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Dems Devote $20 Million to Hispanic Voter Outreach
The Democratic National Committee and the Obama campaign announced Tuesday that they will spend $20 million to on outreach to Hispanic voters. During a conference call with reporters, Obama for America National Hispanic Leadership Council Chairman Frank Sanchez and DNCVice-Chair Linda Chavez Thompson described a huge grassroots effort that will mirror Howard Dean's 50-state strategy, but focus resources on what they called "critical" states such as New Mexico, Colorado, Nevada and Florida.
Independents rising
Apparently Doña Ana County is a fairly independently minded place -- at least when it comes to politics. Currently 18 percent of the county’s registered voters have declined to state a party affiliation, and that number is growing: Some 33 percent of people who registered to vote from January to June in the county are “independents.” Doña Ana County’s percentage of registered independents is greater than the state average of 15 percent, and only Los Alamos County has as high a percentage. In addition Doña Ana County’s independent voter population is growing faster than that of any other county in the state.
Mexico Notebook: Going places
While the American airline industry is cutting dozens of routes from its schedules, it appears the Mexican industry is doing just fine.
The Mexican airline Aeromexico announced this month it is buying more planes and adding destinations.
An article in El Sol de Zacatecas says Aeromexico is buying 12 new Embraer 190 jets, configured the same as its current Aeromexico Connect line, each with 11 first-class seats and 88 in tourist class.
Mexico Notebook: Here, they make house calls
Three days away from finishing language school in southern Mexico, our daughter came down with severe stomach pain, just as she had been marveling about how lucky she had been to avoid illness for six weeks immersed in her host culture. Unsure of what to do, I called the doctor she had seen three days earlier and explained the situation. I was sure I understood his reply, even though my Spanish is not the best. I just couldn't believe what I was hearing. He was asking for directions to our hotel.
TODAY'S TOP STORIES: Ruidoso gets nine inches of rain thanks to Dolly
The remnants of Hurricane Dolly have caused the Rio Ruidoso to overflow its banks, creating the worst flooding the town of Ruidoso has seen in 50 years. Fire Chief Tom Gavin says the public needs to stay away from the river, or they may find their lives in jeopardy. The Ruidoso News has video footage and pictures, plus reports that two people are missing.
A new international railroad crossing on the border with Mexico is being pursued by New Mexico officials, reports the Albuquerque Journal. This would create a bypass around the town of Juarez, allowing that city to remove the railroad tracks from their downtown area.
The Navajo Nation Council has banned smoking in shared public places, including outdoor events like rodeos and fairs. The measure was approved Friday at the end of its summer session, and President Joe Shirley Jr. now has 10 days to decide whether to sign or veto the decision.
Seeking asylum at the border
Police officers, journalists and businessmen are among those who have shown up at the U.S.-Mexico border recently, claiming they fear for their life. An onslaught of drug-related violence has sent a record number of Mexican citizens north of the border seeking political asylum. Between October and July there have been 63 cases, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection, nearly double the number from all of last year.
Mexico notebook: Desperate children
XALAPA, Mexico -- One of the more disturbing stories to come out of Mexico in recent days is a report that the number of children attempting to travel by themselves to the United States has risen in the last three years.
The International Migration Organization [OIM] reports that children as young as 12, hoping to join family already in the States or feeling unwanted or abused in their current family situation, is at 500 a year from the southern Mexico state of Veracruz alone.
These children, aged 12 to 18, hail from cities large and small, including the port of Veracruz, the capital city of Xalapa, and Cordoba, Orizaba, Santiago Tuxtla, Acayucan and Rio Blanco, reports the daily newspaper A-Z Xalapa.
Obama campaign unveils Spanish-language radio ad
The hidden costs of a 'maquiladora'
Last week ground was broken on the outskirts of Ciudad Juarez in what is set to be Mexico's largest 'maquiladora'. The Taiwanese manufacturing giant Foxconn started construction in Jeronimo, Chihuaha on a facility that will eventually span 500 acres with more than 1.2 million square feet of structures and employ 30,000 people. Foxconn is one of the largest manufacturers of computer components and electronics worldwide.
TODAY'S TOP STORIES: Bernalillo County Clerk sexual harassment suit settled
A lawsuit that exposed sexually charged working conditions in the Bernalillo County Clerk's Office has been settled for $80,000, The Albuquerque Journal writes today.
Work on a 40-foot-tall sculpture memorializing Mexican immigrants who risk their lives crossing the border illegally may be halted near Downtown Santa Fe after officials said it may pose a safety issue to passersby, according to The Santa Fe New Mexican.
Carlsbad residents aren't exactly rushing to get the new U.S. passport card that substitutes for a passport when crossing the border into Mexico, Canada and several other Western Hemisphere countries, The Carlsbad Current-Argus writes today.
NM jumps to No. 2 for immigration-crime prosecution, feds say.
The New Mexico district climbed in April to No. 2 on the list of per-capita prosecutions of immigration-related crimes by the U.S. Department of Justice.
