Refuse the Juice

The Truth About Herman Cain's Florida Shocker

I have to say something now because the mainstream media is completely ignoring the reason why Herman Cain won the Florida straw poll.

Cain was a very popular syndicated talk show host out of Atlanta.  His show was broadcast all over Florida for years.  He is in the daily conservative line up of Hannity, Beck, Limbaugh, Ingraham and Boortz.  He has a huge following in that region. 

A straw poll for republican candidates is going to attract talk radio junkies.  They're likely going to pick the guy who has been preaching his message to them five days a week for years.  It's as if there was a straw poll in El Paso and Greg Freyermuth was on the ticket - he'd likely beat all the national big boys because the likely voters would be his listeners. 

It's not that I don't like Herman Cain - he's great and he loves the "Fair Tax" as do I.  I just think it's disingenous to claim Cain has rocketed in the polls when you have a very specific group of people who have been his audience for years voting.  It is not all that shocking once you look at the facts.

Ambulance Biller to Collect $2 Million Less for City!

You will remember that I threw a fit over the firing of a local company that was responsible for billing people who took rides in ambulances in the City of El Paso.  The whole thing stunk to high heaven and I exposed it for what it was - pure bullshit.  El Pasoans lost their jobs while cronies of the new Fire Chief put wads of El Paso tax dollars in their pockets... their pockets that reside far away from El Paso. 

I told you then that the company city staff picked and then tricked council into voting for would be collecting LESS OF THE MONEY OWED TO THE CITY.  Nobody believed me and city council members told me that the owner of the company who had been doing the work for years was an asshole and that's why they voted to rip off El Paso taxpayers.  So, what's the price for a little personal vengence?  Try $2 million dollars in revenue!

Don't believe me?  Go to the bottom of page 13 in the following document (page 52 inside the document) and look at the numbers for the line item "AMBULANCE SERVICE REVENUE."

Download 2012_Budget_Detail_-_02_Financial_Summaries[1]

It was $12.2 million and it is now $10.3 million.  The new vendor is leaving $2 million on the table due to the fact they promised in writing to COLLECT LESS OF THE MONEY OWED TO THE CITY than was being collected by the previous vendor.  This means they are literally not collecting money from people taking rides in ambulances and they're doing that with the permission of city staff and council. 

I looked back and the percentage of people the current ambulance biller PROMISED NOT TO COLLECT PAYMENT FROM WAS..... 73 Percent of people who take ambulance rides.  They put in their contract that would not collect money from nearly three quarters of the people use the ambulance service and the city council voted to approve this contract after stripping a local vendor of it because the owner talks too loudly about the merits of the constitution. 

I told you that you were being ripped off on top of the fact that the city council put a whole division of a local company out of business out of spite.  Do you believe me now?

Where's that crack local media now?   Need background for the story YOU SHOULD BE DOING on this matter? 

Read my posts HERE and HERE and the second one contains the email where Fire Chief Otto Drozd is approached via email by a vendor about all the golf they are going to play and how they want to get work from El Paso - before he even started!  http://refusethejuice.typepad.com/files/doc122110.pdf

Folks - you got ripped off.  Your city staff and council need to answer you as to why they are leaving $2 million on the table when they raised your taxes this year!!!!!!  Did they do their best to keep from raising taxes?  Nope. 

Dr. Noe and Rep. Niland are new and should stake reputation on fixing this.

Monday Round UP

Here's what's popping... and you're ignoring.

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Click HERE to read Mike Rooney's column on the questions of how we would fund a rail system in El Paso.   As you know, Rooney is one of those polite watchdogs in El Paso who can absolutely murder your argument with these little things called "facts." 

The week before last some guy named Ron Dawson made a half-assed attempt at a plea for light rail in El Paso.  Dawson went along with liberal mantra of "we have some facts, not many, but that doesn't matter because whatever we're telling you is good because we said so and that's enough for anyone to go on."  To be to the point - Dawson wants light rail even if he refuses to explain how it is to be paid for and how the whole thing would work logistically.  He leans heavily on the miracle money that the government money fairy brings.  What he doesn't realize is that the money fairy doesn't actually exist Rooney proves it in his latest piece.

I'm all for a light rail system serving UTEP to Downtown then to UMC.  You have the space, the users and you have funding partners.  That's about the only place it would work. 

Anywho, give the article a read because Rooney asks the right questions about who will be paying for it if it is proposed.

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I think the whole question of "who is paying for what?" in the recall effort has merit on its face.  However, knowing the people involved on the mayor's behalf, there's been a lot of thought given to their support and by "thought" I mean - lawyers have looked it over from top to bottom.  You're not going to find where the mayor has broken the law.

Pastor Tom Brown is probably in the clear as well, but not because he's been overly cautious.  It's just that there's no clear indication of whether or not this is a highly organized group of people, or a loose goosey group of folks trying to get a petition signed.  I think any investigation into their efforts is going to lead to the conclusion that there was no collusion.  And if the glove don't fit... well you get it. 

I am desperately trying to get someone to send me the petitions so I can comb through them all and see who signed them - what kind of people participated. 

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I think I would vote for Vince Perez over any other candidate for any office in El Paso.  El Paso has an extreme shortage of people with even average intelligence in elected office.  Vince brings superiorintellect to the table and it's sorely needed.  I jus wish he had conservative values. 

It's going to be fun to watch Gandara Jr. show his true colors in this race.  He's not quick on his feet and reacts with anger instead of thought.  Vince will lure him in, set the trap and then dispose of him.  Watch for this to get really really ethnic over the next few weeks.  The "I'm more valley Chicano/Latino/Brown/Hispanic than you are" race starts now, but I'm not sure there will be more than one car in that race.   Jaime Abeytia does a good job with it HERE.

Are Jaime and I "in the can" for Vince?  I am.  I can't speak for Jaime, but even he knows a good thing when sees it.

The big thing here - in my mind... given that I know nothing of the valley other than how to get around and where to get diesel for you construction equipment...  The big thing here is Representative Eddie Holguin.  I think he's held in high regard down that way and I've seen him out there frequently just doing his day to day business.  He's a solid rep and his opinion matters on this. 

