New Mexico in Focus; 203; Juvenile Parole and Probation

You The They advocate for children and provide family-focused care. The Children of Youth and Families Department of New Mexico works with more than 200 juvenile probation parole officers

trying to keep New Mexico's youth out of trouble. Today on New Mexico Focus, I sit down with several of these officers. Then the lying panelists feast on the never-ending banquet that is the presidential campaign. We speculate on how New Mexico will spend its $400 million windfall. That's just a peek at what's coming up next right now on New Mexico Focus. Juvenile probation officers and parole officers don't only step in after a young person has gotten into trouble. They work closely with at-risk youth to help them from getting into trouble in the first place. David, you had a wide-ranging discussion with these folks, I'm sure. What can we expect to see? Well, you know, one expectation is that we're dealing with a tough population. We learned that the majority of 60 percent have been in trouble, and that the majority of them have been in trouble. Well, you know, one expectation is that we're dealing with a tough population. We learned that the majority of 60 percent have been affiliated with gangs. At some time or another, issues of poverty, issues of family breakdown. But at the end of the day, this is really a story about trying to seek out alternatives to kids being behind bars.

It's an interesting discussion. Speaking of interesting discussions, the line this week gets John McCain. Yes, it is. The strike talk expressed was in town this week, of course. We're going to cover that fully. A lot of stuff came up during that time. In that time meeting, and I was there, along with some other folks in Scott Donnell, was there too. We're going to take on the New Yorker cover, the Jesse Jackson comment. The heroin threat here in Albuquerque that's been reported, of course. McCain mentioned as part of his border security plan, the issue of drugs coming over the border, which affects us highly, of course. And then the Mexico is windfall. Where should we spend this? $400 million windfall? After this plenty of ideas. Oh, yeah. But first, like we said, we focus our camera lens this week on juvenile probation parole officers. And what they're doing here in New Mexico and why they do it. The Children, Youth and Families Department or CYFD partners with communities to help families in New Mexico to be self-sufficient. This week, an observance of national probation and parole officers week. CYFD is honoring the more than 200 juvenile probation and parole officers called JPPOs, a lot of acronyms here, who are dedicated to proving the lives of New Mexico youth.

We have some of those individuals with us today, beginning with Jeannie Masterson, chief juvenile probation parole officer for Bernalio County, Roberta Murrow, a supervisor of the JPPO at the Girls Unit in Bernalio County. Ted Lovato is the Deputy Director of Field Services for CYFD. And Debra Martinez is the Public Relations Manager with CYFD. Thanks. So each of you for joining us today. First question, Jeannie, to you. Is can you explain exactly when we just, I just mentioned the titles. But for those people who aren't aware exactly what that means. What exactly do you do and why do you do it? Well, as you mentioned, I'm the chief of juvenile probation here in Albuquerque. We are the largest district in the state. We handle all the clients in Bernalio County that are referred to us through police reports and other agencies. We have approximately 43 probation officers, 13 community support officers, and eight supervisors at this time. And I manage that office and try to keep everybody up to date on the newest initiatives and the newest directions that we're trying to head.

Okay, that's good. That's good. Roberta, what about you? I guess we'll give back to them. Why do you do it in a second? What exactly do you do? What I do is I'm one of the eight supervisors under Jeannie. And what I specifically do is I run a Girls Unit. We only have girls in our office or in our unit. And recently, we've been allowed and separated from the boys as well. So we have approximately 160 girls that we supervise. And we monitor them as a team. I have eight probation officers and two community support officers and an administrative assistant that we work with in order to work with the girls on probation, in detention, and receiving new referrals. Ted, same question. What exactly do you do? Well, I'm the deputy director for probation and parole services for juvenile statewide. I oversee the state office and district offices in which we occupy throughout the state. We have 29 filled offices throughout New Mexico and the 33 counties.

And primarily, much of my work is developing policy procedure and developing best practices and intervention strategies for our field offices statewide as a practical matter, as well as the development of equal access to services and programming as a representative within the Department of Children's and Families. And Deborah, I think your title may be a little bit more self-explanatory, but can you describe again what is what does you do with COFT? Well, I promote the great work that these folks do. And I was just thinking collectively they probably have 50 years experience in the field dealing with juveniles. And so, you know, we have three divisions and I help promote the best interests of all three. And I just love promoting internally and externally. So we really know that it's important for employees to feel like they're valued and like the work they do is. And so we make a point of trying to do that. It's important work, no doubt about it.

