Saturday

It’s Saturday.

What’s on your mind?

We deserve better

Brutus

31 Responses to Saturday

  1. Question says:

    Who is going to win the mayoral race next year? I’m not asking who you prefer, I am asking who you think will win.

    Like

  2. Anonymous says:

    Robert Francis O’Rourke has spent the bulk of his campaign proclaiming that white Americans are largely unrepentant racists who need to atone for historical misdeeds. Yet he, a white male, insists on running for president of the united states, against minority candidates.

    How are his actions not completely hypocritical?

    Further, to clarify his retelling of history, white America didn’t own slaves. The “south” didn’t own slaves.

    Southern Democrats were slaveowners. Why is he not singling out Democrats as being historic racists?

    If an actual history of slave ownership is not appropriate criteria for determining who is a racist, how is it appropriate to label someone who is merely white as a racist?

    As an associated point, how is making everything about race a demonstration of equality and virtue? Is Robert Francis O’Rourke somehow specially qualified to determine issues of race and inequality? He is the white savior that minority groups need to save them?

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    • anon says:

      yawn. find another whipping horse.

      Liked by 1 person

      • Anonymous says:

        I guess you are a proud democrat. do you celebrate the day Lincoln and king were shot by democrats? will democrats make those federal holidays if they get back in power?

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    • 🤣😂🤣😂🤣😂 …and here I thought it was only me…

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    • Anonymous says:

      The answer to your second question is key to the problem with your argument. Because the descendants of all those white, slave owning southern Democrats are now Republicans.

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      • anonymous says:

        Nope.

        Beto and his wife are Democrats and both are descendants of slave owners.

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        • Anonymous says:

          Forgive me for making a generalization that was too confusing. The majority of southern states up to the 1970’s were under Democratic control. The southern states are now solidly Republican. Ergo one can conclude that the majority, obviously not all, of the descendants of slave owners in the south are now Republican.

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          • anonymous says:

            Nope.

            Grossly faulty logic.
            Migration patterns could also explain the change.
            Point being is you have no proof whatsoever that their is any
            truth to your claim.
            For all we know those southern democrat slave owners moved to
            California.

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          • Anonymous says:

            Statistical probability should be sufficient, but hard evidence would be easy enough through demographic study. Also, if one was wealthy enough to own slaves , they would have had property and the statistical probability of them leaving that source of wealth and family inheritance for California or elsewhere is low.

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          • Ticked off taxpayer says:

            I wish a few of you would actually study history. A lot of folks who owned slaves had their property stripped from them so no “family inheritance.” Many soldiers actually fled to Mexico or to the west where they were welcomed. The bottom line is that slave owners and the non-slave owner southerners who chose to fight the Yankees paid dearly for that choice. And all you folks whose ancestors came from the north should do a little googling. Start with Triangle shirtwaist factory fire. That little story will tell you how immigrant women and children were locked in a sweatshop and burned to death. Or look at the coal mining and mill towns the Yankees built that left workers so in debt they couldn’t leave. The Yankees may have ended the concept of openly buying and selling slaves, but a culture of exploiting vulnerable populations lived on through the early 20th century.

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  3. Michelle Sanchez says:

    The grading system in EPISD has changed. It now allows students who either dont do the work the first time or fail (less than 70) an opportunity to do or redo for a better grade. How is it fair for a kid who does it the first time and tries hard!? This came about bc an associate superintendents soon was not doing work and felt he should have a second opportunity to do it instead of getting a zero.

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  4. Anonymous says:

    El Paso Police Need More Money After All??

    I live in a pretty high end neighborhood on the east side. Usually not much to report . But there is recently some neighbors that have moved in next door that keep playing loud music with base all night . A family of 5 is trying to sleep for church tomorrow. We don’t mind music and having a good time , but when it is consistent every weekend, you would think the police would at least have an eye on the house.

