STAFF REPORT
McALLEN, Texas | It's been coming for years. As they say in fading love and old leather shoes, things have a nasty habit of catching up with reality. Love dies; shoes rot.
The pumpkin is tired of being carved up for cheap, not-even ghastly Halloween jokes. Take your knife to your own face.
"I was born for pumpkin pie, not for scaring anyone. The bullshit is over."
And so, humans began looking at the watermelon.
They knew they could always paint it orange and keep carving...
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By EDUARDO PAZ-MARTINEZ
McALLEN, Texas | A nice, crisp 45 degrees this morning at 8:00 AM. We won't get out of the blustery 50s today and tomorrow brings low-40s temperature readings all day for The City of Palms.
A cold, wild wind will blow.
Such a pleasant change after five long months of scorching Texas heat. It does feel good. Weatherboys have us at these cool temps through the rest of the week, with some low-80s daytime for the next one.
It's not quite Boston or New York, but we'll take it.
Somehow, morning coffee at the restaurant will taste and go down better today. We're outbound in a few minutes to rendezvous with some pals for breakfast and good conversation. Man, it has been one brutal Summer, as they say about June-Through-October around here. Subtropical, my ass. It was downright African, the large H-E-B parking lot surely a section of the Sahara Desert.
But we persevered, and, yeah, here we are...looking for that black, all-cotton Banana Republic sweater that serves as my uniform when the temperatures dip.
Enjoy the change.
It's one of life's annual treats...
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[EDITOR'S NOTE:...That's Harlingen Mayor Norma Sepulveda with her coffee in photo above. She does market her city's downtown businesses...]
By EDUARDO PAZ-MARTINEZ
McALLEN, Texas | Does any country really care whether Palestine lives or dies? No, there does not seem to be much - if any - sympathy for residents of the war-torn Gaza Strip currently under massive assault from Israel.
A reason is the violent attack by Hamas terrorists on Israeli settlers three weeks ago, when Israel was caught off-guard. Its assault is part-revenge, yes. The other part is a bit more complicated.
But the United States is right there with Israel and no other western country has lifted a voice or finger to save Palestine. At least, not yet. Perhaps once the Gaza is nothing more than a pock-marked geography rendered useless by American-supplied bombs, or when the number of dead crosses the million mark, which would be most of Palestine's population.
Here, the war is being framed as between Israel and Hamas, only non-Hamas Palestinians are also being murdered without a second thought.
As could be expected, President Joe Biden has cautioned Israel to not do the unthinkable and start killing Palestinians at will in its ongoing military invasion. The gung-ho Israelis are not listening.
Troops are marching in to kill, and massive bombs are falling.
Will we be okay with Palestine's obliteration?
Is this how we hope to finally find peace in the ragged Middle East? Or are we just feeding the anti-West monster still there, still waiting for that one moment to light the entire region on fire? Terrorists are everywhere these days. The U.S. just bombed spots in Libya to protect our soldiers assigned to that beaten country. It's a bonfire just waiting to happen.
Israel can live with Palestinian children being murdered. That's who Israel is, a country fed up with being attacked by its neighbor, with living as if a hunted animal, with simply being Israel - the country we all know as America's aircraft carrier in the region, a loyal ally who will do our bidding in the region for an annual contribution of $3.1 billion in foreign aid. But only to a certain point.
Israel is not listening to the U.S. on this one.
It is hellbent on ending the strife it has known and dished out for almost seven decades, since it gained statehood in 1948. Jews will tell you they have taken it for all those years, and they are damned sick and tired of it. Palestine also says pretty much the same thing from its perspective about relations with its skittish neighbor. The solution, they seem to scream every so often, is for one or the other to be destroyed.
Revenge is revenge and we all understand that emotion. Hamas must be taught a lesson and if it means the end of Hamas, well, we're fine with it.
Only, don't expect all-out, no-questions-asked support from non-Jewish Americans. Unconditional sympathy on this matter does not live here. A country simply cannot be allowed to overwhelm and destroy another just because it has the most powerful weapons available. The U.S. put a stop to that thinking when it invaded Iraq after Iraq invaded Kuwait in the early 1990s.
As always, all we can say is, "Well, we'll see." We'll see how things go as we head into the end of the first month of a horrible war. The hate is real. For sure. Both sides in this fiery fray hate each other with an unbridled passion, so any expectation that it will end with a smile and a handshake is fantasy.
Palestinians will again be bombed and killed today.
And, apparently, we'll be okay with it...
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By EDUARDO PAZ-MARTINEZ
McALLEN, Texas | He's out. Former Vice President Mike Pence threw in the towel on Saturday, saying his campaign for president is over. The 64-year-old Indianan was fast running out of campaign cash and support from his Republican Party.
This excerpt from axios.com: [ Pence announced hat he is ending his 2024 presidential campaign. The announcement comes after the former vice president struggled to gain traction in the crowded Republican primary, and less than two weeks before the third GOP debate.
Pence announced that he was suspending his campaign at the Republican Jewish Coalition's annual gathering in Las Vegas.
