DEMOCRATS:...Huge Fear Of Mayra...Naive Bloggers Posting Cheap Smears...She Knows - "Sometimes, To Get What You Want, You Have To Want It All"...

 

By DUARDO PAZ-MARTINEZ

McALLEN, Texas |...Politics in the campaign season is smoke & mirrors. Any cub reporter working at a daily newspaper will tell you that. The more sophisticated ones in Big City media know the actual score - campaigns will lie and posture.

It's about winning, isn't it?

We can only smile every time local media goes apoplectic on any one event, uttering or social media posting by a candidate - a candidate of either major party.

That is where we are this morning, as Brownsville bloggers go nuts over a photo used by the Mayra Flores campaign they noted was not very honest. Really, bloggers? Is this it? A tempest in a Gordita Pot? Tell me you have more than ubiquitous political trick photography.

Alas, it is a story that is somewhat playing out across the state, a fact Brownsville ever-hating bloggers bank on for some sort of credibility. It is NOT their reporting; it is appropriated news, which seems to be okay with them.

We at The Sun have our criticisms of Miss Flores, a Republican.

But we grant her space and standing in the contest pitting her against Blogger-loved Democrat Vicente Gonzalez for the 34th Congressional District seat he currently holds. The battle will rage all year, with the voter decision coming in the November General Election. The bloggers say Gonzalez is favored; more-important voters have yet to speak.

Gonzalez has done some good for the expansive South Texas district that includes the border counties but also rolls up the Texas Gulf Coast. He has brought federal money to the Rio Grande Valley, as he is supposed to do for the constituency. Ask Harlingen.

But he is no Mayra Flores in the excitable side of national politics. Vicente Gonzalez is more like the adept utility infielder on a baseball team. Nothing flashy about the guy, just good, steady play. That's what we see in him.

Still, our interest in Mayra Flores is there, if only because she is unpredictable as a thinker. That alone ingratiates her with us, as we want to see more Hispanic voices raising Hell inside the ever-racist Republican Party. So, she's with God, Family & Country. That angers the Democrats?

We repeat: Loud Mayra does have her faults. Many of them are of the novice variety. What she seems to have, however, is staying power. She won a Special Election in 2022 that saw her serve in Congress for six months before Gonzalez beat her by 10,000 votes in the general election of that same year.

But Democrats around her are nothing if not settled fuckers believing they own the geography from here to eternity and anyone challenging that is someone who would - egads!! - rip off a photograph off the Internet and claim it as theirs.

If that is all they have against her (oh, they say she lies), well, good luck with sinking the Bismarck with that peashooter.

Ultimately, we see the current attack on her regarding that family cookout flashed onward by way of stolen photographs off someone else's culinary skills as being totally naive.

The bigger story is her continued strength.

The insipid, amateurish bloggers are not addressing that...

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[EDITOR'S NOTE:...Brownsville left-wing blogger Juan Montoya is shown in photo at bottom of the post above. He has vehemently opposed Mayra Flores since the day he wrote she never worked the cottonfields, as she had claimed. He has since been joined by Elderly Blogger Jerry McHale, who largely copies Juan's work as a way to "belong"...]

IMAGE:...In Today's Politics, It's How You Look, Not How You Feel...Republican Trump Gets Internet Facelift...He's A Very Old 77...

 

By DUARDO PAZ-MARTINEZ

McALLEN, Texas |...Getting old is Hell, is what they often say in this youth-oriented country, especially in politics and Hollywood. Looking your age has never been a plus, and going all-bald and wrinkled settles the issue for you.

Old is old.

Candidate Donald Trump has found one way to beat back time. At least in photographs.

The photo you see above is what the Internet says is the real Trump as he looks today. The one below (same photo) shows him with the photoshopped face, in the company of well-wishers at his New Year's Eve party. A younger-looking Trump, yeah.

With a Robert Redford-like touch, we might add.

