One Woman's Viewpoint

If one were to take their news solely from the presidential candidates, it could be believed that the U.S. economy is on the brink of collapse. New home buyers will require a $25,000 down payment from the government. Restaurant waitstaff must be freed from the burden of taxes on their tips. American workers and companies must be protected by tariffs on foreign goods. And so on and so on.

The reality is rather startling. The American economy, as it has been for the last 30 years, is a global marvel. According to the International Monetary Fund, in 1990, the United States made up approximately 2/5 of the gross domestic product of the world's wealthiest nations, the group known as the G7 nations. Today, more than half of the G7 GDP is American.

Following local news over the long weekend was much like any other. "Shooting." "Shooting." "Officer-involved shooting." Living in the East Mountains – the semirural communities dotting the Sandia and Manzano Mountains east of Albuquerque – many of us think we can access the amenities of the state's largest city without suffering from its ills: the traffic, the homelessness and the violence.

But we can't escape big city problems here in the mountains. On Oct. 13, deputies from the Bernalillo County Sheriff's Department responded to a call reporting gunshots in Tijeras to find three members of a family dead along with the family dog and a young man covered in blood explaining he was trying to bury them.

Reconnecting is up to us.

Early voting for the 2024 election began in New Mexico this week. No matter who becomes our next President, more than 40% of the country will have voted for someone else. Put another way, no matter whom you vote for, nearly half the country is voting for the other candidate.

Here's the tough part about three successive cycles of close national elections: the issues remain the same and the arguments become more and more personal. Attacks against the candidates and grossly negative campaigns are a given. What is genuinely detrimental to our national character is that these smear campaigns aren't just targeting candidates anymore. We're going after their supporters, too.

I am writing this column from another state where I am currently undergoing a course of medical treatment. When this medical issue arose earlier this summer, I was told flat out by my Albuquerque primary care provider that getting a consult to this particular specialty in New Mexico’s largest city would take a year. So here I am in Minnesota.

We have all felt the pinch as health care providers have left our state. Think New Mexico, the state’s leading non-partisan think tank, just released a new report on the issue. According to the report, more than one in three New Mexico counties no longer have hospital-based maternity care, meaning expectant mothers must take to the open highways to deliver their babies safely in a hospital.

The Israeli pager attack was many things. Terrorism wasn’t one.

Boy, did Israel really put their foot in it with their latest offensive against Hezbollah. Specifically targeting only Hezbollah militants via their pagers and radios to minimize collateral damage – what could the IDF have been thinking?

That seems to be exactly the tone that various international bodies are taking in response to the technologically astonishing synchronized pager and radio attacks against Hezbollah members in Lebanon Sep. 19 and 20. Israel has not openly acknowledged responsibility for the attack, where Hezbollah members’ personal tech devices exploded at a simultaneous signal on two consecutive days, but a U.S. official has confirmed that Israel notified the U.S. about its responsibility for the operation.

I find myself selecting the "Snooze for 30 days" option on social media more and more for my more strident connections as we get closer to the election and the anger from each side gets a little crazier. Democrats and Republicans alike are obsessed with cat-eating memes. J.D. Vance admits to "creating the story."

No thank you.

Early voting in New Mexico starts Oct. 7. It's time to simply make good decisions for your family, community and country. I don't think in this complicated age this means a straight party ticket in New Mexico.

71 years ago, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were executed for espionage. The married couple, members of the U.S. Communist Party, had been convicted of passing American defense secrets, including information about the U.S. atomic weapons program, rocket programs, and radar, to the Soviet Union.

Last week, a Nashville-based PR firm, Tenet Media, was clearly the money-laundering stooge in a Justice Department indictment against two Russian nationals alleged to have funneled nearly $10 million dollars through Tenet to promote Kremlin-sponsored propaganda through prominent American right-wing influencers.

On Aug. 29, the U.S. Army took an unprecedented step in issuing a statement in support of one of its civilian employees. The statement was unprecedented in that in supporting its employee, who works at Arlington National Cemetery (ANC), the Army rebuked a presidential campaign and a former president.

Because of the high drama surrounding All Things Trump, sides have been taken. As is so often the case, there is much more to the story, than a simple, "Trump bad, Army good," or the other side of the coin, "Trump was abused, media is biased."