As Tip O’Neill never said, “All politics is loco.”
New stop opens as Rail Runner marks 5 years – The Santa Fe New Mexican
The 13th Rail Runner Express stop, at Sandia Pueblo, will be open for commuters starting Monday. – Clyde Mueller/The New Mexican
New stop opens as Rail Runner marks 5 years – The Santa Fe New Mexican
During the Bush Error, Darren White showed his fascist side, particularly when he snarled “let me at ‘em” about lawful protestors marching in Albuquerque’s streets to protest a war any thinking person knows was a colossal mistake. He kissed Duhbya’s ass while corralling protestors in barb-wired “Free Speech Zones” miles from His Excremancy. Don’t forget those hostile times, because the angry, ugly, small-minded tight-fists rule the Republican Party now and, amazingly, have national clout far beyond their small members (sic). Consider the following:
ABQJournal Online » Blame White’s Departure on Socialist Unions
By Jean-C. Guenette / Albuquerque resident on Mon, Jul 25, 2011
If he is anything, [Darren] White is a bold, unabashed, proud anti-socialist. Now that will get you enemies because our country is filthy with socialist, communist-inspired unions. …
Let’s not pussyfoot around this; unions are employee gangs formed to extort money, favors and special conditions from their employer. They threaten harm to the employer and the business if the employer does not comply. This is pure socialist class extortion.
White is a declared opponent of socialism and that, of course, means anti-union. …To White, I say that I’m not satisfied with his expressed reason for stepping down. To my socialist union employees, I say “you’re fired.”
ABQJournal Online » Blame White’s Departure on Socialist Unions
Seriously, “socialist, communist-inspired”? What century does this person live in? Surely, Jean-C. means unions are “elitist politically-correct Islamo-fascists.” Time to buy the latest “Sound Conservative without Thinking” (Forward by John Boehner).
Side note: Although abqjournal.com’s redesign is a huge improvement, I’m puzzled that items from today’s edition don’t appear under the various top menu categories. To find this Letter to the Editor, I had to go to the home page to the letter’s link there. When I went straight to the Letters to the Editor page, I found letters from days ago. This letter will appear on the appropriate page in a few days, but its URL won’t have changed. Huh? Is there intent in the delay, other than to make more work for the reader?
I wasn’t surprised the Albuquerque Journal gave so much space to Mike Frese, “Corrales resident”, to repeat the hoary nonsense about the national debt as a ‘family problem.’ Family is the metaphor for conservatives – especially, Christian conservatives – because father knows best. Feel free to read Frese’s column in its long-drawn-out, ham-handed entirety, if you need your invalid metaphors spelled out in detail.
Be sure to read Winthrop Quigley’s entire column – as usual, he explains things quite clearly.
ABQJournal Online » Flirting With Federal Debt Disaster
By Winthrop Quigley / Journal Staff Writer on Tue, Jul 19, 2011
It is possible some of these politicians really don’t understand what we’re dealing with. Every time one of them compares federal finances with household finances – arguing we should tear up the credit card and balance the checkbook and live within our means, just like families do – the intellectual dead end has been reached.
The federal government is nothing like the family household. It is a very large, poorly run business with a micromanaging board of directors (Congress) and a weak CEO (the president).
The business is failing. Refusing to raise the debt ceiling is the equivalent of pre-bailout General Motors reneging on its commitments to pay its steel suppliers and fund its employees’ retirement plans. …
If the prospect of suddenly unemployed federal workers in every state and unpaid military personnel under fire in Afghanistan doesn’t impress Congress, perhaps this will: In September 2008, the Lehman Brothers’ bankruptcy filing cratered the global economy because suddenly no one knew if the institutions making up the world’s financial systems could or would honor their obligations.
Lehman Bros. had $639 billion in assets, about as much as it takes to run the government for slightly more than two months. It had debts of $619 billion. The failure of a firm that was in the black to the tune of $20 billion nearly destroyed the global financial system. You don’t want to see what happens if Uncle Sam becomes the next Lehman Bros.
ABQJournal Online » Flirting With Federal Debt Disaster
[hat tip to Line of the day | NewMexiKen for the Krugman quote]
A hundred years from now, people will look at photos like this and ask, “WTF?” OK, I already do that, but someday people will not believe what we put up with, including this visual pollution, this sharp stick in every eye, everywhere you look. Down with wires! Bury them!
ABQJournal Online » Breaking: Board Votes To Continue Weekend Trains
By Olivier Uyttebrouck / Journal Staff Writer on Fri, Jul 15, 2011
Weekend service on Rail Runner Express will continue after August, through Saturday train service will run less frequently during winter months and some weekday service will be trimmed after Labor Day, a board voted today.
The Rio Metro Regional Transit District board reversed its decision in June to end Rail Runners’s weekend service in mid-to-late August to cover a $1.2 million shortfall in the commuter railroad’s budget.
The board voted 14-1 on Friday to enact an alternative schedule will save an estimated $2 million during the current fiscal year, which began July 1, according to Rio Metro staff estimates.
The changes in weekday schedules will substitute bus service for two weekday trains. They are: a daily northbound train that departs Downtown Albuquerque at 4:02 a.m. to Santa Fe that served 36 passengers a day; and a daily southbound train that departs U.S. 550 at 4:32 a.m. to Downtown Albuquerque that served 46 passengers a day.
The changes also consolidate two southbound trains that depart Santa Fe at 8:30 p.m. and 9:30 p.m. for Downtown Albuquerque, replacing them with a single train that departs Santa Fe at 9 p.m.
ABQJournal Online » Breaking: Board Votes To Continue Weekend Trains
[hat tip to John Fleck – https://twitter.com/#!/jfleck]
The headline over Calcified Cal Thomas’s recent column represents a ruinous, poisonous ignorance. Taxes are NOT punishment. Taxes are what most of us pay for the common good. Moreover, some of the Founders argued for progressive taxation, under which those who can pay more do so. That view is mocked by the smarmy “you can write a check anytime you want” drivel (DUHbya – spit on the ground). These tight-fisted, cheap, selfish dimwits serve the megacorporations and ultra-rich. Let the sacred market do anything but don’t let the nation do anything – except buy war-toys. The tight-fisted refuse to recognize that the rich benefit from the commonwealth and owe something in return. The Republicans have exploited the Starve the Beast mentality for a generation. That mentality will destroy the nation.
CNN: Gary Johnson, Face reality, legalize pot.
Amen. Legalize it and tax it.
