Wednesday, May 6, 2026
LAMBISQUIANDO A LOS GABACHOS HA VER QUE ME QUEDA!
There is no papel picado out there, and the scene looks more like a Mexican colonial city than it does Brownsville.
Guerra, chairman of the Port of Brownsville, is now in a Democratic primary runoff with incumbent Eddie Treviño and has to make up more than 4,500 votes to equal Treviño's 14,479 total (44 percent). Guerra dew 9,948 (30 percent).
Looks pretty, mighty pretty, though!
Former Cameron County Sheriff Eric Garza – a stalking horse injected into the race to draw votes from Treviño – almost equaled Guerra's total with 8,548, or 26 percent of the votes cast.
Early voting begins May 18 through May 22. Election Day is May 26.)
Tuesday, May 5, 2026
MEETING MARK TWAIN (HIS BOOKS) IN A BROWNSVILLE THRIFT
(Ed',s Note: We noticed in the wake of our local election coverage that we had been remiss in noting that April 21 marked the 116th anniversary of the death of our favorite American author, Samuel Clemens, otherwise known by his nom de plume Mark Twain. Twain was never in our Rio Grande delta and his writing focused more in the delta of the Mississippi River. However, his writing touched readers in the USA ad around the world. Our encounter with Twain – or rather his works – took place right here in Brownsville, very close to our river. )
By Juan Montoya
As we have noted in a previous post, sometimes one is surprised at what can be found in some of the local thrift shops.
In our case, it is books, some more than 100 years old.
One such find was the (incomplete) set of Mark Twain's Complete Works which we found in a small mama-y-papa thrift shop which used to be just off the alley across 11th Street from the late Ben Neece's old Crescent Moon Saloon.
Passing by the quaint little store, our eye caught the spines of some old books stacked under some knickknacks and asked the señora if we could see them. She, of course, agreed and removed the stuff that lay on top of the books.
One such find was the (incomplete) set of Mark Twain's Complete Works which we found in a small mama-y-papa thrift shop which used to be just off the alley across 11th Street from the late Ben Neece's old Crescent Moon Saloon.
To our surprise, they were part of a third printing of a set of Twain's works with the latest copyright dated 1913. We bought the lot at 50 cents apiece. The tomes included pristine copies of Twain's "Life on the Mississippi", "The Gilded Age", and "Following the Equator," among others. All these tomes set us back about $6.
Each of these has a facsimile of Twain's signature confirming that the books are authentic copies of his works.
We were excited at the find and returned to the segundita often to see if other literary treasures would appear because the lady said she had "a lot of old books" in storage and that she would bring them to the store. Unfortunately, her husband's health deteriorated and she had to close the business to tend to his illness.
Some of the books had never been read, since some of the pages had not been separated and two pages remained as one folded paper sheet. And later, when we were leafing through them, saw a hotel receipt that named a Brownsville man who was well known to local residents.
It was a hotel receipt issued to Jesse Sloss, who was named city manager in 1975, 11 years later. The receipt was from the Hotel Genova , which we learned is still one of the best in downtown Guadalajara. At 110 pesos a night, it was bargain for Americans, since the exchange rate back then hovered between 8 to 12 pesos per U.S. dollar. The receipt states that four persons were in Sloss' party on September 8, 1964.
Sloss was well known in town and worked for years with the city as was his wife Tencha, a former Brownsville Herald reporter who was involved in the arts and had been a volunteer at the Brownsville Art League for over 50 years and then was the Administrative Director of the Brownsville Museum of Fine Arts.
Tencha Sloss was related to many well-known families in town, including the Neeces, Saldivars, and Hinojosas , among others. Jesse died in 2001 and Tencha died in 2014.
The Twain books were a great find, but leaves us with the question of what Sloss was doing in Guadalajara in 1964 which remains – like an Ellery Queen novel – a mystery.
TIME FOR TEXAS DEMOMEXES TO TAKE OFF THE RED BLINDERS
New York Times
Around the country, in key Senate and House races, Democrats will be presented with some Democratic nominees who are more progressive or moderate than they are and who have discrete positions that unsettle them, individual warts that offend them, biographies that aren’t to their liking.
But this time around, the risks of being turned off and turning away are much greater than usual. There’s a kind of reckoning at hand. Either Trump is the threat that his impassioned detractors have made him out to be and they’ll cast ballots that reflect that or they won’t, because the specter of an unimpeded, full-throttle Trump actually pales next to their quarrels with and pique at Democratic candidates they dislike. He’s not all that terrifying to them after all.
In my newsletter a week ago, I pushed back at any Democratic overconfidence about the midterms, noting all the wild cards in play over the next six months. I mentioned ongoing gerrymandering, and on Wednesday, the Supreme Court further gutted the Voting Rights Act, a decision that could clear the way for new, more Republican-friendly congressional maps in several states, including Louisiana and Tennessee. Around the same time as that ruling, Florida finalized plans for an aggressive new gerrymander.
But I also warned about tensions within the Democratic Party and whether the outcomes of primaries in crucial states could have a negative impact on party enthusiasm and turnout.
Democratic leaders have identified Texas as a plausible opportunity to flip a Senate seat from red to blue; a recent poll by Texas Public Opinion Research bolstered that thinking by showing the Democratic nominee, James Talarico, with a slight lead over either of his possible Republican opponents, who are headed to a runoff on May 26.
Around the country, in key Senate and House races, Democrats will be presented with some Democratic nominees who are more progressive or moderate than they are and who have discrete positions that unsettle them, individual warts that offend them, biographies that aren’t to their liking.
