Here's Glenn Smith on the Huffington Post:

A mysterious fire last Friday destroys all of the voting machines in Harris County (Houston), Texas. Arson investigators have not yet issued an opinion. Meanwhile, a well-funded right-wing group emerges in Houston and begins raising unfounded allegations of widespread voter fraud. A video on their website pictures only people of color when it talks of voter fraud. White people are shown talking patriotically about the need for a million vigilantes to suppress illegal votes.

In the video, an unidentified spokesman for "TrueTheVote" says, "If we lose Houston, we lose Texas. And guess what? If we lose Texas we lose the country." The former Mayor of Houston, Democrat Bill White, is running against secessionist Republican Gov. Rick Perry this year. White's counting on a big turnout in his home town. The fire and the voter suppression campaign guarantee a greatly diminished turnout.

As I've said before, right-wing voter suppression campaigns are the most under-reported political scandal of the last 50-100 years. But there's never been anything like the criminal destruction of all the voting machines in the nation's fourth largest city. You don't have to be a conspiracy theorist to suspect the machines in Houston were destroyed by an arsonist. Warehouses don't regularly and spontaneously combust at four in the morning, especially warehouses containing all the voting tools in a pivotal city in a pivotal election.

I'm personally no longer associated with or working for the Democratic Party or any candidates in partisan elections, but this is utterly beyond the pale. The Republicans have apparently descended into utter thuggery.