migra!,” they would shout as the kids ran and hid under the tractors and other implements in the open sheds. The agents shared in the fun as they passed by smiling at the children hiding behind the machinery and the large metal disks attached to the tractors.

When the cotton plants were two to three inches tall, the workers would arrive early in the morning, some carrying worn leather knee pads, to thin the crop. After having some hot coffee, they would be dispatched to their respective fields and set about to thin the rows, spacing the plants uniformly by pulling the shoots with their hands. In the evenings when they clambered aboard the trucks, they would haul their weary bodies onto the bed. Their callused hands were stained a dark green from the day-long pulling of the plants.

Eventually, school started and Andres and his brothers and sisters were enrolled in Olmito Elementary. A bus would pick them up each morning and deliver them home after school. Since he didn’t know a word of English even though he was seven, Andres was placed in the second-grade class. His teacher, an elderly lady perhaps 70 years old, didn’t know a word of Spanish. Since Spanish was prohibited on school grounds, there was very little to be done to teach Andres how to read or understand his lessons.

And he had seen kids punished for speaking Spanish pressing a penny against the wall with their nose and had refrained from speaking to anyone inside the classroom.

Unable to place him in any of her three reading groups – A, B, or C – Mrs. Stroman had him sit behind each group as she gave the children their daily lessons. All Andres did during the day was to sit in the back of the groups and try to follow the lessons by glancing at their books and following along on the pages.
After a few days, his two older sisters complained to their parents that the Anglo students and some of the others would make fun of them when they took out their lunch in the cafeteria.

“They tease us because we have tacos,” they told their mother. “All the other kids have baloney sandwiches and we have tacos. They’re mean.”

Bowing to the pressure, his parents soon sent all of them to school with baloney sandwiches in their brown paper lunch sacks. Even though they never ate sandwiches at home, they dutifully bought them for the kids so they would not be teased anymore. On the bus on the way to school, Andres soon made a few friends who asked him his name and what grade he was in.

Although some of the kids were in third grade, they soon became buddies. The driver did not enforce the English-only rule on the bus. Andres soon found out that his family wasn’t the only one in Olmito who didn’t eat cold sandwiches. In fact, he became a minor celebrity because he took sandwiches for lunch while the rest of the kids took tacos.
“What did your mother make you for lunch?,” he asked his friend Paco.
“Papas con bacon,” Paco replied. “You want to trade?”
“Sure,” Andres said.

He couldn’t get over his good fortune. Paco’s mother – whoever she was – was a master at making flour tortillas. They were soft and fluffy and shaped themselves snugly around the food. The potatoes were diced and soft and the bacon pieces gave the tacos a delicious taste.

Since he didn’t want his sisters to tell his parents – or to get teased in the cafeteria – he convinced Paco to have their lunch under the mesquite tree.

When lunch time came around, he and Paco were joined by another four or five boys and made their way to the tree. There, he asked them about some of the lessons he didn’t understand as they shared their lunch, or rather, they took turns munching on the baloney sandwich he had traded with Paco.

“Where do you guys go when you tell the teacher ‘maybescuze’?,” Andres asked them once.
“To the bathroom, al baño,” Paco said. “You can go in there and speak Spanish and everything.”

When he returned to his class, he decided to try it on Mrs. Stroman.
Walking up to the elderly lady, he stood before her as she glanced up from the reading lesson she was giving the B group.
“Maybescuze?,” he asked.

The old lady stared at him incredulously and merely pointed down the hallway to the bathroom.
Sure enough, inside were four or five other students laughing and joking among themselves in Spanish.
“Como lo hiciste? (How did you do it?,”) they asked Andres.

“Domas le dije ‘maybescuze’  y me dejo venir  (I just said and maybescuze and she let me come,” he replied.

Years later, Andres got a small satisfaction when he passed by a Taco Bell franchise and saw it was full of non-Hispanics craving what they thought was traditional Mexican food. Personally, the brittle taco shells filled with minced meat never appealed to him. 

He still remembered the fried potato-and-bacon drippings tacos Paco’s mother had prepared and which he traded for his baloney sandwiches some six decades before.
“Now that was real food,” he thought.

Every time he drives past that old mesquite tree, Andres smiles.