Category Archives: Election

Election, loco

Vote! Now, the problem with the voting process …

Today, I voted early. Kudos to Maggie Toulouse for distributing numerous early voting sites. (Remember: You can vote at any location now and in the fall.) I was greeted at the door by one person who lead me to a clerk who asked me for information. He printed the application for early in-person voting, which I signed. Then, he printed my ballot, which he told me he was not allowed to touch, so I took it off the printer. Another person pointed me to the booths. I filled the short ballot. Another person pointed me to the machines that read ballots. I was the 60th person to use the 3rd machine; over 200 had used the first and 99 the second. That person said, “I want to see you again in the fall.” You bet. Finally, I was shown the door (in the nicest sense). The process was quick and easy.

My gripe? Filling in ovals with a pen. Seriously, I hate that laborious process, which is made worse by a rickety booth that oscillates with my efforts. Can’t I have an oval stamp – one press per race?

Better: Let me use a computer to make my selections, and then review them all before printing the completed ballot. I’m not talking about electronic voting. The entry computer would not create a record. I would still carry my ballot to the machine. No ballots would be rejected for improper completion – that would be eliminated.

Election, loco

Why women support Eric Griego for Congress | NMPolitics.net

I will add here that people who know Grisham professionally say she presents herself very well without delivering on the implied promise. Based on comments from people I don’t know personally, I gather she’s very difficult to work with, to say the least.

Why women support Eric Griego for Congress | NMPolitics.net

By Dede Feldman and Mimi Stewart ? 5/24/12, 8:54 am ? Commentary

Eric Griego is the one Democrat in the 1st Congressional District race with a long, consistent record of taking on the status quo and powerful interests to fight for our core Democratic values.

We have three experienced and accomplished Democrats running in New Mexico’s Democratic-leaning 1st Congressional District. However, if the person you wish to support for Congress is a proven progressive reformer who has a long, consistent record of fighting for women’s rights, we believe Eric Griego deserves your strongest consideration.

Eric Griego is a lifelong advocate for women. Eric grew up watching his single mother who worked two minimum-wage jobs struggle to balance work and family. He believes that women and men should not have to choose between their jobs and their families in time of need. …

The difference between Griego and Grisham

Some say women should automatically support Bernalillo County Commissioner Michelle Lujan Grisham because she is a woman. As women who have spent our careers leading the fight in New Mexico’s Legislature to promote a woman’s right to make her own health-care decisions and for pay equity and paid family leave, we respectfully disagree.

The Republicans are waging war on women – and we believe that both Eric and Commissioner Lujan Grisham will be outspoken champions for women in Congress. But the Republicans are waging war against not just women; they are also waging war against teachers and other public employees, against Social Security and Medicare, against clean energy in favor of Big Oil, against middle class taxpayers in favor of millionaires, and against ordinary voters who want to have a voice in our democracy in favor of billionaires and big corporations that can spend unlimited money to influence our elections.

To take on these fights, we need someone like Eric, who is the one Democrat in this race with a long, consistent record of taking on the status quo and powerful interests to fight for our core Democratic values.

That is why we enthusiastically endorse Eric Griego, and encourage everyone – men and women – to support him for Congress.

State Sen. Dede Feldman, D-Albuquerque, chairs the Senate Public Affairs Committee and the Interim Health and Human Services Committee. Rep. Mimi Stewart, D-Albuquerque, chairs the House Health and Government Affairs Committee.

Why women support Eric Griego for Congress | NMPolitics.net

Read all of the comments for the following article.

Attack on Grisham solidifies my support for her | NMPolitics.net

May 23, 2012 • 2:16 pm

[Comment from someone named Hemingway] Former controversial Health Secretary Michelle Lujan Grisham has been described as a “loose cannon” by the UNM President David Harris. In another article she is said to have “a bizarre micromanagement and manipulative style of leadership that is very destructive to the health of the public and the morale of the department.” You judge for yourself her performance. Here are articles on her:
http://www.abqjournal.com/news/state/464485nm05-31-06.htm
http://www.abqjournal.com/news/metro/29113618metro06-29-08.htm
http://www.abqjournal.com/opinion/editorials/545370opinion03-11-07.htm
Ms. Denish acts like Ms. Grisham was a saint! The best assessment of her performance as Health Secretary is substandard at best. You will realize she is not a team member after you read these articles on her. So Ms. Denish don’t exaggerate Ms. Grisham’s so-called accomplishments.

Attack on Grisham solidifies my support for her | NMPolitics.net

Election, NADA - New American Dark Ages

Democracy for New Mexico: $642,000,000,000 (billion) for the War Machine "Ike was Right"

Amen to that. A majority of Democrats and Republicans support reducing money to the War Department, but our representatives vote for it. Why? Follow the money. Who gets rich from war?

