Tuesday, January 01, 2013

Things I Want to See

There are some things I would like to see happen in 2013.  First and foremost is for the President and Congress to get serious on the issue of climate change.  Nothing is more important.  All the other issues become irrelevant if the USA continues to ignore this global challenge.

Secondly, I would urge continued support of renewable energy.  The oil and coal boys can't see past their next quarterly reports and bonus awards and they use windfall profits to help elect their mascots to political office to thwart renewables.   All current oil and gas subsidies should be turned over to the solar and renewable sector.  And a lot more than that too.

The NRA should just go away.

Governor Susanna Martinez should show some vision in public works projects rather than drone on like a broken record on immigrant drivers licenses.  This vision thing is actually really important.  She should fire all of her right wing advisers and hire some futurists.  Her inaction shows a vulnerability which I never expected.

The Democrats should find a decent candidate and spend two years getting ready to take back the Governorship.  It can be done.

Mayor Berry should just force the Chief of Police into retirement.  Show some huevos!  Get some new outside blood to run that department.  And Berry needs to shore up his economic development department.

Senator Martin Heinrich should use his position on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee to protect our watersheds and landscapes.  Of course, that is just what he will do.

Senator Tom Udall should take his campaign to reform Senate rules to the nation's people.  He described to me yesterday how one Senator is holding up over 200 bills on public land protection because he is anti public lands.  One Senator!  The problem is that Udall is not a publicity seeker but his instincts are right on.





1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Yea, I heard Senator Udall interviewed about that on the Bill Press show, a radio show that comes on at 4 in the morning and is heard by 10 or 20 people.

Republicans are severely abusing the filibuster rules and have blocked almost everything the president and the Democrats have tried to do in past two years. The problem is that no one in America but a few political junkies knows anything about it, and whose fault is that?

What I wrote right here sums it up better than Udall did to Bill Press. Meanwhile Republicans are all over the airwaves making their cases about everything in tidy sound bites that make sense to people.

And the minute Press tried asking Udall about other issues, like this fiscal cliff, he became the most mealy mouthed politician you can image, uttering phrases like "I hope we can move forward" and blah blah blah.

What's that? Mere political calculation? A neurosis about caution? Did he notice how Jeff Bingaman got 30 years out of it and a bunch of nice accolades when it was all over?

Thousands of listeners were no doubt inspired to call their congress people and write letters and march on the Capital bearing signs that read "I hope we can move forward."

You don't hear Republicans talking like that, which is why as a minority who just convincingly lost an election they have controlled the debate and forced Democrats into an embarrassing series of retreats in the past few days.

This is not just Udall. The Democratic Party and our whole delegation is like that. I heard what Udall is trying to do abut the filibuster only because Bill Press decided to highlight the issue and called him up.


So, what is Martin Heinrich doing to inform people and inspire people and mold public opinion so that Susana Martinez is forced to do the right thing, and has the political cover to do it?