El Paso Politics

"The unmeasured menace of the enemy." That is a line from a speech Winston Churchill gave to his alma mater, Harrow School in England. Whats a vato loco from the barrio doing quoting Churchill? Well a doctor friend of mine shared it with me and it relates to the two year battle that was waged down here in the Mission Valley to stop a proposed medical waste facility that has been trying to locate in our community. I know a lot of you reading this might not grasp why its such a big deal - and you should be grateful for that. Because you probably live in a neighborhood where that kind of thing would never happen. But for those of us who live in working-class Latino neighborhoods, environmental racism is a real thing. I know a lot of you hate how much I bash the westside but lets be real for a minute - no one ever tries putting this kind of thing on your side of town. Its the Valley that ends up having to deal with facilities like this. Commissioner Vince Perez and City Rep Claud...

So the District 3 race is already heating up regardless of whether or not former City Rep Cassandra Hernandez has come to grips with it yet. I guess she just really wants to keep wearing that hard hat. I'm sure she could work something out with Mayor Margo to keep it. Game of Thrones had the Iron Throne, I guess D3 has the construction helmet - which is pretty ironic considering how bad the roads are in that district. But hey, since we are playing dress-up, why not make the rest of council dress up like the rest of the Village People? What do you think? Mayor Margo as the Leather Chaps guy, or the Navy guy? I'm leaning toward the Leather Chaps guy, if for no other reason than the Fu Manchu facial hair. Anywho, I know of at least two women and 3 men ready to throw their hat in the ring for the seat. Most of the people vying for the position are new faces and one of them has held office before, so its mostly a crop of new people looking to represent District 3. A couple of them s...

Cassandra Hernandez sent out a press release in which she is terca that she didn't resign from office. Except she very clearly did. So lets clear up the narrative, shall we? She made public notification that she was resigning. You know who else says she made public notification? Her lawyer, Daniel Marquez. “It was an inadvertent public notification that went out when they changed the name of that Facebook account.” Click this link to an article in the El Paso Times to read it for yourself. If you caught yesterday's special meeting you would've got a kick out of it. First, she was wearing the same white suite that she's wearing in the images where she changed her page name to reflect her candidacy for Mayor. I'm sure it was because Monday was Women's Equality Day and she's trying to do the whole AOC and the rest of congress wearing white thing. I just thought it was funny that its the same outfit. You know what else was funny? Her lawyer. Oh man I got a kick...

County Commissioner Vince Perez announced his re-election campaign Sunday morning after mass in San Elizario, Texas. As you may know, San Elizario exists as its own independent community because Commissioner Perez led the charge against a City Council in Socorro, led by the infamous Gandara family, that had unlawfully extended their terms in office and tried to orchestrate an annexation of San Elizario. And the contrasts between the candidates couldn't be more clear. The Holguin family are going to try to appeal to the establishment and anyone with an office or title. Perez made it a point to announce his reelection in San Elizario, the place were he married his wife, El Paso Mayor Pro-Temp Claudia Ordaz Perez and the place where he chose to be sworn in as County Commissioner - among a crowd of supporters that don't have fancy titles, don't have staff, and were from every sector of Precinct 3. Former City Rep Eddie Holguin, spouse of challenger Iliana Holguin made it a poin...

Okay so there's a fair amount of confusion going on from my conversations with folks about City Rep Cassandra Hernandez and Monday's meeting to set a special election to replace her on council. First - I'll be the last to defend Dee Margo, but the Mayor really doesn't have a say in this. Once Cassandra made her intentions of running for mayor public through social media - which its sole purpose is to make things public - the mayor and council pretty much have their hands tied. The law kicks in and its clear - that is an automatic resignation. Obviously someone screwed up. Knowing Hernandez, the last thing she'll do is take personal responsibility for the screw up. I'm sure she'll blame it on someone else. You know, the Shaggy Defense. "It wasn't me." But it doesn't matter - that facebook posting sealed her fate. Obviously she wanted to be able to keep her salary and her position on council so that she could rail against the meeting and poli...