But this time around, the risks of being turned off and turning away are much greater than usual. There’s a kind of reckoning at hand. Either Trump is the threat that his impassioned detractors have made him out to be and they’ll cast ballots that reflect that or they won’t, because the specter of an unimpeded, full-throttle Trump actually pales next to their quarrels with and pique at Democratic candidates they dislike. He’s not all that terrifying to them after all.
In my newsletter a week ago, I pushed back at any Democratic overconfidence about the midterms, noting all the wild cards in play over the next six months. I mentioned ongoing gerrymandering, and on Wednesday, the Supreme Court further gutted the Voting Rights Act, a decision that could clear the way for new, more Republican-friendly congressional maps in several states, including Louisiana and Tennessee. Around the same time as that ruling, Florida finalized plans for an aggressive new gerrymander.
But I also warned about tensions within the Democratic Party and whether the outcomes of primaries in crucial states could have a negative impact on party enthusiasm and turnout.
Democratic leaders have identified Texas as a plausible opportunity to flip a Senate seat from red to blue; a recent poll by Texas Public Opinion Research bolstered that thinking by showing the Democratic nominee, James Talarico, with a slight lead over either of his possible Republican opponents, who are headed to a runoff on May 26.
But Talarico’s victory in the Democratic primary in early March came after a nasty battle with his rival, Jasmine Crockett, some of whose supporters accused Talarico of racially bigoted comments. Will they nonetheless turn out for him in November? They should if they see Trump as the greater evil. What they wind up doing hinges partly on the strength of that conviction.
If I had my way, I’d elevate moderate Democrats in every state and district that’s not firmly in the red or blue column and that’s genuinely up for grabs. I concur with an important essay by the editorial board of The Times in October that laid out the wisdom of that approach:
If I had my way, I’d elevate moderate Democrats in every state and district that’s not firmly in the red or blue column and that’s genuinely up for grabs. I concur with an important essay by the editorial board of The Times in October that laid out the wisdom of that approach:
“Candidates closer to the political center, from both parties, continue to fare better in most elections than those farther to the right or left. This pattern may be the strongest one in electoral politics today.”
5 DE MAYO NOT JUST A PARTY DATE, BUT A CELEBRATION FOR A S. TEXAS HOMEY
(Now that we find ourselves between elections in South Texas, it's time to remember the hero of Cinco de Mayo and his ties to our region and to northern Mexico. Ignacio Zaragoza was born in present-day Goliad, Texas in 1829, seven yeas before Texas declared itself a republic separate from Mexico. Goliad was named for Father Miguel Hidalgo, and is an anagram, minus the silent H. After his family moved to Matamoros to escape persecution from the soldiers of the Texas Revolution, he attended school there and then moved to Monterrey to further his schooling. Brownsville didn't exists when Zaragoza was here, but was part of a land grant that belonged to the Cavazos family and was taken as communal property of Matamoros on the other side of the river. After that, he joined the Mexican military on the side of Benito Juarez's Liberal army. A chronology of his gallant life follows.)
By Juan Montoya
1829: Ignacio Zaragoza Seguin was born on January 14, 1829 to Capt. Miguel Zaragoza and his wife Maria de Jesus Seguin in the Bahia del Espiritu Santo. The site is near present-day Matagorda Bay, between Houston and Corpus Christi. The State of Texas has included his birthplace in the Goliad State Park and the house where Zaragoza was actually born is still standing.
1833: With fierce Comanches as neighbors and the incipient Texas Republic in the offing, the Zaragozas stay in Texas was relatively brief. When he was four, his family moved to Matamoros and he attended the San Juan elementary school, although little is known about his stay there.
A street bears his name in Matamoros, (and later an international bridge, Los Tomates) but apart from that, there is little to indicate the Cinco de Mayo hero of Puebla lived there. The Original Townsite of Brownsville was once part of Matamoros' city's communal land, so in a sense, Zaragoza lived here, too. Zaragoza’s family had originally come from Monterrey, where many of the settlers of the South Texas area originated. In fact, that Nuevo Leon city was the launching point for many Mexican families who lived in then-Mexican Texas and whose descendants still\l live here.
1840s: In Monterrey Ignacio entered the seminary, a traditional haven for young men who saw the church as a way to a profession. He interrupted his clerical studies to enter commerce. He worked for Felipe Sepulveda, a prominent Monterrey grocer. In 1846, when U.S. troops invaded Mexico, he joined the Mexican national guard.
He attained the rank of captain and was stationed in Victoria, Tamaulipas, the capital of the state. Later, one of Antonio Lopez de Santa Ana’s usurpations of the national presidency drew Zaragoza into the regular army and he served under the liberal generals who adhered to the constitution defended by Benito Juarez. He soon attained the rank of colonel. His performance on the battlefield and his knowledge of military tactics earned him the confidence and respect of his superiors.
1855: In the Battle of Silao, Zaragoza – then only 25 – played a defining role in the Liberals' victory. That battle is recognized as one of the bloodiest of the war. Zaragoza knew what stakes were in play. At the heart of the civil war was the dispute between the constitutionalists who wanted the laws of reform followed, and the conservatives, who wanted to hold on to power.
The church, a powerful institution, backed the conservatives. Clerics feared the state would carry out the separation of church and state called for in the reformed constitution and financed the conservatives in their quest to retain their power.
1856-61: Interim President Ignacio Comonfort refused to relinquish power and uphold the precepts of the constitution and it ignited civil war. In battle after bloody battle, the liberals moved toward the Mexican capital as the conservatives delayed their progress by inciting peasants to battle the "devil-driven" liberals.
