GOP Rhetoric

No matter that the public lands in Alaska do not belong to just Alaskans!  The Alaskan Governor has said that the President has declared 'WAR' on the people of the state because he is pushing Wilderness Protection of pristine landscapes for future generations.  US Senator Merkowski has said it is an "ASSAULT" on the state.  Big rhetoric from small minds in a big State.  It is laughable and scary at the same time and signals that the GOP remains on the fringe of American political history.

And then there is the GOP mascot Albuquerque Journal this morning.  They just hate regulation and trampling on corporate ability to steamroll water conscious local residents on fracking in New Mexico.  This horrible system threatens clean water in the area of such drilling operations.

At the same time the Journal wants the legislature to enact regulation on women's right to abortions.  No, I don't like the idea of late term abortions either, but if the archbishops in their funny clothes get their way then no good reason would be good enough for such procedures.

And sadly, here is another incredible black eye for Mayor Berry and APD.  National coverage like this is horrible, as is the reason they had to write it.

Labels

The Albuquerque Sunday Journal story on the Bernalillo County financial mess was informative.  Except for the labeling.  Every single time a quote was made or reference to an elected official the Journal seemed to think it was important to state whether the person was a democrat or republican.  It just jumped out at me this morning for some reason.  As if the Journal needed to label everyone mentioned as a politically charged person rather than an elected official.  So, I went and reread the article and pretended the words republican and democrat were not there.  Suddenly, it seemed like a pretty good debate on how the county ended up in the chaos it is enjoying right now.

All of the Commissioners are to blame.  They just spent too much money.  

Sun Zia

The Sun Zia renewable transmission line was approved by secretary of Interior Sally Jewel today at a ceremony at Sandia national labs. Sen. Martin Heinrich and Congressman Ben Ray Lujan along with the Secretary and Defense Department representatives announced the decision much to the chagrin of Congressman Steve Pearce who for some reason thinks renewable energy transmission will threaten our national defense.

This transmission line across hundreds of miles in New Mexico will inject close to 1000 jobs in construction and 100 permanent jobs upon completion.  The power transmitted will come from renewable energy sources, solar and wind, and will be sent to markets across the southwest.

The announcement was  held at the large solar complex south of the Sandia National Labs.  Between the bright day and reflected solar arrays....everything looked slightly blue to the camera.

Heinrich on the Keystone Pipeline

I would recommend everyone watch this Senate Floor speech by Senator Martin Heinrich today.  It is 16 minutes long and incredibly informative.  If  you ever had any doubts about stopping the Keystone Pipeline, this should clear them away.

Heinrich has really improved his speaking capabilities.

Misc.

I hear that the new Speaker of the House of the State Legislature, republican Don Tripp(a decent guy) had wanted to keep long time House Clerk Steve Arias on an advisory contract to help the new GOP majority run things properly.  Arias alleged said, "No Thanks."  The reason being that he had been treated so disrespectfully by Republican bad boy legislator Nate Gentry.  The result is yesterday's total confusion on now to handle committee reports on the floor.

APS School Board member Kathy Korte's latest outburst and bullying of an APS employee makes it seem that her serving on the board is more about herself and not the schools.  Many appreciate her pushing back against the Governor, but her juvenile fights with other board members and staff really hurt her credibility.  I was known to do that myself, it really is not helpful.

Playing golf with all my buddies and listening to their comments has led me to believe that the Bernalillo County Commissioners who voted for that gross receipts tax hike last week have finished their careers.  I have to agree.  These progressives turned regressive on the tax front.

Logic

Fiddle is to Nero as driver's licenses are to...........?

Tijerina

I was on active duty with the New Mexico Air National Guard at Camp Douglas Wisconsin in 1967 when Reies Tijerina  pulled off his courthouse raid in Tierra Amarilla in his quest to get Spanish Land Grants restored to northern New Mexicans.  (I doubt they would have agreed to go back in history a little more and give those lands to the original Native American residents.)

Governor Cargo had just visited our summer encampment and returned via Air Force Jet to 'manage' the crisis by sending anti aircraft tanks into the state's northern forests.  A bit much even in those days.

I always thought Tijerina was a mixed bag.  He seemed a loose cannon to me, although his charisma and rhetoric were impressive.  I ended up covering him as a news man a few years later, before his anti semetic era, and couldn't help finding myself admiring his skill in calling for social justice.

At one point Tijerina started something called 'Brotherhood Awareness Week.'  I was supposed to moderate a half hour TV discussion between Reies and the Albuquerque Chief of Police at the time. The tension was so thick in the studio between Tijerina's supporters and police officers that I thought there would be trouble.  We started the videotaped show and it was pure hell getting those two to say anything to each other.   After 30 agonizing minutes as the show was about to wrap up, a production assistant ran in from the control room and said, "We forgot to roll the tape!"  It was like being told we had to walk through the gates of hell for a second time.   It actually provided a little comic relief and when we started over again the words came a little easier for everyone.

Tijerina was a man of his times and one that continues to fascinate people to this day.

The Invisible Happening

Tuesday the New Mexico State Legislature will convene.  Men and women from across the state will show up for this sixty day session with some ideas on passing new laws or repealing old ones.  They are all very busy but won't accomplish much because of special interest groups who spend money on friendly lobbyists who take said lawmakers to lunch everyday.  It has always worked that way, but now the influence of money is even more pervasive.

But the real issue here is that more than ever our citizens, even the 20% who might vote, will be mostly ignorant of what goes on there.  I think they just don't care or remember that the session is even occurring.  And the local media will only cover the hot button issues, like so called "Right to Work".  These are manufactured attention getters to keep people in the dark about other more important issues.  Those few journalists who are around that know how this all works will not be enough to keep us informed.

Speaking of journalists, a great has one died.  Eric McCrossen was an old-time reporter and editorial writer who believed in getting facts correct, being fair, and keeping the public interest in mind.  He always treated people with respect.  Something that is now rare at the Albuquerque Journal where he labored for so many  years.  In those days the opinion pieces, which he edited, stayed on the opinion pages and didn't leak over into the news pages.  But these are different times at that publication.

Eric was a genuinely good guy.  In today's brand of journalism there are fewer and fewer of his type around.

bush cheney rumsfeld

Watching Saturday evening news can be enlightening for the mix of commercials you will see.  Laxatives, drugs that you should ask your Doctor about, hard-on enhancers, and veteran charities.  It is that last one that is the most disgusting.

Some redneck crooner is telling us to give money to the Wounded Warriors charity.  Another commercial is from a large law firm that wants to represent the veterans who want disability payments.(and the law firm gets a third.)  A TV News story features a charity run by a priest that makes veterans into bakery cooks.

What is missing here?  Any explanation on how bush, cheney, rumsfeld and their minions were able to spend one trillion on a war with out spending adequately on returning human wreckage from the 'war for profit.'  Why is the government relying on charity to to take care of veterans?  Because spending money on that doesn't give wartime profits to the defense industry and the likes of Blackstone mercenaries.

