Democracy for New Mexico

Spend an Evening With Bill Moyers

From Free Press: Was Big Media complicit in shaping the "public mind" to support the Iraq war?

On Wednesday, April 25, from 9-10:30 PM MDT, you can learn the answer by hosting An Evening with Bill Moyers house party to watch his newest documentary, "Buying the War." broadcast live on your local PBS station. Just before the screening, Moyers will be available to answer your questions during an exclusive conference call with Free Press activists around the country.

Learn More or Sign Up to Host a Party

If you can't host a party but would like to attend one, click here.

In "Buying the War," Moyers asks what's happened to the press's role as a skeptical "watchdog" on government power. And he profiles some of the journalists who did dare to ask tough questions.

Others in the Albuquerque area are concerned about the state of our media. This is your opportunity to connect with people in your community and get more involved in reforming our media.

Host 'An Evening with Bill Moyers' house party in Albuquerque:

Hosting a house party is surprisingly easy. Here's what it takes:

• Sign up online to be a host
• Invite people you know (we'll also invite local Free Press Activists if you'd like)
• Read the hosting guide and print hosting materials
• Open your home or find an appropriate venue
• Watch "Buying the War" and and join the conference call with Bill Moyers

We're here to answer any questions you may have along the way (view our hosting guide or frequently asked questions page for more information).

The movement for better media begins in your community. Take the lead, help engage your neighbors, and help take back our media one town at a time.

Thanks for all that you do,

Ira Horowitz, Online Community Organizer
Free Press, www.freepress.net

P.S. Click here to watch a preview of "Buying the War" or check out Bill Moyers' speech to the National Conference for Media Reform.

Editor's Note: Here's what David Swanson of After Downing Street has to say about the show. Bill Moyers' Journal will return to PBS-KNME as a weekly show in its regular time slot starting Friday, April 27 at 9:00 PM.

KUNM 89.9, Espejos de Aztlan tonight @8:00 PM on Immigration Reform and Family Unity

From Espejos de Aztlan: Check out KUNM 89.9 tonight, Monday, April 15th, at 8:00 PM for a half-hour live interview on "Espejos de Aztlan" with organizers of the upcoming boycott and March in Support of Comprehensive Immigration Reform and Family Unity. The event will take place on Tuesday, May 1st at 3:00 PM at Tiguex Park (16th and Mountain) and will begin with a rally, music and a picnic (since it will be a "no-purchase" day) - and a march will commence at 5:00 PM.

Many immigrant families in Albuquerque have been increasingly living in fear due to severe recent immigration enforcement activities throughout the City. On many occasions, ICE (Immigrations and Customs Enforcement) bureau raids have taken place at local parks, workplaces and even schools, often separating families and at times leaving young children unattended.

The event is being held in solidarity with the International Worker's Day. For more information, contact El Centro de Igualdad y Derechos at 246-1627.

Espejos has been on-air since 1979 and is part of the Raices Colectiva which conducts programming on news, culture and music from a Latino perspective on KUNM 89.9FM.

Tonight on 'The Line'

‘The Line’ is a show with a dedicated and growing following. Airing every Friday night on KNME at 7 PM, many topics are of interest to progressives. Host, Gene Grant, engages show regulars and guests in a fast paced round robin of thought and opinion. The half hour is barely enough time the show’s topics but viewers are invited to continue the discussion on KNME's online forum at https://www.knmetv.org/forum/. Added bonus: Suzanne Prescott, who co-hosted the radio show with Eric Griego, is the guest panelist tonight.

Tonight the main topics are:

Courthouse indictments, Violence in the Land of Enchantment, The Supreme Court decision on greenhouse gases

Sophie Martin and Margaret Montoya get ready for the show (Photo by Suzanne Prescott)

The ‘On-the-Clock’ topics are:

The Dona Ana County Spaceport, Governor Richardson’s campaign finance report, Governor Richardson’s trip to North Korea, and Red-light cameras.

Margaret Montoya, UNM Law School and School of Medicine, and Duke City Fix’s Sophie Martin are joined by Whitney Cheshire’s replacement this week, blogger Mario Burgos and guest, ‘Insight New Mexico’ producer, Suzanne Prescott.