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I have been sent some budget backup items from the City.  Looks like I was right about ambulance billing.  Your reps may have cost 35 locals their jobs so the fire chief could get a friend in place to do the billing and now they might not even be collecting as much as the old firm wsa collecting!  I told you so - you have 35 unemployed El Pasoans and a loss of $2 million in revenue.   I hope the fire chief at least got some golf in with his buddies. 

I know my friends at the city are going to have a shit fit over me mentioning this again, but I'm a firm believer that you should tell the truth or risk leaving your moves open for interpretation.  If people at the city hated Jim Currey of Currey Adkins, they should have come out and said it. They should have put out a notice saying "Jim Currey is an asshole and we don't want to work with him anymore."  They didn't need to do what was done with the subsequent RFP to get Currey out.  It was stupid to let the vendor write your RFP for you and then let them respond to it because you thought Jim Currey was an asshole.  The whole thing stinks all the way down to the council meetings where city staff's math was "engineered" to make Currey look worse than they really were and how apples and apples were never compared until I compared them here. 

Did I tell you that Currey is a conservative/Libertarian guy who hands out pocket constitutions to anyone and everyone who meets with him?  You think this might be why they hate him so much at the city?  Maybe if he was a huge democrat fundraiser he could get millions in loans from the city for a hotel and then try his hardest not to live up to agreements with no recourse.  Hell, that would never happen.

Look for more on this tomorrow.

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The gentrification of El Paso - Dog Parks!  These are usually popular in cities where most people don't have yards.  They are also a sign of "hipness" and El Paso is starting to get "hip."

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Need any more proof that an arena downtown would be $100 million exercise in futility after seeing the goings on with Hotel Baghdad?   Seriously - you didn't expect anything to change, did you?

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If the Transmountain zoning issue goes the way of the gay benefits issue, you're going to see a lot of people changing their tune.  Credibility will be scarce in the council chambers and among the ankle biters if Transmountain goes where I think it's going.   Some of Tom Brown's biggest opponents will be relying on Tom Brown's arguments when it comes to "the will of the people." 

Recall Petition a Success and What it Means for Beto

I honestly didn't think they'd get the signatures in Representative Susie Bryd's district.  I really really really didn't think that the district that has elected her so easily and lovingly in the past would sign the petition.  This is not good news for Byrd.  This is not good news for the Mayor.  And this is surely not good news for Beto O'Rourke.  We'll get to Steve "Man About Town" Ortega in a minute.

You have to look at this whole recall effort from the platform above emotion if you want to measure its weight.  To my knowledge there has never been a successful recall petition in the City of El Paso.  We're talking lots of years and lots of really bad politicians without one single successful recall.  That stat went from zero successful recalls to three successful recalls in a very short amount of time.  You have to take what you thought about El Paso's electorate and change it to reflect what we saw happen here.

I don't think Byrd will be voted out in May, but then again...  I didn't think they'd get the signatures to put up in the first place. There were roughly 3,500 votes cast in her district during her last election bid.  We know at least 600 or so people were mad enough at her to make her run for her seat again.  The math won't tell you enough to make you feel safe if you are a Byrd fan, but it does give you an idea what you are up against.   People have had their eye on the seat knowing that Byrd terms out in 2013.  They may work behind the scenes during the recall election to speed up the process of ascension to the thrown.  Depending on how savvy they are, they could wreck things for Byrd badly.

The Mayor is gone.  He might as well start packing boxes now to save time later.  Hell, if I were him I'd quit now and get on with me new life of not being mayor.  There's no sense in sitting through all this BS just to be embarrassingly thrown out of office in  a few months.  Leave on your own terms - write your own history - own your destiny.  He won't listen to me, though.

Roughly 30,000 people voted in the last mayoral election and a third of that number signed a petition to oust the guy early.  I have on good authority that Pastor Brown received another bundle of petition sheets late and there are as many as 2,000 names on them as well.  The response was huge and from what I hear, the petitions are full of names of people who don't got to Pastor Brown's church.  There are a ton of westside and northeast voters on them and those areas are the "deciders" in city elections.  The mayor will not prevail and he has only himself to blame.  He should have never tried to throw the progressives a bone in exchange for a charter amendment to let him be a the lifetime mayor of El Paso.  The progressives fed him to the wolves for his efforts.

I thought Beto O'Rourke was going to be a very strong opponent in the race against Representative Reyes.  However, this shows that the people of El Paso are not too impressed with that vote to "overturn the will of the people."  I see an easy way to beat him up in ads, debates and by word of mouth.  If 10,000 or more El Pasoans hate the mayor for his vote overturning the "will of the voters," that means Beto is starting out at the same deficit.  Not a good hand to be dealt when need every vote you can get and especially votes from people who lean right.   Good luck to Beto, but this is a major setback for him that was completely unforeseen until the recall numbers came in.

Steve "Man About Town" Ortega is in the catbird seat.  He has needed to get out of office so he could go makes some cash, date some models and move on with his life.  I can see why a guy that young might want out given he is forced to live in a part of town he probably doesn't want to live and gets paid pennies to deal with a lot of BS.  He has a way out now and he can go down a martyr.  Just think of all the clients he'll get that are sympathetic to his stand against the gay bashers.  It's a win for Ortega in the end and it's a win for the Jesus Freaks.  He gets his freedom, the bible thumpers get their head on pike and everyone goes home happy.

Any of you have any thoughts on what's happened?

 

You're Only as Good as Your Loudest Idiot

The El Paso Times picked up on a sign held by some idiot who is somehow connected to the recall effort and they wrote about it HERE.  It's an example of how one idiot can really make your whole organization look bad.

The sign in question depicts an image of the aftermath of the mayor being violently attacked with his guitar.  That's not cool.  You can't defend that kind of image.  It's odd that Nacho Padilla would try. 

I'm the first guy to tie the mayor to his embarrassing habit of unleashing his inner rock star when I get the chance.  It is ridiculously funny and made funnier by the fact that everybody but the mayor is in on the joke.  He chooses to remain clueless to the fact that everybody is laughing at him, which makes the thing all that more hysterical... to me.  Some of you call it "sad."

However...

You don't create an image of the guy being injured by his guitar to show your disapproval with his vote on an issue.  We don't do things that way in this country (anymore - 200 years ago the British would have taken issue with that statement).  The guy should be ashamed by his actions.