In one of these battles, General Jesus Gonzalez Ortega took ill with fever. The Battle of Guadalajara was to mark an important turning point in the war. The city – which lay between the Liberal Army and the capital – was an important tactical site and the conservatives fought hard to deny them a victory.
Gonzalez-Ortega hand-picked Zaragoza over higher-ranking officers to lead the assault against the city. The Liberal siege of the city lasted for weeks and saw hand-to-hand combat in the city’s streets. Time and time again the Liberals charged only to be driven back by the determined defenders.
With typhoid fever raging through the city, the weary defenders finally succumbed to Zaragoza’s Ejercito del Centro and asked for a truce that would allow them to retreat and abandon the city. A truce was worked out and the defeated army was allowed to depart. But another surprise awaited the Liberal soldiers. Unbeknownst to them, another conservative army had arrived in the outskirts of the city and the two armies met at a bridge to the city. Zaragoza’s army would not be denied their victory and the conservatives were defeated.
December 22, 1861: Before them, the road to the capital lay waiting. Gathering their forces, the Liberals organized around San Miguelito. They faced an army of 8,000 well-equipped men with supplies bought for them by frightened church prelates and clergy. They had at their disposal several dangerous artillery pieces. The task of defending the most vulnerable site on the battle field was assigned to young Ignacio, then only 31.
He was given the task of defending the hills overlooking the battle. If the high ground was lost, the result could very well decide the war between the Liberals and Conservatives – and the future of Mexico. He did not falter. Bearing the brunt of the attack, Zaragoza’s troops held the hills as the enemy’s troops fought for their survival. Bloody and fierce clashes occurred where the defenders of the hills foiled the attacks and Zaragoza aided his fellow generals to execute the battle plan. His troops held. The Liberals prevailed. The next day, the defeated conservative generals came to secure
guarantees for their remaining troops and officers.
December 25, 1861: With the city theirs for the taking, the Liberal armies gathered to enter it. On Christmas Day General Gonzalez-Ortega, ordered one of his generals and an escort to enter the city and assure of a peaceful takeover. The general he chose for this honor – and great risk– was Ignacio Zaragoza.
Thus, it came to be that on that day when the constitutionalist forces of Benito Juarez took the city, the man leading the takeover force was the same who was born a scant 32 years before in the rolling hills of Goliad, Texas.
January 1, 1862: Benito Juarez and his constitutionalist armies joined Zaragoza in the city. Later in April, Juarez named him minister of War of Mexico. By then he was all of 33 years old.
May 5, 1862: He was to be tested again, but this time it would be by seasoned French troops and Zouave mercenaries who had entered the country under the pretense of getting debts repaid to their country. Having heard that the French had started their march toward Mexico City, Zaragoza led his troops to meet the most feared imperial army in the world of the day.
He left behind a gravely ill wife he would never see again. On the hills of Puebla and the plains below, Zaragoza and his army withstood and defeated the French troops. For half a day, the soldiers repelled the charges of the imperial soldiers and left the field in victory. Among the defenders were future Mexican dictator Porfirio Diaz and Brownsville's own guerrilla leader Juan Cortina.
"The national arms have been covered with glory," he wrote Juarez in a one-line letter after the May 5th battle for Puebla. ("Las armas nacionales se han cubierto de gloria.")
September 8, 1862: Four months later, Ignacio Zaragoza died of typhoid fever. His victory, however, remains celebrated to this day.
1833: With fierce Comanches as neighbors and the incipient Texas Republic in the offing, the Zaragozas stay in Texas was relatively brief. When he was four, his family moved to Matamoros and he attended the San Juan elementary school, although little is known about his stay there.
A street bears his name in Matamoros, (and later an international bridge, Los Tomates) but apart from that, there is little to indicate the Cinco de Mayo hero of Puebla lived there. The Original Townsite of Brownsville was once part of Matamoros' city's communal land, so in a sense, Zaragoza lived here, too. Zaragoza’s family had originally come from Monterrey, where many of the settlers of the South Texas area originated. In fact, that Nuevo Leon city was the launching point for many Mexican families who lived in then-Mexican Texas and whose descendants still\l live here.
He attained the rank of captain and was stationed in Victoria, Tamaulipas, the capital of the state. Later, one of Antonio Lopez de Santa Ana’s usurpations of the national presidency drew Zaragoza into the regular army and he served under the liberal generals who adhered to the constitution defended by Benito Juarez. He soon attained the rank of colonel. His performance on the battlefield and his knowledge of military tactics earned him the confidence and respect of his superiors.
1855: In the Battle of Silao, Zaragoza – then only 25 – played a defining role in the Liberals' victory. That battle is recognized as one of the bloodiest of the war. Zaragoza knew what stakes were in play. At the heart of the civil war was the dispute between the constitutionalists who wanted the laws of reform followed, and the conservatives, who wanted to hold on to power.
The church, a powerful institution, backed the conservatives. Clerics feared the state would carry out the separation of church and state called for in the reformed constitution and financed the conservatives in their quest to retain their power.
1856-61: Interim President Ignacio Comonfort refused to relinquish power and uphold the precepts of the constitution and it ignited civil war. In battle after bloody battle, the liberals moved toward the Mexican capital as the conservatives delayed their progress by inciting peasants to battle the "devil-driven" liberals.
