Just Minutes to Learn Something Important.

Please read this.  It really is incredible.

Stop the Rip Off

Reader View: Update royalty rate charged for drilling federal public lands - The Santa Fe New Mexican: My View

Easy As Pie

If Susana Martinez ever sits in front of a Senate Confirmation Committee, think how easy it will be to dismantle her highly propped up resume.  Think of the charts one could put on an easel for the Senators to see.  You could start with one on comparing New Mexico's High School graduation rate with the rest of the country.  (That would be number 50.)  Or you could show New Mexico's ranking on job creation, poverty, population decline, corruption, and oh so many more things.

And if she decides to run for the US Senate, just think of the TV Commercials you could make.  You could just show those charts, pictures of her political advisor Mccluskey, and her good bud Diana Duran doing a perp walk into the local lockup.

The real question is, what happens in the next two years?

Reinvention

When I took office as Mayor in December of 1997, the Albuquerque Police Department was a centralized and somewhat fossilized bureaucracy.  There were lots of problems and I had run  on a platform of bringing some new ideas to the department.  Specifically I was interested in Community Policing.  Here is an article link about the Police Chief I hired to bring it about, Jerry Galvin.

Subsequent administrations dismantled the Community Policing we set up and the bunker mentality returned to the Command staff at APD.  And now the the current administration seems to think Community Policing as something proposed by our hapless Chief Gordon Eden is a great idea.  It is laughable that we have to start this all over again.

More of the Same

After my post on Congresswoman Michele Grisham Lujan's do nothing meeting on gun violence yesterday, she mailed this appeal out to her democratic supporters.  On the anniversary of the Sandy Hook massacre of children, she can't even get specific in her plans to her supporters about what it is she is proposing.  Does she want a ban on gun show sales?  Does she want a ban on assault  rifles?  Does she want a registration program on all firearms owned by Americans? (We have to register our cars.)  Or does she just want to pretend.  And in fairness our other Democratic Congressman Ben Lujan Jr. needs to come out and tell us what he thinks.

Eye Strain

I got a major dose of eye strain this weekend by reading "The Big Short" by Michael Lewis.  I had been meaning to read it for some time, but with the movie coming out I thought it might fill out the characters a little better.  We will see the movie next week while everyone else is viewing "Star Wars".

The one thing I learned from this book, and it is frightening, is that seemingly intelligent people can wander into disaster by not fully understanding that  the actions they take guarantee the disaster.  And that got me to thinking about Donald Trump, Ted Cruz and the rest of those GOP Presidential candidates.  We could actually end up electing one of these very dangerous men whose only view of reality and the world is their own ego and fundamentalism.

Our regular group, known as the 'gang of eight' had dinner last night here in our home.  Three hours of political discussion and then we all gave up and wandered into a discussion of what makes a battery work and what is inside it.  That might be profound, but I don't know exactly how.

Bosque Snow

Doing Nothing

This post from Congresswoman Michelle Grisham Lujan is almost a stereotype of many democrats discussing gun violence.  Have a meeting.  Can't we all get along.  Let's trust each other.  Blah Blah Blah.  I mean, really read this and you can see the fear of the NRA.

Pasta

I demand, as a true Pastafarian, that our symbol be displayed next to all Christmas Trees on public property.  Sure, we will throw in some Teddy Bears for kids.  And we will waste just as much time as everyone else in debating whether a decorated tree is a religion.  

Another List!

Albuquerque's Mayor Richard Berry can feel good about our city being number one on another list.  Not.  It turns out we have the worse housing market in the United States.  Read it here.

If he was half as good at fixing up economic development here as he was arranging a parade for Holly Holm, then maybe we could get somewhere.  (I wonder how many tax dollars went into that parade?  Police and fire overtime? Street Management?)  An expensive photo op for the Mayor and Governor.

Fiddling

Governor Martinez is fiddling like Nero again.  She is diverting attention from our disastrous economic condition by insisting that we have courts monitored by citizens to make sure good sentences have been handed out and that crooks don't get out on bail.  She is asking for the umpteenth time to have a 'crackdown' on drunk drivers.  She is demonizing the folks who do  your landscaping and replace your roofs so they can't get drivers licenses.  And she is aided and abetted by our largest daily propaganda instrument called the Albuquerque Journal.  I have written this rant for the umpteenth time too.

There is more talk about using the State Permanent Fund for education.  Tapping into this 14 billion dollar savings account might finally be a good idea now that we are really in a rainy day scenario for which it was meant to be used.  But beware, because if we tap into that fund there must be some solid language that general fund and other monies going to education are not lessened.  Supplanted that is.  It would be a way for Governor Martinez and her rightwing mascots in the Legislature to give another tax break to their rich bankrollers.

Misc.

Every time Donald Trump says the words 'Muslim', 'them' or 'they', substitute the word Jew and see who it sounds like.