And I imagine, you know, somewhat a time's controversial work. But, you know, taking one step back, we mentioned the words parole and probation genie. I was hoping you could, for those people who aren't exactly sure and maybe think they mean the same thing. Can you describe what the difference is between parole and probation? Kids that are on probation are serving some sort of supervision outside of a facility. They're in the community. We're hoping to redirect some of those behaviors, apply some services, provide services, and make some changes, and positive changes for youth to avoid incarceration or long-term type of commitment. Parole is for the kids that have been committed and have been incarcerated to a facility. When they come out of the facility, they're on a term of parole, a period of supervision, to be reintegrated back into the community. Okay. And you mentioned kind of alternatives that sounded like to incarceration. I mean, do you see the work you do very much in those terms? What you're trying to do is to keep kids who either serve some time and hour out

or the judge made the decision, no, you don't serve time, but you have to be monitored. Is that how you see your role to get kids out of that behind bars scenario? Absolutely. There's a misconception out there that we are law enforcement and we are there to catch juveniles or young people doing something wrong and we're there to enforce the law. And that's not at all what we do. In reality, what we're doing in the philosophy of what our office is trying to accomplish is providing some services and some outlets for these kids. We have to hold them accountable for the things that they're doing that brought them into our attention in the first place. Something, you know, a police report, as I mentioned earlier, has been generated for some sort of negative behavior. But we address those behaviors, but more importantly, add services and programming and anything we can to keep that child from penetrating the system even further. So our goal is not to catch kids doing something wrong and keep them in our system. It's really to make them successful and keep them from coming back into our system

or being in our system even longer. Now, Roberta, you deal, as you mentioned a second ago with girls, supervise the girls unit and district two. That is, I guess, mostly, or entirely Bernalio County. Can you talk about the services you offer? I mean, one thing that strikes me that Jean just says, you're not about, I don't know, busting people. Isn't that one of the things parole officers, to be frank, do, when they test positive on drug tests, something like that? Is that not exactly, am I wrong about that? I mean, they do test positive. We do have to discuss that with them and their family. But it's not busting them. It's part of the court order for the drug testing. It's part of providing services. Sometimes possibly using drugs is a reason why their behavior and their negativity brought them to us in the first place. And so our job is to provide not just services, but resources. There is a lot of resources out in New Mexico that a lot of people just don't even know about because they don't have access or they don't have knowledge.

And so our job as probation officers is truly to be that person, to give them that information, to give them the tools that they need, and even possibly give them not only the tools, but the way to use those tools in the community, so that they can be and build on themselves to become that young adult or soon to be adult person who's then going to be possibly in our place at some point in time. And so you mentioned a second ago that with the girls unit, there's services and resources. I actually saw a list earlier. Can you talk about exactly what, you know, what's different about that girls unit, say, from the way Sioux-AfD handles other juvenile. Well, I'd like to think that possibly what I think about my unit that's unique is that we work as a team. Each child that comes into our unit is not individually assigned... Well, they're individually assigned to one person as a primary because of the computer and paperwork and stuff,

but we are all the probation officer. So all ten of us, when they walk through that door, say, I'm assigned to Billy Joe or Suzie. If Suzie comes in and I'm not available, she can meet with any of my other officers. And most of us will be able to access services, access information, and do whatever she needs without me having to be there. Why the need for a gender specific, a girl specific unit? Well, over the years, it's always been the same. And it's a system, the criminal system, the court system was developed by men, for men. And women are just becoming more and more part of the system. And we need to be able to look at the fact that there is a gender difference, but there is also a need difference. There's probably 60 to 75% of girls that have some trauma in their lives. And a lot of times that trauma is related to what's going on,

which turns into negative behavior. So we have to put resources in place for them. Go ahead, go ahead. Roberta is saying, for instance, if you had a girl in a counseling circle with mostly boys, she's not as likely to disclose what's happened to her to share about what's important to her and her goals and ideas. As she is, if she's in an environment where there are other girls and male officers sort of as a support system there, you know, the dynamic between girls and boys, especially during adolescence is not the most harmonious usually. So that's one of the examples. There's one thing that I did see in the handout that CYFD gave one of our producers in terms of ticking off the services that the girls unit offers at the end. It talked about the fact that CYFD does not collect hard data on the program, that it appears that there has been a downward trend with recidivism.

