NEW BARS:...Toloa Rooftop In North McAllen...Take The Babe Out On The Town...

 

By EDUARDO PAZ-MARTINEZ

McALLEN, Texas | The City of Palms keeps me well-entertained. I mean, I have my sweet, always-there Babes, but we never tire of hitting a new bar, of which there have been more than a few lately. Not that long ago, it was Harvey's On 10th, a small, but noisy joint we still enjoy, especially on Sunday afternoons.

But this latest one is a gas.

Toloa Rooftop way on the far-northern side of N. 10th Street is the latest entry into the high-dollar dine and drink market. Its uniqueness is being talked about in town as if the first of an emerging trend: Primo bars and nightclubs.

The mayor was over there the other day. Without hesitation, he labeled it a winner. Mayor Javier Villalobos even had someone photograph him inside the bar.

It is the neat, airy rooftop that grabbed at us, even as our late-September Friday evening date still felt the remains of the day's heat. But come cooler weather, Toloa Rooftop may have to limit the number of patrons it allows into the bar.

Many of the customers seemed to be enjoying the expansive (and expensive) menu, some out in the rooftop patio awaiting tables. It's not like the skyscraper bars of New York that held my attention back when I was writing for the New York Post, but Toloa offers a different view of North McAllen.

The week had been a long one for both of us (me with a new cleaning lady for my apartment and Laura messing with the Fiat dealer for her car), the exhaustion perhaps something to blame on the Summer's scorching weather. A cooldown is coming next weekend, however, and, well, we'll likely hang out at Toloa one more time.

Hey, new is new, and we like the new.

Oh, do enjoy the great DJ music at Toloa. It's worth the price, that being whatever you get on your tab when you cash-out at evening's end. Toloa Rooftop is located at 1200 Auburn Avenue.

The Rio Grande Valley is coming up in the world.

Well, at least the western end of it...

-30-

SUN SPORTS:...Jayhawks In Town To Tangle With Horns...

 

STAFF REPORT

AUSTIN, Texas | The undefeated Kansas Jayhawks fly into Darrell K. Royal Stadium today to take on the also-undefeated #3 ranked Texas Longhorns. Both teams are 4-0.

This may be the last time these two Big 12 teams face off during the regular season, as Texas moves to the Southeastern Conference (SEC) next season.

Kansas is ranked #24 going into the game. 

Game time is 2:30 P.M. Central Standard Time.

You can catch the game on ABC-TV...

-30-

MIGRANTS:...Stopping Them In Panama...U.S. To Spend $10 Million In New Effort...

 

By EDUARDO PAZ-MARTINEZ

McALLEN, Texas | It's a good idea and something of a new approach to the ongoing migrant problem. Stop them way before they hit the U.S. - Mexico border. The plan by the Biden Administration just may work.

Or, at the very least, help.

This from axios.com: [ The unprecedented pilot program has been blocked by Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) for months, but that has ended now that Menendez has ceded the chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee after being indicted on bribery charges.

The rapid action on a controversial plan is another indication of the administration's desperation to slow the number of people arriving at the border.

The Biden administration plans to notify Congress that it intends to spend up to $10 million in foreign aid on a pilot program to help Panama deport more migrants who do not qualify for protections, sources directly familiar tell Axios. Most of the immigrants cross into Panama by way of the Darian Gap in jungle country that connects Colombia and Panama. 

It would be a six-month pilot program, involving the State Department and Department of Homeland Security. The funds would initially be used to target single, adult males.

The pilot could launch as early as mid-October.

Panama has been asking the U.S. for this kind of help, according to internal planning documents viewed by Axios. ]

Mid-October is two weeks away. But something tells us the U.S. will begin to see results as early as the first week of November.

Mexico earlier had halted train operations that saw migrants climb aboard and hitch rides all the way to the country's northern border.

We'll follow this story and see how it goes...

-30-   

CASUAL FRIDAY:...The Book Of Life...The Resaca Of Fire ...Wretched Bloggers Lament...

 

By EDUARDO PAZ-MARTINEZ

BROWNSVILLE, Texas | Still no resolution to the city's silly Soap Opera quickly getting crazy attention from many in this luckless Border Town. Attacking bloggers currently roiling Texas Southmost College know it as "As The Welders Turn," while to the TSC crowd, it is known as "The Old & The Restless."

For bloggers, every unhappy, disgruntled student in the school's welding program is gold. For the TSC administration and board of trustees, those old and restless bloggers are nothing but annoying gnats to be fumigated.

Stay tuned.

It's been a little more than a week since excitable Bloggers El Jerry McHale and his typing shadow, Jimmy Barton, launched a half-baked attack on TSC Chair Adela Garza and school President Dr. Jesus Rodriguez. The two would-be detectives nailed nothing, but they got some attention as the cheesy innuendo quickly gained some traction, like that of a '58 Oldsmobile needing a tune-up but still clunking down a muddy downtown alley.

Perhaps next week, eh Boys?

McHale posted a photo of popular Justice of the Peace Linda Salazar yesterday, asking if maybe she would be a better TSC chair than Ms. Garza. I know, I know. El Jerry is Irish and the Irish are great at flashing their stubbornness. But that flaming ego of his - man, he can be vicious in defending himself even when wrong from the get-go.

Older Barton is a lesser evil, if only because he exhibits the brain of an eternal follower. His bent is to be El Jerry's Tonto, there to praise El Jerry daily and chime-in with a two-bear mambo laugh or two.

