Tuesday, December 26, 2023

TACO TUESDAY:...McAllen Mayor Out For A Holiday Kill Shot...New Year's Eve In The Bally...We Tackle Mayra...Paz In Our Time...Dunderheaded GOP Games...Neece Gone...

 


By DUARDO PAZ-MARTINEZ

RIO GRANDE VALLEY, Texas |...The mayor was out killing deer. It was the week before Christmas and a steady salvo of gun shots rang out across the land. There would be fresh venison at the Holiday Dinner Table, after all.

That's McAllen Mayor Javier Villalobos at left in field photo above.

Villalobos, a non-screaming, non-scheming Traditional Republican, is a walkabout mayor. He's been to Olde Mexico umpteen times, and he recently returned from another business-seeking junket to Colombia, where he hobnobbed with that country's bigwigs.

There has been no response from City Hall to our complaint centering on the woeful Holiday street-lighting along busy, busy N. 10th Street. It's okay, but it could be so much more. As it is, the street lighting is straight out of 1972. The bare minimum, yeah.

Maybe next year, eh?

For now, we end the year with the imagery of the mayor traipsing down some weedy shank of muddy geography in some South Texas ranch in search of some antler-thing to kill. It's a sport, we know. And there are times when the herd has to be thinned for its own sake.

It's just that the mayor & the guns thing that clashes.

A few of his commenters on his Facebook page asked about the meat, one or two or three wondering if the mayor and his family were in for deer meat tamales.

Villalobos is an out & about sort of mayor, very much like Harlingen Mayor Norma Sepulveda. You can see him ambling into Starbucks, into local small eateries, into the newly-opened chic bars and at a whole host of civic activities that often include stops at McAllen ISD schools.

And, yeah, who knows about what comes next for him?

Perhaps a journey to Dark Africa with a fully-packed entourage for a shot at an elephant or a lion.

You have to lock & load if you're going to be a Republican...

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Next Sunday is New Year's Eve. Do you know where your drink is being served? Party, baby. Doll-up and pick me up at seven. And this year bring your own American Express card, sweetheart. We can hardly wait for this damned year to end. Sorry F. Scott, it was just damned, not beautiful.

Much came this Year 2023, most of it bad. There were some good moments, but the overwhelming number of problems suffocated the life out of Cupid, priests and food delivery drivers. A pizza I ordered was duly returned when the driver arrived in a 1950s car with actual fins and I watched him walk to the back, where he lifted the trunk and extracted my pizza.

"Not happening," I told him. "Take it back. I'll call for a refund."

The kid just shrugged his shoulders and got back in his jalopy and rolled out.

That was one chalked up to ridiculousness. I could almost smell the dead cat or rat the kid had in that car's cluttered trunk. It was no place for a hot pizza. But there were oh, so many other moments in the year that all stand out like thumbs busted by a hammer. Where to begin?

Locally, SpaceX blew up to expensive rockets - both with 33 engines - at company's launching pad on Boca Chica in Cameron County. Hundreds were there to see it, all gasping, all oooohing-and-ahhhing as the rockets lifted off, pierced the sky with ease...and then blew up. SpaceX said it was a good thing, part of the getting-to-perfection plan.

Quien sobby, I know.

Things bad around here? Well, a few more inmates at that haunted Cameron County jail died in captivity. The same answers emerged from the sheriff's department. Nothing else came of it. The dead can't find a lawyer.

Things good around here? Those over-achieving kids from Brownsville Veterans Memorial High School had themselves a mighty run, beating ranked, undefeated teams in the state playoffs before losing in the semifinals. Waytogo! Brownsville fell into a days-long funk after the loss, but the kids kept smiling. They knew they had accomplished much.

We kept waiting for a Rio Grande Valley political scandal, but one never came. Not this year. No sexual escapades with men or women not their spouses by our elected or appointed officials, no one caught drunk or with drugs, no resignations of note, hardly a pendejada.

So, this being short for obvious reasons, we can only hope that the last night of the year is a celebratory one for all, a time for one last hug and kiss of the year in a bar or night club.

Make it a tight, nipple-on-nipple hug and a long, wet kiss. The year has been draining, our emotions spent...

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Word in the mean streets and bars have it that she's still the one. Favored to win the Republican Party's nomination for a run at the 34th Congressional District seat, that is. It's a given, only some air seems to have left her Dollar Tree balloon. Mayra Flores has been uncharacteristically quiet.

Does that portend anything?

Probably not, but she needs her A-Game against incumbent Democrat Vicente Gonzalez.

Maybe it's the Christian Holiday that has her in a more-mellow, more-sociable mood. No loud anti-America speeches lately, no pig-like squealing pro-Trump spiels, no yelling and screaming about that Red Wave that never materialized last election, but that she insists will crest here this time around.

Or so she hopes.

Another loss and that'll be that for Mayra. She has hung her hopes and dreams on a Troubled Star. It's an odd situation in that, once, Mayra Flores was a rising star, one coming over the horizon as if a moon and not some shiny, distant celestial body.

Politics can be fruitful...and it can be cruel.

Mayra's fight between now and the November General Election in 2024 will be the moving brawl of her life. She's won and she's lost, once on each count. This next contest could be it for the daughter of Burgos, Mexico who came to this country and gleefully joined a noisy uprising.

What's she going to do if she loses? There is nothing much to fall back on, nothing, in fact...

Well, she could wait two years and then challenge Republican U.S. Senator John Cornyn in 2027. The other senator from Texas, Ted Cruz, is up for reelection in 2024...

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PAZ IN OUR TIME...Well, I started going out again after my last goofy relationship and, as always, I ran into that one word that just loops me - feelings. I know I have them all, but my problem is dealing with the feelings of others.

I remember a lovely gal in New Mexico who would tell me I hurt her feelings and it always sounded like "fillings," which threw another image onto the back walls of my skull.

Anyway, it's the cellphone this time.

I have one, but it's not like I use it all that much. "Call me," she said, there near the end. "Chase me. I like to be chased." So, I tried, but it never was enough.

She would call me at midnight after texting a note that said, "Can u talk?" My eyes were rolled up above my top eyelids, asleep to the world and completely unable to chat about the holiday blues. It's a bitch trying to stay up with a woman who needs attention.

I mean, I need it, but not like that.

In any case, when I last saw her what I said was this: "Try the being-alone thing, baby. It'll settle your bones."

She walked away...and, not surprisingly, I haven't heard from her in a week...

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WHAT WAS THAT ABOUT?...Four comfortable Republicans taking to the stage to debate. For what? This fulsome foursome will soon fade into the rotting woodwork, not to be heard from for long months. It's Hell being a Nobody in a Party of Clowns.

