Democracy for New Mexico

Call for Volunteers: A Different Way to Support the Troops

From Terry Riley
www.whatifyouknew-nm.com
Military Families Speak Out
Stop The War Machine
Albuquerque Veterans For Peace
New Mexico Democratic Friends

If you haven't noticed there have been revelations of bad behavior of military recruiters, mostly Army recruiters. The recruiters are under a tremendous amount of pressure to convince people to join and the job is getting much harder. For the last three months the Army and the Marines have been unable to meet their goals. A couple of recruiters have been in the news because they were caught threatening people and making outlandish lies as well as helping people lie on their applications. In response to this the Army has set this Friday, May 20th as a day for all recruiters to Stand-Down. They have to attend special training so they will better understand what is acceptable and what is not.

I believe that this is a PR event to placate the public. I in no way believe that the Army cares how the recruiter fills the ranks. I feel badly for the recruiter. I have also read that recruiters are experiencing a higher level of suicides, PTSD, and depression. Typically a recruiter has to work from 60 to 80 hours per week in order to attend every youth oriented group gathering in a week. You can see how they can be tempted to lie if they are not in fact taught to lie.

I want to demonstrate in front of the four recruiting stations here in Albuquerque in support of the recruiter. My message is that Recruiters are Soldiers too! I have a sign that says, " Don't blame the Recruiter... Don't blame the Soldier... Blame the Administration!" I also want to say something like, " Support the Troops - and that goes for the recruiter too! No more blaming the soldier for the mistakes of the administration". I have to work on that one - too long.

I need volunteers to stand with me. There are four recruiting stations in Albuquerque and I already have four members of Veterans For Peace who will stand with us from 10 AM to Noon on Saturday, May 21st. I need anybody who can come to contact me by e-mail so I can schedule which site you will go to. I hope to have a couple of people close to the recruiting office unless asked to leave. Additional people should stand on the sidewalk, they can't ask us to leave, for greater visibility.

Please contact me ASAP so I can get this scheduled. I will also put out a press release and if we can get a lot of supporters we can get press coverage.

Thank you,
Terry Riley
son of a Veteran
Veteran
father of two Veterans
terryactivist@aol.com

Last Minute Change on Hearing Fair Wage Bill Disappoints Citizens

From Terry Riley:
Monday evening May 16th the Albuquerque City Council was scheduled to vote on the living wage bill. This motion would not act in favor or oppose an increase in the minimum wage, it would set the item on the October ballot so the voters can decide. This a lame way of getting the living wage to the working folks in poverty.

Upon arriving at the City Council chambers early enough to sign up to speak I was informed that the list of issues was too long and that if the living wage could be heard that it wouldn't be until very late, unnecessarily imposing on those of us who were here to support it. Councilmember Heinrich got the item set for a special session on Wednesday May 25th.

Many of us signed up anyway and got our two minutes to speak at the beginning of the session. Many gave their prepared comments on the living wage, a couple of us, Judge Kass in particular, challenged the city council on the inappropriateness of rescheduling an item that had so many people involved, so many people who had to now change their schedules AGAIN in order to be heard in their democracy. (Great point Anne!)

We now have a second opportunity to get a crowd to the City Council chambers to make our point. It does not look like we have enough councilmembers lined for the vote to carry at this point. Letter writing and e-mails to your councilmembers at this point will help. NOTHING will have as much effect as a personal appearance. We need as many people as possible. If we can, we need to have so many people that they will have to take signatures and turn people away because there isn't enough room.

It is said that democracy is not a spectator sport. I am learning that myself. So much good happens when you are there to supervise the elected officials.

Editor's Note: Click to contact your . I've heard rumors that the bill is being watered down. We'll see.

DPBC Third Thursday Meeting to Focus on UNM Hospital Indigent Care

From Fred Harris:
We're hoping for a good attendance for the Bernalillo County Democratic Forum this Thursday, May 19, 6:00 PM, Room 2401, UNM Law School, 1117 Stanford Drive NE, on "UNM Hospital: Are We Providing Adequate Care for Indigent and Underserved Families?" 

Panel: Fred Harris, Chair; Presenters: Bernalillo Co. Commissioner Deanna Archuleta-Loeser and Dr. Mark Unverzaght, UNM Associate Professor, Family and Community Medicine.

Editor's Note: This event is this month's Third Thursday Meeting of the Democratic Party of Bernalillo County and all Democrats are encouraged to attend. Click for a map.

Also, click to visit the new DPBC website. Included in the site's variety of features is a Forum where you can participate in discussions. Click the "Discussion Forum" tab at the top of the page.

Tonight's the Night

UPDATE: I JUST LEARNED THAT CITY COUNCIL CONSIDERATION OF THE FAIR WAGE BILL HAS BEEN POSTPONED UNTIL A SPECIAL COUNCIL MEETING ON MAY 25TH.

Come on down!

The Albuquerque City Council will discuss Councilor Martin Heinrich's Fair Wage Initiative at tonight's City Council Meeting. Please attend the meeting and sign up to testify on behalf of the bill if you possibly can.