Manny Hinojosa (of all people) apologized to the mayor even though it wasn't his sign.  Nacho Padilla exposed what could be the beginnings of a rift in the ranks of Pastor Brown's religious army by sniping at Hinojosa for diong the right thing.  It's an army, mind you, made up of some mighty large egos.  Egos that are bigger than the cause and you are seeing that play out now.

The lesson here is that you're only as good as your loudest idiot.  The anti-gay benefits movement loses credibility from this scandal.  People may not pick up the phone and tell Tom Brown that they no longer support his mission to exclude gays from everything but eternal damnation, but they will quietly shut off support for the group in their own way. 

You have to be very careful how you let people support your cause.  One guy in a crowd of thousands with a bad sign can taint the entire event.  Just look at the Tea Party rallies where hundreds of thousands of Americans were marching and you only ever saw on TV the three or four idiots with racist signs that had been pushed to the outside of the rallies by attendees.  The work of thousands was ruined by the idiocy of a few. 

It was only a matter of time before the Jesus Freaks messed up.  The "No Recall" organizers had arleady lost control of their logo and had some of the dumbest people in the world posting comments under their banner, which lead to credibility problems for the group as a whole.  I would say that the idiotic comments have started to subside for them, but there are still a few people wrapping themselves in the "No Recall" banner and making asses out of the entire organization.  It's a matter of policing your movement's brand and making sure over-zealous idiots don't wreck everything you've built. 

I think the biggest turnaround for any one of the local issue groups is the reformation of the Greenies by Jim Tolbert.   Before Jim moved back to El Paso, the Greenies were not credible.  I often debated members of the Greenies on issues like ASARCO where their rhetoric was full of hyperbolic lies.  I can't tell you how many times these people claimed that "thousands of people are dying from ASARCO's polution every single day," but couldn't name a single one of those dead people.  I busted them in lies at every turn and their support quickly dissolved. Back then every issue they had was treated with the same extreme claims with zero truth to them and everybody knew it, which led to everybody ignoring them.

When Tolbert came along  he put together a calm, collected message based on facts and opinions that could be honestly and reliably defended.  Tolbert found a way to reign in the bomb throwers and turn the whole movement away from being fodder for my writing and into a viable political force.  Just look at Tolbert's most recent efforts with the open space on the west side of Transmountain.  Before Tolbert got here, they would have never had this issue in front of council for this long with actual thoughtful consideration going into what they were asking for.  And how did Tolbert do it?  By making sure the group didn't have bomb throwing idiots speaking for the group. 

I can't stress enough to all of you amatuer political organizers that you're only as good as your loudest idiot.  Everybody wants to have that big following and their name in the lights when it comes to political activism, but the fastest way to obscurity is to lose control of your flock.  Here are some pointers:

1. Always check signs as people enter your events, or be the sole provider of signs.  This is an easy way to avoid what sparked the newspaper article and this blog post.

2. Control who gets to speak and who they get to speak to!  Being able to keep the crazies away from the microphone is the basis of success for any political group.  Know that the local news stations are looking for the crazies because they make for better TV.  This means you must corral the media at your events and keep them from wandering around in the crowd.  They will find the dumbest idiot in your group every time if you let them walk around talking to people.

3. Control access to, and use of,  your logo.  Pass out t-shirts with you logo on it to every Tom, Dick and Jose on the street and your group lives and dies by everything Tom, Dick and Jose does while wearing that shirt.  Check the Smoking Gun website for pages and pages of criminals wearing Obama shirts.

4. Have a strict agenda for events so that nobody can take the liberty to jump into the conversation due to the lack of order.  People will be less inclined to take the opportunity to shine the light on their own crazy self if you make it clear that they are interrupting a planned chain of events.  Silence is always there for the taking and the craziest person  will always takes it. 

5. Learn to turn away the crazies from day one.  Ignoring their presence and hoping they'll go away doesn't work.  If they show up to the first meeting and aren't told their craziness isn't welcome, they'll keep showing up time after time and the more they show up, the more comfortable they get and the more comfortable they get, the more likely they are to let everybody within earshot know what the voices in their head are saying.  Genna Pendergras and I went through this with the Tea Party events and we learned that certain people had to be cut off and kicked out before they hijacked the whole thing.

6. Limit your inner circle.  Too many Chiefs and not enough indians is a problem for every organization.  If you have ten people in your inner circle, you have eight too many. They're going to end up fighting each other and speaking for all of you when you don't want them to. 

7.  And this should be your #1 priority even though I mentioned it seventh - messaging.  Get a message and stick to it.  Watch a presidential primary candidate debate and notice that the candidates answer any question on any topic with a message about "jobs."  It's annoying, but it works.  Never get off message and make sure nobody in your organization does either.  If your issue is free pancakes for all, never talk about waffles - you'd be off message if you did. 

8.  Hire Morris Pittle - your life will be so much easier if you do. 

That's it... I've got to sleep now.

Why the Allegations Against Antcliff are BS

There's a whisper campaign out there trying to accuse former judge, soon to be judge again, Chris Antcliff of trying to rig his reelection to a spot he hasn't actually been sworn into yet.  It's BS.  I asked around and got some very frank answers and they didn't lead to anywhere near to a "fixed" election.

1.  Antcliff's former/current law partner had expressed an interest in running for the judicial spot in the past. 

2. Antcliff got the appointment and likely has informed his former/current law partner that it isn't just El Paso who sees that judge on the ballot. 

The bottom line - there's something like 16 counties outside of El Paso that will have this race on the ballot.  There's a very good chance Antcliff will win this one as a republican easily and that this alleged plot to have an opponent pull out is pure fiction thought up by those who have the time to think of such things. 

I just can't see anyone participating in that game given that Antcliff has voters outside of El Paso who can even the odds of the local turnout. 

Of course, it's a judicial race and that means nobody cares and nobody is paying attention anyhow. 

City of Socorro Made Me Cry

To start all of this off, you need to read the article HERE.

My second favorite joke of all time is about twin boys aged six years.  One of them was an optimist and the other a pessimist. Both were extreme in their respective views and their parents were worried about how they'd turn out as adults, so they hired a psychiatrist.  The parents told him of their children's extremely different outlooks and how fervently each undertook the those outlooks.  Wanting to gauge the two boys himself to establish their fanatical behavior using his own judgement, the psychiatrist set up a test.

He had one room filled with every new toy a boy could imagine.  Another room was filled nearly floor to ceiling with horse manure. 

