El Paso Politics

"If public schools weren't failing, charters schools would fail." Its a common refrain from Republicans that are trying to push "school choice", which is nothing more than privatization of public education - their ultimate goal.  But charter schools in Texas are essentially government subsidized private businesses that take money away from public schools and divert it to charter schools.  And they really, really, really want Omar Yanar on the State Board of Education. I wrote a piece about him because his commercials were wall-to-wall and I figured he was making it rain at local TV stations to play that dollar store version of the Dora the Explorer commercial of his.  Turns out the Charter School industry are the ones that are bankrolling his commercials. And its an obscene amount of money. I mean, even NASCAR would blush at how much sponsorship there is of Yanar's campaign.  No other campaign has been pimped out to special interests more than Yanar's ca...

Its been a while since I've seen this level of hypocrisy but a week ago Art Fierro was hammering away on contributions from Republicans that were going to his opponent, State Representative Claudia Ordaz Perez in their inter-party battle for the HD 79 seat. Seriously, he was downright angry about it. Just watch their debate on ABC 7 Xtra and you'll see what I mean.  In the debate, COP called him out on the fact that Fierro has received contributions from the same Republican donors, and she pretty much said he's just mad they aren't giving to him anymore.  In fact, Fierro said that COP was receiving money from the same "Republicans that supported Abbott." Which is an interesting take considering Fierro sold out to the Republican Party in order to get a safe seat. But Fierro said some other interesting things in that debate that I want to draw your attention to in light of today's campaign finance report.  "I have not got huge support from Republican Do...

Shame on me for not drawing more attention to this guy, because I think its very important to clarify some inconvenient facts I'm guessing he'd rather you voters not know.  Omar Yanar is a candidate for the State Board of Education and he's a huge advocate for Charter Schools. He has apparently decided to make it rain at local television stations with ad buys.  Suddenly there are voices in the El Paso County Democratic Party that all of sudden care about the advancement of Charter Schools. They didn't have a single problem with them when former El Paso County Democratic Party Chair, and now County Commissioner Iliana Holguin was on the Board of Directors for a local charter school.  Not. a. single. word. And, quite frankly - they haven't said a word about Omar Yanar either.  But I will.  In my opinion, his campaign is one of the most shady movidas that is happening right under this community's nose.  Yanar has this annoying commercial with the absolute wors...

A delegation of progressive Democrats in the Texas Legislature made their way to El Paso over the weekend to campaign for State Representative Claudia Ordaz Perez. COP is a founding member and treasurer of the Progressive Caucus in the Texas House of Representatives.  She is facing State Rep Art Fierro who is facing harsh criticism from Democrats in the legislature representing communities across Texas for his role in enabling Texas Republicans to pass draconian voter suppression bills.  If you're following the elections in El Paso, voter turnout in this election is extremely low and a record number of mail-in ballot request have been rejected. Fierro, who sat on the Elections Committee where most of the controversial legislation was birthed, was one of the first Democrats from the Texas legislature to return and assist Texas Republicans in achieving a quorum, allowing Republicans to pass their extremist agenda.  Fierro apparently hasn't pointed to anything for his consti...

If I had a nickel for every time someone complained about what I write, I'd be in a different tax bracket. I continue to be take aback by how many people decide to run for office that still don't consider the fact that they will inherently under go some scrutiny once they become a candidate.  If you don't think about that before you run, I'm not obligated to protect your little feelings. We live in an age where information is more accessible than ever. I mean, its called the Information Age for a reason.  So I still scratch my head when someone runs for an office and I find out compromising information pretty easily because I ask myself, did they not think this was going to be an issue? Did they not think about this before they ran? Are they even aware that this information is available? All of those questions cross my mind - especially in this election and especially in the 327th Dumpster Fire.  But I especially get a kick out of this when a candidate is running and t...

