What’d He Say? Ray Torres on Border Security

With this article I’m starting a new column called, “What’d He Say?” I thought about calling it, “I Don’t Understand the Words that are Coming Out of Your Mouth” [apologies to Chris Tucker] but it got a little…wordy.

I just read a Scottsdale Republic “My Turn” by Mayor Jim Lane’s chief henchman Ray Torres, and I have no idea what Torres is saying. It’s possible that it’s just because I’m “goofy” (Lane/Torres’s response to me pointing out the city’s budget deficit last year…which appears to have grown in the interim from $8 million to $20 million). However, I think I don’t understand Torres because HE has no idea what he’s talking about.

I’d provide you the AZCentral link to Torres’s letter, but in a classic bit of information-age stupidity, Scottsdale Republic opinions editor Grant Martin or some other web-publishing genius at the Republic doesn’t seem to want the tiny bit of web traffic my link might have brought them. They’ve either so muddled the navigation that I can’t figure it out, or they simply didn’t put Torres’s letter online.

Perhaps, they were so embarrassed by having printed this nonsense that they didn’t want it to live past the deadline for the next printed edition. Like with most of Grant’s editorials.

Before I go any further, I want to make sure you know that “Ray” Torres is not the same guy as “Rey” Torres; the latter being the genius spokesman for Arizona House of Representatives Speaker Andy Tobin who kicked veteran 12 News reporter Melissa Blasius and her cameraman off of the State House floor [Reporter removed from the floor of Arizona House of Representatives]. I guess “Rey” never heard the expression, “Don’t mess with people who buy ink by the barrel.” Or video recording media.

All this “Ray/Rey” business reminds me of comedian Bill Saluga who had a sketch that went like this:

My name is Raymond J. Johnson, Jr. Now you can call me Ray, or you can call me J, or you can call me Johnny, or you can call me Sonny, or you can call me Junie, or you can call me Junior; now you can call me Ray J, or you can call me RJ, or you can call me RJJ, or you can call me RJJ Jr., but you doesn’t hasta call me Johnson!

But I digress. OK, back to “Ray” Torres…

The led of “Ray’s” column says, “Securing border means fixing Mexico’s economy.“

And it ends with,

While the United States decides to spend billions more to secure the bor­der as part of a proposed comprehen­sive immigration plan, Obama must act now, not later, to lay accountability of illegal border-crossing on the doorstep of [newly-elected Mexican president] Nieto. It is an “either-or” option. Fix Mexico’s economic inequality and pov­erty, or suffer the loss of trade and commerce with the United States.

Huh? While “Ray” started out sounding like we (the United States and/or the State of Arizona) should send money to Mexico to prop up their economy, I “think” what he intended to say is that if the Mexicans don’t fix their economy themselves, we are going to fix the border and then we aren’t going to do business with them any more. Which of course, would do wonders for their economy.

However, what Torres is REALLY saying is that his Boss Lane is ready to tackle something more important than piloting the good ship Scottsdale in fighting emigration of car dealerships (and sales tax revenue) to Phoenix. I’m guessing his column is telegraphing a Lane run for Arizona Secretary of State or Governor, since Lane’s other good crony Jason Rose has nixed the idea of Lane running for state treasurer. Whatever…

As in, “whatever” Lane decides to do, he needs to find a better class of crony…or at least one that can string together a couple of paragraphs without sounding like the village idiot.