Political photography, we all know, often takes major leaps backward. Who around here can forget that 30-year-old photo former Cameron County Sheriff Omar Lucio used in his last campaign four years ago (before he died). Lucio was 84 years old at the time, but his favorite campaign photo spoke to a salt & pepper-haired man in is 50s.

No one cared, really. It seems to be accepted in politics at all levels. Image makers love it. Those political operatives given the task of framing a campaign, of putting forward the candidate in his best light - even removing facial blemishes and age-related bummers such as hefty necks and fattened jowls.

Trump is an old cat. He'll be 78 this year, and that's far down the life's road, as they say in the busy geriatric wards across the country.

Should we care?

It's all part & parcel of the fakery well-entrenched in this country as a whole, is our feeling. It used to be fake butts in women drawing the frowns. Now, a babe flat "down there" can likely get padded panties on Amazon. Sales of facial care for males are booming, if you believe the advertising. No one wants to look their age.

Trump, of course, is a narcissist from way back.

That so-called "orange look" he favors in skin coloring is said to be administered to his face and neck daily by a skilled make-up person. Otherwise, he likely looks like an albino, which probably would be a downer for voters. Orange is okay. Apparently.

The Trump campaign war wagon rolls onward. It is carrying not rifles or gunpowder, but barrels of orange something or another...

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TACO TUESDAY:...Dim-Bulb Blogger Labels Himself An Iconoclast...The Odd Face Of Jonathan Gracia...Ronnie Still At It...Mayra Hates Juan...The Dogs of Pat Ahumada...Joey...

 

By DUARDO PAZ-MARTINEZ

BROWNSVILLE, Texas |...It's been a tough year for bloggers here, their days heavy with grief, fatalism and defeat. Readership for all, they will tell you via self-aggrandizing posts, is on the rise, although they lie so often that one could be forgiven for saying it.

Blogging is largely dead these days. It's too-yesteryear, would be our early-morning assessment, even as we sort of participate in the online game ourselves. Hey, yeah, we're out to make some noise, hopefully intelligent noise we say is missing from local discourse.

If you look at local blogging as entertainment and not news, well, it does make one laugh.

Our target today is 74-year-old blogger Jerry McHale, shown in 10-year-old photo above. He is a writer if you believe that when he writes it on his dying blog over and over and over and over - as if to convince himself and not the reader.

Take this, from a posting he offered yesterday: "By nature, I am a bohemian, a non-conformist, anti-materialistic, a rabblerouser and an iconoclast."

He was a lowly (ESL, mainly) schoolteacher for some 35 years! That's a bohemian? A non-conformist? He married three times and had a home and children. A rabblerouser? Maybe 30/40 years ago. He's nothing of the sort these days. Aging fast and hanging on with Maalox.

An iconoclast? He likes the word, but, well, as the word is defined, "......the iconoclast nomenclature can really only be bestowed on you by others and only with some degree of retrospect."

Elderly Blogger McHale (shown wearing birdshit-blue shirt in recent photo at right) labels himself an iconoclast, clearly because no one else will do it or has done it. It only shows his insecurities. The cat is a retired schoolteacher living out his string and nothing more!

Writer? He's written nothing of note or lasting value. His "border" novels are best suited for anecdotal mention on the feces-stained walls of local outhouses.

What he really means to say is that he is a typist, someone with a laptop who has tried writing a book but has never done it for the marketplace. McHale's so-called books - available only at Amazon and not commercial bookstore like Barnes & Noble, the real writer's outlet, are self-published nothingness. The odds of anyone in Brownsville buying one are likely astronomical.

We'd go a step further and say none of his sons has ever read one, much less bought a copy of his "vato-gets-drunk-chases-women-speaks-spanglish" novels.

But he does make us laugh.

Poor dude. Living out his life fashioning himself as something he is not...

Oh, I almost forgot:...I am an avant-garde writer.

HA HA HA HA HA...AHA HA HA HA HA... 