In one of these battles, General Jesus Gonzalez Ortega took ill with fever. The Battle of Guadalajara was to mark an important turning point in the war. The city – which lay between the Liberal Army and the capital – was an important tactical site and the conservatives fought hard to deny them a victory.Gonzalez-Ortega hand-picked Zaragoza over higher-ranking officers to lead the assault against the city. The Liberal siege of the city lasted for weeks and saw hand-to-hand combat in the city’s streets. Time and time again the Liberals charged only to be driven back by the determined defenders.
With typhoid fever raging through the city, the weary defenders finally succumbed to Zaragoza’s Ejercito del Centro and asked for a truce that would allow them to retreat and abandon the city. A truce was worked out and the defeated army was allowed to depart. But another surprise awaited the Liberal soldiers. Unbeknownst to them, another conservative army had arrived in the outskirts of the city and the two armies met at a bridge to the city. Zaragoza’s army would not be denied their victory and the conservatives were defeated.
December 22, 1861: Before them, the road to the capital lay waiting. Gathering their forces, the Liberals organized around San Miguelito. They faced an army of 8,000 well-equipped men with supplies bought for them by frightened church prelates and clergy. They had at their disposal several dangerous artillery pieces. The task of defending the most vulnerable site on the battle field was assigned to young Ignacio, then only 31.
He was given the task of defending the hills overlooking the battle. If the high ground was lost, the result could very well decide the war between the Liberals and Conservatives – and the future of Mexico. He did not falter. Bearing the brunt of the attack, Zaragoza’s troops held the hills as the enemy’s troops fought for their survival. Bloody and fierce clashes occurred where the defenders of the hills foiled the attacks and Zaragoza aided his fellow generals to execute the battle plan. His troops held. The Liberals prevailed. The next day, the defeated conservative generals came to secure
December 25, 1861: With the city theirs for the taking, the Liberal armies gathered to enter it. On Christmas Day General Gonzalez-Ortega, ordered one of his generals and an escort to enter the city and assure of a peaceful takeover. The general he chose for this honor – and great risk– was Ignacio Zaragoza.
Thus, it came to be that on that day when the constitutionalist forces of Benito Juarez took the city, the man leading the takeover force was the same who was born a scant 32 years before in the rolling hills of Goliad, Texas.
January 1, 1862: Benito Juarez and his constitutionalist armies joined Zaragoza in the city. Later in April, Juarez named him minister of War of Mexico. By then he was all of 33 years old.
May 5, 1862: He was to be tested again, but this time it would be by seasoned French troops and Zouave mercenaries who had entered the country under the pretense of getting debts repaid to their country. Having heard that the French had started their march toward Mexico City, Zaragoza led his troops to meet the most feared imperial army in the world of the day.
He left behind a gravely ill wife he would never see again. On the hills of Puebla and the plains below, Zaragoza and his army withstood and defeated the French troops. For half a day, the soldiers repelled the charges of the imperial soldiers and left the field in victory. Among the defenders were future Mexican dictator Porfirio Diaz and Brownsville's own guerrilla leader Juan Cortina.
"The national arms have been covered with glory," he wrote Juarez in a one-line letter after the May 5th battle for Puebla. ("Las armas nacionales se han cubierto de gloria.")
September 8, 1862: Four months later, Ignacio Zaragoza died of typhoid fever. His victory, however, remains celebrated to this day.
September 1980: The citizens of Puebla, Mexico donate $300,000 copper statue that now stands in Goliad State Park and the birthplace of Zaragoza.
AFTER IRAN AND CUBA, IS TRUMP SETTING HIS SIGHTS ON SNOOPY?
La Cebolla
WASHINGTON—In what political analysts have called a “major escalation” in the commander-in-chief’s antagonism toward the cultural icon, President Donald Trump made a number of public comments this week dramatically ratcheting up his rhetoric against Snoopy.
At an event honoring Gold Star families Friday, Trump reportedly deviated from his prepared remarks to criticize the cartoon beagle from Charles M. Schulz’s long-running Peanuts comic strip, calling him a “disgusting floppy-eared loser” and “Stupid Snoopy.”
The digression followed several similar incidents during meetings with foreign heads of state, as well as a spate of late-night Truth Social posts in which he called Snoopy “an enemy of the people” and shared an AI-generated video that depicted Trump having Snoopy euthanized at a veterinary office.
“It’s frankly terrible what Snoopy has been doing to Americans like Linus in terms of his blanket, and the United States will not hesitate to pursue a powerful response if Snoopy continues down this dangerous path,” Trump said during his speech to the families of fallen U.S. military service members, stating that President Joe Biden had failed to crack down on Snoopy for dancing on top of American pianos.
“I got a letter, a beautiful letter from a farmer, and he said, ‘Sir, Snoopy is using our typewriters to spread woke, and you can’t let him get away with it,’ so currently we’re leaning towards the military option with Snoopy.”
“We might even have to do nuclear, but I hope it doesn’t come to that,” added Trump, who remained evasive when pressed by reporters later on whether his actions against Snoopy would abide by international law, saying only, “We’ll see.”
According to reports, Trump’s deepening animus toward Charlie Brown’s anthropomorphic pet has led to harsh retribution against institutions he perceives as having conspired with Snoopy. NASA, in particular, has endured massive spending cuts and firings said to result from its historic use of the cartoon dog as a mascot.
“We might even have to do nuclear, but I hope it doesn’t come to that,” added Trump, who remained evasive when pressed by reporters later on whether his actions against Snoopy would abide by international law, saying only, “We’ll see.”
According to reports, Trump’s deepening animus toward Charlie Brown’s anthropomorphic pet has led to harsh retribution against institutions he perceives as having conspired with Snoopy. NASA, in particular, has endured massive spending cuts and firings said to result from its historic use of the cartoon dog as a mascot.
