Mario Burgos

The 2010 election is in full swing, and the governor’s race has already degraded into the usual partisan, nasty mess. In contrast, some prominent Republicans have nothing but nice things to say about State Auditor Hector Balderas, a rising star in the Democratic Party who’s up for re-election next year.

There’s lots going on in the blogosphere today, but much of it has to do with Albuquerque Mayor-elect Richard Berry and the fallout from him resigning his legislative seat days before the special session begins.

There’s lots of coverage of today’s Albuquerque municipal election floating around on the Internet. Here are some of the other things that are going on today on the blogosphere.
• Capital Report New Mexico has an interesting piece about a Wall Street Journal attack on PNM and other companies who are bailing from the U.S. Chamber [...]

Things are starting to heat up in the Albuquerque mayor’s race. Today, former Mayor Jim Baca has a posting telling candidate R.J. Berry that he needs to stop “picking out some segment of the population (immigrants) and blaming them for every and any problem anyone might have.”
“Mr. Berry, you need to stop this to regain [...]

The Santa Fe Review discusses “The Great Drought of ‘09” today in light of Santa Fe’s driest weather in decades. All about loopholes, construction and bureaucracy, this blog about New Mexico water politics is definitely worth the read.

John Fleck remembers today something he wrote years ago regarding “what happens when you don’t have health insurance.”  He ties it in to an article he wrote examining the same issues that are facing Americans now.
Meanwhile, Mario Burgos frowns on the way the “$3 billion Cash for Clunkers fiasco has panned out.” He then moves [...]

Johnny Mango raves today about the University of New Mexico continuing education fall catalog. With summer on its way out, he tells of many a classroom option for those looking for something new as the weather cools. He goes as far to say, “These classes can help make dreams come true.”

At the top of the list of top blogs today is Peter St. Cyr’s posting about a report released by former U.S. Sen. Pete Domenici and the Bipartisan Policy Center called “Drowning in Red Ink.” Get St. Cyr’s take on the group’s move to fix “the nation’s daunting federal deficit and debt crisis.”

There’s lots of talk on the blogs about Monday’s ruling that an attempt by the Secretary of State’s Office to force two nonprofits to register as political action committees violates their First Amendment right to free speech.

An overreaction? Both Cocoposts and Jim Baca think the U.S. Forest Service needs to “chill out” when it comes to the Rainbow Family meeting in the Santa Fe National Forest this week.

Today we’re going to go to the conservative side of the blogosphere, and we’ll start with the state’s king of that side of things, Mario Burgos. He’s going after the way stimulus money is being spent:

“It’s raining subpoenas,” The Santa Fe New Mexican’s Kate Nash screams from her blog today. 
“You mean you haven’t gotten one yet?” she asks. “Seems like it’s almost in style these days to get a subpoena.”

Between swine flu and the Mexican Army’s battle with the cartels, there’s a lot going on in the nation south of the border. Jose Garcia has it all covered in several postings on his blog. It’s a good resource for keeping up with what’s going on there.

We’re going to spread out to some various political and policy topics today. Over at Democracy for New Mexico, Barbara Wold is hailing the legalization of gay marriage in Vermont as “a major victory for American democracy.”

Mark Bralley, a photographer and blogger who keeps an eye on politics, has a lengthy but insightful posting on his blog — What’s Wrong With This Picture? — in which he dissects the webcasting debate in the New Mexico House in an attempt to get to the bottom of what’s really going on.