Barton's "Laundromat Bulletin Board" blog had fallen off the TSC story, the non-college graduate fixated on the arrest of a woman at SpaceX's property on Boca Chica. That's where he belongs, writing stories with hardly a spark, one no other media chases as tongue-heavy as he does. It's the thinning hair, dude! The jelly belly! The fat your son talked about when you told him you wanted to buy a scooter!

Then he got out of bed, perhaps combed his thinning hair and wrote another episode to the Welding Recital, this one about some "cancer inhibiting" move at TSC he explained badly. Writing does not come easily for vocabulary-addled Barton, although that can likely be traced back to his employment as a grocery store cashier/bagman, a motel clerk and a shrimp boat unloader. Never the professional, no.

Still, ever the chippy, beakless woodpecker, Barton let out a weird posting this morning in which he wrote: Many in Brownsville know that currently jailed Sylvia Atkinson and TSC Board Trustee Adela Garza are "as thick as thieves."

Huh? I think he means "friends," but that "thieves" thing could be interpreted differently. 

Lawyer-up, son!

But then, after we messaged him, Barton deleted the entire post! Ha ha ha. Amateur!

The hell-bent McHale kicked in the unlocked door. Now, let's see if he can nail someone - anyone! - responsible for the wrongdoing he cries about daily. On Friday, the balding blogger wondered if TSC boardmember Zavaleta was providing cover for the welding program director.

If there is something to all of this, good. Perhaps it's just a case of a good story being in the hands of inexperienced reporters.

Oh, well. Tomorrow is another day for this Lethargic Duo...

-0-

What crazy stuff moves down Brownsville's mangled streets? Look at the downtown street in photo above. That's something to be proud of, Browntown? Fer Chrissakes, do something about it. Embarrassing is too kind a word to use about here. Pitiful? Pathetic?

Well, yes.

But perhaps folks at City Hall want their downtown streets to look like their downtown buildings. You can see the resemblance in the photo, as well. Man, this is 2023, not 1973.

Or maybe they're hoping some Hollywood type wants to come to town to film a western set in, say, 1955. Actor Kevin Costner as the Texas rancher chasing Border hero Juan N. Cortina through downtown streets. That scene aided by 100 horses galloping after Cortina, whooping and hollering all over the place.

Whoa, Howdy! Camera 1, pan in on Cortina's face. Get me that look of wild, perspiring desperation! ACTION!!!! Cameras 2 and 3 get ready as Cortina gets set to jump across the Rio Grande. Helicopter camera, you're on!!! Great, that's a wrap. Catering!!!

You'd love that, wouldn't you?

Those downtown streets are ready for Hollywood. Heh, heh...

-0-   

Just last week, the dude in photo you see above was persona non grata for blogger El Jerry McHale. His name is J.J. DeLeon and the mercurial McHale spent several articles on his blog encouraging Texas Southmost College boardmember Tony Zavaleta to enlist their friend Ben Neece as a quick replacement for the DeLeon, a trustee known for the most part in his home.

That idea has now flowed down the city's sewer lines, as McHale has angered and lost Zavaleta's friendship. McHale, seemingly an expert in mischievous sophistry, now wants DeLeon to challenge TSC Chair Adela Garza for her job.

It's a dizzying life McHale leads, boys. One day he's your best pal and the next he's your worst enemy, which is funny because he used to accuse former Blogger Robert Wightman of the same thing. Yes, Maria, he perhaps is cheered by the sight of herds and resaca flocks.

Could we say that he is enfeebled with age? McHale is 73, but we cannot say that, as we're not shrinks.

Going offstage is his recent act, however. I mean, who woulda thunk it to believe that he would unfriend Tony Zavaleta so viciously, a dude McHale praised and fawned-over for years! That blog of his is a weapon, and he uses it.

There must be some special pleasure he gets from flying to his pen for relief.

I don't know, but this, too, shall pass.

This ridiculous assault on TSC has to be some transit gust of enthusiasm for the cumbia-dancing McHale. The hilarity and good feeling will end.

Brownsville blogging is that predictable...

-0-

Lost in local conversation during the TSC Soap Opera has been the whereabouts of mouthy Republican Mayra Flores, once the main target of local bloggers. She's still around, still harping on her road-weary issues of God, America and Legal Immigration.

Is she worried about her Republican opponents in the party primary?

You'd never know it, but opponents Mauro Garza of Raymondville and Laura Cisneros of Brownsville are not doing anything, either. Nothing. Both are "new" Republicans, with Cisneros ripping off and trashing her Democrat cape after last election. 

If this is a contest, well, someone should tell rookies Garza and Cisneros to start gunning their engines. Flores would want them to play toesies with each other as long as they wish, although we all know Mayra would be the flyswatter in any sort of pre-election brawl.

Garza seems the excitable one; Cisneros, as we have written a time or two, more the Happy Homemaker.

We'll see if there's fire in those Oppo eyes...

-0-  

Is there a coming defense here, we ask. Pro-Mexicans Blogger Juan Montoya, shown at right in photo above, has been - and probably will always be - the Great Defender of Texas Southmost College. That's TSC Chair Adela Garza in pink, btw.

Montoya attended TSC back in the day. The two Anglo bloggers currently rolling the school did not. Heavy-shoulders blogger Jerry McHale, aging as fast as Mylanta goes down the throat pipe after a night of bad rice (he wanted to eat 2,000 of something), claims to have graduated from Sacramento State in California (we're checking with the school on that one), while milquetoast Blogger Jimmy Barton never made it to college after high school, or was it after the GED stuff?

