Democracy for New Mexico

NAACP, LULAC Denounce Gov. Susana Martinez's Extremist Allies on Driver's License Issue and Discriminatory Anti-Immigrant Agenda

NM Governor Susana Martinez

In a joint official statement issued today, New Mexico's parts of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) said they are concerned and horrified by the inclusion of the Americans for Legal immigration PAC (ALIPAC) in New Mexico legislative issues, and additionally Governor Susana Martinez's proceeded with assaults on immigrants and her obvious misuse of power.

"It has turned out to be evident that Governor Martinez's hostile to migrants political motivation depends on help by national associations without any connections to New Mexico and with suspicious intentions," stated Pablo Martínez, a representative of the LULAC Board and previous law authorization head. "We're worried by ALIPAC's recorded connections to racial oppressors and other radical associations."

In an article in present Albuquerque Journal, ALIPAC President William Gheen said the gathering will campaign New Mexico administrators to battle the "unlawful migrant attack of America."

NAACP and LULAC indicated reports by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) that have over and again named ALI-PAC as a "nativist radical" gathering and an association that goes past minor backing of prohibitive movement strategy to really stand up to or irritate suspected foreigners or their bosses. Snap for SPLC report.

They additionally indicated explanations in 2009 by the Anti-Defamation League criticizing moves made by racial oppressors and Neo-Nazi gatherings in the name of ALIPAC: click here and here. 

The two associations expressed they trust Governor Martinez exceeded her power in August, when she organized the now-stopped "Residency Certification Program" that focused 10,000 people in the MVD remote national driver's permit database. The program has since been halted by New Mexico District Judge Sarah Singleton, who decided on September 13 that requiring re-confirmation in light of national starting point could damage the Equal Protection Clause of the New Mexico Constitution.

"LULAC sees ALIPAC's endeavor to impact our New Mexico State Legislature as a continuation of a national pattern of bigot militancy against Hispanic social liberties," said Dennis W. Montoya, LULAC's New Mexico Civil Rights Chair and District 1 Director.

"Our common concern is the proceeded badgering of immigrants by the Governor's organization, and in addition her obvious absence of worry for the effect her approach is having on New Mexico families," said Sam Bone, President of New Mexico's NAACP. "This steady assault on individuals that have complied with the ebb and flow driver's permit law is an overindulge of power at the slightest degree intelligent of New Mexico's principles. We stress that this present driver's permit revokes exertion is a the initial phase in the disintegration of social liberties for every helpless minority in our state."

Montoya went ahead to express that the Governor's approach towards immigrants speaks to "her absence of association with the general population of New Mexico, and an alarming presentation of obvious segregation. This annulment exertion isn't about what's useful for New Mexico, it's a pieceof a bigger political tactic to distance Latino people groups from Arizona to Alabama. New Mexico has endeavored to cultivate positive and aware race relations since statehood, and we don't welcome these outside philosophies in light of the governmental issues of despise."

"We urge the lawmaking body to confront the Governor and bolster sensible proposition that address misrepresentation in the driver's permit procedure, keep all New Mexico drivers guaranteed and shield every one of us from run-ins with uninsured drivers," said Bone of the NAACP.

Photo by M.E. Broderick.

As Holiday Weekend Approaches, ACLU NM Issues Alert To NM Residents Traveling To Arizona

Anticipating traveling to Arizona or driving through the state amid the forthcoming occasion end of the week (or whenever)? This is what you have to know to ensure the rights in a state where the Republican senator and assembly have deliberately mixed up the people on the issue of immigrants in an election year.

Because of common freedoms dangers generated by the current entry of Arizona's racial profiling legislation, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU-NM) announced a travel caution (pdf) today advising NM philistines of their rights when halted by order implementation when going to Arizona. The association additionally discharged the accompanying specification:

The unlawful bill, recognized as SB 1070, claims law implementation operators to request "records" from individuals they cease who they think are not approved to be in the USA. On the off chance people can't demonstrate to police that they are allowed to be there, they might be liable to capture (without official permission) with no reasonable justification that they have carried out a wrongdoing.

In spite of the fact that the new regulation is not planned to become effective until July 29, ACLU-NM is worried that some cops and sheriff's delegates are as of now following up on arrangements of the law. Arizona law authorization has all around archived records of national descriptioning, particularly in Maricopa County. Arizona legislators have upheld an arrangement of “exhaustion through execution” that is intended to make such a threatening situation for individuals saw to be immigrants that they escape the state.

