Democracy for New Mexico

Upcoming Films at Guild

This Week at The Guild Cinema in Albuquerque:

March 24 & 25 (Saturday & Sunday)
2007 Israeli Film Festival
Saturday: 8:30 PM* / Sunday: Starting at 11:00 AM
Free admission *Please note new start time for Saturday

March 24 (Saturday)
American Blackout (3:00, 5:00)
A Benefit Screening for SAVE DARFUR

March 26-29 (Monday-Thursday)
An Unreasonable Man - A Documentary About Ralph Nader
(3:30, 6:00, 8:30)

See below for more information on the films.

2007 Israeli Film Festival
Second annual "four-walled" event, sponsored by Hillel at the University of New Mexico. Films provided courtesy of the Consulate General of Israel to the Southwest, with a generous grant from Drs. Yehuda and Nurit Patt and support from the Jewish Federation of New Mexico. The screenings are free to the public. Films have English subtitles and are for mature audiences (unless otherwise noted). Films are as follows:

• Saturday, March 24:
  8:30 PM: Turn Left at the End of the World (108m)
• Sunday, March 25:
  11:00 AM: Superboy (95m)
  1:00 PM: Walk on Water (103m)
  3:15 PM: House on Shalosh Street (110m)
  5:15 PM:Yellow Asphalt (87m)
  7:00 PM: Kadosh (110m)

American Blackout: Dir. Ian Inaba - 2006 - 92m
Chronicles the recurring patterns of disenfranchisement witnessed from 2000 to 2004 while following the story of Georgia Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney, who not only took an active role in investigating these election debacles but also found herself in the middle of one after publicly questioning the Bush Administration about the 9-11 terrorist attacks. Some call Cynthia McKinney a civil rights leader among the ranks of Shirley Chisholm and Malcolm X. Others call her a conspiracy theorist and a 'looney.' American Blackout gains unprecedented access to one of the most controversial and dangerous politicians in America and examines the contemporary tactics used to control our democratic process and silence political dissent. The film features interviews with: US Congressional Representatives, John Lewis, Cynthia McKinney, John Conyers, Bernie Sanders, and Stephanie Tubbs-Jones; former US Civil Rights Commissioner & Dean of UC Berkeley's School of Law, Christopher Edley; BBC journalist Greg Palast; and, Van Jones, Executive Director of the Ella Baker Center.

An Unreasonable Man - A Documentary About Ralph Nader
Dirs. Henriette Mantel, Steve Skrovan - 2006 - 122m
Many things we take for granted including seat belts, airbags, product labeling, no nukes, even the free ticket you get after being bumped from an overbooked flight are largely due to the efforts of Ralph Nader and his citizen groups. Yet today, when most people hear the name “Ralph Nader,” they think of the man who gave the country George W. Bush. As a result, after sustaining his popularity and effectiveness over an unprecedented amount of time, he has become a pariah even among former friends and allies. How did this happen? Is he really to blame for George W. Bush? Who has stuck by him and who has abandoned him? Has our democracy become a consumer fraud? After being so right for so many years, how did he seem to go so wrong? With the help of exciting graphics, rare archival footage and over forty on-camera interviews conducted over the past two years, AN UNREASONABLE MAN traces the life and career of Ralph Nader, one of the most unique, important, and controversial political figures of the past half century.

THE GUILD CINEMA
3405 Central Ave. NE
Albuquerque, NM 87106
tel. (505)255-1848
fax. (505)232-9385
www.guildcinema.com

Free Screening of An Inconvenient Truth in Tijeras

An Inconvenient Truth: Free Showing
Friday, March 30 at 6:30 PM
Los Vecinos Community Center
478 1/2 Route 66, Tijeras, NM
Everyone welcome. Hosted by the East Mountain Spiritual Progressives. For further info call 286-1228.

NM House Up All Night, Passes All But One Bill

Members of the New Mexico House stayed up all night in a seven-hour marathon on the House Floor to pass all but one of the bills Gov. Richardson included in his proclamation calling the Special Session. Thank you and congratulations to our Dem Representatives for sticking to business! We know it wasn't any fun with Rep. Dan Foley and other Repubs reportedly interrupting the floor action, interjecting insults and introducing motions to adjourn. Luckily, they couldn't make any headway in the face of Dem unity.

The only bill left for the House to pass would limit campaign contributions. A long debate focused on whether the limits should apply to PACs as well as individual donors. This morning, House Speaker Ben Lujan called a recess, subject to the call of the chair to reconvene at any time. It's not known if they will meet again later today to try and pass the remaining campaign finance bill.