"It's become clear to me, this is not my time," Pence said in a speech. "So after much prayer and deliberation, I have decided to suspend my campaign for president effective today."
"I'm leaving this campaign, but let me promise you, I will never leave the fight for conservative values and I will never stop fighting to elect principled Republican leaders to every office in the land." ]
Traditional conservative values, however, went out the window when Donald J. Trump walked into national politics in 2015. It's been a wild carnival ride for old school Republicans like Pence.
He's held on to the ever-plunging roller coaster, but he gets off it with little to show...
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By EDUARDO PAZ-MARTINEZ
McALLEN, Texas |...Perhaps it's time to head up Fort Worth way for the weekend rodeo over at the fabled Stockyards. That's exactly where the photo above of yours truly was taken pre-Covid-19.
I hear boisterous Cowtown is back in stir, crowds and brats mobbing the city's North Side.
Again, I've fought the good fight against our always warm subtropical climate down here in the Rio Grande Valley, and, sure, it's nice to go out the front door and feel the cold, wild wind slap you on the face. But who knows if I'll hang around one more year. I said that - what? - three years ago.
The thing is the temps here are beyond great between December and late-April. They just are, and it always makes you believe the Texas Summer Scorch is not as hellish as it is.
But of course, it is.
Still, the weatherboys are saying our temps will drop into the low-60s daytime on Monday, with overnight lows in the upper-40s...and stay nice into the first week of November.
Yeah, make your reservations at your favorite restaurants...
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By EDUARDO PAZ-MARTINEZ
McALLEN, Texas |...She's all of 41 years old, so she knows right from wrong. That's the court's motivation in ordering Ivanka Trump to testify in that fraud trail that's ensnared her father, Donald Trump. This comes after she was dismissed from the original case, and that's likely because the district attorney gave her a sweet deal in exchange for her testimony.
The rest of the Trump family is on trial.
This excerpt from axios.com: [ A New York judge on Friday ordered Trump's daughter, Ivanka, to testify in his ongoing civil fraud trial. The ruling means that Ivanka Trump will likely have to take the stand and give testimony about members of her family and their business empire.
Judge Arthur Engoron denied a request to quash the subpoena for her to testify, but said that she would not be called to the stand before Nov. 1 to allow her time to appeal the decision.
Ivanka Trump in June was dismissed from the $250 million lawsuit brought by New York Attorney General Letitia James against Trump, her brothers and the Trump Organization.
A New York appeals court said that James' claims against Ivanka Trump were outdated because she left the Trump Organization to join her father in the White House in 2017.
However, James still sought Ivanka Trump's testimony, arguing that "she indisputably has personal knowledge of facts relevant to the claims against the remaining individual and entity Defendants," per NBC.
". . .Ms. Trump remains financially and professionally intertwined with the Trump Organization and other Defendants and can be called as a person still under their control," the AG contended in a court filing," James wrote in a court filing. ]
It'll be interesting to see her take the witness stand in court, and especially if Donald decides to attend on the day(s) she testifies, like he did when former "fixer" lawyer Michael Cohen testified earlier this week.
The trial is really about how much it will cost Donald Trump to make monetary amends with the State of New York, as he has already been found guilty of committing fraud by exaggerating the value of his properties for bank loans and lowering them for taxing purposes.
A report in Friday's New York Times had it that Ivanka and her two brothers, Don Jr and Eric, are now scheduled to testify next week.
The trial is expected to wrap-up in early-December...
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By EDUARDO PAZ-MARTINEZ
SOUTH PADRE ISLAND, Texas |...Climate change in this country is either a threatening pair of words or two to be laughed at, depending on how you feel about the planet's weather. They say it is getting hotter, only it has always been hot, at least for humans, since the end of the Ice Age, when the turtleneck was invented.
I dunno how I feel about this one as a national issue.
We're not burning anytime soon, although likely soon enough. The fearmongering is very much like fast-spreading neighborhood news of the occasional barren shelf at the grocery store. Some say that is a sign of the coming apocalypse. Weather where I live is subtropical.
It was 91 degrees today, here a week before winter's November. No climate change there, simply the historical climate of the region.
But of course, it's true that we should pay a bit more attention to what we as humans contribute to our climes. How many vehicles on Earth, most of the emitting carbon gases? Some four or five billion.
Plus, there is a whole cornucopia of other villains, from powerful, high-flying airliners, to huge sugar cane field burnings, to electricity-supplying power stations to - how many? - BBQ grills across the country, especially Texas.
Scientists and climate-conscious people can list you many, many more villains, but you get my drift. Horrible national politics and worse-than that politicians come and go.
Same went for the gas-guzzling V-8 cars of the 1960s.
Our fragile weather, however, isn't something to control. It'll kick our ass one of these days, perhaps forever...
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By EDUARDO PAZ-MARTINEZ
BROWNSVILLE, Texas | A little more than a month ago, The McAllen Sun began publishing its weekly Taco Tuesday feature in which we take a biting looksee at local celebrities and politicians. We actually got better-than-expected response from our growing readership.
Now comes perhaps the Rio Grande Valley's lamest blogger - Jerry McHale, shown in photo above - to steal that same premise and claim it as his own. Not that we're surprised as he has NOT ONE creative bone in his lifeless, 73-year-old physically-eccentric body. He is shown in photo above.
