POLITICS

2025 FRONTeras Magazine Vol. 1 No. 4 Issue She's not even from Texas. Let's start there. Jasmine Crockett is a borrowed native, a St. Louis girl in cowboy boots who showed up, claimed space, and doesn’t play nice with the political gatekeepers of the Lone Star State. That alone offends some people. They expect Southern women to be charming. Polished. At least local. Crockett is none of that. And she makes no effort to fake it. She didn't marry into a legacy or inherit a distr

Representative Jasmine Crockett angered people when she compared some Latino voting patterns to a "slave mentality" during a post-election interview with Vanity Fair. Her words have been resurfaced and people are obviously losing their minds. But nobody wants to talk about whether she was right about the matter. In a December 2024 Vanity Fair interview about Kamala Harris's loss, Crockett was asked about race and gender in the election. Trump pulled 46 percent of the Latino v

The day before I met Omar Escobar at my office, I had offered to buy him breakfast, which he respectfully declined. Coffee, he turned down flat, too. That's a shame because food is great deflection when interviewing someone. So when he showed up the next day for our meeting, my hands were empty. He did, however, accept a bottle of water. As soon as he walked into the office, he was met with Juan Gabriel blasting out of my Monster speaker. He chuckled when I turned the volume

Roma ISD has a problem with consistency. The district accepts a football tunnel emblazoned with a candidate's name, then balks at cupcakes with a thank-you note. Letty Garza Galvan donated 300 cupcakes to Roma High School employees for Thanksgiving. Each cupcake included a small note with her name. The district demanded removal of her name, citing electioneering concerns. Garza Galvan, a former Roma ISD Board President with sixteen years of student advocacy, had also donated

I remember watching my boss come in on Fridays, jeans and a Metallica t-shirt, but still professional enough to lug an old but polished leather suitcase with him. He would plop on his chair and recline so far back he looked like he was hanging from a hammock, he would lift his feet on his desk and cover the entirety of his torso behind The Monitor newspaper. All I could see from my corner cubicle was his cowboy boots crisscrossed on his desk. It was the most impressionable th

Donald Trump pardoned Rep. Henry Cuellar on December 3rd. By December 9th, House Democrats were preparing to restore the Laredo congressman to his position as ranking member of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Homeland Security. It took six days for a man accused of selling his influence to foreign interests to reclaim control over more than $65 billion in annual federal spending. Cuellar doesn't just vote on border security. He decides which DHS programs get funded a

President Trump pardoned Texas Democratic Congressman Henry Cuellar and his wife, Imelda on December 3, wiping away federal bribery and money laundering charges that threatened to send the couple to prison. Cuellar was grateful on social media. On the same day, however, Cuellar filed for reelection as a Democrat. The heartfelt gratitude he expressed to Trump lasted approximately as long as a gentleman's handshake before a duel. By Sunday, Trump was raging on Truth Social, his

President Donald Trump issued a full pardon Wednesday for U.S. Representative Henry Cuellar, the 70-year-old Laredo Democrat who has represented South Texas's 28th Congressional District for over two decades. The pardon extends to Cuellar's wife, Imelda, who faced identical charges in a federal bribery and money laundering case. Federal prosecutors accused the couple of accepting approximately $600,000 in bribes between December 2014 and November 2021 from two foreign entitie

2026 FRONTeras Magazine 1st Quarter Issue There is a condition quietly spreading across parts of Latino America, particularly along the border and anywhere a lifted truck, a badge, or an oil rig can be seen from space. Doctors call it Big Man Syndrome. Symptoms include chronic chest-thumping, extreme sensitivity to perceived disrespect, an allergy to nuance, and the belief that owning a gun, a truck, or a federal uniform somehow transforms centuries of discrimination into a s

2026 FRONTeras Magazine 1st Quarter Issue Starr County Democrats Rally Behind Hinojosa's Gubernatorial Bid Caro's Restaurant in Rio Grande City has hosted its share of political meetings over the years, making it the obvious choice when the Starr County Democratic Party decided to bring gubernatorial candidate Gina Hinojosa to town on a Monday afternoon. The five-term state representative walked through the door with the confidence of someone who grew up in Brownsville and un