Betrayal has been a part of politics since the days of Julius Caesar being stabbed in the streets of Rome by the person closest to him, Brutus. "Et tu Brute?", as Shakespear once wrote... In politics, loyalty is the coin of the realm. Without it, you have nothing. Sometimes staff leave an office and go on to other things. Sometimes its under good terms, sometimes its under bad terms. Sometimes a staffer goes to work with another elected official. Sometimes, not often, they go to work for a rival elected official. But one thing you never do, is what Josh Carter has done to his former boss. Its a level of betrayal that defines you forever after you do it. Its straight up weasel-level stuff and is why no one will ever trust the guy again. Y'all remember Josh Carter right? He was Mary's staffer that was always running for something and could never win. His last effort was in Socorro ISD for the Montwood area trustee position. He had every single advantage possible and sti...

Word around the campfire at city hall is that City Rep Cassandra Hernandez was furious yesterday because she was running from a cameraman and reporter that was asking about her announcement for a mayoral bid on Facebook the other day. I didn't see the coverage on the news last night, but maybe they will air it in another news package.  My sources at City Hall are saying that there will be a special meeting on Monday of city council to set a special election to replace City Rep Hernandez on council.  Hernandez may be hoping that she can somehow keep her office since she pulled down her mayoral page and changed it back to her District 3 page. Unfortunately the AG and the law are pretty clear - there are no take-backsies. If there is a meeting on Monday, that means council wants to get an election set soon and if its in November, I don't think there's an additional cost to voters. But if they have to do it another day, then its a REAL problem for Hernandez because it will mean...

I had this feeling in the pit of my stomach during the coverage of the shooting in El Paso that I kept trying to push down - but then I heard conversations of average El Pasoans who felt the same way. Its sad, but I just knew there was going to be people that would use the shooting as a spring board for another office. Hell, one candidates pretty much compiled every interview they did and posted it on her website. Pretty naked display of leveraging a tragedy for political gain. Now it looks like Cassandra Hernandez is also using that springboard for a mayoral run. I wrote about it even before the shooting, but Hernandez did a lot of TV interviews during the tragedy. Late last night she changed here official Facebook page to her Mayoral candidacy Facebook page. And talk about falling on your face from the start, it appears she may have triggered the resign-to-run rule. She's more than a year away from the Mayoral election, and pretty much any public declaration would make that rule ...

If you don't feel for Mr. Basco, then there is something seriously wrong with you. He lost his only person in the world, his beloved wife of more than 20 years to a white supremacist who targeted our community because of the color of our skin. This weekend Mr. Basco did for El Paso, what Mayor Dee Margo failed to do. He brought us a small bit of closure, got us started on the road to healing, united our community - and gave a whole lot of hugs. The lines of a cross-section of El Pasoans that went to the services for his wife wrapped around a couple of city blocks and 22 hearses delivered all the flowers that were sent to Mr. Basco to the memorial site. Margo's Dee Margo Show that was supposed to be a memorial fell flat because it wasn't El Paso and it was just a bunch of politicians speaking at us, not to us. But Mr. Basco, he showed the world that we in El Paso are one big family. Every color went to go support Mr. Basco. Gay and straight. Muslims, Jews, and Catholics. Zoo...

I acquired a photo taken inside the Tornillo Detention Facility that for me, crystalizes what the term "embedded journalism" means in the Trump Administration. The photo was taken by Bob Moore, an El Pasoan who writes for the Washington Post. Click here to follow him on Twitter. For a guy who spends a lot of time talking about "fake news" about any media source that isn't Fox News, I'd really like to hear Trump's explanation for this photo. At first glance you might just think its a regular old photo of a journalist and his photog while filming a story. As you can see, the photo is of a Fox News reporter doing a story in the Tornillo facility, and his camera man is, and I can't make this up, a Border Patrol Agent. I know, you're shocked that Fox News is covering the detention centers from the literal point of view of the Border Patrol, right? For all his efforts to silence critical analysis of his administration by a deliberate effort to undermin...