There it was on his dying blog: "Taco Tuesday"...and Throwback Thursday, as the obligatory repetitive slice of nothingness he believes is something special. His blog has no style, so his style is to steal from others.
But he did type this pitiful description to accompany his ripped-off offering: "McHale likes to be in the vanguard as part of his evolutionary presentation in the blogosphere." Big Lie. He'd stolen the idea from us.
Oft-loser in marriage and capitalism, McHale wants everyone to see him as some sort of avant garde writer, only if he's not writing the same plot over & over & over in his so-called Internet books, he's ripping off ideas off other bloggers. When he saw his old buddy Bob Rivard's blog (The Rivard Report) in San Antonio, McHale re-named his blog, The McHale Report.
He does it without laughing, which is the funny part of all of this. Stealing is so much a part of his writing life that to stop and review his work would be reviewing the same thing over & over & over. As one of our mutual friends once told us, "Jerry has written the same book 20 times. It's always about vatos, broads, booze, the border and some Spanish."
We've never actually read any of his so-called novels. Once, when we asked him to send us a copy of one of his efforts, he promised to do it but never did.
Why he would look our way for ideas is another mystery. We had a falling-out a few weeks back after I criticized one of his advertisers, a well-known politician who apparently complained. Whatever. His friendship is - like Trump - is always one-way, as his former pal Tony Zavaleta recently found out. He and McHale had been good friends for 47 years, but McHale burned him without giving it a second thought.
He did the same thing to fellow Blogger Juan Montoya, who was kinda pissed-off when McHale called him the "third-best writer" in local blogging, presumably behind him and forlorn, non-college-educated Jimmy Barton.
We never needed McHale, and we never used even one of his stories. Twice - on two different blogs - we asked him to stop using our stories on his blog, once because we thought his presentation was woeful and this latest time after he blocked us on Facebook for criticizing the politician he was promoting.
In that way, he mimics a horrendously desperate loser.
To date, his only friend appears to be third-tier, 75-year-old blogger Barton, who praises McHale with vigor, as if afraid that McHale will drop his ass, too.
Barton was also the one who copied our bold face/italics style in the text of our stories. He did it and still does it. Innovation is not their strength. Both of their blogs look like they looked 5-10 years ago.
We'll keep them on their toes. It's rather easy, since both McHale and Barton are NOT REAL NEWSWRITERS, but whole hog wannabes. Often, we can spot the many holes in their stories, as we did during their recent apoplectic Welding Recital they quickly abandoned without comment.
Barton is a Big Zero as a newsman. He, however, is not even a college graduate, nor does he have any published work at all. McHale worked one year as a sportswriter at lowly The Brownsville Herald and then went on to work 35 years as an ESL teacher with the local school district - not exactly something to denote you as a writer.
Unaccomplished McHale will keep praising his own hollow stabs at writing novels. He's never had an editor, and he likely would never want one, as it would then show his typing to be just that - dumbass typing, and nothing more.
Perhaps he'll hit the Big Time when Barnes & Noble opens an aisle for "Dumbass Writing" at present not worthy of a place on its shelves.
Until then, he'll keep stealing innovations from The McAllen Sun, like our writing student Jimmy Boy Barton...
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By EDUARDO PAZ-MARTINEZ
BROWNSVILLE, Texas | How do you measure true friendship? It isn't what it used to be, that's for sure. Friends come and go in our hurry-up, throwaway society. Once, friends were for life. I still have a few from my high school days in McAllen, the City of Palms. We hang out at bars and restaurants somewhat often. My trusted pals in college and the military stay in touch.
Then there's the weird, inexplicable ending to Dr. Tony Zavaleta's 47-year-long friendship with local Blogger Jerry McHale. It ended roughly two weeks ago.
"He burned me for no good reason," Zavaleta told The McAllen Sun on Wednesday. "We have been friends for 40 years. I will never talk to him again. Never."
Asked if he remembered the first time they met, Zavaleta recalled it was sometime in 1976, when McHale was covering local sports for The Brownsville Herald and Jerry's then-wife Leticia was a student in one of Zavaleta's classes at Texas Southmost College.
At the heart of the stunning demise was sloppy reporting by McHale (shown in photo at left) and spare wheel blogger Jimmy Barton (shown in photo below) to do with disgruntled students and the TSC welding program. Zavaleta is a TSC trustee.
For days on end during a two-week period, McHale posted blaring stories about the college's ITEC stewardship, or lack of it, hanging stories on former Director Tom Tynan, who labeled a senior TSC administrator as being a "crook," has since left the college. In all, the two hellbent bloggers did nothing more than chase a rumor, feed off of it like starving, retarded sharks and settle nothing.
It was during the rackety, barnyard heyday of the junior high mess - characterized as the off-off-Broadway "Welding Recital" by The Sun - that an inquisitive McHale stumbled into Zavaleta at the popular bar/eatery Cobbleheads. When McHale attempted to join his old friend and TSC Chair Adela Garza for what he later wrote was a chance at an interview of the two, Zavaleta told him to get lost.
