Sunday, March 17, 2024

𝐈𝐒 𝐓𝐒𝐂 𝐁𝐎𝐀𝐑𝐃 𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐈𝐑 𝐀𝐃𝐄𝐋𝐀 𝐆𝐀𝐑𝐙𝐀 𝐌𝐎𝐑𝐏𝐇𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐈𝐍𝐓𝐎 𝐉𝐔𝐋𝐈𝐄𝐓 𝐕. 𝐆𝐀𝐑𝐂𝐈𝐀?

 "Power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely."  British Historian Lord Acton


Is Adela Garza Morphing Into Julieta V. Garcia?

With her old running buddy, Sylvia P. Atkinson, incarcerated until 2027, TSC Board Chair Adela Garza proceeds alone with her wanton power grab at Brownsville's historic Texas Southmost College.

Not since the days of UTRGV's Julieta V. Garcia have we seen such ruthless manipulation of an educational institution's Board of Trustees.

In Trump-like fashion Adela has thrown her friend of 40 years, Trustee Eva Alejandro, under the proverbial bus without a single word of explanation.

After four decades of close friendship with Eva Alejandro, Adela trashes that friendship by cultivating and now supporting a candidate to run against her for TSC Place 7, Dr. Norma Lopez-Harris.  To the power-hungry, control is the ultimate high.

Getting complete control of a board of trustees or city commission is the ultimate high for the power hungry, longtime friends and associates be damned!

Remember just a few years ago when Mayor Pat Ahumada referred to himself as Brownsville's "quarterback" and the commissioners as his "blocking lineman?"  Well, Adela is of the same ilk.  Only complete control satisfies her inner cravings.

Actually, according a local blogger, Adela is fortunate to not currently be sitting in an adjoining cell to her longtime friend Sylvia Atkinson.

As Juan Montoya reported 11/3/2020 in El Rrun Rrun:

During cross-examination, new details emerged about a related corruption case that involved Texas Southmost College Trustee Adela Garza. Prosecutors alleged that Garza and Atkinson schemed to profit from telehealth companies that wanted to do business with the Brownsville Independent School District and other local school districts. 

They created a company called "Sunshine Solutions" to launder the money, according to prosecutors. Late yesterday, Garza acknowledged Atkinson had named her as a participant in the scheme. 

OK, Sylvia took the fall for all that and is rightfully serving time for conspiracy, extortion and bribery.  In a recent court hearing, Atkinson is asking for a judge to "set aside" her sentence based on some "honest services" she once performed while saying her crime was mainly "bribery."

Just to illustrate, via a small incident, though, Adela Garza's obsession with control, we'll share our observation from Adela's wonderfully-arranged "Celebration of Life" for the departed Ruben Herrera. 


Early on, I noticed special seating arranged for the Garza Family, and stopped TSC President Jesus Roberto Rodriguez as he passed by my corner chair to ask about it:

"There's special seating for the Garza family, but what about the families of the other trustees?" I asked.

The TSC President laughed, adding:  "I'll check with Adela about that."

Less than half a minute later I saw Adela Garza moving toward me with a very strident, determined walk.

"Jim, that is not seating for my family but for the family of Hector Garza, Ruben's closest friend," Adela explained before turning around to go back to her seat.

I might have bought that explanation had Adela not gone immediately to that seat to rip off the "Garza Family" sign from the back.

A few minutes later, one of Adela's own daughters sat in that very seat clinching which Garza family for which the seats were intended.

Later, during the actual program, Hector Garza came to the stage, not from Adela's designated row, but from somewhere deep in the audience.

OK, it's not a big thing, but it's an indication of character.

Despite no longer being a believer, hundreds of scripture texts still roll around in my feeble brain from my inculcation decades ago.

"He that is faithful in that which is least, is faithful also in that which is greater: and he that is unjust in that which is little, is unjust also in that which is greater." Saint Luke Chapter XVI, Verse X~Catholic Douay-Rheims Version

Jesus own words there seem to indicate that a person capable of manipulating seating for a funeral service could also manipulate those serving on a Board of Trustees to maintain control.

It's usually referred to as being power hungry.

Thinking rationally, which board is likely to better serve the school's interests; one where each board member makes an individual decision or a board controlled by a single overlord?