The psychiatrist took the pessimist to the room with all the toys and observed a pronounced frown on the boys face as they entered.  He asked him "What's the matter?  Don't you want to play with all of these wonderful toys?"  The boy replied in an ominous, dreary tone "What's the use, the ones I don't break I'll eventually get bored of and at some point somebody will have to clean them all up and I'm sure that will be me."  The psychiatrist was a little surprised by the boy's reaction, but had seen cases this bad before. 

The psychiatrist had placed the young optimist in the horse manure filled room before he tended to the pessimist hoping to let the little boy really soak up the foulness of the room.  As he approached the door he was shocked at the sounds of glee emanating from the room.  He quickly pressed open the door to find the boy tearing through the manure at a terrific rate shouting with joy the entire time.  The professor grabbed the manure covered boy and pleaded "What are you doing young man digging through all of this horse shit?" The boy gleefully replies "Somewhere in all this horse shit there must be a pony!"

 Many would say the key to that joke is the use of hyperbole when describing the optimistic child's reaction.  They're probably right, but I have always seen it as funny because it's a completely inappropriate and unexpected response.  And the article in the paper (referenced above) drew much of the same emotion from me when I read about Socorro City Councilwoman Maria Reyes' reaction to other members of the Council's reckless spending of the ousted mayor's discretionary fund.  Instead of being appropriately appalled at the waste of taxpayer dollars on crap nobody needed, she said she was upset that she they didn't give her any money to waste!!!  They didn't let her play in all the unethical reindeer games and she's pissed.

ARE YOU KIDDING ME?  

I read the article, started laughing maniacally until tears were running down my cheeks.  As coworkers gathered to see what was wrong I could barely explain, but as they realized what Reyes' reaction was to the situation, they too started laughing uncontrollably and insisted this was a joke and couldn't be real.  I could only get the words out "only in El Paso... only in El Paso."

It's just so funny to think that this lady is so clueless that her first reaction wasn't even near the correct one.  She was more worried about being cut-in on the deal to waste taxpayers money than she was that taxpayer money was wasted.  And to top it off, SHE WAS WILLING TO TELL A REPORTER THAT'S HOW SHE FELT! 

Keep El Paso Backward...

The worst part is that none of you batted an eye at the article.  Every-single-damn-one-of-you read that and just went on about your day.  Do you know why?  Because you live in the land of corruption and you don't know the difference between wrong and right because you've never seen the right to know what's wrong.

Cook Goes a Step Further - Doesn't Understand the Law

Marty "I Should Know Better" Schladen is on the story again with Mayor Cook now deciding to take his case to a higher court.  You can read all about it HERE.

It seems as if Mr. Cook still thinks that because he's the mayor he can still have people stripped of their civil liberties because he has a hunch they may have done something wrong.  He has no proof - just a hunch based on what he thinks may have happened.  That's not a lot for a judge to go on when you're talking about stopping the electoral process for 11,000 or more people. 

For this to have any legal merit - at any time - the mayor is going to have to show where a specific person signed the petition and did so through illegal means.  That's going to be hard considering that you can pass around a petition in a business, church or public place any time you please.  It's the expenditure of money on behalf of the effort by entities that are band from doing so that rises to illegality.   If you believe that "politics is money," then you'll understand that the threshold for most of election violations is the spending of actual money.  If you can't prove they spent money - then you don't have squat.

He's got to prove that the church spent money to encourage people to sign the petition.  And even if he does do that, it will only result in the church getting in trouble - it will not negate the signatures.  They don't throw out your vote for Dog Catcher just because he took a corporate donation during the election. 

All you can hope to do at this point is to get Brown in trouble - you can't negate the petition and its signatures.  No judge is going to be able to assess who on those petitions was encouraged to sign them through illegal means - or even if there were illegal means used to get anyone to sign them.  Remember, the judge is being asked to rule on someone's guilt based on the word of one guy who has something to lose in the whole mess and I don't think he or she wants that on their shoulders.  Most likely they'll pass it on down the line with no action. 

Somebody at this point has to ask where Jaime Esparza's investigation has gone (I'm looking at you Marty).  If there's something there, why hasn't the DA filed charges and frog-marched Pastor Brown to county jail? 

I could go on and on about how ridiculous the mayor is being, but it's not worth it.  It's just sad.  He must see the writing on the wall and it doesn't read "you're going to serve out your term." 

And just so you know - I'm not on anyone's side here at all.  I think the Jesus Freaks need to learn that they have no better standing to legislate their beliefs than do those who worship the Koran.  If we allow your God's rules to run the place, then we have to everyone's God's rules run the place (I hate the sentence). 

I think people on council made a mockery of gay benefits when they tried to hold it up to the light for everyone to see and admire.  Sometimes the best thing you can do for the gays is help them out, make them equal and keep it to yourself because it's about equality, not headlines and your ego, right? 

I don't think the city should be paying anyone's dependent coverage at all.  That would nip this little problem in the ass right quickly, now wouldn't it. 

In the meantime, if I was a city employee I'd require they cover my five wives.  If they say "no" I'd sue them for discrimination because there's about as many legal allowances for gay marriage in Texas as there are for whatever you call having five wives (I call it a headache).  The city would have insure them all and if you don't believe me, try it.  You can ask why they accept two men being "domestic partners" situation, but won't accept your little sextuplet-sandwich as a "domestic partners" situation - neither have any legal footing in the state of Texas.  Nope, you city employees will continue to ignore me even though I've given you a full proof way to make a million bucks.

Michele Bachmann is a Beautiful Idiot

Rush Limbaugh was reported to have said that republican presidential primary candidate, Michele Bachmann "may have jumped the shark" by taking the whole HPV vaccine accusation too far.  If you don't know what "jump the shark" means...  it's from a Happy Daysepisode where a character (I'm not sure who, because I don't really care) actually jumped over a shark on water skis (or something like that) and it signaled the downturn in the shows quality and believability.  It's something people use on the internet to describe someone's actions that have gone too far in the sense of goofiness or basic attachment to reality. 

However convoluted that whole explanation of "jump the shark" was above, it's fitting for Bachmann who is now claiming that the vaccine causes "mental retardation" in girls.... which would be fine if there was any evidence for that other than an anecdotal story told to her by some woman in a crowd at a campaign event.  I don't know about you, but I've always lived by the mantra of - there are lies, damn lies and then there are statistics and mouthy mothers in campaign crowds.   Bachmann, as usual started believing her own bullshit just a little too much and said something completely stupid - AGAIN. 

