Border Blogs: Expressing our Border Culture

U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, delivered the following opening statement during the first day of Solicitor General Elena Kagan's Supreme Court confirmation hearing:

Several people with ties to El Paso media spent four days taking in the latest in multimedia training and engaging in hot topics during the National Association of Hispanic Journalists annual convention in Denver last week. About 800 journalists from...

A member of the yellow-dog democratic faction called me rather concerned that Commissioner Escobar had been heard at a conservative gathering that she was a, "fiscal conservative" that would not raise taxes. He called me because he knew I was at some forums with her and wanted to know what she was saying to the public at those debates. If it is true that Escobar is shifting right, this would be jaimeoperezhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05168740247697542660jaimeoperez@yahoo.com0

Marijuana advocates Beto O'Rourke and Steve Ortega were shaken up over the fact Mayor John Cook and City Manager Joyce Wilson were summoned to appear in District Judge Bonnie Rangel's courtroom at the request of Theresa Caballero and Stuart Leeds during a city council meeting. They claim the episode was an "example of the dysfunctional courts system in El Paso." They added they are upset one jaimeoperezhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05168740247697542660jaimeoperez@yahoo.com1

Gov. Rick Perry's campaign released a web video today calling Bill White "shady" and accusing him of "Whitewashing" his record.

The ad attacks White for his ties to a company that provided generators to Houston after Hurricane Rita.

Perry spokesman Mark Miner also tried to attend the Democratic Convention in Corpus Christi to continue the criticism but was asked to leave, according to the Dallas Morning News.

     

A political action committee that calls itself Back to Basics released its own video this week attacking Perry.

Back in November, in a post titled, Lawsuit shakes up El Paso blog world, we wrote about ethics commission chairman Stuart Leeds suing online columnist David Karlsruher for David K's criticism of Leeds and how he might use the ethics...

     U.S. Sen. John Cornyn today issued a statement commending Gen. Stanley McChrystal for his service, while lauding the man who will replace him as the top U.S. Commander in Afghanistan.

    President Barack Obama named Gen. David Petraeus to the post after accepting McChrystal's resignation.

    McChrystal came under fire after his scathing comments about the president and his aides were published in a Rolling Stone article. 

 “Gen. McChrystal has served with great distinction in Afghanistan, Iraq and around the world, and I wish him the very best,” Cornyn said. “Gen. Petraeus is a tried and true field commander and the architect of modern counterinsurgency strategy. Under his proven leadership during the surge in Iraq, our men and women in uniform turned the tide there.  I am confident Gen. Petraeus will lead our troops to victory against those who seek to turn Afghanistan back into a terrorist breeding ground. He deserves our nation’s thanks for accepting this assignment, and my prayers and best wishes go with him to Afghanistan.”

    Update:

    U.S. Congressman Silvestre Reyes just released this statement:

    "I understand and support the President's decision to accept General McChrystal's resignation, and applaud his swift action to assign General Petraeus to continue the strategy in Afghanistan that he was integral in developing.  I have just heard from General Petraeus that there will be no loss of continuity in our mission there.  From his experience commanding our forces in Iraq, to his assignment as the head of U.S. Central Command, General Petraeus has served our nation with distinction. I commend him for once again answering the call to serve in this capacity."

    Democratic gubernatorial candidate Bill White will be in El Paso Wednesday to discuss education.

    White, who is challenging Gov. Rick Perry in the general election this November, also plans to stop in Fort Stockton and Pecos.

    Campaign spokeswoman Katy Bacon said White will visit El Paso at 3 p.m. to listen to educators and administrators discuss accountability, college readiness and financial needs.

    "Bill believes we need fewer mandates out of Austin and more local control," Bacon said.

    The campaign said teachers, school board trustees and community members from the county's nine school districts were invited to the event at El Paso Community College's Administrative Services Center, 9050 Viscount.

    White will stay in El Paso for a fundraiser.

    The list of supporters for the fundraiser includes Mike Dipp, Carmen Perez, Jim Scherr, Shari and Stuart Schwartz, Sam Legate, Dale and Libby Linebarger, Jay and Rene Reyes, Danny Anchondo, Susan and David Austin, Linda Kirby and Carl Green, Annabelle and Travis Johnson, Enrique Moreno, Chuy and Marty Reyes and Joe Spencer.

