El Paso County Judge Samaniego Smiles for Photo-Op with Trump
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 disrespectful to the families that lost loved ones and the ones that are still in the hospital for the County Judge to be smiling in the very hospital where the survivors are recovering. Others said that the Judge should issue an apology to the families of the survivors and those that lost loved ones in the act of racial terrorism of August 3rd.
Most of the individuals pictured appear to be hospital staff, so it makes you wonder why the County Judge was even in the picture in the first place.
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What Media Should Be Asking
Here's the news angle to all of this. El Paso Mayor Dee Margo was rightfully scrutinized and criticized for saying that he would meet President Trump in his capacity as Mayor of the City of El Paso. Well, El Paso County Judge Samaniego is actually the highest-ranking elected official in El Paso County. He must have known he was going to meet with President Trump for quite some time. There's a strong likelihood that is why the scheduled meeting of Commissioner's Court was canceled. But after Samaniego met with President Trump - why didn't he tell anyone that he met with the President? The budget hearings are streamed on the County website and he appeared to make no mention of it.
There was a meeting at St. Joseph's Church in the Riverside area Thursday night that was hosted by EPISO that involved Congresswoman Escobar, state and county leaders about the shooting and immigration. County Judge Samaniego was at the meeting and it wasn't mentioned there either.
There's an interesting thing that happened involving City Rep Hernandez at that meeting, but I'll talk about that in another post.
Even if Samaniego is going to say that he went to give Trump a piece of his mind about his visit, why hasn't he made it public despite having multiple opportunities since the visit on Wednesday? Is it because of the heat that Margo got for visiting with Trump?
Who knows, but I think he owes the community an answer.
Well as luck would have it, there is a special meeting of Commissioner's Court Friday morning at 9:00am in the Judge's Conference Room, right next door to his office.
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Democratic Backlash
The activist within the El Paso Democratic Party are already up in arms over the photo and will likely be organizing some sort of response. And quite frankly, I think the Party has to have some response. Not just because they rightfully criticized Margo for meeting with Trump, but because in Samaniego's only visit to the Democratic Party's Executive Committee Meeting - he very proudly declared that he was going to be a Democratic County Judge. That he was going to see that policies of the County under his administration were going to be Democratic policies. And he went so far as to charge us to hold him accountable to it.
So he asked for accountability at the Democratic Party Executive Meeting and I don't see a reason why there wouldn't be some level of accountability for this.
Especially since I haven't seen a picture of Mayor Margo with the President yet and I most certainly haven't seen one of them smiling inside of a hospital where survivors are recovering from racial terrorism.
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 disrespectful to the families that lost loved ones and the ones that are still in the hospital for the County Judge to be smiling in the very hospital where the survivors are recovering. Others said that the Judge should issue an apology to the families of the survivors and those that lost loved ones in the act of racial terrorism of August 3rd.
Most of the individuals pictured appear to be hospital staff, so it makes you wonder why the County Judge was even in the picture in the first place.
------------------------------------------
What Media Should Be Asking
Here's the news angle to all of this. El Paso Mayor Dee Margo was rightfully scrutinized and criticized for saying that he would meet President Trump in his capacity as Mayor of the City of El Paso. Well, El Paso County Judge Samaniego is actually the highest-ranking elected official in El Paso County. He must have known he was going to meet with President Trump for quite some time. There's a strong likelihood that is why the scheduled meeting of Commissioner's Court was canceled. But after Samaniego met with President Trump - why didn't he tell anyone that he met with the President? The budget hearings are streamed on the County website and he appeared to make no mention of it.
There was a meeting at St. Joseph's Church in the Riverside area Thursday night that was hosted by EPISO that involved Congresswoman Escobar, state and county leaders about the shooting and immigration. County Judge Samaniego was at the meeting and it wasn't mentioned there either.
There's an interesting thing that happened involving City Rep Hernandez at that meeting, but I'll talk about that in another post.
Even if Samaniego is going to say that he went to give Trump a piece of his mind about his visit, why hasn't he made it public despite having multiple opportunities since the visit on Wednesday? Is it because of the heat that Margo got for visiting with Trump?
Who knows, but I think he owes the community an answer.
Well as luck would have it, there is a special meeting of Commissioner's Court Friday morning at 9:00am in the Judge's Conference Room, right next door to his office.
-----------------------------
Democratic Backlash
The activist within the El Paso Democratic Party are already up in arms over the photo and will likely be organizing some sort of response. And quite frankly, I think the Party has to have some response. Not just because they rightfully criticized Margo for meeting with Trump, but because in Samaniego's only visit to the Democratic Party's Executive Committee Meeting - he very proudly declared that he was going to be a Democratic County Judge. That he was going to see that policies of the County under his administration were going to be Democratic policies. And he went so far as to charge us to hold him accountable to it.
So he asked for accountability at the Democratic Party Executive Meeting and I don't see a reason why there wouldn't be some level of accountability for this.
Especially since I haven't seen a picture of Mayor Margo with the President yet and I most certainly haven't seen one of them smiling inside of a hospital where survivors are recovering from racial terrorism.
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