Archive for National Affairs
Political Humor – When Statistics Aren’t
by John Weckerle
As most of our readers know, and some may be tired of hearing, we have published a number of articles here that highlight our preference for fact as opposed to “truthiness.” We’ve also taken some issue with the importance of off-the-cuff remarks made near open microphones or in surreptitiously recorded (and heavily edited) video. Statements made intentionally on the floor of the Senate are another story. As the weekend approaches, we think everybody could use a bit of humor, and we recently noted a fairly funny, if perhaps a bit pointed for some, pair of videos from Comedy Central’s The Daily Show.
A Discussion Elsewhere
by John Weckerle
Your editor has found himself in a discussion of free speech and other issues at Gadabout-Blogalot.com.
Economics Explained
by John Weckerle
We received a link to an entertaining little video, Quantitative Easing Explained, from one of our readers. We followed it through to the sequel, Bank Bailouts Explained. We can’t vouch for the accuracy of the statements or the validity of the analyses in the videos, but they are, if nothing else, entertaining.
Enough With The Gotcha
by John Weckerle
Today we find ourselves a bit behind the news – as we try to be when we think a situation should be given time to develop before commenting on it. We refer, in the current situation, to the most recent video hoax perpetrated by James O’Keefe, this time a purported “sting” against Ron Schiller, a National Public Radio fundraiser, resulting in yet another doctored video that supposedly depicts the target doing something horrible – in this case, harshly criticizing the Tea Party. For information on the situation, we provide the following links from NPR and Glenn Beck’s The Blaze:
- Questions Raised About O’Keefe’s Editing Of NPR Sting Video
- NPR: O’Keefe ‘Inappropriately Edited’ Video; Exec’s Words Still ‘Egregious’
- Elements Of NPR Gotcha Video Taken Out Of Context
- Ends vs. Means: The Ethics of Undercover Journalism
- Does Raw Video of NPR Expose Reveal Questionable Editing & Tactics?
Not surprisingly, neoconservative “news” outlets and blogs both local and national gleefully and immediately pounced on the “story” as either confirmation of longstanding claims of liberal bias or yet another reason to cut all funding to NPR and/or public broadcasting, and perhaps only a little more surprisingly the “mainstream” news media jumped right on the bandwagon. To the latter: the fact that something sells advertising space doesn’t mean it’s news. Nice job on the verification.
How Politics Works
Editor’s note: We’re back after an extended and somewhat unintended hiatus that involved travel, a lot of work, more travel, and much more. Unfortunately, the travel yielded little in the way of interesting photos and stories, and the work has been – well, work. During the hiatus, we began considering – and are continuing to consider – what course New Mexico Central should take in the future. We know there will be some changes in focus, but we’re not sure where it’s going. Articles will likely be spread out just a bit for the near future.
by John Weckerle
Today’s news reading included a link to an interesting article in the Chicago Tribune (and this one at NPR), which reports on a conversation in which a liberal blogger (Buffalo Beast editor Ian Murphy), pretending to be conservative billionaire David Koch, a major Tea Party financial supporter and contributor to Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker’s political campaigns, had a rather frank and interesting conversation with Governor Walker regarding the current ruckus in Wisconsin over union rights. If nothing else, the article highlights what appears to be a very cozy and mutually beneficial relationship between government officials interested in ending union influence and large business interests seeking to do the same. It looks as if it’s big government and big business against working Americans, at least in this particular situation – and it’s perhaps ironic that big business helped the current big government officials gain power by whipping up anti-big government sentiment.
We find it interesting that the unions in question have agreed to concede on all financial issues, but not the elimination of collective bargaining. Republicans, Governor Walker especially, have painted this as a fiscal issue, and have replied to the unions’ offer with a resounding “No.”
Tea Party, Or Not Tea Party: That Is The Question
by John Weckerle
The East Mountain Tea Party has a web site and an anonymous internet spokesperson – a shadowy figure known as “teapartynm.” It holds rallies and meetings, and stages protests. It writes letters to elected officials, and conducts candidate forums. It lobbies. It has ties to a local religious organization that repudiates Islam (see our previous article, East Mountain Tea Party Officials and Islam) and believes that the United States should declare war on Russia and China. But does the East Mountain Tea Party actually exist?
Our research tends to suggest that it does not, at least in any official sense. We took some time to search the State of New Mexico corporations database, the database of nonprofit organizations at Guidestar.org, and the IRS database of tax-exempt organizations for the East Mountain Tea Party – and found no reference to the group. We find this puzzling, as the organization seems to fit nicely into the “527” category and actively solicits donations on its web site. This raises some questions as to whether the receipt of the donations is being accomplished in compliance with State and Federal tax laws. This an issue that has haunted several organizations in our area, including the Edgewood and Moriarty Chambers of Commerce, and those providing donations to the East Mountain Tea Party should consider this along with other factors in making decisions regarding donations.
