On October 31st, members of New Mexico Youth Organized will hit the Burque streets for a massive nonpartisan Get Out the Vote drive called “Trick or Vote.” The costumed force of about 200 young people will meet at Lower Johnson Field on the UNM campus at 5pm and fan out in neighborhoods across the city on Halloween to remind people to vote on November 4th.
Check this out to learn more.
Charges and countercharges are flying. Election fraud. Voter registration fraud. Vote suppression. Isn’t it time to get the down low from a real expert in the field?
Allen Raymond, author of How to Rig an Election, was the special guest on the most recent edition of HBO’s “Real Time with Bill Maher. Raymond’s bonafides? He’s a former political consultant who spent three months in federal prison for his role in the 2002 New Hampshire Senate election phone jamming scandal.
Watch the video. Raymond touches on the situation here in New Mexico. Continue reading
My mentor, Carolyn Goodman, lived a life that few would trade for. She lost two husbands to illness and her middle son to the Ku Klux Klan.
I met Carolyn in 1989 when I was a student in New York. She quickly became my friend and teacher through a relationship that lasted almost twenty years until her death in 2007 at the age of 91. Carolyn was a masterful storyteller, recounting her early activist years, organizing supplies with the Abraham Lincoln Brigade to send to the Spaniards fighting Franco in the late thirties. She told me about, and often introduced me, to the heroes of the Civil Rights Movement (who often met in her living room), from Julian Bond to now-Congressman John Lewis to John Doar, a champion in the US Department of Justice during the tumultuous sixties. She and I traveled to Mississippi twice, to commemorate the murders of her son Andy and his two Freedom Summer colleagues, James Chaney and Michael Schwerner, and the countless other women and men who literally sacrificed their lives to better our country. (link)
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The roads we drive on, the Medicare that helps senior citizens, the garbage that is collected every week – we all know the source of funding for these services – the taxes assessed and collected by the government, paid for by you and I.
In today’s political climate, there’s no way in hell a candidate would be caught dead calling for an increase in taxes. We’ve all been trained since Nixon’s first campaign to repeat the mantra: tax cuts good, tax increases bad.
But the worldwide financial crisis has changed things considerably. America’s taxpayers bailed out not just America’s largest banks, but quite possibly, the world’s economy. Before all the knee jerk reaction starts about how the government overstepped its bounds, let’s remember who was frantically calling for this governmental action – bank CEO’s, leading investors, leadership of both political parties and the President. Continue reading
As executive director of the Albuquerque Independent Business Alliance, Rebecca Dakota communicates regularly with the owners of about 175 small businesses in the city.
Dakota’s members tell her they know that keeping their employees healthy is good for their businesses as well as for each employee and their family.
“The bottom line is that when employees are healthy, they do a better job, they are more productive and they show up at work more often. So it’s a good thing for the employer,” says Dakota.
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The year 2008 could signal the passing of a political era in New Mexico. But the Old Guard in the legislative leadership of both parties may not see it that way.
This was the week that saw former State Senate chieftain Manny Aragon plead guilty to federal felony charges for taking $626,000 in kickbacks in the Bernalillo County Metropolitan Courthouse scandal.
Hard-edged editorials ran today in two of New Mexico’s largest daily newspapers. And the drumbeat for ethics reform just got a little louder. Continue reading
Who would have believed it? Another bubble burst big time! Last night in Fenway, the Red Sox rallied from a seven run deficit to take down the Rays 8-7 with two outs in the bottom of the ninth.
It was the second biggest comeback in postseason history, going back to Connie Mack’s Philadelphia Athletics — in 1929. Hmmm… 1929. Another sign of economic collapse? Ya think?
New Mexicans can take solace in one thing. The Red Sox are proving that life can go on without Manny.
Today, the United States Government announced “an extraordinary and historic investment in the nation’s banks – the biggest bet ever made with taxpayer dollars on the U.S. financial system.” (link)
With the announcement that $250 billion in US tax dollars is going directly into nine of the nation’s biggest banks, the stock market immediately rallied, as investors finally had something to hang their hats on:
The reports of the broad details of the plan had sparked the biggest jump in stocks in history on Monday, and that rally continued in Asian and European markets early Tuesday. U.S. stocks were also sharply higher in early trading following the announcement.
When the government tried last week to right the ship by lowering interest rates and having President Bush hold a press conference to say things were going to be OK, the Dow continued to plunge. It was only when the government – yes, the big, bad government – actually stepped in and did something did investor confidence come back to life. Continue reading
After the worst week in the annals of Wall Street, the DOW roared back today with its best one-day surge in history.
So have the smart guys who got us into this mess figured out how to avoid global economic meltdown? Or is the DOW’s wild swing just a dead cat bounce? Continue reading