So, we're wondering why Montoya hasn't set these boys straight. I mean, once and for all. They keep spewing a story as if defecating "peas off a diseased pod." Trickling water is a Chinese torture drill. Here, McHale and Barton do it, only as if two elderly dudes (McHale will be 74 in December; Barton is an older-looking 75) unable to piss in a stream, but agonizing over painful drips.

Both wish to get out of this TSC Welding Recital they have fashioned for now going on two weeks.

The original issue they posed as if laughing teens was one that went to alleged wrongdoing or bad administration at the college's welding program. The latest angle is a desire to rid TSC of its chair, Ms. Adela Garza.

It's called dog-paddling like sumbitches in the face of a tiring, relentless head current.

Bloggers McHale and Barton scream for help, as if wanting off the story in the worst of ways. It would be so easy for Montoya to "woodshed" these happy-feet boys.

We know Mickey Mantle would upbraid Roger Maris and Yogi Berra, so...

Will he do it for his alma mater?...

-0-

Harlingen Mayor Norma Sepulveda is still on the go. For her city, we mean. The new mayor (one year in office) keeps promoting Harlingen like gangbusters. If it's not a local business she's spotlighting, it's a city employee.

Stuff-shirt former Mayor Chris Boswell never did any of that.

It's good public relations, we say.

And even when Mayor Norma and her husband bought a new Ford Bronco recently, she lapped all sorts of praise on the car dealership. Leadership skill, she has. An attorney by profession, Mayor Sepulveda knows the value of good P.R.

Some cities and towns in the Rio Grande Valley can't buy a good word...

-0-

We would advise him to stay out of it. Him is the gent shown in photo above, Capt. Bob Sanchez of Brownsville podcast/street gab and eatery fame.

The trendsetting El Capitan reportedly hosted - or is hosting rampaging Blogger Jerry McHale for the purposes of airing out that welding nothingness at Texas Southmost College. Don't do it, or don't do it again, Bob.

Sanchez, at last check a Republican, knows that TSC Chair Adela Garza also is a Republican.

Is he joining the wanton word-stabbing of his political compatriot?

Oh, boy. Talk about lasting loyalty.

Bob, Old Sport, the Tale Of Dust And Disgust your bud McHale and his less-educated bud, Jimmy Boy Barton, are spewing is still a Big Maybe. Why risk your own rep, dude?

I know, I know. One must keep appearances.

Capt. Bob is the same cat who once, angered to the Max by McHale for something or another, one fine day grabbed at the bad blogger's backpack as he entered the captain's restaurant and flung it across the dining room. 

But it may just be as they say elsewhere about Brownsville - You can never trust its people. One day, they love you, the next day they want to kill you.

Metaphorically, we mean...

-0-

 

-30-

OBITUARIES:...Sen. Dianne Feinstein Dead At 90...

 

STAFF REPORT

McALLEN, Texas | It had been coming. Her health was the talk of Washington, D.C., with some even in her own party asking her to resign and go home to family.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), the oldest serving member of the U.S. Senate and longest serving female senator, died on Friday at age 90, a source told Axios.

Feinstein's death, first reported by Punchbowl News and confirmed by several other outlets, including the New York Times and AP, marks the end of a distinguished senatorial career.

Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), who worked closely with Feinstein on the Senate Judiciary Committee, said they had a "wonderful working relationship" and that she "did an outstanding job" representing her constituents.

"She's a true public servant," Grassley wrote on X, formerly Twitter. "I'll miss her."

The six-term senator announced in February that she would not seek re-election in 2024 amid deteriorating health...

-30-

SUN VIDEOS:...Trump Sings "I Fought The Law"...

SHABBY BLOGS:...In Brownsville, Rumors & Damnations...The Lady Doesn't Protest Enough...

 

By EDUARDO PAZ-MARTINEZ

BROWNSVILLE, Texas | Adela Garza has been around the political block enough to know that bad music will play until you grab the aging radio and bounce it off the nearest wall. A politician, she has been for many years. A dumped-on one not so much.

Until recently, that is.

This city's two Anglo bloggers have had a field day ragging on Ms. Garza and the Texas Southmost College (TSC) Board of Trustees she presently chairs. The issue is a semi-serious one, going to the school's welding program. It has been, so far, a minor tale of what seems to be a few disgruntled students and an administrator way out of his professional element (read "questionable" into that).

For days, bloggers El Jerry McHale and, to a lesser degree, Iowan Jimmy Barton have been going hot & heavy against the college, demanding answers to exaggerated scenarios only they could ever understand. Fairness in reporting has not been part of their junior high approach to news.

They have essentially been writing for themselves and not the audience they would wish to inform. Basic tenets known to real, educated journalists have gone by the wayside, in the case of no-college Barton because he does not know them. McHale simply hates these days. His bent is to perhaps leave the world on a bad note, age presently being his chief enemy.

McHale (shown in photo below) is about to turn 74; Barton (shown at left) is 75.

What they have sown with the welding recital is a bad crop of weeds. They have some facts, but, we would say, not enough to convict and hang Ms. Garza. They may eventually, although blog stories come and go here as if plates of crispy chicken tacos. Neither of these loose-wheeled bloggers should feel good about what they are doing, not when their stories arrive with so many holes that the reader ultimately nods and says, "Oh. Uh, okay..."

