El Paso Politics

As I wind down my blog it occurred to me that someone might find use in my video/photo/audio archive. I have over 20 hours of footage from this election alone. If anyone is interested in all or part of the archive, contact me via email and we can discuss. I'd hate for it to go to waste so hit me up.

So I wrote this post called "Where's Waldo..." and I was wondering what every happened to Abe Peinado, candidate for District 1. If you say the polls released by the El Paso Times, he was running dead last in the race. But I guess he decided to have a little fun with the post and I guess this is his new campaign material...and no this is not a joke...and yes, this is real. Now there's a candidate with a sense of humor!!!!!!!

This is why people think David K is a dick. On a personal level, I’m pissed because yet again, for the millionth time, he’s said something as fact with absolutely no proof, and this time it involved me. I’ll get to that part later, but for now lets talk about how reckless he can be. I’ll be the first to admit, I am not always right. But I try to be accurate and if I present something as fact, I back it up. David Karlsruher blends the two so often that it affects his credibility. Speaking of which, David K telling me about credibility is like me telling him he needs to watch his weight. At the end of DK’s piece, he wallows in personal shit. That’s not really my style, but to each his own. But what pisses me off about it is that he should at the very least, ATTEMPT to be accurate. Get off your ass and actually look shit up, its all public record. Stop posting shit that's handed to you, it makes you look like a jackass. Especially because I warned you in the piece I wrote yesterday th...

Okay, if you've seen the paper, you've seen the numbers. None of them really shock me, although some might try to make something out of them but they might be taking a leap off of a flawed premise. I'm mildly surprised that Lilly looks comfortably ahead, though there are almost as many people voting for someone else other than Lilly and about a third of the electorate is undecided. Tim Besco should be shitting his pants right about now. Some of you are probably surprised that he's in second, but I've said before he'll do better than people think. As I previously stated, in a crowded field, the names most familiar to voters usually do the best. Besco was in a recent election, he had a couple of billboards up along the freeway in that election, and his two best performing districts in the congressional election were in that district. So I expected him to have that share of the vote. I didn't expect that he'd be second. But nonetheless, all that going for h...

As I have previously written and also reported in real media outlets, Sonia Brown accepted a contribution from a corporation. They claimed ignorance. Which is weird because the company is called Dynamic Tool Company, Inc. The “Inc” means INCORPORATED!!!! It turns out, its actually a felony to receive the contribution. But nothing will come of the alleged felony unless someone complains to the District Attorney’s Office. That means nothing will happen because the campaigns are in a bit of a Mexican Standoff . The three front-runners have all made mistakes that haven’t really been complained about and the minute one of them does it, it is likely the others will follow suit. What do I mean? Sonia Brown – Allegedly committed felony by accepting a corporate contribution (actually she admits to receiving the contribution in this document ). She also doesn’t have the word “for” on her signs, which means they are not in compliance with election code . Mayela Mejia – Her signs have the word...

Okay, so I wrote about the fact that all the District 5 candidates have talked about the intersection of Joe Battle / Montwood/ Zaragoza. I mentioned that it wasn’t in their district. Several people, including one of the candidates, have tried to convince me that it is. They must be using Zulema Lazarin’s GPS, because it isn’t in their district. Its in District 6, go check out the map. Its not a big deal, but if you are going to say I’m wrong, you had better be right! Kidding, in all seriousness, its no big deal. The intersection needs to get fixed, but it’s a state maintained area so there isn’t much that can be done about it from a city council perspective. 

I’ve been doing some checking and I’m trying to figure out what ever happened to Abe Peinado, candidate in District 1 for City Rep. If I’m not mistaken, I think my blog might have been his last sighting. I haven’t heard of him walking, haven’t heard of mailers, phone calls, nada. It’s a big sea of candidates and it can sometimes feel like you are playing Where’s Waldo, but I was surprised that he’s sort of fallen off the campaign planet lately. That's not good for a candidate...

David K is off on yet another conspiracy theory tangent. I guess he doesn’t have anything better to do now that the President has released his birth certificate. He’s got everyone geared up for a major bomb. Too bad it’s a dud and Karlsruher is going to be the one that looks silly. But it should be fun to watch. It’ll be like a cartoon when Daffy is always trying to blow up Bugs. Poor Daffy is always the one ending up with burnt feathers.