The bills are now headed to the Senate, which is adjourned in protest, but must reconvene on Saturday according to legislative rules. Various Senators are threatening to call another adjournment on Saturday, which would give them another three days before they meet again, but only if the House stays in session. Again, let's hope for the sake of New Mexicans that the balking Senators come to their senses, abandon their rebellion against the Governor and vote on the bills quickly. We get the point, Senators. You're displeased that Gov. Richardson called the Special Session so soon after a grueling regular session and then left the state for campaign events. Now could we please move on to the business of the Senate?

Here are links to the bills passed by the House in the Special Session, along with vote tallies:

HB 1, Feed Bill: Passed 47-13

HB 2, Severance Tax Bond Transporation Projects (GRIP II): Passed 42-16

HB 3, Clandestine Drug Lab Act: Passed 55-0

HB 4, Domestic Partnership Rights and Responsbilities: Passed 30-23

HB 5, Domestic Violence Penalties and Treatment: Passed 56-0

HB 6, Public Financing of Statewide Campaigns: Passed 35-21

HB 8, State Ethics Commission Act: Passed 38-16

Not yet passed by House in Special Session:

HB 7, Campaign Reporting Requirements: Passed House Judiciary Committee 8-0

More coverage available at the Santa Fe New Mexican and Heath Haussamen.

See First Presidential Forum on Health Care

From the Center for American Progress Action Fund:
Wouldn't you like to see Hillary Clinton, Chris Dodd, John Edwards, Mike Gravel, Dennis Kucinich, Barack Obama, and Bill Richardson discussing the nation's most important domestic issue? You can. Join the Center for American Progress Action Fund and SEIU this Saturday, March 24th, at 10:15 AM MST for the nation's first Presidential forum on health care, live at the University of Nevada in Las Vegas.

During the event, you'll be able to:

• Watch a live video webcast of the forum
• Submit questions for the candidates in real time
• Follow along with live blogging by ThinkProgress
• Voice your opinions about the candidates

The Center for American Progress Action Fund is working to ensure that every American has affordable health care coverage, and we need national leadership on this issue. This forum will be the first opportunity to hear ideas from our presidential candidates on the same stage. We hope you'll join us.

Receive an email reminder.

Thanks,
Winnie Stachelberg
Senior Vice President for External Affairs
Center for American Progress Action Fund

Don't Miss Dave Foreman at UNM

Free lecture & slide show
Thursday, March 29, 7:00 PM
SUB Ballroom C, UNM Campus, Albuquerque, NM

Join Dave Foreman for a raucous and inspiring evening about the future of conservation in North America. Drawing upon a lifetime of experience in the environmental movement, Foreman offers bold, hopeful, and viable proposals for averting the current sixth mass extinction and creating a biologically-sustainable continent within the 21st Century. Foreman is the author of several books, including The Big Outside and Rewilding North America, and will be signing copies after the lecture. Contact UNM Wilderness Alliance at unmwild@unm.edu or 277-1316 for more information. 

Bernalillo County Dem Ward-Precinct Meetings Thursday 3.22.07

Let's have a big turnout!

The Democratic Party of Bernalillo County is holding its ward and precinct meetings at nine locations (see below) in the county tomorrow, Thursday, March 22, at 7:00 PM. All registered Democrats are urged to attend.

You're also encouraged to run for a precinct or ward office. The more elected members of the Party we have, the more we can affect what goes on and help build the Party to serve the people. In some areas, few show up for these meetings and if you do so, you can become a ward or precinct chair quite easily. If your precinct or ward already has a good chair candidate you want to support, you can always run for ward or precinct vice chair, treasurer or secretary and join the team. Of course if you'd like to run against another candidate for the ward or precinct chair slot, be sure to muster some support that will pledge to vote for you and get them to your meeting.

Ward and precinct chairs become automatic members of the County Central Committee (CCC) and will be able to vote at the CCC meeting to elect people who will then become members of the State Central Committee (SCC), the Democratic Party of New Mexico's governing body. In addition, some precincts can elect additional CCC members based on their high numbers of Democratic voters in the last elections. If so, any Democrat can run for these additional CCC slots.

(The CCC and SCC meetings will be held in April -- see Coming Events links on right-hand sidebar.)

You can also submit resolutions at your precinct/ward meeting, although the Party's platform will not be rewritten this year.

