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El Paso’s Democrat Caucus Caca

Saturday, March 15th, 2008

To be fair, the El Paso Times covered the local Democrat caucus mess — you know, the confusion, poor planning, reactions of irritated voters, and the general infighting and raucousness that typically accompanies anything associated with the Party of the People. Because locally, and nationally, the people in that Party are usually confused, out of step, irritated, pugnacious and raucous.

In other words, if you want to understand why so many people in the world can’t stand the Ugly American, you have to understand what underpins the Ugly American. It ain’t the stench of Chico’s Tacos food on his/er lips, that’s for sure.

Well, it’s not like Americans hide it anyway. The whole Dem mess — locally and nationally — is widely played out in MSM for all the world to see (and avoid). Somehow, Americans have built a nation that not only no longer seeks to hide/avoid/change its juvenile habits, but a nation that rides passports and airplanes overseas to celebrate them in the face of people who are often more politically-astute, and who don’t wear tennis shoes to the Louvre.

You could Google it. Just look at the mess Howard Dean & Co have created in Michigan and Florida. Talk about a lack of vision, i.e., a vision that Hillary would end up with something less than an annointment as the Dem candidate.

If the Dems can’t plan three months ahead for contingencies like Obama, how are they going to plan for fighting terrorism three years from now?

I suppose they could just eliminate tax breaks, so there’s a war chest to cover political shortsightedness.

Oh wait. That just happened, though surely a veto is coming.

So the Times covered the El Paso Democratic Caucus Ca-ca, and it did so here. Adriana Chávez wrote all about it. There was poor organization (though that’s really an El Paso thing, not limited to Democrat movers-and-shakers), whacked-out screaming Obama supporters in their filthy politically-charged T-shirts (tsk, tsk), and “mass confusion,” whatever that means these days.

OK — it means when sun-loving, Chicos taco-sucking locals have to play on a state or national level, they don’t have the tools, training, protocol or education to compete.

Outsiders visiting El Paso already know all that. For that matter, carpetbagging hero wannabes, like Dee Margo, and his stagemaster Guv Perry, a man who never met a wayward border town into which he wouldn’t like to stick his political pinky, know that.

Possibly to help soften the rising (?) sense of urgency over local Democrat incompetence, Times reporter Ramon Bracamontes launched a journalistic missile on March 6th, acknowledging and then glossing over the mass hysteria confusion during the caucus, noting that voter turnout in El Paso was the highest in 40 years. Good for El Paso, though we’ll see how good it is in November, when either Hillary or Obama is dispatched, and memories (or not) of the caucus still ring in the brainpans of the honest, hard-working, raise-taxes-now-dammit blue collar crowd that always votes Democrat on the border, no matter how much that hurts.

Addendum: Of course, at the time of the writings, the Chico’s Tacos shack local tradition on McRae hadn’t been shuttered, so the public was looking for something to think about, and local MSM outlets were looking for something to write about.

Let’s give appropriate props to the El Paso Times for filling in a news gap.

(golf claps)

And now the Times has gone above and beyond local expectations by filling folks in on the real political story of 2008. While the Democrat meltdown over Michigan and Florida, and superdelegate defections, is making national headlines, El Pasoans are now (thankfully) keenly aware that the GOP in nearby Alaska is having a meltdown. (Hat-tip: Dan Joling, AP writer, appearing in your local rag, courtesy of editor Don Flores.)

And now you know why you shouldn’t be upset about that whole El Paso Democrat caucus thing anymore.

Whew. For a minute there, we were worried that the Democrat Party was off-track.

UPDATE: Stop the ACLU notes a “moonbat meltdown” at Daily Kos.

And, Burnt Orange has Hillary worked up over Texas caucuses, with a clear threat to cause a delay at the state convention. You see, Obama has more caucus delegates — whoops.

Well, well.

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U-Haul, U-Schmal… I’ll Do It Myself

Monday, March 10th, 2008

People like to move things. So maybe the below isn’t equal to life in Mother Russia, but once again, it shows El Paso is thinking about competing on the world stage.

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Two New Blog Links

Sunday, March 9th, 2008

Check out the News/Blogs links section in the right-hand column. We’ve added LionStar and Refuse the Juice, a couple of border bloggers.

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Your 24 Feb Updated El Paso Corruption Link Chart

Sunday, February 24th, 2008

If it’s Sunday, a few changes to the El Paso alleged corruption link chart are in order.

We’re putting in Dee Margo’s interview with the FBI (he said he is not implicated) and his association with the Chicago-based McCormick Tribune Foundation, which founded Margo’s project Border Fund. There may have been rent-free (aka “pre-paid rent” dealings with both NCED and Hospice El Paso.

Here’s the gory graphic, in all its gore:

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24 Feb 2008 Corruption Chart

Sunday, February 24th, 2008

If it’s Sunday, a few changes to the El Paso alleged corruption link chart are in order.

We’re putting in Dee Margo’s interview with the FBI (he said he is not implicated) and his association with the Chicago-based McCormick Tribune Foundation, which founded Margo’s project Border Fund. There may have been rent-free (aka “pre-paid rent” dealings with both NCED and Hospice El Paso.

