Posts Tagged ‘governors’
Bill Richardson tries to salvage border governors’ meeting – UPDATED
Daylife/Reuters Pictures used by permission
New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson says he is trying to rescue a long-scheduled meeting between the governors of U.S. and Mexican border states.
The six Mexican governors scheduled to attend the September Border Governors Conference in Phoenix have canceled their plans in protest of SB 1070, Arizona’s controversial immigration-enforcement law.
“I feel very strongly, and so do the Mexican governors, that we need to have the conference because this is a conference that has been going for 30 years,” Richardson told The Washington Post. “It’s a conference that diffuses a lot of problems.”
The Post reported the Mexican officials said they would meet somewhere other than Phoenix; however, Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer, chair of the conference, responded by canceling the event altogether…
Richardson said SB 1070 had created a “serious breach” in relations along the border and is trying to organize a meeting in Washington or in another Western state.
Brewer, every day, sounds more and more like a Republican who fears for her job. It’s boring watching her slide further and further to the Right while claiming to represent all the people. Not an uncommon problem for someone reasonably incompetent at the breadth of issues requiring leadership at the governorship level in hard economic times.
After all, it was her Fearless Leaders who dropped us into the sub-prime crapper. Now, she’s hoping to rely on the rage of American xenophobia to pull her coals out of the fire.
As much as Republicans would rather croak than admit it, it’s only the undemocracy of term limit laws that keep Richardson from being elected a 3rd time in a row. He’s continued to create jobs, public transit, federal funds in excess of taxes to our state. He could invite the border state governors to New Mexico for the conference and the only question would be – where are we going to eat, tonight, Bill?
UPDATE: Har! I knew it. Governor Bill has taken over hosting the meeting. Though, I bet the AZ guv will not attend.
Mexican states voting under the shadow of drug war
Daylife/Reuters Pictures used by permission
Mexicans will elect mayors and governors in a dozen states on Sunday amid drug gang intimidation and murders of several candidates, which highlight the government’s struggle to curb the escalating drug war.
The Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, is expected to sweep the elections in part because the ruling conservatives of the National Action Party, or PAN, have been criticized for their handling of the economic downturn and raging drug violence. The PRI hopes its gains in Sunday’s election will lay the groundwork for a victory in the 2012 presidential election.
A big win for the PRI will test support for President Felipe Calderon, whose popularity is flagging, and could help launch a presidential bid for Enrique Pena Nieto, the fresh-faced new star of the PRI who has a wide lead in polls…
Opinion polls show support for PAN’s Calderon has slumped in recent months as Mexicans tire of a sputtering economy and a steady surge in killings since the president launched his army-led drug war in late 2006.
More than 26,000 people have been slain since then, mostly traffickers and police but also some bystanders and children. Campaigning for Sunday’s elections has been marred by a spurt in violence, including the murders of two candidates…
Surveys show Mexicans’ top concern is the economy, which is limping back from recession. But the bloodshed and weak courts that brings few criminals to justice are increasingly a worry.
I chat once in a while with a group of acquaintances from Mexico. They all share an apartment here in the county and travel back to their wives and family whenever they can catch an extended holiday weekend – or longer. Yes, they all have Green Cards.
They worry about the economy. They would prefer to have jobs back at home instead of being migrant labor.
They worry about the droggos, the gangsters who would murder their own children for a few dollars more.
And they have nothing but contempt for the police and judges in their home state – as corrupt and cowardly. Nothing has changed.
Republicans screw unemployed rather than take funds
Barbour and Jindal
Daylife/AP Photo by John Watson-Riley
U.S. Republicans governors are split over whether to accept all of the money their states stand to receive from a $787 billion economic stimulus plan which President Barack Obama signed last week.
Three governors of southern states have come out against taking part of the money designated to extend unemployment benefits and perhaps for other programs. A handful of others are considering follow suit…
“There is some (stimulus money) we will not take in Mississippi. If we were to take the unemployment insurance reform package that they have, it would cause us to raise taxes on employment when the money runs out, and the money will run out in a couple of years,” said Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour on CNN’s “State of the Union.”
South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford and Louisiana’s Bobby Jindal, who has often been mentioned as a potential Republican presidential candidate in 2012, have also said they would reject the unemployment funds, which make up a small proportion of the overall package…
Later, speaking to reporters at a National Governors’ Association meeting in Washington, Sanford listed some other monies he did not want, possibly including $42 million for retrofitting state buildings to be more energy efficient.
“We’re looking at other things from a scale standpoint that are frankly irrelevant,” he said.
Now, these are the country club royalists who really own the Republican Party. Nice to see them out in the open for a change.