"I aggressively asked him to leave us alone," Zavaleta said. "We were discussing TSC business. I probably overdid it. All I said was, 'Largate, Jerry!' "
Zavaleta said he was further "hurt" when McHale wrote about the encounter as if someone had attacked him. Zavaleta added that McHale also kept making fun of his disabilities.
Not much new has come down the Blogger Pike about the issue magnified ridiculously by McHale and his ever-fawning shadow, house husband Barton.
Zavaleta says he wants peace in his life, even at one point asking that we not make things worse for him, this perhaps because he knows how cruel McHale can be when posting to his blog. It's a shame, 'cause these two were ascloseasthis for almost 5 decades!
Not that it is anything new for McHale.
The 73-year-old blogger also burned ex-drinking pal Juan Montoya, another blogger. For some unknown reason, McHale wrote that Montoya was the third-best writer in local blogging, placing him, presumably, behind himself and the non-college-educated, non-journalist Barton.
As could be expected, Montoya quickly distanced himself from McHale, demanding that Jerry no longer use his stories for his blog - something The McAllen Sun also did earlier this summer. McHale and Montoya once socialized like crazy, but that was then. When we would ask about Juan during our phone conversations with untrustworthy McHale, all he would say is that it had been long months since the two had had a beer.
Who knows how McHale has digested all of this? He writes about living a solo life as if a homeless dude. His dying blog seems to be the heart of his breathing, that including selling ridiculous advertising dreams to uninitiated political candidates in need of some publicity.
Not quite the accomplished journalist (he never challenged himself in larger markets), McHale full-well knows the stories on the welding debacle he imagined were just as major a debacle for him personally. He - and the 75-year-old vocabulary-deficient Barton - never, ever bothered to contact any of the particulars - not TSC Chair Garza, not Zavaleta and not even Tynan. Like gossipers more than journalists, they simply went with what they were being told by a few disgruntled students.
But, like we said, neither McHale or Barton ever worked for a newspaper, McHale's sportswriting for The Herald was not in a serious, investigative news vein. Here is where McHale and lesser blogger Barton might've used a meeting with Blogger Montoya, who does have extensive newswriting experience.
But McHale burned him, too.
It'll be interesting to see if McHale approaches Zavaleta with a full apology. He should.
McHale was wrong, and we say he likely knows it...
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By EDUARDO PAZ-MARTINEZ
McALLEN, Texas | It continues. Like a TV drama series, Day 19 in the Israeli war with Palestine brings a certain halt in the story. It is a temporary halt, as some aid is allowed into Gaza and while the world awaits the threatened all-out invasion by the Israelis following that horrendous attack by Hamas terrorists on its settlers.
Images from the scene tell a sad and disgusting story of wanton killing.
This from axios.com: [ Palestinians in Gaza tell Axios they are not certain they will survive this war as Israel intensifies its air raids and prepares for a ground invasion.
More than 5,000 Palestinians have been killed since the Israel-Palestine war began, according to Gaza's Ministry of Health of the Hamas-run government. The besieged enclave has been under heavy bombardment in the two weeks since Hamas militants killed 1,400 Israelis in the worst attack against Israel in decades.
U.S.-backed Israel has also imposed a "complete siege" of Gaza, cutting electricity and largely blocking food, fuel and other supplies from entering the enclave, which is home to more than 2.2 million Palestinians.
Three convoys of trucks carrying assistance have been allowed to enter Gaza from Egypt since Saturday, but aid groups say this is only a small fraction of what Gaza needs. The assistance also doesn't include fuel, which hospitals in Gaza say they desperately need in order to keep their backup generators running.
The border crossing remains closed to Palestinians who may wish to leave. Even before the latest fighting, Palestinians had to get special permission from Israel or Egypt to leave the enclave, which was often difficult to receive.
About 1.4 million people have been displaced in the 140-square-mile Palestinian territory, which is about the size of Detroit. ]
There is no one official number as to how many children have been killed, numbers in the world press ranging from 1,500 to 4,000 - most of them in Palestine. The United Nations is condemning the ever-blooming war. Israel has said its invasion will not be deterred.
And it isn't all Israel as the aggressor. It has a right to avenge the murder of its citizens, but that is coming at a price. In the Jerusalem Post, it was reported that there has been a 400% increase in antisemitic attacks in the United States alone.
In these things, well, nobody wins...
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By EDUARDO PAZ-MARTINEZ
BROWNSVILLE, Texas | We've always ragged our local politicians for using 20-year-old photos of themselves in campaign posters and literature. It's dishonest and wrong. Be yourself, we say. Even 84-year-old Omar Lucio (now dead) used a photo of himself that surely had to be 35 years old!
I know: They all do it.
The lady seen in photo above is Dr. Laura E. Cisneros, a thousand-to-one candidate for the 34th Congressional District seat now held by Democrat Vicente Gonzalez. Ms. Cisneros is a NEW REPUBLICAN (less than 1 year!); that is, a cheap opportunist apparently dying to belong. She'll go nowhere with this campaign, and we would further suggest that she stop paying those $20 to a local blogger selling her dreams.
