The politics of who does what to whom A4 Thursday, June 13, 2013
A great many people deem politics to be vile in the extreme. For them it all boils down to endless batteries of charges and counter charges, boasts and balderdash. And there’s something to be said for that point of view, especially the balderdash bit. But it’s also true that politics is often about who does what to whom, why and when. Certainly that’s the impression one comes away with these days after witnessing the bumping of important heads in and around the administration of Gov. Susana Martinez. Case in point is the erstwhile New Mexico Republican consultant Jamie Estrada who is expected to be arraigned this week for unlawfully hacking into Martinez’s email account. Martinez reacted to news of Estrada’s indictment with a good deal of huffing and puffing about how she’d been saying all along that someone had wrongfully snooped into her emails.
EDITORIAL
OPINION
HAL RHODES
UPON REFLECTION
Estrada, she opined, is “a man of suspect character.” Of course, back when she was simply the district attorney of Doña Ana County, Susana Martinez obviously thought well enough of Mr. Estrada’s character to make him the campaign manager of her 2010 race for governor. Estrada hails from Las Cruces and was reportedly close to the local D.A. He also interned for Pete Domenici at some point in his tenure as a Republican U.S. senator. In any case, Estrada left the Martinez gubernatorial campaign before she was elected in November
of 2010. The Guv says she fired him. Estrada says that’s not true. Which is par for the “charges and counter charges” course. Recently, however, things got a little more curious when the governor’s former 2010 campaign finance director, Andrea Goff, made headlines by letting it be known that the FBI had interviewed her about, among other things, a controversial Albuquerque Downs racino lease Martinez authorized on becoming governor. Goff’s announcement added flesh to a recent news account in the weekly Santa Fe Reporter, which reported that apparently other “former campaign staffers for Republican Gov. Susana Martinez” had also been interrogated by the FBI “about a lucrative racino lease awarded to a politically connected company.” On top of that, the lawyer for another former Martinez campaign staffer, Anisa Ford, has
Roswell Daily Record
acknowledged that his client has also been interviewed about the Downs racino lease. What we have here is a case of the “who” (namely prominent Republicans) doing you-know-what to “whom” (namely other prominent Republicans), leaving dubious onlookers to nurture their suspicions. The governor has characterized her ex-campaign chief’s indictment as vindication of her charges about being snooped on. But there is also the implication here that the FBI only unearthed Estrada’s alleged misconduct in the course of pursuing possible wrongdoing in the Martinez administration’s handling of that questionable racino contract. Predictably, the Federal Bureau of Investigation neither confirms nor denies anything having to do with its investigation(s) into these matters. Meanwhile another set of “whos”
came rushing to the governor’s rescue last week, and an interesting bunch of “whos” it was, indeed. Four of New Mexico’s five-member congressional delegation are Democrats. Yet last week the entire delegation joined to introduce a “Bill to Protect Special-Ed Federal Funding for New Mexico.” Seems after Susan Martinez took office in 2011, someone dropped the ball and New Mexico failed to meet its financial obligations in order to qualify for $34 million federal dollars for Special Education programs. So now New Mexico’s four Democratic members of Congress (Tom Udall, Martin Heinrich, Ben Ray Lujan and Michele Lujan Grisham) and its sole Republican (Steve Pearce) are trying to undo the damage. Thus goes the latest on who’s doing what for and/or to whom in New Mexico politics. © New Mexico News Services 2013
A sorry state of affairs at State
Hillary Clinton left John Kerry a mess at the State Department. And we’re not referring to the still-unanswered questions about Benghazi, but to a CBS News report Monday suggesting that Clinton’s State Department covered up allegations of “illegal and inappropriate behavior” within its ranks. CBS based its report on a memo leaked to its news department, which was authored by the State Department’s Office of Inspector General. The previously secret document includes a number of bombshells for which Kerry, the current secretary of state, and Clinton, who resigned the post Feb. 1, owe the American people explanations. That includes the revelation that a State Department security official in Beirut “engaged in sexual assaults” on foreign nationals hired as embassy guards. Also, the allegation that members of Clinton’s security detail “engaged prostitutes while on official trips to foreign countries,” a practice the OIG memo described as “endemic.” Equally troubling was the revelation by the OIG that an “underground drug ring” was operating near the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, Iraq, and that it actually supplied State Department contractors with drugs. Aurelia Fedenisn, a 26-year veteran of the Diplomatic Security Service, which protects the secretary of state and U.S. ambassadors and which also investigates any cases of State Department misconduct, told CBS News she and other DSS agents uncovered evidence of criminal wrongdoing that “never became cases.” “This is going to kill us,” she recalls a State Department official telling her and other investigators when presented with their findings. The investigators expected some pressure to scrub their findings, Fedenisn said, but “the degree to which that influence existed, and how high up it went, was very disturbing.” Fedenisn’s accusations were echoed by Mike Pohelitz, a retired DSS senior agent involved in one of the cases detailed in the OIG memo. Pohelitz said he was told to stop investigating the case in question. The order was transmitted by his bosses at DSS, he told CBS News. “But