That's what the CYFD sheet said. My question is, why don't you? Well, it's a new program. You haven't started collecting data on it or have you? That's a good data person. What I can tell you is right now we're in the process of bringing in some national presenters as well as expertise to meet with our office in Albuquerque. As a matter of fact, we're meeting next week to have further discussion. And identifying what is working in Albuquerque. Why is it effective? And how can we replicate that in other field offices? We have an opportunity now that with Roberta's unit and the work they're doing with the young ladies in Albuquerque, that it's having a positive effect. Not always developing the young ladies as they should, but also these young ladies are getting less involved in the delinquency part of our system. So we want to be able to capture that, identify that,

and start to replicate that throughout the state in the business that we're doing because it's good work. And yes, now it's time to do it. So we're in the process of that. You know, elaborating on that, Ted, can you talk about kind of the demographic population or I mean, my guess is that it's mostly boys. My guess is that it's mostly poor. My guess is that it's mostly minority. Am I wrong about any of that? Well, the vast majority of that, that is correct, approximately 60% of our delinquency referrals are received statewide, our youth of color, of which about a third are young ladies, which that number has increased significantly over the last 10 years. It's just about doubled in female referrals. We're reviewing as to the reasoning behind that. It's varied throughout each community. As you know, New Mexico is a much varied state, and demographics and financial supports within communities are much different. But yes, that's the case.

And just to add a curiosity, I mean, you all work in this field. Have been there, I think, for many years, Debra mentioned, I think I saw the bios earlier. Why is that the case? I mean, it seems like it's always the case that poor minority folks are caught up in our law enforcement system at this end, or in the incarceration. Jeannie, do you have a sense? I mean, what's your informed opinion? Why that is? I don't know that there's an answer for why that is. I know that we're trying to reduce the disproportionate minority representation by, first and foremost, just educating staff on the fact that it does exist, putting the numbers out there, doing research to figure out who is being detained. It starts with law enforcement. You know, we don't go out and find kids. They come to us through the law enforcement and through citations and police reports and things like that. You know, once they are in our system and they're detained or not detained, once they're involved in our case loads, you know, there's various things that we can do to help minimize that. And, you know, we're taking steps to do that.

We are a highly bilingual state. We have a lot of bilingual kids on, and not even bilingual kids. We have a lot of Spanish-speaking families. Unfortunately, we don't have a lot of bilingual, not as many bilingual officers as I would like, but we are taking steps to improve that. We have a new probation agreement that was entirely written in English and has been for years. We've just changed that probation agreement. In July 1 of this year, we ruled out the new probation agreement and it is not only now available in Spanish, but it is also the level, the comprehension level, has been reduced. We realized after however many years quite some time and way too long that we're expecting kids and families to abide by a probation agreement that they don't even understand. And it may be the reading level is too high. It may be that the language that it's written in is not something that that family speaks. So we're taking measures to reduce that, but, you know, I don't know that we have the answer as to why it is the way it is.

You were nodding your head. It's just a lot of times what you have to do is be able to relate. And I think one of the things that makes, in my opinion, that makes my unit different is the fact that we are building relationships with our young women. And if we can build that relationship and gain some trust to be able to help them find their way into the community, develop resources in the community, develop that next relationship, that will make the difference. And so beginning by being able to not make them feel like the reason they're there is because we're more educated than them that this is a system out to get them is the first step. And so if we are speaking to them not necessarily on their level, but at their comfort zone, it's going to make all the difference in the world. It's a very difficult thing to get a child who has been through the system to trust a probation officer.

