Schmitt withdraws nomination for cabinet post | NMPolitics.net – Get the real story
Harrison Schmitt has withdrawn his nomination to leads the state’s Energy, Minerals, and Natural Resources Department rather than undergoing a background check required for Senate confirmation.
Schmitt withdraws nomination for cabinet post | NMPolitics.net – Get the real story
Frankly, the liberal use of the word scientific in this new anti-science bill would probably preclude teaching “Intelligent Design” (insert dripping sneer ending in puking noise), which hasn’t the slightest scientific basis. As America falls behind the rest of the world in every way, let’s hand out degrees in stupidity.
Measure clears way for teaching of ‘intelligent design’ – The Santa Fe New Mexican
Rep. Tom Anderson, R-Albuquerque, said Tuesday that his House Bill 302 is not intended to promote intelligent design or creationism. … Anderson said, "I’m just trying to protect teachers. … I’m trying to prevent another Galileo," a reference to the father of modern physics, who was tried during the Inquisition as a heretic. [mjh: Such nobility!]
The bill says the state "shall not prohibit any teacher, when a controversial scientific topic is being taught in accordance with adopted standards and curricula, from informing students about relevant scientific information regarding either the scientific strengths or scientific weaknesses pertaining to that topic. A teacher who chooses to provide such information shall be protected from reassignment, termination, discipline or other discrimination for doing so."
The bill lists several protected "controversial scientific topics" including "biological origins, biological evolution, causes of climate change, human cloning and other scientific topics that are often viewed by society as controversial."
Measure clears way for teaching of ‘intelligent design’ – The Santa Fe New Mexican
I’d like to see a science teacher use this bill to shut up a parent who objects to teaching anthropogenic climate change – hey, it’s “controversial” (with the same idiots evolution is).
[hat tip to dangerousmeta]
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Here, in Albuquerque, the largest city in New Mexico, a few miles from the Big-I (I-40 east-west meets I-25 north-south), I have seen three species of raptors within a few blocks of my house just in the past two weeks: Cooper’s hawk (very common), sharp-shinned hawk (striking a tree full of white-winged doves), and a merlin (a small falcon frequently sighted between November and March). In the past year, along the Rio Grande in the heart of the city, we’ve seen a peregrine falcon, a nest with two baby great-horned owls, and others have seen bald eagles. Birds of prey seem to be thriving in Albuquerque.
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| Birds of prey |
Eugene Robinson – The GOP’s selective memory on Ronald Reagan
The Republican Party … has moved so far to the right that it now inhabits its own parallel universe. On the planet that today’s GOP leaders call home, Reagan would qualify as one of those big-government, tax-and-spend liberals who are trying so hard to destroy the American way of life. …
Meanwhile, the Republican Party has lost its mind. The GOP argues for deep across-the-board budget cuts of a kind that Reagan ultimately rejected. Party leaders denounce the belief that government can do any good for anybody as "socialism."
Eugene Robinson – The GOP’s selective memory on Ronald Reagan
Did You See that Superbowl Commercial for Kale? | Fooducate
No. Of course not. Of the twelve food commercials during yesterday’s superbowl, all were for junk food and liquid candy.
Judge Malott is too discreet here. He’s surely talking about Space Cadet Schmitt, Maritinez’s nominee for the state Energy Department. So, does it matter that the head of Energy knows nothing about the Constitution?
ABQJOURNAL BIZ: Judge Takes Out His Eraser Twice — for A Correction and A Clarification
By Alan M. Malott
For the Journal
It is the stated proposition of a New Mexico cabinet appointee that Congress should determine whether its statutes are constitutional, and should institute impeachment actions against federal judges who rule otherwise. "Well-documented cases against such judges on constitutional grounds would go a long way toward making adherence to the constitutional law a hallmark of the federal justice system," the candidate urges.
Well, I just have to point out that the very same Constitution provides federal judges can only be impeached for bad behavior such as "high crimes and misdemeanors," not for disagreements with Congress over constitutional interpretation. The Founding Fathers made this provision to secure an independent judiciary, not one cowed by the legislature. Therefore, the candidate’s very proposition fails to pass a basic constitutional analysis.
Now I don’t know the difference between an igneous and sedimentary rock, and I have not had the opportunity to walk on the moon, but I believe an independent judiciary is an integral component of the three-part government that makes this country strong. To urge that the legislature be used to hobble the judiciary in order to further its philosophy du jour exhibits either a malevolence toward our balanced, albeit sometimes frustrating, democracy or a very disturbing lack of knowledge and understanding of a constitutional government. Either way, I say: That ain’t right.
Of course, you can "Judge for Yourself."
Alan M. Malott is a judge of the 2nd Judicial District Court. Before joining the court, he practiced law throughout New Mexico for 30 years and was a nationally certified civil trial specialist.
ABQJOURNAL BIZ: Judge Takes Out His Eraser Twice — for A Correction and A Clarification
ABQJOURNAL NEWS/STATE: Schmitt Draws Out Foes
By Deborah Baker
Journal Staff Writer
SANTA FE — Ex-astronaut Harrison Schmitt is shaping up to be the most problematic of Gov. Susana Martinez’s appointees as the Senate prepares to vote on whether to confirm members of her Cabinet.
Schmitt, a former U.S. senator from New Mexico, is the secretary-designate for the Energy, Minerals and Natural Resources Department.
Some senators report being inundated with letters and e-mails, both for and against Schmitt’s confirmation.
"No one has generated as much interest as he has," said Majority Leader Michael Sanchez, D-Belen.Senate Minority Whip Bill Payne, R-Albuquerque, said new governors typically get to appoint the people they want unless there is "something really egregious" that jeopardizes their confirmations.
"We’ve got a Ph.D. geologist from Harvard who walked on the moon, and we’re asking him to look after our minerals and energy deposits," Payne said. "You probably aren’t going to find a more qualified scientist to head that agency."
One of Schmitt’s opponents, Sen. Stephen Fischmann, D-Mesilla Park, said the key issue for him is not so much Schmitt’s positions.
"It’s that he seems to regard anyone who disagrees with his point of view as evil," Fischmann said.
"I think he’ll have a very hard time doing a good job, because a lot of folks in his own department might be called environmentalists. … And if people feel like they’re just going to be characterized as evil because they disagree, it’s going to be very hard to work."
The following quote, slamming Beck, is not from a flaming progressive. It is from the immoderate Bill Kristol, no stranger to loony-conservatism. It’s good to see some conservatives stand up to the extremists, instead of exploiting them. (Pallin™ anyone? Someone should trademark Reagan™ to stop people from using his name. So long as Raygun stays in the public domain.)
[H]ysteria is not a sign of health. When Glenn Beck rants about the caliphate taking over the Middle East from Morocco to the Philippines, and lists (invents?) the connections between caliphate-promoters and the American left, he brings to mind no one so much as Robert Welch and the John Birch Society. He’s marginalizing himself, just as his predecessors did back in the early 1960s.