𝗖𝗔𝗥𝗟𝗢𝗦 𝗚𝗔𝗥𝗖𝗜𝗔 𝗦𝗛𝗔𝗥𝗘𝗦 𝗛𝗜𝗦 𝗩𝗜𝗦𝗜𝗢𝗡 𝗙𝗢𝗥 𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗣𝗢𝗥𝗧 𝗢𝗙 𝗕𝗥𝗢𝗪𝗡𝗦𝗩𝗜𝗟𝗟𝗘

 At Carlos Garcia's campaign event the other day I asked him to clearly state his vision for the Port of Brownsville. Garcia, candidate for commissioner Place 1, emailed the following:


Carlos Garcia

Jim,


Sorry for the delay in responding to yesterday's evening request.

All Port Commissioners should have the common goal of promoting the Port and recruiting businesses that have a mari-time nexus to locate themselves at the Port of Brownsville. 

So I will not use this as part of my goals for the Port. It is a given for all commissioners to make this a priority. As they say "Build it and they will come". Well it has been built and now we have to maintain it or else they will leave.

Three statements about what I would focus on for the Port of Brownsville.

1. Future Infrastructure Needs: A master capital improvement plan is a must with constant review and updating as required.

A Master CIP encompasses all the areas of the Port to include the Fishing Harbor. The Port needs to provide adequate facilities so that our tenants can be successful. 

Numerous port facilities such as warehouses and sheds are leased by the stevedores to temporarily store their client's cargo/product.

Other areas of the port that need to be addressed are streets and unimproved areas. Funding these needs is a big undertaking. By not having a master capital improvement plan fails the Port in identifying the immediate and long term needs and the funding source(s).

2. Fishing Harbor: The fishing harbor serves our local shrimping industry. 

The local shrimping industry is not doing well due to the inflation in the costs of fuel and supplies. The importation of foreign shrimp has kept the prices down. 

It may be time to think about identifying how much of the fishing harbor should be dedicated to the shrimping industry and the rest of the mari-time industry.  

The master capital improvement plan would include addressing the needs and funding sources. In the future it should serve multiple functions in the mari-time industry. 

Port of Brownsville

The Port of Brownsville needs to seriously consider in identifying the long term appropriate use of the fishing harbor. 

3. Port Future Financial Investments: The Port has done well in producing revenues over expenses in the past several years. 

Future revenues will continue to grow as new tenants arrive with major projects that serve the mari-time industry. We need to be good stewards in how that money is spent/invested to meet the needs of the Port and its tenants. With the continued growth of inflation the time is now to repair or build the Port infrastructure.

Jim, this is a little more than what I stated last night. Please let me know if I can be of further assistance.

Respectfully,

Carlos L. Garcia
Candidate for Port of Brownsville Commissioner Place 1

Saturday, March 16, 2024

𝙅𝙊𝙔𝙊𝙐𝙎 𝘾𝙀𝙇𝙀𝘽𝙍𝘼𝙏𝙄𝙊𝙉 𝙊𝙁 𝙇𝙄𝙁𝙀 𝙁𝙊𝙍 𝙊𝙐𝙍 𝙁𝙍𝙄𝙀𝙉𝘿 𝙍𝙐𝘽𝙀𝙉 𝙃𝙀𝙍𝙍𝙀𝙍𝘼 𝘼𝙏 𝙅𝘼𝘾𝙊𝘽 𝘽𝙍𝙊𝙒𝙉 𝘼𝙐𝘿𝙄𝙏𝙊𝙍𝙄𝙐𝙈

 


Frequently, they're not called funerals, but "celebrations of life," and the gathering to commemorate the life of TSC Trustee Ruben Herrera lived up to that description in every sense of the phrase.

The standing-room-only crowd filling Jacob Brown Auditorium was more joyous than somber, so happy to stay afterward, chatting and drinking limonada spiked with cucumber juice, partaking of the ample buffet.


Although many said it, realtor Craig Grove clearly stated it after the service, that "Ruben helped so many educationally and in their legal careers."