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The gent in the photo above is running for some office. We'd look it up and tell you which one, but that would be granting him certain standing. His name is Jonathan Gracia, however, and we mention him here this week only because we wanted to give him a little push.

No one's heard of him!

Oh, well, voters will decide his political fate. We're just sort of chiming-in on his longshot bid for office, whatever office that may be. State rep., is it? Perhaps. Only, who cares. Politically, Gracia is a nobody. What's he ever done to set himself apart from every blue jeans aspirant out there?

Get a cowboy hat and be mistaken for a sheriff candidate, lad. That and a mustache should get you 10/15 votes to run the jail.

We're big on looks, so we'll just say that this Jonathan has an odd face. The fleshier, almost bigger bottom half looks out of place there with his upper half, like it was molded out of clay. Who knows what voters will see in that, if anything.

They can be fickle, as we all know.

In any case, Jonathan Livingston Gracia should make the seagull as his campaign mascot. You know what they say about them: A gull sees farthest that flies highest.

But, yeah, who cares about this candidate?

We at The McAllen Sun would only back him in a race against Charles "Tadpole" Hasse," cause then Jonathan would win since Hasse has never won a bid for office, has he?

Good luck, Jonathan. You'll need lots and lots of it...

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Ronnie is still in the sheriff's race. That's him coming around the turn in that noisy 1958 Oldsmobile, nine laps behind incumbent Sheriff Eric Garza and just ahead of second pretender Jesus Rosas Jr. Eight laps behind Rosas is some candidate named Trevino, the forgotten candidate who came in from the cold and never had a chance.

Ronnie Saenz, shown pressing the flesh with two voters in photo above, believes he'll be the next Cameron County Sheriff, La Ley Del Condado. He's the only one, however. Boring Ronnie is given no chance of winning, his own camp wondering why he keeps throwing money away on local bloggers pushing his doomed campaign.

Hey, $20 is $20...and as they say here when speaking about better-heeled residents in McAllen upriver, $20 here is $10 there! Yikes, tamale breath. Put that cash back in your wallet. That's cash going down the drain, ese.

Ronnie not listening.

He'll lose the election, shrug his shoulders and go on to a burger & fries life...

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The Brown Blogger has it in for Mayra "Miss Excitement" Flores, our Republican candidate for the 34th Congressional District seat held by Demo Diva Vicente Gonzalez. Why, Juan, what did she ever do to you? That Juan, what a card. He isn't the news reporter he used to be (now using stories from the San Benito News on his fading blog), so we figure he uses Mayra to spice up his day just a bit.

It used to be a Bohemia with this guy, but, well, he isn't writing much about his beloved 14th Street Cantinas anymore.

Leave her be, ese.

Pro-Mexicans Blogger Juan Montoya (shown at right) is not being very Mexican as things concern Mayra Flores. Perhaps we'll slip her a generous contribution so that she can buy an Ad on Juan's gasping blog - TuAbuela.com - and get a change of heart from the Old Jarhead.

We like fairness. Tough, bitching fairness but fairness, yeah.

Montoya looks and is too rigid a dude. Maybe it's his face, or that odd, farmworker-like body of his. Who knows, I know. It could be a myriad of things with that cat.

Mayra will show up for the Pay-Per-View wrestling match against Lost Gonzo Gonzalez in the November Election, and she'll show Juan a thing or two about bold Mexican women. She's a fighter with a big mouth, something that perhaps Montoya does not like in women.

Machismo Journalism is alive and kicking in Brownsville...

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Has anyone seen or heard from former Mayor Pat Ahumada? Geez, Louise. He was just here the other month, throwing out MAGA crap all over the Facebook stage, like some dude unable to decide if he was a politician or a comedian.

Pat should keep on chooglin'.

The only mayor to ever side by the stray dog cannot simply fade away. He has thoughts coming out of his ears! We know, 'cause we've heard him pontificate on a whole lot of lot. Pat Ahumada always had an opinion. Some he stayed true to, some he purposely misplaced.