The Supreme Court has declined to review lower court ruling on local jurisdictions ban of assault weapons in their communities.  Of course that will mean absolutely nothing to the likes of our New Mexico leaders and elected officials.  It is an open door and none of them will have the courage to walk through it.  Probably because they will remember what happened to me when serving as Mayor.  I tried to stop concealed weapons being allowed in ABQ.  I held a news conference with UNM Emergency Room Doctors and the NRA sent heavily armed goons to the event.  It was against the law to have weapons on the Campus but they came anyway and surrounded the physicians.  

The Santa Fe New Mexican had an OpEd to day that is a primer for anyone who might have to run against Susana Martinez in the future.  It is a reference tome for constructing her record on TV Commercials  You can read it here.

Bliss

Ignorance is bliss for Governor Susana and Mayor Berry.  After receiving state funds for workforce training and tax relief, the bio tech firm NanoMR is pulling out of New Mexico for California.  You know, that place with higher taxes and more regulations.

The question  here is, did the Governor or Mayor even know this was happening?  Did they ever make one effort to go to the new owners, sit down with them and just make a case for staying in an economically devastated New Mexico.  (thanks to the lack of leadership of the Mayor and Governor.)

How much longer can this kind of ignorance is bliss attitude last in our state's leadership?  Probably a long time.

At the same time in today's Journal the paper reports that fossil fuel energy sector workers are having a tough time. Yes, they are and it  is sad.  But the Journal hasn't said much about their own workers being laid off and replaced by cheap labor in another state.  Couldn't they make a comment about those customer service employees being slammed?   Just asking.

Laughable

It is laughable really.  Our City Council is considering a bill to make street side panhandling illegal because it is a public safety matter.  And it is.  But the last time I checked the panhandlers had not engaged in mass killings with assault rifles.

But where are our gutless Mayors, Governors and City Councils on the issue of reasonable gun control.  Well, they are hiding in the bushes because they are frightened by the NRA and its resident and numerous gun nuts.  I would advise these elected cowards to read "Profiles in Courage" by JFK.  It heralds those brave public officials in history who opposed popular sentiment to  make our country great.

Thoughts and prayers

This is so true.

Fallback

Corrupt pols who get caught always seem to have a fallback position, or should I say fall down on to the knees position.  Disgraced republican Secretary of State Diana Duran said she fell down on her knees to ask god to relieve her of her gambling addiction.  I am pretty sure she did that to gain sympathy from our god fearing constituencies in NM.  She doesn't want any jail time after pleading guilty to violating campaign laws, the very ones she is supposed to enforce.  After all, how can she spend her pension money if she is in jail?

I am not sure it makes any sense to spend significant amounts of money on keeping her in prison for her crime.   But I think 90 days in the cooler is required just to show other pols that there is a price to pay for corruption.  I don't think justice is served by giving her only probation.  As I recall all of our democratic office holders who were found guilty of crimes were in prison for a lenghty time, as they should have been.

Earthlings Should Read This

Michael Shermer » Consilience and Consensus

Searching

My brother Tom and eleven of  his fellow Huey pilots are in Vietnam for a 10 day search for their youth.  They all managed to survive the madness and are being given a grand tour of the country by one of their former adversaries in that sad war.  This is my brother's third trip back to that country.  You can watch a documentary about Tom and his buddy Jack Swickard(in the green shirt) on a famous mission they flew.

Indictments

There can be no better indictment of the abysmal leadership of Governor Susana Martinez and Mayor Richard Berry than their total silence on the Climate Change meetings in Paris.  We live in one of the best situated landscapes in the world for producing solar and wind power, and yet they have sent no one to these talks to help move us towards a more healthy planet.  Many governors and mayors from around the country and world are in Paris.

Have the Governor or Mayor, or any other elected officials, done one thing in this state to drop our dependance on fossil fuels.  And don't think they cannot.  For example, State and City building codes could be modified to demand solar panels on every single new structure built in this Land of Enchantment. Has anyone in the legislature or city council even attempted to bring this up?  It will be cheaper in the long run to do this than picking up the pieces from an over heated Earth.

This speaks to the absolute cowardice in face of fossil fuel money funding campaigns in this state.  Somewhere there must be a pol willing to take them on.  But they sure are not residing in most of the Governor's or Mayor's offices around  New Mexico.

Misc.

We went to see the movie "Trumbo" yesterday.  For some reason all I could think about during the feature was today's GOP.  Mainly I was thinking about Trump, Cruz, and the rest of that clown posse.  They would  have been right at home on the House Un American Activities Committee.  They would have been champions there for the persecution of free speech, writing and dissent.  Damn, I really don't like these characters.  Do yourself a favor and go see this great entertainment.  You will be in a theater with mostly white haired people.

The Albuquerque Journal editorial on the importance of giving taxpayer money to businesses to stay here or locate here got me thinking how upside down things have become. I recognize this is a necessary thing to do, but what is occurring here is that is all the Journal and its GOP owners want to do.  They don't want taxpayer money funding safety nets, food assistance, and health insurance for our fellow Americans.  They just want subsidies for American Corporations.