Okay you crazy nuts, the President released his birth certificates. Are you done with the freak show bullshit so we can move on to more important things, or are you reality show candidate supporters still sticking with the birth certificate thing? I suggest you stick to it. The more you idiots do, the more people realize the Tea Party is a bunch of crazies and POTUS will have another 4 years. Thanks! Sincerely, The Duke of Democrats, Me

Sorry, this is just funny to me. How a campaign could let this be sent out is beyond me, but its funny!

The Mexican American Bar Association (MABA) will be giving their endorsement to the following candidates: District 1 - Lyda Ness-Garcia District 5- Mayela Mejia District 6 - Eddie Holguin District 8- Ernesto Villanueva Official announcement will be coming soon.

If you recall there was an open records request done a while back asking for certain emails communications from Representative Lily's containing several key words identified by the Lyda Ness-Garcia campaign. The request surfaced because they wanted to find out if she was doing any campaign related activities on taxpayer's time or dime. They selected a range of words, some of which could be entirely normal conversation from a city rep's office that don't appear to be out of the ordinary like: "Transmountain", "voting", "invite", or a staffer's name. Some appear to be dubious at first glance like the name of the staffer's spouse who is working for her opponent, the name of her opponent, "campaign", "Democrat", "Republican", "donation", or "early voting". Obviously it would be a whole lot of nothing, or it could be uncovering some interesting stuff. No one will know until the record req...

The short answer in my mind is yes – absolutely. Her handlers have a history of going negative. I might remind you that they represented both Representative Gonzalez and former Representative Chavez in the past. But there is a bit of a problem with going negative in this race. Their candidate is basically a nice old lady. She’s very grandmotherly. Okay, great-grandmotherly. The point is, if her handlers encourage her to go negative it will be the biggest case of a message not matching a candidate this side of “Read my lips, no new taxes”. It just won’t stick and it will likely backfire. The last thing Lilly needs in her campaign right now is blow-back from negative campaigning. But this isn’t a matter of if, it’s a matter of when, how, and how dirty will they get. Lilly can’t possibly go dirty in public. Its just not in her and she has a hard time staying on message no matter what the message is. Plus, she can’t prosecute a negative campaign; she doesn’t have the verbal acumen to pull ...

There is still debate over whether or not Babe Ruth ever actually called his shot before a homerun, but there is no debate that I called my shot on the Pastor Brown candidates only going to forums on safe ground. All of Pastor Tom Brown’s candidates showed up to the forum held by LifeGate Church last night. George “Buster” Russell is the pastor of the church and he was able to do something I haven’t seen done in a while…get new faces in to a candidate forum. The Tom Brown candidates are in a bit of a pickle. They want to come across as more than one-issue candidates, but the harder they try not to, the more they sound like one-issue candidates. The candidates were asked a question about what they thought the three biggest issues facing the city were and given 5 minutes to talk about it. The only one of the Pastor Tom Brown stable that is remotely capable of saying they are more than a one issue candidate is Manny Hinojosa. If there were an award given for Most-Improved Candidate, it wo...

Someone came up and asked me at the forum last night about Jorge Artalejo and if he was a “for real”. He had gotten in to it with the moderator of the event because he kept jumping up to answer questions and started to monopolize the time. I think that’s the other candidates’ fault for not having the initiative to get the mike first, but in their defense, its hard to take the guy seriously. Which actually leads to my point. If you want people to take you seriously, you have to give them a reason to. Artalejo shows up to forums looking disheveled and like he just rolled out of bed. He usually wears shorts and a t-shirt. Last night was a new mark even for him. He showed up in chanclas. I’m not kidding.

I know, I can’t believe I wrote that either, but I mean it. (Yet more proof I need to quit blogging I guess). But I have to give credit where credit is due. I posted video over the weekend of Pastor Tom Brown in front of the Mexican American Bar Association speaking on behalf of his wife, Sonia Brown who is a candidate for District 5 city rep. I was struck by the fact that Pastor Brown, who many feel would rather be the candidate, repeatedly stated “I” or “we” when answering questions. Apparently Stuart Leeds was one of the members of the panel and also noticed the repeated utterances of “I” or “we” from Tom Brown. Apparently Leeds raised the question of who would be running the office if Sonia Brown were elected since Tom Brown kept saying “I” or “we” so often. Glad to see that he raised the issue. It’s a fair question, good for him.