One thing Ted that I saw looking at the CYFD website that caught my eye was that 60% of youth under CYFD supervision are involved in gangs. And I'm curious, what are the specific problems related to gang activity that then you all have to deal with? Well, I think that gang activity, there's a lot of reasons why young people are involved in anti-social groups, gangs. And one of those strong indicators is the lack of ties to community, the lack of ties to families. And it's their second family. That's one of the primary reasons for those relationships with negative peers. It's an obvious tie to a young person wanting to have acceptance into a group, wanting to have acceptance into a family setting which this creates in regards to the behaviors that are being exhibited by the group. So it's one of those things that we try to tackle and as Roberta talked about is the relationships that we build as probation officers throughout the state.

I think what's unique about New Mexico is we are doing a lot of different things that a lot of the places aren't. One is the development of this girls' unit program. And we also have taken measures to do things on the front end that have really helped us change who we are. One is we're not punitive. We are, at many times, a big brother, a big sister. We're the heavy if we need to be. But we also have put into our field offices the development of behavioral health specialists. So we have clinical folks on staff also to address behavioral health needs of kids, young people that we work with, so that when they come in our door, we're able to assess them holistically, not only the child but the family and develop some strong interventions for diversion. Deborah, our time is running low, but one question I want to ask maybe not the usual question that you get on your time earlier about kind of promoting the work that these folks do. But what's an area where these folks could be improving, where the department could be improving. Certainly, there must be areas where this work could be done better, right?

Well, I think that there are a lot of untold stories about the heroic work they do, and that is where I come in. But I think that we can always improve any... Can you give me a few specific ways that... Well, as we're talking about reaching out more, developing these personal relationships with our clients, as we call them, and families, and letting them know that we're here to help. We're not here to punish. We want to make a family hold. That's the goal of the Children, Youth and Families Department, is to keep families together and strengthen them, as you said at the beginning of the show. So we can continue to do that. We do it on a daily basis. And I think that these folks are just a marvelous example. That's why I wanted to bring them to your audience to show folks that, you know, they're very hardworking people every day in the Mexico, really trying to help our families get better and become productive citizens. One thing that people don't always remember or relate to with our department is that when kids get in trouble, no matter what they do, they will be out of detention

or out of our custody by the age of 21. And we have to prepare them to go back into their communities, because that is what most of them do. So we really want to keep improving our measures and our ways of making these kids hold, as Ted said, holistically approaching everything. Jeannie, one statistic I saw again, our time is running low, is that the state-inmate population in this state has dropped. From last year to this year, about 6,500, last year to 6,300 this year. I got to believe everyone agrees that's a positive trend. Do you think there are ways to further reduce it and expand, you know, these non-incarcerational alternatives to punishment in New Mexico? Absolutely. I think that I could talk for probably a whole lot more time than what you have and the things that we are doing to try and reduce that and the things that have been proven to be effective. We're diverting almost half of the referrals that come to us into diversion type programs, educational programs, therapeutic programs, whatever the child's needs are.

Those are what we're looking at. As opposed to looking at the offense that brought the child into our system, we're looking at the behaviors and the surrounding issues that may have contributed to that offense, but more importantly, what can we do to prevent it further? And if we do a little bit more work, work a little bit harder on the front end, we're going to decrease the amount of work we have to do on the other side. And then, as a result, I think, decrease the amount of kids that go into the formal system and actually end up incarcerated. The amount of programs in Bernalio County is, we're fortunate. We have so many community providers out there. We have a huge array of services that we can access. And then, as Ted mentioned, the behavioral health clinicians that we have do a tremendous job of assessing these kids and really digging deep into finding out what those issues are and how we can build on the strengths of the kids and the families to address those issues and not just keep hammering at maybe one offense that brought them into our system. Are 200 juvenile probation parole officers enough to do this work?