“We require to guarantee that New Mexicans comprehend the expanded hazard for illicit badgering and unlawful detainments when going to Arizona,” said Peter Simonson, Executive Director of the ACLU-NM. “Our glad convention of decent variety and multiculturalism implies that one out of two New Mexicans would fit the national portrait that policemen definitely manage to authorize the regulation. NM inhabitants ought to likewise know that, in light of the fact that our driver's licenses don't require verification of legitimate home to acquire, they might not fulfill Arizona’s requirements for recognizable proof under the new Arizona racial descriptioning authority.”

Notwithstanding the journey signal, the ACLU has made accessible in English and Spanish documents on people's rights as long as halted by law authorization in Arizona or different territories because of SB 1070 or for some other goal. The documents incorporate a card to be downloaded (see beneath) with guidelines -- appropriate in any land -- on adapting to transportation stays and addressing by policemen, the USA. Immigration and Customs Enforcement specialists or the FBI, and in addition a FAQs archive regarding SB 1070.

“In the event that I could just give one suggestion to New Mexicans intending to go to Arizona, it would be ‘Know your Rights’,” announced Vicki Gaubeca, Director of the ACLU-NM Regional Center for Border Rights. “In the event that you look or sound "remote," you will probably be subjected to pretextual stops for minor infringements, for example, a split windshield or jaywalking. Law authorization sheriffs may trust that you are in the nation unlawfully as a consequence of the way you look, and your best security against provocation is a careful comprehension of your rights.”

The ACLU and other driving social equality associations recorded a claim testing the Arizona law in May, yet until the point when the law is struck down, the ACLU cautions that people going in Arizona must know about their rights if ceased there. On the off chance that you are halted by law authorization in Arizona and you trust that national descriptioning was a factor, you can present a composed grievance online this page of the ACLU-NM site.

Materials illuminating people of their rights when ceased by law authorization can be found here and here in Spanish.

More data about the Arizona law, accompanied with an ACLU video and slide show, you can be found here.

Snap for more data about the claim, involving data on co-guidance and offended parties -- with ACLU-NM’s own particular Vicki Gaubeca.

More data concerning the ACLU of New Mexico’s work the issue please follow our site.

Photo of the Day: Rose Bowl Parade Protests

Dissenters pushing reprimand of U.S. President George W. Shrub and Vice President Dick Cheney convey a goliath duplicate of the Constitution as they take after toward the finish of the 119th yearly Rose Parade in Pasadena, California January 1, 2008. REUTERS/Mark Avery (UNITED STATES)

Likewise observe these photographs of the Rose Bowl challenges on Flickr.

Wexler's Impeach Cheney Effort Gaining Momentum

2 distinctive individuals (D-IL) Rep. Luis Gutierrez and (D-Wi) Rep. Tammy Baldwin from the House Legal Committee - has accompanied Henry Martyn Robert Wexler (D-FL) - to help the start of hearings on the Cheney reprimand affirmation that was suggested the principle gathering of trustees by the U.S. House on Nov seventh. Soak up further at WexlerWantsHearings.com, wherever you'll be able to scan a supposition piece by the 3 operators ANd sign an interest to in facilitate of prosecution hearings which will be submitted to Congress after they come back in January. Up to the present purpose, quite 166,000 individuals have checked it.

Black Friday: Gotta Love This

Swindlers and Fibbers have something to say.

(Updated) Kucinich Introduces Cheney Impeachment Resolution

Refresh: Here's The Nation author John Nichol's interpret what happened today on the U.S. House floor. Rep. Steny Hoyer acted like the apprehensive, obstinate underdog he is stating, "Impeachment is not on our order paper. We have significant needs. We have to concentrate on those." Yeah, in light of the fact that the House is completing to such an extent!

After much disputing and "insidious" vote by Respublicants, Steny received the impeachment measure passed to the House Judiciary Committee, successfully keeping a story talk about. Goodness, we wouldn't need that, now OK? Don’t forbid that the crimes of the Bush administration were discussed in the People's House. Extract:

We need two more invitations to complete the trial on referring Kucinich's articles to the Judiciary Committee -- in a last vote 218-194. That was, in fact, a "win" for Hoyer, yet the day belonged to Kucinich. In the end, the Ohio congressman and Democratic presidential candidate had succeeded -- yet quickly -- in receiving denunciation.

