This post includes more on the Regional Coalition saga, Trump’s cronies & their felonies, a path to building local community wealth and a heads up about an hour long interview on Richard Eeds on Wednesday.
We Are Back From 70 Day 24 City Look, Listen & Learn Road Trip. Roxanne and I got back to Santa Fe late Thursday, arriving two days early because we were called by a neighbor that we had a huge water leak. Welcome home!
As we approached Santa Fe right as we passed the racetrack on I-25 , we passed 10,000 miles for the trip. Then as were listening to Xubi Wilson on KSFR when he was closing his show Xubi said to his guest, “Welcome back to Santa Fe.” No he wasn’t talking to us, but we took it as a welcome. Hope to see you around town. It was great to hit the Coop, Violet Crowne and Farmer’s Market.
Regional Coalition Inappropriate Use of Funds Radio Coverage. On KSFR 101.1 FM at 8:30am this past Saturday Retake Our Democracy’s entire radio show focused on the findings from the NM State Audit and the Adams + Crow independent investigation. You can listen to the show by going to KSFR.org, going to the Programs menu, scrolling to podcasts and then look for Retake Our Democracy.
I will also appear on the Richard Eeds show on Wednesday at 4pm for a full hour, where we will discus both the Regional Coalition expenditure issue. We will also talk about some of what Roxanne and I learned on the Road Trip and some of the immediate opportunities that might be possible for NM cities to build local wealth and address income and wealth inequity. You can find Richard’s show at KTRC 1260 AM or 103.7 FM. There will also be more coverage of the Regional Coalition in this blog on Monday.
A Comment on Comments. Recently I’ve posted a couple times about the Regional Coalition and its State Audit and Adams+Crow independent report on the audit. I also sent an email to Santa Fe County Central Committee members and had a My View published last Saturday, click here to read.
I was struck by the comments I received, most emails were entirely positive and on Saturday I ran into several folks who thanked me for my coverage on the audit. But I also received both comments on the blog and on the digital My View from supporters of the write-in candidate. Unlike during the Trujillo-Romero campaign, most all comments and emails were respectful, but I was struck at how, with the exception of Devin Bent, the comments had no bearing on the My View or post, but were simply groundless assertions that my writing had been bias or spin and was simply my effort to distract from the truth. In one email I was called Rush Limbaugh, “just like Trump” and just like the Russians in trying to subvert the election. In another instance, I was called out for “attacking Henry Roybal.”
I am mystified how a blog that was over 2300 words and that included numerous direct quotes could be viewed as “spin” or “baseless.” Even the My View with its strict word limits, included two key quotes from A+C report that anchored the opinion piece. While everyone is entitled to their opinion, it seems pretty specious to compare me to Trump or Rush Limbaugh whose entire messaging is based on falsity, given that the blog was entirely based on findings from independent reports.
One of the things I find most disheartening about the election process is that so little effort is made to be unbiased and to thoughtfully compare competing points of view. I keep telling myself, “I’ll be glad when this cycle is over,” but then the cycles are blurring one into the next and I suspect we will be thick into the 2020 general election by December.
A Week in Review
It was an eventful week, with a successful Call for Action to deny Super Delegates a vote in the first ballot at the 2020 nominating convention, so democratic principles will prevail for at least on ballot.The DNC also passed a rule to allow absentee voting at state caucuses, significantly easing the difficulty of participating, especially in large rural states. For more on the DNC session and the votes, click here. The Adelante Progressive Caucus of the DPNM actively advocated with our DNC representatives and we are pleased to say that all NM DNC members supported the measures.
We also provided a detailed analysis of the Regional Coalition audit and the Adams+Crow independent analysis of Los Alamos County culpability. We also reported on Trump’s worst day in office, Tuesday the 21st when Manafort was convicted on 8 felonies and came within one juror of being convicted on all 18 and Michael Cohen plead guilty to 7 felonies, one of which implicated the president directly. Read on.
Media Bias Foists Responsibility for Unallowable Expenditures on Romero. The Audit & Independent Study Tell a Very Different Story
Tuesday, August 21. Page after page of the State Auditor’s audit and the Los Alamos County (LAC)-contracted independent report include findings highly critical of RCLC Board and LAC senior staff. This certainly doesn’t completely exonerate, Andrea Romero, but it puts her mistakes in context. The Auditor and A+C both point to how: the Regional Coallition’s Travel Policy was far out of compliance with State Law, that the Coalition never conducted an audit, as directed to by the State Auditor in 2013, and efforts to alter the Travel Policy to hide unallowable expenditures was not done by Andrea Romero, but by the County. The media is not reporting this. We are.
Click here for the full review of the Regional Coalition audit and Adams+Crow independent audit.
How to Build Local Community Wealth and Challenge Economic Injustice… Is Trump Cornered? & More on Romero and the Regional Coaltion
Thursday, August 23. Today we examine what the Manafort/Cohen felonies mean and how some legal experts feel that, at least in reference to Cohen, the investigation may have hit a dead end. We also examine strategies for how NM cities can build community wealth without investing in absentee -corporations who have no interest in your community. Lastly we present more on the LANL Regional Coalition saga. Click here for the full post.
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Paul, the two of you are dedicated to thinking critically about what is fact and what is propaganda. Many years ago, as a high school teacher, I was also a forensics coach for our high school debating team. I am all in favor of high school sports teams, but imagine if we devoted as much time and energy to helping young people develop the skills to discern for themselves the difference between truth and propaganda.
Absolutely! And also learn about the ‘old gilded age’ as per Mark Twain’s “The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today” and about the devastation Industrial Capitalism caused from other American and British writers like G.B. Shaw, Ch. Dickens and Upton Sinclair, and many more. Each of them wrote, some extensively, in their own way, about how those in charge of using and selling the ‘industrial capitalistic’ model caused millions of families and many, many communities, to become utterly impoverished in a matter of years. The writings criticizing the (industrial) capitalistic model span a good 300 years. Of course, our schools do not teach the ‘classics’ anymore (Or maybe they do in some schools.), especially writings of those such as G.B. Shaw who have been considered by our ‘official historians’ as subversive. Most everybody knows Pigmalion and, I believe, very few know G. B. Shaw wrote it. But even fewer people know that he wrote “The Intelligent Woman’s Guide to Socialism, Capitalism, Sovietism and Fascism” which should be read by everyone.
I mentioned the above because I am reading about what many think of our times as the ‘new gilded age’. And as I read i believe they are right!
https://www.history.com/news/second-gilded-age-income-inequality
A word about PE in our schools. Research, not so new, has shown that cardiovascular exercises before academics begin in school increase the cognitive/learning capabilities of students.
Thanks again Roxane and Paul for your ‘research’. I hope that you organize a series of Town Halls to discuss your findings.
eduardo