El Paso Politics

Well, like I said a long time ago...Cabrera's little trip to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee shin dig had no educational purpose an the tax payers of EPISD shouldn't have had to pay the bill. Remember how David KKK was swearing up and down that it was anti-Semitic to even suggest that it wasn't related to education? Remember the shovels full of bullshit he was staking to defend that one? Yet again David Karlsruher looks like an idiot. But lets be real, we are all pretty used to that. I can tell you that he will come up with some Trumpian nonsensical theory of why the auditor said it was inappropriate and that he had to pay it back. I don't know what exactly that will sound like, but I assure you it will include me, Bob Moore from the Times, Susie Byrd, and the chupacabra. So can we now stop pretending that Cabrera isn't campaigning for Fenenbock since they both went to this non-education related shin dig? Oh yeah, speaking of Fenenbock...

Remember that whole argument about businessmen being good government leaders? No, I'm actually not talking about Trump this time. But just wanted to very quickly remind you all that taxes in the City of El Paso are going up under Mayor Margo. Mayor Margo is the same guy that applauded the veto done by Mayor Leeser over the Certificate of Obligation earlier this year. Now Margo is not only pushing for the Certificates of Obligation, he is actually wanting to raise the amount. Also, and maybe more importantly, keep an eye on the new D3 City Rep Cassandra Brown. She was pretty adamant about holding the line on Certificates of Obligation as a candidate and appears to have flipped. Lets see how that works out. Yeah, those things happen. Just don't recall seeing it happen so quickly.

You'd think by the blogosphere that there are only two candidates running for the 16th Congressional District of Texas. Interesting tidbit for those of you keeping score at home - the 16th District of Texas has never been represented by a woman or a Latina. There are currently 4 women running for the position, and one is Latina.  There are in fact at least 5 total candidates - two "other" Democrats and an independent. That isn't counting whatever sacrificial lamb the GOP puts up or JOP who will inevitably run for a little attention again as a Libertarian. I put quotation marks around "other" Democrats because lets be real, Fenenbock is a Republican. There's a reason I haven't really written about the other candidates...they don't matter and aren't going to win. Relax people, I know the term "they don't matter" is a little harsh, but lets be real, you don't come here because I sugar coat things.  What I mean is that they aren...

County Commissioner David Stout held a press conference yesterday that has sleazy movida written all over it. Frankly, the novelty of Stout being the white guy that speaks Spanish is over. Stout presented information to the media about historic assets within the foot print of the Duranguito area. I'm 100% confident that this was coordinated with Bernie Sargent and Max Grossman. The real problem with Stout's grandstanding is two fold. One, the County's historical survey is incomplete. According to the contract its supposed to be delivered later this year. But the reason that it was done now is because Stout is trying to help out the legal cases. Ray Charles can see that. Apparently Stout hasn't payed attention to the last election cycle, the voters don't care about Duranguito. It just wasn't an issue to them. Based on the result, they seemed to care more about getting the arena built. Two, the Court voted earlier this year (with the exception of Stout) to not get...

Well, it looks like he finally got his free steak. Oh, look who he's with... Seriously, you just can't make this shit up!

County Judge Veronica Escobar got the support of a big Latino PAC the other day, which is a big deal if for no other reason that star power. I mean come on, Eva Longoria is part of the PAC. Pretty much ever Latino heavy-hitter is in the PAC and they are, from what I hear, going to go all in for the County Judge's congressional bid. Apparently all-in at this point means a social media campaign. From what I can tell the PAC has only raised a couple of million in hits history, so I'm not sure how much of a threat the PAC ultimately will be. The premise that they are trying to draft the Judge to run in silly, she's basically been a candidate right about the time she found out Beto was running for senate. But the PAC made its move to endorse and push Escobar shortly after Fenenbock made a round of visits to DC last Monday. And guess who she was in DC with for the visits? No, not Cabrera this time, or at least that I know of. But none other than former Congressman Silvestre Reyes...

I wrote a while back about how the County of El Paso has lost their damn mind creating a policy to start charging for the time necessary to do open records requests. And now that I have gone back and watched the debate, I'm even more convinced that this policy was not only bad for transparency, but appears to be a policy that has one purpose and one purpose only, to help County Judge Veronica Escobar further her political career. That should infuriate everyone and it undermines the faith people have in openness with government. Let me explain my opinion on this. The County, and by County I mean the Judge, will argue that this policy makes sense because all other governmental entities charge a fee and that the County's fee is nominal and far less than any other level of government. Probably true - but completely irrelevant. I didn't realize until I went back to watch the debate that during the discussion of the item there was little to no mention of why the issue all of a su...