Ruben's co-traveler through so many countries, Hector Garza, started his recounting of his travels with Ruben, invoking Steppenwolf's Born to Be Wild:

"Get your motor runnin'

Head out on the highway

Looking for adventure

In whatever comes out way"


Fittingly, Ruben's bag-laden BMW motorcycle was parked behind the auditorium along with his mint condition Corvette, personal symbols of the much-loved world traveler.

Editor flanked by Ruben Herrera and Matamoros attorney Jerry Danache at TSC Law Center 3/02/2024

The Brownsville Observer editor sat with Ruben at the TSC Law Center Ruben helped create just two weeks ago for the Sheriffs Forum.  

Damn, life is so fleeting!


𝙏𝙍𝙐𝙈𝙋 𝙄𝙎 𝙏𝙃𝙀 𝙉𝙀𝙒 𝙇𝙊𝙎𝙀𝙍 𝘼𝙎 𝙏𝙃𝙀 𝙂𝙊𝙋'𝙎 𝙄𝙈𝙋𝙀𝘼𝘾𝙃𝙈𝙀𝙉𝙏 𝙁𝘼𝙍𝘾𝙀 𝙄𝙈𝙋𝙇𝙊𝘿𝙀𝙎

by Gary Sargent, The New Republic

Donald Trump

(March 13, 2024) The House GOP’s effort to impeach President Biden appears to be in deep trouble. Republicans are privately admitting that their case against Biden has fizzled. Moderate GOP lawmakers are signaling dread of any impeachment vote. GOP leaders are pathetically concocting an alternative to impeachment in hopes of keeping the MAGA base happy.

But as we watch all this unfold, let’s not lose sight of one critical piece of the story: If the impeachment push has devolved into a farce, it isn’t just because the case against Biden is so weak. It’s also because the parallel case against Donald Trump is so strong.

That might seem counterintuitive. What does Trump’s culpability have to do with the case against Biden? Yet step back a bit and the dynamic becomes clear: The GOP arguments for impeaching Biden are revealed at their most absurd when the two cases are laid side by side.

What’s more, when the GOP’s game is fully exposed—that it’s not just about hatching fake evidence of crimes by Biden but also about muddying the waters around evidence of crimes by Trump that is very real—that’s when the GOP posture becomes most indefensible.

Signs of this dynamic are everywhere. On Tuesday, the House Judiciary Committee held a hearing that purported to grill Robert Hur, the special counsel who recently released a report exonerating Biden that also contained damning but gratuitous claims about his age and memory.

The Hur hearing was an opportunity for Republicans to highlight the damaging stuff in the report, which, in addition to faulting Biden’s memory, detailed evidence that Biden did willfully retain classified documents. Hur recommended against criminal charges because he couldn’t find evidence that Biden did this with corrupt intent despite searching high and low for many months.

But the hearing was largely a bust for Republicans. The savvy observers at Politico’s Playbook called it a “dud” and reported that it has prompted Republicans to look for an “off ramp” from their impeachment push, which turns on a separate set of claims about the Biden family’s business dealings that have also largely collapsed.

“Republicans of all ideological persuasions are increasingly admitting that they pulled the trigger on Biden’s impeachment too soon and that the effort has been hobbled by embarrassing setbacks,” Playbook concluded, noting that this comes after the GOP’s much-advertised “FBI informant” was indicted for fabricating a story that’s central to the GOP case.

The Hur hearing helped demonstrate why all this is happening. Some of the biggest moments featured Republicans raging at Hur for failing to recommend criminal charges. Inside the MAGA universe, this is a no-brainer: Of course Hur was supposed to recommend charges, and of course the failure to do so can only have been supreme dereliction of duty. But outside that information space, what’s become unavoidably obvious is that Republicans are demanding that Biden be charged with crimes no matter what the evidence actually shows.

Meanwhile, many of the hearing’s other breakthrough moments came when Democrats managed to make the proceedings about the former president:

As you’ll note, in this exchange, California Representative Ted Lieu recited a litany of things that Trump did with regard to classified documents, and he asked puckishly whether Biden had done them, to which Hur was forced to answer in the negative. Importantly, Liu was drawing on Hur’s own report, which explicitly compares Trump’s handling of documents to Biden’s, demonstrating why the former merited criminal charges while the latter did not.

