Flickr: mjhinton’s photos tagged with bugs
Bonus –
Come for the Strip Malls, Stay for the Cell Towers!
Flickr: mjhinton’s photos tagged with alBAHquerque
Dump Dimdahl
Even as I was composing yesterday’s ambivalent defense of John Dimdahl, forces were moving to position him as the new and improved Republican candidate for governor, replacing that other guy whose name we needn’t remember. Keep reading because I’m not only going to defend Dimdahl again, I have a rebuke for “my” party.
Wow, Richardson, whom I don’t especially like, is going to have great fun kicking Dimdahl’s ass, especially after Dimdahl’s involvement in Sanchez’s previous romp in the mud. At the same time, Dimdahl, whom I like less than I like Richardson, will have great fun thumbing his nose at the Guv, playing the mouse to Richardson’s elephant. I do love an underdog and I have some sympathy for anyone brave enough to run for office. After an unqualified boob like Gary “Big Jerk” Johnson, the Republicans have actually picked someone who is not only qualified but represents them perfectly.
Sadly, I won’t be able to read any more of Dimdahl’s columns for a few months nor see him on The Line, but my blood pressure will probably benefit from it. In commercials, the focus will be on Richardson’s heavy-handed control of everything with an occasional shot of Dimdahl’s smiling face and skier’s tan. The only people who actually hear his venom will be like-minded folk. Oh, well, after the slaughter, he’ll return to his booth at the Frontier, our own Don Quixote. ¡Buena suerte, Juan!
As for the stern rebuke of the god-damn Democrats: one of the responses to Dimdahl’s candidacy chided him for supporting legalization of marijuana. There is the one thing that millions of Democrats and Republicans agree on: marijuana should be legalized, regulated just like alcohol and taxed at twice the rate. For Democrats to attack anyone on this issue is hypocrisy and mud-slinging worthy of right-wingers. mjh
ABQjournal: New Start in Race for Governor By Leslie Linthicum, Journal Staff Writer
Republicans dropped a bomb in the governor’s race Saturday, taking poor-performing Santa Fe doctor J.R. Damron off the ticket and replacing him with party pit bull John Dendahl, a conservative former party chairman.
Republicans hope sharp-tongued Dendahl will bring bigger guns to the November battle to unseat popular incumbent Bill Richardson. …
“I think that it’s an act of desperation for a party to reach back into the past to someone who represents the nasty politics of division and gridlock,” [Richardson’s campaign chairman Dave] Contarino said. “The contrast is incredible— a bi-partisan governor who crosses party lines to get things done versus a partisan, negative bomb-thrower.”
Republican National Committee chairman Ken Mehlman quickly weighed in with praise for Dendahl’s nomination, saying, “Unlike his opponent, John Dendahl is committed to fighting corruption from the Governor’s office on down.” [mjh: you can judge Dimdahl by those who praise him, like the ruthless Mehlman] …
Dendahl, who said he will drop the drug issue in this campaign, has mixed it up with Richardson before. He was still the Republican Party chairman when Richardson first ran for governor in 2002 against Republican John Sanchez and Green Party candidate David Bacon.
The Sanchez-Richardson battle was expensive and ugly until, shortly before election day, Sanchez announced he was stopping his attack ads and telling Dendahl to cut the mudslinging as well.
After he won, Richardson said, “I think what this election shows is Dendahl’s politics of negativity is going to be repudiated and, hopefully, he’ll be gone from the political scene.”
– – – – –
The Wednesday Morning Quarterback: RICHARDSON HAS A NEW OPPONENT
Dump Heather
Good god, what is Heather thinking? All across America, Independents and Democrats HATE Duhbya. Do you think his 30% approval rating is bad? That’s after you average in Republicans — among the rest of us, he’s in the teens, if he’s lucky. So, in a majority Democratic district, which, granted, has only elected Republicans, she is gleefully embracing Duhbya. After all the spin about independence, which even Duhbya mouths on stage at her fundraiser, this event — this picture — says it all. Got a problem with Duhbya? Vote Madrid!
As an aside, who in the world would spend $1000 to hear Duhbya speak? And $5000 for a photo-op? Some people have more money than sense. mjh
Shake that money-maker!