Watch those news commercials.  They are pretty revolting.

What?

2014 was the hottest year in recorded history.  As the oceans heat up they may be in danger of dying according to new scientific studies.  And the leadership of the Republican party sees the most important issues as building the Keystone pipeline and repealing health care insurance for Americans.

Where does this all end?  I ask this as our two new twin baby granddaughters get ready to head home after 82 days in the Neonatal Intensive Care unit in Fort Collins.  Science has done wonders for Alex and Katy after they were born 11 weeks early.  We can see that scientific research and development can accomplish much.

If only it could enlighten profit motivated politicians and corporations.  But, astonishingly it doesn't.  And so the only hope left are the enraged parents and grandparents of the world who see the decline in quality of life for their kids and grandkids. 

Getting it done

We had a leak in the water main in front our our home.  The crews got on it within hours and are incredibly efficient and friendly.  I wonder if they would like to go run the Police Department and Mayor's Office.

Food for Thought

My friend Dennis Jett contributed to the New Republic Magazine today.  This is a must read if you have plans for seeing the Clint Eastwood movie 'American Sniper."

What is Worse?

I am having trouble deciding which was the worse news in governance yesterday.  Here are the candidates.

1. The Albuquerque Police Department has proven they really don't give a damn what  anyone thinks of them.  Their action, in throwing out from a police shooting  incident briefing yesterday, a representative from the District Attorney's Office because the DA charged  two officers with murder will go down in history as a 'Fuck You" moment.  Essentially they have said the law and legal direction applies to everyone but them.  I am flabbergasted that this could happen and if the US Department of Justice doesn't march in by the end of the week to take over the department, then we are in trouble.  What must the honest hard working beat cop think about this?  And where is Mayor Berry and the City Council?  Their first order of business this week is to fire the Chief and find someone who can run the department as a professional law enforcement agency.

2. The Bernalillo County Commission went to the most regressive tax, the sales tax, to make up for their incompetence in managing their budget.  The poor will pay and the rich will laugh.  And our sales tax will now be 7.25% in the city of Albuquerque.  Every commissioner who voted for this made a decision that they don't want another elective office in the next ten years.  Let's hope.

The winner between these two disasters in leadership has to be the APD descent into madness.

Misc.

Everyone deserves to be represented in court with the best defense available.  The APD officers charged with murder yesterday are no different.  One of them hired Democratic Party Chairman Sam Bregman to represent him in court.  A lot of people are upset, but that is purely a knee-jerk reaction.  Bregman is a master at getting the press to come to his news conferences to hear his over the top assertions of innocence for anyone he represents.  But that is his job.  So everyone should chill out.  Except one wonders why the media falls for his sucker punch approach to polluting the jury pool.

The Bernalillo County management wants a 3/8 cent increase in the gross receipts tax.  They and their commission have decided that bringing the sales tax to almost 8% might, or might not, be a good idea.  Well, it isn't because of the regressive nature of the tax and their mismanagement of their budget.  But one has to remember that the state legislature has added to this problem by making the cities and counties make up losses for the reduction in food taxes a few years ago.  After a phase in, the local governments are now really screwed.  And the state doesn't give a damn.  It affects Albuquerque too and maybe Mayor Berry, a former legislator, should park himself in Santa Fe during the session and fight for his city.

And then there is the fact that Albuquerque's Mayor and current council, along with a feeble amount of leadership in the  business community are over seeing our city's fall in rankings once again.  So of course at the NAIOP luncheon yesterday many of the developers and builders blame the lack of a so called 'Right to Work' law in New Mexico.  And the Albuquerque Journal spends no time asking for comments from these so called 'leaders'.

Instead they have a fact free and lie filled editorial today about the need for the Keystone pipeline in a time of plummeting oil prices and rising temperatures.

Charged

The only question remaining in the case of the shooting of James Boyd by APD is the story of why it took so long to charge the officers with murder.  The DA got around to that today despite a video that showed quite clearly what happened.  There is a real story here that will unfold over time.

APD Response

We have had a lot of burglaries in our neighborhood over the last three months.  These thieves hit houses with burglar alarms because they know they have time before the police respond to get away.  On Saturday night a home was broken into that had an alarm set off.  The police were called immediately and they didn't show up for 50 minutes.

The neighborhood is getting fed up and many urge us to call APD to get better service.  That probably wouldn't help much, but a call to the Mayor's Office and Councillor Isaac Benton might help.

We have to face the fact that APD is in continued deep trouble.  The tragic shooting of an undercover officer by another uniformed officer this weekend in a $60 Meth sting is just the latest manifestation of a failed organization.  Our political leadership on this is pretty much ineffectual.  That can't be fixed until the next city election, but one action could help things.  The current and woefully inexperienced Chief Eden should bow out of the picture.  Fade into the sunset.  Hasta La Vista!  And then the Mayor can start a nationwide search for new leadership for that department.  Pay a lot if necessary and get things fixed.  Ask for help from every successful police department in the country.  They know how things should work.  In the meantime let's hope all those good, dedicated and hardworking officers stick it out.  And there are a lot of them.

Dark Side

Has the Dark Side has come to Public Service Company of New Mexico?  And I don't mean power outages.  I mean questionable business ethics.  What ever happened to that friendly guy, Reddy Kilowatt?  Was he laid off?

The story in the Albuquerque Journal this morning had it a little wrong.  They said a PNM engineer was fired for cause, when in fact he was really fired for being a whistle blower.  The whistle blower issue did get attention however and it should have.  This will play out in court.

But it is rather astounding that this engineer's sense of right and wrong manifested itself  in the current corruption of corporate America.  The fact that a highly experienced power plant manager would see something wrong in padding the books to get a higher rate of return from the utility's customers is refreshing.  Maybe the Public Regulatory Commission should invite him in for a chat.

I hope this gets a lot more attention from everyone in the media and public interest groups.  Especially from PNM who looks rather dishonest right now.  And I hope PNM can find the leadership to lead the country into new ways of providing power in an ever increasing renewable energy way.

But, as I always point out in PNM's favor.  The lights always go on when I flip the switch.  So their engineers must be doing something right.  So why fire them?

Get Real

I don't like our Governor and her minions, but that doesn't mean when they have a good idea that I will work against it.  State Senator Michael Sanchez should do the same.  He is still fighting the bill that would end social promotion in our schools. Those social promotions almost garuntee lots of future problems with these lagging students.

But if the Governor wants this to pass she also needs to be serious about extra reading and early childhood programs that will make social promotion an unneeded tool.  Mainly I would suggest strong reading programs with faltering kids in the first and second grade.  It has been proven that it works, especially if the parents are part of the solution.  Six weeks of this instruction during the summer would work miracles.

Tax the Journal

The Albuquerque Journal continues their pogrom against the poor.  Now they are supporting the imposition of the gross receipts tax on food, because it will lower the tax rate overall.  Let's do a case study.  A poor mother needs to spend $2000 on food.  Right now she pays no tax on that.  A more well off citizen pays $2000 for a flat screen TV and he pays at a 5% rate....$100 in taxes.