But that's all politicians, isn't it? Has anyone heard a damn thing from new City Commissioner Tino Villarreal? He was all gung-ho during and soon after the election, but has gone todo turtle. That's him in that shell, officer!

Whatever. We can do without the arrogant Tino, but Pat Ahumada needs to make a Return of The Lone Ranger entrance one more time. His stuff is needed by all local bloggers. They are about to get off the Holiday couch and start slinging shit again as 2024 dawns.

And all that barking at night in the barrios?

Those are local dogs wondering where Pat Ahumada went...

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I met La Chula at a McAllen bar in the days before New Year's Eve. She was hot; I was getting there. Something about a Mexican woman with an arrogant back, and this one had one. Watching her walk into the bar had been eye-opening. Seeing her approach and take a stool at the bar served as my dessert.

An attractive Babe in a black dress at year's end does something to me.

Her name was Linda, which she was. I introduced myself as an iconoclast and she smiled the sort of smile you get at bus stations and airports when someone you meet is going somewhere you are not. Goodbye, sweetheart. Look for me on Facebook, doll.

Anyway, we hit it off nicely and promised to meet at Starbucks on New Year's Eve before heading out to some partying joint. That turned out to be three bars we hit before the night was over. This one, I told myself early-on in the date, needs noise, needs a crowd, needs bright lights, needs love.

She's now with me, if I can say that.

And that's something, 'cause I don't just give away entry to my apartment to any old broad. Well, maybe sometimes, when the moths are on the wing, as the poet once wrote about sexual healing.

2024? So far, so good. Wish me continued happiness, as that will mean a happier blog and less attacks on Brownsville bloggers.

Women have that effect on men...

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Name this clown. He's a squirrely dude serving the folks of Cameron County in some political capacity, only he hasn't done squat since being elected. Well, other than go along on a suggestion that his salary be raised.

Ah, Hell. We'll tell you who he is.

That's County Commissioner Joey Lopez, a grown man going by Joey.

He's apparently a public servant without a public, as his contribution to the betterment of area life has been minimal. Well, okay, non-existent!

Joey Lopez may as well be a ghost of sorts. He's nowhere and likes it that way.

Someone tell him there's nothing wrong with the name Jose Lopez.

Not in Brownsville, Texas, home of some 45,000 Joses...

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One and done. Those high-flying Texas Longhorns saw their season end on a losing note last night in New Orleans. 37-31 was the final score. 

A season of steady good play lost its shine against the rough, tough and undefeated Washington Huskies in Game 2 of yesterday's first round of the 4-team playoffs. Michigan whipped Alabama 27-20 in the first game.

It's Washington against Michigan in the Finals!

I mean, if your care. Texas ended at 12-2 in yet another disappointing finale to a much-ballyhooed season. The Horns will regroup and live to play football another day, is what Head Coach Steve Sarkisian told reporters after the game at the Superdome. That word. Regroup. It's been there at the end of each season for the past - what? - 12 years.

College football, with an exceptional game here and there, has become a drag.

Bring on the pros...

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TACO TUESDAY out...

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THE HOWLING:...Trump Story Is Mainly A "Whites" Story...Hispanics Not In The Cast...No Featured, Speaking Roles...No Standing...

 

By DUARDO PAZ-MARTINEZ

McALLEN, Texas |...Cable television features a load of talking-head shows daily, all of them dependent on politicians for input and analysis of the Trump Story. Radio for overland truckers and rural America is full of right-wing hosts spinning everything from Trump's trials to his chances in the November election.

It is a literal whirlwind of news and information cutting a path from coast to coast as if a national tornado. You can tune-in and get the latest in news, rumors and threats.  

Hispanics are not part of that.

The Donald J. Trump Story is a story by and for White Americans. They are well-represented in the reporting of the news and the digestion of the latest tidbit, whether about Trump's trials or his candidacy for the White House.

Mostly, almost exclusively, it is White people and politicians moving the conversation here and there, angles dependent on political leanings.