It is extremely important that we have a large turnout so that the Council can see how much support the bill has from ordinary citizens and small business owners.

Council Meetings are held in the Vincent E. Griego Council Chambers on the basement level of the Albuquerque/Bernalillo County Government Center building, One Civic Plaza NW (click for map).

All meetings begin at 5:00 PM and you must sign up by that time in order to be allowed to comment on a bill during the meeting.

Click for information on Councilor Heinrich's .

Send a Free Fax for Otero Mesa

From the New Mexico Wilderness Alliance:
Earlier this year, the Interior Department approved a plan to open 95 percent of New Mexico's Otero Mesa  to oil and gas exploration. In response, New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson filed suit on April 22nd against Interior Department Secretary Gale Norton for failing to adequately protect this fragile and irreplaceable wildland.

New Mexico's Otero Mesa is home to pronghorn, burrowing owls, the endangered Aplomado falcon, mountain lions and countless other species. Beneath its grasslands lies a freshwater aquifer that is large enough to supply drinking water for New Mexicans for more than a hundred years.

Even though Governor Richardson proposed a plan for protecting the most fragile parts of Otero Mesa, the Interior Department chose instead to give oil and gas companies virtually unlimited access to this special place. The agency's decision also ignored comments submitted by tens of thousands of people from all over the country in support of protecting Otero Mesa. What's worse, the Interior Department went ahead with its plan even though federal land managers believe there is little chance of finding economically recoverable amounts of oil and gas in the area.

Please go to https://ga1.org/campaign/gale_norton right now and urge Interior Secretary Norton not to sacrifice this treasured piece of America's natural heritage.

Thank you for taking action.
Sincerely,
Stephen Capra
Executive Director, New Mexico Wilderness Alliance

What's At Stake:

The Greater Otero Mesa Area—Fact Sheet

General Information: The Greater Otero Mesa Area encompasses over 1.2 million acres, and is considered North America’s largest and wildest Chihuahuan Desert grassland remaining on public lands.

Approximately 250,000 acres have been targeted by industry in the first round for oil and gas development. More lease sales are planned. Ultimately, the entire 1.2 million acres is subject to oil & gas development. Currently 51,600 acres have already been leased.

The Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM) plan for oil & gas development will tell us that only a small portion stands to be impacted, the reality is that this plan will allow for dramatic fragmentation of the Greater Otero Mesa Area. Fragmentation continues to be the greatest threat to this resource.

The New Mexico Wilderness Alliance has surveyed the Greater Otero Mesa Area and identified over 500,000 acres as suitable for Wilderness designation, the largest remaining potential wilderness area left in New Mexico.

Politics: Governor Richardson has pledged his support for protecting Otero Mesa.
Senator Jeff Bingaman met with several staff from the New Mexico Wilderness Alliance and local ranchers from Otero Mesa. The Senator has been helpful in our efforts and shares our concerns about protecting the significant environmental, ecological, cultural and recreational values of Otero Mesa.

Congressman Steve Pearce is supporting drilling in Otero Mesa, and has refused to support the protection of even a single acre. Congressman Pearce is also an advocate for selling off all Public Lands.

The Oil & Gas Company that is planning to develop most of the area is Harvey E. Yates Company (HEYCO), of Roswell. Ayes Petroleum out of Artesia and Burlington Resources out of Midland Texas are also bidding to drill.

Development: Currently five Natural Gas wells have been drilled in the Greater Otero Mesa Area. One well has produced 4.4 million cubic feet per day, while three of the wells came up dry.

HEYCO continues to say that directional drilling is not an option due to cost, geology and the inability to find real targets because of potential no-surface occupancy regulations.

Plans for the area include bringing a natural gas pipeline up from Texas. This would be a key element in the Industrialization of the Greater Otero Mesa Area. Roads, power lines, toxic waste ponds and increased motorized traffic are the by-products that begin with a pipeline and the level of drilling that would inevitably take place.

Pollution: In nearby Carlsbad, recent concern surrounds contaminated wells, noise and air pollution resulting from the dramatic increase in drilling the surrounding areas.

Neighboring Carlsbad and Guadalupe National Parks have Class 1 air status, the cleanest and most pristine. Development in Otero Mesa could directly impact and degrade such air quality.

Threshold Development, of Artesia, drilled a well just south of the New Mexico border in Texas and struck large amounts of fresh water. Instead of safely disposing of the contaminated water and waste, Threshold Development drove back into New Mexico and onto Otero Mesa, and illegally dumped the waste on the side of the road. The BLM to this date has not fined or issued any citations over this clear violation.
Groundwater

Potential groundwater pollution is at the heart of the threats to the Greater Otero Mesa Area. Any current drilling requires the use of a number of chemical agents, many of which are suspected carcinogens, that are used the entire length of a drilling process.

Conservative estimates show that without any recharge there is enough fresh potable water underlying Otero Mesa to serve a community of over 500,000 people for over fifty years.

