Liars, Cowards, Crooks and Lynch Mobs vs. Rachel Quintana, PT. II

Note: On Sunday, November 11, 2007, I wrote the first part of my blog on my client Rachel Quintana. I encourage you to read that blog as it forms the foundation for this one.

Rachel Quintana was such a successful campaigner that despite all pre-race prognostications, she found herself in a runoff with the El Paso Times favorite Jimmy Suerken. Keep in mind that retiring representative Presi Ortega and all of his allies, city reprentatives Steve Ortega and Susie Byrd, were also fervently backing Suerken. Also note that never once did the Times dare to mention that their golden boy’s chief cheerleader, Presi Oretga, had acquired the status of not just tax deadbeat, but serious tax deadbeat as evidenced by the $350,000 tax lien the IRS had levied against him. Wouldn’t want to tarnish an image of an ally by reference to a fairly salient fact, now would they? Don Flores at the Times beat the drum weekly for Suerken against Quintana. It became deafening. Paul Strelzin, another known tax deadbeat (in 2001 he supported his politician friend’s 11.89% tax increase on all of us while it turned out that he himself hadn’t paid his own property taxes in four years) used his bully pulpit at Univision 1650 AM to push and then push harder for Suerken. If that weren’t enough, average citizens, people just like you who dared to support Quintana were publicly savaged.

For example: Jery and Marvin Rosenbaum who had been quietly minding their own business, literally, for years, providing a service and creating jobs for El Pasoans, suddenly discovered to no one’s greater surprise than their own, that their businesses (at least one flea market and the El Paso-Los Angeles Limousine Service) were now located in a zone slated for takeover by City Manager Joyce Wilson. Why? So Miss Wilson could turn around and give the property she coveted to her friends at the private land hungry organization she aslo represents, the Paso del Norte Group. Note once more: the PDN are not only Joyce Wilson’s friends but she is actually their spokesperson. The Rosenbaums did not sit idly or silently by. They actually had the audacity to fight for their property rights and our property rights and their businesses and their livelihoods and those of their employees. They made their message very clear. Their parents had owned a store in Nazi Germany which the Nazis seized from them. The Rosenbaums said that they were not going to let that happen again.

They hooked themselves up and got information from the national movement formed by Americans fighting the Joyce Wilsons in other parts of the country, fighting the taking of land by cities to give to their friends in private industry. And one of the best things and most effective things the Rosenbaums did was support and donate to several candidates running for El Paso city council, especially those who opposed the use of eminent domain to take over private property to give to other private owners like the PDN. They were fighting for their life’s work, their employees’ jobs, their own private property rights, and by extension, the private property rights all of us cherish. Of course they supported Rachel Quintana.

Dionicio Flores’ onslaught continued. He ran all kinds of ink attacking the Rosenbaums’ lawyer. He ran all kinds of ink insinuating the Rosenbaums themselves were a special interest group ignoring in fact what they really were: hardworking, quiet, private citizens and property owners, now fighting for their rights against Joyce Wilson and her powerful minions. 2001 tax deadbeat Paul Strelzin resumed his venomous on-air attack, unleashing slanderous callers on the Rosenbaums on his talk radio propaganda-for-his-friends show. Jery and Marvin Rosenbaum did not understand this media cabal yet. They did not understand that it is a one-two knock out. Don Flores at the paper (witness today’s editorial) lays the foundation for the public lynching that is about to occur and Paul Strelzin uses the radio to allow mobs to savage their enemy du jour. The Rosenbaums naively went on the Strelzin show as guests. Did Strelzin let them state their position? Nope. Then why invite them on? To allow caller after caller to repeat over the air nothing but unsubstantiated rumors that had nothing to do with the matter of Joyce Wilson wanting to appropriate private citizens’ land and hand it over to her PDN group. The real issue becomes obfuscated and the coffins of any unwitting, purported adversary are nailed shut with bone-chilling deliberation. The press does not flinch. The press does not protest. The press actually aids and abets.

One woman called in named “Sue” (no last names required for those known to the bouncer). She claimed to be a member of the synagogue. She claimed she knew about the Rosenbaums, as though being a member of the same religion and congregation endowed her with x-ray knowledge about their businesses. “Sue” somehow knew that the Rosenbaums conducted business “under the table” and they weren’t paying their taxes. The modus operandi of tax deadbeat Strelzin is to allow his microphone to be used to spew lies and gossip and once it is out there, how does the besmeared victim fix it? Refute it? Where? How? Not on his show and certainly not in the Times. Strelzin allows people to call in and identify themselves anonymously, utter the most horrible things about you, and then deny you a response. You’re not just put on the defensive. You’re on the chopping block. The axe has fallen before you realize it. The Rosenbaums were being schooled on what happens when you oppose big money like Bill Sanders at the PDN and his politician son-in-law Robert O’Rourke and Joyce Wilson carefully placed at the City with powers of eminent domain. And “Sue”? Mission accomplished. I don’t believe we’ve heard from her again. But you can be sure we will. Her or another anonymous would-be confidential informant. You don’t need to be dancing-with-the-stars qualified when the sleazy bouncer admits you past the slimy velvet rope. Just a tight dress, exposed cleavage, and a willingness to say whatever he wants to hear.

Also remember that, although “Sue” and her friends and Strelzin were so concerned about the unsubstantiated rumor that the Rosenbaums did not pay their taxes, a rumor she herself created that day on the Strelzin show, Sue et. al. made no mention of Presi Ortega’s established $350,000 tax debt to the federal government (i.e. you the taxpayer). Why were “Sue” and Strelzin not interested or concerned about Presi Oretga’s huge and not rumored but factual tax debt? Honor among prospective thieves? Hmmm. And note the final irony in this game of smoke and mirrors and deception and insinuation. Presi Ortega said that the land downtown needed to be taken over because it didn’t generate enough taxes. Taxes he himself, interestingly, had failed to pay.

The Rosenbaums plodded on trying to shield themselves from these unprovoked, vicious attacks. They continued to believe that right would prevail. Enter Rachel Quintana, whose message was clear and simple. She stood for no new higher taxes, and no use of eminent domain to take land from private owners and give it to other private groups. In other words, Rachel Quintana was fighting Joyce Wilson, Bill Sanders, Robert O’Rourke, the PDN and Don Flores at the Times. That’s a tall order for a young woman, mother of a five year old and a FedEx employee.

Despite Don Flores’ harping and pounding in the paper and despite Strelzin’s similar efforts on his propaganda show, a miracle happened. The voters of Rachel Quintana’s district were able to hear her message of no higher taxes and no eminent domain. They not only could hear her over Don Flores’ and Strelzin’s screaming, trying to shout her down, but they voted for her and elected her as their city council representative.

But remember. Rachel was never supposed to have won that election. City Rep. Steve Ortega, supporter of Suerken and Joyce Wilson and the PDN was on the Strelzin show before Quintana had even been sworn in. Before she had voted on a single item. He was smearing her almost before the election results had been confirmed, casting aspersions on her and insinuating she was corrupt. Democracy had prevailed against entrenched special interests. But damn democracy. The special interests were going to get rid of Rachel one way or the other, come hell or high water.

Welcome to hell ladies and gentlemen. Do you feel how hot it’s getting around here?

To be continued.