We'll ID the four GOPers shown above for the police: Chris Christie, ex-governor of New Jersey; Nikki Haley, ex-governor of South Carolina, Ron DeSantis, governor of Florida and Vivek Ramaswamy, a Nobody.

They showed-up and tried. All are well-spoken college grads, most with some political experience, Haley rumored to have had an affair with a blogger and Christie one with a Pappadeaux's Sampler Plate.

We feel sorry for these people.

The national press and most of the free world has known that their partisan colleague, one Donald J. Trump, has been the anointed one, known it for a long freakin' time. But, bless their beating hearts, they debated. Debated the issues, as if it meant something.

It meant nothing...

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OBITS:...If we can ever say that a city fell into a deep holiday funk, well, maybe Brownsville is it. One of its admired citizens died days before Christmas and there were words of sadness moving across town. Everyone's got a good memory of local Ben R. Neece, the former municipal court judge and ex-city commissioner.

Neece died while at a gym. He was 68.

And, well, how does a community grieve the passing of one of its best & brightest?

Brownsville did it well, honoring Neece pretty much at every turn - in the newspaper, on Facebook and other social media, on the local blogs and at a well-attended memorial.

Neece had his small warts, but readily counted on an upstanding reputation.

Brownsville's reaction came quickly, grieving on the minds of many from the very moment they heard the news. The city doesn't have many citizens of note.

Ben Neece was one... 

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TACO TUESDAY out...

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Monday, December 25, 2023

SEASON'S GREETINGS:... ..."Happy Christmas" To All Who Come Here...

 


By DUARDO PAZ-MARTINEZ

McALLEN, Texas |...It's been a fun year, all in all. Yes, friends and family have passed on, to that better place way up there in the sky. Pain and sadness always came with the deal. But, as we like to say in these ragged times, Hope is Eternal.

And that is the promise of Christmas Day.

The new year arrives next week, already weighed down by a host of unresolved social problems made even worse by our inferior politics. Man was not made for enduring success, not for the collective. Sadly, stubborn failure seems to have found a home in the country and on the planet.

We're better than that.   

Make 2024 something to remember; make it your best year yet...

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SUN RECORDS:...Newsroom Jukebox..."Christmas Without You"...

Sunday, December 24, 2023

MITCH:...Republican Leader Mum On Trump's Colorado Problem...McConnell Leaves Baked Cheeto Twisting In The Wind...

 


By DUARDO PAZ-MARTINEZ

McALLEN, Texas |...Not a peep. Mitch is not talking. Neither are some other prominent Republicans who likely can't stand Donald J. Trump but won't say it in public. There are those Republicans, yes. Perhaps even more and more these days.

Trump has been kicked off the Colorado ballot and is awaiting a U.S. Supreme Court ruling on that GOP colon lavage, but Mitch McConnell is not among Republicans defending the Mar-a-Lago Marvel. No, not even a partisan peep from McConnell.

The Senate Minority Leader is standing down on that decision by the Rocky Mountain State's supreme court that would effectively prevent Trump from winning a single Colorado vote, this on the basis that Trump violated the Constitution’s Fourteenth Amendment when he spawned an insurrection on January 6, 2021.

Has Ted Cruz said anything?

John Cornyn, Cruz's Lone Star State colleague in the U.S. Senate? Texas Gov. Greg Abbott?

Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick has energized his weird frontal lobe in calling for removal of Democrat Joe Biden, the president. That would be words of retaliation. But action?

We haven't seen anything yet.

The U.S. Supreme Court is expected to resolve the Colorado decision as early as January 4th, with Colorado expecting a quick ruling as it must certify its ballots by the following day. Ten or twenty years ago, we'd have had a smidgen of confidence in the nation's High Court.

Today, it is a mere shadow of its old self, as they say in Brownsville blogging.

Citizen confidence in the court is at an all-time low, dumb wanton bribery soiling reputations of at least two long-time associate justices, Clarence "Hand Out" Thomas and Samuel "Fly Me To Alaska" Alito - both appointed by Republicans.

It's a biggie, if we can still use that word in our ever-shocking national politics.

A ruling against Colorado would quickly bring Trump laughter of the sort often seen only in circuses when the bear falls off the barrel while the trainer whips his butt. A loss by Trump's side would, it is being said, bring an avalanche of similar rulings from other states not quite enamored with the dictator-in-waiting Orange Cheeto.

This ruling will come.

No punting of the case to a lower court.

No wimpish let-the-voters-decide-this shit from Chief Justice John Roberts, the court's babysitter. And it strikes me that this quietness coming from no-nonsense Republican Mitch McConnell is something of a foreboding dark cloud for Trump. In senate circles, Mitch still holds sway.

Has Willard "Mitt" Romney said anything? He openly hates Trump with a passion. The U.S. Senator from Utah usually has something to say on these things. Not on the Colorado ruling, however. Mitt isn't saying shit.

We could keep waxing poetic here, but we're merely marking time. Waiting on the High Court's ruling, like most Americans. It's the New National Pastime. Baseball is dead. Pro football is rigged. Basketball will never shed that annoying up & down the court bouncing and tennis shoe screeching on polished wooden floors that roil brain cells faster than a fellatio al fresco romp with porn star Stormy Daniels.

Say something, Mitch...

-30-

[EDITOR'S NOTE:...Photo of ugly woman above is gratuitous...]

Saturday, December 23, 2023

THE NATIONAL TIT:...For Tat, We Mean...Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Goeb Threatens To Kick Democrat Joe Biden Off State Ballots...Is This America, Or What?...

 


By DUARDO PAZ-MARTINEZ

AUSTIN, Texas |...Dan Patrick, the flinty Lt. Gov. of Texas, has threatened to take President Joe Biden off state ballots, this in response to Colorado taking similar aim at his fellow Republican Donald J. Trump.

Here we go again, as Dolly Parton might say about here.

This cheap tit-for-tat keeps getting sillier and sillier. We say that as the Republican-led House of Representatives in Washington, D.C. readies its wacko impeachment of Democrat Biden

Patrick, the Houston native whose real last name is the very-German "Goeb," tends to be a bit emotional. And wildly partisan. But he's not alone on this one, nope. Republicans in three other so-called Red States, those governed by Republican politicians, have now echoed Patrick's call.

Should we laugh, or be worried?

I say we should laugh. But do take a moment to again wonder exactly where your country is on the civility meter. Off the charts, Baby - that's where. Patrick's threat is no more excitable than much of what is playing out in MAGA World.

The newspaper in Detroit now has a tape recording in which then-President Trump urged one of those quirky, quite illegal moves to draw votes his way in Michigan during the 2020 election he ultimately lost to Biden. It is yet some more ammo for federal prosecutor Jack Smith, who quickly jumped on the subpoena train to get his hands on the recording.