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Read about it and how you can make a move to help the measure. There will be an denunciation rally today from 4:00 to 6:00 PM at the edge of Carlise and Comanche in Albuquerque outside the KOAT TV-7 studios. The dissent is composed by Call4Democracy.org.

Lawless: Tell Congress to Do Their Damned Job

Raise a rumble. If we do not do this, who will?

American Democracy: Time Has Come Today

I regularly feel dumbfounded nowadays, which isn't a characteristic state for me. Be that as it may what more can truly be said in regards to the interminable, unabated revulsions of the Bush organization and its ambushes on government responsibility, reason, democracy, the Constitution, common freedoms, the rule of law, nature, the economy and even normal fairness? It's altogether been said -- the savaging of so much has been reported unendingly plainly, over and again. What's more, there's more new confirmation consistently.

What's required is some tuning in and, the vast majority of all, activity with respect to individuals who have the ability to take care of this rebellious demogogue and his complicit colleagues. We require them (if there are any) to get genuine - to be as genuine about their restriction as BushCo is about its steady strike on equity and majority rules system. Without that, we are dead. Our majority rules system is dead. Our future is dead. The planet is dead.

Rather, we have the same old thing in the Congress, the same old thing in the customary media, nothing new in the citizenry, the same old thing all around. Is it accurate to say that we are truly expected to mollify ourselves with feeble, toothless, exacting protestations about minor, fringe matters as the framework of self-government implodes in full sight of anybody willing and capable raise their eyes to it?

I do it without anyone else's help. Occupied myself with political everyday, with the most recent wrinkles in the most recent political maneuverings, with the minutia of the machine. I persuade myself that doing things that may potentially alleviate the most noticeably awful of BushCo's effects is justified, despite all the trouble, in any event for the present. Be that as it may, with very nearly zero in the method for bona fide, powerful or fair reactions from our "pioneers" and "delegates," how much longer would i be able to keep it up?

I'm certain a large number of you perusing this can relate. We can't manage the cost of any all the more shrinking away from the real issue, actually or allegorically. What we require is for individuals with genuine energy to wake up and utilize it for the benefit of the general population and the majority rules system. As ex-Marine Bruce Clark (whose child is positioned north of Baghdad) said at the current Iraq Summer occasion - this is TREASON, this is TYRANNY. More of the general population - some in moderately high places - are letting it out, yet our open figures and power merchants limp on, mumbling maxims. We raise our voices, we dissent, we appeal, we assemble cases, we endeavor to apply weight yet regardless of how convincingly or noisily we do these things, existing conditions is permitted to go ahead or compound.

There is a kind of dangerous loss of motion tainting the individuals who should know better, the individuals who know in their souls they should act now or everlastingly be noiseless. We can just do as such much around here in the hinterlands. Those in the circles of energy are the ones who must, finally, LEAD. They should consider it terrifically important, for what it is: a down to business assault on our vote based system and everything positive it has ever accomplished or can accomplish. However, is it as of now past the point of no return for even that?

Persuasive faultfinder and author Chris Floyd says it is in his long, chilling, yet famously legitimate piece entitled, "Post-Mortem America: Bush's Year of Triumph and the Hard Way Ahead." I can't in any way, shape or form cite enough for you to get the full flavor, so kindly do read the whole post. Here are only a couple of nuggests, to draw you into perusing the entire thing:

The Republic you needed - and at one time may have had the ability to reclaim - is done. You never again have the ability to keep it; it's not there. It was grabbed in December 2000, assaulted by the ready to rock and roll exploiters of 9/11, whored by the war pimps of the 2003 hostility, gut-cut by the defilers of the 2004 vote, and assaulted again by its "rescuers" after the 2006 decision. Beaten, manhandled, infected and relinquished, it at last passed on. We are living in its grave.

The annus horribilis of 2007 has ended up being a time of triumph for the Bush Faction - the contract killers who conveyed the coup de grâce to the long-hopeless Republic. Bush was composed off as an intermediary after the Democrat's November 2006 decision "triumph" (truth be told, the tightest of triumphs squeezed out regardless of a blow out of bamboozling and settling by the failures), and the resulting salvo of Establishment accord from the Iraq Study Group, upholding a de-acceleration of the war in Iraq. At that point came a progression of outrages, examinations, prominent renunciations, even the criminal conviction of a best White House official. In any case, regardless of this - and appalling survey appraisals also - in the course of recent months Bush and his coupsters have seen each and every component of their savage oppression affirmed, countenanced and broadened.