Bachmann, Palin and a whole host of other politicians (from both parties) tend to get a little revved up when talking to peopleand start blurting out whatever comes into their tiny minds.  They forget that somebody might fact-check their words later and zoom into the stupid lane where they put the pedal to the floor.  Bachmann trip down stupid lane on the moron highway has once again derailed her chances of being anything other than a left-wing punchline. 

Somewhere I read yesterday where Limbaugh - I think it was Limbaugh - opined that Bachmann had once again moved right past running against Perry and to running against this vaccine instead.  It's as if she was told to go after Perry over the vaccination and she instead just went after the vaccination.  She's now in a fight with something that prevents women from getting cervical cancer.  How do you win that argument?   She's too stupid to figure out that the vaccine isn't the problem here, it's the government overstepping it's boundaries.  Whether the government requires you to eat healthy food or take pills that make you sick, the same root problem exists - too much government interference in our daily lives.  Somehow, I think she missed that point because she doesn't get why she believes what she believes.

There-in lies the problem with people who called themselves the "tea party candidate" - they are playing to an audience instead of being a member of it.   She thinks she gets, but she doesn't.  She just made a smart move to latch on to a popular movement and say all the right things at the right times before anyone could quiz her in a meaningful manner on the issues.  Now we find out that she was just riding the wave.

Boy is she good looking, though.  For 50-something she's hot. 

And please don't yell at me for the whole "dumb but hot" thing women always get upset over.  If I was dumb (which I am), I'd at least want to be attractive (which I'm not). 

The Mayor is the "Decider" When it Comes to the Law

Wow -  Mayor Cook is proving himself to be quite inept at navigating the political waters these days.  His latest request for an injunction has only infuriated more El Pasoans who are fed up with his disregard for the "will of the people."  Of course, you can't blame the guy - he knows he can't withstand a recall election and will thus be ending his mayoral service sometime next year. 

I kind of feel for the guy because he was hoping against all hope that the gay benefits issue would be solved in the courts.  At that point he hadn't gone against the "will of the people" and he had in his pocket a weapon of mass diversion - plausible deniability.  Had the court resolved the issue in favor of the gays, he could have blamed the court.  Instead, the court said - in many more words - you (the city )interpreted the ballot initiative they way you wanted to interpret it, now you have to stand by that.  The court also made it clear that they could have interpreted the measure differently and just limited the ban on benefits to the gay and unmarried - the City Attorney's office chose not to and held retirees hostage in an attempt to secure public favor for giving benefits to gays.  If you do remember the original rhetoric, the number of people losing benefits from the city's interpretation of the ballot initiative was in the thousands.  As of right now, the number is in the hundreds.  Who isn't telling the truth?  It's usually the guy whose story changes frequently.

So - after the court made its decision the Mayor was in a bad spot.  His goal in life is to be mayor for life (huh? I write terribly).  He badly wanted council to support putting together a charter amendment election so that he could remove term limits for elected city officials, if not just for the mayor.  In order to get the progressives on council (the majority voting block - sometimes) he decided to throw them a bone and break the tie toward ignoring the "voter's will" on the ballot initiative.  It was a political move he hoped would spur them into action on his behalf with the charter amendment election.  He guessed wrong.  He also didn't guess that the Jesus freaks would get more organized and recall him and other council members.  He also didn't understand that many El Pasoans, even ones who don't mind if the gays have benefits, saw his move as disfranchising voters and they were hopping mad at his move.  Their attitude was "a vote is a vote and if it doesn't turn out your way - too bad!"  After all, conservative voters in El Paso haven't had a vote go their way in decades and they take it pretty well. The mayor's actions were seen as a "chicken shit move," as one of my neighbors put it one day while we were discussing the issue and this guy voted against Pastor Brown's initiative!

I'm guessing the mayor found out that not only did Pastor Brown get the signatures, he got enough to recall him twice.  Instead of being a man about it and going out and campaigning for his life, he called in a favor in order to save his hide.  That favor didn't win him any friends out there in El Paso-land given that it made him look like he was stepping on the "will of the people" yet again.  It's going to be hard for him to claim he cares about his constituents after he's tried twice to usurp their authority and succeded once.  The issue is no longer about gay rights, and it hasn't been for a while.  The people who have told me they signed that petition are not people who hate gays - they are people who hate abusive governments.

None of this could have been avoided by any measure to "save" Mayor Cook.  The "No Recall" crowd was misdirected in their actions. They should have been talking to pro-gay benefits candidates about getting in the race when Cook inevitably lost his recall fight.  Instead, they let their members make asses out of themselves on forums, comments sections and in public.  The group is made up of political novices who don't know that it's almost impossible to ask people not to participate in government - it's like begging people not to vote.  They could have let Cook drift off into the sea of ambiguity and gotten started on framing their candidate to run the city and protect their views on gay benefits.  Missed opportunity on their part - they've lost any control of the process past the signature gathering portion of this contest and they failed miserably during that stage if you believe Brown has 11,000 signatures.   The business community will elect the next mayor - not the "No Recall" crowd. 

As for the veracity of the Mayor's complaint - he doesn't have much to go on.  You have to prove more than intent in this case.  The reason Jaime Esparza isn't saying much is because he knows there's no way to bring this forward.  You have to have witnesses to these people breaking the law.  Passing a petition around in church isn't illegal.  Sorry, it just isn't - just like casting a vote in a church isn't illegal.  Besides, Esparza was only used as a factor to intimidate people into not signing the petition - they wanted people to think they'd get investigated for doing so... something they do in border towns all the time.  The bottom line was clear - trying to escape a recall through a technicality that was weak at best, was the first sign something was going very wrong for the mayor here.  Now he has bigger troubles - big public troubles.

Theresa Caballero and Stuart Leeds held a 30 minute press conference yesterday and eviscerated the mayor in front of God and everybody.  They turned this into a "big mean government flexing its muscles against the average Joe" move by Cook and positioned themselves as populists.  Caballero and Leeds bang a loud drum and all the media comes when they hear it.  This whole thing will play out publicly and the mayor isn't going to shine very bright here in this negative light.