Trump is still in the crosshairs.

Yet, even with the ever-growing mountain of legal stuff against him, Trump remains as politically strong as ever, as seemingly above the law as ever. You'd think that time has stood still. At some point, the meaningful trials will begin, only it won't be, like, anytime soon. March, they say, for one of his criminal cases, although he's never done appealing some aspect of his legal troubles, so...

Of course, it's not just him.

The Republican Party, once a staid operation with names like Dwight D. Eisenhower and George H.W. Bush, is now the tough and mean Chicago Bears of 1985. Sure, perhaps even the cold and cruel Hell's Angels of Gonza Journalist Hunter S. Thompson's day. Oh, maybe yes, a coat & tie cartel of chubby men and chubbier women, a few trailer park loudmouths.

They're going to speak loudly, damn everybody else for America's troubles, dump on immigrants, blame the country's demise on those "poisoning" its blood - a blood, btw, that is whole hog mixed as all Hell is mixed with human losers. Who has the pure blood anymore? Not this reporter...and likely not you, either.

And certainly not those crazy, but maybe not so crazy Anglos who annually claim a drop or two of Native American blood for this and that government benefit, secondary education especially. You can look it up. It's there, there every year, without fail. Funny, but factual, yes.

Poisoning the country's blood, Trump says.

I dunno. Our millions of mixed-race people seem to be okay, living the American Way, wearing designer shirts and jeans, blouses and skirts and dating and going out to dinner and to wedding chapels in Vegas and to divorce courts in town - just like those with "non-poisoned" blood. Yeah, those two or three incest-spawned Americans.

You want to know where to look for Americans being Americans? I mean Americans of all colors enjoying each other - Porn. This much is true: Naked in bed, you're not a Republican or a Democrat. You're alive and living La Vida Loca, which is what the U.S. has been doing for the last 60-70 years. Porno. Black on white, white moaning it. Trump lived that life in New York during the lovely racial Disco heyday of the 1980s and early-1990s. At clubs like Studio 54 in Manhattan, where the booze and harder stuff and the thin African princesses danced until dawn, with the Trumps and the Jaggers and the rest of the sex-is-good crowd.

Poisoned blood? More like alcoholed blood.   

No, don't define America as being either Republican or Democrat.

These days, it's a shithole. Politically and, in a helluva lot of cases, socially.

Donald Trump, a lifelong New York Democrat who saw Republicans and knew he could buffalo them into lapping him with a presidential nomination, labeled a bunch of other countries as being "shitholes" and then delivered a red, white and blue outhouse right here, all by himself, with no opposition from his new political allies. None. Well, Liz Cheney and Mitt Romney, but those two were castrated by the party.

Blood-thirsty Republicans will keep clawing at the national bark, knowing full-well that no tree can survive losing its covering.

They seem to not care.

They seem to want another America altogether...There are only so many white, supple breasts in the country...

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Friday, December 22, 2023

THE LAW:...Is Trump Above It All?...Does The Constitution Have To Spell It Out Word For Word?...He Thinks So...

 


By DUARDO PAZ-MARTINEZ

McAllen, Texas |...It would be too simplistic to say that no one was above the law in this country until Donald J. Trump arrived on the political scene. Law, as many of us know, can at times be twisted in interpretation or, worse yet, ignored. The recent impeachment of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton comes to mind. He beat it, but it was a political not a legal ruling in the State Senate.

This well-known concept of "No One Is Above The Law" is currently playing like a moveable feast across the abused national landscape. Americans and Talking Head lawyers, especially, are eating it up.

This much is true: Republican Trump is the current lightning rod in a slew of stare downs at our Constitution, rightly or wrongly.

He is under indictment on several fronts, clearly for inciting a riot that saw the U.S. Capitol trashed by his supporters and for attempting to overturn the 2020 election with strong-arm tactics aimed at vote-counting officials in Georgia. This, too: Four separate criminal cases, a trial slated to start in March.

So far, he remains free, thus forcing thoughts into the minds of many Americans that he is untouchable, i.e. above the law and not subject to prosecution. Is he? Well, until he robs a bank or guns someone down, Trump's fights are nebulous as fuck, as kids today like to say. He loudly claims immunity, noting that some of what he said and did took place while he was president from 2016 to January 2021. That's dubious, but out there.

The Capitol assault on January 6, 2021 is blamed on Trump. He gave a rousing "rigged election" speech in Washington D.C. that protestors later told courts inspired them to go and mess with the vote certification giving the presidency to Democrat Joe Biden at the nearby Capitol. Armed protestors heard Trump's call for action and then walked over and stormed in, injuring security police officers and menacing members of Congress in the building.

It was a sad day for America. Hundreds of those protestors were later arrested, charged and tried - a handful for sedition, earning them lengthy prison terms.

Trump got nothing in the form of punishment. Two efforts to impeach him while president were rejected by the Republican-controlled U.S. Senate. He left office, but not before a vigorous attempt to overturn the election he lost, agreeing to a variety of plots that included fake state electors, fake allegations of voter fraud and one harried telephone call by Trump to Republican elections officials in Georgia, where he asked that they find him some 11,000 votes so that he could claim victory there.

Nothing has come of that yet, although Trump was indicted in Fulton County, Georgia (Atlanta) and is scheduled to eventually stand trial there on charges of violating federal racketeering laws (RICO). He recently completed testimony in his business fraud trial in New York, where he was found guilty but stood to a trial on how much that conviction will cost him dollars.

To date, he has paid little. A small fine here and there, nothing substantive.

That could soon change, although Trump continues on his quest of the presidency with almost a year left before the November 2024 General Election. A bump in the road has surfaced in Colorado, where the State Supreme Court kicked him off the ballot. That led to an immediate filing before the U.S. Supreme Court, where Colorado asked justices to affirm their ruling.

The High Court is expected to take on the case as early as January 4th, one day before Colorado certifies its ballots for the coming elections. It's iffy for Trump, we say, even as conservative legal minds insist the Supreme Court will side by Trump. They cite the fact that Trump has not been charged or convicted of anything.

Those with an opposing view say the Supreme Court will go against him, noting that states' matters belong to the state and adding that the conservative Court, troubled of late by ethics missteps, may side by Colorado as a way to reclaim some of its damaged credibility.

The latter is a weak assessment, but it's out there.

So, is Donald J. Trump above the law, or is "above the law" just another throwaway cliche for politicians to lob at constituents when they want to and to ignore when they have to?

So far, yes and yes.

There's this food for thought, however: That nagging "rule of law" thing. As we have learned it, the rule of law means that everyone must obey the law and that no one is above the law. The government and its leaders must obey the law, goes the Civics 101 line.