We do say that Ms. Garza should take the challenge and sit these boys down for an interview. They are both retired and have nothing else to do, so their blogs will keep pushing the mess until someone sets them straight. Ms. Garza - or boardmember Tony Zavaleta - is the one to do it, once and for all.

To simply take it day after day after day is no good.

We have not always been fans of the TSC, but, taken singularly, this silliness can be quickly resolved. The school has enough support in town to weather bad news. In fact, these same two bloggers have praised it in the past. The blame here goes mainly to McHale. Older Barton has been his so-called Second Banana for years, always lapping up to stories McHale offers by way of his own often-skewed or simplistic spin.

Barton can be excused for failing at this. He is not a college graduate, nor does he have any Real Journalism experience. Zero.

Perhaps the erudite Ms. Garza will consider our suggestion, although we also know that she does not suffer fools well. Indeed, she and the college have been somewhat defended by blogger Juan Montoya, a big fan of Ms. Garza and Mr. Zavaleta. It is Montoya who has shot back at these bloggers, but he could do more.

The welding program is not the principal candle on TSC's cake; it is just another program offered to students. That TSC would let this mini-brushfire interfere with its mission is, of course, laughable.

Just charge out of the conference room and nip it in the bud.

Brain wise, these goofin' bloggers are no match for Ms. Garza and Mr. Zavaleta, it says here...

-30- 

REPUBLICAN DEBATE: ...2024 Candidates Trot Out One More Time...No Stud In The Lot...

 

By EDUARDO PAZ-MARTINEZ

McALLEN, Texas | Debate II is in the books for Republican candidates seeking the party's 2024 presidential nomination. It happened last night at the Reagan Library in lovely Simi Valley, California.

Hopefuls Nikki Haley, Chris Christie, Vivek Ramaswamy, Tim Scott, Mike Pence, Ron DeSantis, and Doug Burgum arrived to take and answer questions.

The winner?

Democrat Joe Biden.

President Biden obviously was not there, so, really, the other name that pops up as benefitting from a rather high-schoolish performance by the aforementioned candidates is that of Donald J. Trump, the four-times indicted leader in polls commissioned by the party.

Were there cute lines thrown out for laughs and applause, as tends to happen at these dog & pony shows? Yes. A few.

Christie lobbed a new nickname at Trump, labeling him "Donald Duck Trump," which was not really about the winged cartoon character but more about Trump's decision to "duck" the debates. Kinda cute, but not a killer dig.

And from Haley, directed at Ramaswamy: "Every time I hear you, I feel a little bit dumber." Ouch.

But, oh, well, there's still another one before the Iowa Caucus in early January. The third in the damned-boring series comes November 8th, set to take place in Miami.

There was a time when these debates meant something. They tended to differentiate candidates. Not anymore.

These days, these GOP debates do nothing but take up TV time.

I mean, Ramaswamy up there?...

-30-

BROWN REPUBLICANS:... Why You're Lost, And Always Will Be In Donald J. Trump's Republican Party...

 

. . . .Trumpism is a way for them to engage in the fantasy and ideation of violence as a way of getting and keeping power and "getting even" with their "enemies", those Black and brown people, gays and lesbians, transgendered people, "liberals", "the left", "political correctness", "Black Lives Matter", "Woke", "Critical Race Theory", "illegal immigrants", criminals, "intellectuals", "socialists", "feminists", "Muslims", or whoever in their minds has somehow "oppressed" real Americans like them by not staying in their place as second class citizens who are to be subservient and obedient to White "Christian" Americans. - From an article posted today at Salon.com

-0-

Just a sweet reminder for my Brown Republican friends. It's great that you find pleasure in joining a national political movement, but it's not what you think it is.

The people you wish to support do NOT have YOU in mind for their future...

-30-

DREADFUL BLOGGERS: ...Word, Words, Words...And A Very Public Dust-Up...

 

By EDUARDO PAZ-MARTINEZ

BROWNSVILLE, Texas | And so out went the friendship that had lasted some 40 years, all because of sloppy news reporting by spiteful blogger El Jerry McHale. He is shown at left in photo above with that old friend, Tony Zavaleta, the Texas Southmost College trustee.

Much has happened in the last 24 hours in that just-can't-be-nailed-down tale of alleged wrongdoing in the college's welding program. McHale keeps typing and Zavaleta keeps saying he's dumb and dumber. Joining the fray somewhat is TSC Board Chair Adela Garza.

It seems walkabout McHale happened on Zavaleta and Garza at a popular eatery. What happened next has been interpreted in two ways: McHale angered by the diss he received from his friends, and another that said Zavaleta simply wanted no chat with the blogger he has known for all these years.

They asked him to get the Hell away, in so many more-sociable words.

The 73-year-old McHale did, however-stunned, leave. But then he took to his laptop computer and painted a blog story that had him as victim of cruel, unexplained disrespect. He full-well knew why Zavaleta and Garza (shown in photo at right) wanted no part of a social meeting. They were dining; McHale was reportedly out for a drink.

Ho hum. I know. It's a sad day in Brownsville again - the millionth one, at that.

Why McHale (shown goofin' in photo below) can't nail down the story he sees as a complete slam on the school's administration is the mystery. He has typed, well, a good 2,000 words on it and shared enough photos of the welding cast to, yeah, have his own scrapbook for those days of looking back at memories at the nursing home he always says are coming.

We don't blame heady Zavaleta or the conservative Garza for shunning McHale. He never called them for comment, never sought a sit-down interview. Not that we expect wire service journalism from him, but he had a taste of it during his one year of writing about local "sports" for The Brownsville Herald way back in the late-1970s.

