The latest version of the link chart for the alleged corruption case is now here. I’ve added unindicted co-conspirators (unnamed) and have noted the recent, startling hiring of former Border Observer Supremo Jaime “FBI is the local Gestapo” Perez as Cobos’ Chief of Staff. More on Perez later, no doubt, beginning with how such a shining example of independent thought and concern for the masses got bought out for a government salary, like any plebian who gets co-opted in the finest Mexican way across the border. I don’t think this was a case of “silver or lead” but Perez showed some kind of spots with this job. Unrelated to his hiring, mortgage and tax rates are indeed rising all along the Borderland. And, food is surprisingly expensive, at least in the chain grocery stores. Gas? Don’t get me started. What I’m saying is, a dollar bill and a rebellious, divisive attitude don’t go as far as they used to. When the going gets tough, sometimes, the supporters of rebels would rather buy milk, tortillas and gasoline than support causes that, in the end, don’t really benefit them in any other way than assuaging their put-upon sense of guilt.

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FBI EL PASO CORRUPTION CASE:
In 2006, real estate speculators descended on El Paso after BRAC results were announced. The housing market boomed. This year, the lawyer market is exploding.

Lawyer Mary Stillinger ain’t gonna represent Ysleta School Board Trustee Milton “Mickey” Duntley, El Paso School Board Trustee Charles Roark, and former NCED Chief Operating Officer Ernie Lopez. So said Hizzoner, U.S. District Court Judge Frank Montalvo.

MISCELLANY:
The El Paso Empowerment Zone (not our beloved Adventure Zone, where 4 Borders Pundit can be found anytime he is in El Paso avoiding his day job), is in trouble with HUD over its spending. Newspaper Tree has the details. Goodness: liquor purchases, charges without documentation and apparently unauthorized trips with teenagers. But let’s see: booze, fraud and teens running around without parental supervision: sounds like a typical American urban environment to me, so maybe HUD is off-base on this.

Wannabe DA Theresa Caballero opines on corruption in El Paso and holds a special place in her pen for DA Jaime Esparza. Esparza probably needs to reassess whether he’s been asleep at the wheel while corruption broke all around this wannabe fair city, and Caballero’s published friends-and-foes list, helpfully laid out in her blog, probably deserves a link chart.

Mudville Gazette is all over the Scott Thomas Beauchamp story. If you haven’t heard yet, Beauchamp runs a blog called Sir Real Scott Thomas, in which he portrayed soldiers, including himself, being assholes, UCMJ violators and possibly criminals, in Iraq. He may have written his brutal stories while in Germany, or while in the Middle East. Truth will tell soon enough, but fact is, Beauchamp writes like a wannabe Hunter S. Thompson, but without the Southern gentility (Thompson was courteous about women), or a certain gonzo tactfulness: HST never made fun of a disfigured woman. And there’s the difference. Thompson, who served in the Air Force, got in trouble with his chain of command for writing up local wrestling matches as if the fighting, blood, rivalries and injuries were real, while Beauchamp goes gonzo by mixing American Psycho, Private Pyle and Catch-22, all randomly, like a drunk with the munchies and a working ATM card. If what Beauchamp writes about his daily “landscaping” duties is real, then what better GI’s know as “weeds-and-seeds” or “pavements and grounds” detail is probably what he deserves. That’s where screwups go in the military.

Sorry, El Paso Times. Your story on disabled El Pasoans suing Chico’s Tacos is mis-headlined. It’s the Paso Del Norte Civil Rights Project doin’ the suin’, not the disabled themselves. Me, I’d sooner sue Chico’s for putting too much cheese on those flautas. And I wonder why PDNCRP wants to damn with faint praise this overrated chain by calling it a “quintessential El Paso tradition.” I mean, does this advocacy group hate Chico’s, or El Paso in general? Quintesseintially, I think the Project just hates, period.

Living in the Borderland as we do, it’s likely none of us have ever thought much about immigration. Except those who constantly complain that El Paso, Laredo, Deming, Las Cruces, and various — ahem — lesser metropolises in between don’t meet our sophisticated, well-bred needs. Fortunately, the International Association of Chiefs of Police have thought about migration, and put out a handy guide on the topic, which you can read in the comfort of your migrant-infested home here.

Delayed a day due to reading an important book recently released…

FBI EL PASO CORRUPTION CASE:
The El Paso Times subtly describes El Paso judge Cobos’ new Chief of Staff in the headline. Way to gobos, Cobos.

Honestly, is there any other city in America where a social and political gadfly — who loses more than he wins — succeeds in landing a six-figure job in a burg after calling the FBI the “Gestapo” and where the median income is $22,600? What was Cobos thinking? That the oh-so-politically-savvy Perez is astute enough to delink Cobos from the ongoing investigation? Led by, you know, “the Gestapo” that Perez so clearly despises?

Five’ll get you ten that both take a fall. Odds are even on who is the bigger masochist.

Newspaper Tree has a few thoughts on Perez here and here. Stay tuned to Newspaper Tree for an interesting examination of WikiPedia entries on Cobos and others. And alterations. And more entries. Local talk board The Strelz started the conversation.

El Paso Times has writers’ blogs. Bet you didn’t know that. You may not have even wanted to know that. There’s a fella called Charlie who publishes Charlie’s Angles. Geddit? He weights in on Perez’ hiring here.

Now, onto good El Paso news. I’m sorry, did I write “good news?” My bad: Ysleta Independent School District Trustee Milton “Mickey” Duntley apparently got his son hired by NCED as a political favor. Political favor? Well, yeah, but only because one of the intercepted emails said that. And then not fired. And then, this was allegeldy in exchange for a vote on a multi-million dollar contract. If true, they go cheap in El Paso.