In addition, the president has targeted numerous colleges and universities for failing to condemn Snoopy’s sunglasses-wearing alter ego Joe Cool and has ordered Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to strip Snoopy of any military honors he may have received as a World War I flying ace.
“We’ll be in a meeting to discuss naval strategy in the South China Sea, and the president will start making comments about how Snoopy wants ‘trans for Woodstock’ and asking if the Golden Dome will be able to shoot down Snoopy’s Sopwith Camel,” said a U.S. general who spoke on condition of anonymity, adding that the military’s abduction of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro in January had largely been carried out as a test run for Trump’s proposals to oust Snoopy from Charlie Brown’s household and replace him with his desert-dwelling brother Spike.
“People need to realize that Trump’s not kidding when he says he views Snoopy and every charismatic, bipedal beagle in America as garbage,” the anonymous source continued. “At this point, I think the only thing stopping the president from turning his words into action is the hit his poll numbers took when he vowed to send agents to tear Dagwood Bumstead away from his giant sandwich.”
“We’ll be in a meeting to discuss naval strategy in the South China Sea, and the president will start making comments about how Snoopy wants ‘trans for Woodstock’ and asking if the Golden Dome will be able to shoot down Snoopy’s Sopwith Camel,” said a U.S. general who spoke on condition of anonymity, adding that the military’s abduction of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro in January had largely been carried out as a test run for Trump’s proposals to oust Snoopy from Charlie Brown’s household and replace him with his desert-dwelling brother Spike.
“People need to realize that Trump’s not kidding when he says he views Snoopy and every charismatic, bipedal beagle in America as garbage,” the anonymous source continued. “At this point, I think the only thing stopping the president from turning his words into action is the hit his poll numbers took when he vowed to send agents to tear Dagwood Bumstead away from his giant sandwich.”
Monday, May 4, 2026
NO SIGN OF THE SIGN AT HISTORIC CAPITOL THEATER
Special to El Rrun-Rrun
One of our seven readers gave us a heads up when he noticed the Capitol Theater marquee was missing from the front of the 1928-circa building downtown.
City officials said the sign had seen better days and had ben removed for restoration.
The Capitol Theatre was opened February 14, 1928 – almost 100 years ago – with William Boyd. By 1941 it was operated by Paramount Pictures Inc. through their subsidiary Hoblitzelle & O'Donnell. It was closed April 30, 1966.
Constructed as part of the development of the entire 1100 block of E. Levee, along with Hotel EI Jardin,
Missouri Pacific Station, etc., bringing Spanish Mediterranean Revival style to Brownsville commercial. At one time it was the city's largest and most elegant movie palace.
When it opened in 1928, the Capitol Theater was a marvel of its time. It featured one screen and seating for about 900 patrons. The film Two Arabian Knights was shown at its grand opening, cementing its place in Brownsville’s cultural history.
The City of Brownsville, which owns the Capitol Theater, hopes to sell the building once repairs are complete, ensuring the property continues contributing to the vibrancy of the downtown area.
Saturday, May 2, 2026
TSC: RUNOFF BETWEEN ADELA, JJ DELEON; ALDRETE, GARCIA WIN; GARCIA AND VILLARREAL WIN AT PORT, CARTER RE-ELECTED IN LAGUNA VISTA
ADELA, JJ IN TSC PLACE 1 RUNOFF; INCUMBENTS ALDRETE, GARCIA WIN
(NEEDED 50 PERCENT OF VOTE PLUS 1 – A MAJORITY – TO WIN)
DAVID GARCIA, LUIS VILLARREAL IN AT PORT
(ONLY NEED PLURALITY OF VOTES TO WIN)
LAGUNA VISTA MAYORAL RACE
TOTAL WAR: THE FIRST TIME WAS A TRAGEDY, THE SECOND TIME, A FARCE
Remembering Gernika today – as Gaza and Palestine are bombed to near destruction by the Israeli Defense Forces – is a political act: it means rejecting violence, defending peace and standing firm against authoritarianism. Europe was built so that such tragedy would never return. What happened to "Never Again?"
IT'S ELECTION DAY: OUR CHOICES FOR THE TSC BOARD OF TRUSTEES
By Adela Garza
We are celebrating the 100th anniversary of Texas Southmost College this year.
Since back in 1926, this community, – once said to be the poorest in the United States – nurtured our community college district like a child. It gave local veterans and residents the opportunity to learn a skill, start a profession, or use it as a first rung to transfer to universities across the nation.
And its open enrollment gave non-traditional students like me a second chance to validate our self worth.
But just a scant 13 years ago, TSC almost ceased to exist. The plans were drawn, the proposals made, and – without local residents becoming aware – a bill was being considered in Austin to transfer all its real estate, buildings, bank deposits, and other financial assets to the oil-and-gas wealthy University of Texas System.
That almost happened when I was first elected to serve on the college board in 2008. A forceful college president working with a pliant board had already forwarded plans to do away with TSC, and its district would disappear only after local taxpayers finished paying its bond debt.
After that, the little college that had given so many of our young people, veterans, and residents the first rung to realize their dreams and uplift their families would be gone.
Our local students were already paying university-level tuition and fees, and only a dismal 16 percent graduated after six years. The rest fell through the cracks, their federal grants depleted with UTB-required "remedial" courses that didn't count toward graduation and they couldn't afford the high tuition and could not continue their schooling.
We said enough!
In the face of fierce opposition from an elitist stratum of our community, four of us –Rene Torres, Trey Mendez Kiko Rendon and me, a bare majority on the board – said we wouldn't stand by and give our educational birthright away and deprive future generations of the educational opportunities that only a community college can give us.