Gov. Richardson on Daily Show, Hardball Tonight

In Albuquerque, this show will be seen tonight on Comcast Cable's Comedy Central channel 48 at Midnight, and rebroadcast at 2:00 AM, 11:00 AM, 3:00 PM and 9:00 PM on Thursday, according to TV Guide. Soon after broadcast, video clips are available at The Daily Show website. Richardson will also be on Hardball with Chris Matthews today, which airs on Comcast Cable's MSNBC channel 30 at 3:00 PM, 5:00 PM and 2:00 AM Mountain Time. Video clips and transcripts of past shows are provided at the Hardball website.

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.

Today at 3 PM: Last Insight NM Show for Now

Tune in today from 3:00 to 4:00 PM to listen to the last installment of the current run of , the progressive talk radio show on 1350 AM hosted by Eric Griego and Suzanne Prescott. They'll be talking about legislative successes and failures, heroes and devils, talk radio and the progressive movement, and where to go next. Should local politics abandon talk radio in New Mexico and leave it to the neo-cons? Call in during the broadcast with your questions and comments: 338-4090.

A number of Dem legislators have been invited to call in with their assessments of the 2007 Legislative Session, which ended today at Noon. They include Senators Pete Campos (Las Vegas), Dede Feldman (Albuquerque) and Jerry Ortiz y Pino (Albuquerque), and Representatives Thomas Swisstack (Rio Rancho) and Peter Wirth (Santa Fe). Everything depends on whether they can stay awake for the interview given the hectic, almost 24:7 pace of the last week at the Roundhouse.

Insight New Mexico aired for 10 weeks during the Legislative Session and may return in the future if all goes well. We hope so -- Eric, Suzanne, Chris and Mikey did a terrific job -- and we want more! Podcasts of all their shows will remain available here, so check out what you may have missed.

Iraq: Beyond Quagmire

The latest Rolling Stone features a truly frightening story by Tim Dickinson about what's really going on in Iraq and what we can expect in coming weeks and years. Bottom line: no matter what we do, it's going to be a continuing horror show.

The article features the opinions of a long list of diplomatic, counter-terrorism and Iraq experts: Zbigniew Brzezinski, national security adviser to President Carter; Richard Clarke, counterterrorism czar from 1992 to 2003; Nir Rosen, author of In the Belly of the Green Bird, about Iraq's spiral into civil war, speaking from Cairo, where he has been interviewing Iraqi refugees; Gen. Tony McPeak (retired), member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the Gulf War; Bob Graham, former chair, Senate Intelligence Committee; Chas Freeman, Ambassador to Saudi Arabia during the Gulf War; president of the Middle East Policy Council; Paul Pillar, former lead counterterrorism analyst for the CIA; Michael Scheuer, former chief of the CIA's Osama bin Laden unit; author of Imperial Hubris; and blogger Juan Cole, professor of modern Middle East history at the University of Michigan.

The panel's best-case scenario: civil war in Iraq and a stronger Al Qaeda. Their most-likely scenario: years of ethnic cleansing and war with Iran. Their worst-case scenario: World War III.

Excerpts:

General Tony McPeak: "Even if we had a million men to go in, it's too late now. Humpty Dumpty can't be put back together again ... We're going to see a full-scale intercommunal war that may not burn out until one side is all dead, all gone. The Kurds would like to sit on the sidelines, but I don't see how they stay out, especially up in the Kirkuk area, where they sit on a lot of oil. This is going to be ethnic cleansing like we had in Kosovo or Bosnia -- but written big, in capital letters. And we can't stop it."

Nir Rosen: "There is no best-case scenario for Iraq. It's complete anarchy now. No family is untouched by kidnappings, murders, ethnic cleansing -- everybody lives in a constant state of terror. Leaving aside Kurdistan, which is very different, there's nobody in Iraq who is safe. You can get killed for being a Sunni, for being a Shia, for being educated, for being part of the former regime, for being part of the current regime. The Americans are still killing Iraqi civilians left and right. There's no government in Iraq; it doesn't exist outside of the Green Zone. That's not only the government's fault, that's our fault: We deliberately created a weak government so that we would have final authority over everything in Iraq."

Bob Graham: "This administration seems to be getting ready to make -- at a much more significant, escalated level -- the same mistake we made in Iran that we made in Iraq. If Iraq has been a disaster, this would be multiple times Iraq. The extent to which this could be the horror of the twenty-first century is hard to exaggerate."

Don't you wish we could somehow force every cowering Democrat in Congress to read this piece? Along with every person who thinks impeachment is a joke? How about those who are going about their lives -- or supposedly representing us in the government -- as if it's business as usual?