Republican spitfire Mayra Flores is still the one to beat and we don't see anyone doing it in the party's upcoming primary. Comfortable Laura E. Cisneros isn't even the one we're picking for a second-place finish in the intraparty brawl. Not third place, either in the four-person race.
A four-cycle engine has four features: intake, compression, power and exhaust.
Laura E. Cisneros has intake and that's all.
But, yeah, buena suerte.
Whatever. There ought to be a Winnowing Day for weak/lame political candidates going nowhere...
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Annoying novice Greg Kunkel is still around, ladies and gentlemen. Why? Yeah, that's the question for the male version candidacy of the Laura E. Cisneros effort. Kunkle is a young man with perhaps precious little knowledge of American politics. He's not done much in that vein.
His political experience is a Big Fat Zero. He is El Peor-Es-Nada!
But there he is, campaigning as if he's more than the obvious, speaking here and there, his speeches nothing more than road-tired platitudes. He's going to "Save America," bring families back together and gift Washington, D.C. with his words and actions. Big promises from an empty toilet tank, we know.
He, too, is a Republican. And he, too, will be destroyed at the polls by fellow GOPer Mayra Flores, who has a way with words and with her opponents. Reports in the mainstream press have it that fiery Mayra shouted sheltered Kunkle down at a public appearance, yelling, no, screaming at him that he was "not at my level!"
Well, she's right. We were left with the image of Kunkle throating a knot of full hatred and the pale ocher eyes of a sick Weimaraner. Believe it, kids.
If anything, Kunkle should be running for city commissioner or somesuch position. His entry into congressional politics is pure silliness. The campaign trail is still long ahead of him, crunch time coming next Spring, but, already, we see dogged Kunkle ending his days by heading for the Milk of Magnesia...
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Tom Tynan is the dude's name (photo above).
If he's gone, as the Breathless Welding Recital Bloggers now say, well, the college hasn't said a word about it. And the lazy, unqualified bloggers again have disdained either going by the school or taking officialdom comment by way of the phone. It is the town's lingering crotch irritation.
Not much else has been reported by these pair of rudderless bloggers, Turkey Lurkey and Henny Penny to the laughing masses.
The shallow Tynan-is-gone story with more holes than Swiss Cheese was posted by unemployed, house husband Barton and then taken by retired elderly-about town McHale for his blog. But then that's their M.O. - post something - anything! - about someone in town and let the chips fall where they may, getting to the bottom of a controversy the least of their worries. It is minor league writing, if that.
But neither Barton nor McHale (shown in photo at left) has any serious newsroom/newswriting experience. They just have a blog.
McHale, 73, cites credits in several "publications," but never names them. From what we know, his one year as a sportswriter at the lowly Brownsville Herald is it for him. Barton, 75, does not have a college degree, hence, he couldn't possibly have even one news story in any RGV newspaper, much less in the Journalism Big Time.
We'll keep watching these two zero-sum-game writing flakes.
Theirs is more comedy than news reporting. Laughter is what I get with each and every offering I see from them.
Oh, but they also praise each other!
Because no one else does it, of course.
Barton's also the Stolen Valor Journalist who would wear a homemade PRESS badge strung around his neck at Brownsville political pachangas.
We got a message saying this: "Barton is on wife support."
I said, "You mean, Life support?"
"No," the caller went on. "His wife is a breadwinner in the household. Jim does not work."
Let's not take our eyes off the Applause Meter, people!
They do prove that there is synergy even in failure. Next will come - for sure! - the "tally me banana" part. Psychobabble is their game. Physically-eccentric Barton has won the toss and elected to be kicked in the ass.
Emotional hegira; that's what it is.
Both of these boys arrive unarmed, is what we used to say about interns in the Big City newsroom...
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Ronnie Saenz is still in it. Rumors that he'd dropped out of the race for Cameron County Sheriff were short-lived and lies. He's in the dressing room, getting a massage and waiting for the call from Bruce Buffer inside the ring.
Does he have the punching power to knock out his opponents, either 4-round chump Jesus Rosas Jr or incumbent Sheriff Eric Garza?
No, of course not.
Saenz has nothing. Well, other than a lying blogger who may have convinced him to pay for a little useless publicity. You know, like well-fed Abel Gomez, the Unknown Constable seeking reelection? Yeah, poor Ronnie. He's being taken for a dud by a blogger with something of a losing record. He's the blogger who worked that now-forgotten Sergio Zarate campaign. Yeah, Ronnie, do get your wallet back in your pocket.
You have no chance.
We hear that everywhere we go: "Ronnie has no chance...Ronnie has no chance...Ronnie has no chance."
Plus, Taco Tuesday is getting tired of you.
We need new and more-qualified faces, yes...
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Eddie Garcia, another of the lackluster candidates (shown at left in photo above) being sold down the river by a city blogger offering mediocre publicity for cash. Garcia, a Brownsville Independent School District trustee and former city cop, wants the job of tax assessor. He's about as qualified for it as some of the kids in the blogger-damaged Texas Southmost College welding program. A striver he is, your honor.
