El Paso Politics

I got a phone call from Thomas Dorman who asked me if I'd participate in a fundraiser for charity.  His idea was a boxing match between myself and Ali Razavi, the guy who can't come to grips with the fact that his name isn't really Max Powers. I guess this stems from some post he put on his blog about me blocking him from Twitter.  What a fucking baby.  His little feelings got hurt because I blocked him?  Then I'm told he followed by posting a screenshot of County Judge Veronica Escobar having blocked him from Twitter. I guess that is somehow the ultimate dis for children his age. Frankly, I'm surprised the judge hasn't taken some action with law enforcement based on how much he has harassed her. Especially after that last email he sent her. So maybe Ali should just count himself lucky that all he got was blocked. SPOILER ALERT - he's probably going to post everyone who has him blocked. If he did that every day, he'd have nothing else to post between now...

No predictions other than to say that two of the three major local races will be really close.  The Tax Assessor race doesn't seem like it will be close but truth be told, that race was over a long time ago. The wrong campaign got tapped and there were several really big and expensive mistakes. That was a winnable race too. A reflection of the campaign team as much as anything else.  Unless Rocha somehow pulls out a miracle.  In the DA race, what can I say that you don't already know? An incumbent in a run-off is usually in trouble and almost never win. If the DA retains his seat, it will be the campaign effort of the last decade, if not longer. Right now, Rosales had a lot of advantages and the race was hers to lose the minute she made a run-off.  For the 8th Court of Appeals I'll be straight up with you all, I voted for Palafox. Ramirez just does not have the temperament or respect for due process during her time as a municipal judge, to have earned my vote. But I'...

So I was told that Ali Razavi sent a pretty nasty email to County Judge Veronica Escobar over the weekend which represents a new low even for a guy who was circulating negative stories about his then-boss while he was working for her and very happily continuing to take a pay check for being her employee. But if you know him, that shouldn't surprise you. The guy is a walking hypocrite. The email came out the night that the Siria Rocha story came out, in fact just a few hours after the information was dumped to local media but before it had been published. Now for a long time Razavi has really gone out of his way to pretend that Razavi isn't connected to Forma, even having gone so far as to write about it a couple of times to dispel the allegation. Why? Because it was hurting Forma candidates because the donors were getting pissed. Rocha was at one point in this election cycle, a Forma candidate. Since Marisa Marquez is the talent scout for Forma, she would no-doubt have a relati...

According to documents obtained through an Open Records Request, County Tax Assessor Collector Candidate Siria Rocha was apparently reprimanded for several serious issues, including something she accused her opponent of doing in multiple pieces of campaign material, while she was an employee at the County.  A resident of El Paso County, Joachim Schalk, requested documents relating to reprimands of Siria Rocha while she was an employee of the County of El Paso. Rocha was allegedly reprimanded for issues relating to asking an employee to check a license plate for her personal use, misuse of county resources, job performance failures, sending sexually explicit emails, her behavior with co-workers, and ironically, campaigning and soliciting contributions on county time.  The 56 page documents contains several “exhibits” including emails containing pictures showing both males and females in various stages of nudity, male and female genitalia, and one photo of a male performing fell...

Important election for the 8th Court of Appeals and the District Attorney's races.  Oh yeah, the Tax Assesor Collector is on the ballot too. It's not important, but if you're voting anyway, you might as well vote for that one too.  So go out and vote today or Tuesday and take some friends and family with you. I'm talking to all of you reading this. Be a good citizen and go out and vote! Except you Jesse Gandara. You can't vote.  Ya no llores!

For those of you that don't know, written campaign material that you get at a polling place, mailed to your home or left on your door is referred to as "lit".  Short for "literature", which is a bit misleading because they often aren't finely crafted prose. I was all set to write about the negative piece the Yvonne Rosales campaign sent that landed in mailboxes yesterday against her opponent, incumbent District Attorney Jaime Esparza until I saw the piece sent out by Ruben Gonzalez. Gonzalez is in the runoff and he's facing Siria Rocha for the Tax Assessor Collector seat Gonzalez was appointed to by Commissioners Court. The first thing I thought of when I saw it was "gacho"! Here's a look at the English version of the piece. I was sent the Spanish version, probably because I live in the valley. I point this piece out because it's an example of how if you aren't careful, sometimes your lit becomes a boomerang.  A while back I wrote a...

According to one community activist, former City Rep Ann Morgan Lily has been acting as a political operative in an effort to garner public support for embattled city manager Tommy Gonzalez, apparently going so far as to encourage and prepping people to speak during public comment against newly-elected City Rep Jim Tolbert and in favor of Gonzalez.  Lily has also been making a series of public information requests lately, again in an apparent effort to shore up support for Gonzalez.  "She called me and told me to talk bad about Jim...she really wants Tommy to keep his job...when I found out he (Tolbert) used to be a priest and is a really good person, I changed my mind and didn't speak bad about him, but she (Lily) was trying to get me to..." swim community activist Sarah Garcia stated in a phone interview yesterday. "They played me for their own agenda because they knew how much I cared about getting the pool." she went on to say. Garcia has been a pivotal memb...