The combined forces of the UT System and local shakers and movers threatened us with personal and professional destruction, to ruin our businesses, and boycott our professional livelihoods. The college chaplain even picketed the professional offices of one of our majority and threatened him with eternal damnation.
If they had had their way, we wouldn't be celebrating the century mark of our college's anniversary today. Our college would have been a thing of the past and the fat cats in Austin would own our little school which had ben nurtured by the blood, sweat, and tears of our humble community.
They said we wouldn't be able to gain accreditation as an independent school, that our enrollment would disappear, and that our students would fail. We were wined and dined, begged, cajoled, and coerced to give up on TSC. We held on and stood our ground up to those forces seeking to destroy it.
I cannot tell you how often – in the darkest of those times – we felt like giving up in the face of this overwhelming adversity. But we thought then that it was worth it to save our TSC. It was worth it then, and it's worth it now.
The separation came and went and the opposition stood by, ready to watch us fail. But a Higher Power smiled upon us and our little college and drove us to work a little harder harder, and to persevere against the odds. Today, 13 years after we reestablished our independence as a stand-alone institution of higher education we have achieved this:
* We've reduced tuition and fees three (3) times to make TSC the most affordable college in the RGV
* We earned independent national accreditation despite the nay-sayers
* We've grown enrollment by over 130 percent
* We've built a state-of-the art workforce training program
* Today, TSC's graduation rate outpaces the state average
The best years – our next Century of Progress – is still ahead. With your continued support, we can keep building what we started.
______________________________________________________________________________
EL RRUN-RRUN'S CHOICE FOR THE OTHER TWO POSITIONS
Serving as a trustee at TSC is not a walk down the modeling runway, but rather a studied participation as a team to deliver the educational and vocational tools to enhance the opportunities and future of its students. Gilbert Flores – a health professional – and Edgar E. Garcia, a medical doctor, embody the Hippocratic Oath to "do no harm."
We admire the dedication of all candidates to run for office. But at this point, we think Adela Garza, Dr. Edgar Garcia ad PA Gilbert Flores are the right choices to keep the college headed in the right direction as an independent institution and with a clear vision of its mission as a valued community institution. Those are our choices, but ultimately, it's up to you, the voter, to decide and for all of us to respect the outcome.)
Where to Vote:
Friday, May 1, 2026
ISRAEL'S ARMED FORCES CONTINUE WAR ON PALESTINIAN CHILDREN
Prevent their education: Israel set up razor wire blocking Palestinian children from school in the West Bank. Critics demand it be removed.
Assault and Abuse: Occupation forces target two children in Al-Mughayyir. Footage reveals occupation army soldiers assaulting and abusing two children in the village of Al-Mughayyir, east of Ramallah, in a continuous violation of children's rights.”
Thursday, April 30, 2026
FOR GONZALEZ, WINNING IN ABBOTT- GERRYMADERED DISTRICT WON'T BE A CAKE WALK
By Eric Benson
Texas Monthly
W hen Vicente Gonzalez was first elected to Congress to represent Texas’s Fifteenth District, in November2016, he looked to have won the kind of seat where the general election is a formality. The Rio Grande Valley had been a Democratic stronghold for decades, and Gonzalez’s predecessor, Rubén Hinojosa, had rarely faced a serious Republican challenge.
With Donald Trump ascending to the presidency for the first time and talking about a “big, beautiful wall” and “bad hombres,” heavily Latino South Texas seemed likely to get only bluer.
Instead, the opposite happened. Starting in 2020, South Texas swung dramatically to the right, and Gonzalez has been fighting tough reelection battles ever since. Now, after the Legislature’s overhaul of Texas’s congressional map, he finds himself running in what has become a solidly red district.
(President Trump would have won the new district by ten percentage points in 2024.)
On March 3, Gonzalez easily won his primary. But in November’s general election he’ll face Eric Flores, a former federal prosecutor who was endorsed by Trump, and likely millions of dollars in spending from the national Republican Party, which is targeting the district.
Gonzalez, though, thinks he’ll prevail. From the start of his career, he has ranked among the most conservative Democrats in Congress, and in 2025 he was named a co-chair of the centrist Blue Dog Coalition. In the previous cycle he showed himself to be something of a political unicorn, a Democrat deeply attuned to his district who is capable of winning thousands of Trump voters.
Texas Monthly sat down with Gonzalez in late January in Corpus Christi, his hometown, part of which is a new addition to his district.
TEXAS MONTHLY: You won’t remember this, but you and I met briefly when I was covering the Beto O’Rourke–Ted Cruz senate race in 2018.
VICENTE GONZALEZ: That was a good year. I won by twenty points. It’s very different now.
TM: You went from that landslide in 2018 to barely winning at all in 2020.
VG: Seven thousand votes—which is still a lot of votes but a major difference from where we were two years before that.
TM: Did you see that coming?
VG: No, but I did sound the alarm to the D-triple-C [the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee], in Washington, that I was seeing Latinos fascinated with the whole Trump movement. We had a ton of voters that had never voted come out for the first time. Dems thought they were coming out to vote against Trump. Trumpers thought they were voting for Trump—and they sure as hell were, by about two to one.
TM: When you talked to people who voted for Trump in your district, why did they say they were Voting for him?
TM: But he was the same guy in 2020 that he had been 2016. What changed?
VG: It’s hard for me to give you a scientific answer.
TM: I’m not asking for a scientific answer. I’m asking for your opinion.
