Unfortunate answer

October 21, 2018

I think our local candidate for the United States senate could do with some better advisers.

When he was recently asked about his nickname he told the audience that in our community if you are named Robert or Albert or Gilbert or Umberto the community calls you Beto.

His statement is not true.

If he had told us that he uses the nickname because his mother, father, other relative, childhood buddies or someone else called him that I don’t think that most of us would give it a second thought.

Instead he misrepresented our community.

We deserve better

Brutus

38 Comments | Federal Government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

Chasing a wild goose

October 14, 2018

There is talk in some circles about impeaching our new supreme court justice.

Our constitution allows him to hold office “during good behavior”.

In our nation’s history we have never had a case where a supreme court justice was brought up on impeachment charges for behavior allegedly committed before taking office.

The question of whether a justice can be impeached and convicted for actions committed before taking office is thus an open one.

In a practical sense however the chances of removing a justice for past acts has little chance of success.

Firstly a majority of the members of the house of representatives would have to vote to impeach.

Then a trial would occur in the senate and would require 60 out of 100 votes in order to convict.

Then, because the process could be challenged, our supreme court might vote to hear the case.

Would the sitting justices allow themselves or future justices to be exposed to politically motivated removal?  I doubt it.

Judicial independence from political movements is a cornerstone of our system.

We deserve better

Brutus

19 Comments | Federal Government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

Just pass it–we can change it later

October 13, 2018

Looking further into the issue of what they are now calling the “Mexican American Cultural Center” we had to go back to the August 14, 2012 city council meeting documents and video.

Attached to agenda item 13A (which proposed the ordinance ordering the bond election) we see this in the backup material:

The language that council voted to place on the ballot turned out to be:

They were talking about a “Hispanic Cultural Center” but told the voters that they would build a “Cultural Heritage Center”.

Now six years later we see:

Yes, it is now a “Mexican American Cultural Center”.

According to the U. S. Census Bureau web page  “OMB defines “Hispanic or Latino” as a person of Cuban, Mexican, Puerto Rican, South or Central American, or other Spanish culture or origin regardless of race.”

Back in 2012 city council was not honest with the voters.  City council is not being honest today either.

We deserve better

Brutus

5 Comments | City government, Federal Government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

Its over

October 10, 2018

We recently endured a contentious process that culminated in the confirmation of a new supreme court justice.

Will we see as a result a more energized electorate in the November election?

Will the tactics used by each side backfire and cause their opponents to galvanize?

I can point to one thing for certain–every vote counts.

We deserve better

Brutus

12 Comments | City government, County Government, Federal Government, State Government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

Constitution day

September 17, 2018

September 17 is Constitution Day.

On September 17, 1787 the delegates to the constitutional convention signed their finished document.

We hope that our teachers will take a moment to explain this to their students.

Originally the Constitution had seven articles.  Articles 1, 2, and 3 described the powers and working of the three branches of government.

We hope that our citizens will take a moment to remind our elected officials that the Constitution exists.

We deserve better

Brutus

 

10 Comments | Federal Government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

Pretending to care

June 24, 2018

Please read David K’s post.

Our current congressman could have done more to help a situation that he evidently feels passionately about if he had worked on writing legislation to make the changes he wants.

What he did was grandstanding in my book.

We deserve better

Brutus

14 Comments | Federal Government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

Not fair

June 22, 2018

The federal prosecutors in the current school administrator case have admitted that they made “mistakes” by not turning over documents that they were supposed to give to the defense team.

Now the United States attorney for the western district of Texas has stepped in and will prosecute the case.

According to an article in the Times he evidently feels that the failure of his organization to follow the law did no significant harm to the defendants, after all they are accused of committing crimes.

The defendants deserve both a fair and prompt trial.

Their first trial was stopped by the sitting judge over a year ago when it became apparent that the feds had not turned over the documents.

They were evidently ordered to cough them up.

Now we learn that even more documents are about to be produced and they think that there may be still more.

I can only come up with two possible explanations for their behavior–either they are incompetent or they chose not to obey the law.

Shame on them!

We deserve better

Brutus

4 Comments | El Paso Independent School District, Federal Government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

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