One Woman's Viewpoint
Merritt Hamilton Allen, whose work is published previously in the Edgewood Independent, will also provide her columns to the Grant County Beat.
There might be a choice, after all
- Category: One Woman's Viewpoint One Woman's Viewpoint
- Published: 12 July 2024 12 July 2024
I have been watching the White House's damage control effort after President Biden's catastrophic debate performance two weeks ago. The White House staff and the Biden campaign are doing what they must as good political operatives – insisting that President Biden is all in for the upcoming Democratic Convention and November election – but the response from the candidate himself is not robust enough to eliminate concerns about his fitness for office.
On July 5th, President Biden gave an exclusive interview to ABC's George Stephanopoulos intended to reverse the damage done at the June 27 debate. The reviews were not complimentary, except for The Washington Post, who raved over Stephanopoulos' sensitive interview technique, but in the main ignored the candidate's performance.
In defense of Independence Day
- Category: One Woman's Viewpoint One Woman's Viewpoint
- Published: 05 July 2024 05 July 2024
Now that parade days are behind me, Independence Day is one of my favorite holidays. Growing up in Silver City, the morning of the Fourth was always consumed with The Parade. My mother was in Full Broadcast Mode, doing her regular 7:15 a.m. radio show, and then heading downtown to announce the parade. It seemed someone in the family was always in the parade, and once I was in junior high, it was always I.
Parades are much more fun to watch than be in unless you can be a politician in a fun car with the A/C on. Parades are hot. Fourth of July parades are the hardest on the marching band and those immediately behind the horses. By the time the thing is over, sunburn and heat exhaustion are real things, and everyone needs a shower and a nap.
After everyone was rested and refreshed in my family, there were a few sacrosanct traditions: a cookout, Eskimo Pies, fireworks, and watching the musical 1776. I still know the entire score by heart.
I am three decades into largely parade-less July Fourths with few regrets. And the same traditions largely hold, especially monsoon season beginning the afternoon of the Fourth.
As I have had the privilege of reading a little history over the years, I like thinking about what Independence Day started worldwide. It terrified Europe. Poland established a constitution in 1791 (I don't think it lasted very long, thanks to the Prussians and the Russians). France established its republic, very messily, in 1792. Everyone else's Independence Day in the Western Hemisphere is an idea they stole from us, and Canada didn't even get there until 1982.
I realize this makes me sound like an obnoxiously proud American. That's just fine.
Our country's founding had several things going for it: a mother country across an ocean; internal political factions who didn't want a civil war or possess a guillotine; native residents already largely subdued by the original colonizers. Essentially, the first residents of the United States had a sparsely populated territory to themselves an ocean away from the great powers of Europe. It was a perfect setting to build a nation during the Enlightenment.
It stands to the ideas of the era and the minds of the people who wrote our founding documents that those documents still work 248 years later.
Last summer I got to see 1776 live. I missed the part where the production was described as an all-female cast. I still knew all the words, and Benjamin Franklin was still wry and chuckling while played by a Black woman and John Adams still a pain in everyone's backside. Somehow, it worked.
Like the Declaration of Independence, The Constitution and the Bill of Rights, the drama and human story of 1776 works no matter the cast. Some ideas simply work no matter the context.
(Not everything is as timeless as the Declaration of Independence. Eskimo Pies were renamed in 2021, as "Eskimo" is considered offensive to the Inuit, Yupik and Aleut peoples.)
Merritt Hamilton Allen is a PR executive and former Navy officer. She appeared regularly as a panelist on NM PBS and is a frequent guest on News Radio KKOB. A Republican, she lives amicably with her Democratic husband north of I-40 where they run one head of dog, and two of cat. She can be reached at news.ind.merritt@gmail.com.
A new voting bloc for 2024: the double haters
- Category: One Woman's Viewpoint One Woman's Viewpoint
- Published: 28 June 2024 28 June 2024
A Washington Post election feature this week identified the emergence of a new group of voters that may decide the 2024 election. More prevalent in swing states, their common thread is this: they are skeptical/patently disappointed/furious that out of more than 300 million people, the best two people we have to stand for the office of President are Joe Biden and Donald Trump.
These are the "double haters" and I have found my tribe.
Another non-event high-profile felony conviction
- Category: One Woman's Viewpoint One Woman's Viewpoint
- Published: 13 June 2024 13 June 2024
The President's son, Hunter Biden, was convicted this week on three federal charges stemming from a 2018 handgun purchase where he was found to have lied on his application to purchase the firearm.
Pretty much what we learned from the trial and speedy verdict is that Hunter Biden is a mess. There was very little meat to the trial, to the point that MAGA-world is responding with "YAWN," and fellow-newly-convicted-felon Donald Trump is calling the trial a "distraction" from the "real crimes" of the family.
The most inconsequential of felony convictions
- Category: One Woman's Viewpoint One Woman's Viewpoint
- Published: 06 June 2024 06 June 2024
Fifty years ago, President Richard Nixon, facing three articles of impeachment over the Watergate break-in and wiretapping scandal, resigned from office. Pardoned just a month later, Nixon would spend the rest of his years in quiet retirement, always tainted by Watergate.
Thirty years ago, a special counsel was appointed to review President Bill Clinton’s involvement in the failed Whitewater real estate project; scandals for Clinton snowballed from there, as Paula Jones and Monica Lewinsky came into the public eye for their alleged affairs with the President. Clinton remained defiant and successfully withstood a Senate impeachment trial. He went on to set up a multi-billion-dollar charitable foundation, and former First Lady Hillary Clinton went on to become a U.S. Senator, Secretary of State, and the 2016 Democratic presidential nominee.
Primary season isn't over, but general election issues are taking shape
- Category: One Woman's Viewpoint One Woman's Viewpoint
- Published: 30 May 2024 30 May 2024
A natural outcome of certain states moving their presidential primaries earlier in the year is that for those states with later primaries, primary election turnout is often dismal. That will likely be the case in New Mexico in 2024 where both presidential frontrunners have locked in their delegate count and there are few contested primary races down ballot.
Those few contested primaries are predictably nasty, with state political powers taking their shots where they can. State party organizations aren't supposed to endorse one candidate over another, but you can always tell who the state establishment is backing.
The Students Have a Point
- Category: One Woman's Viewpoint One Woman's Viewpoint
- Published: 23 May 2024 23 May 2024
It is easy to make fun of the student protesters who have vociferously made their voices heard in support of the Palestinian people, pretty much across the whole country. Even here in Albuquerque at the University of New Mexico. The front page of the May 16 Albuquerque Journal, perhaps inadvertently, did just this with its banner headline, "Duck Pond Encampment torn down." That a ragtag encampment at a duck pond needed to be torn down by law enforcement officers to make sure that, well what? Keep the ducks safe? There seems to be fun to make all around.
Marjorie Taylor Greene jumps the shark
- Category: One Woman's Viewpoint One Woman's Viewpoint
- Published: 16 May 2024 16 May 2024
May 8 could have been another low point for U.S. House Republicans. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), after weeks of threats, finally pulled the pin on the grenade she'd been carrying around since March and officially filed her motion for Speaker Mike Johnson to vacate his leadership position, forcing a vote on the measure.
Greene was booed on the House floor. By her own party. 196 of 217 Republicans voted to table her motion, along with 163 Democrats. Most of the Freedom Caucus did not back her. Matt Gaetz didn't support her. Neither did Jim Jordan. Frenemy and fellow Congressional howler monkey Lauren Boebert voted to table the motion.