Nothing is more annoying than listening to politicians twist themselves into a pretzel about an issue, being hypocritical about an issue, or misrepresenting facts.  What is particularly annoying about that from politicians is that they have a knack for implying something without saying it, or frame something in a way that only maintains a kernel of truth, but just enough to create doubt.  I saw Art Fierro speak a couple of times recently and that particular affinity towards framing things in a particular way that tries to optimize Art.  But as much as the Trump Administration would have their sheep believe, there are no such things as alternative facts. At the end of the day there are two constants in politics - facts and bullshit.  Let me break down a couple of things before we go to video, because my favorite things in local politics is catching people say things that are demonstrably untrue.  Art Fierro's lit is straight-up divorced from reality. I mean polit...

As you know 327th District Court candidate Cori Harbour-Valdez and fellow candidate Alexandria Serra have taken some heat for their social media missteps as of late.   Serra basically never mentioned to anyone at any time that she was a former jail magistrate judge, probably because she didn't want people asking why she was a former jail magistrate. Turns out she was allegedly asked to resign by the El Paso County Council of Judges - because of her social media.  Cori Harbour-Valdez was under heat for posting a picture of her smiling next to Chapo Guzman's wife on her Facebook page. She was asked about the photo at a recent candidate forum and in her answer she mentioned something I just took as a throw-away line but I now know what she meant by it.  Her response was - and I'm paraphrasing here - words to the effect of defending the constitution and ensuring that the government meets their burden, even in cases involving unsavory clients.  I remembered it because of...

I've written very little about the race for County Court at Law #3 because quite frankly, it hasn't been very exciting, even for normally boring judicial races.  The candidates aren't even very exciting. They are pretty stiff-necked and seem mostly conservative in their demeanor. None of them seem like they are putting lamp shades on their heads, shotgunning beers, or cranking up Metallica to maximum volume.  They probably drink their coffee black.  I'm positive they have an app to track how much water they drink every day.  They probably think mayonnaise is a spice.  I'll bet they order a salad as an entree on "date night", and they probably actually schedule "date nights".  In general, they are probably the people most likely to say they don't watch television and actually mean it. I'm pretty sure all of them have golfed and their playlists on their phones is classical, unless they are feeling wild and frisky and then they might pepper ...

Okay - what in the entire hell did they say? El Paso Matters did a story on the dumpster fire that is half the field of candidates in the 327th race. As you know, I posted a couple of items having to do with the candidates' social media mistakes.  If you haven't read the El Paso Matters piece - go read it .  There are a few things in the El Paso Matters article that I didn't know that are huge.  First, remember the thing with Cori Harbour and the picture of her all smiled up standing next to Chapo Guzman's wife at the Federal Courthouse in Manhattan just a couple of weeks before the verdict? Well I wondered how she was able to take that picture. In my head, I just assumed she was in NYC and being a lawyer she was curious about the case and was hanging out at the courthouse. I figured it was a right-place, right-time sorta thing and she snapped the pic, posted it, and forgot about it when she filed.  You could almost forgive that. I mean it would still represent a maj...

Let me rip the band-aide off here right away folks. Deliris Montanez Berrios' policies sound much more like mainstream Republicans than they do the Democratic Party Platform. I've spoken about her a couple times, and I understand that might give some of you the impression that she's a viable candidate.  She isn't.  But one thing I've always prided myself on is that I do my best to focus on issues. Sure, I - like many of you, occasionally pause and point and laugh when I see political dumbfuckery afoot. Guitly as charged. But for the most part, I'm an issues guy.  And when you get passed all the word salad and deflection from answering an actual questions, that is where you find the scary truth about this candidate.  I went to her website at her behest a while back once she got some policy stuff loaded on the website. I'm being generous when I say its policy stuff. Its mostly contradictory word salad that sounds like she went to Trump Campaign University.  Sh...

