El Paso Politics

Okay, I know its kinda been serious around here lately. So lets lighten things up, shall we. I saw this ad on Facebook the other day and when I heard it, I'll be honest - I rolled my eyes and thought it was the dumbest thing I've seen in politics in El Paso. And that is saying a lot because, well El Paso does dumb politics pretty damn well. I guess Samaniego felt like he didn't want Cook to corner the music market for candidates. After a couple of hours, something weird happened. I started humming the damn thing. Then I went to polling place and I heard a candidate for a different office humming it. Its cheesy as hell. But it gets stuck in your head. I was all set to make fun of Forma for the song, but it turns out, its kinda brilliant. My favorite part is that it starts off rhyming, but at the end they just sorta give up on rhyming and it sounds like the responsorial psalm in mass where they sing the lines but they don't rhyme. Any who, enjoy. And I apologize for putti...

Alyssa Perez sent out a pretty ugly mailer against her opponent Monique Velarde that landed in mail boxes earlier this week. It was ugly. And you can't help but read the mailer and think that it clearly came from an emotional place from Perez. There's not nice way to say it so I won't bother tip-toeing around it - she pulled a mean girls and body shamed her opponent. Yeah, the mailer was essentially just a vehicle for her to send out an unflattering picture of her opponent. In the era of "me too" it makes you scratch your head to see a woman body-shame another woman, especially when vying for a seat on the bench. And that shows you really the only thing we non-lawyers have to go on besides a basic sense of fairness, her temperament. Perez was pissed about a mailer that Velarde sent out. The Velarde piece featured news clips of the controversy surrounding Perez working as a the attorney for CLEAT and taking judicial appointments and serving as a part-time, fill-in ...

Take note of the judges who pretty much just say screw it and give themselves the day off to go campaign on your dollar. I showed you Judge Mike Herrera and John Chatman doing that yesterday, well apparently Jesus Urenda doesn't care either. This is a pic taken of him today at 2:15 at the Esperanza Moreno Branch Library on the eastside. Your tax dollars at work ladies and gentlemen...

Apparently a few judges pretty much close their courts down during early voting. Your tax dollars at work ladies and gentlemen. I snapped this picture this morning at the Carolina center at about 8:30am today. Not one, but two sitting judges were out campaigning instead of being at their job. Pictured are Judge Mike Herrera and John-John Chatman. So I guess there are no back logs in their courts. By the way, this isn't a one-time thing. They have both been at Carolina center and other places regularly throughout early voting, so don't think this was just a coincidence. Isn't that nice?

Leave it to that clown car of a campaign that is the Dori Fenenbock congressional effort to do a negative ad against Escobar that features Escobar debating policy against Willie Gandara and Anthony Cobos. There are a lot of reasons that this ad is hilarious to me. One - who was the genius that thought having Fenenbock align with Gandara and Cobos was a good idea, Norma Chavez? Seriously, was there a conversation in her little committee and someone had the balls to stand up and say, "Hey, I know...what if we had a commercial featuring Escobar fighting with Willie Gandara and Anthony Cobos!" Whoever came up with that should never be allowed near a campaign again because they aren't helping. Other reasons this commercial is hilarious - very few items are ever taken to the voters, even fewer from the County. Not because they don't care, but because there is no legal mechanism to do so. Its mostly just bonds that go to the public. And guess what, part of the commercial tal...

Former State Rep Norma Chavez's campaign is in bigger trouble than I thought. When Chavez actually did file a report, for the first time in the entire campaign, it was clear what she was hiding. Her campaign is a financial ruin. She got one campaign donation listed. One. I'm not joking. And in this bizarro world we live in now, people turn something into the opposite of what it really is thanks to Donald Trump, so Chavez is now acting like her finance report is somehow a good thing. Here's the truth - Chavez is doing exactly what I said yesterday that a lot of people where concerned about...she's going to tarnish Dolores Huerta. Chavez already has a loan listed from family - her family members on a fixed income at that - that far exceeds the limits set out in the law. She came up with some BS excuse that its a joint account that she shares with family. But if that is true, that report is even more fraudulent that it appears to have been on face value based on her commen...

According to campaign finance reports Dori Fenenbock, who is currently trying to call into question Susie Byrd's activities as a trustee working for her opponent, has paid $12,000 to a firm involving Scott Himelstein. Himelstein was the consultant who was paid $1,500 per day (of tax payer money) by EPISD to set up meetings between Cabrera and and Gafcon, who ultimately won the bid to oversee the bond that was pushed through by Fenenbock. That was the largest bond ever attempted in El Paso County, to the sum of $669 million. The reason that the contract came to light was because Trustee Susie Byrd raise concerns about the details of the contract and the circumstances around it according to an article in the El Paso Times . This is a big development because Dori Fenenbock's campaign has been throwing out allegations of corruption against Susie Byrd, but contributed $12,000 to the firm involved in that questionable deal that has been characterized by many as a bid-rigging scheme. ...