El Paso Politics

Dropped my phone and it broke so I got a new one. But I lost all my contacts so please call or text me your name and number please. My number is the same.

I hear the homophobes and their steady drumbeat and its getting on my nerves so I feel I have to say something about it. You can usually spot them the minute they start talking. They say something along the lines of, “I’m not prejudice against gays, but I just don’t like their lifestyle.” Its entirely possible that some of these people think it actually is a lifestyle , but somebody has to set them straight…no pun intended. Lifestyle implies a choice. Its something you choose to become a part of like lowrider culture, skiing, scrapbooking, hunting, spelunking (people who explore caves, I just like saying the word cuz it sounds dirty), or people who work out a lot. It’s a choice. Being gay isn’t a choice. I know that’s hard for some people to wrap their head around, but it’s the truth. Don’t believe me, let’s try a little test. If you are heterosexual (that means you like people from the opposite sex), how old were you when you chose to like the opposite sex? Was it in the sandbox, th...

If you read the El Paso Times yesterday then you no doubt saw a story outlining all of the bills filled in the next legislative session that will be anti-immigrant. Once again, the Republicans can't seem to get out of their own way. Just when they start making headway in to developing a strong presence in the Latino community, they show themselves to be a bunch of xenophobes with misplaced leadership priorities. There are very few people that will argue the fact that biggest issue facing the state of Texas is the $12-$25 billion budget deficit we will be facing in the next legislative session. Yet Republicans like Representative Debbie Riddle (R-Humble), are camping out to introduce anti-immigrant legislation like she was waiting for the chance to buy Willie Nelson farewell tour tickets. The Tea Party movement was supposed to be about fiscal responsibility, though I have always have doubts about how loyal its loose collection of members have been to that tenant. If that's reall...

I usually agree with City Rep Eddie Holguin, and I probably hold him to a higher standard than the other city reps because he represents the barrio. Yes, I know, Rep O'rourke and Rep Acosta have barrios in their districts, but Holguin's district is basically entirely barrio. If you don't understand why that's important to me, there's no way I can explain it to you, so go ahead and stop reading now. But Rep Holguin is wrong this time...dead wrong. He was wrong for flip-flopping. I give him credit for standing up and engaging in a debate over his flip-flop, but no matter how you slice it, Rep Holguin flip-flopped like a fish in a boat. One week he's going to propose the reversal of the controversial city ordinance that took away health benefits from domestic partners and retirees, the next week he's echoing his mentor, Jaime O. Perez who not-so-coincidentally released a statement with similar language to Rep Holguin's own “respect the will of the people” l...

I can't touch a stripper in El Paso, even though I pay the price for admission and presumably the price for the lap dance because its considered indecent... But a TSA worker can grab my package for free while going through the airport? What that hell did I miss? Oh, and speaking of airports, check out this cool video.

From ECA Candidate Forum Jaime O. Perez made some rather startling revelations in a recent open letter to city council. Perez praises city council for what they attempted to do and had some rather strong words for Pastor Tom Brown, Nacho Padilla and others. You can find the open letter on the Talk Radio 1150 website .

There has been a lot of public discussion over the El Paso Police Department and various charges of abuse, etc. Chief Greg Allen even issued a press release on the coverage. The only note I wanted to add about it that has gone largely undiscussed is the fact that we are in the sweeps period. Its not like these issues are new and suddenly happened this week. So I checked with the News Director of Canal 26 KINT, Zoltan Csanyi to find out if sweeps period had anything to do with the stories being run now as opposed to any other period. "It is 100% related to sweeps", Csanyi explained. I'm not saying that PD doesn't have issues and I realize that any organization has room for improvement. But I think part of the conversation should be the fact that we are in the middle of the sweeps period and I think it has an absolute bearing on the framing of the overall story. Canal 26 has been running stories for the sweeps period regarding escaping the violence in Juarez, robotic su...