    Here comes yet another week . We placed a call to EPPD for noise disturbance at 1:28 AM. It’s now 3:11 AM and still no cops . I call them and they say everyone is busy at the moment and it’s a “very busy night”. Mind you the past hour while not being able to sleep I have been listening to the scanners online and there seems to be no action except for a a bar fight in the northeast . This is just outrageous because it is a weekly event and still the cops are no where . I am the biggest fans and respectful of cops but these guys are either being lazy or there really may only be one or two cars for the entire Eastside (200,000 people).

    It got me thinking of the bond election for more public safety . Personally , I think it’s a big political game they are playing on us but I hope we can find out information on whether response times will change and what guarantees those can be , because 2 hours for a repeated offender of noise complaints in a nice neighborhood where this never happens is ridiculous. I don’t know who I’m more frustrated with, the City Manager (who if this happened to him would get a car minutes) , or the police administrators who clearly don’t have their stuff under control.

    Liked by 1 person

    • The money allocated to police is for building regional and headquarters buildings. This will do nothing to improve response times. We need more units on the job especially on nights like Friday and Saturday.

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    • Ticked off taxpayer says:

      I live in a nice neighborhood on the west side. One of my neighbors used to have a rental property next door. There were a series of renters who held loud parties and had issues (robberies, drug busts, etc). I’m guessing the landlord was unfamiliar with the concept of background checks or beholden to someone who wanted him to rent to folks with questionable backgrounds because the series of tenants he put in there were so bad there was almost a neighborhood betting pool on how fast they’d get busted. While the police would come for drug busts they wouldn’t come for noise complaints. They actually told my neighbor one of the nights she called that those types of complaints are considered disputes among neighbors and not responded to. The biggest problem we have is not enough police on the streets. We don’t pay enough. We can have as many academies as we want and we’ll just be training folks for better paying jobs elsewhere. The bond issue won’t fix that. The reality is tha our city budget exceeds the amount of tax revenue they can collect. There are only two ways to change that: cut non-essential services including Tommy G’s waterpark vision or find a way to increase revenue via large scale economic development (recruitment of large businesses). The current city leadership has proven itself incapable of that second option.

      Liked by 1 person

    • John Dungan says:

      I can’t tell, but are you also the unknown entity who keeps whipping that dead horse about Beto and Democrats? Have you bothered to meet your neighbor? Have you ever talked to them? So, how are they to know that their loud noise is bothersome if you don’t tell them? While it is true that we do not have enough cops on the streets, there are still things what we can do, as neighbors, to help out.

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      • Ticked off taxpayer says:

        First, John the problem house is not next to me, it is down the street. The neighbor I know who lives next to it made numerous attempts to talk to the folks living there (it’s a moot point, the attorney who owns the house is finally selling it). But the neighbor who lived next door to it was a little afraid of it after meeting some of the renters. Suffice it to say they knew the noise was creating issues and didn’t care. It got robbed after one party (apparently “party guests” who saw something they wanted felt it was okay to kick in the front door the next day and rob the place). Shortly after, those renters moved out. The next set got busted and “moved out” courtesy of the police department. The third set went back to loud party mode. The bottom line was a homeowner for some inexplicable reason was renting a house over and over (this went on for nearly 10 years), to renters who seemed to either be extreme party animals or engaging in activities that were outside the law. And while any landlord can make that mistake once, when it happens continually, you start to wonder if he is intentionally renting to folks with questionable sources of income. That house was pretty much the only rental house in the neighborhood that has those kinds of issues. Most homeowners and renters in the neighborhood are family-centric and great neighbors—this house was a total aberration for over a decade. And no, I’m not the person bashing the Psychedelic Warlord. That said, I wouldn’t vote for him for dogcatcher.

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      • Dear John says:

        Sure, John, tell someone to go confront a person when they don’t know anything about that person or if the person might shoot them or assault them.

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      • anonymous says:

        Dungan is a douche. Don’t expect a thoughtful idea from him. He is going to give you the party line nothing more. Dude hasn’t had an original idea in 45+ years.