Now reimpose the food tax so the overall rate of 5% can be lowered to 4.5%.  The poor mother will spend $90 in sales tax and the rich guy will get his flat screen for $10 less because his tax will be lower.  That is what such a regressive tax would do.  And it shows the complete disregard by the Journal owners, the Lang Family and their right wing editor Kent Walz, for many New Mexicans.  They seem to forget their favorite leaders have led New Mexico to the bottom of the pile in well being.

I think a pretty good way to get back at the Journal would be to repeal the law that exempts them from having to pay a sales tax on the sale of their newspapers.  Any bright moderate legislator could take this one on.

And the Mayor, business leaders and the Journal are all ganging for the passage of the so called 'right to work' bill.'  Another way to keep wages down for the poor. 

Misc.

Would it be fair to say the upcoming session of the New Mexico Legislature might be chaotic?  Of course it would.  As the republicans  take over the House of Representatives they are cooking  up a recipe for disaster as they remake the committee memberships.  Anyone with a D beside their name will most likely be shuffled off to a committee where they have no knowledge of the issues.  And the institutional knowledge that is so important will be lost.  There is going to be some really bad legislation introduced and possibly passed.  The new Attorney General Hector Balderas will need to keep a close eye on all of that legislation so he will need to quickly hire some attorneys to replace the ones he fired.  Without their eyeballs on the legislature there will be bad laws passed.

Newly minted Land Commissioner Aubrey Dunn has cancelled some land auctions meant to stimulate solar energy production on state land.  In a terse announcement yesterday he gave no reason for the cancellations of the bidding process.  Would someone look into at the Albuquerque Journal?  There might be good reasons for this, but we can already see the lack of transperancy at the land office under Dunn's newbie administration.  My guess is that he is doing this for the ranchers who hold the grazing leases on that land.  They probably want undue compensation for giving up their highly subsidized use of the land.  But, hopefully he is just trying to get a bigger chunk of the revenue for the Land Office.  The cowboy hat might be a hint!  We will see.

The Police

I pretty much know what the Mayor in New York is feeling right now.  He is bewildered by the NYPD police force who don't seem to give a damn about the perception they leave about themselves in showing such disrespect to their civilian leadership.  When I was Mayor in Albuquerque I experienced the same attitude from many, but not all, officers who didn't like me bringing in a new chief from the outside.  This behavior should trouble all citizens who have entrusted these men and women with protecting the population.  When such poor judgement is shown with such arrogant behavior then it is frightening.

The shootings of officers in the performance of their duties are now getting more attention than some months ago.  The media seems to be trying to make up for all the bad press that police have recently received.  Some of it was warranted, some was not.  But this is certainly turning into an ever widening rift of police versus community.

A lot of frustration of working people and the poverty stricken might be aimed unfairly at police.  The real problems in this country are not the police but the ever widening division of wealth.  But, the police are making it easy for many to view them suspiciously by turning their backs on the people who citizens voted for in a democratic process.  It is as callous as American corporate treatment of its workers.

Jim King

My longtime friend and native of Albuquerque, Jim King, who lives in Mexico City and runs some entrepreneurial businesses stopped by this morning.  He secretly had been working on a novel for years and it was recently published by Amazon.  It is a horror story based in Albuquerque and is constantly referencing people and places in the city.  Visit his webpage to learn about him and his book.

Tanking Budgets 2015

The news from the Bernalillo County Commission that its budget could possibly suffer a 20% shortfall over the next couple of fiscal years is highly disturbing.  Cutbacks and more taxing would be needed.  But the question is, how did the Commission let it get to this point?  It is a massive failure in their management system that things would get to this point.  County government has always been pretty invisible because there is no one person accountable for occurrences like this one.

And as oil prices continue to fall Governor Martinez's free ride over the last four years will come to an end.  She has a seemingly peculiar lack of management skills on the state level.  It hasn't hurt her so far but I don't think even her pogrom against immigrant's drivers licenses will shield her from criticism for her lack of preparations over the last few months.  Of course the legislature will share in this meltdown.  In fairness, who could see this price decline continuing as it has?  But the Martinez administration looks like the deer in the headlights.

And in the Albuquerque's Mayor's office a feeble bond program shows our victimization by the Marty Chavez administration and their raiding of property taxes to pay for ongoing city operations, rather than using this money for major projects, as was always done.  It is a system that will hobble our city's ability to upgrade public works and projects to make us a player.

It will be interesting to see how everyone handles these frighteningly real budget meltdowns in 2015. Meanwhile those well paying federal jobs still look viable as a cushion, despite the Governor's and Mayor's dislike of government.

The Editor of the Journal

Here is what editor Kent Walz of the Journal and the Lang family think about Americans.  It was written in an editorial this morning.

"Let’s face it. Many Americans just won’t work as carpenters, framers, drywall installers, bricklayers, roofers and painters. They won’t pour concrete or lay adobe. It’s honest work, and the pay is pretty good. But it’s just too hard. It’s easier to collect government bennies, play video games and get subsidized insurance."

This is pretty hard core stuff.  Even for the Journal.  It certainly shows the class bigotry and hate that rules that newspaper's editorial pages.  How can anyone even work there anymore?  Oh, I forgot, they are too lazy to pour concrete.  And, ironically, the Journal wants so called 'Right to Work' legislation to pass to kill unions.  Without unions the pay for concrete pouring jobs will go even lower and why would Americans want those kind of jobs?

Proof?

When will we get proof that our right-wingers really hear from corporations who say they won't move to New Mexico because we don't have so called "Right to Work" laws. They never identify these people and our sap media never asks. They just take it at face value. And so that legislator and apparent working man hater, Sander Rue, who has introduced such legislation should be made to identify those companies that he talked about. There is only one reason for such a law to be passed, and that is to eradicate workers unions.

The new Attorney General, Hector Balderas, has provided proof that he is good at wielding an axe.  His summary firing of over 40 employees was a bit over the top.  It was a PR disaster that really did not have to happen in such a manner.  I am surprised.  He could have asked for everyone's resignation, and then offered to have them apply again to ascertain whether or not they were experienced and efficient state employees.  Yes, they were all at will employees, but little thought was shown in giving them their pink slips.  Some of them probably will walk off with strong institutional memory that Hector could use.  They will also walk off with a real dislike of the new AG.  That didn't have to happen.

Maybe the first person Hector should hire now is an experienced public relations officer who might show him how to do things with class.  

Favorites

My favorite movie of the year was "The Imitation Game".  My other close favorites were "Interstellar, Grand Budapest Hotel, Railway Man, Calvary, and Fury.  All the other movies we saw were popcorn movies, although "Hunger Games" was pretty good.