Should there be some more? You know, I'm never going to turn away staff, but I think that the staff that we have, I think they're doing a really good job. I really do. I think our caseloads have been, they have decreased in size, making it much more manageable. We've been able, because of the diversion programs, we've been able to reallocate staff into different areas, creating the girls unit, which was a huge thing. Not only did it create a gender responsive unit for the girls, but that also took away clients from the male population, you know, the caseloads that are now male population. So everyone's caseloads have gone down, enabling everyone, not just the girls unit, but the boys alike, to establish relationships and work more closely with individual needs and not treat everyone with a one-size-fits-all model and not focus on the probation agreement necessarily, but the needs of the individual clients. Well, Matt, no, we're going to have to end this conversation. I'm sure we could have gone on longer and longer, and hopefully maybe we can have you guys back. Now it's time to turn things over to the line. But before we do that, we want to take you to the Hotel Albuquerque,

the Center of John McCain's Straight Talk Express, wrote into town last week. Jean Grant was there to talk to some of the folks about their opinions on the Center's visit. I'm happy to stand here and introduce to you the many brothers in the United States. My friends in Mexico will be a battleground state. I understand the issues, I understand the challenges, but I also think it's important that we have the town hall meetings, because that way we can hear from each other. And I learn, and I learn more from a town hall meeting than anything else. All the briefing papers, all of the experts that I have, and wonderful people who advise me. I learn most when I hear you about your hopes and dreams and aspirations, and frankly, the challenges and the difficulties in America is facing today. So no violence to part and soon, not in triple broad, that will include a fact-finding mission to Iraq and Afghanistan. And I know that he's speaking today about his plans for Iraq and Afghanistan

before he's even left, before he's talked to General Petraeus, before he has seen the progress in Iraq, and before he has set foot in Afghanistan for the first time. In my experience, and I've traveled a lot around the world usually, it never extends. In my experience, fact-finding missions usually work best the other way around. First, to assess the facts on the ground, then you present a new strategy. Senator Obama will tell you we can't win in Afghanistan without losing an Iraq. In fact, he has it exactly backwards. It is precisely the success of the Surgeon Iraq that shows us the way to succeed in Afghanistan. I know how to win wars. If I'm elected president, I'll turn around the war in Afghanistan, just as we have turned around the war in Iraq with a comprehensive strategy for victory. I know how to do that.

He is very down to earth. He's very matter-of-fact, and he will tell you if he's opposed to something he will tell you why, but you have a chance to explain to him the other side of that. So he will listen. I thought he was tremendous. He was inspiring, and he energized the group here, and I think if we can get this word out, get him out in front of people, he's going to do just tremendously well. He's quick on his feet. He's a droid in answering questions. He's comfortable with people. You can just tell the ten joys in Iraq to the folks. My name is Jacob Shorter, a glass of kids' news report, and I have two questions for you. Thank you. When do you plan to endow the selection of your vice-presidential right now? Could I answer the first one? Sure. Answer the first one. As soon as we can,

it is a process that is somewhat difficult because we have so many highly qualified individuals who we have to consider. But there is a timeline here that must be met, but we hope to meet that well before. Could you ask your second question? Thank you. What qualities are you looking for in your vice-presidential right now? Thank you. Someone exactly like you. We have a couple of national assets in the state, the national last. You touched on that a little bit before, but could you expand on what your vision for the future of our national assets? I think our national labs have performed incredible service, and we know the history going all the way back to the earliest days, which is well chronicled. And so,

I believe that repeal research and development and new technologies is probably as important now as it's ever been because of our dependence on foreign oil. Well, I think our national labs and funding for pure research and development can help us with wind, tide, solar, nuclear. All of the things that pure research and development can be invested in and then handed off to the free enterprise system and they run with it. That's what the job of government is, particularly in these hard times. I thought it was right to the point. I mean, it was what I was hoping to hear, because as I said in my question, the national labs are here in New Mexico or a national asset. They're just critical, not just to New Mexico, but it's something that has been built up over the years, if they get dismantled and the critical mass that has been built up in the intellectual capital at the labs, it'll never be rebuilt again, and they could be such an asset to solve our energy problems,

to solve so many problems, to do the fundamental research that this country needs to do, to stay competitive, to unmute all the Democrats and Congress that have devastated the economy of New Mexico. Housing prices have plummeted 10, 15% within a 60-day period. That's the worst nation-wide, but nobody knows it. Nobody knows it. People are very concerned about losing their jobs at the lab. And Jean is really sad, because Los Alamos brought the end to the Cold War, and there are hundreds of millions of people across the globe that are free now, because of Los Alamos. And for the Democrats, to cut the funding of Los Alamos, is really a slapping face to all people who are Northern New Mexico, who are more than 50 years, and they've kept this world safe. I'm curious how you feel he'll do with the independence out there, some Democrats who are on the fence, thinking about it as opposed to an event like this, or as mainly Republicans. How do you think he'll do with those? Well, I think he's got to aggressively go after those independence, because there are a lot of undecideds out there right now. And that's got to be part of this strategy.

