Democracy for New Mexico

Support Bill to Study Costs of Universal Health Coverage

From the Health Care for All Campaign and Health Action NM:
HB481, the Health Coverage for All New Mexicans Committee Act, introduced by Rep. Danice Picraux, is scheduled for a hearing on Thursday, Feb 2, 2006 in House Consumer and Public Affairs Committee, Room 315 at 1:30 PM. HB 481 is last on the agenda. Please check the Legislative Council web site to make sure it does not change and or call the Secretary of the Committee at 986-4844. Try to call the legislators or come to the meeting and support this bill:

Gail Chasey, Chair, 986-4844, supports bill
Irvin Harrison, Vice Chair, 986-4464,
Thomas Anderson 986-4453,
Keith Gardner, 986-4211, supports, but still call
Joni Gutierrez ,986-4234, supports, but tell her no amendments
Dianne Miller Hamilton, 986-422
Al Park 986-4234. supports, but tell him no amendments

We are asking you to call or visit all of these Committee members and ask for support with NO AMENDMENTS.  Health Action NM and The Health Care for All Campaign has worked hard to negotiate for the objective study of the comparison of projected cost of various models of universal health care, including the current system. We believe passage of this legislation will move NM forward and off political deadlock on this issue. We have been told that any amendments will be reason for a veto from the Governor.
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Have you heard about the Progressive Networking Center located at First Christian Church, 645 Webber St, just a couple of blocks south of the Capitol?  Open from 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM for all Progressive advocates and lobbyists; we have computer, internet, fax, and copier, plus wireless for laptop users. We also have coffee, tea, bottled water, and snacks. Meeting space is available, too. The Progressive Networking Center is jointly sponsored by the New Mexico Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice and the New Mexico Progressive Alliance for Community Empowerment and funded by a grant from Emily and Michael Rosenberg.  Donations are accepted.

Sound Off: State of the Union Kabuki

Truthout has a story by Cindy Sheehan on 'What Really Happened' when she was forcibly removed from the gallery and arrested shortly before Bush rambled through his latest pack of lies during last night's State of the Union address. This is not America, is it? Well, it's Bush's America anyway.

Click for an mp3 of Cindy Sheehan describing her arrest and her feelings about it.

I wonder when enough will be enough and politicos and citizens alike will wake up and take the drastic actions needed to rip away the masks of respectability from the neo-con vultures, revealing for all to see their grotesque, hypocritical, dishonest, corrupt, bigoted, venal, greedy and ultimately anti-American pathologies.

Let's call a spade a spade. People don't like to say this out loud, in public, but you know it has real "resonance," as they say in the focus groups. The origins of the neo-conservative "movement" lie in hatred, bigotry, repression, suppression, imperialism, corporatism, militarism and anti-democratic impulses. The people behind the BushCo curtain hate the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, privacy, freedom, blacks, browns, tans, gays, immigrants, foreigners, uppity women, poor people, social justice, economic fairness, environmentalism, humanism, charity, free speech, grassroots activism and any culture that isn't entirely consumerist and materialistic. They hate science and intellectual openness. They hate freedom and pleasure and sex. And they really hate anyone who acts freely, thinks critically, experiences pleasure without guilt or thinks sex is natural, not evil. They love war and torture, punishment and control, lockstep and order, power and manipulation, bribery and lies, shock and awe.

Definitions:

Fascist: A reactionary or dictatorial person

Fascism: A political theory advocating an authoritarian hierarchical government (as opposed to democracy or liberalism). A system of government marked by centralization of authority under a dictator, stringent socioeconomic controls, suppression of the opposition through terror and censorship, and typically a policy of belligerent nationalism and racism.

Project For the Old American Century explores the 14 points of fascism as delineated by Laurence Britt in his article, "Fascism Anyone?"

Is it just me, or was there an eerie, scary energy in the chamber last night? When the camera panned around the hall, we kept commenting that way too many in the audience looked like warlocks, vultures, vampires, pod people or whatever you'd call people so glossed up with fake facades that they look inhuman, alien. Grey skin tones. Waxy smiles. Poorly dyed hair. Bizarre facial expressions and body language. Way too many creaky space cadets thinking it's still the 20th century. Trained seals flapping their flippers on command.

I had a truly surreal and Orwellian experience hearing Bush brazenly promoting issues he'd fought against tooth and nail for his entire presidency. To hear him speak about America's addiction to oil was almost too much to bear. Yeah George, we've been trying to get you to do something about that for years now. In response you launched an illegal invasion of Iraq, drooling for control of more, more, more.

