A DOUBLE STADARD USED ON WOMEN'S RIGHTS FOR PROFIT

"It's a turn around world where things are all too quickly turned around

It was turned around so that right looked wrong

It was turned around so that up looked down

It was turned around so that those who marched in the streets with bibles and signs of peace became enemies of the state and risk to national security

So that those who questioned the operations of those in authority on the principles of justice, liberty, and equality became the vanguard of a communist attack

It became so you couldn't call a spade a motherfucking spade.."

Gil Scott Heron: "A Poem for Jose Campos Torres"

By Juan Montoya
It has become all to easy nowadays to label people to conform to your own idea of who is politically correct and who – in your estimation – is not.
People use epithets against others in the relatively safe anonymity of the Internet and blogosphere they wouldn't think of using in civil – or in this case – uncivil, discourse.
This issue comes to mind in reviewing some of the postings that allege this person is this, or that person is that, and making broad general accusations based on some imagined slight to a class of people.
It has now become the rage in some blogs to accuse others of being anti-women because they cover issues dealing with female elected officials or blog and FB posters. Never mind that elected officials have sought the public spotlight and that anyone who posts on the worldwide web is opening up their comments to the entire online universe.
More and more it seems that those making accusations are conveniently cherry-picking who they see as victims while themselves victimizing other females to their hearts' content.
Take for example, the case of current District Attorney Luis Saenz.
During the campaign against Carlos Masso, became the target of the group Cheezmeh and its self-appointed Head Cheez Erasmo Castro. At the time, many people wrote about incidents involving womanizing that had occurred some 20 years ago as if they had happened yesterday. But politics being politics, the smear

campaign didn't seem to deter the voters from voting for Saenz and he won despite the personal attacks. It's noteworthy to say that his wife and granddaughter stood beside him when he raised his hand to take the oath of office.
Remember what the condition of the DA's office was when the Saenz took over?
We had a DA (Armando Villalobos) who was under the cloud of a federal grand jury indictment for racketeering, bribery and corruption. He was later convicted and is awaiting sentencing pending his appeal. We had investigators in the DA's office getting indicted and convicted for being crooked.
We had assistant DAs getting busted for defecating on a bench in public at the International House of Pancakes.
We had an assistant DA  caught having sex in a car in a shopping mall parking lot.
We had a DA's office that went along with crooked lawyers and judges to have murderers, child abusers, and wife beaters released upon the community.
We had a young up-and-coming assistant DA found dead in a car in Matamoros, ostensibly after having swallowed horse tranquilizers. Nobody believed that.
And then, after Saenz took office – the same Saenz who the peanut gallery accused of moral turpitude even though they could produce no tangible proof and after two grand juries no billed him – did something they were hollering for.
He set up a Child Abuse Task Force which has already tallied some impressive convictions against criminals who prey on the most vulnerable among us, children. And is there anything more dear to a mother (and to most women, for that matter) than the safety and welfare of children?
He also launched a campaign to raise the awareness of the public to the issue of domestic violence, going as far as addressing social service clubs and visiting schools in the Brownsville Independent School District to spread the word on adults and impressionable children that assaulting someone for whatever reason is not acceptable behavior.

Saenz has spread the word through the considerable talents of his Public Information Officer Melissa Zamora and his Community Outreach Coordinator Ezequiel Silva. In fact, it was Silva in tandem with the DA's Crime Victims Unit that opened the schools to the anti-domestic violence message and the campaign against bullying. And the billboards you see on the freeway is Zamora's work product.
You would think these tangible, visible actions would have generated some plaudits for the incentives shown by the DA's office. Perish the thought. Instead, both Saenz and Silva (among others like Alex Dominguez and Luis Sorola) have been labeled woman haters (misogynists) without the courage (balls) to do anything (eunuchs).
"It's a turn around world..."
The problem here is that those trying to impose a politically-correct standard of behavior seem to want to cherry-pick who they can define as victims. Victims to them are those women who are on their side of the political ledger. You see, it's perfectly alright to assail someone (women included) who doesn't parrot your party line for imagined transgressions while at the same time downplaying tangible wrongdoing on the part of others with whom you are allied financially or politically.
In other words, it's a hypocritically applied standard and an intellectually dishonest measuring stick that's being used by the mudslingers.
This blog has often posted the peccadilloes of women holding public office and those who seek the public spotlight. We have often become the object of derision from their supporters who claim we are women haters (misogynist eunuchs, their favorite term).

