New Mexico Mercury

El Machete: Massacre of the Protectors

Massacre of the Protectors

Not invited to the party

Yesterday, New Mexico threw a big party, but the overwhelming majority of the state’s residents didn’t attend. They can claim, with varying levels of plausibility, that the candidates who emerged from the Democratic and Republican primaries don’t represent them.

Those who have the most plausible case, an incontrovertible case in fact, are the 239,151 independents. Under state law they are technically people who, when they registered to vote, declined to state a party preference. Independents are so marginalized in New Mexico that we don’t even allow them to call themselves independent, merely those who declined to choose a major party...

New Mexicans Deserve a No-Hassle Voting Process

In a recent column, longtime New Mexico reporter Milan Simonich recounts the struggles faced by voters in Chaparral and Rio Rancho on Election Day 2012. On that day, voters in these areas waited in line for hours on end (and, in the case of Chaparral, had to suffer the indignity and intimidation of Sherriff’s deputies and crime scene tape) just to perform their civic duty. Simonich’s article reminds us that the problems experienced by voters in Ohio, North Carolina, Florida and elsewhere, though broadcast widely by the national news, were the same problems many voters faced here in our own state. The article brings sorely-needed attention to the failings of election administration here in New Mexico and I wholeheartedly agree that our state’s voters deserve better...

Transformation

We’ve all been to, paid for, dozed off in, had bad meals at and endured countless fundraisers. It’s an obligation of today’s society. Not very often, however, do we come across one that was as much fun as Southwest CARE Center’s 6th Annual Closet Ball.

What I read in a local paper said, “Watch ordinary men transform into gorgeous drag queens at this fundraiser for the Southwest CARE Center, which helps provide treatment for New Mexicans with HIV/AIDS.” What I found was a wonderful event for an excellent cause...

NM Twittersphere: Christie visit, APD, Gov’s race

NM Mercury's ongoing segment on the happenings in New Mexico's Twitter Universe.  This week we have the Right rolling out the red carpet for scandel-ridden New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, more on APD, and the governor's race. If you see a tweet that we should highlight, pass it on or retweet it with the hashtag #NMTwittersphere...

Christie’s troubles and history go unnoticed while stumping for Martinez

A glowing Susana Martinez stood at the side of Chris Christie this week as the scandal ridden governor of New Jersey stopped in Roswell to assist Martinez with her re-election bid. Christie has been recently implicated in wreaking havoc on the citizens of his state while enacting political payback and is currently involved in a brewing public pension scandal whereas he raided teacher’s and other public worker’s pension funds to balance his state budget, while giving away $1.5 billion in corporate welfare to corporations like Pearson.  Surely noteworthy to most New Mexicans, yet the story by local news outlets covering Christie’s visit centered around the two’s “unique chemistry” and the already tired speculation of the pair running on a presidential ticket in 2016...

Sit Her Down

It is amazing really, the fact that no one can manage to sit Governor Susana Martinez down for an interview on the dismal state of the economy in New Mexico.  First off, is the media even trying to put her on the spot to answer for the out-migration of jobs and young people?  All of this while the states around us continue to prosper.  But, let’s say some are trying to pin her down and she is refusing to be held accountable.  What does that say about the apparatus that surrounds her in an impenetrable wall of Spin?...

El Machete: Student Debt Burn

Student Debt Burn

Running: A Life

An ending is often a beginning, which is why school graduations are called commencements. When my marriage, my suburban life in Maryland and my job in Washington ended in 1974, I began running.

Running day after day, I discovered the city I had never known, a different city from the newspaper and government offices where I had spent my working life, a city of mixed races and a babel of languages, of cheap restaurants and parks that unspooled forever. I discovered, too, a life that was different from the one I had lived and left. Running helped me figure out how to fill the hole that was left when that life evaporated...

Governor Ignores Looming Disaster at KAFB

A major environmental disaster more than half a century in the making is lurking right below our very feet, and yet the Susana Martinez administration is irresponsibly and unlawfully choosing to look the other way. Officials with Kirtland Air Force Base in Albuquerque have accepted responsibility for a major contamination of groundwater that has already spread beyond its boundaries.

The Governor has systematically dismantled the New Mexico Environment Department and is choosing to officially ignore a crisis situation that should already have warranted critical status in our state’s largest city. The fact that the Governor has halted the state from officially holding the Air Force accountable for the groundwater contamination is a clear act of political malfeasance and is a willful violation of the public trust...