El Paso Politics

On Thursday, June 18th, in the final hours of the workday, Lucilla Najera finally did what she should have done days earlier. She abandoned her recount. And before anyone starts firing off Facebook comments about what “really happened,” let me save you some time. I was there.  For days. From morning until evening. I watched the process unfold in real time. So if anyone wants to challenge what I’m about to write, that’s fine. Just make sure you were actually in the room. First, Let’s Talk About The Recount An election recount is not exciting.  It isn’t dramatic.  It isn’t some episode of Law & Order where a surprise witness bursts through the door and changes everything. It’s tedious. Painfully tedious. Mind-numbingly tedious. You count. You recount. You sort. You resort. You verify. You verify again. After spending several days watching the process, I came away with a new appreciation for the employees in the Elections Department. Those folks don’t get paid enough to ...

Election Deniers - Trump (Left), Chavez (Right) Even now, well into his second term, Donald Trump remains incapable of doing one simple thing: admitting he lost an election. Recently in Iowa, Trump got into it with a reporter and once again insisted that the 2020 election was rigged and that he was the real winner. This, despite dozens of court cases, countless investigations, and repeated opportunities to provide actual evidence. Every time he went looking for proof, all he found was another judge telling him to go sit down somewhere. The problem isn’t evidence. The problem is ego. Trump simply cannot bring himself to admit that he lost to Joe Biden because his ego won’t allow him to acknowledge something millions of Americans figured out years ago: sometimes you lose. And while I’m talking about Donald Trump, I could just as easily be talking about Norma Chavez. If you recall, a few years back, around the same time Trump was busy trying to overturn reality, Chavez was runn...

I'm going to be honest with you. My family suffered a loss on the morning of Election Day, and I needed to step back and be present for what mattered most - family. But what happened at El Paso City Council last night pulled me back to the keyboard, because some things cannot go without being said. So here we are. Let's Get the Lies Out of the Way First The five council members who voted with Meta - and yes, I'm calling them the Feckless Five , because the shoe fits - have been running around spreading misinformation about what the agenda item would have actually done. Let me be clear, because apparently clarity is in short supply at City Hall. The agenda item would not have triggered immediate litigation from Meta. It would not have terminated the existing contract. What it would have done is bring Meta back to the negotiating table so that El Paso - the community, the people, the ones who actually live here - could get a better deal. That's it. That's all...