Disqus - Latest Comments for babyfatt

Re: Grover Norquist: Romney A 'Poopy-head'

babyfatt — Mon, 12 Nov 2012 10:33:17 -0000

Now the R's are referring to one another as "poopy-head". The D's really have become the party of grown-ups. Nah-ni-nah-ni-nah-nah!

Re: Lawmaker: Corrections secretary’s previous job casts ‘cloud’ over decision not to fine firms

babyfatt — Tue, 21 Sep 2010 20:38:14 -0000

Damn it! I hate it when John Arthur Smith is right! Just another state payout to the plutocrats who have our political system in their oversized pockets.

Re: NM state prisons struggle through staffing shortage

babyfatt — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 22:32:53 -0000

State government is being cut to the bone. Fewer services; furloughs and hiring freezes for state workers (with pay cuts and layoffs soon to follow). Corrections is just like every other state agency: doing more with less; hard working employees doing the best they can while their pay and benefits are being cut.

Public rarely cares. Everyone loves to deride public employees, especially when the MVD office is closed, or some criminal gets released because the state cannot afford to incarcerate him/her any longer, but no one wants to stand up and agitate for better state services. Thing is we need government to lock up the people who need to be locked up, repair roads and bridges, administer public services, etc.

Meanwhile have no fear, Governor Richardson has the solution to all the criminal justice problems in New Mexico: pardon Billy the Kid.

Billy the Rich Kid knows what's best for working New Mexicans. When does his unpaid furlough begin?

Re: Women stand to benefit greatly from new health care law, new study finds

babyfatt — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 19:02:44 -0000

Duh. This analysis reflects something that working women have always known: access to healthcare is a class issue, and the Republican-approved and Tea Party-supported position of requiring cash money to pay for profit-based healthcare means that women and their families will suffer unnecessarily and even die from lack of access to a basic commodity.

Shame on America! Shame on the Republican party and their Tea Bagger Cohort! How dare you work to deny access to working people (including your own families, for what? For ideological reasons? What fools!) to a public service that could be easily provided.

Time to fight for working families. Time to say 'nuff of this stupid tea-bag philosophy (that means you Gary Johnson). Done with ideologues.

Re: Blue Cross accumulated record surpluses while raising rates, study shows

babyfatt — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 21:26:40 -0000

Memo to America: Duh. You mean the oligarchs poor mouth while bleeding working people dry? I'm shocked, shocked I tell you.

Meanwhile the tea baggers work to insure big business is fat and happy. Idiocy of the right: racism and homophobia in service to plutocracy. Hey right wingers, how does it feel to be used?

Re: Val Kilmer guest ranch approved after apology over ‘racist’ comments

babyfatt — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 21:12:15 -0000

Val Kilmer is a racist, classist rube. He's another example of some rich idiot who comes to New Mexico (hello Donald Rumsfeld and Julia Roberts) with more money than sense who thinks he can buy his way into whatever he wants (in that regard he is correct).

He thinks everyone in San Miguel County is drunk? What a change that is from his hometown of Hollywood, where everyone is a paragon of abstinence and sobriety. He flaps his mouth in that usual frat- boy entitled-as-hell way (a vicious side-effect of being surrounded by no one but servants and sychophants) and then is shocked, shocked that locals might take offense.

Val Kilmer is just another wealthy boor who will never experience or know the true New Mexico--the New Mexico of working people, of abuelas and matanzas and hangin' with the buds. Val Kilmer: visitor.

Re: NM teachers pension fund plans to sue state’s former adviser

babyfatt — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 19:56:28 -0000

The dirty little secret of public employee pension funds--whether ERA or PERA--is that they are cash cows for the plutocrats (Bill Richardson, et al)--who "invest" money earned by working-wage people to line their pockets and enable a lifestyle that involves Harrison Ford and Calista Flockhart. Bill Richardson is a stain on the political legacy of New Mexico. One waits with utter anticipation for his unpaid furlough.

Meanwhile working people all over New Mexico wait for the next shoe to drop: layoffs, pay cuts, furloughs, unpaid holidays--all the usual libertarian plutocrat tricks. Bill need not worry however: God bless the child that's got his own (that's got his own).