The memorial held last night fell flat, felt hallow, and was missing a lot. Most of all, it didn't really feel very El Paso to me. And as if Trump coming to El Paso wasn't enough of a slap in the face to El Pasoans, the people Mayor Dee Margo invited on stage were an even bigger insult to this community. Let me preface this by saying that I know a lot of people worked really hard to put on the memorial, hundreds volunteered, and some very talented people were involved. I thought the video tribute was great, the guys in uniform all did a great job, the bag pipes, national anthem, and cellist were amazing. Can't control the weather and the mariachi's did their best to carry on despite what was going on with the weather. I'll get back to that later because it was the most El Paso part of the event I think... Also, great display of the stars representing the El Paso victims and the circles representing Dayton victims. But the program seemed anything but El Paso. Almost ...

Okay, its been a while since I've posted one of these videos - but hey, its election time so expect to see every candidate I come across giving a speech to be posted. One of the reasons you readers come to the LSB is because you expect me to call it how I see it. Well, I only caught the last part of her speech, which was pretty much the least interesting part of her speech. I can't remember the candidate's whole name - it was Rosie something. I spoke to here after the meeting and she seemed to be really nice. Very personable. And passionate. A little too passionate. She started with the I'm-a-Latina-Gina-Is-Filipina line. We've heard that line before a couple of years ago. But wow - she really didn't have a good performance. She said she didn't come to El Paso to campaign for the Congressional District 23 seat, that she came here to mourn with El Pasoans. So maybe we can just chalk it up to her being kind of emotional. Whatever the reason actually was - she ...

There are some very good reasons why people hate politicians. Mostly, its when they show that they are opportunist. Sometimes during tragedies, politicos find a way to make it about them, when its not about them. Sometimes they politicize things they shouldn't. So let me rip the band-aid off about the shooter and Yvonne Rosales calling for a special prosecutor. I don't blame you if you haven't heard about it, but here is an article in the El Paso Times the other day where she calls for a special prosecutor. Click here if you haven't read the article , because you should. The fact that she's calling for a special prosecutor really bothers me because its politicizing the most important case this community has ever seen. I feel her doing so is an insult to the families. You just knew someone would try to get mileage out of this tragedy. At first I thought it was just school board trustees from Socorro milking every interview from CNN and every ounce on his Facebook pag...

Predictably President Trump came to El Paso and puffed out his chest and made the tragedy our community has been dealing with all about him. Shocker right? County Judge Ricardo Samaniego very quietly canceled a meeting of Commissioners Court in order for him to go and meet the President. As you may know, despite the fact that we lost 22 fronterizos in that tragedy and none of the victims that were recovering in the hospital wanted to actually meet with Trump when he went to the hospital - Samaniego and Trump were all smiles in a picture taken by the White House. Click here if you haven't seen it yet . But if you watch the cringeworthy video of Trump bragging about crowd size, you'll notice a couple of things. Hat tip to my homie that brought this to my attention because I didn't catch it until he mentioned it. I added some subtitles to make it more clear to understand because there are a few people talking over one another in parts of the video. In the early part of the sho...

Well the xenophobic Republican candidate for congress Anthony Aguero, who echoes Trump rhetoric in an effort to dehumanize immigrants has a criminal history that I have chronicled here on my blog for months now. His campaign never caught fire the way I guess he was expecting it to and he's pretty much just floundering on the GOP side right now. But he may actually be in some more legal hot water soon. I was sent this screenshot by his opposition over the weekend. I blurred out the faces of the other folks in the picture and the owner of the page it is on, but I made sure to highlight the date it was taken. It was taken in March. As I mentioned to you all before - Aguero is a felon. Actually, he has multiple felonies. Now for whatever reason, Republicans like to play dress-up. Just think of how many times Max Grossman plays dress-up. Although truth be told, I think the dandy dresses like that even at home. Anywho, back to the point of this post. As a felon - he's not supposed to...