Here's the information as distributed by our Bernalillo County Party on tomorrow (Thursday) night's meetings:

A CALL FOR THE ELECTION OF DEMOCRATIC PARTY OF BERNALILLO COUNTY (DPBC) WARD AND PRECINCT OFFICERS AND ADDITIONAL MEMBERS OF THE COUNTY CENTRAL COMMITTEE (CCC)

WARD AND PRECINCT ELECTIONS,
THURSDAY, MARCH 22, 2007, 7 PM

WARDS 16A, 16B, 23A, 23B, 29A, 29B:
Chaparral Elementary School, 6325 Milne Rd. NW

WARDS 10, 12A, 12B, 13A, 13B, 14A, 14B:
Rio Grande HS, 2300 Arenal Rd. SW

WARDS 11A, 11B, 11C, 15A, 17A, 17B:
North Valley Senior Center, 3825 4th St. NW

WARDS 18A, 18B, 19A, 19B, 25A, 26:
Highland High School, 4700 Coal Ave. SE

WARDS 20A, 20B, 21A, 21B:
Grant Middle School, 1111 Easterday Dr. NE

WARDS 24A, 24B, 27A, 27B, 30B:
Sandia High School, 7801 Candelaria Blvd. NE

WARDS 28A, 28B, 31A, 31B:
Eldorado High School, 11300 Montgomery Blvd. NE

WARDS 15B, 25B, 30A:
Cleveland Middle School, 6910 Natalie NE

WARDS 20C, 22:
Los Vecinos Community Center, Old Route 66, Tijeras, NM
**********************
HOW TO DETERMINE YOUR WARD AND PRECINCT:
Information on ward boundaries and precincts within the wards can be obtained by calling the DPBC, 830-3650. If you have a voter ID card, this information will be on the card.

You can also find your precinct at the Bernalillo County Clerk's website by entering your address here.

You can match your precinct to your ward at this (the Party can't vouch for accuracy), but if there is any question, please be sure to double check with the County Party at the phone number listed above.

(Updated) NM House Keeps Working in Special Session

UPDATE 5:30 PM: I've heard tonight the House will try to hear all the bills to be considered during the Special Session, starting at 7:00 PM.
*********
In a running update, Kate Nash reports the NM House is in still in session after reconvening at approximately 2:30 PM today. If they continue to work, the NM Senate will be forced to reconvene on Saturday, after adjourning yesterday in protest of Governor Richardson's call for a Special Session. Is it too much to hope they can pass some bills before making another stand?

According to an Albuquerque Tribune article, eight Democratic Senators voted with Republicans to adjourn yesterday. I can imagine which ones, can't you? As to the importance of the bills on the Governor's proclamation:

Sen. Linda Lopez, an Albuquerque Democrat, made the motion to adjourn. "It's not a health, life-or-death situation," she said after the vote. "It can wait until the next legislative session."

No problem if it's not YOUR civil rights, or you've been blocking ethics and campaign reform the entire session. Meanwhile some Republicans were rumored to be planning to introduce a bill to institute a constitutional ban on domestic partnership agreements, a move that would need ratification by New Mexico voters.

How would you like your rights under civil law put to a vote? Strange that in a republic based on ensuring the rights of minorities and the separation of church and state, this is the kind of anti-American proposal being made by members of a Party always harping on patriotism and the Constitution. I guess they haven't read it carefully, if at all. If they're good at anything, it's cherry picking -- whether it's passages from the Bible, intelligence on WMDs or the U.S. Constitution.

Meanwhile, the domestic partnership act (HB 4) was passed by the House Judiciary Committee yesterday and is headed to the House floor. It was already passed by the NM House during the regular Session:

Linda Siegle, a lobbyist for the Equality New Mexico PAC and other groups, said she's glad to see the issue on the special session agenda - but her group didn't request it be done now.

"We did not request it of the governor for the special session. The governor did it on his own, and we're grateful for that." But, she said, the bill is crucial. "This is a very important bill for people's families to have rights and responsibilities and protection," she said.

Let's hope Senate Democrats manage to lose their attitudes and at least approve this bill. Families all over New Mexico are holding their breath. It's like that when your basic civil rights and the stability of your lives are at stake.

Al Gore Urges Congress on Act on Global Warming

Here's a clip of Al Gore's opening statement this morning before a joint meeting of U.S. House energy subcommittees. He's presenting copies of more than 500,000 e-post cards gathered over recent days from citizens urging Congress to act quickly to address the serious climate problems we face. You can still be a part of this effort by signing up at AlGore.com.

Republican Rep. Joe Barton of Texas, who used to chair the energy committee now led by Democratic Rep. John Dingell, wasted a fair amount of time complaining about parliamentary process and alleged rules infractions. He also saw fit to keep injecting bogus proof that global warming caused by humans is nonexistent. Big oil money talks. The facts he and others have to face are, I had to say it, inconvenient truths.

Al and Tipper Gore present the postcards from citizens urging Congress to act on global warming (AP photo)

I thought Gore came off as intelligent, very well informed, polite, reasonable, passionate, moving, nonpartisan, friendly and truthful. However, I found the hearing difficult to watch because my mind kept wandering to what ifs, as in, "what if our Supreme Court had allowed all the votes to be counted in Florida?" Imagine an America and a planet that hadn't just endured six years of ignorant, secretive, selfish, incompetent, dishonest, unconstitutional rule by an administration led by someone who's most important job previously was running a baseball team and who had never ventured beyond America's borders except, perhaps, to coke it up in Tijuana.