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    • good governance oxymoron says:

      It is a violation to exceed a certain decibel, but that needs to be measured.

      Contact your City Rep, explain the problem, and find out what the process is to place a decibel meter.

      The noise has to be measured in order to enforce the law

      You may have to buy one (not an expensive item) or the City may have one they use,

      Liked by 1 person

      • John Dungan says:

        Actually, there is an app for that.

        Like

        • Sort of anonymous says:

          And the court records will show WHO filled the complaint, and WHO had the sound meter, and was it calibrated correctly and witnessed by the police, and as these are not “normal families” who probably have police records as well as guns, who wants to stay inside their house 24/7 – forever, to make sure it does not get burnt to the ground ?

          If a rental property stays vacant, the landlord eats the payment, upkeep and taxes so most landlords will rent to iffy renters that pay cash. Most landlords that own single properties accept cash.
          Rental agencies and most large apartment complexes require checks or MO’s.

          Rejecting renters, when there is no alternative is a tough one.

          Most renters HAVE bad credit, that’s why they don’t own property.
          I’m sure most landlords would rather have a nice stable family as renters with almost no children and certainly no adult children living with them (too many cars).

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          • Ticked off taxpayer says:

            In our neighborhood virtually all renters are families with kids (the house are all $300k plus in value and large so you get folks with families needing the space and wanting a safe community). The renters for this house were typically adults without kids. There was a never a teenager or too many cars problem. It was adult parties (not your large family gatherings, but adults just partying loudly). The landlord never used a realtor, he’d just hang a banner on the house, which was odd as well. We haven’t seen these kinds of issues with other renters and the folks who use Realtors or advertise locally with more than a banner never seem to have empty houses. I’ve been a landlord before and I agree most folks who rent houses do it because they have less than sterling credit, but it isn’t that hard to keep a house full with renters who will pass a background check in a good neighborhood if you advertise.

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  5. anonymous says:

    This is outrageous. Unlike other Texas counties the majority of the El Paso’s population lives in Home-Rule municipalities.

    Escobar, Perez, Stout, Leon, and Haggerty could not justify the initial outrageous raise they gave themselves because they used counties with vastly dissimilar economic and population demographics to justify a huge increase.

    Additionally, these higher salaries have not attracted new, younger, or qualified candidates. Look at who the choices were for the last County Judge race.

    https://www.elpasotimes.com/story/news/local/el-paso/2019/09/01/el-paso-county-texas-commissioners-consider-1st-property-tax-rate-increase-since-2015-fiscal-year/2179535001

    What has El Paso taxpayers most upset about this year’s budget are pay increases that the Commissioners Court is looking to make.

    Here’s what those look like:

    • County judge in 2018: $105,080. Proposed increase of $26,401.45. In 2019: 131,481.45.

    • County commissioners in 2018: $93,748. Proposed increase of $21,153.83 in 2019 to $114,901.83.

    • County tax assessor/collector in 2018: $93,222. Proposed increase of $20,435.20 in 2019 to $113,657.20.

    • County clerk in 2018: $93,222. Proposed increase of $20,435.20 in 2019 to $113,657.20.

    • County attorney in 2018: $180,629. Proposed increase of $12,282.80 in 2019 to 192,911.80.

    • District clerk in 2018: $93,222. Proposed increase of $20,435.20 in 2019 to $113,657.20.

    • County sheriff in 2018: $161,607. Proposed increase of $8,080.35 in 2019 to $169,687.35.

    • Justices of the peace, all precincts in 2018: $80,292. Proposed increase of $17,248.83 in 2019 to $97,540.83.

    • Constables, all precincts in 2018: $74,432. Proposed increase of $16,800.09 in 2019 to $91,232.09.

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  6. home renovations

    Saturday | elpasospeak

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  7. cabinets regardless

    Saturday | elpasospeak

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