Re: Outgoing PRC chief of staff calls for new ethics and transparency push

babyfatt — Sun, 23 May 2010 00:05:43 -0000

Ethics and transparency at the PRC? Yeah, like that's gonna happen. What a joke. The PRC is run and staffed by Santa Fe good ole boys who couldn't care less about working people. Think I'm wrong? Just wait and watch the review process for this next PNM "rate increase" (i.e. tax on working people).

Re: Bureaucratic problems led to less than optimal care, internal UNM hospital memo shows

babyfatt — Fri, 14 May 2010 20:43:25 -0000

Anyone who has ever worked at or had any experience with UNMH knows its dirty little secret: it spends more time and money figuring out clever (evil) ways to deny care to the needy than it ever would in actually providing such care (and yes I know this because I used to work there). UNMH is a perfect example of what's wrong with healthcare today--including public hospitals: it is administered by overpaid managers who are paid bonuses for keeping the salaries of workers as low as possible while setting up innumerable roadblocks to those who need care; and it is protected by a political class more interested in pretense than in service. Meanwhile, it is subsidized by the taxpayers (i.e. you and me). Sweet deal for Steve McKernan and Paul Roth. For the working people of Albuquerque, not so much.

Re: Top officials at Blue Cross Blue Shield’s parent company had big pay day

babyfatt — Sat, 08 May 2010 17:30:41 -0000

Because of the idiocy of the tea baggers the government was able only to enact a slight beginning at health care reform. The only real solution is to socialize the health care industry. One day it will happen in spite of the America-hating right wing extremists who decry government and thereby only serve the plutocracy that enslaves us all. Meanwhile the health care corporations will continue to live off the blood of working people.

Re: PNM employees ignored, hid hazardous gas leak at Albuquerque intersection

babyfatt — Fri, 07 May 2010 21:48:58 -0000

Yet another example of how for-profit utility companies make money for their shareholders on the backs--and at the expense of--the safety of working people. When I moved to NM I could not believe that the citizens of NM did not own their own utility company. The answer is not more regulation for PNM--it is to buy (i.e, take over) PNM and manage it for the good of the community rather than the good of Wall Street. Meanwhile, there will be more rate hikes (agreed to by the corrupt PRC) and more safety problems. And so it goes....

Re: Tea partiers “predisposed to intolerance,” University of Washington study says

babyfatt — Fri, 30 Apr 2010 21:08:27 -0000

This study just confirms what every observer of the all white Tea Party has known from the beginning: that its primary impetus is racial resentment. The other best new evidence of this is the xenophobic anti-immigration "show me your papers" law passed in Arizona.

One would think that the Tea Baggers--who purport themselves to be against Big Brother in all his nefarious manifestations--would be in lockstep against this attempt at imposing a police state in Arizona. Yet the tea baggers are curiously silent when the target of government overreach is those who are less than pale. Hypocrites, phonies, and racists--that's all the tea baggers are. As recent events have proven conclusively.

Re: MVD closing ABQ office to help with budget

babyfatt — Fri, 23 Apr 2010 20:18:53 -0000

I'm sure the tea baggers won't mind driving across town and waiting in a nice long line for several hours in order to get their drivers' licenses renewed--after all, it's the principle that counts, and the less guv'ment the better, right?

Re: WWTPD? Tea party protesters offer their solutions on trimming government fat

babyfatt — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 18:54:07 -0000

This reporting was much superior to most of the reporting one reads regarding the tea baggers (for example the stories that have appeared on the Abq Journal or on the local broadcast channels--some of which actually advertised this event and encouraged people to attend--not exactly 'fair and balanced'). At least Trip captured the cognitive dissonance that so many in this movement seem blissfully unaware of: receiving government benefits while passing out Ayn Rand pamphlets and decrying government in all its manifestations. If the tea people had either intellectual honesty or the courage of their convictions they would eschew government in all its forms, including and especially those forms that assist them and their families. But of course they have neither intellectual honesty (or, really, curiosity) or courage. Mostly what they have is resentment--an inchoate dislike of a world they perceive to be changing around them (black people for president? gay people who get to marry? WTF?!) and over which they feel absolutely no control (on that point they are correct).