I need to print a correction about the picture of Cori Harbour Vasquez's picture with Chapo Guzman's wife.  I have a lot of friends that are realtors and on Wednesday they got an email from Victor Vasquez who is a realtor and chair of the Westside Democrats. As I wrote yesterday, they had a candidate event on Wednesday night - after he sent out his email to the realtors.  In his email he indicated that people were mistaken about the picture of Cori Harbour Vaquez and Chapo Guzman's wife. He said it was a friend of Cori's that resembles Chapo's wife.  I saw the picture of the individual he was referring to on Cori's Facebook page on Thursday.  I'm not sure how the confusing came about considering there was an article published in El Paso Matters earlier this week in which Cori acknowledged the photo. In the article she said that it was posted on her Facebook page for strategic reasons she couldn't divulge.  She apparently didn't have a problem confirm...

Pay to play. Seems to be a theme with this candidate.  Well - its true what they say - you can't spell DUMB without DMB.  El Paso Democratic challenger for the 16th Congressional District DMB - Delirious Montañez-Berrios just did the political version of cartoon characters stepping on a rake.    Over the years I have seen some really boneheaded political moves and efforts to get votes from the community.  I mean Dori Fenenbock holding a menudazo in the valley - that one alone is hilarious cuz you know, wonder bread meets bollio. And remember when Chente Quintanilla was holding pachangas in the valley where they gave out booze, bikes and cold hard cash to voters? But this takes things to a whole other level. Read what she posted: You can't offer to pay someone in exchange for voting. And by can't offer, what I really mean is that it is illegal.  Thats right, if you do offer to pay someone in exchange for a vote, you're committing a crime.  This is the p...

The Westside Democrats held a meeting last night via zoom that was meant to feature the candidates they endorsed for the primary election, but some new revelations came out of the meeting that haven't been previously revealed about 327th Judicial District Court candidate Cori Harbour-Valdez.  They addressed the picture with Chapo Guzman's wife's photo and one of the attorneys spoke at length about what lawyers do, and indigent defense, and representing clients that aren't popular, etc. All valid points and it really is one of the parts of the legal profession most to be admired.  Cari Harbour-Valdez went on to talk about how she had been assigned to a case in which her client was a co-defendant to Chapo Guzman - then goes on to talk about being a good lawyer and interviewing Chapo's Guzman's wife as a potential witness. She then said the photo was taken for strategic purposes and that the photo saved the life of her client and his family in Mexico.  Thats great...

It looks like the Christine Aguayo saga has come to a rather rapid conclusion.  The controversial conservative anchor at KTSM is no longer working at the station according to sources - and back-up by the fact that she is no longer featured on the station's website. As you may recall I recently posted about an incident that led to the letting go of longtime El Paso newsman Darren Hunt. Hunt had confronted Christine Aguayo about changing scripts in newscasts from "Beto O'Rourke" to "Robert Francis O'Rourke" on multiple occasions, but not referring to Ted Cruz by his birth name.  Just yesterday I posted that sources within the El Paso GOP allege that Aguayo met with Republican Congressional Candidate Irene Armendariz-Jackson to allegedly strategize ways that the candidate could get more news coverage in her run-up to the election.  So it appears to be official, she's been raptured from the station page. 

A source in the local El Paso Republican Party says controversial conservative KTSM anchor Christine Aguayo met with El Paso Congressional Candidate Irene Armendariz-Jackson at the home of a local Republican.  According to the source the purpose of the alleged meeting was to discuss strategies of getting Armendariz-Jackson more air time on television to allegedly assist her candidacy. The source says this meeting happened in December of 2021 and included not only the candidate, but key members of her campaign team. Since that meeting KTSM has aired at least one story that featured Armendariz-Jackson's husband. If memory serves, he recently retired following a vaccine mandate for all federal employees. The story aired late January, early February. Here is a link to the story .  As you can see, that story was done by - you guest it - none other than Christina Aguayo.  I don't believe I recall another alleged situation of a news anchor meeting with a candidate and their cam...