Section 1 of the 14th Amendment in the U.S. Constitution speaks to equal protection of the law. That is the equivalent, or implication, that no one is above the law. Not that all Americans are buying it in Trump's case. He has dead-serious supporters who are willing to look the other way on every attack he launches on America and its once-hallowed past.


The Constitution was written in 1787.

Trump has certainly been bashed about by the law since he left office three years ago. He often blames Democrats, the opposing political party, and no one else for his legal problems, and he always gets the quick, rallying support of his so-called rabid MAGA followers. They agree with him that his troubles are nothing but a witch hunt. The witch is Uncle Sam, however, and Uncle Sam has all the power.

It's a bit more than a run-of-the-mill witch hunt, however.

This is an openly racist/bigoted politician working the Constitution like he likely worked porn star Stormy Daniels in that infamous sexual affair. Lately, those around him have bravely said he does not believe in the U.S. Constitution, working it only when it suits him and roughing it up for his own survival - law and citizenship be damned.

Ominous Quote: "In our system of government, as this Court has often stated, no one is above the law. That principle applies, of course, to a President..." - Supreme Court Associate Justice Brett Kavanaugh, 2020

I was going to say it's some conundrum, but it's more than that.

It's a filthy, stinking mess...ugly and dangerous...

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Thursday, December 21, 2023

AMERIKA:...Supreme Court Decision On That Colorado Disqualification Of Trump Will Tell If He's Above The Law...He's Not...

 


By DUARDO PAZ-MARTINEZ

BROWNSVILLE, Texas |...There are hours and hours and hours of independent video. Countless news reports with pertinent quotes. Reviews after the fact. Investigations by Congress. Looksees into law-breaking. Indictments.

Donald Trump was there, and he was the instigator of the January 6, 2021 riot on the U.S. Capitol building.

No one disputes that it happened.

The argument raging across the country from sea to shining sea is whether the countless of seditious convictions of many of those who stormed the Capitol should rest at the feet of Trump, the former president now again seeking the office.

That ruling in Colorado that disqualified him from being on the state ballot quickly drew anger and wild, weird responses from his fellow Republicans- some even saying the decision is the spark to the coming Civil War.

Balderdash!

Civil war? By those same armed brave ones who trashed the Capitol, were arrested and then cried mightily in court, begging for forgiveness and lesser prison sentences? Uh, no. No one is going to do squat, it says here. Rednecks love McDonald's too much to throw the country into wanton bedlam.

Maybe a loose-brain yahoo, or two. And perhaps a judge or Democrat politician will be assassinated for show, but, no, don't count on overland coast-to-coast battlefields. If it starts, it will be put down quickly and viciously. Most Americans have had it with this Trump Bullshit. He's like shit, everywhere.

Word has it that the Colorado Ruling will be overruled by the U.S. Supreme Court, that the conservative-led body will not allow the courts to decide a national election, that Trump has not been tried, much less convicted, of staging the Capitol insurrection, that the people will decide Trump's fate at the ballot box.

That would be wrong as Hell is wrong for Christians.

Trump made his renegade bed after he lost the 2020 election to Democrat Joe Biden, lost by almost 3 million votes. He labeled it a "rigged" election and did his damndest to overturn the vote by way of public discourse that emboldened yahoos to the point of law-breaking.

He's still with the wacko idea of killing Democracy by way of racism and bigotry, and, well, his allegiance to dead and living dictators - as if to alert America of his intent to become one if elected.

Trump will NOT be elected president ever again.

Bank it.

He's got his fans and followers, but they are simply not enough. Government machinations are such that threats such as this one usually find a solution. The United States is not going Russia or China anytime soon.         

Plus, the Supreme Court would be setting itself up to be mightily embarrassed. Federal prosecutor Jack Smith has a huge amount of evidence he will soon present about Trump's efforts to subvert the election. There is going to be testimony by ex-Vice President Mike Pence, Trump's own texts and phone calls, testimony from staff.

It will show he committed insurrection.

So, were the Supreme Court to say Trump didn't know...they would look damned foolish.

But Trump does have three of his appointees on the country's High Court (three of nine), so prankster games are not necessarily out of the realm of possibility. He expects loyalty from everyone but himself. A vote endorsing the Colorado Ruling would surprise many, although, for this particular court, it would be the beginning of a return to credibility.

Trump is NOT above the law.

He will be told, and he will be shown...

-30-

Wednesday, December 20, 2023

APPEAL:...2023 "Word Of The Year"...Reptilian Republican Donald Trump Avails Himself Of It At Every Turn...Justice Delayed Is Justice Denied...

 


By DUARDO PAZ-MARTINEZ

McALLEN, Texas |...He's appealing. Again. Another court ruling he does not like. Doing it quickly and vigorously. That's who Donald J. Trump is these days, a litigator.

Trump is in the 2024 running for president as a reptilian Republican.

He's also being chased by the legal system at every turn. Should we care that he's a serious candidate while fighting for his freedom? Is he just exercising his rights? Does the well-known phrase "Justice Delayed Is Justice Denied" apply to him?

How long has this been going on?

Too long. Trump threatens to become the poster boy for Outlaw Law. His latest opportunity to appeal a hit came yesterday.

This from politico.com: [ The ruling by the Colorado Supreme Court on Tuesday that Donald Trump, by virtue of inciting an insurrection, was ineligible to appear on the state’s 2024 ballots threatened yet another massive stress test for America’s governing institutions.

But it also quickly underscored the extraordinary messiness of a presidential campaign litigated as much in the courtroom as on the campaign trail - with cases sprawling across multiple jurisdictions, a cast of characters rivaling a Russian novel and a former president who has perfected the art of working the legal system to his advantage over decades of close brushes with the law. ]

His camp is already making the case that all judges in the Colorado case are - egads! - Democrats. That's the lawyers speaking. Trump had harsher words, and will have harsher words until he wins or loses in the General Election.

According to the reporting, Colorado's ruling will find its way to the U.S. Supreme Court for its two-cents worth as early as January 4th. Ballots in Colorado must be in place by the following the day, the 5th.

But, yeah, how many appeals to court rulings have we had from the Mar-a-Lago Marvel?

Too many.

For a guy who forever claims to be innocent, he sure has no faith in his "facts." Trump claws and fights every step of way, more like some jail-fearing street-savvy criminal than an innocent man...

-30-

Tuesday, December 19, 2023

TACO TUESDAY:......Island Tacos...Capt. Bob & Nefertiti ...Comb Over Hasse...Ben's Other Office... Dairy Neck Barton...Photo Of The Year ...The Scribbler McHale...