We wonder why that is. Why no Hispanic on the talk shows dishing one way or the other on Trump and his problems, his danger.

There are not many in Congress, but those few Hispanics appear to have taken shelter rather than be out front with the noisemakers.

Recently, both the U.S. House and Senate set records for Hispanic representation. The House set a new record after the 2022 midterm elections, with 52 Hispanic members, Caal says. The Senate has a record six Hispanic members.

None of them is a regular on the talk show circuits. Marco Rubio, the Republican senator from Florida, at times will chime-in on Trump's woes, but his appearances are few and far between. Ted Cruz, the junior senator from Texas, also like Rubio a Cuban-American, is never called on to appear.

The others are even less-known, like Alex Padilla, shown in photo above, the Democrat U.S. Senator from California who has never been seen on talk shows. Padilla has been in the senate since 2021, the year of the riot at the U.S. Capitol.

Locally, Congressman Vicente Gonzalez, a veteran Democrat representing the 34th Congressional District of South Texas shown in photo at left, is a non-voice in the Trump Saga. He has said nothing to the press about any of the 91 felonies lapped on Trump or his upcoming four criminal cases. Not one word that we could find.

Hispanics are well-entrenched in Congress. Their numbers may be small, but those there have been there awhile.

They should join the conversation. They should insist on it, have their staff make a few calls to the show producers and get on FOX News and Morning Joe and the rest of the offerings. 

The Trump Story is all around them, taking their political oxygen daily and making them look as if their thoughts and words on such topics as Trump's attempt to overturn the 2020 election and his outstanding accounts with the courts do not matter.

Say something, we say to them...

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HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!..."Auld Lang Syne"...I'll Take A Cup Of Kindness Yet...2024...

..."PERSON OF THE YEAR"... ...Coach J.C. Ramirez Wins 2023 Applause...Brownsville Veterans Memorial High's Chargers Shocked RGV Fans, Roared To State Semifinals...

 

By DUARDO PAZ-MARTINEZ

BROWNSVILLE, Texas |...He began the year back in January as defensive coordinator for the Chargers. He ended it as the brand-new head coach who took a small, battling Brownsville Veterans Memorial High team to the state semifinals, the farthest any football team from the Rio Grande Valley has been in playoff play since the Donna Redskins won the valley's only State Championship in 1961.

The "he" in this story would be one J.C. Ramirez, shown in photo above.

For his lofty achievement and a truly spectacular accomplishment, Coach Ramirez is The McAllen Sun's 2023 Person of The Year.

It began somewhat dismally, as Brownsville Veterans Memorial lost two its first four games - against San Benito and PSJA. It then reeled off eight straight wins before whipping an undefeated, ranked squad from PSJA North. That was followed by a stunning victory over much-favored, also undefeated Corpus Christi Miller in Brownsville.

That upset propelled the Chargers into the semifinals tussle against powerhouse Smithson Valley High. A rocky start led to a rout that had Smithson Valley up 49-0 as the fourth quarter began before the Chargers reeled off 21 unanswered points.

The final score was a painful 49-21.

Ramirez made no excuses for the loss. From a fan's standpoint, it was clear that Smithson Valley had the bigger, faster players. Its defensive line outweighed Brownsville Vets by a sizable margin, leading to a sense of desperation on every Chargers offensive snap.

It's a cliche to say that all teams in state playoffs are losers except one - the eventual champion. Smithson Valley was routed by Aledo High 51-8 the following weekend.

But it was that "Valley High" that Coach Ramirez delivered, as the entire admiring Rio Grande community stayed glued to Brownsville Veterans Memorial High's long run through the playoffs. Usually, it is one and done for valley teams against tougher upstate squads.

Not this year.

Coach Ramirez took Brownville to new heights. In his first year as head coach.

We have no inside info on the make-up of next year's team to say Brownsville Veterans Memorial will again challenge for the state title. This may have been one of those special seasons.

The coach's work is best measured by this factoid: There are seven high schools in Brownsville. State Champion Aledo has one.