Here's the New York Times article reporting on Gore's testimony this morning. Excerpt:

Democrats and Republicans, he said, should emulate their British counterparts and compete to see how best to curb emissions of smokestack and tailpipe “greenhouse” gases that scientists have now firmly linked to a global warming trend.

Mr. Gore also proposed a 10-point legislative program, calling for everything from a tax on carbon emissions to a ban on incandescent light bulbs and a new national mortgage program to promote the use of energy-saving technologies in homes.

Gore will also testify before Senate energy committees this afternoon. As reported in an L.A. Times article, here's the kind of short-sighted attitude we can expect from way too many Republicans:

Senate Minority Whip Trent Lott (R-Miss.) is unimpressed by the new Gore mission. "Those who believe all his garbage are going to be excited to death," he said, "and the rest of us are going to ignore it."

... Gore could encounter flak when he appears before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, whose top Republican, Oklahoma Sen. James M. Inhofe, has dismissed man-made climate change as a "hoax" and, like Bush, has said he won't see Gore's movie.

Hey Heather, Tell the Truth

This radio ad put together by the DCCC will run for five days in New Mexico. It confronts Rep. Heather Wilson (R, NM-1) on what fired U.S. Attorney David Iglesias has testified under oath was a pressuring phone call regarding an ongoing, alleged New Mexico corruption case:

Wilson has repeated said that the call was entirely "appropriate." I guess that depends on the kind of standards of conduct you apply to making that judgment. Anyone applying common sense and a conscience would probably come to a different conclusion.

Fortunately, as far as we know, it's still a relatively rare occurence when a powerful politician feels justified in directly confronting a U.S. Attorney on a potentially explosive, politically important, active investigation, and doing so right before a close election -- in fact -- the caller's own election. Then again, most politicians haven't felt shielded from the consequences of such an action by an administration and Justice Department that's been dangerously politicized by the President's right-hand political operative, Karl Rove.

Here's the text version of the ad:

“Testified” – 60 second Radio

October, 2006
A phone call is made … a scandal begins.

According to testimony from the United States Senate Judiciary Committee, Congresswoman Heather Wilson called U.S. Attorney David Iglesias and pressured him concerning a federal corruption investigation.

Listen to U.S. Attorney Igelsias’ testimony before the Committee…

“I received a call from Heather Wilson.” “She said ‘what can you tell me about sealed indictments.’ The second she said any questions about sealed indictments, red flags went up in my head, because as you know, we cannot talk about indictments until they’re made public, in general, we specifically cannot talk about a sealed indictment.”

Serious questions remain about Heather Wilson and violation of Congressional ethics rules.

It’s time for Heather Wilson to release her phone records and come clean.

It’s time for Heather Wilson to tell the full truth.

Announcer: Paid for by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, www.dccc.org. Not authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is responsible for the content of this advertising.

Iglesias: Why I Was Fired

Fired U.S. Attorney David Iglesias makes his case in a New York Times op-ed. After reviewing the documents released by the Justice Department, he concludes the evidence is clear that he was fired not for job performance issues, but for political reasons. Iglesias ends by saying, "only a written retraction by the Justice Department setting the record straight regarding my performance would settle the issue for me." Excerpts:

United States attorneys have a long history of being insulated from politics. Although we receive our appointments through the political process (I am a Republican who was recommended by Senator Pete Domenici), we are expected to be apolitical once we are in office. I will never forget John Ashcroft, then the attorney general, telling me during the summer of 2001 that politics should play no role during my tenure. I took that message to heart. Little did I know that I could be fired for not being political.

Politics entered my life with two phone calls that I received last fall, just before the November election. One came from Representative Heather Wilson and the other from Senator Domenici, both Republicans from my state, New Mexico.

As for the continued yammering by Bush-Rove-Gonzales apologists that Iglesias was incompetent or worse in "refusing" to issue indictments for alleged "voter fraud" crimes in New Mexico, he says:

As this story has unfolded these last few weeks, much has been made of my decision to not prosecute alleged voter fraud in New Mexico. Without the benefit of reviewing evidence gleaned from F.B.I. investigative reports, party officials in my state have said that I should have begun a prosecution. What the critics, who don’t have any experience as prosecutors, have asserted is reprehensible — namely that I should have proceeded without having proof beyond a reasonable doubt. The public has a right to believe that prosecution decisions are made on legal, not political, grounds.

... After reviewing more than 100 complaints of voter fraud, I felt there was one possible case that should be prosecuted federally. I worked with the F.B.I. and the Justice Department’s public integrity section. As much as I wanted to prosecute the case, I could not overcome evidentiary problems. The Justice Department and the F.B.I. did not disagree with my decision in the end not to prosecute.