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.
Earlier today, I wrote that Democrats are complaining about Republicans using all sorts of delaying tactics to avoid votes on a health care reform bill. Well, it looks like the Republican Party is divided on how aggressively to obstruct.
One Republican, New Hampshire Senator Judd Gregg, has a “maximally obstructive” game plan according to Talking Points Memo.
In a letter to his Republican colleagues, Gregg:
says Republicans should be prepared to filibuster every motion, “with the exception of Conference Reports and Budget Resolutions, most such motions are fully debatable and 60 votes for cloture is needed to cut off extended debate.”
Republicans also scuttled a plan to post all amendments to the health care bill online, but Sen. Blanche Lincoln, D-Ark., plans to post all amendments on her Web site.
On the Afghanistan front, John Murtha, D-Pa., compared the costs of the war in Afghanistan to another war in Asia — Vietnam. Murtha, a Vietnam veteran, is the chairman of the House Appropriations subcommittee that deals with defense spending.
Republicans, who were pushing for an increase of troops in Afghanistan, don’t want to give President Barack Obama any credit for the decision. They are all saying the decision was McChrystal’s alone and that Obama is just following along.
Democrats, meanwhile, are proposing a war tax to pay for the war in Afghanistan.
In electoral politics, Hotline On Call sees two emerging memes on House races:
First, the NRCC is doing a better job than Dems in putting seats in play. But the seats they are missing are seats the party needs to win to take back the Speaker’s gavel.
The NRCC has had several high profile recruits, including former U.S. Congressman Steve Pearce for New Mexico’s 2nd Congressional District.
But while Pearce is a conservative Republican running in a conservative district (it was the only district in New Mexico that John McCain won), many Blue Dog Democrats (a coalition of conservative Democrats) are without challengers or do not face top-tier competition.
An ethics watchdog group in Washington D.C. is asking for an investigation into the use of secret holds in the Senate despite a ban of the practice in a 2007 ethics reform bill.
In polling news, Mark Blumenthal looks at why Rasmussen has different approval ratings for Barack Obama than other pollsters.
Global warming is a concern in much of the world, but not as much in the United States, China or Russia.