Re: Wiener and opposing crowd face off on Civic Plaza over email

babyfatt — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 16:52:35 -0000

The fact that Wiener thought he could e-mail this patently racist ugly joke and get away with it just shows the success of the Tea Bag Party in enabling the racists of the Republican party to come out of their fetid little closets. The racist right is the dominant force in Republican party politics. It couches much of its rhetoric in anti-government platitudes (while many collect Social Security and Medicare--they want government to take care of them just no one else) all the while making sure to use images and language that stir up hatred against diversity in general and the diversity of the Democratic party (as personified by Obama, Pelosi, Frank, et al) in particular--just witness their behavior in our nation's capitol as HCR was being debated.

Is it any wonder that right wingers are sending each other racist e-mails, extolling the murder of public employees by idiots who fly planes into government buildings, planning to kill cops in order to bring about war with the Antichrist (which, according to recent polling, 24% of Republicans believe to be the President of the United States)? Wiener will never take responsibility for his offensive behavior, for the same reason none of the racist lunatic fringe will take responsibility for the societal chaos they engender: they have grossly impaired insight and judgment; they are bereft of conscience; and, ultimately, they are too consumed by their own hate to see what they are doing to their own families and our communities.

Re: Richardson protests food tax, but one lawmaker questions his sincerity

babyfatt — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 20:03:30 -0000

Great reporting, Trip and Gwyneth. Just continues to demonstrate the utter duplicity of Richardson, always talking out of both sides of his mouth, utterly bereft of core values, only worried about how things will play "in the arena" (his words). The special session was ugly--taxing food rather than taxing the rich (the only ones who can afford it in this economy), and yet the legislature probably did the best it could considering what it had to work with. One can already see the ads the R's will run in the next election, which will take Dems to task for doing the best they could to balance the budget in a way that spread the pain around. That's just politics. The sad thing about Richardson is that in the greatest economic catastrophe of the modern era he could have chosen to lead (and let's get real, given his lame duck status what did he have to lose?), but instead he chose--and continues to choose--to play it as a public relations game. What a dolt, what an empty-suited caricature of a political leader. What a travesty.

Re: Martinez: I’ll make the tough – and ethical – decisions

babyfatt — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 13:16:56 -0000

Wow, talk about logrolling. This so-called "article" (it's actually more of a campaign pamphlet) certainly makes clear for all to see where Heath's political loyalties lay. Yuck. I feel like I need a shower after reading this thing.

Re: They always sacrifice the bottom-dwellers

babyfatt — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 19:20:13 -0000

I've spent more time in church than most who profess themselves to be believers. Even planned to enter the ministry at one point--why I've even read the bible (in English and Latin). Also been on the receiving end of "christian values" (ever been 'fag-bashed' by a bunch of christians? I have). I know better than most that what most religionists refer to as "values" are code words for exclusion, divisiveness, elitism, and hate.

It is those who profess faith in the supernatural who have the burden of proof; not those of us in the reality-based community.

Re: They always sacrifice the bottom-dwellers

babyfatt — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 19:49:02 -0000

When times are good we cut taxes (i.e., give money) to the rich; when times are bad we cut services to the poor. This is what conservatives call "Judeo-Christian values". If, as the religionists insist, there is a heaven, then we should all be very, very afraid (especially the religious).

Re: More medical marijuana non-profits are imminent for New Mexico

babyfatt — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 21:16:59 -0000

Time to end all this idiocy and allow marijuana to be grown locally and sold locally to anyone who needs it for whatever reason. Where are the right-wing big gu'vment hating libertarians when we need them? Time to stand up to the feds and let them know that in New Mexico they need to keep their old tired marijuana laws off our bodies.

Re: Shame is dead

babyfatt — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 19:55:20 -0000

Shamelessness knows no party. The recent mayoral election in Albuquerque showed, however, how to make entrenched political interests--of whatever persuasion--accountable: public financing of political campaigns. Level the money field, and suddenly citizens get to vote whomever they want into office. Public financing of political campaigns has been to date an issue of the left (the right hates any mention of any phenomenon that includes the word 'public'). But one wonders in a predominately Democratic state if the wing nuts might begin to rethink their position given that the only recent victory for the Party of No was a direct result of public campaign financing.