We have, as you know, independence make up a large segment of the electorate here in New Mexico, and particularly here in Burleo County. Over 60,000 of our 300 and some thousand, 350,000 registered voters are independence. That is to say, there are neither Republicans or Democrats. And these folks, I think I have McCain's message as a tremendous appeal to them, as well as a lot of Democrats who see him as a very seasoned leader, someone who can get things done in Washington. Welcome to the line. As usual, we are not going to be at a loss for things to talk about tonight. But first, let's get started by introducing you to our panelists for this week,

starting with, our regulars Scott Donnell, communications director for the state Republican Party, Margot Montoya, UNM professor with appointments at both the schools of law and medicine, Jim Scarantino, columnist with the Weekly Alibi, and blogger for New Mexico Politics.net. And we welcome back as our guest this week, Terry Bruner, state director for Senator Jeff Bingham, and welcome to all. Before we get anybody too round up about our show this week, by the way, just a little disclaimer, we're going to talk a lot of McCain tonight, but we promise when Obama comes to town, we will talk a lot of Obama. It's got to say these things sometimes. Anyway, he held a town hall meeting in Albuquerque this week. We assure you, we were there, you were there, Scott, and your positions as both executive director for the party and communications director, want to start by getting your sense of how McCain did. These things come with a lot of anticipation, but they need them more. I believe so, and I'd never seen Senator McCain in live and in person, in a setting like that before. So I didn't know what to expect either. And you've got to give a person a lot of credit

when he doesn't mind walking into an arena-type setting with people on all four sides of him and really feeling completely comfortable taking any and all questions from the crowd. He got challenged by a couple of questions, questioners, and he didn't skip a beat. He didn't have a problem telling the questioner, even when he disagreed with them. That he disagreed with him and what his stance was say on the GI Bill and the web version of the GI Bill. He gave a very direct answer as to why he simply didn't vote for the web version of the GI Bill, or telling a group of largely conservative people that he voted for justices, Breyer and Ginsburg in the Clinton years, simply because elections have consequences. He felt they were qualified and he wasn't going to put an ideological test to Supreme Court justices. So I mean, it was very refreshing and neat to see him come into New Mexico and enjoy having that straight dialogue with individuals, and that's his preferred setting. And that's why he challenged Obama to go to town halls with him and obviously Obama has a bit different style

and so that's why we're not seeing them together in those things. Jim, part of the day, it turned out in the cycle of the news of the day, Mr. Obama had come out that morning with some plans for Afghanistan and Mr. McCain fired back with his problems with Obama's ideas about what to do. So we got a little bit lucky on the timing of all this, but regarding the war specifically, did you have a sense that there's something that, let me ask you this, is McCain forcing Obama into a bit of a change in style here on the ideas of the war in Iraq and Afghanistan? You may be forcing him into a corner. Senator McCain kept hitting over and over the fact he said, I supported the surge. I risked my political career on this and it's proven it's worked. And then he would read Senator Obama's statements, opposing the surge, and now acknowledging that, well, maybe it worked. And I don't know what's going to happen when Senator Obama is in Iraq. I bet the McCain campaign is going to keep coming out every day and say, well, you now admit Senator McCain was right and you were wrong. I think it's great that Senator Obama is going to Iraq.