Sadly, it is a common thing when the elderly purposely start losing friends, and perhaps that's what fast-aging McHale is doing here. He has nothing else to do but pump that laptop computer keyboard.

An intervention is in order.

Maybe that's what his former friend, Blogger Juan Montoya, is doing with his ever-biting counterattacks in defense of the little college...

-30-

TRUMP FRAUD:...N.Y. Judge Rules He Did It...Trump Says He Didn't...

 

By EDUARDO PAZ-MARTINEZ

McALLEN, Texas | How much is your property worth when you submit that financial form for a bank loan? How much is the same property worth when you file your taxes?

Donald J. Trump has a problem with that.

The State of New York has him by the Cheetos in a major case alleging Big Time fraud. Trump routinely inflated values of his properties in business dealings and deflated them when filing his taxes. The graphic above is one example of how he over-valued properties that actually are not as valuable as he likes to believe.

Yesterday, a judge sided with New York.

This from cnn.com: [ A New York judge has found Trump and his adult sons liable for fraud and canceled the Trump Organization’s business certification, saying the Trumps provided false financial statements for roughly a decade.

Judge Arthur Engoron’s ruling came days before the civil case involving the New York attorney general’s office and the former president was set to go to trial.

Engoron granted Attorney General Letitia James’ motion for summary judgment, finding Trump, his sons, and others "to be liable as a matter of law for persistent violations" of New York state law. He found the financial statements the Trumps provided to lenders and insurers for about a decade to be false and said they repeatedly engaged in fraud.

The decision is a blow to Trump and a complete rejection of his arguments that he didn’t inflate the values of his golf courses, hotels, homes at Mar-a-Lago and Seven Springs on financial statements that were repeatedly used in business.

"Today, a judge ruled in our favor and found that Donald Trump and the Trump Organization engaged in years of financial fraud," James said in a statement Tuesday night. "We look forward to presenting the rest of our case at trial." ] 

Trump earlier had said that the people (banks) he was dealing with had all the information they needed to either approve or deny a loan. Trump explained he's always included a "disclaimer" saying the numbers could not necessarily be relied-upon.

Yeah.

Typical of the guy who's made a mockery of tax laws everywhere he's lived or done business in. But this case looks strong against him, it says here.

Still, Trump raged on social media that, again, he was being picked-on...

-30-

GUNS & ROSES:...Lock & Load, Baby. The Unknown Constable And A $15,000 Donation...

 

By EDUARDO PAZ-MARTINEZ

BROWNSVILLE, Texas | He said "America prevailed," as if he wasn't in America. John Rourke, our recent visitor from Florida, met with Cameron County Commissioners yesterday and, this time, left in a happier mood. Must be that Sunshine State happiness thing.

Anyway, Rourke, shown at left (he likely hates being associated with that term) in photo above, was in town again to get approval for a $15,000 donation to Constable Norman Esquivel, Jr.

A glib walkabout social media dude, Rourke had this to say on his Facebook page: [  . . .We had our day in court today, and America prevailed. Judge @jreddietrevino did the right thing, apologized to Constable @stormn06, and approved the $15,000 donation @wefundtheblue made. I’ve included a list from the Constables office of how that $15k will be spent. ]

It always makes me laugh when I hear these guys drawing on the "America" thing as handy reasoning for all that they do, as if their idea/image of America is the only one. We're an immigrant country and everybody's got their definition of what this country is and isn't.

We still don't know exactly why Rourke and his outfit picked Esquivel, a constable we been told is a Republican, although not quite in the same image as Rourke.

No other constable got a dime.

But that's how you groom and divide, isn't it?

In any case, Rourke also posted a chart indicating where the money would go (in spending). So much for Constable Esquivel having any brains to draft his own list. This is a donation in name only. Rourke and his dudes are out, it appears, to arm the office. A nondescript constable's office? Well, yes.

The chart:

 A neat gun rack, too, it seems. $3,035 for it. How many guns can it hold? More than you're used to seeing in pickup gun racks. And a $2,195 McGruff costume for comic relief, we suppose. Oh, and an M-4 rifle, along with what is listed as Mossburg shotguns.

Does Constable Esquivel play McGruff in this silly B-movie?

Could be...Is this America or what?!...

-30-

GOVT. SHUTDOWN: ...Skittish Border Officials Worried...As Are Federal Employees...

 

By EDUARDO PAZ-MARTINEZ

McALLEN, Texas | The end of the month will bring a load of headaches and problems for many Americans if Congress does not approve a spending bill to avoid a government shutdown. Federal employees - some four million - stand to go without paychecks, including military troops and the U.S. Border Patrol.

Agents will remain at work but will not be paid until the issue is resolved.

All will be paid retroactively once the legislation is passed.

But some border towns are feeling the migrant-crossing pinch already. This from Time magazine: [ With the threat of a U.S. government shutdown looming at the end of the month, local officials in border towns are worried that staff shortages among federal workers would make it harder to stop criminal activity and process an influx of migrants.

Victor Treviño, the mayor of Laredo, foresees a "catastrophic situation" if House Republicans are unable to agree on a spending plan. 

"It's totally different than the rest of the country. We're at the border," Treviño says. "Three to four days will throw everything off scale, it'll cause devastation." If the shutdown occurs, he says he’s prepared to declare a state of emergency.