 


By DUARDO PAZ-MARTINEZ

BROWNSVILLE, Texas |...This is the penultimate (next to last) Taco Tuesday of the year that was 2023, and we can say that it's been a roaring success from the outset. Although it has leaned heavily on Brownsville and Brownsville characters, plans have it that it will go valleywide in 2024.

There certainly are others in the region worthy of our attention.

And unlike the sedated bloggers of Browntown, The Sun will not fall back from its features. Once there was a Stormy Monday in town, but Blogger Dairy Neck Jim Barton quickly laid down on the job after one offering. Elderly Blogger Jerry McHale's wimpish, junior high version of Taco Tuesday died 'cause he could not keep it up, as happens when you turn 74 years old.

This Taco Tuesday will stay the course.

Herewith, then, is this week's episode... 

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...If the fast-fading Capt. Bob Sanchez can take a photograph with the purposeful Republican rat, Mayra Sanchez, then all bets are off this bugger of a political season. There he was, standing chingon with the Nefertiti of The Rio Grande, while seeming to say, "Uppa yo ass!" to all in town.

Miss Flores, age 38, is the favorite to win the party's primary next March and then set her crazed sights on Democrat incumbent Vicente Gonzalez in that 34th Congressional District Jell-o & Mud rasslin' PayPerView show.

Sanchez, a late-late blooming (nobody believes him) Republican, has about as much importance in South Texas politics as any other bald-headed eat, shave and shit dude. Will it matter for Mayra? Uh, no. She could pose with Pro-Mexicans Blogger Juan Montoya next and it would mean even less. The girl is hot in her own panties, boys. Let's not even think about saying, "Oh, I support seafood and Mayra Flores!"

The captain, who is a captain of nothing, loves taking photos with newsmakers. He's really a "Nobody" in winning politics, but, like the local bloggers, thinks he's Big Shit just cause he offers a podcast in which he seems to fakes a Mexican accent that sure sounds like impacted turds dying to come out of his ass.

Hey, Mayra, sweetheart, go take a photo with John Cowen, the mayor rumored to be a Republican.

He's half-bald, and that may mean something to the district's fickle voters.

Captain Bob is supposed to have spaced teeth that makes it easier to lie, is what a local blogger once told us. But, yeah, who knows. It just could be that the captain is merely one of those humans who sees pain and smiles, who sees death and laughs out loud.

A funny sort of guy and nothing more, yeah...

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Well, he lost his last election by 29,000 to a high school dropout. Charles "Tad" Hasse, shown with crazed comb-over in photo above, wanted a seat on the State Board of Education (SBOE), only incumbent Ruben Cortez stood in the way. Stood in the way!!! Shit, Ruben slammed the damned door in Hasse's aging face!

That was four years ago, and now the Libertarian/Democrat/Republican Hasse (his name means "Rabbit" in Germany) wants to be the Cameron County Republican Party's chair. His opponent in the party contest will be one Deborah Bell, a healthy-looking chick with all of her hair.

Hasse has known little success in politics, having taken it up the ass in several other elections for several other posts. His political resume, you may say, is one defeat after another, beatings that may have taken some salt off his skin the night of the results, but, like acne, he's still there into old age.

A Trumpian from early-on, Hasse can be a however-whiney loud cat.

In that last campaign, he was scolded down by then-GOP County Chair Morgan Graham for seeking the extermination of all Democrats in a speech upstate. Hasse sort of apologized, if dead silence is an apology.

But he has some support, at least from the wishy-washy, mollusk-like blogging community. Pro-Mexicans Blogger Juan Montoya, usually an anti-Trump dude, has posted a rather clean story about Tad's latest bid for office. Fellow Dairy Neck blogger Jim Barton also has gone slacker in covering Hasse's campaign. We expect Elderly-About-Town Blogger Jerry McHale to fall-in with the blogging faction and push Hasse to the starting line in a semi-positive way.

There really isn't much there in Hasse's political background to ballyhoo - he's done nothing!

Hasse's nickname of "Tad," he has written, is a contraction of his childhood nickname of "Tadpole," which is not good in the rough & tumble Political World.

Tadpole?

Uh, no...

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Five days before he died on December 12, Ben Neece posted the photo you see above on his Facebook page and let friends know the scene would be his "office" on that particular Thursday evening.

I can't tell you the name of venue, but suffice it to say that it likely was downtown - Ben's backyard throughout most of his adult life. They say he could hear just about every musical note ever played in that part of town.

Neece died at age 68 while at a local gym.

He will be buried at 1:00 p.m. this Saturday over at Buena Vista Cemetery on McDavitt Road. The Heart of The Weekend is a most appropriate time for Ben's last goodbye to a city he loved. a funeral ceremony is the correct send-off for every human being, although we do know others see many options to the traditional memorials and graveside service.

Ben Neece at a cemetery evokes imagery of Ben playing his music for someone else's passing.

In this case, we are pretty sure his family and his many, many friends will be there to observe the interment and to remember a song or two they recall hearing over the years from Neece and Neece's musical band.

It is definitely a goodbye.

But Ben had a way of sticking around at his downtown club after being on stage or seeing other musicians on stage.

No doubt, he'll stay in the memories of a good amount of people, here and wherever else he went and made friends...

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He still will not answer. Dairy Neck Blogger Jim Barton, the 76-year-old news reporter wannabe, guards his reasons for not serving in the U.S. military back when he was definitely of draft-age during the Vietnam Conflict.

And he will not say how far he got in school. High school, we mean, as he did not go to college.

We chase his butt down every week on this because Barton sees himself as some journalism cop who can go after public servants and politicians, many of them military veterans who do not need this clown chasing them down as if he's somebody.

Barton is a Societal Nobody.

His employment resume is thin, thinner than that of a hard-working illegal alien washing dishes at a local eatery or a maid working all sectors of the community. Barton's jobs were of the hourly, minimum wage variety - at grocery stores, motels and on the shrimp boat docks at the Port of Brownsville.

We've asked, but he will not say where else he has worked, when up in North Texas or in incest-happy Arkansas with his late-wife Nenny.

Should we care about this guy's unaccomplished past? Sometimes, we tell ourselves that no, we should not. he's free to "act" out any part he wishes in this home of the brave and land of the free - even if he never has paid his debt to freedoms he enjoys.

And this week, we're not even going deep into that Great Story that is his donation of his dead wife's body to science in April of 2019. I mean, who does that? In the Rio Grande Valley, we mean.

Little Hands Barton (he ragged Republican hellion Donald Trump about his small hands, btw) did it, and he's okay with it.

Perhaps someday he'll open-up, let loose serious stuff he keeps well-closeted for reasons that may affect his standing in town. Until he does, those of us with our questions will keep them handy and waiting on an opening, perhaps on some emotion Barton lets go when his insecurities rise as if weeds against a lawnmower...