On TV everything good we watched was on Netflix, Amazon or Hulu.  We have binge watched "Mozart in the Jungle, Alpha House, The Assets, Hinterlands, Black Mirror" and a few others.  I have also enjoyed FX's "American Horror Story."

Our viewing habits are inching us towards dropping the 250 satellite channels for good.  Just doing that would save $150 a month.  And we would put up an HD antenna on the roof to get those few good network shows.  But not until the final season of "Mad Men.'

My best reads were, "Under the Skin, The Bone Clocks, Blood and Thunder, American Elsewhere, Dreamers of the Day, The Three Body Problem, The Martian, A Calculated Life, The Madonnas of Leningrad, and Revival."

Danger of Dogma

The editor at the Journal is trying to find ways to make the impending resumption of diplomatic relations with Cuba look bad for Obama.  The Journal insists that the killer of a NM State Policeman back in the early 70's, who then hijacked a TWA airliner to Cuba with two others, be sent back for trial as part of the deal.  It has been made clear that won't happen.  The Journal's position reminded me of the quote from author David Brin.

Exceptional

That pathetic little 20 foot wide artificial skating rink on Albuquerque's Civic Plaza is the best metaphor I can think of for our state and city's diminished economic standing and outlook.  I mean really, it is so cheesy that it is hard to look at.  And the fact that it made big news in the Journal shows how desperate they are to make things look good for our Mayor and Governor, republicans all.

And then there is the New York Times story today on how the oil and gas producing states are in big trouble from falling energy prices and thus, revenues for the states.   However they never even mentioned New Mexico which is probably going to take the biggest all around gouging of any of the natural resources states.  Our state is the third largest net supplier of energy in the country.  And most of our eggs are in that basket.  But, New Mexico has become so invisible to the nation that we can't even get bad press.  Well, except for Mayor Berry's police department.

I would truly like to be more optimistic in the coming year.  But it seems that the concept of exceptional government and business leadership here will not be discernible for some time to come.

And please read this blogpost from one of my favorite SCIFI author David Brin.  He is a bit of a libertarian, but one that has a lot of common sense.

The Senate Republicans

This must be read by every sane citizen to see where our republican Senators stand on reasons.

It was written by my life long friend Dennis Jett, a career diplomat and former Ambassador to Peru and Mozambique.

Republicans Are Blocking Ratification of Even the Most Reasonable International Treaties Why do they oppose the Arms Trade Treaty? Because the NRA tells them to.
By Dennis Jett <http://www.newrepublic.com/authors/dennis-jett>
The world got a present on Christmas Eve, when an international treaty to limit the sale of weapons to warlords and terrorists went into effect <http://www.startribune.com/world/286689751.html> . The Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) aims to limit the number of civilians slaughtered around the world by requiring any country that sells weapons to establish the same kind of export criteria that the U.S. and other Western democracies have in place. It has been signed by 130 countries and ratified by 60, ten more than it needed to become effective. When the U.N. General Assembly put it to a vote last year <http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/patrick-goodenough/unratified-us-controversial-un-arms-treaty-enters-force> , only three countries opposed the treaty outright: North Korea, Syria, and Iran.
While the Obama administration has signed the treaty, there is no chance it will get the 67 votes needed for Senate ratification. In October 2013, 50 senators sent the president a letter <http://www.inhofe.senate.gov/download/?id=5eb82344-2309-4c35-aa0f-87475036aa34&download=1>  expressing their opposition to the ATT. They included every Republican except Mark Kirk, and five Democrats—Joe Manchin, Mark Pryor, Mark Begich, Mary Landieu and Kay Hagen. (Manchin was the only one of the Democrats who was not up for reelection last month, and all four that were lost.) So the Republicans stand together with the Axis of Evil 2.0 because the National Rifle Association <http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/12/28/us-arms-treaty-nra-idUSBRE8BR03420121228>  opposes the treaty. The NRA sees it as a potential threat to gun ownership because it does not explicitly provide a guarantee of the “American people’s rights under the Second Amendment.”
In the Senate’s first two centuries <http://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/common/briefing/Treaties.htm> , it approved more than 1,500 treaties. It rejected only 21; another 85 were withdrawn because the Senate did not take action on them. A treaty that is not approved, rejected, or withdrawn remains in limbo. At present, there are 36 treaties <http://www.state.gov/s/l/treaty/pending/>  awaiting action by the Senate, dealing with everything from the protection of albatrosses to the testing of nuclear weapons.  
While protecting waterfowl might seem like something reasonable people could agree upon, apparently no issue is too small for the foes of the imaginary threat of a world government. There are more serious questions not being addressed, however, including:
—The United States has six tax treaties with over 60 countries to prevent double-taxation and make tax evasion more difficult. Republicans have prevented approval <http://thehill.com/policy/finance/297741-libertarian-lawmaker-blocks-international-tax-treaties>  of the six, costing the country billions <http://www.politico.com/story/2014/03/rand-paul-tax-swiss-banks-104148.html>  in lost revenue each year.
—Drafted over thirty years ago, the Law of the Sea Treaty is designed to bring some order to the world’s oceans and lessen the chances for conflict in places like the South China Sea. Ratified by 162 countries and supported by the oil and gas industry, the Pentagon, environmentalists, and past presidents from both parties, it was opposed by Republicans because “no international organization owns the seas <http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0712/78568.html> ."
—The Convention on the Rights of Persons With Disabilities would apply the standards found in American law to other countries. It is supported by veterans’ groups and corporate interests and has been ratified by 141 countries. Home-schoolers and right-to-life groups <http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/27/un-disability-treaty-_n_2197794.html>  opposed it, however, believing false claims that it would interfere with their children’s education and increase access to abortion. When it came to a vote two years ago, 38 Republican senators voted nay.
—The Convention on the Rights of the Child, one of the most popular and respected human rights treaties in history, was negotiated during the Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush administrations with major American input. The United States may soon be the only country <http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bruce-lesley/us-may-soon-stand-alone-f_b_6337794.html>  among the 193 members of the U.N. that has failed to ratify it. Opponents argue it would hurt traditional families and the rights of parents.
One of the most frequent criticisms of any treaty is that it undermines American sovereignty. But that is the price of international cooperation. Any relationship, whether between two people or among two hundred countries, requires some limits on what one party can do. Globalization has made such cooperation even more imperative; it is impossible for one nation to deal unilaterally with today’s gravest problems. Even the world’s only superpower cannot ignore that fact.
The term “American exceptionalism” never appeared in any party platform until the election in 2012. It made its debut in the Republican platform that year as an 8,000-word section, devoted to the concept that America holds a unique place and role in human history. If the GOP continues to let paranoia prevent this country’s leadership, or even participation, in addressing the challenges created by an ever-more globalized world, that role in history will be short.
Dennis Jett is a professor of international affairs at Penn State University <https://www.sia.psu.edu/faculty/jett> and the author of American Ambassadors—The Past, Present and Future of American Diplomats <http://www.amazon.com/American-Ambassadors-Present-Americas-Diplomats/dp/1137395664> .