What would we be able to do? What would we be able to do? What would we be able to do? Does anybody know the appropriate response? How might we get those in places of energy to act - suitably, unequivocally and now?

In specific circles words like defiance and upheaval and political agitation and resistance are bandied about as necessities, as the main approaches to neutralize the powers of innovative autocracy. Yet, even in these enclaves, there is no development sufficiently solid to make a mark. There is just more hand-wringing, feedback, capitulation to the inevitable, exhaust signals, repetition reactions. I assume this post is recently business as usual. In all actuality, nobody appears to recognize what to do or how to do it or how to incite it or how to shape it and move it.

The war which we were told the Democrats and ISG agreement would end or slow down has obviously been heightened to its most prominent level yet - more troops, more airstrikes, more soldiers of fortune, more Iraqi hostages swelling the mammoth jail camps of the involving influence, greater unsteadiness annihilating the very texture of Iraqi society. The plainly illicit reconnaissance projects of the dictator administration have now been systematized into law by the Democratic Congress, which has additionally let stand the gutting of habeas corpus in the Military Commissions Act, and a pile of other liberty-stripping laws, principles, controls and official requests. Bush's self-proclaimed discretionary power to seize American residents (and others) without charge and hold them uncertainly -- even kill them -- has in like manner been unchallenged by the lawmakers. Bush has audaciously opposed Congressional subpoenas -- and even discretionarily stripped the Justice Department of the ability to implement them -- to no other response than a stern guarantee from Democratic individuals to "look further into this issue." His representatives -- and his " marking explanations" -- now straightforwardly announce his express abhor for agent government, and state every step of the way his sovereign appropriate to "decipher" - or disregard - enactment as he wishes.

What we need are managers up to the errand, regardless of where we glimpse, whether inside or without. We require another Martin Luther King, Jr., another Mahatma, another Mother Jones, another Jefferson, another suffragette city of sorts. I don't detect anything or anybody like that not too far off, isn't that right? Furthermore, I absolutely don't detect anything genuinely up to the undertaking inside myself. You should? Would we be able to the general population ascend finally, bidden or unbidden, and have any effect whatsoever? Isn't there in any event inborn incentive in having a go at something? Yet, what?

Once more, as Floyd composes:

... there is no place left for the sort of [civil disobedience] activity that Thoreau supported. His way – and that of Gandhi and King, who took such a great amount from him – imagines a state adversary which one could plan to disgrace into fair activity by the unrivaled good power of principled common noncompliance. In any case, the very sign of the present administration is its forwardness, its articulate absence of any feeling of respect or guideline, its inhuman dependence on crude power.

All things considered, there is this, if just this:

So whatever we can do, we should do it without anyone else's help. On the off chance that we have no power or impact, in the event that we can't take vast moves, at that point we should take little ones. Each word or activity raised against the topple of the Republic will discover a resound some place, starting with one individual then onto the next to another to the following - each disconnected, singular voice gradually discovering its way into a swelling melody of difference.

We Can't Make It Here Anymore: Labor Day Edition

The mood of the country this Labor Day seems ripe for a little James McMurtry. A house of cards collapsing in on itself because of crooked deals and unpayable debt. "Free" trade robber barons piling up their tax-free bloat. Criminals in the board rooms and government and K Street. We're entrenched in one corporate quagmire war, while another threatens as Bush plots ways to attack Iran. Oh, and here's what our Democratic "leaders" are saying about continuing funding for Iraq. Happy Labor Day 2007. Think I'll head to the mountains, for some grounding.

(Updated) Monday: Honk to Impeach Bush-Lights On for Impeachment

UPDATE: Event changes: Folks should meet at 8:00 AM to about 9:15 AM at Comanche and Carlisle (KOAT TV, Channel 7). Click for .
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From Committee to Elect Jason Call:

• When: Monday, August 27, 7 AM - 9:30 AM (Bush will be at fundraiser in Albuq. later in the day.)
• Where: 10 major intersections in Albuquerque (see proposed list below)
• Who: 10 teams of 4-8 people at each site. Please email us if you can participate.
• What: Signs will be provided.
• Why: 40-80 volunteers at 10 intersections will reach 10’s of thousands of commuters. HONK FOR IMPEACHMENT and the LIGHTS ON will let everyone know they are not alone.

Proposed intersections: Yale & Gibson SE, Montgomery & San Mateo NE, Paseo Del Norte & I-25, Ellison and Coors By-pass NW, 4th & Montano NW, Rio Bravo & Isleta, Louisiana & Menaul, others to be added.