Garcia is a veteran, his only plus as a candidate.
Well, why he wants to be the local taxman is the mystery. His smirking supportive blogger isn't asking, and Eddie Garcia is not telling.
It's a good-paying job, so we say that's it. Yes, he follows in the footsteps of another former BISD trustee who hopscotched from that job to one with the county. That would be one Laura Perez Reyes, who is now the well-paid District Clerk.
It says here that Eddie Garcia's devious political ambition is showing.
What's next - a run against Republican Mayra Flores? Just to show that he can be a tough guy, too.
Mayra would horse-collar this chubby guy and wouldn't let-go until he said, "Mama."
You know it...
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Silly Montoya (shown in photo at left) didn't quite slam Sheriff Eric Garza, but he posted the story even as it lacked a load of facts. In his follow-up story, Montoya had no confirmation but hoped that the Texas Rangers would investigate the death. He's been starving for something he can pin on the sheriff for now going on four years, yes.
The unidentified female found dead in the middle of the city street?
Who knows about her?
Valleycentral.com noted it, but it was almost as if in passing. A day later, it had not updated the story.
Kids, facts make the tale in news. Repeat after me: Facts make the tale...
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Wildly-popular Delia's Tamales is in legal trouble. You thought I was going to say something about its bean tamales, right? Well, no. My bent is pork, but bean tamales are just as yummy, I'm told.
Anyway, the Valley's premier tamales retailer is in court after allegations from former employees surfaced to throw the eatery's reputation into the streets. They say Delia's management obtained fake social security numbers for some their employees, paid the SSN portion off their paychecks and then saw any possibility of employee claims go down the drain - the money then returned to Delia's.
Geez, Louise. It's getting to where everything's a racket.
The story in the McAllen Monitor did not say how many employees are party to the lawsuit, but it did say that the employees claimed it went back many, many years.
We are really indifferent to this, but we know tamales are big for fat people all across the Rio Grande Valley. When he posted a link to this story on his Facebook page, former Cameron County Judge and ex-Texas Secretary of State Carlos Cascos opined that he preferred "Lopez tamales," a delicacy we have yet to taste for our own culinary assessment.
Whatever.
We'll await the court proceedings and will dutifully report the testimony/findings here when that happens. Until then, go with the red salsa.
I always do...
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Happy Halloween, all!
Weather forecast calls for a cold front sweeping the RGV, with the possibility of scattered thunderstorms. I mean, scary weather would be fitting, right?
Right...
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By EDUARDO PAZ-MARTINEZ
McALLEN, Texas |...You could waste away just like an old package of popsicles left in the fridge for more than eight years. Melissa had read that fact in the packaging, although no else had done that to confirm.
Groceries were known for fake expiration dates, like milk and sliced bread. To Melissa all that was just color in an otherwise black & gray life.
Her decision to become a Happy Hour addict after being dumped by a mediocre club musician had come hard, yet expected. Twenty-nine-year-old Melissa Hernandez's existence these days was wrapped up in bad scenes and ever-diminishing hopes. Any possibility of marriage now seemed so distant as to be, well, damned non-existent.
Her still-hot mother, super sexy uptop Juana Robledo, never did find marital happiness, even after meeting, dating and marrying five men, all as different as five distinct M&Ms.
In the bars, Melissa made no quick moves, yet she liked to think that no other woman on Earth could play erotically with a drink, the glass of a highball taking on another imagery every time she slowly lifted it up to her painted mouth.
Men would come. They always did...
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By EDUARDO PAZ-MARTINEZ
McALLEN, Texas | The U.S. is in it. Well, in both. Wars in Ukraine and in Israel, we mean. Supplying weapons and military expertise confirms it. What the hey, eh?
The Joe Biden Administration is asking Congress for another $106 Billion to that end, only it doesn't seem to end. Missiles and tanks and drones and cluster bombs and who knows what else for Ukraine's battles against neighboring Russia.
American generals for Israel in its fight against neighboring Palestine.
This about the latter from axios.com: [ Biden recently sent a Marine three-star general and several other U.S. military officers to Israel to help advise the Israeli military's leadership in its operation in Gaza, according to two U.S. officials and two Israeli officials briefed on the issue.
The move reflects the Biden administration's deep involvement in the war in Gaza and how much visibility it has in Israel's military planning.
The Marine Corps officers sent include Lt. Gen. James Glynn, according to a senior Israeli official. Glynn previously headed the Marines' special operations and was involved in the operations against ISIS in Iraq. ]
The message is that we're helping both of these countries stave off military assaults, only, more and more, it appears the U.S. is actually doing the fighting. No wonder Russia can't bring its lesser neighbor to its knees. Not that we're for that, but autonomy is autonomy.
Israel is fighting a vastly inferior foe!
What the hell is Biden doing? What do we get in return? That's the Great Unsaid here. Israel gets the second-most amount from us in annual foreign aid, roughly $3.1 billion. Enough is enough. Bring that money home.
Let countries handle their own messes, is what we say...
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By EDUARDO PAZ-MARTINEZ
McALLEN, Texas | I keep saying Democrats here in the Rio Grande Valley ought to be just a bit noisier. They're not. They're perhaps too comfortable and letting success in the past deal-in the future. Good luck with that anachronistic strategy.