Calls for increased border security have intensified this week after a recent surge in migration near the southern border overwhelmed already-crowded facilities and temporarily closed an international bridge, placing border security in the spotlight as Republicans in Congress hope to link controversial border measures with the government’s spending plan.

As the Sept. 30 spending deadline approaches, a government shutdown is increasingly likely. Congress is yet to pass any of the 12 appropriations bills that need to be signed into law to keep the government running as House Republicans remain divided over top-line spending levels and various policy concessions. ]

There has been no comment from Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, about this, but we do expect him to again blast the Biden Administration as soon as he does.

Some things in politics are quite predictable...

-30-

TACO TUESDAY:...Bad, Bad Welding...Sheriff is Dogged ...Bus Shelters...Florida Cash At County Court...Case Of The Cornpone Mayor...

 

By EDUARDO PAZ-MARTINEZ

BROWNSVILLE, Texas | It's been one piss-ant fight after another here lately, here being the lower colon of the pliant Rio Grande. What is it about this God-abandoned town? Is the problem that even the lowest, uneducated resident fool believes he is something special. For most, the seriousness of all this goes beyond the pitiful ugliness, or the bitter irony that those who live with this oft-ravaged land get virtually no share in its beauty.  

They'll never know, no.

They're people largely standing in the way of change and progress in town. Everybody knows it, but, hey, it's the biggest game in under-achieving Brownsville.

Some claim a Red Wave has swept into town under cover of night, bringing feelings in some that they are now Republicans. Brown Republicans are NOT Republicans, at least not MAGA Republicans (read Trump into that one).

Why, Maria, some of these newfangled Republicans would do what in town - go after food stamps recipients, of which there are thousands and thousands and thousands here, shut down the little college (as it is mostly Mexican students), stifle that blossoming LGBTQ uprising, erect a Border Wall that would place the predominantly Mexican neighborhood of La Southmost in Mexico, cut all Mexican history from local school curriculums, arrest any woman (and her husband or movida) looking for an abortion, ban Charro Days in favor of a red, white & blue celebration of the Battle of Gettysburg?

Well, hey, yeah!

A town in action is a beauty and a danger. Brownsville, home to some 200,000 legals and illegals, has been teetering on wholehog disaster for now going on two decades. Elsewhere in the Rio Grande Valley, it is seen as a cesspool of low-rent politics and the picture of an entire city of self-aggrandizing Nobodies.

Believe it...

-0-

What, pray tell, is going on in the darkened innards of little Texas Southmost College? Why, you'd think that the figureheads over there would have some sort of answer for Blogger Jerry "El Paya" McHale's fiery, obsessive attack on the tiny institution that, for all intents and purposes, is one of the few self-generated, still around businesses in Brownsville.

The effusive (some say duodenal) McHale has been lobbing pea-sized cannonballs at TSC for over a week now. Something to do with the college's welding program and graduate certificate. And as happens with these local bloggers, nothing has come back from the college's bunkered administration.

Porque no, we ask?

The next story from McHale should come after a personal visit (or at least a phone call) with TSC Board Chairwoman Adela Garza (shown holding cellphone in photo above) or TSC President Dr. Jesus Rodriguez (shown at right in photo above).

We're kinda sure dogged newsman McHale will do it, perhaps even today.

If he doesn't, well, we'll know McHale is, again, just blowing old Bugler smoke.

The bigger question for us is why McHale proceeds daily with his senseless mutilation of the place he knows and loves better than any other...Sometimes, what he writes about Brownsville is actually beyond belief, and sickening...

-0-

Cameron County Sheriff Eric Garza, law west of the Gulf of Mexico, isn't saying much these days. He has a covey of challengers who have boldly announced their candidacy for his job, but as pro-Mexicans blogger Juan Montoya would say about here, "Los esta tirando a leones!"

No joke.

Garza might think twice about his standoffishness. Playing it cool has cost man a politician his or her gig. Will Sheriff Garza wake up one of these fine mornings and let-go a broadside salvo that will sink mustachioed candidate Jesus Rosas Jr and second underwhelming challenger Ronnie Saenz?

We believe Garza is waiting for his arch-enemy to enter the contest. That would be one John Chambers, the dude he beat in the last election, but also the dude who did not take defeat well. In fact, he shocked a load of Hispanics here when he was able to get Pro-Mexicans Blogger Montoya to shill for him. Montoya has been on Garza's back like a 60-some-year-old fly on day-old guacamole.

Garza has not exactly been Mr. I Get Crap Right All The Time, but, as he would likely note, who does in Cameron County politics? Mayor John Cowen? Nope. County Judge Eddie Trevino? No. Flighty City Commissioner Roy De Los Santos? Nyet. TSC Boardmember Tony Zavaleta? No, ese.

We could go on.

Come on, Eric, throw a punch...  

-0-

Where have you gone, Caty Presas-Garcia? It wasn't all that long ago that we weren't hearing something from you or about you. Yes, you've lost more than your share of local elections, but why give up. Run for an office that requires less than 500 votes to win and win it!

You'd think Caty would know this by now. Once, she was a star as a trustee for the Brownsville Independent School District, there alongside the lovely Luci Longoria.

We cannot tell you what Caty is or isn't doing these days.

But what we would say is this: Man, we love her Debbie Harry hairstyle!

Someone sit this gal down and get her inspired for another run at some office. As writers, we need those "characters" to hang around (well, not Tad Hasse, who lost his last campaign by 29,000 votes to the irrepressible Ruben Cortez, of all people).

