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.
Liberal muckraker and private investigator Michael Corwin, of the Albuquerque-based Independent Source PAC, a liberal political action committee, recently launched a trio of radio spots not merely critical of Governor Susana Martinez and her administration but seemingly intent on exposing what he sees as widespread hypocrisies and conflicts of interest within the Department of Education.
Working for free and having paid for the spots in order to generate more funds for his PAC, Corwin and his 30-second segments each focus on a very specific transgression: one on the hiring of chief of staff Keith Gardner’s wife at the Public Education Department; one on the apparent conflict of interest in choosing Paul Yarborough as State Personnel Board Chairman, despite his having served as vice president of an Albuquerque law firm that has state contracts totaling more than $500,000; and a third outlining the appointment of a onetime charter schools attorney as the state’s new charter-school czar.
Governor spokesman Scott Darnell offered up a “no comment” in a statement made in response to the ads, adding that they appeared to have been “backed by a shadow group.”
Corwin says the response from beyond the governor’s office so far has been great. “People are really loving them because they’re so unlike the usual political ads,” he said.
“It’s real information. It’s the first time some people are hearing about this conduct that’s been going on in the Martinez administration. There’s been this sort of honeymoon period. Well, these ads are our signaling that the honeymoon is over. They show that the governor has either been an absentee governor so far, or that her statements about ethics and code of conduct have been little more than lip service.”