Fielding teams for seven schools waters down the talent pool for any one high school.

That alone puts the bright, deserving Klieg lights on Coach Ramirez's tireless drive and ultimate success. What began as a team's struggle to mesh ended in a feel-good story beyond anyone's expectations. This was a truly remarkable season for valley football. 

Coach is our Rio Grande Valley "Person of The Year"...

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NEEDFUL THINGS:...Demos Want Republican Trump As Opponent in 2024...Ballot Rap Is Just A Subplot...They Know They Can Beat Trump...

 

By DUARDO PAZ-MARTINEZ

McALLEN, Texas |...They demonize him daily and forever note his many failings as a president and as a human being, but, deep down, Democrats want Republican Donald J. Trump in 2024. They want him badly, as in right now - nominate his ass and let's get it on, as referee Mills Lane liked to say before Big Time heavyweight boxing matches in Las Vegas.

Don't be fooled by all that ballot or no ballot crapola playing in some states. Ask any Democrat willing to go full-bore honest and you'll get the word: Biden vs. Trump in the Election Day Main Event.

Maine horse-collared Trump this week, kicking him off the Pine Tree State's ballots while citing his role in the January 6, 2021 U.S. Capitol riot, i.e. the insurrection. This followed similar action taken earlier by Colorado, and it may just precede the same from a few other states before the issue is resolved.

Still, Democrats have steadily joined the chorus of sitting politicians not quite cool with the idea of Trump getting the boot.

Angus King, an Independent U.S. Senator from Maine who voted to impeach the former president during his second impeachment trial, had this to say about Trump's banishment from his state:

"Although I respect the Secretary of State's careful process – which she was specifically required to undertake under Maine law – absent a final judicial determination of a violation of the 14th Amendment's disqualification clause, I believe the decision as to whether or not Mr. Trump should again be considered for the presidency should rest with the people as expressed in free and fair elections."

Those are actually the kindest words you'll ever hear from King about Trump, a politician he has criticized harshly and often in the past.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, also quickly came out against Trump being banned. No word yet from left-leaning New Mexico and politically-unsure Arizona - states that may eventually join the Ban Trump Movement. New York is also in the conversation on that, as is Oregon.

Shirley Weber, California's Democratic secretary of state, certified Trump on the Golden State's ballot for the March 5 primary hours after her Maine counterpart, Shenna Bellows, said Trump was not eligible to be on the ballot there on the same primary day.

Weber's move is in sync with what Newsom – himself a rising star in Democratic politics – says is the best way to deal with Trump.

"There is no doubt that Donald Trump is a threat to our liberties and even to our democracy," Newsom said in an earlier statement. "But, in California, we defeat candidates at the polls."

Faced with nagging issues like this one, the inclination on the part of national politicians is to ride things out. Forcing solutions never works. Here, it appears our elected representatives want the courts - and the voters - to deal the cards.

A second layer of the story here is that some Americans, from both parties, believe a younger Republican could defeat President Joe Biden. At the head of that small class of second-tier candidates has been former South Carolina Gov. Nikke Haley and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.

Neither, however, has cut into Trump's sizable polling lead, even after four televised debates.

Haley's recent rise was derailed this past week when, during a news conference in New Hampshire, she was asked to name causes of the American Civil War and she ignored slavery. A hasty correction the following day did little to assuage those she had confounded.

DeSantis, meanwhile, has spent millions and seen it all go for naught.

He is now trailing Trump and Haley, according to recent polls. Serious financial backers and senior campaign aides have bailed of late. It says here that DeSantis peaked months ago and is now just another headless body on the campaign trail, there alongside defeated businessman Vivek Ramaswamy.

The Iowa Caucus on January 15 will set Trump's nomination sails, and the word from some of the major political pundits is that he may have the GOP nomination in his wallet by Super Tuesday's voting in early-March.

That will make Democrats extremely happy...