The Democratic strategy in this hearing was to draw out this contrast. As one House Democratic aide told me, the goal was largely to stick “to attacking Trump rather than Hur,” because Democrats wanted to draw Republicans “into a conversation about Trump.”

This led to some ripe moments. After the hearing, CNN’s Laura Coates grilled Ohio Representative Jim Jordan, the Judiciary chair, by pointing out the contrast in the two presidents’ handling of documents. Coates asked Jordan if Trump would have been indicted if he’d done what Biden did—turn over documents and cooperate with investigators. Jordan haplessly answered with a yes, but he could only sputter aimlessly when Coates noted that Hur was originally a Trump appointee.

Underscoring the absurdity of all this, ABC News now reports that Republicans may send referrals to the Justice Department recommending prosecutions related to their findings, as an “exit strategy” from impeachment. While it’s very possible Republicans will ultimately impeach Biden, the case for it has imploded, and this would plainly be the consolation prize thrown to Trump and the MAGA base if it doesn’t happen.

Yet that too only reveals the core absurdity of the GOP game. Republicans won’t even name which Biden family members would be the target of such referrals, and they know the current Justice Department wouldn’t prosecute them anyway. But Representative James Comer, chair of the Oversight Committee, recently told Fox News that such referrals would lay the groundwork for prosecution under a victorious Trump, who has vowed to prosecute the “Biden crime family” without cause.

Incredibly, the Republican message here is basically this: OK, we can’t find any evidence of Biden crimes, but just wait until the guy who promises to prosecute Biden regardless of what the facts show is back in charge! Then we’ll get justice! The GOP scam exposes itself.

Trump doesn’t bother trying to hide the corrupt nature of all of this. He openly declares that he will prosecute the Biden family as revenge, i.e., because of what was done to him, not because of anything the Bidens actually did. Similarly, he is calling on Republicans to impeach Biden primarily as retribution—right out in the open, as an applause line at political rallies.

For Trump, all this is perfectly natural: Impeachment and prosecutions can’t ever be legitimately predicated; all is tit for tat; everything is political all the way down. By contrast, Republicans like Jordan and Comer want to retain the thinnest veneer of legitimacy to these proceedings.

Yet that’s become impossible. At the most fundamental level, the Republican project here is to use all the levers of power at the party’s disposal to erase a reality that cannot be erased: The case against Trump is based on things that actually happened, while the case against Biden is based largely on inventions. This project utterly collapses at precisely the moments when the two cases are compared side by side most unflinchingly. And given that this juxtaposition derives its ultimate force from the damning evidence of Trump’s transgressions, Republicans have no one to blame for this fiasco but Trump himself.

Friday, March 15, 2024

𝗥𝗨𝗕𝗘𝗡 𝗛𝗘𝗥𝗥𝗘𝗥𝗔 𝗠𝗘𝗠𝗢𝗥𝗜𝗔𝗟 𝗦𝗘𝗥𝗩𝗜𝗖𝗘 𝗥𝗘𝗠𝗜𝗡𝗗𝗘𝗥. . . . .

 


𝐅𝐑𝐎𝐍𝐓𝐑𝐔𝐍𝐍𝐄𝐑 𝐀𝐒 𝐊𝐄𝐍𝐍𝐄𝐃𝐘'𝐒 𝐑𝐔𝐍𝐍𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐌𝐀𝐓𝐄 𝐑𝐄𝐕𝐄𝐀𝐋𝐄𝐃 𝐀𝐒 𝐀 𝐒𝐀𝐍𝐃𝐘 𝐇𝐎𝐎𝐊 𝐃𝐄𝐍𝐈𝐄𝐑!

 

Aaron Rodgers

With Biden appearing to small crowds at "invitation only" events and Trump currently tied up in criminal and civil courts, we can briefly divert to the We the People Party of RFK, Jr. to focus on his pending choice of running partner.

The current frontrunner to be Kennedy's VP candidate is footballer Aaron Rodgers, someone Kennedy praised recently as a "critical thinker."

Former Green Bay Packer Rodgers, smart enough to win super bowls, seems to share Kennedy's taste for cockamamie conspiracy theories, rendering the duo a super scary choice to run the country or most anything else.

