El Paso Politics

I waited a long time to write this post because I have given it a lot of careful thought. This is one of those posts that I wrestle with and put a lot of time into, but will get less traffic than a post about kittens. The reality of the fact that we now live in bizarro world (politically speaking) were almost nothing appears to make sense and there is so much uncertainty was the reason I decided to go ahead and write my thoughts down about the local judiciary. Judicial races are under more scrutiny in this election cycle than others perhaps because of several factors in which the judiciary branch has taken a black eye in El Paso. That is why I chose the imagery I chose for this post - because ALL judges are being impacted by the actions of a few judges. We've all seen the video by Judge Bonnie Rangel that was part novela, part cheesy defense lawyer commercial, part self-inflicted campaign attack ad. Judge Mike Herrera had his own divorce in his own court for a very long amount of t...

The embattled utility and service provider in the Mission Valley that recently fired Jack Alayyan amid an alleged sexual harassment complaint has another controversy on their hands. According to sources, Lower Valley Water District is set to try to appoint a sitting board member to fill the paid position of General Manager, replacing Alayyan. This move is controversial because most boards across El Paso have rules restricting board members from becoming employees of their board for a period of time because of cronyism and conflicts of interest. The Lower Valley Water District does not have term limits and conducts their own elections unlike every other political subdivision in the County that relies on the County of El Paso to conduct their elections. As a result of a lack of term limits, there are board members that have been there since the founding of the entity. The board meeting set for Thursday at 6:30pm will be held at their main office on the Clint Cut-off. According to their a...

I don't recall ever seeing an alleged Democratic candidate attack a labor union and a labor leaders, but it apparently has happened. In a statement released on her campaign Facebook account Monday night, congressional candidate Dori Fenenbock attacked Ross Moore and the American Federation of Teachers following an email to AFT membership today from Moore indicating that Fenenbock was not competing for the endorsement of the labor union that represents teachers in EPISD. This is more than just an attack on one union boss or one union. When a candidate attacks one union, they are attacking all of labor. I'll get to the specifics in just a minute, but first I want to talk about two other things - people who should be embarrassed for supporting her and her hypocrisy. First, lets talk about the support. If you're a member of a labor union and you're supporting Fenenbock, you need to be asking yourself why at this point. Basically, I'm talking to the boys in blue that are...

An email sent out to membership today from AFT union boss Ross Moore today appears to indicate that former EPISD Trustee and congressional candidate Dori Fenenbock will not be eligible for the endorsement of the association that represents most of the teachers in EPISD. This issue has been a big deal because a close campaign figure to Fenenbock allegedly bragged about having the AFT endorsement in the bag. According to the email, screenshot below, Fenenbock failed to return the questionnaire to the AFT in order to be eligible for the endorsement. This is the part where Fenenbock's Spokesmonkey (not David K, the other one) comes out with a statement that says Fenenbock never received the email. That leaves the endorsement down to former County Judge Veronica Escobar and EPISD teacher/perennial candidate Jerome Tilghman. Tilghman is a teacher in EPISD but isn't a viable candidate for congress with no base, poor performance for nearly every office he's ever run for, is essenti...

I was at Demo HQ yesterday for the parade and several of us had a good laugh at the expense of David K. They all found it funny that the candidate that is trying really hard to get people to think she's a Democrat is so fervently being defended by the Republican blogger that doesn't even live here. I explained to them that DK's family money is maxed out behind Fenenbock, so he's obligated to support her. Think of him as her version of The Mooch. But I found out a few more things I wasn't aware of - one of which was the fact that NE Democrats accepted new members, and therefore the ability to vote, on the actual day of the endorsement. Every other Democratic club in El Paso has a membership deadline that prevents campaigns from essentially showing up en masse on the day of an endorsement to "buy" an endorsement. So as if leaking questions to Fenenbock in advance wasn't bad enough, and the fact that prominent members of the NE Democrats including the pre...

County Commissioner David Stout filed for reelection yesterday. It was a bit surprising because while I said a while back that he wasn't going to run for county judge because the support just wasn't there, he sent out a press advisory to the media that had language that gave every indication that he was going to run for county judge because he spoke about taking the lead on issues such as providing affordable access to healthcare, veterans affairs, economic development and other issues. It pissed off the media because he sorta tricked them into showing up for what would otherwise be a none-story. The problem is I don't think any of that stuff in his release is actually true. He wasn't even on the court for the vote to expand healthcare access through the clinics, that was Lewis. Lewis voted against that and it was probably his biggest political mistake and still something that can be hung over his head, but Stout can't take credit for it. I don't know of anythin...

Remember all that shit David K was talking last year? Remember how many times he said I didn't know what I was talking about? Remember all the times he said was stupid, I was involved in some conspiracy with Susie Byrd, the Loch Ness Monster, the Tooth Fairy, the Chupacabra, the Llorona, and all surviving members of the Jackson Five about a fake news investigation that according to him wasn't even happening? You memmer, memmer? He swore up and down that there was no investigation, he talked all the time about how no member of council had even been interviewed, blah blah blah. Well that allegedly fake investigation by the Texas Rangers was concluded and turned over to the District Attorneys Office . I'm sure now David K will come up with some story about how the Texas Rangers turning it over to the DA means that they found no wrong doing and are going to write apology letters to all the parties involved. Now for those of you that live in the real world, here is what the imp...