       

Not long ago, a local radio talk show host mocked a local political activist for "running for everything under the sun." The embarrassed activist called in to clarify he had run for a few positions and to stand up for himself in the face of the apparent intention to humiliate him. Any citizen who engages civic activity and participates in the life of the community should be respected, not jaimeoperezhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05168740247697542660jaimeoperez@yahoo.com0

    A new poll has Republican Gov. Rick Perry and his Democratic challenger Bill White in a dead heat.

    Public Policy Polling surveyed 500 Texas voters and found Perry and White tied, each with 43 percent support. About 14 percent of those surveyed remained undecided. The margin of error for the poll is plus or minus 4.4 percentage points.

    The figure has tightened since the group's last poll four months ago, which showed Perry with a six point lead over White.

    A Rassmussen Poll released last week has White trailing by eight points among 500 likely voters surveyed. The margin of error for that poll is plus or minus 4.5 percentage points.

    According to Public Policy Polling, White was able to close the gap by appealing to 42 percent of independent voters, compared with Perry's 36 percent.

    “Bill White has the potential to give Democrats their biggest bright spot on what will probably overall be a bad election night in November,” Dean Debnam, president of PPP, said in a statement. “A win in the Texas Governor race would be huge for the party and instantaneously make White one of the most prominent Democrats in the country.”

    About 49 percent of those surveyed said they disapproved of Perry's job performance.

    The poll also showed that only 10 percent of the voter's surveyed wanted Perry to lead the presidential ticket in 2012. About 69 percent said they do not want him to run for president.   

    

   

    A preview of the Jersey Shore in Miami gave the people over at PolitiFact new material after Nicole "Snooki" Polizzi said that she no longer used tanning beds.

    In a promo video of the MTV show's new season, Polizzi said President Barack Obama implemented "a 10 percent tax on tanning."

    "And I feel like he did that intentionally for us," she said in the video. Sen. John "McCain would never put a 10 percent tax on tanning because he's pale and he would probably want to be tan."

    Her comments drew this Twitter response from McCain on June 9:  "u r right, I would never tax your tanning bed! Pres Obama's tax/spend policy is quite The Situation. but I do rec wearing sunscreen!"

    To this, PolitiFact responded, "We should hope so. McCain has a history of battling skin cancer."

    Snooki's comments about the 10 percent tax were rated as true on PolitiFact's Truth-o-Meter.

    Below is what PolitiFact had to say about the comment:

"Did President Barack Obama put a 10 percent tax on tanning? On March 23, 2010, Obama signed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (aka the health care bill) into law. And Chapter 49, SEC. 5000B makes this all very clear: "There is hereby imposed on any indoor tanning service a tax equal to 10 percent of the amount paid for such service."

We were pretty sure Snooki was kidding about Obama passing that provision specifically to stymie the Jersey Shore crew.

But it turns out that the president had mentioned her by name on May 2, 2010, and said she'd be exempt: "This next provision is called the Jersey Shore-Up," Obama said. "It reads: 'The following individuals shall be excluded from the indoor tanning tax within this bill: Snooki, J-WOWW, the Situation, and House Minority Leader John Boehner.'" ("The Situation" and "JWOWW" are other members of the Jersey Shore cast.)

Alas, Obama's comment was made during the White House Correspondents Association Dinner. In other words, it was a joke.

(Yes, it scares us too that Obama and McCain are so familiar with Jersey Shore.)

If we really wanted to pick a fight with Snooki, we could take issue with her saying it was a tax on tanning. There's no fee on sunshine, just indoor tanning. Or that it's Obama's tax. There's no indication an indoor tanning tax was Obama's idea.

It was proposed by Senate Democrats in December as an alternative to a proposed tax on cosmetic surgery. The cosmetic surgery lobby (funded by plastic surgeons) apparently held more sway than the indoor tanning lobby. The Congressional Joint Committee on Taxation projected the tax will raise $2.7 billion over 10 years to help offset the cost of expanding medical coverage. Legislators said they also hoped it might discourage teens from indoor tanning, as some studies suggest it is linked to higher risk of cancer. The bill was passed by Congress, but Obama signed it, so we think Snooki's assigning the tax to Obama is fair.

One other small point. The indoor tanning tax goes into effect on July 1, 2010. So when Snooki made her comment, she still could've gotten her tan on sans Uncle Sam's extra reach. But we're assuming Snooki isn't so much worried about the money as the principle.

We rate her comment friggin' True."