See ya 'round town, Caty!

Ha ha...

-0-

-0-

Still out there is sheriff candidate Ronnie Saenz.

Why?

He's said nothing remotely interesting to catapult him into a dangerous opponent for Sheriff Eric Garza. So, a pair of shades in the latest friendly-blogger photo is going to do it, Ron?

Uh, no. This guy is toast already. Someone hand him the crying towel. The Optic Vote is in, and he didn't move the needle. Maybe next time, eh, Ronnie?

Candidates these days need to be loud & proud. Cagey Erasmo Castro gets it. He's the loudest guy in the room when he runs for office, any office!

It says here that Ronnie Saenz likely - perhaps - accidentally announced his candidacy and maybe could not draw on inner strength to withdraw it. Regret is never a friend in politics.

He will now face sure defeat at the polls.

Lack of fire, will read his political obituary...Que lastima... In the end, Saenz will be of no particular historical significance...

-0-

This guy, John Rourke from Florida, is scheduled to address the Cameron County Commissioner's Court this morning. What's it about: Seems John and his Merry Pranksters want to hand $15,000 to constable Norman Esquivel.

Well, he is back before the court, we might add.

Earlier, Rourke had been angered when County Judge Eddie Trevino told him the court would have to review his donation. Trevino may have an answer for Rourke at today's meeting. Of course, we know that Rourke took his case to pretty much every Far Right-Wing cable talk show to blast Trevino, labelling him, in essence, a party-pooper.

A Republican party-pooper, we should add.

Uber Democrat Trevino likely wonders what a political dude from the Sunshine State currently led by lost missile Ron DeSantis is doing in the Rio Grande Valley, and perhaps why Rourke selected only Esquivel (A Republican?) as recipient of his cash.

Good questions, we say.

Next thing you know some tough-ass Mexican cartel honcho will bop into the court's meeting pushing a wheelbarrow full of cash for those he seeks to, well, influence.

Trevino will hold his ground, we're sure. And there is probably so much more going on here. Yeah, these days everything takes long explanations. 

Yeah, tell Rourke to take his cash back to Florida, where it is also very much needed...

-0-      

Most cities and towns always need something or another. There is not one that has all it needs to serve its residents. Some places, it is paved streets. In others, it is commerce.

Here, in the Cradle of Brutal Poverty, it is bus shelters.

There are not enough, or, more correctly, there are not any. The photo you see above was posted initially by a local blogger who's made it his business to rag City Hall about the city's lack of bus shelters. A pro-Mexicans blogger, Juan Montoya, sees old women and children standing alongside bus stop signs in the dead of summer and he goes nuts.

Who knows how many posts he's had on bus shelters, but we'd say it's a number in the thousands, just a few more than he'd posted against Cameron County Sheriff Eric Garza.

And what's he harvested? Nothing. Bus shelters here may as well be beach cabanas - you won't see them anytime soon. Montoya threatens to become library upholstery on this issue. Still, insistent Juan works this story as if he had 40 children to support.

The cute photo (we say it was staged) was then posted by a lesser blogger known for sheer, absolute donkey work and for lapping-up to Montoya at pretty much every turn, his lack of Journalism degree and credentials likely the crippling reason.

We don't really care about buses or bus drivers or bus routes or bus shelters.

That's wanton socialism, and who needs that in a capitalistic society where everyone can become more than just a bus rider...          

-0- 

What is he doing?

We hear that about Brownsville Mayor John Cowen every time we get within 40 miles of the city. Our answer is always a shrug and a "Who knows?" Nobody knows. For the first time in decades, local bloggers are taking a hands-off approach to the city's figurehead political leader.

Yeah, porque?

Is it because it's also been decades since Brownsville last had an Anglo mayor? With a population dominated by Hispanics (94%!), well, it may just be the ethnic group's historical subservient mentality at play.

You think?

Cornpone Cowen, altogether humorless, has never been Ralph Cowen, his gregarious uncle. But there is so much going on & not going on in poor Brownsville that Cowen ought to be more, uh, public, like the new mayors of Harlingen and McAllen, both go-getters of the First Order.

Is Cowen's sheltered persona an act, one not at all mysterious but devious? What's he got up his sleeve? Say it, Johnny. Let it out, lad. You wish to offer the phonetic apparatus of the cricket, but the day of reckoning is coming. 

He ran a nice, hardly-excitable campaign to beat popular City Commissioner Jessica Tetreau, promising to look into serious problems such as ridiculously-high utility bills and to go after resolution of the multi-million-dollar sham that was the infamous Brownsville Public Utilities Board's doomed Tenaska project.

Has any of that happened? Is every resident cool with their monthly utilities bill now? Is Tenaska about to be resolved. Is there any freaking movement in either!!!

John Cowen is not talking...

-0-

-30-

REPUBLICANS:...El Second Debate...Ho Hum...Time For Fireworks, Kids...

 

By EDUARDO PAZ-MARTINEZ

McALLEN, Texas | As Peter Noone might sing, "...second verse, same as the first." The toothy Herman's Hermits frontman will likely not be anywhere near the posh Ronald Reagan Library tomorrow, but those Republicans arriving to debate will be singing the usual doomsday dirge.

China, transgenders, the Biden economy, abortion and guns.

Primarily, anyway. They could all go crazy and attack frontrunner Donald J. Trump, the dude now so unhinged as to seem to be crying - no, screaming - for psychiatric care.

Simi Valley, California is the scene of the second Republican National Committee debate, the third to come November 8th in Miami.