Old cat Barton, who plays at being a real member of the press, should know that the press is accountable, too...

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Our PHOTO OF THE YEAR. Donald Trump being booed and saluted with the middle finger at an Iowa Hawkeyes football game this Fall. The photo, one of several showing fans shooting Trump the finger, was widely-circulated in new stories and social media. 

The imagery is priceless.

There is, we say, nothing like the American middle finger salute. Its message is immediate and unmistakable. You suck! Fuck off! Sit on this, Mofo! It's a very visible diss absolutely. You shoot someone the finger and you're telling them you hate their ass. One more stare and it's Fight City!!!

In Brownsville, the middle finger is as popular as the two-tortilla taco.

You get a bad waiter at a good taqueria and down goes the taco and the waiter. Trump felt it, we're sure. He felt the hate he engenders in Good Americans. They would rather kick his face in than see him as any sort of political star.

In fact, we're sure Trump's face is atop the list of fucktards people in this country want to fuck up...

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He likes to think of himself as some accomplished writer, but Elderly Blogger Jerry McHale is nothing of the sort. He's a retired ESL teacher with a laptop and nothing more. What's he written that's anywhere near memorable? Not a damn thing, says the stadium crowd.

There is no signature sentence. No creative language. No unique plotting. No character worth remembering. No paragraph of note. No self-published book worth a quarter.

But the 74-year-old McHale does hold hard to his Irish penchant for attacks and insults. Once he had a very good friend by the name of Tony Zavaleta. Today, he doesn't. Not after that Welding Recital disaster McHale offered this past summer that had Tony Z fuming.

Once he could sit down for a few chelas with pro-Mexicans Blogger Juan Montoya. Today, he can't. Not after calling Juan the third-best blog writer in Brownsville. Behind him and non-college Dairy Neck Jim Barton!!!

Once, he had local attorney and former municipal court judge Ben Neece as the one always at his side. Not anymore. Ben died last week and McHale cried his woe-is-me poetry on his nursing home blog. No, Maria, let's once and for all dispense of any notion saying this guy is a writer.

He's not, not of Real Journalism and certainly not of sentient fiction.

McHale turned out to be the city's loudest wannabe - that's all...

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TACO TUESDAY out...

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Monday, December 18, 2023

MEIN DRUMPH:...Caught In A Trap, Donald Trump Raises Ante On Racism...Immigrants "Poisoning" His Blood...

 


By DUARDO PAZ-MARTINEZ

RENO, Nevada |...He came and said it aloud here again over the weekend. Blood from Africa and south of the border keeps coming here and "poisoning our blood." Donald J. Trump, the oft-indicted Republican candidate for president, loves to quote Nazi Adolf Hitler and a passel of other dictators.

He conveniently forgets how long the United States has been an immigrant country. He ignores the fact that a bit more than 10% of our population lists itself as of mixed-blood ancestry, a number experts say would grow dramatically if genetic testing would ever be considered and done.

But it's nothing new with him.

Trump, whose real last name is Drumph, a loser name his German-immigrant father dropped after coming to this country, has been at it for the entirety of his adult life. How long did he rag former President Barack Obama about that birth certificate Trump said would show Obama had been born in Africa and was not eligible for the presidency.

How long did he crow about the so-called Central Park 5 after five African-Americans were (as it turned out) wrongly arrested and jailed in connection with the rape of a white woman out on an evening jog. Trump bought full-page Ads in the New York Times ahead of their trial, seeking the Death Penalty.

No, his racism is not anything new, although, funny as it may seem, two of his three wives have been immigrants.

So, no, it was no surprise on Saturday when he again continued with his bigoted ways at a rally here.

This from NBCnews.com: [ Trump said immigrants coming to the U.S. are "poisoning the blood of our country," a remark on Saturday that quickly drew a rebuke from his chief Democratic rival as President Joe Biden’s campaign likened the words to those of Adolf Hitler.

"They let - I think the real number is 15, 16 million people into our country. When they do that, we got a lot of work to do. They’re poisoning the blood of our country," Trump also told the crowd at a rally in New Hampshire. "That’s what they’ve done. They poison mental institutions and prisons all over the world, not just in South America, not just to three or four countries that we think about, but all over the world. They’re coming into our country from Africa, from Asia, all over the world."

Trump then repeated the use of "poisoning" in a post on his social media website Truth Social, saying overnight in an all-caps post, that "illegal immigration is poisoning the blood of our nation. They’re coming from prisons, from mental institutions - from all over the world."

The term "blood poisoning" was used by Hitler in his manifesto "Mein Kampf (My Struggle)," in which he criticized immigration and the mixing of races. "All great cultures of the past perished only because the originally creative race died out from blood poisoning," Hitler wrote. ]

That "originally creative race" is funny, but, then, Hitler seems to have had little knowledge of where the Human DNA originated: Africa.

The Doomsday racial terminology seems to be working with a certain segment of our population, the so-called Republican Base.

As could be expected, a number of high-profile Americans fired back at the Mar-a-Lago Marvel, with The White House leading the way. Republican Chris Christie, a second-tier candidate for president in the current campaign, labeled it "disgusting."

Trump kept at it. He quoted Russian dictator Vladimir Putin who'd said "rottenness" in the American Democracy would be the end of this country. It gets to where if a dictator said something about the U.S., Trump is going to use it against the U.S.

He's fighting 91 felony counts in court, a fraud trial in New York that could be the end of his quirky real estate business empire, election games in Georgia and a federal indictment related to his taking classified documents when he departed the White House in early 2021.

What else is he supposed to do but inflame the country's racist emotions?

Trump has reached the point that he can realistically be considered hysterically paranoid...it's just too bad that we still have to count him as an American...

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Sunday, December 17, 2023

REQUIEM:...In Town, One Last Conversation And "Solid" Electric Guitar Chord With Ben Neece...

 


By DUARDO PAZ-MARTINEZ

BROWNSVILLE, Texas |...This is a bit late, but only because we'd waited a few days to see what the local bloggers, always the chime-in types, would write about their good friend, Ben Neece, who passed away last week.

Sadly, we saw nothing of note.

They all mentioned his death at the gym and have since followed up with word of his memorial mass and day & time of internment. Pretty cold stuff, yes.

We expected a fitting New Yorker-worthy profile, at least from his old running mate Elderly-About-Town Blogger Jerry McHale, but nothing came. Jerry waxed poetic about Ben's untimely death being a "blow" and all that, but he went nowhere else with a write-up going to an old friendship.

Blogger Juan Montoya, recipient of Ben's kindness when finding himself before Municipal Court, only posted news of the death and, later, that aforementioned notice of burial. Montoya knew Ben seemingly forever, but, no, Juan, didn't get inspired to write something fitting.