In recent weeks, a tense atmosphere on the issue of border security with the adoption of SB1070 and the recent murders of Mexican citizens at the hands of U.S. immigration police has arrived.

This is due mainly to the idea we have that the observed violence In Mexico as a consequence of the war on drugs, could have a spillover effect across the border. U.S. governors of border states have demonstrated their concerns and sent to President Obama a letter asking for support and requesting the dispatching of 6,000 military elements.

However, according to a recent study by the FBI, the top four big cities in America with the lowest rates of violent crime are all in border states. San Diego, Phoenix, El Paso and Austin among the safest regions of the US. moreover, only 3% of the active border policemen suffer from some sort of attack, while 11% of policeman in the rest of the USA do.

The idea of a threat of violence crossing boundaries and getting into the U.S. has gained popularity among governors of border states, but according to Lloyd Easterling, a spokesman for U.S. border police, “The border is more secure now than it has ever been.”

According to Arturo Saruhkan, Mexican ambassador to the U.S., reports from the border are almost always one sided, and do not reflect what actually can happen at the border. Saruhkan said that “the effect of transfer of violence from Mexico to the United States does not exist”. In fact, most cartels operating in the border are not controlled by Mexican drug trafficking, and have been established there for a long time now.

Although governments in border states have requested support from the federal government to combat violence, statistics show that not only has it not been increasing, but has decreased, and the border states are among the safest in the U.S. A 2009 FBI crime report indicates that crime in Arizona has fallen. Violent crime in border towns has dropped by more than 30% and out of the 25 largest cities in the United States, San Diego, where one in four residents is an immigrant, has the lowest rate of violent crime.

In fact, according to data from a 2009 report by the World Health Organization (WHO), Mexico is much less violent than what is publicly perceived, even despite the fight against organized crime. Mexico is the fourth safest country in Latin America. Furthermore, the U.S. ranks # 42 in murders per 100,000 inhabitants, while Mexico is ranked 52 in the same list.

Border state governors have no solid foundations to have this fear. In fact, according to Martha Sanchez, a reporter from the Associated Press. in the U.S. it is safer to be a border police than a police in any city across the country. The figures speak for themselves. How would you perceive the violence if you would focus only on data and facts, and you drop your interpretation? How would others perceive Mexico? The power is ours.

http://www.elpasotimes.com/ci_15319463?IADID=Search-www.elpasotimes.com-www.elpasotimes.comThe Killing Fields: Harvest of Women, the first investigative book about the Juarez murders by a U.S. journalist.

    Democratic gubernatorial candidate Bill White has inched up in the latest Rasmussen Poll but still trails Gov. Rick Perry by 8 points.

    The poll of 500 likely voters showed Perry dropping two points below 50 percent and White getting 40 percent support.

    That means White has closed the gap since the last Rasmussen poll which had him behind by 13 points.

    Rasmussen noted that Perry's support has remained within a 47 percent to 51 percent range in its polls this year. White's support ranged between 38 percent and 44 percent.

     Five percent of the voters surveyed said they prefer another candidate and 8 percent remain undecided.

    About 53 percent of Texas voters approve of Perry's job performance, while 45 percent disapprove.

Beau Bagley has a new title over at KTSM-TV Channel 9 (cable Channel 10). The weekend sports anchor at the NBC station is now the assistant sports director. He is now second in command in the sports department after Fred...

Remember this Super Bowl commercial?

Rick Perry's campaign has borrowed from that Google commercial and released a similar video that jabs at his Democratic opponent Bill White.

Speaking of videos...

Burnt Orange Report, a Democratic blog, has released its own video playing off of a Perry press conference in which White supporters chanted "Rick Chicken Perry."

    Democratic gubernatorial candidate Bill White attempted to give Gov. Rick Perry a new moniker during a press conference Thursday in Austin.

    The moniker: Part-time Perry.

    White's campaign photocopied monthly calendars and handed them out to the media after crossing out all the days he said Perry did not work. The calendars were accompanied by several pages with Perry's official schedule from January through May.

    White said the schedule showed that the governor worked about seven hours a week. He said Perry has skirted his responsibility to tackle a projected $18 billion budget shortfall.

      "No wonder the state was unprepared to deal with this shortfall when we have a part-time governor working a full-time job," White said.

    Perry's schedule does show meetings with state officials that include House Speaker Joe Straus, Comptroller Susan Combs and Commissioner of Higher Education Raymund Paredes.

