This is for those of you that are still upset with my lack of coverage of the local El Paso political scene during the recent municipal races. Even if I could have motived myself to rewrite much of the same commentary, or create new data graphs of where the political money is coming from, the fact remains that nothing has changed. I was just not in the mood to repeat what I have been writing about for over ten years now. Nothing has changed and two local bloggers prove my point very poignantly.
Some of you, if not all of you, may have noticed David Karlsruher and Jaime Abeytia go toe-to-toe last week about the District 2 race. As you likely know, Alexasandra Annello forced Jim Tolbert into a runoff election. It is likely that Annello will win the seat.
You should notice that the tit-for-tat between Abeytia and Karlsruher is the result of two useful idiots serving their masters. Clearly, as I proved some years ago, Abeytia and Karlsruher are each working for their respective masters. What is most interesting is that they are both correct in their assessment of each other’s blogs. Imagine that? Both useful idiots are correct about each other!
Karlsruher has been abundantly open about supporting Jim Tolbert as he is, apparently, a long-time family friend. Karlsruher started the recent tit-for-tat by writing about Jaime Abeytia’s posts about Tolbert being under criminal investigation by the Texas Rangers for alleged violations of the open meetings laws. Karlsruher has been arguing that there is no criminal investigation of Tolbert, much like Trump surrogates are arguing that there is no criminal investigation of Donald Trump. Tolbert has been touting the same argument in his quest to retain the office.
Point is that it really doesn’t matter whether there is proof of a formal criminal investigation or not because historically the local District Attorney, Jaime Esparza, is notorious for not prosecuting public corruption cases in El Paso. The few, one or two, that he has prosecuted for political expediency he lost. Esparza ran cover by calling in the Texas Rangers. Whether the Texas Rangers are investigating or not is immaterial because ultimately it is Esparza that will prosecute the case, if any, and you all know how that will end. But Jim Tolbert knows it is about public perception and Annello has hammered him on it, as she should.
Enter Jaime Abeytia, Susie Byrd’s and Veronica Escobar’s useful idiot. Karlsruher wrote that Annello is Susie Byrd’s candidate. We really do not know how close the relationship is between Annello and Byrd but we do know that Susie Byrd no longer supports Tolbert and, thus, Byrd supports his opponent. It is a simple case of Byrd making sure that everyone knows she wants Tolbert out.
As Susie Byrd’s and Veronica Escobar’s useful idiot, Jaime Abeytia was tasked with getting out the message that Tolbert needs to be gone. Abeytia used the knowledge that Karlsruher’s family receives government work, sometimes substantially, to make the connection between Karlsruher and Tolbert. But, Abeytia did not need to do that because Karlsruher has been open about his family’s friendship with Tolbert. But Abeytia had nothing so he had to rehash the money angle. Truth be told in the case of Tolbert, Karlsruher’s posts are in support of a family friend.
Abeytia needs to stay relevant because many have noticed that he is nothing more than a useful idiot and therefore both Abeytia and his masters, Byrd and Escobar, need him to stay in the game. Hence, the tit-for-tat with Karlsruher.
But since nothing has changed in El Paso politics, both Abeytia and Karlsruher had to rehash old news to write about. As you can see, El Paso remains mired in political shenanigans with much of it driven by Veronica Escobar’s attempt to continue to the public funds funding her, and her cohorts, flights of fancy.