Below I'll get into why an injunction in this matter is ridiculous and just about anybody worth their salt in the legal community agrees, but right now I'd like to talk about how the two most powerful attorneys in El Paso are going to make the injunction disappear and do it with a vengeance.

Judge Alvarez was my judge when Leeds sued me.  Judge Alvarez had a hearing on my motion for summary judgement where he made it crystal clear why Leeds had no case against me and why he should dismiss their lawsuit.  However, Alvarez is elected.  Leeds and Caballero are vindictive.  He feared they'd spend the next year of their life talking about how much they hated him and possibly run against him, so he decided to not to issue a summary judgement, but let the thing go to trial where he could dismiss the case at "halftime" and take the wind out of their sails.  As I've noted before - I'm not going to pay $10,000 to prove what we all know is true, and decided to save Alvarez the trouble along with me saving some money by settling.   The lesson here is that Leeds and Caballero will run that court from the second they step into it, to the moment they let everyone know they can leave and the issue has been resolved.

Here's the big BS scary part of this whole deal.

If you're a republican in El Paso looking to get an injunction on your behalf and it has to do with you being elected or not - you best go pound sand.  Here's the fallacy of the entire place called El Paso - a judge calls in a political favor from a political party friend and it wouldn't be done anywhere else except El Paso where these kinds of deals are cut in the broad daylight and nobody seems to care.  Even if you are a democrat, you should be appalled that a judge is interfering with TWO (2, dos, 3-1) investigations - or should I say, intervening on behalf of a guy who asked the investigation be launched.  Basically, the judge has ruled that Mayor Cook is the "decider" when it comes to who is guilty of breaking the law and who isn't.  If the mayor "thinks" you've done something wrong, then he's got a legal arm to have you and what you are doing stopped.  Any of you democrats who believe in freedom and the constitution should be very angry with this move.

And this isn't just little ol' me who thinks this is a very fishy deal for the mayor and the judge. As you know, I was sued by the most powerful and hated attorney in the southwest, as mentioned above.  When that happens, you make a lot of new lawyer buddies quickly.  It seems everybody wants to help you defeat their mortal enemy - or the guy they hate with the rage of thousand drunk sailors.  My email box filled up rather quickly with lawyers writing on the same theme of ----WTF?  The mayor gets injunctions based on his gut feelings?  Jaime Esparza is investigating this along with the Texas Ethics Commission, but Cook is the one with the power to start and stop this process? ----  Of the more than 20 emails I was sent, none of them thought the Judge acted in the right way here.   The other theme was ---- Caballero is going to have a field day with this and embarrass a lot of people in the process.----  Great - like she needs a bigger head.

For those of you from the "No Recall" crowd who are a little too obsessed with yourselves to understand the law - as frequently shown in your comments on the El Paso Times web page - I can put what happened here in simple terms.   What if your vote for mayor was denied by injunction because somebody "thought" someone "might" have broken the law when voting that day?  That would suck wouldn't it - one guy's hunch screwing you out of the privilege of participating in the political process? 

I see things getting really out of hand here quickly.  The "No Recall" crowd would do well to stop their members from calling all people who go to church "bigots" in online forums before they figure out just how many people take an offense to that.  When the majority people who vote go to church - I wouldn't poke them with a stick by making fun of them for it - that's if you want to recruit them to your side at some point.  They also need to remember that no matter what, nobody is going to take gay benefits away - it doesn't matter who they elect.  There's no reason to pick all these fights when you have nothing on the table to lose.  Here again, vanity has replaced common sense.

Tell Me This Didn't Happen - AGAIN?!?!?!?!

On ABC Extra last Sunday (http://www.kvia.com/xtra/index.html  about 21:30 in) did Congressman Reyes get the Sunni/Shiite question wrong again?  (More concise link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HPr8YFHDJdg)

Please tell me he didn't.

Please, please, please, please, please, please tell me he got the question right. For the love of God and any shred of dignity El Paso has left - TELL ME HE GOT IT RIGHT.

You're not going to tell me that, are you? 

Last Night's Debate - Thoughts

My thoughts... it's still 2011.  Who cares?  I don't.  It doesn't matter one bit what happens now.  It matters what happens starting in 2012 and it's a Romney vs. Perry race.

You know what I do notice, though - my liberal friends are the one watching the debates.  And they aren't just watching them, they are obsessing over them like I have never seen.  I can only deduce that they are very aware that Obama is done and now are trying to see which republican is going to replace him.

I guess I shouldn't be shocked - as much as half of Rush Limbaugh's audience are the very liberals who hate him.  I think they know when they are being told something that is the truth and is right, but hate to admit that publicly.

NFL and 9/11

We got a lot of corporate bullshit advertising-based crap pushed in our faces about 9/11 on Sunday.  It was a disgrace to the innocent people who died that day.  It seems that we take every opportunity to use these types of events to show just how piggish America has become in many respects.  I hate it immensely. 

However...

I watched a lot of football yesterday and I was impressed with the simple, but deeply respectful ceremonies held at stadiums across the nation.  I got chills at the crowd's reaction to the flags, the singing and simple pageantry that said so much about the American spirit.  Every crowd I watched chanted "USA" at some point before the game.  They didn't do it for too long, just enough to remember that everyone in that stadium was on the same team when that flag was unveiled.  It was a great feeling. 

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Another note on 9/11 or any other tragic event in this country....

There's only one caveat here - if you are in the military or have a family member in the military this is not aimed at you at all.  9/11 was for you the biggest thing in your lives even if you lived a million miles away from the tragedies due to its implications for you, or your family member's status of "being shot at" or "not being shot at."  This is for the rest of the people out there.

A lot of people in today's society have the ability to make anything and everything about them.  Nothing is more selfish than answering the quesiton; "where were you on 9/11?"  If you weren't in the towers, on the plane that crashed in Pennsylvania or in the Pentagon - IT DOESN'T MATTER WHERE YOU WERE OR WHAT YOU WERE DOING!  It's not about YOU!  And you look selfish when you make it about YOU.

I know a lot of you are going to be hurt by this, but we can't continue teaching our kids that everything is about them personally.  My parent's generation started the whole "where were your when Kennedy was shot/assassinated?" scenario.  Almost 100 percent of the time - nobody cares where those people were unless they were holding an ammo can for stranger on a grassy knoll.  They care that the president was murdered and that's it.  Since then, we've continued to make it all about YOU and not the people actually involved in whatever the situation was.  It's time to stop the selfishness. 