    Perry was seeking the Republican nomination for governor through early March. He faces White in the general election this November. Campaign events are not included in the official schedule.

    White said Perry held a press conference attacking the Texas Environmental Protection Agency but the schedule does not show that he attempted to speak with the agency itself.

    He accused Perry of having time to talk to Arizona's governor over the telephone but not visiting with police chiefs, sheriffs and federal agents on the border. He also said Perry met with the CEO of BP but not with the families who lost loved ones or people in the offshore industry.

    Perry's campaign was not immediately available for comment. We will update the post when we get a response.

      Update:

    Alejandro Garcia, a spokesman for the Perry campaign, said White is trying to distract from his own record in Houston.

    "Bill White left Houston in financial ruin," Garcia said. "He left it in very, very bad shape and now the new mayor of Houston has to deal with that. You really cannot compare."

    Garcia said it is because of Perry that Texas leads the nation in job creation.

    "It is not because Gov. Perry has been sitting down doing nothing," Garcia said. "He has obviously been working."

    He said the $18 billion shortfall is a projection and is not certain. But, he said, Perry dealt with a $10 billion shortfall in 2003 and can do it again.

I suppose it should come as no surprise.

Despite an arguably tainted federal crusade and its misuse of FBI publicity-oriented tactics to slam guilty and innocent alike

And

Despite the intention of the feds to destroy one political group and solidify support for another

And

Despite the effort by those self-same FBI operatives to cover their skullduggery with high-sounding phrases of cleaning up "corruption."

The stupid among us continue with their penchant for cutting deals as if nothing at all had ensnared their colleagues over the last five years.

Leaving aside the innocent for a moment, the stupid among us really need to wake up and smell the Kanoff thesis.

You remember the Kanoff thesis right? Named for the zealous prosecutor in the FBI cases in El Paso, Debra Kanoff, the thesis holds that political contributions are bribes.

If you want to know who pulls a politicians strings, look at their financial contributions.

It didn't take long for influence peddlers to rear their ugly heads.

No doubt, the egg on the face of federal prosecutors, due to their inability to bring their targets to justice and have them serve jail terms, has made them gun shy.

The more things change...

Have you ever wondered what cities people move to when they leave El Paso? How about where people come from when they move to the city?

Forbes has created an interactive map that shows 2008 migration patterns in the United States.

The map below uses red lines to show which counties El Pasoans moved to in 2008. The black lines show who moved to El Paso during that time.

Click here to see the El Paso interactive map. Use your mouse to scroll over the counties and get exact counts.

    Democrat Bill White accused Gov. Rick Perry today of using a "secretive nonprofit" to fund personal trips and expenses.

    According to the TexasOne website, the nonprofit is a source of economic development marketing funds for the state. White's campaign, though, calls it a slush fund for the governor's personal and campaign travel.

    A statement from the campaign said Doug Pitcock, the CEO of Williams Brothers Construction Company, paid for a plane to fly Perry to Isreal and then reported it as a charitable donation to TexasOne. The statement also claims that the company was later awarded $100 million in highway contracts. 

    "Texans need to see Perry's TexasOne travel records," said Katy Bacon, White's campaign spokeswoman. "What other companies are using 'charitable' contributions to buy influence and fund Perry's expensive personal tastes? Each time Rick Perry's global travel is put under a microscope, we see that the career politician's using corporate and campaign contributions for his personal purposes."

    Perry campaign spokesman Mark Miner said White is simply criticizing tools that bring jobs to the state and promote Texas as a place to do business around the world.

    "Bill White is attempting to deflect from the fact that as mayor of Houston he was steering to a business that he had a financial interest in during Hurricane Rita," Miner said. "He is a desperate politician who is attempting to deflect from his ethics problems when he was mayor of Houston."

    Miner reiterated the Perry campaign's call for White to release his tax returns during the years that he served as deputy secretary of energy and as chairman of the Texas Democratic Party.

    The Perry campaign held a press conference at White's campaign headquarters in Austin to criticize White for his ties to a company that provided generators to Houston after Hurricane Rita.

    Campaign staffers were greeted by White supporters who chided the governor for refusing to debate by chanting "Rick Chicken Perry."

    Perry has said that he will not discuss debates until White complies with his request to release all of his tax returns. White has released his tax returns from the time he was Houston's mayor.

    Below is a video of today's press conference courtesy of Elise Hu at Texas Tribune.