He managed to include one sentence about those suffering the aftermath of his botched response to Hurricane Katrina. I guess he wanted to toss at least one crumb to the "compassionate conservatives" in his midst. No moment of silence for the troops -- dead, delimbed or PTSDed, or for the "collateral damage." No mention of the suffering of the Christian Science Monitor reporter still held hostage in Iraq. No reference to the ABC News people who nearly had their heads blown off in the war zone. No admitting his tax cuts and prescription drug scam and miltaristic adventuring and "free" trade policies and lost jobs will result in us owing the Chinese at least two trillion dollars when all is said and done.

Oh, he cares about jobs and health care and energy efficiency and education and poor people and Coretta Scott King and peace and democracy and veterans and freedom and justice. Is there any president who has done less to promote these things or more to devolve our culture into a greedy, oily, selfish, imperialistic brew? I can't come up with a name.

I'm sure some will say I'm off the deep end, in tin-foil hat territory. Exaggerating. Misguided. Overly dramatic. Maybe. But didn't watching that coldly calculated display of choreographed kabuki make a chill run up your spine? It can't be just me, can it? Apparently this guy, for one, agrees with me. How about you?

I have a dream that one day Democrats will file into a Bush kabuki event and turn their backs to the stage for the entire speech. I have a dream that one day Democrats will refuse to follow the SOTU script, decline to clap and call Bush out on on his dishonesty, loudly, every time he lies. I have a dream that one day America will wake up to the constitutional and planetary crisis at hand and step outside the lines to confront our demons. But then, I've always been a dreamer --Barbara Wold

PS: Does this remind you of the rants you hear on right-wing radio? Good. I think we should start responding in kind. Time to take the gloves off.

Sound Off is a regular feature of the blog that allows individuals to voice their personal views on timely issues and controversies. Click on the Email Me link on the upper left-hand side of the page if you'd like to submit your own Sound Off.

Minimum Wage Lobby Day Floods Capitol

From ACORN:

New Round of Phone Calls Urgently Needed!
Over 200 supporters from Las Cruces, Carlsbad, Rio Rancho, Espanola, Albuquerque, and Santa Fe rallied at the capitol Tuesday, praising Speaker Ben Lujan’s leadership on the minimum wage and calling for Governor Richardson to take a stand for indexing the wage to inflation, implementing the $7.50 wage before 2009, and maintaining cities’ right to pass higher wages. 

Later that afternoon, the House Business & Industry Committee tabled the Speaker’s bill, HB258, to Thursday’s meeting, asking the Speaker to meet with opponents to consider ways of aleviating their concerns.

So TODAY, we need you to make at least two phone calls:

1. To Governor Richardson, renewing our call for him to support indexing the minimum wage to inflation and getting to $7.50 before 2009, so the minimum wage does not lose value in New Mexico. Call him at 476-2200.

2. Call the member of the House Business & Industry Committee you live closest to, and tell him or her to pass the Speaker’s bill with no amendments.

Chairman Fred Luna, Los Lunas: 986-4329
Rep. Jose Campos, Santa Rosa: 986-4242
Rep. Richard Vigil, Las Vegas: 986-4249
Rep. George Hanosh, Grants: 986-4243
Rep. Dona Irwin, Deming: 986-4242
Rep. Debbie Rodella, Rio Arriba County: 986-4248
Rep. Hector Baldera, Wagon Mound: 986-4254
Rep. Jim Trujillo, Santa Fe: 986-4255.

Lastly, please join us for the House Business & Industry Committee hearing Thursday at 1:30 PM in Room 309 in the Roundhouse. For a ride, email nmacorn@acorn.org.

Medical Marijuana Bill Passes NM Senate on 34-6 Vote

SANTA FE – People suffering from cancer, glaucoma, multiple sclerosis and other debilitating conditions will be able to use medical cannabis to help relieve their symptoms in a bill that passed the New Mexico Senate today. Senate Bill 258, the “Lynn & Erin Compassionate Use Act,” sponsored by Senator Cisco McSorley (D-Bernalillo), passed today on an overwhelming vote of 34-6. The bill will now head to the House of Representatives for deliberation.

This sends an overwhelmingly bipartisan and non partisan message that the legislators have caught up to the people of New Mexico, says Senator McSorley. “We know that the people of the State of New Mexico by huge majorities want medical marijuana. The vote on the Senate floor today acknowledges that.”

Visit the New Mexico Senate Democrats site for more information on this and other Senate bills.