Happy Holidays

Our new grand daughters Alex and Katy met Santa in the NICU in Fort Collins, Co.  The twins are now eight weeks old.  We look forward to their arrival home soon so their parents Noelle and Luke can have them full time.

 Bobbi and I would like to wish all of you a great holiday season and a prosperous New Year.

Misc.

The transition for the Valles Caldera(our old Baca Family Land Grant) in the Jemez Mountains to the National Park Service has happened.  What everyone seems to forget is that former Senator Pete Domenici had cooked up the hybrid management of that area because he didn't like public lands being increased.  No matter it was one of the most beautiful areas in the state.  The effort was doomed from the start because there was not enough money to break even.  Now the area will be managed, for good or worse, by the Park Service.  But of course Domenici's failed gambit of freezing public lands protections in such schemes got no attention.

The Albuquerque Journal had a bizarre and rambling editorial this morning about the great Obama initiative on Cuba.  It tried in everyday to make it look like a bad decision by the president, while at the same time saying it might be good.

And, amidst falling oil prices, another oped on the importance of the approval of the Keystone pipeline was spoon fed to us.  Really, the people who see a need for this pipeline are no different than those people who see no need for a change in our relationship with Cuba.  They are pathetically out of touch with reality.

And speaking reality, here is a good read about religion and we people known as 'nons'.

Drones vs. Torture

It is amazing really.  More people are upset about drones flying around their neighborhoods than are upset about this nation's torture of enemies.  The polling shows it.  Apparently NSA spying isn't up there with drones shooting video of your neighborhood either.

Wynn Quigley's column in the Journal this morning was a keeper.  It is a must read about the average American citizen's tuning out.  People seem to only care about things if it involves social media.  Think about Korea hacking Sony Pictures instead of the CIA.  Remarkable.

I had a conversation with a friend this morning who said a long time democratic voter told him that she hated the negative advertising and the policies of the Governor Martinez, but that she just could not vote for Gary King because he was so despicable.  So the negative ads worked on her even though she hated them.  All is lost.

It Never Ends

The Albuquerque Journal just can't help itself.  Today they let a bloviating finance professor blame the working men and women of America for its decaying infrastructure.  Unions are the problem, along with environmental regulations, which adds up to high costs for repairing our nations highways, bridges and other systems that have been ignored in favor of weapons programs and wars. Let me think, how does a $250 million dollar fighter bomber jet produced by union labor in the defense industry differ from a $8 million bridge rebuild?  I guess I am not smart enough to figure it out.

This guy also said that the multibillion dollar projects that are being done in big cities are to costly.  But he seems to forget that all of that money goes to large engineering and construction firms that are constantly overrunning their estimates and ripping off the taxpayers.  (Same as the defense industry.)  Well, after all, the honchos in these groups are part of that 1% we all hear about.

I have been predicting for some time now that our daily right wing newspaper, which is in very deep financial trouble,  may end up just publishing three times a week.  Or perhaps they will just become an online newspaper.  At least then the frequency of their rightwing editorial pages will be lessened.

So far they haven't quite fallen to the level of local TV newscasts.  Their daily lineup now consists of private security or smartphone video of some sort that is hardly newsworthy.  If Channel 13 shows the video of the fight on a bus again with a cop getting tasered, I will never watch them again.  Ever.

Misc.

First the good news.  President Obama will open diplomatic relations with Cuba.  I thought this would happen and if the right wingers in Florida don't like, Screw Them!

The slaughter of innocent school children in Pakistan by armed religious fanatics may well be the end of the Taliban in that country.  Wouldn't it be meaningful to see the same thing happen in this country to the NRA's continued support of assault rifles for everyone?  All those children who died at Sandy Hook Elementary School have not inspired anyone in this country to react as we all seem to want the Pakistanis to react.  I had a friend say yesterday that he thought the NRA was as evil as the Taliban.  They may be.  But the gun manufacturers motive is profit, while the Taliban want a religious state.  The demise of both of these groups as currently organized would be a plus for civilization.

So, as New Mexico sits at the bottom of economic recovery the big issue of the day for the republican legislators and governor still involves drivers licenses for undocumented workers.  If this doesn't point out their lack of ideas, I don't know what does.  In the meantime the government hating GOP in our state stays silent on the fact that the state made out well in the federal budget.  That means at least some high paying jobs will remain intact.

The Albuquerque Journal subscription statement sits right in front of me.  What to do?  After reading one of their insipid editorials this morning I am close to trashing it.  They said that the meteoric rise in generic drug prices is unexplained.  Well Mr. Editor, I can give you the explanation. It is about American Corporate greed and the consumers ability to just stupidly absorb these hits with out raising hell. The Journal needs this explained?  They want someone to look into this issue which is good.  But, they just can't bring themselves to admit the obvious.

Misc.

We all should be made aware of which congressmen inserted the language to weaken campaign finance laws into the budget bill.  We must know who is responsible for pimping for the rich who would make our division of wealth even more skewed.  I am betting Congressman Steve Pearce is one of them, or at least complicit.  This wasn't compromise.  It was extortion on a grand scale and we need to take names.

Senator Martin Heinrich has taken a stand against selling public lands to fund an International Mining  Company to walk away from leases in sensitive areas in California.  Heinrich says it would set a horrible precedent, and I agree.   In taking this stand Heinrich has shown he is not afraid to oppose Senate Democratic leadership.  It is refreshing.  Heinrich supports buying out the leases, but not by selling other public lands.

Us Vs. Them

The nice near valley neighborhood we live in has been experiencing some burglaries lately.  Although crime is down overall, we are being especially hard hit this year.  Thieves are coming in through smashed sliding doors, skylights and splintered entryways.  Even with burglar alarms going off they spend 30 seconds grabbing jewelry boxes and such.  It is very unsettling.

Some in the neighborhood immediately want to put up gates.  In my opinion there could be nothing worse than cutting ourselves off from the rest of Albuquerque.  And it would cost a fortune as the HOA would have to pay for all of the public streets, sewer and water lines, the park, road maintenance and such.  It will never happen.  The only thing that will stop this activity is good police work, which we haven't seen yet, or the legalization of drugs that will no longer necessitate junkies breaking into our homes to feed their habits.

The reaction of some of our neighbors is understandable.  But sometimes I sense a lot more going on in these situations.  The ideas of gates turns the issue into one of 'us vs. them.'  Them, being people that are not like us in economic standing, skin color, and security.  I don't think we have a neighborhood full of racists because we are pretty diverse.  But I think people are very angry at the instability of our political system overall which they feel helpless about fixing.  They feel vulnerable and they want to build walls to protect themselves. 

PNM Screws Solar

They will deny it, but PNM is coming after roof top solar advocates with an axe.  They want to charge a $21 a month fee for 'grid maintenance' to those who sell power from their rooftops to PNM to resell.  This is an abomination.  (I love that word).