Here are the Tea Party Republican candidates for city council. I think its important people in this town know who they are and what they stand for. The reason this is important is because the Tea Party movement has done its best to try to pretend that they are just a collection of fiscal conservatives that occassionally have a few weirdos in their midst that like to dress up in period garb or carry around the old Don't Tread on Me flag. It's actually called the Gadsden Flag. Truth is the Tea Party was actually started by the Libertarian wing of the Republican Party. Ron Paul was their messiah. Then, the GOP decided to infiltrate and envelop the Tea Party in to the Republican Party. I actually think the Texas Gubernatorial Election was the watershed moment when the Tea Party was swallowed up by the Republicans. Deborah Medina was the candidate of the Libertarian wing of the Republican Party in Texas and most of the Tea Party people were behind her. That is until Sarah Palin came...

Just posted a new poll on TheLionStar Blog. Check it out and vote.

Sonia Brown is a first time candidate trying to establish her credentials as a candidate in her FIRST attempt to run for elected office. You're gonna compare her candidacy to a 15 year incumbant with a 15 year voting record on the issues??  Really?? Second, this was an endorsement forum not a debate. Congressman Reyes attended this exact same MABA endorsement forum himself, because he's smart enough to know that if your seeking someone's endorsement you better show up in person, not send someone else.  Vince never spoke for the Congressman when seeking a group's endorsement. Pastor Brown is stepping in for his wife before a group that's figuring out what candidates to endorse. Third, Congressman Reyes may not have made every debate during the campaign, but Congressman Reyes still had the primary responsibility of representing us in his official capacity as our federal representative.  What's Sonia Brown's excuse?  Congressman Reyes was present at all the mos...

GoAnimate.com : Religious Tea Party Candidate Asks for Vote by thelionstarblog Like it? Create your own at GoAnimate.com . It's free and fun!

I'm really behind on video and i want to catch up before the 14th. I still have to edit and post video from the Eastside Civic Association and the Tea Party Rally. Honestly the video from the Eastside Civic Association forum is pretty boring because I thought they all sucked. But the Tea Party Rally video should be a real hoot. The Tom Brown candidates were in attendance and all took the mike. They all proudly decalred themselves Tea Party Republicans, so just in case there was any confusion, the video will show them embrace their Tea Partiness. Its crappy quality because it was windy and the shadow really screwed up the ability to see their faces, but you can still hear what they have to say. I also have video from the environmental, Black El Paso Democrats, and Westside Democrats Forums. Its a lot, but I want to make sure you have as much information as possible to make decisions about who you want to lead our community. Close to the election I will be writing a piece explaining ...

Its Good Friday and Brownfield wrote a piece that gave me a good laugh. You should read one of his recent posts about taking over the LA Dodgers. He has fun with a lot of local elected officials and it gave me a much needed good laugh. Go read it here .

I wrote about some questionable contributions to Tea Party Republican Sonia Brown's campaign earlier this week and the El Paso Times was able to get comment from Brown...well the husband anyway. They claim ignorance. I agree. But they claim ignorance of the law as a defense. I'm not buying it. This is the second time that the El Paso Times has written about the fact that they apparently can't follow rules and in this case, the law. Her lack of compliance with campaign laws regarding their signage is another example of not playing by the rules. It has become habitual with Sonia Brown. She has either no understanding of the law, which in my mind makes her unqualified, or she doesn't care, which in my mind would also make her unqualified. The contribution was made as the business owner, who is a parishioner made his way in to their church service. What is most troublesome about the whole situation is the fact that Sonia Brown doesn't speak for herself. Her husband doe...

I have found out the names of two of the endorsements by the El Paso Police Officer's Association. In District 8 the association endorsed Cortney Niland, which comes on the heels of her endorsement by the El Paso Young Democrats. The endorsement in District 1 went to Theresa Ware-Asbury. This is Ware-Asbury's first endorsement of the campaign season and if the endorsement comes with money or volunteers, could potentially be a much needed shot in the arm for her campaign.

Follow the money is an old expression. It has stayed around because its a true statement. Follow the money and you will find your answers. Here's my opinion regarding Ann Morgan Lily's contributions from Citizens for Prosperity. Representative Lily was on record as being against the expansion of Transmountain Road. There are people that own land in the area that would like for the value of that land to be more than what it is now. For some unexplained reason, Representative Lily suddenly changed her position and voted in favor of expanding the road. If you notice on her campaign finance report the money was flowing pretty regularly from that PAC during the campaign, and my guess is that on the next report, we'll see even more money from the PAC. A review of the PAC and the people who donated to the PAC is the document below. Citizens for Prosperity Contributions Then I wanted to know who owned the property on Transmountain. Here they are plotted on a map, numbered with th...