Have you ever met someone who had a family member dying in a hospital and the only thing they could talk about is how much of a strain it was for them to have a family member in the hospital?  Do you remember how you thought "what an asshole, your brother is dying and all you care about is the sleep you aren't getting?"    Well, that's what you look like when you make 9/11 about you.

Obama's Speech Completely Ignored - Here's Why

I've been tuned into the news all day - especially the stuff you can only get inside the Beltway and nobody is talking about Obama's speech from last night.  Well, people have spoken about it, but it did not rise to the level of the hubbub about the republican debate that featured an airplane flying through the middle of it.

It wasn't until I came across a conversation between some media budies that I realized the reason why nobody is really talking about the president's speech.  The bill he refers to doesn't actually exist, if it did it couldn't originate from him in the first place (the house takes up matters of budget) and there's no way the senate will pass anything.  The sympathetic media has given Obama a pass by simply moving on with their lives and not focusing on any of those issues. 

And let's not forget - the president was bullied away from his original speaking time and that sent a subtle signal to the world that we ought to be looking at, and arguing over, who his replacement will be - not if there will be one. 

Before the debate I was of the mind that any republican could easily beat Obama.  After the debate I'm now sure Romney can't beat him.  He's a younger McCain and too much of a pleaser.  He wants to be president so he can put it on his resume and his lack of credible standing on many issues proves that theory.

My buddy Jaime agreed with me about the tone and execution of the speech - it was excellent.  However, we both refrained initially from commenting on the specifics of the speech because it was a lot to look at and devoid of certain specifics.  Well, it looks like today has brought no specifics and thus has killed any momentum that might have been generated from the delivery.  

The poor president lost his speech between a republican debate, football and the ten year anniversary of 9/11.  The inability to compete inside this news cycle may be the final sign of the demise of his second term.  Everybody has given up on him.

The Truth About Construction Jobs

I will start by saying that I don't mind the fact that the president wants to throw a lot of money at new construction around the country.  My family's business would benefit from that move.  However, it is not a cure for the unemployment problem in America. 

If you take the proposal on its face, you'd have to realize that the president is basically saying that he wants all the unemployed people out there to become construction workers.  That would be nice if in fact the construction industry had been the hardest hit with job losses.  Unfortunately for the president, that industry isn't the one bleeding the most jobs.  Manufacturing comes to mind first. 

I think it's naive to think you're going to turn all the unemployed people out there into concrete finishers and excavator operators.  It doesn't work that way.  Most companies have crews in place and any new contract will not affect their hiring.  Most road crew workers go from job to job to begin with - this move would just mean they stay with one company for a little longer.  And I'm not going to hire an out of work sales guy for anything other than shoveling concrete and I'm only going to pay him $8.50 an hour until he learns to something useful.  That could take a year or more.  The guys I pay $20 an hour are very experienced construction guys and they didn't get that way in a month. 

Most folks aren't going to want to go work construction - especially if they aren't from a similar background.  And let's not forget - he's proposing a massive extension of jobless benefits that would give people a choice between raking hot asphalt in the hot July sun and getting paid to sit at home and wait for the phone to ring.  I'm going to assume all of those out of work tech guys are going to opt for second option.

In closing (I love fifth grade endings), I like the focus on construction, but I don't think it will mean much for the job numbers overall.

Jobs Speech - First Impression

Not really commenting on content here, just the delivery... Very good delivery.  Hasn't been this good in a while.  Very confident - very on point and sounds very presidential. 

I know some of you hate to hear that, but he's improved his speaking for this important speech.  He's holding the audience and that's what he had to to do.

My Thoughts on the Republican Debate

It's September 2011... wake me up in January when normal Americans begin to care.  I can only take so many platitudes at a time and I'm sure there was an overabundance of them last night.

Judging by the opinions I'm hearing this morning, I think more democrats watched the debate than republicans.  They sure are fired up about a group of eight people who won't be around for very long. 

The President flogged the masses to watch the debate by trying to schedule his speech during the "historic" (it's not) republican debate.  He brought attention to something most people would have cruised right past and then ended up opposite of a football game (not exactly opposite). The big loser is Obama.   He's like the Dallas Cowboys in the 80s... he just can't win.

The Big Beto Video - Funny, But Not Fatal

The rumor has become fact - there's a video that shows Beto O'Rourke dancing and falling down and then grabbing a microphone.  Was he drunk?  That's still a rumor because you can't discern that from the footage provided.

Here's the link - http://youtu.be/4Nz2k6J7J-4.

Said to be there with O'Rourke that night was Reps Ortega and Byrd along with County Judge Veronica Escobar.  Where did this take place?  The Tap, which is a moral crime in-of-itself considering the place is so disgustingly awful that you should question the judgement of anyone who would set foot in the godforsaken excuse for a bar in the first place.  The only people who go to The Tap are true alcoholics and rich Westsiders who think it is ironic that they drink in a dive bar.  You can put Rosa's Cantina in this category too.  Rich white people do some weird things - dive bar patronage is just the newest, most annoying thing they're doing right now.  And we wonder why poor minorities abhor rich white people...

Anywho...

What does the video really show?  Bad dancing, bad camera skills and possibly bad Karaoke  This not the Zapruder film as it was touted to be by some folks out there.  It's simply a guy celebrating his last day as City Representative with his fellow Shapleigh Campers.  Here's a list of things this video doesn't show these politicians doing:

1.  taking a bribe
2.  failing to pay their taxes
3.  violating the open meetings act
4.  being friends with Larry Medina
5.  burning witches at the stake
6.  talking about the source of Chico's Tacos cheese
7.  calling someone a lesbian
8.  painting their toenails on their office desk during business hours
9.  killing their girlfriend's dog 
10.  widening Transmountain
11.  securing employment for their kids through companies who do business with your committee
12.  getting robbed after showing up for a sex fest in a central motel and waiting to call the cops for a day
13.  buying land in an area where your vote can directly increase its value
14.  intimidating a Circle K clerk who won't sell you alcohol after hours

What I'm saying is - this is pretty innocuous and Congressman Reyes' crew would be fools to try and pass this off as some kind of smoking gun in an indictment of Beto O'Rourke's character.  God rest his soul, but Beto' father wasn't exactly known as a teetotaler himself and managed to get elected a few times. 