Many Democrats had a hand in allowing the madmen in this administration to creat this situation. Can we really afford the luxury of allowing these same madmen to take us through the last years of Bush's second term? And what makes anyone think this bunch will actually give up their hold on the imperial presidency ever IF the Congress passes something with teeth to stop the war, or even IF we impeach, or even IF we wait until 2008 to elect a new team? Sometimes it can seem that every road leads to the same horrific place and that it's too late to stop the inevitable no matter what we do. Still, the only hope we have is to try. And keep on trying. Every damned day. Even when we constantly come across more news like this:

Top House Democrats retreated Monday from an attempt to limit President Bush's authority for taking military action against Iran ... Officials said Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other members of the leadership had decided to strip from a major military spending bill a requirement for Bush to gain approval from Congress before moving against Iran. Conservative Democrats as well as lawmakers concerned about the possible impact on Israel had argued for the change in strategy.

Today's Insight NM Radio Talk Lineup

Tune in to Insight New Mexico, Albuquerque's weekly progressive talk radio show, today from 3:00 to 4:00 PM on 1350 AM. Host Eric Griego and sidekick Suzanne Prescott will be talking with NM Rep. Al Park, D-NM (above left), Las Cruces political blogger Heath Haussamen (above right) and PRC Vice Chair Jason Marks (below left), as well as fielding audience calls. To ask an on-air question, call 338-4090. To learn more about the show or today's guests, visit the Insight New Mexico website and blog. You can also find info on past guests and progressive organizations, and download podcasts (mp3s) of previous interviews. The Saturday show is rebroadcast on Sunday from 7:00 to 8:00 AM.

Originally signed up to broadcast during the NM Legislative Session, Eric and Suzanne are seriously considering continuing the show beyond March 17, when the 60-day Session wraps up. The show's coverage would switch to local and county politics and government. If you want progressive talk radio to continue, be sure to tune in, call in, spread the word to your friends and consider becoming a sponsor. To learn more, email .

Tune in Today to 1350 AM Radio's Insight New Mexico

Albuquerque's weekly progressive talk radio show, Insight New Mexico, airs every Saturday from 3:00 to 4:00 PM on 1350 AM. The shows are rebroadcast on Sunday mornings from 7-8:00 PM. Host Eric Griego and sidekick Suzanne Prescott will bring you another serving of interviews, listener call-ins and political news. Today's show will feature NM House Majority Leader Kenny Martinez reporting in from the Legislature in Santa Fe where the action is nonstop this weekend, talented Live From Silver City blogger Avelino Maestas, who is also a staff writer for the Silver City Daily Press, and the in-the-know Heather Brewer, Executive Director of NARAL Pro-Choice New Mexico.

Eric is expecting a direct report from the NM Senate on today's impeachment resolution action. AND, he's getting ready to make a MAJOR ANNOUNCEMENT, which he MAY or MAY NOT be making on the air today. Don't miss it.

Visit the Insight New Mexico website for more info on the show its guests, helpful links, blogging and podcasts (mp3s) from previous shows. You can call in live during the show with your questions and comments at 338-4090.

REMINDER: Tune in Saturday to ABQ's 1350 AM Insight NM Radio Show

Photo montage of last week's show by Suzanne Prescott (click photo for larger image)

, the weekly progressive call-in talk radio show with Eric Griego and Suzanne Prescott, will be on the air again this Saturday from 3:00 to 4:00 PM. This week's guests will include:

• Danice Picraux, who serves in the New Mexico House from District 25. Representative Picraux is Chair of the Legislative Health & Human Services  Committee and Vice Chair of the Appropriations & Finance Committee
• Steve Terrell, who is a political reporter at The Santa Fe New Mexican, has two shows at KSFR, Santa Fe Public Radio and has several local blogs
• Lisa Grover, who is the Executive Director of the New Mexico Coalition for Charter Schools. She's a founder of Moreno Valley Charter School, recognized in 2006 by Newsweek Magazine as the 34th best high school in the USA

You can hear a rebroadcast of the show on Sunday morning from 7:00 to 8:00 AM on 1350 AM. You can also listen to podcasts (mp3s) of material from past shows at the podcast page of the program's website.

We need to tune in weekly if we want this show to stay on the air. For sponsorship opportunities, email Suzanne Prescott at and help support progressive talk radio in Albuquerque!