This from axios.com: [ Three former members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus - including the current governor of New Mexico - are teaming up to create a new super PAC to get more Hispanic Democrats elected to Congress.
The battle for Congress in 2024 will run, in part, through districts with significant Hispanic populations.
The new group, BOLD America, wants to make sure incumbent Hispanics, as well as challengers, have the resources to win in tight races.
New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham (shown in photo above), as well as former Reps. Lucille Roybal-Allard (D-Calif.) and Filemon Vela (D-Texas, shown in photo at left) are launching their new PAC today.
"Winning the majority for Democrats starts with retaining our current membership," said Vela.
"Through BOLD America, we will be empowered to protect and expand Hispanic representation in Congress," said Grisham, who also served in Congress. "By electing Hispanic members, we celebrate diversity and strengthen the foundation of our democracy," said Roybal-Allard.
Democrats still have a clear advantage with Hispanic voters, but party strategists are worried the trend is moving towards Republicans. ]
You hear that, but I say it's hard to quantify. Scanty inquiries via polls don't do it for me. News reports of this and that politician switching from Democrat to Republican is still rare.
It's a move forward here, only we have seen this many times before.
Vela was an outspoken congressman who surprised many by resigning his post in early-2022, only to then see nouveau Republican Mayra Flores win his seat in a special election. She lost it in the ensuing General Election to Democrat Vicente Gonzalez, but she's still around and going for it again in the 2024 tussle.
It would have been good to see Texas Democratic Party Chairman Gilberto Hinojosa there alongside the democrats noted in the story above.
But he's too-comfortable, is what we're hearing...
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By EDUARDO PAZ-MARTINEZ
GALVESTON, Texas |...The above photo shows the interior of the lobby at the Galvez Hotel in Galveston. It is a neat place to scarf-up a breakfast in the dining room just off to the right of this shot.
Bernardo's is the name of the restaurant and breakfast-for-two will set you back about $55.
Anyway, it doesn't look anything like it looked when I was reporting on island doings for The Houston Post in the mid-1980s.
For one, my old friend Claude Allen is no longer there. Claude was a caricaturist who plied his craft in the lobby of the Galvez. I knew him as the husband of a woman who became my lover that cold, cold Winter.
Her name was Kletha and she was a cutie, a petite blondie with a great personality. Our affair began oddly, with Claude telling me he thought it might be a good idea if Kletha and I hooked up. She was 31 and he was twice that old.
In any case, I saw Kletha most of that frigid season and we sort of fell in as if in some great romance. We ate in the small cafes of the island's historic Strand District and we'd follow that with some naked cavorting at her apartment or at my place at the Casa Del Mar Hotel.
But as with every great tale of doomed love, I left the island to head into the newspaper's main office in Houston and soon lost track of her. She'd come over every now and then, but those 45-mile trips grew farther and farther apart.
Some years later, I got word that Kletha had died. Yesterday, I found her obit in the Galveston Daily News. She died Nov. 2, 1992 of some form of cancer. Kletha was 38.
I remember her for many moments, but I can still see her jumping on my bed like a little girl...
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By EDUARDO PAZ-MARTINEZ
McALLEN, Texas | They always seem to go weak-kneed, apologizing, crying, asking for mercy and saying they didn't do anything wrong. This guy is accused of helping to overturn the 2020 election, but now he says he never believed Donald Trump's "Big Lie".
What a pussy.
We speak of attorney Kenneth Chesebro, shown in photo above, the latest one to plead guilty to a lesser charge in the RICO case currently before a court in Georgia that also has Trump by the balls.
This from yahoonews.com: [ Chesebro, one of former President Trump’s 18 co-defendants in the George election fraud case, didn’t truly believe the 2020 election was stolen, according to his attorney.
"First of all, Mr. Chesebro never believed in ‘The Big Lie,’" attorney Scott Grubmann said Saturday in an interview on MSNBC. "If you ask Mr. Chesebro today who won the 2020 presidential election, he would say Joe Biden."
Chesebro became the second of Trump’s former lawyers to accept a plea agreement in the case brought by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis. He pleaded guilty Friday to conspiracy to file false documents relating to his attempts to set up a regime of fake electoral college votes in Georgia. His trial was scheduled to start Monday.
Prosecutors claimed the former lawyer wrote legal memos on behalf of the Trump campaign creating a false legal backing for the fake elector scheme.
As part of the plea, the former lawyer agreed to testify in future cases if called upon. That would include Trump's trial scheduled for early next year. ]
Chesebro was neck-deep in the scheme to find a way for Republican Trump to win the 2020 election. That he lamely wimps out here is no surprise. All of the people around Trump facing legal trouble suddenly find that approach.
They never broke the law, but, hey, they are pleading guilty.
Yeah. Really smart people going dumbass...
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By EDUARDO PAZ-MARTINEZ
McALLEN, Texas |...The day Bob Torres left her for another woman, wife Thelma Lou immediately cancelled her Facebook account after telling every woman on her page to go find a man and get laid.