Third blogger Jimmy Boy Barton took a backdoor, remembering Ben's downtown club, The Crescent Moon, in what could have been a good anecdote to a longer, in-depth piece about Ben's life in town. It was a noisy, busy, all-out living life of the sort few in Brownsville live.

Barton, not a college graduate and with zero Journalism experience, could be excused for not attempting a more-suitable remembrance of his friend, the one Dairy Neck Barton always referred to lately as the "officiant" of his wedding to the Filipina, The New American.

I didn't know Ben as well as this local trio did. My interaction with him dealt with his politics, that weird abduction in Togo, Africa, his decision to move downtown to seek a seat on the Brownsville City Commission, his campaign, his victory, his time in office, his departure from that role.

In between, Ben lived the musician's life, one that had him spearheading a drive to bring more action to dying Downtown Brownsville. Who can forget Ben's stab at bringing the Big City "Pub Crawls" to town, his pushing of local musicians to perform at his club and others.

Sitar? Ben played it. Irish Kilt? Ben wore it. Chasing eclipses in the Carolinas? Ben did it. Traipsing in the Chiapas outs? Ben was there. There was also life away from the ever-explorer in him. Early-on in his campaign for the city commission, word was leaked that Ben had once been stabbed by his wife when they lived over on Sally Lane, before his move to that downtown loft.

We theorized at the time that the info had been leaked by his opponent, then-City Commissioner John Villarreal, who made no bones about the "fact" that Ben did not actually live downtown and, thus, was ineligible to run for the post.

But Ben prevailed, even as we criticized him often, enough that his sons began contacting us about the fairness issue. We did take some fun while poking at Ben's many, many, many beer pachangas while his happy-as-punch campaign rolled on to Election Night.

And he served the downtown district well, although it is a tough one to advance as the old, attractively-decaying joints wear their age for the magazine photographers - falling buildings in need of repair, abandoned businesses from an earlier era, newcomers that come and go within months. Ben stayed on top of the mess, but his fight to enliven or, really, rejuvenate a Dead Downtown the task of David against Goliath.

As a city, Brownsville adores its history, and old buildings are history around here. You don't just knock down an old theater just because its roof caved-in, as happened. Change is a fighting word to many of the town's Old Guard. But Ben did force a vote on the city commission for security cameras for the downtown district...and he won that fight.

No one questions his desire to be a busy public servant. Ben insisted on looking into things, and some he managed to improve. His politics were middle-of-the-road, we would say. He backed then-Mayor Juan "Trey" Mendez perhaps a bit too much, but his approach was always one that saw the end game, a completed conversation on some issue before the commission.

It didn't always go smoothly.

A gent named Graham Sevier came out of the bicycle-repair and pizza business in late 2020 to get himself a seat on the city-backed Greater Brownsville Incentives Corporation (BCIC) charged with attracting new business to Brownsville. As happened, Sevier was a partner in Mayor's Mendez's pizza enterprise downtown, Dodici's.

When I telephoned Ben to ask about Sevier after we heard Ben had nominated him for the position, Ben said, "I might have (nominated him). You'll have to go to the meeting's minutes."

Sevier would go on to make a name for himself for what he one day said about the Texas governor, which was, "Fuck You, Abbott!" The anger had some connection to the task he had with the city entity. It wasn't long after that that Sevier resigned his position.

Ben nominating Sevier likely had all to do with his friendship with the mayor.

Politics is funny that way. It'll make good, thoughtful men do strange things that later can rarely be explained adequately. Not that Ben ever explained Sevier, but it was one of those things in his public service that actually ensnared him.

Was Ben Neece a politician? Is that his legacy, the portrait he leaves behind?

Of course not. Ben was one of those individuals who is born to action, for himself (his music, that love of rock 'n roll) and for his community (the municipal court judgeship, his time on the city commission).

I do suspect that there are personas like Ben in every town, those residents who hear more than the topical noise, the rumors and bad news. With him, it was as if he did hear all that, but somehow made his way along both the busy and lonely streets of Brownsville.

He deserves better write-ups than the minimal efforts he got from his local friends.

We only wish we could add more, and we say that because we know Ben lived a full life. There was a certain quietness about him. And there also was a distinct desire to fight for freedom and fairness.

When last we spoke in October, it was a chat about the mess Bloggers McHale and Barton had created about some loose-kneed controversy over at the Texas Southmost College welding program.

Ben was somewhat aware, he told us.

We asked for his thoughts about McHale's decision to burn his bridges with age-old pal Tony Zavaleta, the affable TSC Trustee.

Ben told me he'd talked to Jerry and that Jerry had said he'd lay-off Tony but not TSC. He wasn't all that concerned, he went on. I chalked it up to Ben perhaps knowing all-too-well of Blogger McHale's teen-like petulance.  

Endings in Blog postings often simply tail off, as the story always continues.

Here, we'll unapologetically draw on a cliche, yes, but one that fits the moment -

Godspeed, Ben Neece...

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Saturday, December 16, 2023

SUN RECORDS:...Newsroom Jukebox..."Driving Home For Christmas"...

PLAYOFFS:...Smithson Valley, Easy Conqueror of Brownsville Veterans Memorial High Last Week, Mauled By Tough Aledo Bearcats In Title Game, 51-8...

 


By DUARDO PAZ-MARTINEZ

ARLINGTON, Texas |...A listless three-and-out the first time they had the ball. An early safety gave opponents a 2-0 lead. Two field goals later made it 8-0, and the crowd grumbling could already be heard here at AT&T Stadium.

Then the real game began.

And before the final gun sounded, it was 51-8. The Aledo Bearcats had their 12th state championship deep in their pockets, Smithson Valley busing home shell-shocked and beaten.

This was the same Smithson Valley High team that had humbled the Brownsville Veterans Memorial High Chargers a week earlier, taking a 49-0 lead into the last quarter before winning 49-21.

Title games usually are closer affairs. This had such a start, but strong, undefeated teams always get their game plan rocking and Aledo was no different. It is a school used to winning, and, come Hell or High water, it won.

Tough defense and long runs showed-up, as they say in pro football.

Next year may be a bit different for Aledo.

It graduates 30 players after this season, but the school will remain in 5A, Division 1 in 2024 - a backyard it has dominated seemingly forever...

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Friday, December 15, 2023

SUN BEAMS:..."The Old Lonesome"...

 


By DUARDO PAZ-MARTINEZ

BERNALILLO, New Mexico |...There had to be an eleven-volume instruction book hidden somewhere, was his feeling. Yeah, maybe it was buried deep alongside a pyramid over in Egypt, that book that would have spelled-out the best manner of living.

Patrick was just thinking as his truck rolled up the road, bound for nowhere, as Kenny Rogers might have said.