(photo by Marla Brose/Journal)
ABQjournal: Bush Pit Stop Nets $375,000 for Wilson By Tania Soussan and Leslie Linthicum, Journal Staff Writers
President George W. Bush praised Rep. Heather Wilson as an independent-minded woman during a Wilson campaign fundraiser in Albuquerque on Friday.
While about 300 Wilson supporters gave the president an enthusiastic welcome inside the Albuquerque Hyatt Regency, about 200 protesters outside called for Bush’s impeachment and Wilson’s ouster in the fall election. …
Wilson campaign spokeswoman Anne Ekern said the reception brought in about $375,000. …
“It should be no surprise to New Mexicans that Heather Wilson and George Bush will again be standing side-by-side today in Albuquerque,” Madrid said, “because Heather Wilson has stood lock-step with George Bush since he was elected.” …
Gerald Pacheco, a 29-year-old Albuquerque banker, brought his 13-year-old nephew to the event to get a picture taken with the president. But Pacheco said he was there more to support Wilson. [mjh: Oh! So Bush is hoping to get a lift from Wilson, not the other way around!] …
Wilson flew with Bush from Washington, D.C. … The Bushes have made three trips to New Mexico in the last three months. …
Chris Berkheimer, a 38-year-old Albuquerque attorney and a combat veteran of the first Gulf war, said Iraq has been a disaster and, like many in the crowd, he linked Wilson to Bush in his blame for the result.
“I’m not opposed to the war on terror,” Berkheimer said. “What I’m opposed to is Bush, with Heather’s help, fighting the war incompetently.”
The protest moved closer to the Hyatt when Bush arrived and, with baton-wielding police standing guard at the door, a couple of Bush supporters shouting “Remember September 11th!” faced off against the 100-strong anti-Bush crowd chanting “Impeach the son of a Bush!”
Sigh. “Remember September 11th!” These people are frozen in time unable to think of anything but 9/11. And they think they are the only ones who remember.
On the other hand, cries for impeachment galvanize the extremes on both sides and may turn-off anyone who manages to sit in the middle (how they stay in the middle, I can’t imagine). Let Bush run out his days in all his incompetence; let him continue to fuck up; he’ll be the stake in the heart of the Radical Religious Right. mjh
“New Mexicans deserve a leader who will stand up to George Bush – not stand next to him for fundraisers and photo-ops,” Patricia Madrid said.
Bush Brings Controversy And Cash to Campaigns By Michael Abramowitz, Washington Post Staff Writer
Wilson was enthusiastic in her embrace of Bush today, and the president returned the favor in a joint appearance at a downtown hotel here, where he called on New Mexicans to return “a clear-eyed realist” to Congress. He described Wilson as a strong supporter of his effort to “stay on offense” against terrorists in Iraq and elsewhere.
The events Friday underscored how Bush remains a powerful fundraising magnet for GOP candidates, as well as the president’s desire to play a major role in the crucial midterm elections. By the end of the day, the White House said, Bush will have appeared at 39 events for congressional candidates and raised $125 million, more than he had at this point in the midterm elections four years ago. This time, however, he is a much less popular figure, and Democratic challengers are rushing to tie incumbents to the president in a way they did not four years ago.
“I am sure he’s going to raise her a tremendous amount of money,” Wilson’s challenger, Patricia Madrid, said in an interview before Bush arrived in Albuquerque. “But it makes it difficult for her to appear independent of him.”
In Defense of Dendahl (gag)
If you have ever read my blog before, you may know what I think of John Dendahl, aka Dimdahl. In spite of his puckish & jovial manner, he is one nasty character. It is not remotely possible, in his mind, that he is ever wrong. Worse, his opponents are not simply misguided, they are “insipid” and not to be trusted in the least. To Dimdahl, any public money spent for any cause he doesn’t love is socialism. To Dimdahl, global warming is a naturally occurring phenomenon to which human contribution is nil. Ad nauseum.
So, we might all wonder about the temperature in Hell when I sit down to write a defense of Dimdahl. What set me in that direction is the following letter to the editor:
ABQjournal: Letter to the Editor
Dendahl Should Exit New Mexico
JOHN DENDAHL’S columns are obviously anti-Hispanic and now anti-Spanish language. … New Mexico is bilingual, as our county is becoming, and what is wrong with that.