It's about, theoretically, getting to the candidate the grass-whorled party needs for the 2024 Presidential Race against Democrat Joe Biden, the sitting president.

Don't look for much in the way of news, however.

These candidates fit the mold of most second bananas. None, not one, has managed to cut into Trump's massive, perhaps totally insurmountable lead. Polls keep essentially anointing the 77-year-old resident of ritzy Mar-A-Lago.

Tune-in if you have nothing else to do...

-30-

SUNRISER:...Colder Winter Coming, Your Cowboys Stink, Covid Test Kids, Government Shutdown, Etc., Etc...

 

By EDUARDO PAZ-MARTINEZ

McALLEN, Texas | It used to be that our weekends were usually slow news days, Saturdays and Sundays left for outings, football and that so-called downtime. Not anymore, though. News comes hard and heavy every day of the week, Sundays, too. If it's not our politicians in continuing silliness, it's a killer hurricane or breathless words that the U.S. has been "invaded" by billions of immigrants.

We're on station, as we used to say in the U.S. Navy.

Here, then, is our second installment of Monday Sunriser, a regular feature offering a synopsis of the weekend's news and perhaps a bit of what's to come in the next few days.

Read'em and weep, baby. It's either good news or bad news, little in between unless you go to the fashion and Hollywood magazines.

-0-

Your Dallas Cowboys flew over to Arizona and flew back as losers. Looks like the annual, late-season fold has begun earlier this season for Da Boys.

This from the Arizona Republic: [ It’s always a fight in the NFL, but the Cardinals were supposed to be the 98-pound weakling on the beach that got sand kicked in his face by the bullying behemoth, the visiting Dallas Cowboys.

Instead, the Cardinals flipped the tables and despite being listed as 13-point underdogs, kept sticking to the Cowboys all afternoon before securing an improbably 28-16 victory at State Farm Stadium.

The Cardinals had lost 14 of their last 15 games at home dating back to 2021. ]

Super Bowl this year for the Cowboys, you're saying?

Keep dreaming...

-0-

Busted in Pharr. Yeah, far out.

Former Pharr Police Department chief Andy Harvey, shown in photo above, has been arrested for allegedly making a silent abusive call to 911 and resisting arrest.

Hidalgo County Adult Detention Center records indicate Harvey was booked on Sunday on a charge of resisting arrest, search or transport and silent abusive call/electronic communication to the 911 service.

No other information about the allegations were immediately available.

We'll monitor this for the next few days and see what this is all about. Until then, picture smalltown Pharr as just another McAllen suburb...

-0-

Starting today, Americans can order four free COVID-19 tests from the government with the reopening of the Biden administration's at-home testing program.

The program's relaunch comes as COVID hospitalizations have continued creeping up, passing 20,000 for the first time since March this month, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 

The CDC's COVID data tracker found 2.7% of all deaths in the U.S. were linked to COVID-19 for the week of Sept. 10-16, which is a 12.5% increase from the week before.

Since the expiration of the public health emergency in May, many insurers stopped covering the cost of COVID tests. The government's program has been unavailable since June 1.

The Biden administration said it's previously provided more than 755 million at-home tests through its partnership with USPS.

-0-

That threatening government shutdown got you worried. Well, if you're thinking Social Security check, don't worry - it'll still be mailed to you. Food stamps? Yeah, worry about those.

With less than a week before a potential government shutdown and no clear resolution in sight, lawmakers are split on whether the country should brace for the wide-ranging impacts of a shutdown.

In the House, where most of the fight over government spending has been taking place, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., has struggled to unite House Republicans behind a deal as conservative hardliners block almost all of McCarthy’s attempts at avoiding a shutdown.

As a result, some GOP lawmakers have resigned themselves to the government closing its doors, given how little time is remaining for lawmakers to meet their deadline and the ongoing turmoil that has engulfed the House.

What are local congressmembers saying about this - anything?

No, nothing from District 15s Monica De La Cruz.

And nothing, no, from District 34s Vicente Gonzalez. 

Oh, well...

-0-

That summer of 2023 beat you down, lad? Well, hang on to your cheap, fake-leather jacket, 'cause the weatherboys are predicting a colder-than-usual winter for South Texas.

This from cnn.com: [ Fall has only just begun, but it’s not too soon to look ahead to winter, especially since this one may look drastically different than recent years because of El Niño.

This winter will be the first in a few years to feel the effects of the phenomenon, which has a sizable impact on the weather during the coldest months of the year.

El Niño is one of three phases of the El Niño Southern Oscillation, which tracks water temperature changes in the equatorial Pacific Ocean that can have rippling effects on weather patterns around the globe. The El Niño phase occurs when these ocean temperatures are warmer than normal for an extended period. ]

We can't wait. And we know you can't wait, either.

Just hang on for a few more weeks, like three...

-0-

The Daily Beatdown - Miami murdered Denver 70-20 on Sunday in a wild game that had the sluggish, give-up Broncos looking very much like the woeful Lopez High School eleven.

Maybe it was the humid Southern Florida heat that drained the Rocky Mountain boys. Or maybe the Denver club felt a bit down after not getting an invite to Mar-A-Lago.  

70 to 20 should never happen in professional football. True, the unbeaten Dolphins were on fire.

I mean, aren't these guys pros?

Not every Sunday, as the dog-ass Cowboys also proved...  

-0-

Guess what day tomorrow is?

Yepper.

Taco Tuesday...

-30-