El Paso Politics

Oh look, that nice Republican lady is pretending to be a Democrat for Halloween! How festive! Seriously, give her props. She can only pull this off twice a year. April Fool's Day and Halloween. #Didn'tVoteForObama #Didn'tVoteForBillEither

I've heard local leaders say some really dumb things to defend stupid, crooked, unwise, etc political or policy decisions. Seriously I have a notebook full of dumb quotes from people locally that I have been saving for later use when appropriate. And the dumb things I have heard from elected leaders in Socorro could be its own book. But If you watch this story, this is possibly the dumbest thing I have ever heard an elected official say to justify a really, really, really stupid political move to score points with voters. First, here's a video of a news story done the other day about changing the name of a street in Socorro. Click this link to the story if it doesn't work. Here's the short of it - Socorro has major mobility problems and in an effort to fix those problems Commissioner Vince Perez and Former Mayor Jesus Ruiz and current Councilman At Large Rene Rodriguez worked together to push through some projects that will help alleviate those problems. That is why yo...

American Federation of Teachers boss Ross Moore is pretty upset over an alleged claim of an endorsement coming out of the Fenenbock camp. The incident is alleged to have happened at an event featuring the Chairman of the Texas Democratic Party when he made a recent trip to El Paso.  At issue is a claim alleged to have been made by Anna Dominguez that Fenenbock had received the endorsement of various locals of the American Federation of Teachers.  It is unclear if Dominguez works for the Fenenbock campaign in an official capacity or is just a strong supporter of the Fenenbock  campaign so its hard to say if this is a claim being made by the Fenenbock campaign or by someone who is just a supporter of the campaign. It is also unclear if the claim was, as Moore describes it, "intentionally or inadvertently disingenuous". In order to dispel the rumor, Moore fired off an email to a group of leaders and to members of his local to clarify that the endorsement process of the AFL-C...

This is gonna make some of you very uncomfortable, but I pride myself on discussing what others typically won't, even if it bothers some people. Pretty sure the comment section on this one is gonna be pretty active. Up until recently, race and religion were a subtext to the campaign for the 16th congressional district campaign between front-runners Veronica Escobar and Dori Fenenbock. It is very often whispered by supporters or non-supporters of either candidate and usually in the context of their candidate being unfairly criticized because she's Latina or she's Jewish, depending on who you are talking to. Hell, every time I mention Fenenbock I get someone call me antisemitic and a lot of racist things are said about Mexicans. So much so that I had to actually start following what was always a disclaimer in my comment section and now I require a handle for someone's comment to be posted. But lets look at the reality of the political landscape in El Paso. We are a commun...

Someone please explain to me what Juan Cabrera and EPISD are doing right now. I read this article in the El Paso Times and I almost lost it! So you have someone, Kristine Ferret, who was admittedly part of a wide-ranging cheating scandal that pretty much targeted poor brown kids... and you promote her? And there was a process in which other actual human beings, all of whom attended a university that conferred upon them degrees, that thought it made sense to not only keep her employed - but to give her a promotion? What am I missing here? Is this some kind of joke? Did MTV decide to make an epic comeback of Punk'd and Ashton Kutcher is gonna come out of some bushes with a camera crew and say, "Gotcha El Paso, you've been Punk'd". Because if he is, thats really cool. But if he isn't, then I have to question why the hell Juan Cabrera is still the Superintendent. And lets be very honest about this, she was actually REPRIMANDED by TEA for her role in this. So ther...

So I've been checking out something for the last couple of weeks and wanted to clarify for a few different groups regarding campaign signs. There is a little contradiction in the law, but here's what it looks like near as I can tell. If the road is maintained by TxDOT, you can't start putting signs along said road until 90 days before the election. So on Horizon Boulevard near Sparks there is a sign for a former JP candidate that is trying to get her seat back. That sign can't be up yet because Horizon is a TxDOT road. The same would technically also apply to all the freeways in town. But it would also apply to some other roads that you might not think about when you think about TxDOT. Alameda, McCrae, Mesa, Montana, North Loop, Socorro, Yarborough, and Zaragoza are all TxDOT maintained roads. Someone sent me an example of a Fenenbock sign in a median near Loretto. That particular example is never allowed. You cannot place a political sign in the center island or median...

But seriously... I thought the Superintendent of EPISD had some sort of medical condition that was so bad that he had to sit in First Class seats on the public's dime because he pulled a Cheddar Bob and shot himself in the leg or something... But he's apparently okay to literally, "Walk a Mile in Her Shoes"? I've done this event. Walking around in heels around an area in downtown freakin' hurts. So help me understand this... Before you Dori bots lose your shit, I'm not minimizing the charity. I'm not minimizing the issue, like I said, I have personally participated in this event. Thats how I can tell you with full confidence, that it is freaking painful. It is just a surprise to me that a vato that has to fly First Class because of medical issues can do this event. ******************************************** Speaking of EPISD.... I wrote about Dori being a no-show to meetings and it having an important impact. Well, aside from the fact that I don'...