Survivors of the mass shooting that took the lives of 22 people in our Borderland region at the Cielo Vista Walmart last Saturday are recovering in a couple of different hospitals. The victims that were recovering from their wounds at University Medical Center yesterday declined to be visited by President Trump and as a result plans had to be changed for the President to visit hospital staff. While the survivors of the worst attack on Latinos in the history of the United States declined to give President Trump a photo-op, El Paso County Judge Richard Samaniego apparently had no problem doing so. As you can see from this photo that came from the White House website, El Paso County Judge Ricardo Samaniego is all smiles, along with President Trump. Again, 22 people died in that event that has shaken our community. Last count I recall, there were 28 injured. Many of the people I've spoken to about the photo have had reactions from saying it was entirely inappropriate, to saying it was ...

While El Paso Mayor Dee Margo is welcoming President Trump to El Paso today, other leaders have taken a different approach. El Paso Mayor Pro Tempore Claudia Ordaz Perez and County Commissioner Vince Perez issued a stinging statement today ahead of Trump's Visit to El Paso stating in part,  " If the President fails to strongly condemn this racially-motivated terrorist attack and fails to call for an end to the use of violence against minority groups by radicalized white nationalist terrorists during his visit, his continued depiction of immigrants and migrants as a threat to our nation will only place our community at greater risk for racially-motivated attacks. " Here is the entire statement issued by the Mayor Pro Tempore and County Commissioner that both represent El Paso's Mission Valley and parts of the Eastside. STATEMENT BY EL PASO MAYOR PRO TEMPORE CLAUDIA ORDAZ PEREZ AND  EL PASO COUNTY COMMISSIONER VINCENT PEREZ ON PRESIDENT TRUMP’S VISIT TO  EL PASO El Pas...

Obviously as a blogger I am a firm believer that words matter. There is a power in the collection of consonants and vowels that make up our language. Words have the power to incite hate and violence - like the words spewed from Adolf Hitler during the holocaust. He referred to Jews as vermin - which was a way to dehumanize them and justify the treatment of the Jews in Europe during World War II. Words have the power to heal - like Robert F. Kennedy following the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. On the heels of what has happened to our community I think its important that we stop the next tragedy from happening before it happens. That requires us to be vigilant and when we see something - say something. Because words become deeds. As we have already seen, President Trump has tied this tragedy to immigration. A man who hated raza, drove 10 hours to come kill brown people. Because he doesn't like Latinos in Texas and called it an invasion. You know who else uses words like ...

I arrived on a plane to El Paso in late December of 1997. I was stationed at Fort Bliss, which was my last duty station in the United States Army. It was love at first sight for me. I grew up in a Mexican neighborhood back home in Phoenix. The "bad part of town". So when I arrived in El Paso, it was familiar to me even though I'd never been here before.  The first thing I was impressed by - and what quickly made me fall in love with her - was her people. Paseños are the most kind, welcoming, and loving people anywhere. I know that those of you reading this that live somewhere else think I'm just another Texan bragging about their town. Or you maybe you think there's nice people everywhere and El Paso isn't particularly special in that category.  Thats because you've never been here. El Paso is everything I'm saying it is and more. The people really are what make this town great.  Its also the vibrant colors of the desert sky at sunset. Its the menudo a...

As of last week Democratic congressional candidate Gina Ortiz-Jones would've been an odds-on favorite to win the seat currently held by retiring Congressman Will Hurd. She would have been running in a presidential year against a President that is poised to lose swing districts (what little there are anymore) like Congressional District 23. But with Hurd retiring, the door has flown open for other candidates to make the bid for the seat that I now affectionately refer to as The Purple Throne, and it wouldn't surprise me if a couple of candidates from El Paso threw their hat in the ring. And that would be a really bad scenario for GOJ because she'd have to do something she didn't do last time - she would have to take El Paso County seriously and not for granted. Hurd won a razor-thin victory in the Texas 23rd that GOJ should've handily won. That razor thin margin of victory happened in El Paso County and most of them voted at Pavo Real all on one day. Ortiz-Jones lost...