Politicians have no shame (that's their nature). Public campaign financing might teach them a bit of humility, and that would be a very good thing.

Re: Albuquerque: You Have a New Mayor

babyfatt — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 20:54:43 -0000

Trip has it wrong once again: the big story is the victory of public financing for campaigns. This campaign showed that with public financing even an entrenched local political machine like the Chavez coalition of developers and cronies can be driven from office. Although I'm far from a Party of No (i.e., 'Republican') kind of person, one can only hope that Berry allows not a single one of Chavez' political hangers-on to remain at city hall. Berry's going to need an awfully big shovel to muck out city hall after lo these many years of Chavez arrogance-corruption.

Re: What Sarah Palin and the Albuquerque Journal have in common

babyfatt — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 20:21:01 -0000

Bravo AA! See my reply to Mr. Olson below for why apologists for the Journal are so off-base. Newspapers are dying, and mostly for self-inflicted reasons (best account as to why I've read recently is by Bill Wyman: http://www.splicetoday.com/.... As far as the Journal is concerned, so be it. While there are aspects of a daily paper that can be valuable to a community--and while one feels for what will happen to the writers and workers who had not say in managerial decisions--the Journal by and large has abrogated its responsibility by choosing instead to become the house organ of the Republican party and the Chamber of Commerce.

Re: What Sarah Palin and the Albuquerque Journal have in common

babyfatt — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 20:10:58 -0000

You could not be more wrong, Olson. The Journal spins every political story to softball the Republican party line and hardball the Democrats. Look at the recent Rove/Wilson coverage, in which the Journal trumpeted the possibility of an FBI investigation into Patsy Madrid (you know, where there's smoke....) while giving little credence at all to the possibility that Wilson (who's been propped up and supported at every step in her checkered political career) is facing the possibility of indictment for obstruction of justice in the attorney firings scandal (the alleged investigation into Madrid has never been officially confirmed, but the investigation by a Special Prosecutor into the attorney firings is ongoing)l. How is an objective observer to interpret this? If it were up to the Journal New Mexican would know little of the inside skinny of the Rove-Wilson-Domenici group sellout of the DOJ of petty partisan politics.

I will never buy another copy of the Journal. What tore it for me was when in 2008--the most important election of our time--the Journal endorsed John McCain and Darren White! Here's a little thought experiment for the right wing crew that publishes and edits the Journal: what if McCain/Palin controlled the executive branch, and McConnel/Boehner the legislative branch (along with Roberts controlling the judiciary)--do you think we would be better off? Think the recession would be losing steam? Like hell!

Newspapers have never been about reporting the news--they have always been an advertising medium for which the news accounted for a small portion of the overall product. Now you've lost the advertisers to the internet, where it's much easier to reach customers. The amount of news in the Journal shrinks daily, and more and more you are relying on pundits and readers to fill your copy (the page one opinion columnists, the page after page of letters to the editors). In other words, you are now little more than a printed out copy of a blog: obsolete before a copy hits the first subscriber's driveway with a thud.

There may have been a time when the Journal could have salvaged its reputation and its relevance. That time is past. Good riddance.

Re: Iglesias, Wilson disagree over whether FBI probe happened

babyfatt — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 19:47:48 -0000

Yet more evidence of the Wilson-Domenici axis of corruption. Good thing for Josh Marhall and TPM because we sure wouldn't have heard anything about had the Journal been left to its own devices. Notice how the Journal today played up the angle of the possible FBI investigation into Madrid, and played down the role Wilson-Domenici played in getting a US attorney fired for petty partisan political reasons (corruption exemplified). We all know that had there ever been one iota of a problem with Madrid's ethics it would have been splashed all over the front page of the Journal, all the while Wilson would have continued to have been lauded, and Domenici lionized.

By the way, I didn't buy the Journal--I never, ever buy the Journal (it only encourages them). I fished it out of the trash, and otherwise would have gone without. I understand why some bemoan the fate of news dailies like the Journal (i.e., purveyors of yesterday's news) but this incident shows why the Journal should not be mourned when it passes, inevitably, from the scene: a massive local corruption scandal with national implications and our best source of information is a blog from NYC.

Go ahead Heather, and run for governor. Let's give your ethical challenges a full airing.