The state has reopened the comment period on its draft Rules and Regulations on Regional Water Security Councils. This article explains what this means, why it is important, and why we should all engage in these new entities of grass-roots self-government. Bottom line: water is your life.
This posting continues my analysis of the federal government's cost cutting actions by looking at the harm done to two native American universities and their students as a result of indiscriminate and across-the-board firings of staff that threaten their accreditations as universities.
Elon Musk brandished a chainsaw at the 2025 Conservative Political Action Conference and shouted that it symbolized his intention to cut government spending. In this article I analyze the meanings that chainsaw carries, and my conclusions are different from what the media has said.
I link to and comment on three articles about medical care: 1) the death of a child from measles; 2) meddling with the VA's health system in ways that will reduce available health care for veterans; 3) NM's debate on excessive malpractice insurance costs.
This posting republishes an original article by Amy Maxmen in KFF Health News. The article also appeared in CBS News. Since the federal government and some state governments no longer concern themselves with containing infectious diseases, more people will get infected, some die, just as in the great old days.
I link to Searchlight New Mexico's article which interviews three people recently fired from the Forest Service. I follow with an opinion piece discussing the continual firing of civil servants as the product of a new idea of government, not imagined in the country's past.
If the city commission doesn't sharply define city problems, it can't seek or hire a city manager with the needed qualities to address them.
This reprint of Michael Benanav's article in Searthlight New Mexico describes not just the electronic protection of your vote but all the ways in which the state secures the legitimacy of the elections. Re-publication is done through a Creative Commons licence.
A sharp-eyed citizen sent me this picture of a Crystal Diamond Brantley campaign sign hung on the county fairgrounds fence.
Campaign signs are not allowed on public property, if we are indeed still a democratic republic and not an authoritarian government.
Republication of article by "Capital & Main" in New Mexico Political Report, September 12, 2024. Its topic is the wastewater produced in fracking for gas and oil operations in New Mexico: its toxicity, the earthquakes produced by its injection into the ground, and the proposal to reuse it.
In New Mexico, horse racetracks have become centers of political power. This is a republication of a September 11 article by Noah Raess and Joshua Bowling in Searchlight New Mexico.
We know the electoral college elects the President, but do we know how few votes it takes to change the electoral college composition? Here is a detailed breakdown of how so few people end up deciding the results of a democratic election, courtesy of The Guardian.
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