Wildlife: This area is home to the states healthiest herd of pronghorn, and unlike most herds in the state, they have never needed reintroduction. For sportsmen, this area is open only to bow and muzzle loading seasons.
The Greater Otero Mesa Area is a crucial wintering ground for migratory songbirds, including, Baird's Sparrow, Lark Bunting, Burrowing Owls and countless raptor species as well as many other species common to the northern prairie states. In addition many southern species of birds come north to Otero Mesa in search of the solitude and vital seeds that only native grassland can provide.
Stands of black grama grasses can be found in abundance throughout the Greater Otero Mesa Area.

Ranching: Independent cattle ranches still operate in the area. Some have been in the same families for five generations.

The New Mexico Wilderness Alliance has been working with the ranchers in Otero Mesa to ensure that their quality of life is preserved.

Alternatives: New Mexico is home to Sandia Lab, an alternative energy program at NMSU, 300 plus days of sunshine and has tremendous wind potential in the eastern part of the state. New Mexico should be a leader in alternative energy.

Click to sign up with the New Mexico Wilderness Alliance.

Quote of the Day

"The more compelling our journalism, the angrier became the radical right of the Republican Party,'' he said. "That's because the one thing they loathe more than liberals is the truth. And the quickest way to be damned by them as liberal is to tell the truth." --Bill Moyers

From a speech Moyers gave at the Conference for Media Reform this weekend in St. Louis. You can listen to it here. John Nichols at The Nation Online writes about it.

ACTION ALERT: Help Fight Navajo DOMA

From Equality NM:
Please help the Navajos fight a DOMA (so-called Defense of Marriage Act)! They need as many signatures as they can gather by Tuesday night, May 17th. The Navajo Nation Council meets in a Special Session on May 18th to override the President of the Navajo Nation's veto of the Dine Marriage Act of 2005 legislation that defines marriage as only between a man and a woman.

Click here to sign the petition and forward as widely as possible. Also click to read the text of the petition.

Thanks for your help with this important work.

A Pause -- OPEN THREAD

We're heading out of town on Friday for a weekend of camping with friends down south of here at Caballo Lake (above) or maybe Percha Dam (below) so there'll be a pause in the posting here. However, I'll leave this as an open thread so folks can take the initiative and keep the place alive during my absence. Go ahead, start something up, post some news or just say hi in the comments section. Our traveling mascot, Bosco the peachfaced lovebird, thanks you.

Bolton Nom Passes Committee But Bingaman to Vote No on Senate Floor

GREAT NEWS!

From Terry Brunner, State Director, Senator Jeff Bingaman's office:

Senator Bingaman will vote against John Bolton’s nomination when it comes to the floor.
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If you'd like to express your thanks to Senator Bingaman's Albuquerque staff, call (505) 346-6601.
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Note: Bolton's nomination passed the Senatre Foreign Relations Committee, but without a recommendation:

A divided Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Thursday sent the nomination of John Bolton to be United Nations ambassador to the full Senate for an up-or-down vote. But it took the rare step of withholding any recommendation of its own.

The move kept the contentious nomination alive, leaving its fate in the hands of the GOP-run Senate. But the withholding of a committee endorsement was a slap at the president in one of the first big battles of his second term.

The panel acted after a critical Republican member, Sen. George Voinovich, voiced opposition to the nomination, calling Bolton arrogant and bullying. But Voinovich broke an committee impasse by agreeing to let the full Senate vote rather than joining Democrats in a committee vote to block the nomination.

All 10 Republicans voted to send the nomination to the floor and all eight Democrats voted no. Democrats vowed to try to defeat or block the nomination on the floor.

Click to read the entire article.

Show Up to Support Hike in Minimum Wage in Albuquerque

From Albuquerque Living Wage:
Come testify to the City Council, on Monday, May 16, about Albuquerque's need for a minimum wage hike to $7.15. You must sign up to testify in the Council chambers before 5:30.

The chambers are in the basement of the City/County building, on the northwest corner of Civic Plaza, off of 5th & Marquette.

The Council needs to hear from you! Whether you own a Living Wage business, earn less than $7.15, or just believe it is the right thing to let the voters decide this issue in October, you need to speak out. Our opposition certainly will.

A huge majority of voters support the Living Wage as do many of our Councilors and economists who have studied the impact of higher minimum wage laws. The National Restaurant Association and the Chamber of Commerce, however, are masters of misinformation, so we need to counter their attack at the Council meeting with a physical presence that signifies our deep support and testimony that reflects our diversity.

Please join us.

Editor's Note: Click for more information on this issue and Martin Heinrich's bill. If you can't attend Monday's City Council Meeting, please about this issue.

Remember, the Democratic Party of New Mexico Endorses a Living Wage. On April 23, the state Democratic Party, at its State Central Committee Meeting in Socorro, approved the following resolution:

Whereas the Democratic Party is, and has always been, the party or ordinary working men and women, in recognition of this fundamental relationship, NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED BY THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY OF BERNALILLO COUNTY that the DPNM is committed to the establishment and enforcement of a living wage for all New Mexico workers.