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ROUGHED UP:...Republican Trump Kicked Off Primary Ballot In Maine...Insurrection, Bubba?...Oh, No!!!...Sullied Supreme Court Will Rule...

 

By DUARDO PAZ-MARTINEZ

McALLEN, Texas |...He's been getting the benefit of the doubt for long months, that riot at the U.S. Capitol hanging around his neck like a spoiled 50-lb. ham, but it appears a predicted snowball of efforts to kick him off state ballots is now underway.

Hail, Maine!

The northeastern state has coldly told crazed Republican Donald J. Trump that he won't be on the Primary ballots. The move follows an initial stab undertaken earlier by Colorado. So, yeah, who's next?

This from apnews.com: [ Maine on Thursday removed Donald Trump from the state’s presidential primary ballot under the Constitution’s insurrection clause, becoming the first election official to take action unilaterally as the U.S. Supreme Court is poised to decide whether Trump remains eligible to return to the White House.

The decision by Secretary of State Shenna Bellows (shown in photo below) follows a ruling earlier this month by the Colorado Supreme Court that booted Trump from the ballot there under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment. That decision has been stayed until the U.S. Supreme Court decides whether Trump is barred by the Civil War-era provision, which prohibits those who "engaged in insurrection" from holding office.

Bellows suspended her ruling until that court system rules on the case. In the end, it is likely that the nation’s highest court will have the final say on whether Trump appears on the ballot in Maine and in the other states. ]

That "insurrection basketball" is now in the Supreme Court's court.

Analysis on what the justices will do is all over the place. Some pundits say it will eventually side by the states; others say it won't even take on the case, leaving the lower courts to rule and then simply live with the ruling, essentially bailing on being put on the spot.

Trump continues to play with court dockets by way of an avalanche of appeals, but the fat chickens will ultimately come to roost. He's standing by his belief that whatever he said or did during the day of the riot fell within the scope of his presidential duties, a position many legal experts find dubious.

Should the high court strap on its pants and rule?

Yes, it says here.

It may not have the best of reputations these days, but the U.S. Supreme Court still wears its high-fallutin standing in American society. Every contested thing seems to be finding its way before the court.

Colorado's case is expected to hit the court's docket on January 4th, one day before the Rocky Mountain State has to okay ballots. Iowa holds is caucus on January 15th, followed by the vote in New Hampshire and Super Tuesday in early March.

As expected, the defensive Trump camp labeled Maine's ruling as an over-reach.

Whatever.

So long as the issue gets to court sooner rather than later...

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SWITCHEROO:...Fondled In Public And Losing At Home, Colorado Republican Lauren Boebert Abandons Her 3rd Congressional District...Will Move Across State...

 

By DUARDO PAZ-MARTINEZ

McALLEN, Texas |...She was fondled nicely at a stage play in Denver this year, there caught on security video playing touchy-touch with a male friend. Theater-goers seated around her looked away mostly, but the two-way groping went on for several long seconds, the guy's hands cupping Congresswoman Lauren Boebert's breasts as if some pumped-up high schooler on a first date.

On stage, the play "Beetlejuice" went on.

Republican Boebert and her pal would be kicked-out before the show ended, this after she also refused to stop vaping while seated in the audience.

Well, now the 38-year-old grandmother has kicked herself out of her 3rd Congressional District in Western Colorado and is moving across the state to the eastern side to run for office. Pundits in the Rocky Mountain State have said she had no chance of being reelected after that sex-in-the-seat act and her noisy, ceaseless ways of staying in the news.

Boebert is a hothead in Congress.

She's not the only one. Georgia's Marjorie Taylor Greene comes to mind, as does Florida's Matt Gaetz.

But the attractive Boebert, who filed for divorce earlier this year, has seen her fortunes drop dramatically in her home district. Democrats had been gearing up for a run at her seat, with Boebert claiming her departure came after realizing that "Hollywood" money was being injected into the race to beat her.

