Poverty

Hillary at State Depatment could have huge impact for women worldwide

Photo by Roger H. Goun

Much has been made of Obama’s “team of rivals” selection of Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State. But little has been said so far about what impact this prominent feminist and health care expert could have on the lives of women in other countries. But women’s rights activists say they’re extremely [...]

Recession comes to the rescue — of our diet!

Higher food costs are leading Americans to cook more at home, eat out less, plant vegetable gardens and eat less beef, according to a recent poll by Parade magazine.
On Sunday morning be sure to dig through the mountain of crap in the middle of the paper to excavate Parade, because it has an interesting cover [...]

Sticking up for poor, cold people

New Mexico has a wintertime moratorium on utility cutoffs for non-payment. In fact, the moratorium period is just around the corner — it runs from Nov. 15 to March 15. But just like a law in my native Wisconsin, it doesn’t always prevent people from suffering in the cold.

Let’s keep our promises

In the weeks leading up to Nov. 4, like so many others I knocked on a fair number of doors to encourage people to vote. But one man in particular will remain in my memory for some time. He was probably in his early 60s, a self-employed house painter and the father of a person I was looking for.

John Nichols, unconventional socialist

Socialism has been bandied about as a scare word in the run-up to Election Day, but New Mexico author and naturalist John Nichols embraces idealistic, Declaration of Independence-style socialism as the answer to the climate crisis.

The battle over immigration produces a new American voter

The impact of the immigration debate in this country, with a shift toward stronger enforcement of immigration laws, the construction of a border fence, and mass raids and deportations of immigrants over the past couple of years, can be seen in the stories of immigrants such as Pajarito Mesa’s Salvador Montes, who became a citizen and will vote for the first time this year.

Rogers says he has done nothing wrong

Pat Rogers, the Albuquerque attorney who advises the state GOP, tells the Associated Press that he has done nothing illegal.
As NMI reported earlier this week, Rogers is named in a lawsuit filed by the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund. The suit, which names Rogers and Al Romero, a private investigator who said he [...]

Assault on the working poor

As we hold our noses this election season, wading through the stinking offal of robocalls, vile attack ads, and disgusting charges of un-Americanism, it’s sobering for us in New Mexico to realize that according to the AP our state has more working poor and more children living in low-income working families than any state in the union.

N.M. GOP lawyer Rogers says DOJ and Talking Points Memo got it wrong

N.M. GOP attorney Pat Rogers said Tuesday he doesn’t remember the 2004 e-mail a recent Department of Justice report cited and which made it onto Talking Points Memo. TPM used the e-mail as evidence of Rogers’ work in 2004 to pursue claims of voter fraud in the Land of Enchantment, which are similar to the claims the New Mexico GOP is currently pursuing in the weeks leading up to the Nov. 4 election.

Political economist: America is bankrupt

Politicians and economists may couch the current economic crisis in words like “intensifying solvency concerns” and “brink of systemic meltdown,” but political economist Scott Goold comes directly to the point in delivering his assessment: The United States of America is bankrupt.