VG: Well, that gave him four years to be in office and create another following. People got to see him in action, and he excited the nonvoting population and brought an untraditional, unconventional voter out. Then in South Texas, in 2020, the [Republicans] hit me hard on the Green New Deal and oil-and-gas jobs. I chair the oil-and-gas caucus for the Democratic Party, so I’ve been as pro-energy as any me. I support their industry, and I support a lot of other things that they believe in. Some of them are also like, “Okay, I don’t agree with Vicente on a hundred percent, but I agree with him on ninety percent, and I trust him.” I think really it comes down to trust. I do what I feel is right for my district even when it’s not popular in my party.
TM: And now your district has changed again, and you’re in a plus-ten Trump district.
VG: And we’re going to win it again.
TM: How?
VG: People are really upset at some of these Trump policies. Health-care costs have [risen] for working-class Americans. Inflation persists when it comes to rent, when it comes to food, when it comes to utilities. The American people are struggling right now. On top of that they’re seeing all these policies that are an eyesore for the country. Tariffs that have created inflation for so many people. The world—I mean, we have a president who’s talking about invading Greenland, for God’s sake. He’s got a lot of normal people that voted for him saying, “Wait a minute, that’s not what I signed up for.”
TM: When you talk to people in this district who have made a U-turn on Trump, what do they say to you? What are the biggest issues?
VG: I think the ICE raids are a major issue for Hispanics. Across the country, we’ve seen veterans, people who wore our uniform and fought for our freedom, being handcuffed and mistreated by ICE. It’s heartbreaking for a lot of Latinos. Some of them say, “I voted for him because the border was out of control, but I definitely don’t agree with all this that’s happening.”
TM: More recently, you were one of seven House Democrats to vote to fund the Department of Homeland Security. Two days later, Alex Pretti was killed in Minneapolis. New York Congressman Tom Suozzi, who voted with you, said afterward that he regretted his vote. Do you?
VG: The reason I voted for that bill was not because I was in support of ICE. ICE had seventy-five billion dollars from the “big ugly bill” that Trump passed last cycle that I voted against. If we’d shut the government down based on that DHS vote, it would have only affected other agencies—airport security, the Coast Guard, FEMA. It doesn’t affect ICE at all. It shouldn’t be misconstrued for support for ICE or the behavior that we’ve seen.
SO TRUMP THOUGHT THAT THE FBI'S COMEY HAD HIS NUMBER?
She walks the sandy, salty shore,
To find the treasures, evermore.
She gathers shells, both small and white,
And arranges them in the morning light.
A secret message, etched in sand,
With ocean gifts upon the strand.
She shapes the bits of coastal life,
And leaves a note to stir the strife.
Eight thousand shells, then six hundred more,
Are scattered wide across the floor.
Forty-seven added to the heap,
While secrets of the Epstein files sleep.
The numbers rest within the sand,
Placed by a careful, steady hand.
A coastal count of salt and spray,
Before the tide rolls them away.
Wednesday, April 29, 2026
THE POT AND KETTLE: TRUMP AND GOPS' HYPOCRISY IS BRAZEN
Special to El Rrun-Rrun
Jimmy Kimmel responded directly to Melania Trump during his opening monologue on Monday night after the First Lady called for his firing: "I agree that hateful and violent rhetoric is something we should reject. I do. And I think a great place to start to dial that back would be to have a conversation with your husband about it."
"You know how sometimes you wake up in the morning and the First Lady puts out a statement demanding you be fired from your job? We've all been there, right? What a day.
"As you know, they had to cancel the White House Correspondents' Dinner in Washington on Saturdaynight after a man with multiple guns and knives crashed the party and may have shot a Secret Service officer. Fortunately, the guy was wearing a bulletproof vest and is okay. He was charged today. No one was hurt, thank goodness. A lot of people were shaken up on a night that is supposed to be light-hearted.
"The White House Correspondents' Dinner, if you don't know, it used to be an annual event before Trump showed up, but every year they'd have a comedian roast the room. The President, the Vice President, members of the press—everybody got roasted. I did it once; I hosted it. It was a lot of fun.
"But this year they said, 'No comedian. We're bringing in a mentalist instead.' So on Thursday, three days before the event, in order to keep that cherished tradition alive, I did my own version of the correspondents' dinner on my show.
"I put on a tuxedo. We pretended we had an audience of luminaries. We used old footage of the Trumps, of Pete Hegseth, J.D. Vance, Kid Rock, Vanilla Ice, all the members of his cabinet, and we made it seem like they were all together in a room. We had a little roast.
"Again, this was Thursday, and there was no big reaction to it until this morning when I greeted the day facing yet another Twitter vomit storm, and a call to fire me from our First Lady, Melania Trump, saying I should be fired because of a joke I made, again, five nights ago.
"It was a pretend roast. I said, 'Our First Lady, Melania, is here. Look at her. So beautiful. Mrs. Trump, you have a glow like an expectant widow.' Which obviously was a joke about their age difference and the look of joy we see on her face every time they're together. It was a very light roast joke about the fact that he's almost 80 and she's younger than I am.
"It was not, by any stretch of the definition, a call to assassination, and they know that. I've been very vocal for many years speaking out against gun violence in particular.
"But I understand that the First Lady had a stressful experience over the weekend, and probably every weekend is pretty stressful in that house. And also, I agree that hateful and violent rhetoric is something we should reject. I do.
"And I think a great place to start to dial that back would be to have a conversation with your husband about it... because, by the way, I also should point out: Donald Trump is allowed to say whatever he wants to say, as are you, and as am I, as are all of us. Because under the First Amendment, we have as Americans a right to free speech."