This from newsweek.com: [ Lauren Boebert announced on Wednesday that she's seeking to switch districts, from Colorado's third congressional district to its more conservative fourth, in what the Donald Trump supporting firebrand said would be a "fresh start" following a "pretty difficult year for me and my family."

The move inserts Boebert into a tough GOP primary fight to replace Representative Ken Buck, who has announced he won't seek re-election in a district he won with just over 60 percent of the vote in November 2022. By contrast, at that election, Boebert only narrowly beat Adam Frisch by around 500 votes, with the self-styled "conservative Democrat" having already announced a second bid for the district in 2024.

However, Boebert's move has already sparked a backlash from Republicans in Colorado's 4th Congressional District, including from state Representative Richard Holtorf who had already announced a bid for the House seat.

In a statement responding to Boebert's announcement, Holtorf commented: "If you can't win in your home, you can't win here. She knew she'd lose in her own district and I'll show her that'll she'll lose here too." ]

Those who follow congressional politics and excitable Boebert in particular know that she's been on a losing streak, of sorts...

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IMMIGRATION:...On The Hoof...Thousands, Says The Media...Mexico Meeting U.S. Secy. Of State Today...Texas Just Being Texas...

 

By DUARDO PAZ-MARTINEZ

McALLEN, Texas |...The photographs are dramatic, no question about that. Any sort of unwanted mob action spurs fears in people. Who are these guys and why do they want to come here? There are answers, of course. Only, during harsh political times of the sort we are currently living, few want answers at all.

They want action.

They want someone to stop the mob.

A hurried meeting is on tap today in Mexico City between Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador and U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken. Again, talks will hash-out the problem and the long list of solutions - none which has ever worked.

Hordes of Migrants are on the hoof. They are coming to the southern border with great hopes of entering the country for whatever reason they carry in their pocket. It is the country's roiling socio-political issue, a burr in the national saddle so to speak.

What the hey to do? Is the federal government doing enough to stem the surge? Is that patchwork fencing even working. The courts have rid Texas of its mid-river buoys in the Rio Grande and allowed the U.S. Border Patrol to cut razor wire obstacles set in place by Texas Republican Governor Greg Abbott, a politician who believes he can skirt federal law at will.

He's wrong. The courts have sat him back down every time he dreams up and puts into effect another of his harsh responses. Abbott is not the ruler of an independent state. He is doing what Arizona did a dozen years ago, when the federal courts also shut that down.

Immigration is a federal responsibility, and the government sooner or later takes ownership of the mess.

Texas has done much to fend-off the migrants thanks to a hellbent approach taken by Abbott, who has followed the Far-Right Way and made political hay with the lives of migrants Texas detains and often buses to other states. That is not a solution; that is a political jab.

Abbott knows it.

But he believes Texans are dumbasses who believe he is a ruler of sorts and not an elected official. Most who follow the ways of idea becoming law know that some are challenged. Abbott has lucked into the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, which is sympathetic to Republican politics. The U.S. Supreme Court, ultimate decider, is another thing altogether.

Abbott keeps losing there.

States, no matter how independent and cowboyish, cannot create and enforce their own immigration laws, just like they cannot print their own money or open their own embassies. Federalism reigns. Texas cannot always get what it wants.

It is a bitter pill for Abbott to swallow, but there it is.

Texas may yet put up some more creative blocks for the migrants, but even the staunch defensive line of the Texas Longhorns would not be able to line-up and stay for any length of time.

Repeat after me: immigration is a federal responsibility.

Now, if a suddenly-energized Uncle Sam next arrives with an armada of PBRs (machine gun-armed patrol boats of the sort used in rivers during the Vietnam Conflict) or a convoy of concrete trucks to at last erect that 50-foot wall from Brownsville at the lower end of the Rio Grande to Southern California, well...

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[EDITOR'S NOTE:...By the way, the photo of the marching migrants you see atop this post was taken in 2018 and involved Hondurans, not the Colombians and Venezuelans said to be in the current convoy. The story (problem) is not new, as isn't the photography...) 

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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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"...

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...

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

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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