"I am free, damn free, at last," she went on after detailing that last argument with her husband of four years, an explanation that included her own confessional.
"My dear, I have been continually unfaithful with the maid," Bob had said before she told him she'd been with his bowling buddy, Homero Garcia, for almost three years, the sordid affair, she noted, having begun after a PTA meeting that ran a tad short.
"I knew it!" he'd screamed while she laughed. And then, as if now electrified, he had grabbed his Houston Astros ballcap from the hat rack near the front door and turned back to look at her before saying, "Anyone else? I mean, that I know?"
Thelma Lou smiled and mouthed a name, fully knowing that Bob was a crackerjack lip-reader.
"Sheeeeeeee-it!" was all he said about that one.
Smiling Thelma Lou watched him scoot out of the house, angle toward his two-tone El Camino and then watched as he backed out into the street and roar-off like a spurned teenager.
Upstairs in the master bedroom, she undressed and grabbed her sexiest silver & black negligee, readying for bed. The walk to the corner and back had been refreshing; corny Bob leaving had been expected...
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By EDUARDO PAZ-MARTINEZ
McALLEN, Texas | So, who's next? That chase for a new Speaker of the House of Representatives isn't quite running out of candidates, but it has seen three dolts fall by the wayside. Republicans are adrift.
Now comes a greenhorn representative by the name of Byron Donalds to say he is the one to lead.
Well, he can say it till he turns white, but African-American Donalds is only dreaming. He's only been there since 2021, barely two years! Well, he was a state rep in the Sunshine State prior to that, only who cares what a state rep does in Florida?
This from floridapolitics.com [ After U.S. Rep. Jim Jordan lost three votes for Speaker, U.S. Rep. Byron Donalds is running to be the Republican conference nominee.
Aides for the 44-year-old Naples Republican confirmed to Florida Politics he will seek the support in a closed-door GOP conference vote. He will face Majority Whip Tom Emmer and U.S. Reps. Austin Scott of Georgia, Jack Bergman of Michigan, Kevin Hern of Oklahoma, Mike Johnson of Louisiana and Mark Green of Tennessee.
A vote could take place as soon as Monday. ]
Donalds is a full-blown supporter of Donald Trump, and now Trump has endorsed his bid for speaker.
That right there will sink his campaign.
The two previous candidates - Steve Scalise and Jim Jordan - were also huge Trump supporters. The third one - Kevin McCarthy - was ousted by the right-wingers in the House.
Republicans in essence rejected all of them...
By EDUARDO PAZ-MARTINEZ
McALLEN, Texas |...Joe Ramirez had been the one to install the doorknob to his designated home office.
He'd been the one to drive to the hardware store, the one to walk up and down the aisles until he found the one stashing door-repair stuff, the one who'd walked it to the store's cash register, the one who'd paid for it, the one who'd asked that it be bagged, the one who'd driven it home, the one who'd carried it into the house, the one who'd up and announced to the family his intention to install it, the one who'd done that quickly, the one who'd have the only key, the one who'd straight-up, tersely told everyone, the dog too, that the office was his private space, the one who'd walk in and lock himself in for hours, the one who'd not done any work in there, the one who'd merely plunk himself down and sit in his executive high back chair and sleep...
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By EDUARDO PAZ-MARTINEZ
McALLEN, Texas | What - moderates? In the Republican Party? It's been years since we've heard those words in the same sentence. Lately, and by that we mean since about 2015, it's been about Republicans as racists and bigots and government obstructionists.
And Trumpers, of course.
But this ongoing, seemingly endless knockdown/drag out in the House of Representatives fronted to Americans as just another selection of just another Speaker is becoming quite the eye-opener.
News reports have it that Republican "moderates" are beating back the latest charge by Trumper Jim Jordan as he comes off three vote defeats but won't concede.
This from politico.com: [ Over the years, we’ve all heard a lot about Republican members of Congress bucking their party. For example, when Rep. Matt Gaetz and a handful of far-right Republicans succeeded in deposing then-Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy two-and-half weeks ago, creating a mess that has paralyzed the House of Representatives.
This week, there was another revolt: one against Jim Jordan, the House GOP’s latest speaker-designate. Jordan is shown in photo below, at right.
But what’s unique about this revolt was who led it: people like Rep. Mike Lawler (R-N.Y.) He is shown in photo atop this posting.
Lawler represents a Biden district just north of New York City. Other Members who joined him in the emerging "NeverJordan" faction are from similar districts, or they're committee chairs and cardinals and institutionalists who finally became fed up with the far-right faction that thrust the House of Representatives into this mess in the first place. ]
Jordan, 59, from Ohio, wanted another vote this morning. He lost the previous two.
Hopefully, it will be scheduled. It was, and he lost the third strike.
And, with any luck, the milquetoast Congressman Patrick McHenry from South Carolina who has been the interim Speaker for three weeks now will ascend to the permanent spot.
We're not fans of this move, as the House Speaker is third in line for the presidency in the event of a catastrophe and this guy is an "appointed" speaker, not an elected one.
But that, too, could come around...if & when the Republicans get their duckies in order...
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