AND THE NEW BROWNSVILLE CITY MANAGER WILL BE...WHO KNOWS?
CITY OF BROWNSVILLE NEW CITY MANAGER WILL BE....???
EXECUTIVE SESSION
1) Closed session pursuant to Tex. Gov't. Code Sections 551.071 (Consultation with Attorney) and 551.074 (Personnel Matters) to deliberate the appointment, employment, or duties of a public officer or employee, pertaining to the city manager, including city manager candidate interviews. (City Commission/ Office of the City Attorney/ OD&HR Department)Special to El Rrun-Rrun
Those of us who looked on in the televised City of Brownsville Commission special meeting and waited some two and one-half hours to see who the commissioners would choose to be the city's next city manager were disappointed after they emerged from executive session and...chose no one.
The decision had been delayed for two meetings due to indecision and then the absence of the mayor and two commissioners and postponed until this Tuesday. But after the marathon executive session, no cigar.
The five candidates narrowed down from an original pool were Interim City Manager Alan Gard, Brownsville Police Chief/Asst. City Manager Felix Sauceda, Assistant City Manager Doroteo Garcia, Steve Williams, City Manager of Schertz, Texas, Majed Al Ghafy, City Manager, DeSoto, Texas, and Edwina "Edy" Benites-LM, Interim Director of Economic Development, Jefferson County, West Virginia.
The eventual choice (if ever) will permanently replace former city manager Helen Ramirez, who left at the end of 2025.
YOU WON'T BELIEVE THIS, BUT MY KID TURNED INTO A GOYEM...
Special to El Rrun-Rrun
The son returns a year later and tells his father that he has converted to Christianity. The father is upset and calls his friend who is also Jewish.
“You won’t believe this, my son David moved out for a year and came back and told me he converted to Christianity.”
His friend says, “you won’t believe this...my son Benjamin moved away for a year and when he came back HE converted to Christianity too”!
Both upset, they call their rabbi and explain what happened.
The rabbi says, “you won’t believe this, my son Joshua moved away and when HE came back he told me he converted to Christianity too”!
The rabbi suggests they call God and tell him. The rabbi tells God that all three men had sons who moved away and converted to Christianity and don’t know what to do.
God says to them, “you won’t believe this...
EARLY VOTING TOTALS FOR TSC, BND, LAGUNA VISTA SET FOR SATURDAY
TSC EARLY VOTING TOTAL:
BND EARLY VOTING TOTAL:
LAGUNA VISTA EARLY VOTING TOTAL:
Tuesday, April 28, 2026
AUTHOR ON UTB-TSC PARTNERSHIP CREDITS ADELA WITH SAVING TSC
By David E. Pearson, Ph.D.
Author of Partnership Affairs: The Fall of a Community University
Publisher: Southmost Books
Publication date October 15, 2025
The May 2 Texas Southmost College Board of Trustees elections feature a candidate, Adela Garza, who can rightly be credited with saving the community college.
Most of us probably remember how, more than a decade ago, TSC was in a partnership with the University of Texas at Brownsville. This “community university” had a vast number of stresses and internal contradictions. These included separate budget centers, sources of revenue, and ownership of property. 
There was an internal clash of cultures between two different classes of faculty, staff, and students. There were two distinct missions with two separate governing bodies in place to pursue them.
By the end of the first decade of this century, the partnership’s community college component had withered. Relatively little money was going into vocational and technical programs. Tuition had increased substantially. There was no real champion on campus for TSC.
The nature of the partnership had caused one of its components to become a figurative orphan, and it was perhaps inevitable that at some point the orphan would grow up and run for office.
Enter Adela Garza.
Winning Place 1 on the board in 2008, she insisted that the trustees had the right to exercise real decision-making authority. Especially so when it came to the board’s legally prescribed fiduciary obligations to community college students and district taxpayers.
Feeling the Board of Trustees was simply being used as a rubber stamp for administrative decisions, she began asking questions about campus issues large and small. A number of construction projects then in progress were hugely over budget, and she took a stand against what she saw as fiscal irresponsibility.
To Adela, the community college’s functions and constituents, its mission and its resources, were not simply means for supporting the larger partnership: they were ends in themselves – ends which had been improperly subordinated to the institution’s university component.
Yes, she believed that. She had, after all, been elected as a trustee of Texas Southmost College. Adela’s spirited defense of TSC shook up the partnership. The administration responded by trying to put in place a new operating agreement to govern the institution’s two components.
Rhetorically this was cast as a marvelous thing, something that would guarantee a brighter future for the students and people of South Texas. In truth it was a ploy to strip the TSC board of its authority through a series of contractual agreements giving the university almost complete operational and budgetary control.
By the fall of 2010, that ploy was on the verge of success. Today, TSC would not exist in anything but name had it not been for Adela’s extraordinary defense of the community college.
* She provided hard evidence of the university’s plan to seize total institutional control.
* She rallied a majority of the trustees to defend their community college.
* She successfully lobbied the Texas legislature, resulting in SB 1909 and HB 3698, bills mandating that Brownsville be the home of an independent community college.
“I am so proud of what we have accomplished,” she said afterwards. “I go back sometimes and I realize what a big role I played.” Not just a big role. Adela Garza played the key role in giving us the Texas Southmost College we have today.
April 20-28
ELECTION DAY
May 2
To order book, click on link: https://www.amazon.com/Partnership-Affairs-Fall-Community-University-ebook/dp/B0FWFHVNM1?ref_=ast_author_mpb
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