Perhaps feeling the heat, Representative Lily has been a no-show at forum's lately. Rep Lily apparently told the organizers of two forums held last night that she could not be in attendance because she was attending the other forum. So she told the people running one forum that she could not attend because she was at the other and vice versa. She attended neither. She also failed to show up to today's forum with the apartment people. Surprisingly I'm told Zulema Lazarin did show up. Go figure.

Last night's debate on environmental issues was very interesting for a range of reasons, one of which was the attendance of one former elected official who now insists on being called a "private citizen". Which is funny because most "private citizens" don't run around bragging about their papers being enshrined at UTEP. And the "private citizen" attended a PUBLIC forum to ask a question and made a big deal about not wanting to be video taped. I guess it was just another case of "private citizen" being "private citizen". So enough about the has-beens, on to the relevant people that were in attendance. Manny Hinojosa, a candidate in the crowded District 1 race is a Tea Party guy. In fact, he is the guy that invited the speakers for the Tea Party Rally that was a total flop last Sunday. I have video of his remarks there, I'm sure many of you will find them enlightening. The point is, the Tea Party and the Republicans tried to d...

I have decided to end The LionStar Blog on May 14th. I think its fitting that it end on an Election Day. I fully realize that there are a lot of powerful people, business types, politico, etc that are glad to hear that. The reason I am announcing it now, is because I didn't like the fact that Talk Radio ended so abruptly and without warning. I wanted to give my readers a heads up because I appreciate the fact that you all took time out of your days to read my often incoherent rants. I started my blog out of frustration, so I guess its ironic that it is frustration that is part of my decision to end the blog. I'm not the same guy I was when I started blogging, which is both good and bad. I have had the chance to do some really cool stuff because of my blog, including covering a Presidential visit to El Paso and watching Carlos Santana do a sound check in the Don Haskins Center. I've never made a penny off of blogging, so I was never in it for the money. No one compensates me...

Several candidates have some notable issues on their campaign contributions. Representative Ann Morgan Lily has so many questions, it will be its own piece. But in the mean time, here are some questions that have arisen about contributions and reports of other candidates. Zulema Lazarin in District 6 spent and raised more than the $500 limit she first committed to. Thats not really too much of a big deal, but it does represent the fact that she reversed her position on contributions. Flip flopping appears to be somewhat of a habit of Lazarin. Sonia Brown appears to have accepted donations from three companies, two of which appear to be corporations. If that is in fact the case, that is a violation of the ethics code and might even be a violation of campaign finance law. The same appears to go for Dr. Michiel Noe . His business is an LLC and made an in-kind donation for office space rental. I don't know if the fact that it is in-kind gives him any wiggle room, but it certainly ra...

Multiple sources close to Ann Morgan Lily indicate that there is a big campaign shake-up in the works with Lily's campaign. It appears that Lily will basically fire the PAC and her advisors, Forma Group, in an attempt to distance herself from the fact that she took so much money from the Citizens for Prosperity. She's certainly not the first candidate to make the mistake of taking a majority of their political campaign contributions from one source. Joe Wardy and Naomi Gonzalez have done so. It hurt Wardy and didn't hurt Gonzalez. At any rate, its a very bad sign for Representative Lily who was already facing an uphill battle in a crowded race.  Residents in the district say they have received a couple of pieces of literature from Rep Lily's campaign this week and I hear she's been walking. More details as they become available.

Every once in awhile something or someone gets under my skin. I'll admit, its a bit of a weakness of mine, and it may someday be my undoing, but I love a good fight. But this is beyond the rush of a good exchange. I'm pissed. Don Kirkpatrick,precinct chair, longtime Democratic Party activist and member of the Democratic Party Hall of Fame, sends out emails to party activists. Next to Don Williams' email list, its the largest in the party.  Today, following the announcement of the endorsements of the El Paso Young Democrats, Mr. Kirkpatrick sent out the following email: It is difficult to understand the Young Democrats' endorsement of a candidate who is backed solidly -- with significant financial support -- by a coterie of wealthy Republicans.  Their purposes, obviously, are diametrically opposed to the goals of all Democrats. It seems to me, in view of the fact that City Council elections are non-partisan, that endorsements by political parties are inappropriate. I...