Mr. Rodgers is now walking it back, but he's on record saying the tragedy at Sandy Hook in 2012, where a gunman killed 20 children and 6 adults "never happened," that the children were "actors" or that, just as many in MAGA feel about the 1/6 insurrection, the incident was a "government inside job."

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

So far, Kennedy has not removed Rodgers from consideration for the role he said he will announce 3/26, simply saying that he needs a running mate who will "maintain a constant state of skepticism toward authority."

After four years of narcissist/liar Trump, could our country even survive Kennedy/Rodgers, two men whose brains seem to no longer function normally?

Thursday, March 14, 2024

𝙁𝙊𝙍𝙈𝙀𝙍 𝙋𝙊𝙇𝙄𝘾𝙀 𝘾𝙃𝙄𝙀𝙁 𝙂𝘼𝙍𝘾𝙄𝘼 𝙑𝙄𝙀𝙎 𝙁𝙊𝙍 𝙍𝙀𝙏𝙄𝙍𝙄𝙉𝙂 𝙍𝘼𝙇𝙋𝙃 𝘾𝙊𝙒𝙀𝙉'𝙎 𝙎𝙋𝙊𝙏 𝙊𝙉 𝙋𝙊𝙍𝙏 𝙊𝙁 𝘽𝙍𝙊𝙒𝙉𝙎𝙑𝙄𝙇𝙇𝙀 𝘽𝙊𝘼𝙍𝘿

 

Carlos Garcia

Carlos Garcia
, officer and ultimately police chief at Brownsville PD in a career spanning thirty years, followed that with another decade at the Port of Brownsville as that entity's chief law enforcement officer.

Now, Garcia is running for Ralph Cowen's soon-to-vacated spot on the Port of Brownsville board, commissioner, Place 1.

Thursday evening at the dreamy Castle Event Center on Paredes Line Road, Garcia addressed those gathered from a typewritten manuscript, but, getting his prepared speech out of the way, Garcia spoke for a few seconds from his heart about his love for public service, his voice quaking with emotion.

Castle Event Center

Former City Commissioner Rick Longoria, who deejayed the event from a stage in front of colored lights, introduced Garcia as an "honest, honorable man" after playing several country songs and a few Spanish language classics.  OK, we'll take "honest" and "honorable" over being a great extemporaneous speaker.

Former City Commissioner Rick Longoria

A pushcard at each table setting gave Garcia's educational background; Porter High School Class of '76, four years in the Marine Corp, TSC, Pan American, F.B.I. National Academy, etc.

Garcia mentioned three goals should he be elected to the Port of Brownsville Board, one of them improving the port's infrastructure to attract more tenants. (I'll adjust the story when he emails me the other two goals.)  
About Half of the Audience at the Castle Event Center

Wednesday, March 13, 2024

𝗥𝗢𝗕𝗘𝗥𝗧 𝗙. 𝗞𝗘𝗡𝗡𝗘𝗗𝗬, 𝗝𝗥 𝗡𝗔𝗥𝗥𝗢𝗪𝗦 𝗛𝗜𝗦 𝗩𝗣 𝗖𝗛𝗢𝗜𝗖𝗘𝗦 𝗗𝗢𝗪𝗡 𝗧𝗢 𝗪𝗥𝗘𝗦𝗧𝗟𝗘𝗥 𝗔𝗡𝗗 𝗤𝗨𝗔𝗥𝗧𝗘𝗥𝗕𝗔𝗖𝗞

 

Aaron Rodgers/Jesse Ventura

As I type on my Acer keyboard, we have 236 days left before the presidential election November 5, 2024 and already both major parties have "presumptive" nominees leaving us with 65% of a year to feast on Biden vs Trump.

My personal preference for the oval office, Pete Buttigieg, remains the most articulate on the scene, but too young, too gay and, of course, not running.  Maybe in 2028, 2034 or 2038.

Breaking into the news cycle, though, is We the People Party candidate Robert F. Kennedy, said to be mulling over his Vice-Presidential running mate, narrowing the selection down to rassler/Governor Jesse Ventura and perfect-spiral-thrower Aaron Rodgers of Green Bay Packers and anti-vaxxer fame.