We put our solar panels on the roof in 2008 and we have been heavily selling to PNM ever since.  In fact we make about $700 a year over what we pay them in the hottest months of summer.  We are fortunate we got in early because we get a good lifetime rate from PNM.  If you were to put solar on your roof now, which is much cheaper than when we installed it, it would be less and this monthly fee would kill the solar industry in New Mexico for residential.

This proposal should be shown an early grave by the PRC in Santa Fe.

Deeper and Deeper

Kim Vesley of the Rio Rancho School district, their longtime flack and an old friend, is piling the bullshit deeper and deeper on the case of the school teacher fired because one of her students wrote something that another student didn't like.

But, first I digress.  I played golf today out at Santa Ana and a young CNM student and former team golfer for that Rio Rancho school joined us and said that the teacher was one of the most popular and effective instructors in the school.  He was really angry they had fired her.  He said that she was a teacher who really taught the students how to think and be creative.  He just kept gushing out compliments on her when I asked him what he thought about the situation.  But, gosh, he was only a student.  Right?

Now back to the bullshit factory.  I had asked Kim Vesely for the biographies of the School Board Members.  She said they didn't keep biographies of their elected officials.  If they don't, they are incompetent.  If they do and don't want to reveal them now then there might be something discoverable about them that would put them in a bad light.  Whatever the reason, it is bullshit.

Just like the statement that Vesley sent out yesterday saying that the fired teacher used profanity and sexually explicit language in her classroom.  OMG! I wonder if her high school students have never heard something like that!

I remember as a sophmore at St. Pius X here in Albuquerque that we were given reading assignments that included George Orwell's "1984".  There was lots of sex in that book for those days.  All the students were talking about it.  But now fifty years later you can't even make a sexual reference in school?  That indicates to me that fundamentalism is alive and well in that institution.

The media has gone silent on this in the last couple of days.  So they might be on to something I am missing.  Time will tell.

Rio Rancho Response

Service Temporarily Unavailable

The server is temporarily unable to service your request due to maintenance downtime or capacity problems. Please try again later.

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Apache/2.2.14 (Ubuntu) Server at rrps.net Port 80

This was the response to my inquiry to the Rio Rancho PR department on the possibility of getting the biographies of the School Board Members.  I am guessing their servers are overloaded with outrage from all sides because of this stupid decision to force the resignation of this teacher.

Rio Rancho Schools

Well, the Rio Rancho School District may take away from APD the prize for being the most inept organization at handling public relations.  It appears they backed a loved teacher into a corner because one of her students wrote something that Christian Fundamentalists don't like.  They forced her to resign.  The School district will hem and haw that it wasn't the reason, but certainly it was.  I imagine if one were to look over the school board up there that there would be a few fundamentalists in those seats.  The Albuquerque Journal wrote a great story on this today.  I hope they will follow up.

Apparently, the students at the High School really like this teacher.  She teaches them to think and write.  Apparently not a good thing up there.  If I were the students at that institution I might call for a walk out because of the attacks on their inability to keep good teachers from being fired for bad reasons.

Peeling Layers

I have the feeling that watching the APD come after the DA on her son's crimes as a drug addict will turn into something akin to peeling an onion.  There will always be another layer of intrigue.

Yesterday, Kari Brandenburg, did a great job of defending herself against the cops who leaked a story to a salivating Albuquerque Journal that put the charges out there that the DA kept her son out of trouble by agreeing to pay for items stolen from his victims.  Once again, any parent would do that, but not every parent is a DA whose job it is to charge people with crimes.  Muddy waters.

But for an investigation to be leaked to the Journal in which the cops never even interviewed the DA is highly weird.  There is something else afoot here I think.  It may just be the general incompetence of the APD in dealing with its image.  Or maybe it is a warning shot across the bow that the DA better not indict any cops in shootings of unarmed people.  Although that has not happened anyway.  But maybe Brandenburg in looking around the country feels she must now take action against the cops who gunned down that homeless man in the foothills of the Sandia Mountains.

Someone should call Janet Blair, the recently departed APD public relations person, to see if she would be willing to talk about how decisions like this are made at APD.  They certainly never listened to her because she was not one of the 'club' there.  So of course she probably viewed at an outsider.  That whole 'us against them' philosophy in APD.

Bernalillo County DA

Apparently our longtime and likable Bernalillo County DA, Kari Brandenburg, is being scrutinized for trying to protect her drug addict son from facing prosecution.  Just about any parent would do that I think, although not every parent is a District Attorney.  This is a troubling controversy.

But I have to say it pales beside the failure of her office to ever bring an indictment against the police officers who have engaged in a killing spree over the last few years in the city of Albuquerque.  That is a massive failure of her office and it really needs to be examined by the mainstream media, or at least the Justice Department.  Or, maybe they are looking at it.

The sweetheart relationships between the prosecutors and the cops has always existed.  But it is at a point where there needs to be some sort of ombudsman who can handle these police shootings in front of grand juries.  That system is already flawed enough that alleged perps, who are not cops, have little in the way of tools to use in these one sided legal proceedings.  Someone needs to do some original thinking here that might be turned into legislation.

Tiny Brains

There will be a lot of people gnashing their teeth because a new APS Superintendent may have starting pay of $300,000.  Already some idiots on Facebook are saying $200K should be more than sufficient.  Such tiny brains on some people.  They would pay someone multiples less than a basketball coach?  Yeah, they would.  Tea Party sized brains.

Frankly, I think the salaries should be switched.  Pay the new APS head the millions and the coaches in the NCAA $200K, because right now everything is upside down.

Outliers

Bobbi and I went to see the movie, "The Theory of Everything", which is about Stephen Hawking and his wife Jane Wilde, as remarkable a woman as he was a brilliant cosmologist.  I recommend it as a movie more about a love story than one of those outlier thinkers that fascinate me so much.

Next on our list to see is "The Imitation Game", about Alan Turning during WWII.  He essentially broke the German enigma code by inventing a computer.  After saving his British Government and most of Europe they later arrested him for being gay.  One more silly progrom  against people that has nearly disappeared.  We do make progress, mostly.

These Outliers must live in a different world than us.  They come along once in a generation to really change the way we must view the natural world.  Physicists, Biologists, Economists, and other scientists have really made progress possible because of their powerful brains and curiosity.  I wonder what it is like to be inside that process in their heads.  Pure thinking.

So, the question is,  can we include anyone in the realm of political scientists as outliers.  Some exist I know.  Some would say Jefferson, others would say Marx.  I would think in American History that the Roosevelts were outliers.  But, since then we really haven't seen anyone of their stature ascend the world stage, have we?  We could sure use one of those types right now who has it all.  Charisma, compassion, progressive ideals and the means to make the population understand and embrace them.

But maybe that can't really happen anymore with the role that big money plays in leadership.  We can't go many more generations in this mode of operation.  Really.