East Mountain Tea Party Officials and Islam
Editor’s note: We consider it important to state at the outset of this article that it is in no way our intent to denigrate or disrespect anyone’s religious beliefs, in this article or elsewhere; in fact, it was the issue of religious intolerance that sent us down the path that led us to this piece. We’ve provided links to full articles where appropriate to provide our readers with the full context of the quotes; we have saved the key references in both PDF and PNG screen grab formats, so if any of the links in this story should become inoperative in the future, please let us know and we’ll do what we can to repair them.
Update 1/4/11: Our original article on the East Mountain Tea Party’s apparent anti-Islamic bias can be found here.
by John Weckerle
East Mountain Tea Party Co-Founder Therese Cooper (image via You Tube)
As many of our readers may remember, we took issue some time back with what we considered to be anti-Islam positions officially expressed on the East Mountain Tea Party (EMTP) web site (our articles on the subject, along with others, are now collected under the category “Tea Party-gate.”). The EMTP post informed readers that key members of the EMTP (Therese Cooper, Char Tierney, Silvana Lupetti, and Felicia Wilson), including at least two of its co-founders, had submitted a letter to Congressman Martin Heinrich’s demanding that he state his position with respect to a Muslim community center proposed for downtown New York. We objected to the anonymously-posted EMTP article, and received a surprisingly vitriolic response indicating a clear anti-Muslim bias. We had a little fun trying to track down the identity of the anonymous poster, who in our view is the EMTP’s official internet spokesperson – and after a while, partially lost interest in that aspect, but we continued to research the issue of religious discrimination, because we were frankly dumbfounded by the strong anti-Islamic sentiment that came across in “teapartynm’s” response.
Message From Wildlife West Founder
by Roger Alink, Executive Director, Wildlife West Nature Park
Wildlife West Nature Park is private 501-c-3 not for profit organization that has numerous restrictions placed upon it by IRS. No involvement in political activity or having the effect of supporting any candidate or groups of candidates is allowed. The park has been perceived to be affiliated with the TEA party primarily because of the large signs around the community advertising the TEA party meetings at Wildlife West Nature Park. Numerous calls concerning this issue were made with great concern that the park was supporting the TEA party. Even though we just rented the facility to the TEA party, sometimes perceptions are a bigger problem than reality. I feel it is unfair for this issue to get misunderstood by many on both sides of the political spectrum and both sides have threatened to withhold support for the park. The park depends on the whole community for support and we are grateful for the outpouring of support we have received throughout the past year. Wildlife West Nature Park is non-partisan and only wants to serve our wildlife and education mission as well as the entire community without any perception of representing political issues. Therefore the decision is to no longer rent our facility to any group representing any political issues and/or candidates or groups of candidates. Let’s put this behind us and work for a peaceful and healthy park in 2011.
Stand Up For Local Charities
by John Weckerle
As our readers might imagine, it is with a great deal of interest that we have observed the developing story of the East Mountain Tea Party’s (EMTP’s) latest brouhaha, this time involving the Moriarty Lions Club and Wildlife West Nature Park. Both organizations recently discontinued the practice of leasing space to the EMTP. As reported by some, reasons given were public perception issues, threatened loss of donations, and potential concerns with respect to the groups’ status as charitable organizations in the context of Internal Revenue Service (IRS) policies. The latter is the official position given by both organizations.
In reality, we can see where there is likely a combination of these three factors at work. Let’s face it: the Tea Party in general, and the EMTP in particular, can be rather pugilistic in their approach to activism, and this has gained them a reputation for divisiveness and combativeness. Some of the positions they have taken have elicited concerns, including some expressed here, regarding bigotry. Both on the national and local front, the movement has indulged in a great deal of name-calling and denigration, excoriating those with whom they do not agree and insinuating that those with opposing viewpoints are somehow less American than those on the “right” side of the fence. Somehow, those affiliated with the Tea Party have taken the position that they are the (self-appointed) heirs to the Founding Fathers, the Sons of Liberty, and so on in terms of patriotism and American values. One need only read through some of the articles on the EMTP’s web site or read last week’s letter from Sylvia Bokor to the Mountain View Telegraph (or the much nastier diatribe on her blog) to get a feel for the tone of the “dialogue.” There are a substantial number of Americans who likely find this kind of invective extremely offensive, and probably a great deal more who are simply tired of hearing it. In short, while the EMTP and other similar organizations are very enthusiastic about their cause, they have expressed that enthusiasm in such a manner as to turn off a large number of people, some of whom are likely donors to the organizations in question.
Wherein, We Apologize
by John Weckerle
We have received a response from one Brady McElligott to an article (Would You Like Some Apples With Those Oranges) we posted in in the relatively distant past (September 26), which indicates that some apologies are in order:
- To our readers, for apparently confusing the issue at hand with a typo in the first paragraph, inadvertently adding an “e” to the end of Valeri McElligott’s first name one out of the three times we used it in the article.
- To the Moriarty Public Library, for our apparently incorrect thinking that Valeri McElligott was the head librarian. We’d like to point out to the City of Moriarty and the library that this page suggests that this is the case, and recommend that the City do something about updating and/or removing it.
- To the Mountain View Telegraph for not linking to their Letters to the Editor, which contained Valeri McElligott’s observations on the subject of the Muslim community center proposed for downtown Manhattan.