We hear neither man has been officially offered the job.  Rodgers, of course, already has a job with the New York Jets, where he's expected to play quarterback this fall.

Selfishly, I'd prefer Ventura as someone who seems to always have something interesting to say, but we hear that someone has already registered the domain kennedyrodgers.com with GoDaddy.

My generation was very familiar with the JFK kids who survived infancy, "Sweet" Caroline and John John, but, speaking for myself, I never kept up with Ethel and Bobby's 11 kids until hearing of RFK, Jr.'s presidential run.

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

My friend, Daniel Lenz, spoke some to me about RFK, Jr. and, while I respect the candidate's strong positions on the environment and clean water,  some of his other ideas are somewhat off-putting; that Covid-19 was targeted to attack "Caucasians and Blacks," that Chinese and Ashkenazi Jews are less susceptible to it, that labs in the Ukraine have been collecting Russian and Chinese DNA to "target people by race," that school shootings are linked to the drug Prozac, that the 2004 election between George W. Bush and John Kerry was "stolen,"etc.

But, at least we now have two potential VP candidates to contemplate as the campaign year slowly winds its way down.

Brownsville Observer Editor in 1968 (That was the year Robert F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King were murdered.  The photo was taken on Hackberry Lane, Brownsville)


Sunday, March 10, 2024

𝗧𝗛𝗜𝗥𝗗 𝗕𝗥𝗢𝗪𝗡𝗦𝗩𝗜𝗟𝗟𝗘 𝗧𝗥𝗔𝗗𝗘𝗦 𝗗𝗔𝗬~𝗙𝗢𝗥𝗗 𝗧𝗢𝗨𝗥𝗜𝗡𝗚 𝗖𝗔𝗥 𝗚𝗜𝗩𝗘𝗡 𝗔𝗪𝗔𝗬 𝗣𝗟𝗨𝗦 𝟵 𝗖𝗔𝗦𝗛 𝗗𝗢𝗡𝗔𝗧𝗜𝗢𝗡𝗦 𝗧𝗢𝗧𝗔𝗟𝗜𝗡𝗚 $𝟭𝟮𝟬

 submitted by Rene Torres


𝗘𝗔𝗚𝗟𝗘 𝗣𝗔𝗦𝗦 𝗥𝗘𝗦𝗜𝗗𝗘𝗡𝗧𝗦 𝗘𝗫𝗣𝗘𝗥𝗜𝗘𝗡𝗖𝗘 𝗔𝗡 𝗜𝗡𝗩𝗔𝗦𝗜𝗢𝗡 𝗢𝗙 𝗠𝗢𝗥𝗘 𝗧𝗛𝗔𝗡 𝗠𝗜𝗚𝗥𝗔𝗡𝗧𝗦


 

Eagle Pass, Texas, a border town of 57,000, is being overrun, but, according to locals, it's not by migrants from Mexico or Venezuela creating the problem.

What's overrunning, crushing the town, congesting its downtown streets, occupying every hotel room within 50 miles and frustrating and annoying the citizens, are politicians, media and military responding to the battlecry of Texas Governor Greg Abbott.

Words like "chaos"and "invasion" are being used by residents to describe their frustration with the overcrowding in their city.


At one point 13 other red state governors were in the Eagle Pass for their own personal witnessing of the "border crisis" along with National Guard troops from Idaho, Arkansas, Florida and Tennessee and flag-carrying MAGA folk.  Media with cameras and microphones roamed the town and r
oom rates at local hotels ballooned to $370 per night and up.


Barbed wire was placed in the Rio Grande while fencing and other wire "protected" the city, but it was primarily a political stunt staged by Texas Governor Greg Abbott, a fervent Trumpite.

Hell, even if Abbott's claim of "100 miles of barbed wire" is not an exaggeration, how does that protect 1,954 miles of U.S./Mexico border?

"We asked them not to put up the wire," said one woman, an owner of a pecan orchard, "but they did it anyway."

"It's not the Mexican migrants we're worried about, but all these convoys of guardsman," said another.

"Please don't come to Eagle Pass," said one man being interviewed.

Meanwhile, the Maverick County Republican Chair, Sandy Sassano has a different point of view:  

"We're being invaded by wetbacks, simple as that."