State Government

The silence is eerie, or maybe it is just a lack of media coverage.  I would like to know a lot more about the pending budget disaster as New Mexico faces plummeting revenues due to the fall in price for oil and gas.  Susana Martinez and her minions are silent, but the problem will become real in about six weeks when the legislative session begins.  And, it is always interesting to hear the GOP whine about the federal jobs in the Land of Enchantment being too important to our economy, while at the same time the over reliance on oil and gas royalties and taxes goes unmentioned.  What this is really about is a complete lack of a plan for economic development in the state.

Governor Martinez and Secretary of State Diana Duran are trying to interfere in a lawful recount of votes in the Land Commissioner race.  They are ignoring requirements of state law and the issue will be vetted by Commissioner Ray Powell to the Supreme Court.  Ray has a mountain to climb in overcoming a 700 vote loss to the republican Aubrey Dunn Jr.  But, it could happen.

Back in 1982 I won the primary election for Land Commissioner over the oil and gas backed democrat.  Election night I made a comeback at midnight to win by 780 votes.  The oil and gas boys parked lawyers and operatives in the Secretary of State's office to try and finagle the numbers.  In the end, after three weeks of ups and downs, I won by 1086 votes.  I went on to carry the ticket in the General election with the most number of votes and the largest percentage margin of victory.  It was a good year.  

Misc.

Sometimes unrelated stories in the media are really about the same thing.  For example, take the question of corporate welfare subsidies.  The Bernalillo County Commission is considering approving a massive land development scheme, named Santolina, on the southwest mesa of Albuquerque.  This will heavily impact taxpayers in the future and will enrich the owners of the property while degrading the quality of life here through poor planning and water shortages.

There is also a story about corporate subsidies somewhere in the lame brained idea of spending up to a billion dollars to dam the Gila River so a few farmers and land developers can enrich themselves at the expense of destroying an eco system and riparian system.  Even the Albuquerque Journal is urging a close look at this.

But, sometimes there is hope.  The NY Times reports that the owner of the coal mine where 29 miners died in a West Virginia mine has been indicted.  He is a notorious political power in that state and his penchant for profit over safety for his workers has caught up with him.  He should spend the rest of his life in prison.  Now, if some of these Wall Street criminals could be given the same treatment, one could have some faith restored in holding people responsible for their crimes.  

Farewell

Former City Councillor has Pat Baca passed away.  I always thought he was one of the best local elected officials ever in the City of Albuquerque.  He was tough, compassionate and bipartisan in his approach to city issues.  He was always willing to discuss his positions and work out compromises.  And he was a very honest guy.  He will be missed.

I also will miss Sam King of Stanley, NM.  Sam was Governor Bruce King's older brother and was a guiding light for that King family.  I got to know him well when I was Press Secretary for Governor King, helped run his second campaign and then served under him as the Alcoholic Beverage Control Director.  Sam was interesting in that he was the only King brother that would have an occasional drink.  I think he also got Bruce to go along with the reform of Liquor laws back in 1980.  He was a smart guy and very charismatic guy.

The Albuquerque Journal Obituary Page has write ups on both of these great guys. Thanks to Mark Bralley for the Photo of Pat.

Coming home.

Wagonmound. 4pm Friday.

La Bajada 6:50am

Holiday

We are off to Fort Collins for Thanksgiving and to see our new twin grand daughters again.  Alex and Katy are gaining weight rapidly after being born 11 weeks early!  Their dad and mom, Luke and Noelle, are in training for sleep deprivation.  They will probably come home in six weeks or so.

I know for the most part, only people who are close to the family can truly appreciate photos like these.  But these girls are a couple of real fighters!

Our house sitter has new weapons and alarm upgrades to keep those bad guys away.

Perspective

This is pretty black and white, isn't it?

Patience

The lunatic fringes that rail against all things Obama or all things progressive can really get a person down.  But sooner or later they will most likely be dying off in droves because they are aging fast.  They just don't seem to understand the younger generations have a whole different take on how things should be.  Think Gay marriage here.

At the same time younger generations need to ramp up some real civil disobedience to address the great right wing tilt of our congress.  It will happen when the division of wealth in this country widens even more, if that is possible.  I hope I am around to see it.

The actions of the President yesterday to push back on immigration might signal the start of a great push back.  It is the kind of fight that might just get the republicans into a corner and force them to become the moderates they once were.  

Weirdness

The republicans are forecasting Armageddon if President Obama issues an executive order giving certainty to the lives of millions of immigrants.  President Reagan and President bush did the same thing.  So weird.

Governor Martinez intervened in a case to help a young Mexican boy get surgery in Albuquerque, New Mexico for the removal of a large tumor.  (a nice gesture).She asked immigration officers to allow him extra time in this country.  At the same time she supports not letting his parents have a drivers license or immigrant status to help with his recovery.  So weird.

I had a dream last night that a fire fight broke out amongst different medical practices over who would get to use their favorite solutions for my prostrate cancer.  Some wanted to cut, some wanted to radiate and some wanted to do numerous biopsies and hormone treatments.  They were all chasing me because I had good insurance coverage.  Really, I did have this dream.  So weird.  I have decided what to do and I am confident in my providers.  

Thanks

Thanks to Senators Martin Heinrich and Tom Udall for their votes against the Keystone XL pipeline. It was a courageous thing to do but also common sense ruled their decisions too.  It is a project that we just don't need.

And thanks to former Interstate Stream Commission Director Norm Gaume for his diligence in keeping the current Commission and staff on notice that they can't do incredibly stupid projects along the Gila River.  His law suits have held the Commission accountable for questionable and illegal actions in trying to get the boondoggle on the road.  Now, if we could get some serious journalists to look into who is pulling the strings on this issue and why they are doing so.

Misc.

Get back in your 'wayback' machine to 1986.  After the general election that year Democrat Brant Calkins came out 800 votes ahead of his republican opponent Bill Humphries in the Land Commissioner race.  A few days later a transcription error was found in the San Miguel County vote totals that completely turned the race around giving the win to Humphries.  Humphries was not a bad guy, he was an old time republican who was conservative but not a wacko.  My advice to Ray Powell is to park some sharp people in the Secretary of State's office to make sure she does a proper job of recounting the ballots.  Because you are not out of this yet.

The peculiar hate of government jobs, the ones that pay well and provide benefits, continues in the Mayor's Office.  Mayor Berry thinks we depend on them to much.  Well, if he and his minions were doing a halfway decent job of economic development then they would just become part of a healthy mix.  In fact, if Berry was smart he would pursue the Federal Government locating more back office operations here in Albuquerque.  Much like the US Forest Service has done.  They moved nearly 2000 jobs here some years back and hardly anyone noticed.  But they are good jobs for our city and we could use more like them.

In a plus for Berry it seems he is making an effort at reviving downtown redevelopment that was abandoned by Mayor Marty Chavez.  Molina Health Care is moving 600 employees down there and the UNM/City/Business efforts there may pay off too.  Meanwhile the parochial minded city council can't give up little projects of their own to do one large one for the good of the whole city.  I still say a good multi purpose arena downtown would provide another great center for activity.  But that is big idea stuff that the council can't seem to embrace.