"It was turned around so that right looked wrong..."

But is it not permissible to point out that, say, JP 2-2 Erin Garcia-Hernandez is being investigated for issuing fraudulent waivers for couples to forgo the 72-hour state-mandated waiting period for money without any record of it going to the county coffers? Depending on the opinion rendered by the Texas Attorney Generals' Office, some of the actions attributed to Ms. Garcia-Hernandez may rise to the level of felonies. That will be left up to the discretion of the DA's office.

Is it not permissible to point out that City of Brownsville Commissioner Jessica Tetreau-Kalifa was cited some five times for alleged domestic abuse against her husband after she became a city commissioner?
Is it not permissible to point out that current commissioner Debbie Portillo accepted a campaign contribution (documented) from a corporation in violation of the law?
Was it not permissible to report that Ms. Zamora, when she was a city commissioner, interfered in a DWI arrest on behalf of her public-relations client Rep. Rene Oliveira when one of his girl friends was involved?
All these instances involved elected officials whose actions are open to public scrutiny because they sought the public's vote and public attention on their own.

We  often report on the shenanigans that Cheezmeh's poster girl Linda Dragustinovis gets involved with because she became a public figure by seeking public support for her and her brother's (Erasmo Castro) money-making schemes. In Linda's case, there was even a report of her group strong-arming a barrio bakery owner for a cash contribution for advertising or "face the consequences." That is of some obvious public interest since it was in concert with a local broadcaster's popular food hygiene feature.
And if ever there was a scheme to profit off the problems of women, how about these group's selling pink-ribbon T-shirts against breast cancer and not accounting for the proceeds?
Yet, we have been assailed for posting on those issues.
On the other hand, these same voices have heaped scorn and ridicule on other women (some of them candidates, others elected officials) for alleged actions that they deem in violation of some personal standard. Take for instance, the case of former JP 2-2 candidate Yolanda Begum. Begum took a personal interest in the alleged widespread use of fraudulent mail-in ballots and the hauling in of elderly, mentally disabled, illiterate, and vulnerable adult day-care clients that helped her opponent Erin Garcia-Hernandez win the election. She, the Citizens Against Voter Abuse, and a group of concerned voters (mostly women) gathered information and performed interviews documenting the alleged abuses and handed it over to the Texas Rangers, the Texas Office of the Attotney General, and the FBI. Partly as a result of her and others' efforts, a joint state and federal investigation is ongoing with at least one indictment issued and many more in the offing.
Or take the case of BISD trustees Catalina Presas-Garcia and Lucy Longoria. They, too, were on the wrong side  of the cyber critics and have been lashed unmercifully without rein for not toeing the line imposed by these hypocrites. Letty Perez-Garzoria, a former candidate for city hall, is another target for these cyber bullies as is Mary Esther Garcia and her mother Sofia Benavides, the Cameron County Pct. 1 commissioner.
In the case of Mary Esther Garcia, she became a liar and was castigated for "misleading" the public when an invitation to a fundraiser buried in the folds of a FaceBook page didn't contain the word "for" between her name and the position she sought. Wow!
The same goes for Alex Dominguez, who is a candidate against Ernie Hernandez for county commissioner. Again, someone missed the word "for" in a FB page and the report flew off to the Texas Ethics Commission from the predictable quarters. And when he joked with the staff about of the JP 2-1 office about the waivers, he became a scumbag because he was "kicking a woman when she was down," in the words of the Hernandez's attack dog.
So, selling fraudulent documents and getting caught a it, abusing your husband, interfering with an arrest, and accepting illegal contributions from a corporation rank at the same level as overlooking the word "for" in a political website?
And what makes these women (and men) acceptable targets and open game for ridicule, scorn, and derision but you become a "misogynist eunuch" when you point out the potential misdemeanors and felonies of the other group?
Let's look at this in black and white. Silva is a successful businessman who employs over 45 employees in his business.
Dominguez has become a successful lawyer who comes from a migrant family of 10. And Saenz also became a successful lawyer who arrived in Brownsville on a bus with $20 in his pocket.
Can the same be said about their cyber detractors? One is an unemployed scammer and another is a disbarred lawyer.
Could it be that we are overturning some political and financial interest apple cart between the critics and these individuals? Is their double-standard showing?
"It was turned around so that up looked down..."