The most successful democracy in the world which avoids wars and according to a worldwide poll was found to have the most satisfied citizenry, has three official languages. The United States, on the other hand, has one recently declared “national” but not official. We are the only country in the world which sends ambassadors around the world who don’t speak the language of the country to which they are assigned.
Dendahl is an unhappy separatist influence in the most ethnically stable state in the union. Why doesn’t he go some place where Hispanics will not irritate him.
MIGUEL ENCINIAS
Albuquerque
Encinias, like all of us, is entitled to his opinion and the free expression of that. I would not try to silence him or the odious Dimdahl. However, I think Encinias goes too far (right) with this. His conclusion is nearly identical with the old right wing battle cry of the 60’s: Love It or Leave It. It is painfully close to the bigot’s “go back where you came from.” Ironically, Dimdahl comes from New Mexico. Now, I have met home-grown bigots in New Mexico (and everywhere I’ve been). I don’t know whether Dimdahl is a bigot, but his argument for English, which I do not agree with, is not sufficient proof. THIS is not the reason to run Dimdahl out of town.
Still, before I could compose my defense of Dimdahl (I had a lot of bile to suppress), I saw him again on The Line and hated what I saw so much I could hardly follow through with this (everyone laughed at him when he cited Michael Crichton, fiction writer, as THE authority on global warming — kinda like worshipping L. Ron Hubbard). Is Dimdahl a bigot? I don’t know. Jackass — without question. But he is New Mexico’s own and it would be wrong to export him — the rest of the world has its own problems. mjh
PS: Keep reading for another letter to the editor that illustrates a clearer instance of a bigot in public. Every time a bigot opens his or her mouth, they prove their ignorance. And yet, somehow, it keeps getting passed on because, at its root, it’s all human nature.
Some Are More Equal Than Others
US House panel backs minimum wage increase By Richard Cowan
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A U.S. House of Representatives panel on Tuesday voted to raise the U.S. minimum wage in increments to $7.25 an hour by January 1, 2009.
The House Appropriations Committee backed the proposal by a vote of 32-27 during work on a massive fiscal 2007 funding bill for labor and health programs.
The surprise result came after seven Republicans on the committee supported the Democratic amendment.
But the legislation faces many hurdles, including possible efforts by Republican leaders to have the proposal stricken from the legislation, according to Republican and Democratic aides.
Under the proposal, which was offered by House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer, a Maryland Democrat, the current $5.15-per-hour federal minimum wage would rise in 70-cent increments starting January 1, 2007. On that date, the minimum wage would be set at $5.85 and a year later it would go to $6.55 before topping off at $7.25 in 2009.
Think Progress » Right-Wing Shelves Vote on Minimum Wage
Earlier this week, the House Appropriations Committee voted to raise the federal minimum wage to $7.25 an hour by 2009. The increase passed as an amendment to the Labor-HHS spending bill after seven Republicans — Reps. Jo Ann Emerson (R-MO), John Sweeney (R-NY), Ray LaHood (R-IL), Don Sherwood (R-PA), Mike Simpson (R-ID), James Walsh (R-NY), and Bill Young (R-FL) — broke ranks to pass the increase.
The right wing objected to the move on the grounds that the committee “shouldn’t be legislating on an appropriations bill.” (They forget how Sen. Frist (R-TN) and Rep. Hastert (R-IL) did exactly that last year when they slipped liability protections for vaccine makers into a defense spending bill.)
The “next step” for the bill would have been for the House Rules Committee “to decide whether to ‘protect’ the amendment as part of the bill,” followed by a floor vote on their ruling.
Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-MD), who offered the amendment along with Rep. George Miller (D-CA), told ThinkProgress he was planning to fight attempts to take the increase out of the bill. “If there is an attempt to strip the amendment on procedural grounds,” he said, “we will fight back for the American people. The minimum wage is now at its lowest level in 50 years, and hardworking American families deserve a fair, livable wage.”
But now it looks like the vote will be delayed indefinitely. CongressDaily reported yesterday that “the bill would not reach the floor next week” and “there is a chance it would not come up even the following week, and possibly not at all.”
Conservatives are clearly afraid to be on the record opposing a minimum wage increase at a time when 83 percent of Americans support such a move.