Speaking of Marty Chavez, he is now on the payroll of those who don't want to see internet neutrality maintained.  And he says he is representing Latinos around the country.  I kind of doubt that is true.

NIMFY

No, that is not a misprint of NIMBY, which as you know stands for 'Not in My Back Yard".  NIMBY was the title of the Sunday editorial in the Albuquerque Journal.  It took to task what they think are the rubes who live in San Miguel and Mora Counties for their attempts at keeping the fossil fuel boys from ruining their water supplies.  What do the locals know, after all?  Well they drink the water don't they.  The Journal made a silly reference to them freezing to death in winter because of opposition to drilling and fracking.  Gee, they have been around up there in the north for hundreds of years with out the oil boys already.  And they didn't freeze.

NIMFY to me means 'Not in My Front Yard.'  As in the Albuquerque Journal being thrown there every morning by our steady and true deliverer of the NY Times and Journal.  But honestly, I just can't live with out the insipid editorial pages and right wing editor kick starting my heart every morning.

Misc

We were talking over coffee this morning on whether Governor Martinez, when she considers a run for VP of the USA, will again run against Bill Richardson.  It is the only thing she knows how to do.  She pretty much ran against him twice so far, while ignoring that great campaigner Gary King

I am getting really annoyed with TV commercials shot in slow motion.  Also commercials that show people doing yoga.  Or people doing stupid dances in celebration of chicken wings.  Or guys in three day beards celebrating the end of erectile dysfunction while smiling at their prancing wives.  In fact, every guy you see on TV commercial has a three day beard.  Damn!

If you are into SCI FI you might want to read Cixin Liu's Three Body Problem.  He is a famous Chinese author and the first book of his trilogy has been translated and published.  I read it in two days.  It is magnificent.

Gila Monster

The harebrained idea to dam the Gila River and tributaries will give a new definition to 'Gila Monster.'  Close to a  billion dollars, environmental destruction, and profits for a few farmers will be the result of this Susana Martinez sponsored boondoggle.  And to top it off, the data that the Interstate Stream Commission is using to justify this project is being kept under lock and key with no peer review.  It is insane!  Right up there with the Keystone pipeline project that will take the world's dirtiest form of fossil fuel, tar sands, and pipe it through the USA from Canada to Houston for export.

I call on Senators Heinrich and Udall to continue running interference from the federal level on these destructive and future killing projects.

Misc.

It will be interesting to see how Governor Susanna Martinez and her minions will handle the coming budget meltdown resulting from the drop in oil prices.  As the boom bust cycle reasserts itself in the oil patch with massive layoffs and curtailed drilling, then I predict New Mexico could go to the very bottom of almost all economic rating categories in the country.  Much of this will occur because Martinez and her neocon staff has done absolutely nothing to grow our economy in other sectors.  Two years from now she will be reviled for her incompetence and her political advisors will be run out of the state.  Of course, between now and then she may well pass the so called 'Right to Work Law' which will put downward pressure on living wages in New Mexico.  We are truly in dark times.

On the national level, with nothing left to lose, President Obama will finally do something about immigration.  Speaker of the House John Boehner said that the American people don't want these kinds of actions taken.  That was why the GOP took the Senate.  But actually they took the Senate because nothing was happening and government was broken.  Now something will happen on this issue that has been festering for years because of GOP inaction.  I am pretty sure the President will be breaking out his executive policy powers on any number of issues.  Good for him.

And the Senate Democrats continue to pander to the people who never support them by rallying around Senator Landrieu from Louisiana who never supports the positions of her own party.  Would the dems really support the Keystone Pipeline just to help her?  It really would not be worth it.

Good News

It was great to see President Obama take a strong stand on Net Neutrality.  It is hard enough to get decent service from a monopolized system like we have in Albuquerque where our internet service is pretty much limited to Comcast.  Recently, our neighborhood listserv has been full of complaints against Comcast.  Even though your bill goes up every couple of months, you get worse and worse service.

It was also good to see President Obama and the Chinese leadership make progress on climate change  mitigation.  Most see it as a step forward.  Now, the President needs to bite the bullet and kill the Keystone Pipeline.  This would show a real pushback against the oil and gas industry who value profits over planetary health.

In the not so good news department, I have a feeling that these plummeting oil prices will really smack down New Mexico's budget.  It is funny to see how Governor Martinez and her minions are always complaining that the Federal dollars being pumped into our state are bad because we depend on them too much.  But at the same time they ignore the immense amount of money from oil and gas taxes and royalties that keep out state afloat.  And don't forget the major portion of that money really is not a tax, but a payment for state and federal owned oil and gas on public lands.  

Noelle's Selfie

Our daughter Noelle took a selfie and it almost looks like a classical painting.  She is holding one of her twins, Katy.  A Pieta.  A Madonna and Child.

Bonanza

Think of these guys as the General Managers of the four main TV stations in Albuquerque.  They did hit the Bonanza with over $13 million dollars in revenues for this last election cycle.  Think of their cook, Hop Sing back in the Kitchen, as the Albuquerque Journal who probably didn't clock a quarter million in ad revenue.  If that doesn't tell you where things are going in newspaper land then you are an aspiring print journalist.

This amount doesn't include cable TV and radio, so the number is much higher.

Of course most of this money was sent in by special interest groups.  

Misc.

The republicans and the Journal are on the Voter i.d. issue again.  A non issue really, but what is the harm in it?  As you know I don't see any problem with it, but only if the proper infrastructure to make it easy to get an i.d. is put in place.  If any bill is introduced requiring these little pieces of paper, then every single county and city must make available a place to get the i.d. with little hassle.  They must have access to the birth certificate data base nationwide so a person can retrieve their certificates on the spot.  Same with the social security system.  A guaranteed wait time of no more than 15 minutes for anyone required to get these i.d.s should be put in place. If this is not done then no bill should be passed.  What will the paranoid republicans do if it actually costs money to their corporate sponsors via taxes?  Voter suppression costs would probably be seen as a good investment by those one percenters and CEOs.

I got a comment from the Aubrey Dunn campaign management team the other day via facebook.  It  said I should be culled from the human race. That is cowboy talk. Is this what we are to expect from his administration at the State Land Office?  Well, only if you are not from the fossil fuel, mining or livestock industry I guess.

Students

I wrote a note to a friend in Mexico City today to ask him if he has regrets about moving home and business there in light of the killings of those students in southern Mexico by corrupt government and drug gangs.  He says he is distraught but that this is a disaster for the gangs and the government because, like the James Boyd killing in Albuquerque, the dam has broke.  I certainly hope so.

We kill our students in this country in a different way.  Not violently or instantly.  We just kill their economic futures with our system of student loans and division of wealth.  It is just as tragic.  Why can I finance a new car cheaper than a student can finance a semester of school?  Because the banks and Wall Street run things and their tools, including many democrats, sit by and let it happen.