Morning Word
TGIF.
Just a few more hours of work for most (I have to work tomorrow as well) and then it will be the weekend.
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Here in the final Word of the day, we keep looking at the NMFA controversy, have an update on what Sunland Park is doing with its budget shortfall and, of course, note the negative ads that are blanketing the state in the U.S. Senate race.
We'll be back on Monday.
Onto the Word:
- Cities that are seeking loans from the New Mexico Finance Authority our out of luck. The
- NMFA delayed loans to cities
- after it was revealed that the audit of the agency was faked.
- It is 4 for 4 (not to be confused with
- Fo' fo' fo
- ). Four new ads this week, all of them negative. One by Heather Wilson, two on behalf of Wilson and one on behalf of Heinrich. So I guess the honeymoon is over. I'll have an Ad-Watch piece on the ads by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, American Crossroads and the League of Conservation Voters Fund tomorrow.
- A board member for a group cited by state Senate Democrats on how confusing the school grading system is said he did not know Democrats would use the group's findings (which seems incredibly politically naive). But he told the conservative Capitol Report New Mexico that he wasn't displeased that they did.
- When asked about the A-throuhgh-F [sic] law, Johnson said, “some of the things they score on are mixing apples and oranges.”
- A poll
- finds Gov. Susana Martinez is still very popular
- . The poll, done for Joe Monahan, also attempts to dig in at the county level, but the sample sizes for most counties have to be very small and have very large margins of error. So unless it is something like Bernalillo County, be wary of reading too much into these.
- Steve Terrell looks at the increasingly-common use (especially among Republicans) of "pledges" that
- seem to be a roadblock for policymaking
- .
- Also from Terrell, Sens. Tom Udall and Jeff Bingaman
- want to know more about domestic spying
- .
- Bingaman and Udall joined 10 other senators from both political parties to send a letter to James Clapper, the director of National Intelligence. They requested information about Americans’ communications that have been secretly collected by the federal government under the 2008 the FISA Amendments Act.
- As Terrell notes, the two Republicans (Mike Lee of Utah and Rand Paul of Kentucky) are among the most Tea Party affiliated Republicans in the land. Meanwhile, many of the Democrats who signed are considered Democrats -- to say nothing of Bernie Sandiers, I-Vt.
- Engineers unveiled some plans for the Paseo del Norte interchange at I-25
- . The project is considered the most-needed highway project in the state.
- Climate change will really hurt New Mexico's economy. At least,
- that's what a report by Robert Repetto says
- The study states the cost of responding to climate change in New Mexico will double by 2040 to $ 3.3 billion annually. New Mexico faces a growing depletion of its water supplies due to lower precipitation levels, increased temperatures, less snowpack and annual runoffs. Almost no sector will remain unscathed.
- Forest fires are one thing that would occur. But those pesky environmentalists are hurting efforts to thin forests, right? Well, Rep. Steve Pearce may not want to
- look at this
- .
- Joline Gutierrez Krueger thinks its
- time to take another look at common sense gun laws
- . With the NRA so totally in control of the gun debate, don't hold your breath, no matter how many gun-related killings there are around the country every day.
- A Santa Fe lawyer
- dropped his bid to be appointed to the state Supreme Court
- by Susana Martinez. The appointment will last from the end of August until November, when the position will go up to the voters.
- Sunland Park's city council finally did something about their glaring budget catastrophe. The library will stay open, but
- there will be furloughs
- . Oh, and:
- The final budget, however, leaves out funding for senior center staffing and bus service to El Paso.
- The Rio Grande Sun
- opines about school reform
- but never really takes a side on whether the school grading system is a good system or a bad one.
- A speaker in Santa Fe (well, speaking via Skype to an audience in Santa Fe) says
- we need tougher regulations for drinking water
- .
- A Santa Fe native will
- participate in the Olympic Opening Ceremonies tonight
- .
- The Alibi
- breaks into the abandoned Anasazi building
- , an empty building that's very existence mocks the idea of revitalizing downtown. I really recommend reading this.
- In its latest newsletter, the Albuquerque Tea Party has embraced
- the radical Agenda 21 theory
- . How crazy is this conspiracy theory?
- The Atlantic
- explains in a good piece, albeit one that is hard to excerpt from.
- The Santa Fe Fuego (a baseball team in the Pecos League, somewhere about
- 100 levels below major league baseball
- )
- has Elmo for a mascot
- . Think about it.
- Albuquerque wants to
- hire someone to investigate claims against police
- .
- I think I may have to make my way down to Las Cruces. Three words:
- Tour de Beer
- . I would also have to probably see if I still remember how to ride a bike.
