It is very appropriate that I closed out the year on my blog by writing about the latest example of corruption in El Paso. It is the corruption, after all, that launched my blog. I have always been opinionated but I reserved my opinions to barroom debates or discussions among friends. Like all business owners, I compartmentalized my opinions away from my business activities. However, the El Paso corruption forced me into publicly exposing it because the corruptors went after my livelihood in the mistaken belief that I could be silenced.
Most of you know, by now, the story of the various lawsuits filed against me to get me to stop allowing the exposure of corruption through my online projects. Most of you also know how the corruptors first tried to intimidate me into silence and then they tried to buy my silence with promises of business success. When all of that failed, they conspired to shut me down by intimidating my clients into stopping them from doing business with my company. They figured that by cutting off my income, I would be forced into silence.
Next time you run into Sito Negron, Jose Rodriguez’ District and Communications Director, ask him about the time he asked me if I felt it was fair that I had been “blacklisted” in El Paso. Ask him what that means and you will get a clear understanding of how the corruption is engrained in El Paso.
At that point you will clearly understand what corruption is.
As I explained on Friday, I need to continue to evolve my blog in order for it to remain relevant and of interest to you. El Paso is the perfect starting point for explaining the various border politics that end up in Washington, DC and Mexico City. El Paso is the example of misguided economic and job politics that completely misunderstand the global economy of the world. El Paso is the perfect example of a public policy agenda focused on taxation to create illusions of prosperity. El Paso, the largest metroplex on the US-Mexico border, is actually very unfriendly towards immigrants and to Mexicans. What? You’ve got to be kidding me is likely the reaction among many of you.
Don’t worry, I’ll be explaining this in upcoming posts.
As many of you know, El Paso is an incubator of public corruption and thus it is a perfect laboratory for explaining the corruption that leads to elitism, displacement of minorities, drug trafficking and unsustainable taxation. El Paso allows us the opportunity to understand the maladies that permeate Washington and Mexico City.
Donald Trump is a symptom of the closed-mentality politics that allows many to believe that the solution to jobs, wages and success is only one minority away from resolution. Trump used immigrants as a springboard to the presidency. Trump lied to get elected and many in the electorate bought into it. You’ll be seeing that as I expose it on my blog as his presidency begins to prove it for me.
Politics has many pieces, all intertwined together creating a complex puzzle full of fragments. Many of you reading this believed that my notion of a protected class in El Paso was an exaggeration. Many of you also believe that my stance that much of the public policy agenda in El Paso is an attempt to eradicate the Mexican culture from El Paso is untrue.
Last week I provided you proof of both through Jim Tolbert and Ann Morgan Lilly.
As such, El Paso will continue to be a topic in posts as it is the perfect vehicle for showcasing the problems that both Mexico and the United States will be facing in 2017.
Corruption on both ends is the underlining problem.
Just like I have been able to document the instances of corruption in El Paso, like the Ann Morgan Lilly cases of assault, that allow you to connect the many dots; I will also do the same with Donald Trump.
Tighten up your belts, because 2017 will be one of the roughest years ever. Ann Morgan Lilly and Jim Tolbert are only a small sample of the corruption in El Paso and Donald Trump exemplifies what’s wrong in the United States. And, Enrique Peña Nieto showcases the internal Mexican psyche that keep Mexico mired under the shadow of external forces because we continue to allow ourselves to believe we are a subjugated people.
But don’t worry, it’s not all doom and gloom. There are plenty of things to celebrate as people are starting to realize that they can fight back. Just look at the back peddling at city hall in regards to the arena. The key is not to remain silent and to be informed. I will continue to provide small nuggets of information that I hope will help the activists among you to organize and demand change.
Corruption IMHO is about public officials accepting bribes and bid-rigging, like Cobos and Briones and Flores. Also, EPISD gaming test scores so the Supt gets a bigger bonus. An example of why the private sector pay-for-performance model is not right for the public sector. You go to jail for corruption.
Cronyism is not this kind of corruption because you don’t got to jail for giving campaign contributions to elected officials and then expecting them to help your ideas become real.
It is a legal form of pay-to-play. Wilson’s delaying the bond sale to help Ortega is an example of cronyism as are the tax breaks and subsidies given to DTEP investors. Money changes hands in the form of campaign contributions but no one goes to jail.
Mr. Paredes,
I feel your judgment is clouded by something I feel happened a lot in the last election cycle. People of Mexican descent allowed their emotions to affect the way they look at politics. I’m afraid you have been affected by the politics of emotion.
You would like to equate people like O’rourke, Ortega (O’rtega), Escobar and the rest of the Klan with people like Trump or who voted for Trump. You could not be more mistaken. Ask any of those folks mentioned above and they HATE Trump.
The whitewashing of El Paso is not the same as the anti-immigration push felt in the last election. You see, these people on the left can continue to be elected into office as long as the “handout” mentality permeates El Paso. Those politicians SURVIVE on a largely Mexican/Hispanic populace that will give votes for entitlements. Don’t you see the similarities between the PRI offering gifts for votes and our politicians offering amenities for votes? It’s bribery all the same! Local politicians don’t want El Paso to BE white, they just want it to LOOK white. They’ll convert the Mexican vote into an All-American “white” city filled with organic juice bars and fair trade latte stands on every corner. They’ll create BRING A WHOLE FOODS TO EL PASO Facebook page so this city looks like any city on one of the elite coasts, but not like a bordertown. They are the same people who at a dinner party will say “in Europe, healthcare is free”. They’ll say, “I like San Francisco because I can charge my electric car, while I walk to REI to pick up a jacket for the pro-immigration rally.” These are elites who want El Paso to LOOK white, but need the “Latino” vote to survive politically.
You see the leftist elites in office here want to change the culture (socially, politically, aesthetically) while many Americans including many who voted for Trump want to preserve a political culture rooted in limiting the power of elected officials before they become too drunk with power like we have in El Paso and in Mexico.
To the elites, I say, keep your fair-trade, non-GMO, free-range, organic latte while you drive your way on out of town (to whatever leftist utopia you wish to go) in your Prius. I’ll drink my Cafe de Olla in Segundo and admire what city council has left of our historic landmarks.
Mr. Vegas you hit the nail right on the head! LOcal politicians know that people in ELP will vote Democrat no matter what, and like you said is all emotion. They (Democrats) will keep raising our city and county taxes and raising their salaries at their will, because the progressives expectations is that the property owners pay for the “prosperity” of this town. Property taxes are ridiculously high, just take a drive on Redd Rd between I10 and Helen of Troy, there’s potholes everywhere, the medians were never landscape, when it rains the water drags rocks and dirt on the streets for the kind of taxes we paid compared to other cities is a pathetic kind of prosperity. Unfortunately the majority of ELP voters will keep voting for the same political party time after time and they know it.