The Seattle Times: Nation & World: House lawmakers take $3,300 pay raise
Despite record low approval ratings, House lawmakers Tuesday embraced a $3,300 pay raise that would increase their salaries to $168,500.
The 2 percent cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) would be the seventh straight for members of the House and Senate. Lawmakers easily squelched an attempt by Rep. Jim Matheson, D-Utah, to get a direct vote to block the increase, which is automatically awarded unless lawmakers vote to block it.
In the early days of GOP control of Congress, lawmakers routinely denied themselves the annual COLA.
It’s Who You Know That Matters
EPA Rule Loosened After Oil Chief’s Letter to Rove – Los Angeles Times By Tom Hamburger and Peter Wallsten, Times Staff Writers
A rule designed by the Environmental Protection Agency to keep groundwater clean near oil drilling sites and other construction zones was loosened after White House officials rejected it amid complaints by energy companies that it was too restrictive and after a well-connected Texas oil executive appealed to White House senior advisor Karl Rove. …
In 2002, a Texas oilman and longtime Republican activist, Ernest Angelo, wrote a letter to Rove complaining that an early version of the rule was causing many in the oil industry to “openly express doubt as to the merit of electing Republicans when we wind up with this type of stupidity.”
Rove responded by forwarding the letter to top White House environmental advisors and scrawling a handwritten note directing an aide to talk to those advisors and “get a response ASAP.”
Rove later wrote to Angelo, assuring him that there was a “keen awareness” within the administration of addressing not only environmental issues but also the “economic, energy and small business impacts” of the rule. …
Angelo had been mayor of Midland, Texas, when Bush ran an oil firm there. He is also a longtime hunting partner of Rove’s. The two men first worked together when Angelo managed Ronald Reagan’s 1980 presidential campaign in Texas.
In an interview Monday, Angelo welcomed the new groundwater rule and said his letter might have made a difference in how it was written. But he waved off environmentalists’ questions about Rove’s involvement.
“I’m sure that his forwarding my letter to people that were in charge of it might have had some impression on them,” Angelo said. “It seems to me that it was a totally proper thing to do. I can’t see why anybody’s upset about it, except of course that it was effective.”
Asked why he wrote to Rove and not the Environmental Protection Agency or to some other official more directly associated with the matter, Angelo replied: “Karl and I have been close friends for 25 years. So, why wouldn’t I write to him? He’s the guy I know best in the administration.” …
The EPA rule issued Monday adds fine print to that broad exception in ways that critics, including six members of the Senate, say exceeds what Congress intended. …
White House and administration officials disagreed.
At the EPA, Assistant Administrator Benjamin H. Grumbles said the rule responded directly to congressional action. He cited a letter from Sen. James M. Inhofe (R-Okla.), chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, endorsing it. [mjh: Inhofe is the deep thinker who believes Global Warming is a hoax.] …
Sharon Buccino, director of the Natural Resources Defense Council’s land program, called the rule “yet another example of the Bush administration rewarding their friends in the oil and gas industry at the expense of the environment and the public’s health.”
—–
See mjh’s blog — It Helps to Have a Powerful Friend
A 26-year-old college dropout who carries President Bush’s breath mints and makes him peanut butter-and-jelly sandwiches will follow in his boss’s footsteps this fall when he enrolls at Harvard Business School (HBS). read more …
Bush’s mistreatment of science
Seed: As Science Goes, so Goes the Nation by Chris Mooney, From the JUNE/JULY issue of Seed
Bush’s mistreatment of science has expanded into a story that resonates deeply within his own country, and widely throughout the world, because it’s similar to the greater political narratives already being played out.
… a similar pattern—ignore experts, favor ideologues—has been followed by the administration on any number of other science issues, ranging from global warming to the morning after pill. …
The president, for whatever reason, hasn’t shown that he respects what’s going on in what one of his aides so hilariously described as the “reality-based community.” The “Bush is anti science” meme carries political weight because it underscores why so many Americans (including previous supporters) are becoming increasingly disenchanted with Bush: They don’t think he’s fit to lead, and they don’t believe many of his appointees are competent administrators of various branches of the government, virtually all of which require some form of scientific or other expertise.