Democracy for New Mexico: $642,000,000,000 (billion) for the War Machine "Ike was Right"

This kind of obscene money spent on war and defense has got to stop. 88 billion still going over to Afghanistan for 2013, that is $1.5 bill every week. Think of what this Country could do with $1.5 bil every week. The bill funds a missile defense site to be built on the east coast, that the military itself opposes, old star-wars garbage, and even Russian cold war garbage. We have gone insane, when we will fund things the military does not even want and threaten drastic cuts to social security for our seniors which is desperately needed now, we have gone insane.

Democracy for New Mexico: $642,000,000,000 (billion) for the War Machine "Ike was Right"

Election

The GOP is an “apocalyptic cult”

Don’t blame the Dems for hyper-partisanship – Leonard Pitts Jr. – MiamiHerald.com

[T]his is not a problem caused by partisans “at both ends of the political spectrum.”

It was not Democrats who held the economy hostage in a manufactured debt ceiling crisis that caused the nation’s credit rating to be lowered for the first time in history.

It was not Democrats who voted down their own deficit reduction resolution, apparently because they didn’t want the president to share credit.

It was not a Democratic leader who declared defeating the president his top legislative priority.

No, it was Republicans who did all that. And it is not Democrats who have seen a steady trickle of condemnation and defection by their own appalled members.

That trickle includes Nathan Fletcher, a San Diego mayoral candidate who left the GOP because, “I don’t believe we have to treat people we disagree with as an enemy.”

And former Sen. Chuck Hagel, who said he was “disgusted” by the “irresponsible actions” of the GOP during the debt ceiling crisis.

And congressional staffer Mike Lofgren, who likened his party to an “apocalyptic cult.”

And former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who said too many in the GOP regard it as “an exclusive club where your ideological card is checked at the door.”

Don’t blame the Dems for hyper-partisanship – Leonard Pitts Jr. – MiamiHerald.com

Election

Make your mother happy: End War and Violence.

Democracy for New Mexico: Mother’s Day and the Pentagon Budget Guest Blog by Rep. Mimi Stewart

The budget process will affect each and every one of my constituents.

The budget passed by House Republicans will slash programs used disproportionately by women and families. In addition to the Medicare and Medicaid cuts you may have heard about, it cuts funding for programs like food stamps, child care, Head Start, job training, Pell Grants, and housing and energy assistance. Meanwhile their budget allows defense spending to continue to increase.

So while we’ve cut spending for domestic programs that support families, communities and businesses, Pentagon spending continues to grow. Each year, Congress appropriates more than half of discretionary spending to the Department of Defense, wars and nuclear weapons spending.

Democracy for New Mexico: Mother’s Day and the Pentagon Budget Guest Blog by Rep. Mimi Stewart

Election

Good lord, not another cheerleader?! DUHbya 2.

My sense has been that Mr & Mrs Romney are utterly tone-deaf to regular life. They sound like aliens. [hat tip to dangerousmeta}

THE WEEK IN GREED #6: To Behave Like The Fallen World – The Rumpus.net by Steve Almond

Like George W. Bush, [Romney] was an essentially frightened, unloved young man who came of age under tremendous pressure to live up to a famous father, who failed to distinguish himself as a scholar or an athlete and was relegated to the sidelines, whose desperate jocularity was shot through with a kind of unexamined sadism. Both men have forged a path to success via an alarming absence of self-reflection. …

[T]here is something in his character that I am starting to get frightened about, an unwillingness, or an inability, to feel remorse, to simply own up to a moral failing, to apologize not just if “somebody was hurt” but because you know, deep down, that you hurt someone. …

In a sense, the modern political system selects for this kind of moral amnesia.

But it matters. George W. Bush was a destructive president because he was a deluded man. He made bad policy because he lacked the empathy and humility to think about the human cost of those policies.

THE WEEK IN GREED #6: To Behave Like The Fallen World – The Rumpus.net

Election

"Wake up and smell the 21st century." – Leonard Pitts

Serendipity in Obama’s timing on gay marriage – Leonard Pitts Jr. – MiamiHerald.com

North Carolina embraces only the stubborn intransigence of those who desperately need to wake up and smell the 21st century.

We have seen it before, the mulishness of those who think that by sheer obstinacy, they can turn back the tide of change. Those people ended up on the wrong side of history.

They are about to have company.

Serendipity in Obama’s timing on gay marriage – Leonard Pitts Jr. – MiamiHerald.com