All right, Tom Mullins, which version of your loose-lips-sink-ships inanity would you like for the public to bruit about?<\/p>\n
Republican Tom Mullins, who will face U.S. Rep. Ben Ray Lujan in the November general election, was on local radio station KNMX in May. Although he made the following quoted remarks about a month ago, before winning the recent primaries, the full impact of the statements appeared in the press only last week.<\/p>\n
On immigration, Mullins said, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153We could put land mines along the border. I know it sounds crazy. We could put up signs in 23 different languages if necessary. And we could put up some barbed wire and say, \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcIf you want to cross the border, you cross legally.\u00e2\u20ac\u2122\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
Mullins suggested land mines as something \u00e2\u20ac\u0153we could do.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Land mines, generally hidden, have the capability of maiming and killing people. Stepping on such a weapon virtually guarantees the victim loses a leg, as many a disabled veteran has learned from experience.<\/p>\n
Now as for the \u00e2\u20ac\u015323 different languages\u00e2\u20ac\u009d: Do people looking for a better life by fleeing from a violence-torn, drug-driven territory, always stop to read? What about the many children who can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t read?<\/p>\n
That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the solution Mullins says \u00e2\u20ac\u0153we could do.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d But pressed to explain, the winner of the recent Republican primary laid his faux pas on the altar of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Well, that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s what I heard.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
His excuse for the unbelievably insensitive \u00e2\u20ac\u0153solution\u00e2\u20ac\u009d was that it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s merely someone else\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s suggestion, something he heard while out campaigning. Well, how many ways can we parse that? We ought not pass off others\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 suggestions \u00e2\u20ac\u201d however repulsive \u00e2\u20ac\u201d as our own.<\/p>\n
In the interview, Mullins tempered his suggestion by inserting \u00e2\u20ac\u0153It sounds crazy, but …\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
Crazy? The really crazy thing is that people still voted for Mullins rather than giving him the boot as a solid voter statement that he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s undeserving of the office he seeks.<\/p>\n
Interestingly, in an op-ed piece in Sunday\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Journal, Mullins omitted any reference to land mines.<\/p>\n
This criticism of Mullins\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 remarks ought not necessarily be taken an an endorsement of his opponent in the general election.<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2 \u00e2\u20ac\u00a2 \u00e2\u20ac\u00a2<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153The trouble with the Internet is the difficulty in verifying the author of certain quotations.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d \u00e2\u20ac\u201d Ben Franklin<\/p>\n
The same holds for the myriad inaccuracies, omissions and plagiarisms that appear on the net.<\/p>\n
One source estimates that 10 out of seven people have trouble with math. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m guilty by the way I invent mathematical terms.<\/p>\n
Let me explain:<\/p>\n
In my June 9 column, I wrote about people who secured \u00c2\u00a0$90,000 state government jobs after chipping in $2,300, the maximum allowable, toward Gov. Bill Richardson\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s presidential campaign.<\/p>\n
The column also alluded to a $20,000 raise given by the West Las Vegas School Board, and I used the term \u00e2\u20ac\u0153double five digits.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d The morning those words appeared, two people, Jose C de Baca and John Burns, approached me to ask, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153What\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s double five digits\u00e2\u20ac\u009d?<\/p>\n
My attempt to explain sounded hollow, in retrospect. I said that if a $10,000 represents a five-digit raise, shouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t double five digits mean $20,000?<\/p>\n
Double five digits could also mean 10 digits, but that would put the amount at one billion. That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not what I meant either.<\/p>\n
Jose told me my personal math score had slipped to 99. He\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s way too generous. I would have accepted anything in the double digits, even 01.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
All right, Tom Mullins, which version of your loose-lips-sink-ships inanity would you like for the public to bruit about? Republican Tom Mullins, who will face U.S. Rep. Ben Ray Lujan in the November general election, was on local radio station KNMX in May. Although he made the following quoted remarks about a month ago, before […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/613"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=613"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/613\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":614,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/613\/revisions\/614"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=613"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=613"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=613"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}