“You have the right to remain stupid. …”
The final entry in The Duck! City trilogy that began with “Breaking Bad” and continued with “Better Call Saul” stars “This Fool” co-star Frankie Quiñones as Solomon Peña, a failed GOP candidate accused of ordering — and participating in — drive-bys on Democratic officials’ houses and offices.
Hilarity ensues. Or not.
Look for the premiere, “Don’t Recount … Reload!” on Court TV.
Tags: Better Call Saul, Breaking Bad, Solomon Peña
Mad Blog Media 
January 17, 2023 at 8:59 am |
When you glorify crime to make money for the city and someone takes you seriously, is it time to look in the mirror?
NYC has its George Santos. We have this Einstein. At least he was stupid enough to leave an obvious paper trail.
Ugh. In the national news again for all the wrong reasons.
January 17, 2023 at 9:16 am |
NYT, WaPo, The Guardian, NPR, MSNBC … just a few of the national and international outfits that ran with the story. Good times. Maybe not.
I don’t think this item will get added to Visit Albuquerque’s “23 Reasons to Visit Albuquerque in 2023” blog entry.
January 17, 2023 at 10:13 am |
This just in: Suspect was seen on video leaving the scene driving a Pontiac Aztek, or no, maybe it was a Bounder motor home.
January 17, 2023 at 12:36 pm |
Is this the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle at work?
January 17, 2023 at 1:04 pm |
Yep. inmate Pena didn’t have a clue as to whether his bullets were anywhere close to his targets.
Fortunately inmate Pena wasn’t smart enough to use the big gun like Walter did.
January 17, 2023 at 5:33 pm |
What a great trilogy. It takes us from Nacho to Lalo to Pendejo.
January 17, 2023 at 10:19 am |
We should all hope that Santos is not a gun owner. Or, that he has a group of gullible, armed, and stupid friends. Like Carlins said, and I paraphrase here, this is the best we got folks. Pena should have set his sights higher, pun intended. He should have gone into the desert and shot down those Jew-ish space lasers.
January 17, 2023 at 12:41 pm |
Some 40 percent of Americans say they couldn’t come up with $400 in an emergency. This dude managed to find $500 to pay gunmen to shoot up Democrats’ houses, or so the cops say.
Sheeyit. That’s what I call a Republican for reals. When there ain’t no money for anything else, not even an emergency, Republicans can always find a little sumpin’-sumpin’ to buy ammo.
January 17, 2023 at 10:55 am |
And now my man Charlie Pierce has weighed in, as I expected he would.
January 17, 2023 at 1:09 pm |
Charlie mentions “In September, 2nd Judicial District Judge Joshua Allison ruled that a state law barring felons from holding office unless they are pardoned by the governor is unconstitutional so Pena remained on the ballot.”
I wonder if this is being appealed now that this happened. I looked up something in the State Constitution, Art. 2, Sec 8. Here’s the link:
“Vote is supreme right. — The supreme right guaranteed by state constitution is the right of a citizen to vote at public elections. State ex rel. Walker v. Bridges, 1921-NMSC-041, 27 N.M. 169, 199 P. 370.
Restrictions that impair the right to candidacy are subject to rational basis review. — The right to candidacy and the right to vote are subject to differing levels of scrutiny. The right to candidacy is not fundamental, whereas the right to vote is fundamental. Restrictions that only impair the right to candidacy are subject to rational basis review. Restrictions on voters’ rights can be subjected to heightened scrutiny. Laws limiting the field of candidates are unconstitutional when they burden an identifiable segment of voters, such as voters who share a particularized viewpoint, economic status, or associational preference, by limiting these voters’ freedom of choice and association. Under rational basis review, a law need only be rationally related to a legitimate governmental purpose. Kane v. City of Albuquerque, 2015-NMSC-027.”
Seems some ahem…rational basis review should ask if criminal nutcases like this can be excluded from running.
January 17, 2023 at 1:34 pm |
Not sure where my comment ended up, but I looked at the NM State Constitution after reading Charlie’s piece (Art II, Sec 8):
Vote is supreme right. — The supreme right guaranteed by state constitution is the right of a citizen to vote at public elections. State ex rel. Walker v. Bridges, 1921-NMSC-041, 27 N.M. 169, 199 P. 370.
Restrictions that impair the right to candidacy are subject to rational basis review. — The right to candidacy and the right to vote are subject to differing levels of scrutiny. The right to candidacy is not fundamental, whereas the right to vote is fundamental. Restrictions that only impair the right to candidacy are subject to rational basis review. Restrictions on voters’ rights can be subjected to heightened scrutiny. Laws limiting the field of candidates are unconstitutional when they burden an identifiable segment of voters, such as voters who share a particularized viewpoint, economic status, or associational preference, by limiting these voters’ freedom of choice and association. Under rational basis review, a law need only be rationally related to a legitimate governmental purpose. Kane v. City of Albuquerque, 2015-NMSC-027.
January 17, 2023 at 1:43 pm |
Your original comment wound up in my spam folder, but your followup did not. Weird. The long URL appended to the original, mebbe?
January 17, 2023 at 2:03 pm |
Probably the URL. But I hate sending stuff without documentation.
January 17, 2023 at 2:06 pm |
Sheeyit, bruh. Just make it up the way I do. Fiddy-fi’ percent of lefty bloggers agree! Just ax me!
January 17, 2023 at 2:52 pm |
We are talking about dumpster groupies here, along with some convicted felons, so who needs documentation? Besides the republicans let him run, right? They must really vet their candidates. This congress gig is the best one Santos has ever had. They will have to drag him outa there kicking and screaming.