If you put this on TV, people are going to be quite confused as to what they are looking at in the first place.  Couple that with the fact that you don't have a clear picture of Beto, you've got a born loser of a gotcha video.  O'Rourke could plausibly deny that he's even in the video if he wanted. 

The whole thing makes for a weak whisper campaign among the usual suspects who already know who they are aligning themselves with in the upcoming primary.  You can bet things will get vicious as the campaigns progress.

I bet nobody is talking about this video next week.  Hell, nobody is talking about it right now!

And if you were thinking Norma Chavez's fingerprints are all over this - you're wrong.  She's angry and she's willing to pull out all the stops to go after O'Rourke, but she wasn't there that night and she wouldn't make up a fake email address and distribute the video to local bloggers.  Norma just isn't that kind of woman at all.  She's changed - I can feel it in my heart.

So, say hello to this scandal and goodbye because it's already gone. 

Five Days Off - The Round Up

I was busy moving the family into the new house all weekend and didn't have time to comment on a bunch of things.  Lots of painting and cleaning took place over the five days and now the real unpacking and organizing begins.  Good thing I left my wife and mother in charge of that!

Here we go.

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I got this question from a Latino Liberal friend of mine this morning - "Is Cesar Chavez really a "civil rights leader" as the El Paso Times portrays him, or was he a labor advocate?" 

He went on to make the point that many historical figures are now being labeled with the cause of "civil rights" when it may not be the best description of their actions.  His point was that if you taught kids all about Cesar Chavez, would he rise to the level of "civil rights" or would he best be proven to be an advocate for a single issue?

That's a question for you to answer, I guess.  I don't have to defend my description of Cesar Chavez very hard, because I don't make claims that can't be unsubstantiated.

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Did you see the massive effort to downplay UTEP's laughable play against what amounts to a high school football team?   How funny was it to read/watch the media spin that debacle?  Hilarious for a moment and then increasingly embarrassing once you realized that nobody was going to say "just joking, UTEP is the worst football team on earth."

Anything written about that game that doesn't follow the theme of "UTEP is the worst football team in Division I college play and they proved it last night" is a lie.  It's time to fold the program and take up baseball - we've got the talent here to play competitively. 

And it's not the coach!  It's the crappy, no-talent players that we are forced to put up with because nobody wants to live in El Paso or attend UTEP.  I mean, if you're not Hispanic, you're not welcome at UTEP, so who would want to go through that? 

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The El Paso Times isn't done doing the bidding for the Paso Del Norte Group.  Their report on the pay of local nonprofit executives was drudged up just to whack Brian Kennedy over the head - again.  You can read the complete hit job HERE.

The story on nonprofit pay could have been done at any time, however this was done now to embarrass Kennedy.  As you might remember, Kennedy out maneuvered the Paso Del Norte Group two weeks ago in County Commissioners Court and they've been using the El Paso Times to get back at him ever since.

The real story is that 99 percent of the nonprofits in El Paso help exactly one individual person - their CEO.  El Paso is the poorest city in the galaxy and features a nonprofit on every corner trying to eradicate some symptom of that poverty.  Too bad none of them have done anything to move El Paso up the list.  In fact, El Paso gets poorer each year.  What are all these nonprofits doing?   

That's the story that needs to be written. And there are some people they left off of that list and they did so for political reasons, which is hilarious. 

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Speaking of nonprofits... Bienvivir (one word, not two) has an interesting board of directors.  The chair is Representative Emma Acosta.  Also on the board - your favorite and mine - LARRY MEDINA!  Mumbles appears to still be in the game after his recent troubles and subsequent disappearance off the face of the earth.  Check it out HERE.  Please feel free to send them a picture of Larry seeing as how they don't have one.  I know of at least on time recently when he was photographed.

Birds of a feather...

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El Paso Times poll... find it HERE.

You can throw out the 18-25 category and pretty much only pay attention to those that are 45 or older.  In that last city council election there were around 15 people under the age of 25 who voted in Lilly's district.  Even at that, it's a little early to be taking any polling seriously given that O'Rourke hasn't even officially announced.  And by "officially" I mean - navy suit, white shirt, red or blue tie, podium and a speech. 

Rumor has is that Reuel Group has agreed to work with Congressman Reyes.  This means that all of you are going to impugn their character and integrity by saying they didn't conduct a truthful poll.  Here's the truth - Reuel Group is a stand-up firm and they wouldn't do anything like that at all.  They are in business to make money and they won't make any money if they start pulling punches for one client on another client's dime.  You may not agree with the numbers, but do not accuse these guys of being "on the take."  Again, I'll defend their work to anyone - they're good people. 

If you want to know why Reuel Group might pick Reyes over O'Rourke in this race, simply follow the money.  If you're betting on who has the money to spend on  your election services, always bet on the incumbent.  However, they don't care who wins as long as they get their invoices paid.

Do look at the poll this way - it's a huge sample of 2,000+ of likely voters.  Presidential polling of all 50 states you see quoted all the time might not have a sample that size!  You're getting a good effort here to get a clear picture of what the voters are thinking.  In the past they polled as few as 350 voters.

Again, I don't think much of the numbers now since it's still too early for voters to care.  Reyes should be shocked by all the undecideds, though.  I'm assuming these are likely democrat primary voters they polled and you'd expect the party incumbent to be off the charts no matter when the poll is taken.  If the polling looks like this in January - Reyes might as well retire because anyone that is "undecided" within the party is a vote against the party incumbent.

Reyes has a history of being one of the most under-voted members of congress in the country.  That means people simply don't cast a vote for him when they have the chance to.  This was first brought to my attention by a legendary DC house race handicapper who wanted to know why so many people refused to cast a vote for Reyes.  I didn't have the answer then and I don't have it now.

Let's see what happens after O'Rourke's official announcement.  He has already enjoyed great buzz in the social media arenas and that might help him deliver the lethargic youth vote in El Paso.

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 Did you hear about the dove hunters on the river that were attacked by the Mexican army?  Wars have been started over less. 

I know the dove hunters - very well.  If you had any idea what they do for a living, you'd really really be paying attention to exactly what happened on the river that day.  These people aren't liars.

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Yes, I heard

When all of the armchair Carl Roves shut up, I'll chime in. It's a marathon, not a half marathon.