Here’s the gory graphic, in all its gore:

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ASARCO’s Ad Campaign… and our First Response

Monday, February 18th, 2008

So ASARCO got their air quality permit, thanks to the State of Taxes Texas.

An air quality permit is not the same as a politically-accurate permit asserting that the quality of air emitted by Texas bureaucrats is any finer than the sublime perfumes of the nearest stockyard.

It’s just a permit, and permits are permitted, by law and by the very nature of the word.

That’s the reality of how home-grown carpetbaggers roll in The Lone Stud State.

Thus, despite our potentially-choked lungs and could-be lead-laden watery eyes (or not), and surrounded by our devoted MS-afflicted offspring and our three-legged dogs, we are pushing through with a series of parodies. The first comes now, and why did ASARCO make it so easy for us?

Now here’s a world-class ASARCO original ™ ad, suitable for parody naked adulation. Note the dramatic effect of black-and-white postering, which is not to say it’s fascist in design, as there are no red spot color calls that would complete the Teutonic Triumvirate of black-white-red (often used by Nazis, South American political parties, Chicano farm workers movements and beret-wearing, scooter-riding, grandma-killing commie Guevaristas (which is the same as at least one Obama campaign worker). The designer could have just had a bad day. What with the bankruptcy and uncertainty over pay stubs, it’s possible ASARCO had to cull the bottom of the advertisorial barrel for a graphic artist who would work in exchange for stock futures. Which is not to say the Artist was a punk, except s/he could have been just a tad desperate. Or s/he could have been a corporate wonk alarmingly left alone with PowerPoint of a frantic afternoon, with a 5 p.m. deadline to fax ad thumbnails to Guadalupe or Rio de Right Wing, Argentina, or Hull, or Kosovo, or wherever ASARCO decides its off-shore corporate HQ is this week. (Click for full-sized badness):

And here’s our new ad, built during an all-nighter in between coughing jags, blood tests for lead poisoning at the ER, and furious phone consultations with both lead poisoning specialists at the Mayo Clinic and alcohol-poisoning specialists at Acetunas (click for full-sized goodness and click again for print-sized wonderfulness, if your so-called Internet browser supports that):

Later on, once we’ve exhausted all medical approaches to our health issues as well as creative approaches to parodying ASARCO, we’re going to explore other reasons for Mayor Crook’s Cook’s opposition to the re-opening of ASARCO. Can anyone say “land grab?”

Can anyone say, “FBI El Paso Corruption Investigation?” We knew you could.

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Your Sunday El Paso Corruption Link Chart

Sunday, February 17th, 2008

Some updates to the link chart are included below (hold your nose and click on thumbnail for full-sized sleazy stink; on some browsers you can click again on the image to super-size and take you off your dinner). Eliminated one duplicate name, added Doris Sipes, and included what the guilty pled guilty to.

Despite all the information that has been made available, it’s still difficult to scope out star-clusters in the chart. We can see relationships about NCED, Judge Anthony Cobos, the ELPC Commission, but those are really it so far (not that those are insignificant). Some of those named in the warrant (as co-conspirators though they are easy to identify) have not appeared in reporting since. That the investigation is ongoing and that more clusters have not been uncovered suggests that more information will come to light, rather than that the investigation is slowing down.

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FBI’s El Paso Corruption Case: Child Porn Parra Complaint

Monday, February 11th, 2008

Fernando Parra, assistant to and former employee of El Paso District Clerk Gilbert Sanchez, was arrested on child porn charges.

The unsealed criminal complaint is here. [HT: The Strelz.]

The El Paso Times astutely notes that Parra may be pressured by this complaint into cooperating in the ongoing (and presumably burgeoning) El Paso government corruption case.

Parra has done work for lawyer Luther Jones, according to the El Paso Times. Jones was more or less named in the original warrant.

Here’s the updated corruption link chart (click for full-size chocolaty goodness):

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Caballero, Esparza and the Cocaine-laced Military Officer (Except He Apparently Wasn’t So Laced)

Tuesday, January 22nd, 2008

Theresa Caballero, who is running for District Attorney, posts this intriguing letter from a US military officer who was arrested on suspicion of cocaine possession.

The story, as told on Caballero’s blog, is sufficiently horrendous if true.

One thing’s for sure: the story didn’t get much press. Can’t find anything at all about it, besides this and this.

If a settlement was reached, how much did the officer get? I suppose if Caballero is looking for reasons we should shit-can Esparza (there are many, including the fact that he is an incumbent in a — well, let’s just say — co-opted political system), then perhaps the monetary outpouring could inspire voter frustation among those who travel El Paso’s buckled, pot-holed streets, who navigate housing areas built atop filled-in arroyos, who pay extra for the mandatory stone walls surrounding their postage-stamp back yards, and who marvel at the inanity of political life around the curve of the Franklin Mountains.

Anyone else know anything? Besides, we mean, that the stench from local government is worse than that Shakespearean smell wafting from Denmark. Which means, there are a lot of stinky fish to catch along the Rio Grande, these days.

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FBI Corruption Case: El Paso Times’ Story of the Year

Monday, December 31st, 2007

Can’t argue with that title.

Two El Paso Times stories here and here.

Think I’ve covered things on this updated link chart, that can be found here (click once to see, then twice for full-sized goodness):

Link to other Times coverage of the corruption case is here.

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