I am writing today to announce the closure of the New Mexico Independent. After three and a half years of operation in New Mexico, the board of the American Independent News Network, has decided to shift publication of its news…
While environmental activists played their part yesterday during demonstrations at the capitol building, going so far as to dress up as solar panels and to sing the tune of “You Are My Sunshine,” their counterparts, the anti-cap-and-trade contingency who has…
Roughly one quarter of University of New Mexico students are unimpressed with the state’s flagship public school, according to a survey that questioned college students about their higher education experiences.
According to a post by New Mexico Watchdog, money was given to “phantom districts” in New Mexico (and others nationwide) from the recovery package. At least according to recovery.gov, the Web site designed to track recovery funds.
On The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, Vice President Joe Biden said the mixups are a result of clerical errors from some of the 130,000 entities who entered the information. “Seventy, when they asked what district were they from put it as— thank God it’s not true—they said there are 14 congressional districts in Arizona. Imagine all those Republicans,” Biden said on the comedy show. According to Watchdog.org, there are 440 “phantom districts.”
The Web site has since been changed to show that some money is going to an “Unassigned congressional district”. The site previously showed there were 10 districts in New Mexico; there are three.
“The problem is real,” the Associated Press wrote in a story today. “Its significance is overstated, and in some instances, fabricated.”
Even Jim Scarantino, the investigative reporter for the libertarian Rio Grande Foundation which runs New Mexico Watchdog, told the Associated Press, “I’m not going to say it went into a black hole.”
Republicans quickly latched onto the report and criticized the Barack Obama administration for the problems.
“We fully agree with those who find the mistakes in the data frustrating — and we’ve been working with the Recovery Board to find the mistakes, and fix them,” G. Edward DeSeve, the man in hired by the Obama administration to oversee the stimulus package, wrote to the Albuquerque Journal. “Just because mistakes are inevitable in any new system — especially one this large, and this new — doesn’t mean they are acceptable.”