The link chart for all this is: here.

STINKING UP THE BORDER:
With all the silly politicking going on around here, you’d think enough sewage had been spilled in the desert. Apparently not.

The case of USBP agents Jose Compean and Ignacio Ramos continues to generate news and look-sees by people who ought to be look-seeing. This case has stunk from the beginning, though it’s not a stink like Duke University or sludge in Sierra Blanca. It’s a federal, US Attorney kind of stink. At the end of the day, I think we’ll all be wondering whether Bush fired the right US Attorneys, didn’t fire enough US Attorneys, or whether Jaime Perez could have prevented anything if he was other than a social and political gadfly.

If the political stink in the Chihuahuan Desert is too much, I think this might be the cure. Desert rats may do well to buy vinegar futures in the next 180.

Hey, if it dissolves corns, it might dissolve the corny antics of these local border pols. Because when local politicians go so cheap, politicians will go to the hoosegow easy, thanks to the efforts of our federal law enforcement agencies who aren’t so easily corrupted.

THE POLITICAL DANCE:
Mexico’s Ambassador to the US Arturo Sarukhan slags off some old Fox administration gems: the border maps and migration handbooks passed out to border crossers. First I’ve seen of a Mexican official admitting to the country’s contradiction in how it treats its citizens desiring to go north, and how it treats Central Americans desiring to go north.

I get the feeling that Congressman Reyes likes earmarks and perks from military support, but is just plain scared of foreign policy. Here, he toes the Pelosi line on al Qaeda. Best laugh-out-loud line: “There is no room for partisan politics in the realm of national security.”

What? Silvestre Reyes takes a stand? Well, the year is over half over. Reyes, a consummate slimy politician well-practiced in the art of graft and handouts, wants President Bush to commute the sentences of former Border Patrol agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Alonso Compean. They were convicted of unlawfully chasing a Mary Jane smuggler and shooting his punk-ass in the ass and then hiding evidence. The U.S. got 750 pounds of dope out of the deal and they got the shaft.

Sounds good, eh? A former Border Patrol agent and sympatico to the genuine hardships they endure — rockings, gunfire, assaults — standing up for one of his own.

Not so fast, amigo.

First of all, it’s a far cry from his August 22, 2006 position, saying, “A jury found them guilty. I will refer to (U.S. Attorney) Johnny Sutton.”

Reyes must have been dismayed when Senators Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., and John Cornyn, R-Texas asked President Bush to commute the agents’ sentences. Nothing sucks like being late out of the starting gate, especially when you get owned in a bilateral way by outsiders mucking up your home turf.

Or perhaps Reyes was motivated by Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison’s lame attempt to play both sides of the aisle, that of USBP friend and US Attorney “escort.”

Or perhaps Reyes has had an attack of conscience since his daughter got implicated in that scandal back in 2005.

Some politicians will chew up anything and everything to rise as high as they can. You can’t blame anyone for trying to rise above their humble roots along the Rio Grande, but you can blame them for trying to forget them.

In between his pining over/forgetting his past and his longing for his so-called future, Reyes was junketing his way through the Western Hemisphere like a conquistador high on wine. Humorously, his web site notes how quickly he departed spaces, as if to reassure the public that its money was well-spent.

Too little, too late, for this small-time hood to resurrect anything resembling a reputation that bodes well for his political future. He’s become as stupid as his Democratic peers.

UPDATE: Nervous US Attorney Johnny Sutton sucks spit and defends himself.

In the Old West, a “slumber party” meant nobody woke up. For example, “Mean Rogelius Thrompstorm dry-gulched those Triple-Three cowboys and gave them a slumber party they’ll never forget.” These days, the phrase is innocuous. Senator Harry Reid’s the latest to try it. The skinny Nevadan decided he’d let Republicans know who’s in charge and who ought not get uppity with respect to his marching orders from Überkommandant Nancy Pelosi to get the troops out of Iraq, whether that helps the country or not.

Darleen’s Place comments on the latest Democratic Debacle.

Reid tried to treat Republican senators like the hired help. But true to form, if a Democrat can screw the pooch, he will. And he did. Far from joining the Dems’ pre-planned all-night food fight, Reid made a brief appearance and then high-tailed it to his Secret Senatorial Lair to sleep the sleep of the guilty all night while lesser Democrats manned the rails. Of course, Reid said he was behind them. As far behind as he could run. It took intellectually-challenged Barbara Boxer to calm Skinny Harry down on his scheduled 0300 roll call.

Well, with numbers like these, I guess Reid, Boxer and Pelosi et al have to do something to get the ratings up, just like TV shows. How about if a Senator goes into a coma, like on soap operas, or there’s a cliffhanger ending to the current Congressional session, like on a hit TV show? How about Survivor: Congressional Slumber Party, or Lost: The Senate Season?

The whole thing was silly and stupid and doomed to fail. It’s as if Democrats think that because they got the majority they so craved, all gates are open for their agenda. That’s naive, especially for the scores of decades their elected Senators have spent there (largely protecting their salaries), who should understand some basics behind the numbers, 51, 60 and 66. Instead, the Dems got their behinds spanked in the Chamber of Public Opinion.

It’s earmarks like this that frame the Democrat Senators’ pathetic all-night plan, and makes you wonder why on earth any of them have public jobs.

(Not that Republicans deserve a free pass on spending. Not with this clownish elephant copping an attitude over his precious earmark.)

The Democrats are played out. They ought to throw up the sponge and try to get along with Americans and their opinions, before they tossed with the bathwater in 2008: for exceptional stupidity, lack of political gamesmanship, and a tactical approach when strategy is called for.