Still, he also knew he'd tried a variety of ways to go from one day to the next, from one year to the other. That road, he'd have said, had thrown a load of obstacles his way, some he had navigated neatly, others he'd made a bigger mess out of, like most single men.

So, yeah, perhaps there was a book out there. He, of course, loved his New Mexico skies, those that came in all gold and red and blue.

You could enjoy life much, much more, he was saying to himself, smiling as he thought about it, if you'd concentrate on the planet and not solely the people. People would let you down sooner or later; the planet would, for the most part, always be there for you, dredging and pollution aside.

He was sure all who knew him understood why he said and did what he said and did, at least he chose to think so.

There had been no radio out this way, towns being several hundred of miles apart. Patrick had, as happens, tired of his CDs. That, he went on, may be the story of my life.

He reached for his CD pouch and pulled one out with one hand while holding on to the steering wheel with the other one. Familiar stuff. Rolling Stones and their ya-yas, or something like that.

Patrick laughed aloud. You could even almost feel the scratchings on the damned thing...

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Thursday, December 14, 2023

MORNING JOE WITH THE MAYOR:...Brownsville's John Cowen Sips A Cup With A Handful Of Interested Locals At Luby's...

 


By DUARDO PAZ-MARTINEZ

BROWNSVILLE, Texas |...He's taken a page out of Harlingen Mayor Norma Sepulveda's "Coffee With The Mayor," and we would bitch at him for being a copycat but must concede that Mayor John Cowen is at last finally doing something he's neglected.

Hanging with the community is not his strength.

Cowen, shown in photo above at the microphone during his session with locals at Luby's Cafeteria (Sunrise Mall), is something of a friend of Miss Sepulveda, who began her "Coffee With The Mayor" offerings soon after being elected earlier this year.

This from the City of Brownsville's official website: [ Brownsville Mayor John Cowen Jr. held his inaugural Coffee with the Mayor where he provided community members with the chance to engage in an informal conversation with him. 

Dozens of community members attended. 

"I think it’s important to be able to connect with the community and be able to have to have those face-to-face conversations. I know some people are commenting that elected officials sometimes aren’t there to answer their questions and I want to have that face-to-face approach," first-term Mayor Cowen said. 

Cowen discussed several topics at the event such as SpaceX, Rio Grande LNG, economic growth in the City of Brownsville, industrial development, and the revitalization of downtown Brownsville

Cowen told the audience that 85% of the individuals employed by SpaceX are Brownsville residents which is an example of the talent that can be found in the community.  

The mayor said Rio Grande LNG is expected to provide between 350 to 400 long-term jobs with salaries at about $70,000

Cowen also spoke about some of the projects the city is working on including road improvements, the Lit-Fiber BTX, and the expansion of the Gladys Porter Zoo

"Our zoo is one of our most valuable assets that makes us really special in Brownsville. It’s the biggest tourism driver South of Corpus Christi. Over half a million people come and visit us here every year," Cowen said. 

The mayor said he was pleased by the large turnout (Editor's note: "Dozens" not quite fully visible in the photo, however, so...) and to address the questions posed by the community members. "Part of my vision for this office is to be more approachable and to have that direct face-to-face relationship with the community," Cowen said.  

Cowen plans to hold Coffee with the Mayor events quarterly throughout the city’s four districts. ]

It's long been suggested here that the new mayor do something like this. We believe the coffee session took place this morning. The COB website dated its post today, Dec. 14th.

Not exactly an outgoing, extroverted dude, Cowen seems more the reserved sort of public servant. His fellow mayors in Harlingen and McAllen are outgoing personalities out & about in their communities, visible in all sorts of settings.

Perhaps Cowen is now working on it...

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SUN AWARDS:...Republican Punk Kevin McCarthy is 2023 "Asshole Of The Year"...

 


By DUARDO PAZ-MARTINEZ

McALLEN, Texas |...He's reportedly on hold for a cushy cabinet post in the next Donald J. Trump presidency. Yeah. Him in the photo above - former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy. He's resigned his seat in Congress effective the end of this month, but he's canoodling, seeking and wanting a spot in The White House.

What a major league suck-ass.

For that alone, and he has a load of other personal and political warts, McCarthy is The Sun's "Asshole Of The Year".

The 58-year-old Republican resigned his lofty House seat after being ousted by his fellow "Screw America" Republicans late this year. Far right Republicans thought he was being too much of a, well, "kiss ass" in dealing with House Democrats.

Kevin left the post like an old, spent washerwoman, slinking away quietly at first and then, perhaps after a few shots of whiskey, he roared at those Republicans who'd voted him out of the job.

"I'll still be in national politics," he told reporters. "Look for me like you always do..."

McCarthy isn't going the way of former Speakers by latching onto a cushy lobbyist job. He wants in on the Trump Dictatorship, and the scuttlebutt moving about his feet says he wants to be Secretary of State for the oft-indicted Mar-a-Lago Cheeto.

We could go on with serious, insulting knocks against this Bozo, but just know that the one-time owner of several yogurt shops in his hometown of Bakersfield, California isn't even liked back home.

Kevin McCarthy is "Asshole Of The Year"...

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SUN BEAMS:..."In The Outs Of Texas, A Silent Night"...

 


By DUARDO PAZ-MARTINEZ

ALPINE, Texas |...You could crash on a hard, concrete floor at an ancient rural bus station and find needed rest. Same for an unkempt roadside park along some interstate of the sort that is busy and noisy at three in the morning.

His worst place for sleep had been a dingy, all-night laundromat in one of those dusty, West Texas towns with the sort of name that just fits the harsh geography, like tiny Marathon, or smaller Pecos.

The weird thing there was that, yes, he'd been surprised to find a half-dozen homeless dudes sprawled out like unwanted French fries on the floor between the washers and the dryers. There was some irony there, was his feeling, one of those so close, yet so far away ironies for the ragged and scraggly haired men who no doubt needed a bath and a haircut.

Silence, however, also was part of that scene.

Grown, aging men tucked inbetween utilitarian machinery, few of the ever-rusting washers perhaps making them feel a bit more at home.

Up the quiet road, he drove past an old barn in much better shape, and he noticed someone had strung a rather large holiday wreath there between the large sliding doors. It was out in the open, facing the elements, but it looked as clean as anything he'd ever seen out this way.

For a brief moment, he thought that maybe he should have offered a few of the homeless winos a ride out of there. Perhaps seeing and smelling cleanliness would spark them to clean up, to feel the quiet and imagine a laundered set of clothes and a pretty gal clipping their mangy manes at a hair salon in town.

He was reaching for the radio dial on his pickup's dashboard, but then pulled his hand back. The silence of the night was music yet to be published...

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