With 217 prosecutions, the New Mexico U.S. Attorney’s Office trailed only the Southern California office in per-capita prosecutions in April 2008. A year earlier, New Mexico was fifth on the list, and it was also fifth five years ago. Following New Mexico in April 2008 were the west and southern districts of Texas, the Arizona district, the south Florida district and the east Arkansas district.
NYTimes: NM kid becomes El Gringo, and makes good in Mexico and here.
Shawn Kiehne, aka El Gringo, is apparently big with a certain demographic, not that I knew this fact until Sunday.
But according to The New York Times, he's gaining popularity among Mexican and Mexican-American audiences, a U.S.-born 30-something who sings in Spanish and plays his version of Norteno music, replete with all the accordions and 12-string bass guitars.
Here's another thing I didn't know: El Gringo is from Los Lunas, N.M.
Mexico Notebook: Should PEMEX, the 'people's oil,' be privatized?
A recent edition of Reforma, one of Mexico City's largest-circulation newspapers, had no fewer than four articles in its first four pages related to one of the the hottest news items in this nation: the proposal to privatize Mexico's national oil system, PEMEX. People go to the polls Sunday to decide. The vote comes 70 or so years after this nation nationalized oil to wrest control of Mexico's natural resource away from American companies in the late 1930s. Mexico is considering privatizing because, it says, it needs investment to further exploration, most notably in the Gulf of Mexico.
Mexico Notebook: Solar hot water for life
CHIHUAHUA CITY, Mexico -- "Free! Hot Water for Life," screams the billboard by the highway. In the near distance are the boxy-modern condos that spring up like hongos [mushrooms] around virtually every city in Mexico to accommodate their burgeoning populations.
No doubt the company selling this solar water heater -- in this case Signa Hogar -- would like to see a solar boiler atop each one.
Why don't we see signs like that in the States?
Obama tells audience he will make immigration his "top priority"
Republican John McCain and Democrat Barack Obama touched on immigration at the League of United Latin American Citizens National Convention on Tuesday. But it was Barack Obama who perhaps made the biggest impression by promising to make immigration reform the "top priority" of his first year in office. McCain has recently backed away from his strongest efforts at comprehensive immigration reform.
TODAY'S TOP STORIES: Madrid to help Democrats draft platform
According to the AP, the Obama campaign and Democratic National Committee are expected to announce today that Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano will chair the Democratic Party's Platform Drafting Committee. Patricia Madrid, the former New Mexico Attorney General and congressional candidate, will be a co-chair, along with Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick and former Discovery Communications President and CEO Judith McHale. Madrid was long a John Edwards supporter (which couldn't have pleased Richardson much) before he dropped out of the presidential race.
Speaking of the presidential campaigns, John McCain continues to court Hispanic voters today, as he delivers a speech to the League of United Latin American Citizens convention in Washington, D.C., according to excerpts of McCain's speech released beforehand, reported by CBS News' John Bentley.
TODAY'S TOP STORIES: Rapidly rising fuel costs hurt school district
Like the rest of us, school officials in Gallup are looking for solutions to rising fuel costs, with one idea being a four day school week if state government doesn't pony up extra fuel dollars.
Saying the "violence continues," the Las Cruces Sun-News yesterday reported a grisly list of murders in Juarez over last weekend. But babies are being born also, this time on the Bridge of Americas.
Charges against a KOB photographer who was arrested for refusing to obey a police officer have been dismissed by a judge, and the officer has been suspended by the Albuquerque Police Department.
Swinging for Latinos
As New Mexico emerges as a key swing state, the two parties are increasingly focusing on the state's Latino voters as a key demographic. It’s not unusual for Democrats to win big statewide with New Mexico Latinos. But George Bush received about 40 percent of the Latino vote nationally in 2004, and maybe 37 percent in New Mexico. The big question now is was 2004 was a flash in the pan?
Immigration raids assailed by mayors
A resolution by Mayor David Coss of Santa Fe calling for a change in the way ICE conducts workplace raids of immigrants has been passed by the U.S. Conference of Mayors meeting in Miami.
The mayor, who has been an outspoken advocate for tolerance of immigrants, reportedly shepherded the resolution first through the mayor's Criminal and Social Justice standing committee. It was then passed by the entire conference.
TODAY'S TOP STORIES: It's confirmed. Mountain lion killed man.
It’s been confirmed that a mountain lion killed a man who’s body was found near his home last week in southwestern New Mexico. This is only the second killing in New Mexico of a human by a mountain lion in modern history, with the first being the 1974 death of a young boy in Arroyo Seco, just north of Taos. Rick Winslow, a Game and Fish large carnivore biologist, told Rene Romo of the Albuquerque Journal that such killings by mountain lions are uncommon, but that “Attacks by wildlife may become more frequent as our growing population expands into the urban-wildland interface.’’
John Fleck reports for the Albuquerque Journal that most of Albuquerque didn’t curtail driving by much in April when gas prices were rapidly rising.
Steve Terrell writes for the Santa Fe New Mexican that Steve Pearce is “demanding” that Tom Udall debate him pronto on energy issues, but is being put off by the Udall campaign until the fall.
The head of the El Paso sector DEA told Jose Medina of the Las Cruces Sun-News that a drug cartel hit list with names of Americans north of the border may just be a rumor. “Nobody has substantiated it.