I’ve covered politics in this town for a really long time. I have seen a lot of crazy stuff. I broke the news of a mayoral candidate getting arrested and a few hours later covered him at a candidate forum in the Northeast. I once recorded a lower valley candidate call Hillary Clinton a really bad slur in Spanish. I covered the time some people made fliers with gay slurs and put them on vehicles at a campaign even in Fabens. And of course, I covered Theresa Caballero and Chente Quintanilla giving out cold hard cash to voters in Clint on New Years Day a few years ago.
I have seen it all - some stuff I’ve never written about. Really shady stuff. Illegal stuff. Dumb stuff. Silly stuff. You name it, I’ve probably seen it, recorded it, filmed it, or blogged it.
But I don’t think I have ever seen a campaign so openly brazen about being a dirty campaign like that of Marlene Gonzalez’s campaign. Now before you start thinking of firing off a letter to me Mrs. Gonzalez, save your breath. I'm not easily intimidated and you're a candidate for office - therefore a public figure - and expressing an opinion is neither slanderous nor libelous.
I wrote earlier in the election cycle about Gonzalez's campaign using workers that were in a religious drug treatment facility / church / non-profit and having them campaign out in the sun during early voting. I even showed film of them being dropped off. I also showed payment made to that church / non-profit on campaign finance reports.
You’d figure that a judicial candidate at this point would be minding her P’s and Q’s after surviving that scandal for the sole reason that local media for the most part ignores political campaigns. You’d think that - and you’d be wrong.
Apparently the campaign became galvanized to play even more dirty.
So here’s the situation.
There is a facebook page that was created that uses Judge Laura Strathmann’s name. The page identifies itself as belonging to her. She’s the incumbent and Marlene Gonzalez’s opponent. That page even uses the judge’s picture, albeit with a red line through it.
The page also posts using first-person language saying some pretty terrible things. Essentially the post says she slept around. Not just slept around - but with the entire family bar. Doesn’t distinguish if it was just the guys, or if it was the women too.
But honestly, it is really bad to see women attack other women on their sexuality. Its bad enough men do it, but when a woman does it to another woman, its a whole ‘nother level of gacho.
Also, whoever wrote that post appears to have a bit of a problem with the English language.
Impersonating a candidate is dirty politics.
Speaking like you’re that candidate, is dirty politics.
Doing that … to a judge, might just be illegal.
Now this is the part where you might say, well LionStar, how do we know for sure that the page is even affiliated with Marlene Gonzalez’s campaign? Well I’m glad you asked…
If you peruse through the facebook page you’ll see a url - one that is actually deceptive in it’s name (www.388thJudicialDistrictCourtcom). Again, its another effort to give the impression that the website is somehow official in its capacity, or at the very least, belongs to the judge. But when you click on the link…guess where it takes you…
Yep, you guessed it. Straight to a page that looks like its Marlene Gonzalez’s official campaign page.
See what I mean? The page has the word "vote", Gonzalez's image, her name, the court she's running for, her political part, and even her ballot number. The average person would think this URL belongs to Gonzalez.
There is no excuse. There is no justification. There is no explanation.
This is just straight-up dirty politics.
As Maya Angelou once said, “When people show you who they are, believe them…”
And she was right. We should believe Gonzalez when she tells us who she is - because behavior like this in a campaign - that is a reflection of the character of the candidate. And more importantly in the case of a candidate who wants to wear the black robe and hold the gavel…it is the best indicator as to their temperament as a judge.
Do you want someone like that on the bench? Do you want someone with that win-at-all-costs, winner-take-all, disregard the costs and consequences - ruling on matters of the law? Is that the conduct of someone who is going to be calm, level-headed and fair in listening to the facts of a case and render a judgement?
But speaking as if you’re the judge and calling yourself a whore, so that other people will think that the actual judge is saying that about herself, well I just don’t know how you hold your head up in public without any shame.
Interestingly Marlene Gonzalez actually sent out an email regarding the issue, because Judge Strathmann sent out an email regarding the website. Quite frankly the fact that Gonzalez is reactive to that email is telling. Gonzalez - in an email in which she is doing her best impersonation of Pontious Pilot she can do - uses some of the same language as the author of the page does in one of the posts.
Don’t take my word for it, see for yourself. Here’s a screenshot of the post where the author uses the word “legion”. And oddly, Gonzalez uses the same term in her email.