January 17, 2023 at 3:03 pm |
I don’t know if anyone appealed that judge’s ruling. And as you say, Pat, if this was the best the GOP could do in that district, well…that says a lot.
The Santos case was a real dumpster fire. GOP operatives using the Sgt. Schultz defense and Dems being complacent to the point of not doing their intelligence work and ignoring red flags in a small newspaper. But I guess Hitler was right in Mein Kampf: if you make a lie big enough, people assume it is the truth as they don’t think anyone would make up collossal whoppers. That’s was TFG’s modus operandi, too.
January 17, 2023 at 5:15 pm |
The Elefinks haven’t had a lot of luck down here in recent years because they field shit candidates, when they can find anyone to run at all. It’s the reverse of B-burg, where the Donks often skipped contests because it was a waste of time and money.
January 17, 2023 at 10:15 pm |
Charles Guiteau doesn’t get enough credit for being a nutcase who cut short a decent presidency. Fun fact: James Garfield is the only President with a significant mathematical proof on his resume. Dude was waiting on a cabinet meeting, folks were running late, so he whipped out a pencil, sketched three triangles inside a trapezoid, and came up with a simple but novel proof of the Pythagorean theorem.
January 18, 2023 at 8:26 am |
This story has really blown up this morning. One of the victims was interviewed on Morning Edition on NPR, and the story is everywhere.
January 18, 2023 at 8:45 am |
Yeah, it’s got legs. Once the AP got hold of it, it went viral, as those crazy kids today say.
Here’s Smashing the State 101 for all the noobs out there: Ixnay on the ’one-phay, especially when it comes to snapping pix of comrades with weapons and texting co-conspirators. No motoring around with guns, drugs, and money, especially if there are warrants out for you. Oh, yeah, and make sure one of your troops isn’t a police informant.
January 18, 2023 at 3:56 pm |
Their main problem was they forgot the costumes. If you are cosplaying as a nutcase, you ought to dress the part.
January 18, 2023 at 4:13 pm |
January 18, 2023 at 5:14 pm |
That asshole is in the Safford Federal slammer but is eligible for release in December, when he will have to buy his own organic food. If he had confronted a Duke City cop while holding a spear, I think his sentence would have been longer, much longer. If I had been that DC or Capital Police cop, one command to drop the spear then Taser city. Unarmed my ass.
January 18, 2023 at 6:57 pm |
It seems Solomon Pendejo will remain in MDC for a couple weeks pending a pretrial detention hearing. But the algorithm could spring him on his own recognizance. I shit thee not.
January 18, 2023 at 7:24 pm |
Oh for the love of Dog….
“…According a public safety assessment used by the court, an algorithm recommends that Peña be released on his own recognizance. While he does have a prior felony conviction, the assessment argues that Peña is not accused of a violent felony and his failure to appear in court was more than two years ago…”
So hiring hit men to shoot up people’s homes is not a violent felony? One wonders whether this is final proof that in New Mexico, the inmates are running the asylum. Meanwhile, the Representative from Whistle Pig Whiskey introduced legislation to make me a felon.
January 18, 2023 at 8:16 pm |
Joline Krueger posted the algorithm checklist.
January 19, 2023 at 12:57 am |
Perhaps if the algorithm is the guiding article in NM, a software engineer with a metallurgical background can see that the algorithm specifies a release to include welded shackles with five links of 50 lbs/link chain. Of course, a notice would have to be communicated to Mr. Pena reminding him to avoiding swimming in areas where the water depth is over his head.
January 19, 2023 at 6:00 am
Are we witnessing a downside of AI? Maybe there will be left- and right-leaning AI algorithm programmers? Choose your algorithm source based on your political predisposition? Just curious ….. and we know what that did to the cat.
January 19, 2023 at 6:55 am |
Political blogger Joe Monahan has some more deets on The Suspect, The Algorithm & the Cops, as well as some background on Peña that I haven’t seen elsewhere.
I’d like to know where he gets his money. He was in the Graybar Hotel from April 2007 to March 2016, according to The New Mexican, and on probation for another five years. With a felony theft record I expect employment must have been difficult to find.
Joe says Peña “has a checkered employment past with nothing substantial. He lists his last job as a sales rep with a roofing company. But he did take out a $165,000 mortgage in December 2019 to purchase a 1,726 square condominium at Alcalde Place, the high rise located across from KOB and KRQE TV stations where he was arrested this week.”
So where’s he get the fat stacks to pay for the mortgage, the newish car, and (allegedly) the hit men? Leftovers from the campaign fund? Something even less above-board? I doubt he’s working the median with a cardboard placard. That shit doesn’t dollar up on the hoof.
January 19, 2023 at 7:25 am |
// With a felony theft record I expect employment must have been difficult to find.//
In todays political climate, that might be a feature, not a bug.
January 19, 2023 at 8:01 am
Or even yesterday’s political climate. G. Gordon Liddy managed to find work.
January 19, 2023 at 7:32 am |
Hmmmm. Maybe somebody is buying a seat in the NM state legislature. It seems that the old adage “follow the money” used for prosecuting organized crime is equally useful for politicians. A convicted felon is punished for life, and that’s not right. But when one repeat offends, like becoming a politician, the AI should reach a different solution.
January 19, 2023 at 8:02 am
It’ll make a fine story for some hardcore reporter who likes burning through the ol’ shoe leather. There’s gotta be a lot more here than meets the casual glance.
January 19, 2023 at 11:03 am
You are right buddy. And that’s a wrap!