We have replied to Mr. McElligott’s specific comments in detail.
Full Text Of Senator Arlen Specter’s Farewell Speech
Editor’s note: While we will withhold comment on Senator Arlen Specter’s “closing argument” to the Senate (at least for now), we will say that we find within it enough food for thought that we feel it appropriate to provide the full text, even though this is not, strictly speaking, a local news issue. This text is taken directly from Mr. Specter’s senate.gov web page. In part, we provide this because the search engines are already returning primarily news stories and blog posts, and links to the full text are becoming a little difficult to find.
Mr. SPECTER. Madam President, this is not a farewell address but, rather, a closing argument to a jury of my colleagues and the American people outlining my views on how the Senate and, with it, the Federal Government arrived at its current condition of partisan gridlock, and my suggestions on where we go from here on that pressing problem and the key issues of national and international importance.
To make a final floor statement is a challenge. The Washington Post noted the poor attendance at my colleagues’ farewell speeches earlier this month. That is really not surprising since there is hardly anyone ever on the Senate floor. The days of lively debate with many Members on the floor are long gone. Abuse of the Senate rules has pretty much stripped Senators of the right to offer amendments. The modern filibuster requires only a threat and no talking. So the Senate’s activity for more than a decade has been the virtual continuous drone of a quorum call. But that is not the way it was when Senator Chris Dodd and I were privileged to enter the world’s greatest deliberative body 30 years ago. Senators on both sides of the aisle engaged in collegial debate and found ways to find common ground on the Nation’s pressing problems.
Politics, “Media” Accuracy And Global Climate Change
by John Weckerle
Your editor is participating in a bit of a disagreement on media accuracy (in this case, associated with EPA carbon dioxide regulations) with Edgewood Town Councilor Chuck Ring here.
Congressional Press Release: New Resources for New Mexico Small Businesses
Editor’s Note: Our readers by now will notice that we have been posting the occasional press release from New Mexico’s congressional delegation. This does not represent an endorsement of any candidate currently running for office.
by U.S. Representative Harry Teague
It has been a top priority of mine in Congress to make sure that small businesses have the resources they need to thrive, even in tough times. In fact, I was recently humbled to have my efforts on behalf of small businesses recognized by the National Federation of Independent Businesses, which presented me with the “Guardian of Small Business” award. I believe that small businesses are the backbone of our economy and if we want to ensure a strong recovery from the current economic downturn, we must make sure that our small businesses have access to the credit they need to expand their operations and hire new workers.
Because I know how important small businesses are to our economic recovery, I am proud to have supported the Small Business Jobs Act in the House of Representatives and was pleased to see it signed into law by the President last week. This new law addresses many of the concerns I have heard from New Mexico business owners across the 2nd district by cutting small businesses’ taxes and increasing small business lending. This law is projected to create 500,000 new jobs and provide tax relief to small business owners so they can effectively expand their businesses. It also ensures that new jobs will be created right here in America, instead of in other countries, by closing tax loopholes that reward corporations for shipping our jobs overseas. As your Congressman, I refuse to look the other way when corporations ship jobs overseas in an effort to turn record profits, even as plenty of honest, hardworking New Mexicans are looking for work right here at home.
Please know that I will continue my efforts to help small businesses succeed and prevent jobs from being shipped overseas while doing my work in Congress. It is a true honor to serve you and please do not hesitate to contact me if I can ever be of assistance.
Would You Like Some Apples With Those Oranges?
by John Weckerle
The “debate” (such as it is) does some less interesting form of raging this week in the Mountain View Telegraph as Valerie McElligott of Moriarty responds to a letter by Patty Walsh which raises the issue of whether all Christians are terrorists because Timothy McVeigh, the key figure in the Oklahoma City bombing, was a Christian – an issue we brought up in our September 2 article on the subject.
Now, this is not why all Christians are terrorists. All Christians are terrorists because discredited, fraudulent blogger Andrew Breitbart has been unable to procure video footage of each and every Christian not being a terrorist. The lack of video evidence, creatively edited or otherwise, is damning in the eyes of at least a few, and far be it from us to argue.
All kidding aside, though…
Creeping Socialist Casserole
by John Weckerle
Okay, we admit it, this is not about creeping socialists; it’s a recipe. Ever since your editor read that phrase on the East Mountain Tea Party web site, though, it keeps popping into his head and cracking him up. We want to be clear: this is is one of the most ridiculously paranoid combinations of words we’ve run across in a while, but it’s so ridiculous that it’s kind of funny, and we can imagine that the ghost of Vladimir Lenin is slapping George Soros’s knee over it, too. I guess you could say that the zucchini and yellow squash represent the ultra-left-wing vegetarian peril lurking beneath the veneer of American “sausage,” pepper and onion patriotism – and then take it a step further and take the that the “sausage” is also some cynical, unauthentic, Socialist-Marxist exploitation of our meat heritage. And don’t get me started on the liberal cheddar cheese conspiracy.
At any rate, Sunday found us not wanting any of the food we had ready to eat, and a bunch of summer squash with which to deal, so your editor decided to go off the map and do something unusual. Here’s how it went: