Today I read a New York Times column that made my blood run cold. It was from two days ago, written by Emily Rapp, a woman who happens to live in Santa Fe, New Mexico, as I do. A woman who is a mother, as I am. A woman who has faced pain I cannot [...]
I spent the morning baking a cake (two cakes, actually) for my daughter’s 6th birthday, and honest to goodness I wish I could bake one for Paul Ryan, too. Watch the video of him explaining his budget plan, or if you’re feeling wonkish, read the whole 73-page plan and see why. A massive budget crisis [...]
I’ll be a panelist on The Line this afternoon, the talking heads portion of New Mexico in Focus, a public television show taped at KNME in Albuquerque. The show airs on Channel 5 (if you have Comcast) Friday at 7:00 pm and Sunday at 6:30 a.m., but if you’re like me and watch pretty much [...]
My fellow Capitol Report New Mexico columnist, former State Sen. John Grubesic, observes in today’s column: Ninety-five percent of the people in that building think that they are the most important people in New Mexico (myself included). Ninety-six percent of the people outside of that building would have a tough time naming who represents them [...]
I was on News New Mexico with Jim Spence and Dr. Michael Swickard on KSNM 570 this morning, and am going to be a weekly contributor to the show. Once we pick a regular time, I’ll post it. The show airs from Las Cruces, NM, but they have a very user-friendly podcast. There is also [...]
This is my new office. Yes, it’s the Roundhouse, home of the New Mexico State Legislature. No, they didn’t do a recount and discover I’d won the election after all. I’m working as a bill analyst, poring over every piece of proposed education legislation proposed in the House and producing analyses for the Republican members. [...]
The election is over, at long last. I didn’t win, but with only 16% of the voters in the district being Republican, that wasn’t entirely a surprise. I hope to be blogging regularly again as soon as the dust settles. In the meantime, here’s a piece I wrote for Capitol Report New Mexico, one of [...]
Several people have told me over the last few months that they miss my blog. I miss it, too. I knew it had been a long time since I’d written, but when I looked today and saw that my last post was in May, I was stunned. I hadn’t realized it had been that long. [...]
Joe Monahan writes about the New Mexico governor’s race, [S]ome of our analysts see a developing problem for Susana [Martinez] — the strength of GOP lieutenant governor candidate John Sanchez. He is spending heavily on TV and is the favorite to take the prize over Brian Moore and Kent Cravens. But will many GOP voters [...]
The drunk driver who killed an 18-year-old woman last month had a blood alcohol level five times the legal limit. When I saw the photos of the twisted wreckage and read that Cecilio Jaramillo had been driving in the wrong direction when he crashed head-on into Mariah Arguello, I would have bet that his BAC [...]
Adam Kokesh is a candidate in the Republican primary for a New Mexico Congressional seat that Republicans virtually never win. Third District GOP candidates rarely make it onto the radar screens of the Big Guns of the national political scene. To be sure, Michelle Malkin is one of those Big Guns, and the day before [...]
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Posted 12 March 2010
† Brigette Russell
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New Mexico § Politics
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Tagged: Adam Kokesh, anti-war, Ben Ray Luján, Bill Redmond, Congress, Iraq, Iraq Veterans Against the War, Marine, Michelle Malkin, New Mexico, patriot, protest, Republican, Third Congressional District, Tom Udall, unpatriotic
The post title is pinched from a chapter title in one of Friedrich Nietzsche’s books. I cannot remember which one, because I had time either to look it up or pinch and upload a picture of philosophy’s bad boy, but not both, so I chose the latter. And yes, that means that I can now [...]
This is the title of my NMI column that ran yesterday. Normally it runs on Tuesdays, but they ran it early. I wanted to leave the Allen Weh interview as the top story on Monday, so I did not link to the column until today. Coincidentally, a commenter on the Weh interview linked to his [...]
The first time I saw Allen Weh was when he addressed a meeting of the Santa Fe County GOP a little over a year ago. Weh was then chairman of the New Mexico Republican Party, and as he spoke, my husband leaned over and whispered, “I’ll bet that guy’s a Marine.” Indeed he is. Not [...]
This, apparently, was the line of reasoning at the Santa Fe New Mexican, whose editorial staff elected not to cover the Tea Party held here in Santa Fe at the State Capitol on Saturday, September 12. This egregious example of biased journalismis the subject of my New Mexico Independent column today.
Just a reminder that Santa Fe’s second Tea Party will take place tomorrow at 1:30 p.m. at the east side of the Capitol building. Speeches begin at 2:00. More information here. It’s going to be a very long day for me, with Fiesta, the Tea Party, followed by choir practice for the girls and mass [...]
My NMI column this week will, I think, become one of my all-time favorites. Here’s the opening. When the news came that Santa Fe’s public schools would get some of the federal stimulus bounty being handed out by a benevolent Democratic Congress and president, few suspected that some of that federal pork would turn rancid. [...]
Ah, the New Mexican. I can always count on them for unbiased journalism. The bold headline on yesterday morning’s top story was ‘A real grudge match’ The match is the mayoral race between incumbent David Coss and recently announced challenger Asenath Kepler. The grudge, the paper obviously means to imply, is Kepler’s, since she had [...]
I don’t often advocate spending taxpayers’ money, but amid all the waste and pork, there are some public works projects that need doing, including an I-25 interchange at Richards Avenue in Santa Fe. My NMI column explains why.
Today, Mon. Aug 17 at 7:00 p.m. Northern New Mexico’s Congressman, Ben Ray Luján, is holding a healthcare town hall at the Unitarian Church at 107 W. Barcelona Rd. It will feature a panel discussion with health care professionals — no doubt cherrypicked by Mr. Luján so that they will all say health care reform [...]
Seriously. I have wasted more time on Facebook the past few days than I can believe. Maybe wasted isn’t the right word, because certainly it’s nice being able to keep up with what your friends and family are doing, but still, I really did blog a lot more before I started spending so much time [...]
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Posted 09 July 2009
† Brigette Russell
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New Mexico § Personal
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Tagged: Blogging, Brothers Karamazov, Dostoyevsky, Ecclesiastes, evil, Facebook, Grand Inquisitor, Madrid, mass psychosis, Michael Jackson, mourning, nothing new under the sun
New Mexico has a huge drunk driving problem. A little over a week ago, four teenagers were killed. A few years ago, five members of the same family. Before that, it was a mother and her three small children. It never seems to stop. I have no idea why New Mexicans do this in numbers [...]
Today my NMI column discusses northern New Mexico’s Congressman, Ben Ray Lujan, was one of a small House minority voting against an amendment to prevent federal money being used to employ illegal aliens. The issue was such a no-brainer that the Democrat-controlled House voted 349-84 in favor of the amendment, with both other New Mexico [...]
Some recent pictures of my (not so) humble parish church now that the exterior scaffolding has come down, revealing a freshly scrubbed facade. The scaffolding is still up inside, where the new paint job is about three quarters done, and the difference between the “before” and “after” parts is really striking.
Last month, a Santa Fe man killed his girlfriend Sarah Lovato, their unborn child, and Lovato’s father. Even though the baby was full term, due any day, and he shot his girlfriend in the belly multiple times, Mariano Leyba, Jr., can’t be charged with the baby’s murder, because the baby wasn’t a human being, you [...]
My NMI column today explores how a Santa Fe elementary school’s reprieve from closure — thanks to Governor Bill Richardson’s spreading around some of the New Mexico taxpayers’ wealth — illustrates a very big problem in American society as a whole.
My New Mexico Independent column today is partly a rehash of this post on the Block scandal, but goes farther in meditating on the differences between our purportedly enlightened system and that of the Roman Republic, where the linkage between money and power was straightforward and uncomplicated.
Father and son mug shots. That’s something you don’t see every day. Forgive the Schadenfreude. Normally I’m such a nice lady, but today I just can’t seem to help myself. The story in the online New Mexican only has the picture of Jerome Block père. Such a pity. The one of Jerome Block fils (today’s [...]
GOPosaur. That’s what those clever devils over at the Daily Kos have taken to calling the GOP. They have a cute little dinosaur graphic all done up in red, white and blue stars and stripes like the GOP elephant. Because the Party is dying, don’t you know. Well, somebody forgot to tell the Santa Fe [...]
This week, my New Mexico Independent column is less controversial than usual. At least I think it is. I’m suppose my adoring fan club over there will manage to find something in there proving that I’m a heartless bigot for wanting to keep the grass on Santa Fe plaza.
Or so the editor of the Santa Fe New Mexican would seem to believe. Today my column in the New Mexico Independent addresses a recent New Mexican editorial mocking Rep. Spencer Bachus (R-Alabama) for purported red-baiting. The latest Democratic talking point is that all good progressives should mock conservatives for their fear of socialism, painting [...]
The tea parties, or “teabagging parties” as sophomoric leftists like to call them with tongue (or whatever) firmly in cheek, have generated quite a bit of hot air over the past few days. It didn’t get much hotter than Janeane Garofalo, comedienne, political pundit and, apparently, eminent neuroscientist, on Countdown: You know, there is nothing [...]
Yesterday I drove down to Albuquerque for the Christian Association of Parent Educators (CAPE) annual convention. Last night some of the other Santa Fe homeschooling moms and I went to dinner, and when the hostess asked, “Do you need any children’s menus?” I can’t tell you the euphoria I felt saying, “No!” Isn’t that awful? [...]
The Santa Fe Tea Party was a resounding success. There were more people than I had dared hope would come, and far fewer protesters. I heard there were a few, but the only one I saw was a grim-faced man who glowered at us as he walked around holding above his head a sign that [...]
This would be hilarious if it wasn’t so damnably sad. The New Mexico state legislature had a devil of a time balancing its budget this year, so what did those geniuses do? Why, they passed a bill creating a new cabinet department! In this case, the Department of Hispanic Affairs, which, as I explain in [...]
My column in the New Mexico Independent this week is the involvement of the Catholic Church in the legislative process. There has been much criticism of Archbishop Sheehan’s vocal opposition to the domestic partners bill that was recently defeated in the New Mexico State Senate. The archbishop wrote a piece in the editorial section of [...]
My two eldest daughters and I took part in our first ever religious procession yesterday. Every year, the clergy, choir and lay ministers of the Cathedral Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi and two other downtown Santa Fe churches, Holy Faith Episcopal and First Presbyterian, process from their churches the few blocks to the Plaza [...]
On April 15, the day our hard-earned money has to be sent to the IRS so Barack Obama and a Democratic Congress can spend it on more corporate bail-outs, mortgage relief for people who bought homes they couldn’t afford, socialized medicine, tax-payer funded abortions and a host of other worthy causes, concerned citizens in Santa [...]
My column in the New Mexico Independent today discusses the relationship between the government-financed building of “affordable housing” and the fiscal belt-tightening that has led the top brass of the Santa Fe Fire Department in its entirety to take early retirement. Our local city government cutting costs in a destructive way with its right hand, [...]
My column at the New Mexico Independent this week concerns the AIG bonus scandal and the ensuing hypocrisy and unconstitutional legislation coming out of Congress. Already the comments decrying my “partisan ranting” have begun. So odd, because I don’t think I ranted in the least. Decide for yourself.
The die is cast. Or should I say, the decision not to make them die is cast? And yet, Hamlet-like, our good Governor Richardson still has his doubts: “I believe it’s the right decision. My conscience feels good, but I am still troubled,” Richardson said, by way of explaining his decision to repeal the death [...]
Apart from being St. Patrick’s Day, today is also Tuesday, which means my weekly column in the New Mexico Independent is out. This week’s topic is the death penalty, which I naturally support, since I’m also one of those heartless Republicans whom liberals believe take no small joy in causing misery in the lives of [...]
As if all the political nonsense I see in the Santa Fe New Mexican wasn’t bad enough, guess what food nonsense I found in there? In honor of St. Patrick’s Day, Santacafe, one of the hip and pricey eateries near the Plaza, is offering the following: Homemade Raviolis filled w/Corned Beef, Cabbage, Ricotta Cheese & [...]
I am live blogging here right now. Debate is over the proposed legislation to repeal the death penalty in New Mexico. You will probably not be surprised at which side I’m taking. Update: The bill passed 24-18, with a lot of debate that didn’t stand a chance of convincing anyone. If the lower house passes [...]
I think — or at least I hope — that I have at last found a truly bipartisan cause we can all agree on. Mary Jane Garcia (D-Doña Ana), Majority Whip of the New Mexico State Senate, on Tuesday introduced a bill to abolish daylight savings time in the Land of Enchantment. This Republican is [...]
Today marks the debut of my column in the New Mexico Independent. My political commentary will be published every Tuesday, a lone conservative voice meant to bring some diversity of opinion to a publication whose other columnists….well, let’s just say it may be no accident that the commentary is on the left column of the [...]
The shock waves of the great Michael Steele vs Rush Limbaugh Whose Party Is It Anyway? Smackdown have reverberated from the East Coast halls of power even unto the furthest reaches of Middle America, my own beloved adopted home state of New Mexico. Brian Colón, chairman of the New Mexico Democratic Party got with the [...]
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Posted 05 March 2009
† Brigette Russell
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New Mexico § Politics
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Tagged: Brian Colón, Christopher Buckley, D. L. Hughley, David Brooks, fat, House Negro, Iowahawk, Micheael Steele, political correctness, Republican Party, Rush Limbaugh
Portia,who is finally sitting up by herself. Tess, who wears a swimsuit all day and wants to be called Stephanie the Mermaid. Cordelia, who is in kindergarten but doing first grade reading and math, and refuses to do half the math work because it’s so easy it insults her intelligence. Elizabeth, who has a beautiful [...]
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Posted 28 February 2009
† Brigette Russell
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New Mexico § Parenthood § Politics § The Culture Wars
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Tagged: abortion, Albuquerque public schools, birth control, cheese sandwich, culture wars, gay marriage, IVF regulation, Nadya Suleman, New York Times, Octomom, Octopussy, octuplets, rednecks, school lunch, Val Kilmer, William Saletin
Since my kids have been sick and I’m busy doing “a stimulus” of loads of laundry, you get one of my held-in-reserve-for-sick-kid-emergencies posts, and hypocrites who don’t pay their taxes but want to raise mine get a brief respite from my rapier wit. So breathe a sigh of relief, Mr. Emmanuel, and enjoy the travelogue, [...]
Not long ago my daughter Cordelia and I went on a homeschool group field trip to the International Museum of Folk Art in Santa Fe. They had just about every kind of figurine imaginable, and the pieces were displayed in really inventive settings. Though high art is more my taste than folk art, I was [...]