2026 FRONTereas Magazine Issue 1st Quarter Bobby Pulido wants a seat at the political table. The Tejano star announced his candidacy for the U.S. House of Representatives in Texas's 15th Congressional District, trading his microphone for a campaign trail that winds from McAllen through Central Texas. His transition from Desvelado to policy proposals mirrors a phenomenon that stretches back generations, where artists leverage their celebrity into civic influence with varying d

Ben Palmer runs a fake immigration hotline that traps bigots in their own words. The TikToker, who commands 3.9 million followers, created what he describes as a deportation reporting line that people genuinely believe is legitimate. His latest catch proves that cruelty doesn't take a day off, not even in elementary school. A kindergarten teacher called Palmer's fake hotline wanting to deport the parents of a five or six-year-old student at her school. The video documenting t

Republicans passed a voting bill Wednesday that could make it impossible for millions of Americans to cast a ballot. The legislation has nothing to do with protecting democracy and everything to do with solving a problem that doesn't exist. The Save America Act, a reworded version of last year's failed SAVE Act, is built on the premise that non-citizens are voting illegally in federal elections by the millions. That claim has never been proven in any court. Federal law alread

2026 FRONTeras Magazine 1st Quarter Issue The 2008 crash taught Seby Haddad something most bankers never learn. Numbers are not abstract. They sit across the table. Foreclosures. Bankruptcies. Failed businesses. Families losing everything. His supervisor said it plainly: 'These are good people going through bad times.' He didn't know it then, but his role as a banker would set up a life in public service. Victor Sebastian "Seby" Haddad learned early that knowing how systems f

2026 FRONTeras Magazine 1st Quarter Issue With the Keurig brewing, Baldemar "Balde" Garza is offered flavored coffee. Starbucks Cinnamon Dolce. Cinnabon Cinnamon Roll. He chooses classic medium roast without hesitation. Garza drinks black coffee. No sugar. No cream. That kind of confidence is a welcome mat for an incredible life. His mother crossed the Rio Grande undocumented from Michoacán, moving through Camargo, Tamaulipas, before reaching El Brazil. There was no plan wait

A last name says it all. A last name is an insignia. In politics, it functions as both credential and liability, often at the same time. Starr County has a long habit of treating last names as verdicts, saving time by skipping straight to judgment. And the prime example of that judgment is "los Peñas." The Peña family's presence in local governance spans generations. Amando Peña Sr. was a Roma Independent School District school board trustee. Fernando Peña, his son, served as

If you live in or around Roma or Rio Grande City, chances are you've complained about a road after a heavy rain, wondered why drainage hasn't been fixed in a colonia, or noticed county crews working on one stretch of pavement but not another. What many residents don't realize is that those decisions don't come from Austin—or even from City Hall. They come from the Starr County Commissioners Court. The Commissioners Court is the real engine of county government. It's where dec

Judith Zaffirini started at the bottom of the Texas Senate hierarchy in 1987, ranked number 30 out of 31 members. Thirty-seven years later, she ascended to the highest position when former Senator John Whitmire resigned on December 31, 2023, to become Houston's mayor. She became the first woman Dean of the Senate, succeeding 24 men who held the title since 1909. Senators look to the Dean for guidance on protocol, decorum, traditions, and knowledge. Zaffirini earned this disti

Scrolling through our social media feeds, we’ve all seen those repetitive reminders: “Register to vote.” “Check your registration status.” “Make sure your voice counts.” They appear so often that after a while, they almost blur into the digital background noise. Most of us scroll past, assuming our registration is fine—that because we voted last time, everything must still be in order. But the other day, I decided to click one of those links. And what happened next was a wake

MAGA women have a look. Heavy foundation several shades too dark. Severe contouring that photographs like war paint. Aggressively blonde hair. Exaggerated lashes clumping together like spider legs. Lips pumped full of filler. Spray tans that stop at the jawline. This isn't accidental or incompetence. This isn't a regional beauty trends gone rogue. This is deliberate. This is look is optimized for one specific audience: conservative men. The phenomenon has earned its own Wikip