For more information contact: Committee to Elect Jason Call, US Cong. 1st Dist. NM Email: Jason@Call4Democracy.org or visit www.Call4Democracy.org

Editor's Note: For other actions on Sunday, August 25 and on Monday, August 26th related to Bush's visit to Los Ranchos de Albuquerque, see this post.

Rep. Tom Udall to Cosponsor Gonzales Impeachment Resolution

The plot thickens. An AP story reports Rep. Tom Udall (D-NM3) will join other House Dems today in presenting a determination coordinating the USA House Judiciary Committee to research whether to denounce Alberto Gonzales:

Rep. Jay Inslee, D-Wash., who was a prosecutor in Washington state in the late 1970s -1980s, is the role supporter of the measure.

Co-patrons of the determination incorporate Dem Reps. In California - Xavier Becerra, New York - Michael Arcuri, Kentucky - Ben Chandler, Kansas - Dennis Moore, Iowa - Bruce Braley and New Mexico - Tom Udall.

The Contemptuous Alberto Gonzales

Keith Olbermann's report on Gonzales appearance

The previous evening, I constrained myself to sit through the vast majority of CSPAN's rebroadcast of AG Alberto Gonzales' grinning, bleak appearance (I won't call it declaration) before the Senate Judiciary Committee. I let it out - I shouted at the TV set. Once more.

Alberto's inconsiderate presumption, his servile refusal to answer honestly to goodness inquiries and his "I can't review" abstains were sufficiently disappointing, yet his conspicuous lying and masking were executed without even a smidgeon of disgrace. Openly. As though brave the Committee individuals to make a move. He clearly feels ensured by the Bush-Cheney intrigue. For whatever length of time that he keeps on giving them cover, he can break any lead, any law, any convention, for Bush himself has said he won't enable the Justice Department to examine or indict Alberto for anything.

In some other time, the predominant press would be everywhere throughout the account of Alberto's trickery, ineptitude and refusal to answer questions speaking to altogether lawfully protected oversight by the Congress. It would be on TV every minute of every day, similar to the Clinton stories were back in the times of Special Prosecutor Starr. Subjects would be set up to brawl, requesting activity.

In some other period, obviously, the individual filling in as president could never have designated a slug like Gonzales and absolutely would have constrained an acquiescence if the AG carried on like Gonzales. In the Bush time, be that as it may, this is negligible the same old thing - inadequacy, deceptive nature and acting exempt from the laws that apply to everyone else are ordinary, from the most noteworthy echelons of the White House on down. It's the modus operadi of the Bush organization: hostile to just, unlawful and corrupt.

Will the Congress ever achieve its utmost and hold fast against Gonzales and his mischievous accomplices? At any rate, the dialect utilized by Senators yesterday was limit without a doubt. Some Senatorial quotes from the SJC hearing gave by Dana Milbank of the Washington Post:

"The office is useless. . . . Consistently another issue emerges. . . . That is simply annihilating, Mr. Lawyer General. . . . The rundown continues forever. . . . Is your area of expertise working? . . . What believability is left for you? . . . Do you anticipate that we will trust that? . . . Your believability has been ruptured to the point of being significant."

What's more, that was simply from the best Republican on the advisory group, Arlen Specter (Pa.). Democrats needed to scramble to stay aware of the positioning part's hatred.

"I don't believe you," reported Chairman Pat Leahy (D-Vt.), who stopped, while swearing in the observer, to underline "only reality" -- as though addressing a kid.

"You just continually change the story, apparently to fit your needs to squirm out of being gotten," included Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.).

"You, sir, are in certainty the issue," submitted Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.).

What are the Senate's alternatives to get at Gonzales? The decisions are befuddling, most definitely. An extraordinary prosecutor? The Disdain of Congress or prevarication charges? Reprimand of the AG? What's called "characteristic disdain," whereby a trial would be held in the Senate and Gonzales would be seized by the Sergeant-at-Arms if sentenced? Legitimate personalities are no uncertainty working extra time to think of something that can cut the in-your-confront culpability of Bush and friends. We should trust they get some place.

In the event that the points of reference being set by this bundle are permitted to stand unchallenged, what seek would we be able to potentially have the survival of our majority rule government, constitution or common freedoms?

More video:

• Sen. Chuck Schumer vs. Gonzales
• Sen. Arlen Specter vs. Gonzales
• Chair Patrick Leahy's closing statement (and Code Pink chants to resign)
• CSPAN's complete video of the hearing