Get Your Facts Right Sammy

Poor Sammy, he's become quite the puppet, first of the Republicans, now of Ness-Garcia haters. Its not my job to dispel everything the two conservative bloggers write. Frankly there are just not enough hours in the day to clean up after those two to begin with and no one ever really accused them of being accurate.

But the two have been on a real rant lately writing about me. I understand why Sammy does, he really wants to develop an audience of readers. He's even remarked about how writing trash and lies has been popular for him in terms of traffic.

Photoshopped image of Sammy. Relax David K, he's not really a Democrat and under my mind control powers, or is he?

Sammy recently wrote about the El Paso Stonewall Democrats so I thought I would answer some of what he wrote. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but you aren't entitled to your own set of facts.

First of all Daniel Rollings is the President, not the Chair. I am the Vice President, not the Vice Chair. Sammy can't even get that basic part of his piece right. In fact, that's pretty much the closest he came to being accurate.

Rule number 1 Sammy, in the words of Ronald Regan, "trust but verify".

Sammy was furnished information by someone who doesn't like Danny Rollins, Elizabeth Hapsburg-Kelly. She has a pretty deep beef with Danny that goes back a long way. Sammy either doesn't know that, or did know and choose to leave out that little detail. I suspect he knows.

I don't know what the beef is about, and frankly I don't care, but the reason she provided Sammy with the info was because she had an axe to grind. She tried to give me the same info about Danny.

So let's get in to the meat of his claims. He alleges that several potential members of the group quit before the group got off the ground and that the organization had trouble getting started. As Vice President of the group I can tell you Sammy is lying. It was only 2 members. One of whom was Elizabeth. She was upset because she wasn't elected President of the organization. No one made a second to her self-nomination. Apparently not even the other member who quit.

There was a previous incarnation of the group in El Paso with Elizabeth as the head. I don't know how many members there were, but for whatever reason, the group just sort of died off.

The new group was formed earlier this year. There were some meetings that took place in order to create the chapter. That is normal and it is also normal for a group to have some internal issues before getting off the ground.

Sammy should know that pretty well. The same thing happened to the El Paso Chapter of the Latino National Republican Coalition. You know, the one that has Sammy as its Chair. I was actually at the meeting they held to elect a leader. Do you know what happened at that meeting?

Some people argued and actually quit the organization right then and there. And it was more than two of them. Hell, they couldn't even agree to a name.

At our last meeting, we welcomed 5 new paid members. The chapter is growing and has really only been around a couple of months, so it takes a while for things to come together, but it is far from the previous incarnations failure and is moving forward with several events already planned.

Sammy posted an email response from the state level and it contained a litany of things that had to be done before the chapter was officially recognized. What Sammy didn't do is check his facts to see if it was done. It has been.

Sorry Sammy, yet another strikeout.

But wait, my favorite part of his piece is the part where he says the President isn't a registered voter in El Paso. So let's go through a litany of our own shall we?

Sammy says, "If Rollings is a registered voter in the state of Texas than he is breaking the law by being registered in two different states".

TRUTH- No he isn't. Its not against the law. He would only be breaking election law if he voted in two different states in the same election. I have voted in more than one state, but not in the same election. I'm certain that if Sammy voted while he was in the military, he likely did the same. The mere fact that a state still lists him as a registered voter doesn't mean he still votes there. All it means is that his name hasn't fallen off of their rolls yet. Hell, this is Texas. Lyndon Johnson had dead people vote for him if I'm not mistaken.

Sammy apparently doesn't research very thoroughly and can't seem to get anything right. He alleged that Rollings isn't qualified to be the President of the organization because he's not a registered voter in El Paso County.

That's funny, because according to the Secretary of State's Office, he is. Here's a screen shot that I took to prove it. Unlike Sammy, I do my own homework, not take the work someone else did and put my name on it.

Like the Gipper said, "trust but verify".

Maybe Sammy thinks the Secretary of State is part of a cover-up, after all, he has become a bit of conspiracy theorist lately.

Here's the part that is really going to make poor Sammy flip out. Danny registered to vote in Texas because he moved here and wanted to vote for Richard Wiles to be sheriff.

Sammy goes on to allege that the group was started to help Lyda Ness-Garcia's campaign.

Once again, Sammy charges ahead without knowing the facts. The talk of the group forming was before Ness-Garcia had even decided to run for the position.

But again, Sammy doesn't let the facts get in the way of what he writes. The Fox News school of thought, it doesn't have to be true, you just have to repeat it enough times. Sort of like the President not being born in the United States.

He also alleges Lyda Ness-Garcia was a speaker at our first official meeting. TRUTH: No she wasn't. She wasn't at our first official meeting and has never been a speaker at our meetings.

Ever.

We have yet to support or endorse any candidate in any election. We have not assisted anyone's campaign and there are not even plans to do so. In fact, the discussion has never come up in our meetings and come to think of it, we have never mentioned Lyda Ness-Garcia's name in a meeting, formal or informal.

I am not going to take sides between two good Democrats like Elizabeth Hapsburg-Kelly and Daniel Rollings. Elizabeth has been an active participant in the Democratic Party and I'm proud to know her. Danny is the President of a Democratic Party club.

Its not a crime that Danny was once a Republican, though it probably should be. But Sammy doesn't mind when Democrats switch to his side and even one of the Haggerty's switched to ours.

Liz has her issues with Danny. I frankly don't care and neither does Sammy. I'm not sure if its Sammy being used for a personal vendetta that Liz has with Danny, or Sammy taking advantage of her beef with Danny for the sake of trashing Democrats.

But the bottom line here is that Sammy and Republicans are not friends to the gay community and Sammy is taking shots at Democrats. Just count how many times he's ridiculed Danny about his sexuality and even implied that Danny performed sexual favors for advancement. That's not something a friend to the gay community does.

Sammy has been supportive of several members of Pastor Brown's flock of candidates, including Manny Hinojosa and Zulema Lazarin. Those are the facts.

Too bad he's not interested in the truth, he might have more credibility if he was.