An effort to reduce the travel budget of the El Paso Independent School District Superintendent Juan Cabrera following controversy around First Class travel, frequent travel, and travel to non-school related functions like the AIPAC convention in Washington DC, failed in a 3-3 vote of the Board of Trustees. By Robert's Rules, when there is a tie on a motion, it dies. Trustees Dye, Geske, and Hatch (shocker) voted against the item. That means Trustees Byrd, Taylor, and Velarde voted to reduce the travel budget for the embattled Superintendent. Compared to other Supers in neighboring districts, Cabrera travels significantly more and the amount of his budget that has already been spent on his travel, coupled with the amount of time he has been out of the office for that travel, has been the subject of criticism for Cabrera. The reason it was a tie is because Trustee and Congressional Candidate Dori Fenenbock has not attended a single meeting of the EPISD Board of Trustees since resign...

You've no doubt seen the emails and social media posts from the two main congressional candidates about what they raised in this reporting period along with their respective spin. So here is a no BS assessment of the reports. Escobar raised a ton of money in a short period of time, about half of what Fenenbock has raised the entire campaign season thus far. Escobar did so in about a month. Escobar raised slightly more than Fenenbock in that roughly one month period than Fenenbock raised in a three month period. Fenenbock spins it in a strange, but not surprising way. On her social media post they spin it as "Our supporters have donated twice as much as our opponent's." Which is true. Except that Escobar's supporters donated half as much in about a month than Fenenbock's supporters over several months. The two roughly raised the same amount in their first 30 days. Which leads to the big campaign question for the two congressional candidates...who is going to be...

I've been in an on-going back-and-forth with one of my commenters who at first took issue with the fact that he was I was "doxing" Dori Fenenbock. Thats when you publish private information about someone, which implies there is an intent to harm someone. He's speaking of the fact that I have posted her voting record with a screenshot from VAN. If I don't post it, then no one can definitively tell that I am talking about the right person and, just for clarity's sake, her address is public. She used it on her filing documentation. Anywho, the guy never says anything about all the other times I've posted the same information about all the other candidates I have shown voting records or finance reports. That coupled with a conversation about the fact that on her first finance report her largest expenditure was to an anti-gay activist who created a PAC against gay marriage following the SCOTUS ruling that made it the law of the land, led to a conversation, in h...

As previously mentioned, I post all campaign announcements sent to me as a courtesy to their respective campaigns. This is the latest from Sergio Lewis' campaign.

As previously mentioned, all candidates for office that send me their fundraiser or event info to post will have it posted. If you want yours posted, send it to me at thelionstarblog@gmail.com. Here's the latest:

Hit the road Jack. Controversial figure Jack Alayyan was terminated Wednesday night at a special meeting of the Lower Valley Water Development Board following what is alleged by some to be a sexual harassment allegation. Alayyan was the subject of a previous allegation of sexual harassment which was eventually paid out in a settlement. No official word on who will be Alayyan's replacement but he has been a polarizing figure since his days at El Paso County. Over the last couple of weeks I have been contacted by over a dozen current and former employees who have expressed concern over working conditions and treatment under Alayyan. The Lower Valley Water Development Board had to pay out a settlement to a previous employee because of similar allegations alleged against Mr. Alayyan. His clique at the office is not going to be happy about the change...

Okay here's a few blurbs that aren't big enough to be their own post, but are still good enough to be mentioned. As I previously mentioned, I went to the VAN training the other day and there were a few funny things that happened. The funniest thing was this big conversation about who got banned from using VAN and why. There were a bunch of conflicting rumors but since I had the low down I corrected some false stories. The next funniest thing was some poor guy that was helping out County Judge candidate and former El Paso Mayor John Cook. He showed up late as well. I don't mean like 15-30 minutes late...I mean like HOURS late. I don't even know why he bothered to show up, it was a total waste and made Cook look bad, especially because a few people mentioned that very few people showed up to Cook's fundraiser. That reminds me, let me know about your fundraiser and I'll post the info. Anywho, the kid started talking about some social media push and I just sort of r...

For those of you that don't already know this, there are two groups of Democrats in the active realm of the Democratic Party in El Paso. Those that are Democrats because of their values and principles - equal opportunities for minorities, women, the disabled etc, social justice, worker rights, a woman's right to choose, comprehensive immigration reform, healthcare for all, the preservation of civil liberties, and better opportunities for the poor - and those that HATE Veronica Escobar. You need to know that bit of information because it explains why someone has artificial support within the Party. Let me explain what I mean by that - there's a clique that will support a candidate that is running against anyone they hate - and they are loud and most of the time, pretty obnoxious. But they aren't really supporting the candidate that is running as much as they are trying to send a message to candidates that they dislike. Which leads me to voter data about individual candid...