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Politics

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There’s Some Hope for the Governed

I’m done with them grassroots fundraisers. I’m really done. I’m also done with them texts politicians send every day, always asking for dough. For five, ten bucks. They need the money by midnight, they say, to reach a goal. I don’t care about no goals. But I care about electing the right fellas to run our government. That’s why I gave money before, when Barack was running for President the first time around. But not…
Pedro Chavez
August 22, 2023
ColumnsPolitics

INFAMOUS BLACK BAG

For those who are left behind, there is nothing more dreaded than the black bag. The vile black bag. The temporary container that often arrives unannounced at Mexican and other consulates in the United States, carrying the last remnants, the decomposing bodies of unfortunate brave souls who dared dream of a better future and who went after it going north. Carrying what is left at the of the road: mortal flesh, but also unwritten epitaphs,…
Pedro Chavez
December 15, 2022
ColumnsPolitics

Dear Mr. Lincoln

Dear Mr. Lincoln, Your political party, the now called Grand Old Party, the one founded to oppose the spreading of slavery and the 1854 Kansas-Nebraska Act, would be unrecognizable to you today if you were to return from the grave. It is no longer the party bent on such liberal ideal as the pursuit of happiness and the principle that all men and women are created equal. The GOP, Mr. Lincoln, has done a one-eighty…
Pedro Chavez
September 24, 2022
ColumnsPolitics

A Time of Sorrow, and Disbelief

IMAGE: Redacted copy of the letter I received from the White House. Got a letter today, it was from the White House. It was signed by the president of the United States. He didn’t really sign it, it just had the replica of his signature on it. He demanded the John Hancock and the mailing of such letters as a political ploy, to tell Internal Revenue Service direct deposit recipients that the stimulus money that…
Pedro Chavez
April 27, 2020
ColumnsPolitics

Media Outlets Profit in Trump Era

IMAGE: Donald Trump during presidential campaign. iStock photo (Getty Images)     The legendary king of late night TV, Johnny Carson, would sometimes blame a “slow news day” for the lack of comedic material for his standup. It was a different era. No CNN 24-hour news, no other networks doing the same, no political pundits spreading their hype on television and the Internet, no social media. Times have changed, though, especially now that The Donald…
Pedro Chavez
March 14, 2018
ColumnsPolitics

Justice Will Be Done; America Will Survive

NEW YORK CITY - SEPTEMBER 3 2015: Republican candidate for president Donald Trump. iStock photo.   Ours is not just a nation of republicans and democrats, of red and blue states, or of conservatives and liberals. Ours is a bastion of freedom for all of the people. Also of self-government and justice for all — a country in which those that call this place home can say it’s theirs. Ours, too, is a democratic experiment…
Pedro Chavez
July 15, 2017
ColumnsPolitics

Business as Usual

PHOTO: A Walmart Supercenter, similar to the one in Chula Vista.   NOTE: Wrote this column in 2010 after a visit to the store mentioned below. Something tells me that not much has changed since then and it is still business as usual at the Walmart stores along the U.S.-Mexico border.   This one is probably the busiest Walmart store on the face of the earth. But no one has to tell you that if…
Pedro Chavez
January 7, 2016
ColumnsPolitics

Pesos for Pizza

NOTE: Wrote this column in January, 2007, right after Pizza Patrón in Dallas announced that it would accept Mexican pesos as payment for their food at their outlets. The marketing move worked. Photo from Getty Images.   A pizza chain’s marketing ploy seems to be bringing its spinners more than what they had in mind from some irate folks who sense that America is becoming too much like Mexico. On the other hand, there’s a…
Pedro Chavez
December 15, 2015
ColumnsPolitics

The Lure for Cheap Labor

PHOTO: Mexican worker in the service industry. Getty Images.   There are tons of Americans that complain about the undocumented immigrants and their presence in this country. They want them to go back to where they came from. Basically, they want to get rid of the masses of people doing the work most folks in our affluent nation won’t do, the cheap labor that fattens the bottom lines of a great chunk of corporate America.…
Pedro Chavez
December 4, 2015
ColumnsPolitics

Letter to President Barack Obama

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama addresses supporters in Golden, Colorado, on September 16, 2008. (Photo by John Moore/Getty Images) Dear Mr. President: I am sure you still have a lot on your plate as you approach the final year of your presidency. Some of it, I hope, has to do with the stuff you promised when we the people elected you to run our country in 2008. There’s other stuff, for sure, and more of…
Pedro Chavez
November 8, 2015