Angst

I am having one of my angst attacks. It started first thing this morning after reading fellow blogger Joe Monahan's blog and the Albuquerque Journal's stories on the ruling by the Secretary of State that non profit educational organizations will now have to register as Political Action Committees in New Mexico. This is a profound action that will definitely have a chilling effect on being able to expose to the public the voting records of legislators. This wont apply, I assume, to for profit groups who expose voting records. Like the Albuquerque Journal who dutifully, and in an act of public service, show the voting records of our Congressional Delegation on a regular basis.

So, the Journal prints 110k copies on weekdays and 150k copies on weekends with the voting records on issues of importance. The non profits send out 20k mailers, and they are evil. But, they don't endorse candidates or say who the recipients should vote for. However the Albuquerque Journal does tell us who to vote for every election cycle and does numerous editorials bitching about the way politicians vote.

Yes, I know, they are journalists and I understand all of their importance , however waning, and their provisions under the Constitution. But if you really stop and think about it, it is all amazing. It is basically an uneven playing field where a powerful and wealthy family that owns a newspaper can do this, but non profits can not do it. So, maybe the nonprofits should open newspapers!

In the meantime, I would like to see someone start exposing the group that is doing a smear campaign on Democratic candidate for US Senate Tom Udall. This right wing "Club for Growth" is spending a lot of money doing what the right wing does best. Lying.