I could quote Hamlet here about me thinks the lady doth protest too much and all, but quite frankly that isn’t what stands out the most to me.
What stands out the most to me is that her letter only attempts to distance Gonzalez from the Facebook page - but what she doesn’t do is say anything written on that page about her opponent is wrong, or shouldn’t be said in a campaign.
She’s a lawyer so the words in her letter are very carefully and strategically crafted. She distances her self from the authorship of the letter - but not the content. Thats deliberate.
Gonzalez also makes it clear in the email that she knows who is the actual author of the page. There is no indication that Gonzalez has asked the alleged author of the page to cease and desist using her image on the URL associated with the page prior to today.
To recap, she clearly knows the page exists. She clearly knows who the alleged author of the page is, and she clearly hasn't made any effort to get the author to stop using her image or asking people to vote for Gonzalez.
Brown People Business
Okay non-brown people pay attention because you’re gonna learn stuff you probably don’t know (unless you’ve ever spent time in a boxing gym, in which case you already know). This might get uncomfortable - so fair warning.
I'm gonna tell you all a little secret that some of you might not be hip to. There’s always been some pleito between Mexicans (or those of us of Mexican decent) and Puerto Ricans (or of Puerto Rican decent). Pleito means beef. Not like meat, but like static, trouble, problems, tension, etc.
I don’t know when or why it started but its always been there. Just under the surface. Not every Mexican, not every Puerto Rican, but you get my point.
Which is why its pretty messed up that Marlene Gonzalez referred to a Mexican grand mother in a recent hearing as an “illegal alien”.
Zaaas!
Someone's ABUELITA!
To many of us - thats a slur. Hell, she might as well have said Wetback.
And don’t tell me she doesn’t know better - she’s an attorney on the border, she freakin’ knows. The same way we know not to say cabrón around Puerto Ricans because it doesn’t have the playful connotation to them the way it does to us most of the time when we use the word.
Its a matter of cultural respect.
Okay, let me pull over real quick. Some of you might be thinking, there’s no way that’s true. Ol’ LionStar better be able to prove that Marlene Gonzalez called a Mexican grandma an “illegal alien”.
That is a fair point. I should be able to back-up what I say.
So fortunately I have the transcript of a recent court case that was in Judge Strathmann's court and Marlene Gonzalez was one of the attorneys. This was in December, right before Christmas - well after the start of the campaign.
Sorry, let me pull over again.
Let me state the obvious - divorces bring out the worst in people. Especially in a custody battle. I've got my own battle scars of those kinds of wars.
No one case is an indicator of an entire career of an attorney - or judge. No one should be judged on their worst day.
But nonetheless, one case at least gives you a glimpse of an attorney who wants to be a judge.
Gonzalez was representing the dad in the case. Gonzalez was trying to take a kid a way from her mother right before Christmas...and used the fact that the mother was on dialysis and the grandparents were "illegal aliens".
I kid you not. I am not exaggerating. Those are hard facts of the case. And I have the transcripts to prove it.
So this first screen shot is of the part of the transcript where Gonzalez calls someone's abuelitos "illegal aliens".
The part that bothered me most was line 4 on that page. Gonzalez implies that the grandparents aren't good care givers to the child because they can be picked up at any time.
I can't begin to articulate how insulting that comment is to so many families in El Paso that have mixed status. Its an embarrassing slap in the face.
In this portion of the transcript, Gonzalez very strangely asserts that the mother of the child thinks she should have custody of the child because she's "a Hispanic mother". I have no clue why she raised that issue. I cannot understand the relevance of the statement at all. She also raises the issue of the mother being on dialysis in an effort to get the child taken from her and awarded to the dad.
Right before Christmas.
Now I don't know anything about the dad. As a dad myself, it frustrates the hell out of me that the law pretty much seems to favor the mother in most custody proceedings. As a society we are going to eventually have to deal with how you minimize the role of fathers in our country.
But I found this particular part of the transcript , just before she raised the issue of the mother being Hispanic, interesting:
The mother raised the issue of the condition of the child - and Gonzalez responded with the ethnicity of the mother.
Is that who you want families to face during the turmoil of a broken home?
So hey, while we are talking about ethics complaints filed by Tamayo's financial contributors, lets talk about Arnulfo Hernandez.