it had to come from somebody higher than DS (Diplomatic Security), I’m sure,” he said. Indeed, in one case cited by the OIG memo, a stand-down order was given to DSS agents investigating a U.S. ambassador appointed to a sensitive diplomatic post who “routinely ditched his protective security detail” so that he could steal away to public parks, where he solicited prostitutes. The ambassador eventually was summoned to Washington, D.C., where he met with Patrick Kennedy, undersecretary of state for management. Kennedy allowed the decidedly indiscreet ambassador to return to his foreign post, according to CBS News. Fedenisn, who is now a whistleblower, said she suspects that “hostile intelligence services” were aware of the U.S. ambassador’s illicit liaisons. “So, yes,” she said, it presented “a serious risk to the United States government.” Taken together, the revelations suggest a culture of corruption at the highest-ranking Cabinet department. The issues at State demand nothing less than a full-scale congressional inquiry. Guest Editorial The Orange County Register DEAR DOCTOR K: I recently had some blood tests done, and my doctor told me I have “prediabetes.” What does this mean? Do I have diabetes or not? D E A R R E A D E R : Diabetes doesn’t usually appear all of a sudden. Many people have a long, slow, invisible lead-in to it called prediabetes. During this period, blood sugar levels are higher than normal. However, they’re not high enough to cause symptoms or to be classified as diabetes. It’s still possible at this stage to prevent the slide into full-blown diabetes. Think of prediabetes as a wake-up call. Type 2 diabetes is a chronic disease marked by high levels of sugar in the blood. During digestion, carbohydrates are broken down into simple sugars,
The Sierra Club’s Wild America campaign The Sierra Club is launching a new campaign: Wild America — which calls for new national monument designations. “Green groups to Obama: Designate public lands to stop oil and gas drilling,” is the E2 Wire headline announcing the campaign. The article starts with: “Environmental lobbyists are pressing President Obama to turn more western lands into national monuments to prevent oil-and-gas companies from drilling there. The Sierra Club is leading the charge ...” Apparently the gang green is frustrated with the lack of
Doonesbury
primarily glucose. Glucose is an important source of energy for the body’s cells. But to provide energy to the cells, glucose needs to leave the blood and get inside the cells. Insulin, a hormone produced by the pancreas, signals the cells to extract glucose from the blood. When levels of glucose in the blood rise (for example, after a meal), the pancreas produces more insulin. That drives more glucose into the cells. Type 2 diabetes occurs when your body’s cells do not react efficiently to insulin. As a result, not as much glucose is driven into the cells, and more stays in the blood. As glucose starts to build up in the blood, the pancreas makes extra insulin to maintain a normal blood sugar.
MARITA NOON
ENERGY MAKES AMERICA GREAT INC.
congressional action in locking up lands and is now resorting to pressuring the president to take executive action. Bentley Johnson, legislative representative for the National Wildlife Federation, said his group prefers to work at the local level to build momentum with congressional delegations. But that has proven relatively fruitless in
ASK DR. K UNITED MEDIA SYNDICATE
The cycle escalates. Finally, the pancreas cannot keep up with the demand for more and more insulin. As a result, blood glucose levels remain elevated. Diabetes incr eases the chances of having a heart attack, stroke or other form of cardiovascular disease. It can lead to blindness, kidney disease and loss of feeling in the legs.
recent years. “The standstill on getting lands protected through the legislative route might have pushed the White House to go it alone in recent months.” The Bureau of Land Management is mandated to manage the public lands for “multiple use.” The BLM Terminology & Actions document defines it this way: “‘multiple uses’ include recreation, range/grazing, timber, minerals/oil & gas, watershed, fish & wildlife, wilderness, and natural, scenic, scientific and historical values.” But, the “century-old” Antiquities Act gives President Obama the
Fortunately, you have the opportunity to make changes that could keep you from ever going down that road. I recommend this three-part strategy to help stave off diabetes: — Modest weight loss. — Increased physical activity, such as walking 30 minutes a day. Even if it doesn’t help you to lose weight, the regular physical activity will reduce your risk of getting diabetes. — Choosing a healthy, wellbalanced diet that emphasizes fruit, vegetables, whole grains and lean protein. Not everyone with prediabetes goes on to develop diabetes, but many do. You’ve gotten the warning. Now it’s up to you to respond. If you want to avoid getting diabetes, you can do
authority to designate national monument status. A national monument designation makes the locale off limits to development. President Obama has used this “emergency” designation nine times — six times in the past year. Dan Chu, the director of the Sierra Club’s Wild America campaign, explained: “Recreation, wildlife and scenic values would have much more priority in management planning if it was designated as a national monument.” As a part of the Wild America campaign, Michael Brune,
See NOON, Page A5
more to protect yourself than your doctor can do for you. And the solutions are all “natural” — no medicines or medical procedures are necessary. These lifestyle changes are healthy for everyone, but especially for people like you who are at high risk for getting diabetes. No, it’s not easy to make the changes, but it’s a lot easier than living with the complications of diabetes. (Dr. Komaroff is a physician and professor at Harvard Medical School. To send questions, go to AskDoctorK.com, or write: Ask Doctor K, 10 Shattuck St., Second Floor, Boston, MA 02115.)