That's just a fact. I think that's great, because we do have a war on there and our candidates need to face that and bring that back to the forefront of the debate. It's sort of slipped back. But Senator McCain was very forceful and he was talking from a position of strength on that, I think. And I think it put Senator Obama a bit on the defensive because he's now going to have to go to Iraq and see the results of this surge that Senator McCain supported and he opposed. Margaret, this idea that Mr. Obama is moving to the middle is this a McCain effect or what's going on here? You know, this is one of the better examples of looking through the other end of the telescope. You asked whether this was Senator McCain pushing Obama into a corner. There's no question this is Obama pushing not only McCain but Bush into a corner. We have this week the administration doing a 180

on one of the central issues of foreign policy and that's Afghanistan. We have now a prominence to diplomacy that has been denied and denied and denied. And part of what we are seeing is that the Obama message has so much traction with the electorate that not only must McCain respond to it, that is, and no one has ever said that putting more troops into Iraq wasn't going to have a consequence of lowering violence. No one has ever, no. That's almost the exact quote. What this was about from the beginning was about political reconciliation. Those were the goals that were enunciated by the administration. The first goal was to reduce violence in Iraq

and then have political reconciliation and he said on a number of occasions it could actually make it worse to put more troops into Iraq. And he said it wasn't going to reduce violence. Let me go back to you, Margaret. I want to get Terry in here and you can finish up this subject for us. The McCain effect being here in New Mexico. Obviously, there's a swing state in the argument here. Did he get anywhere? Well, I think any time they come to New Mexico they're getting somewhere. I think John McCain has very little to talk about that's going to move voters away from where they are right now with Barack Obama. He's got basically two things to talk about. The war in taxes. And that's where he gets movement. It's very hard for him to talk about education, hard to talk about health care. So you're going to see him pound on the war in taxes and try to get somewhere. I think he's backed into a corner. I think that the electorate has thought that this is, you know, we've had enough of the war. And Barack Obama is going to take him in a different direction. There's nothing about John McCain that we can tell that's really, I think the voters can tell I should say,

that's really changing what we've done under the current president. And the same thing goes with the economy and other issues. So what I watch for in this is that he is, in my opinion, struggling to try to find something that latches on with voters. And so it's interesting to watch. I think New Mexico always benefits in a sense from having a presidential candidate here because we get to kick the tires on him and figure out what they're all about. But it's going to be interesting for the state because we're going to see these guys a lot more. But there was an ABC News Washington Post poll that just came out. 72% of Americans believe McCain would be a superb commander of our armed forces compared to 48% for Obama. Fully 50% felt that they approved of Senator McCain's strategy of leaving our troops in Iraq until we win the war. 49% approved of Obama's strategy of beginning to withdraw troops immediately. That shows a credibility difference that voters feel. They feel McCain is a credible, articulate person to manage the war. They obviously don't seem to feel that with George Bush

and they don't feel that with Barack Obama. So he is striking the balance that he needed to strike on the war. The reason that McCain was in New Mexico is because of the Latino vote. That's what this is about. I mean, New Mexico is a... There's only one question from the audience about having a right about immigration. Well, but I don't think that the Latino vote is only about immigration and certainly not in New Mexico. And so I think that this is an interesting debate. It's the old McCain versus the new McCain. And so when he says that he is very proud of the fact that he got 75% of the Latino vote in Arizona, that is not consistent with the polls right now. He is losing Latino support so rapidly in Arizona that Arizona may flip. Arizona may in fact go for Obama. And this is not... You can't say this is the war, this is immigration, this is... It's everything.

Sure. Let's move on to another town hall, McCain Point, which was he talked about the problems with drugs coming through the U.S. through Mexico, which is especially relevant, of course, for us here as a border state. And drugs traditionally have been wreaking havoc in small and in Mexico towns. I'm thinking particularly about North Korea, Rebo County, back one of the heroin problems. We now have reporting here in Albuquerque that heroin is becoming a bigger issue for APD here. In the framework of staying with McCain of border security in drugs, did that make sense to you and your guts? I think so. You know, there's no question that we need to be doing more on border security. I think Republicans, Democrats, both agree on that. So it's not unlikely that he's going to touch on that as a subject. And I think though that again, McCain is in the tough position where he is trying to talk about drug control on the border, when you've done stuff under the Bush administration like put a hiring freeze on DEA agents for several years that has made it harder to fight the war on drugs. And we also have problems with hiring enough national guard folks

and so in vehicle barriers and also its developments that we've needed to be funding. And I think the Barack Obama point that's contrary to McCain is if you weren't at this war, you could fund these things. And so you see these unintended consequences of throwing all of our taxpayer money into the war and not being able to fund basic infrastructure and security needs. And then the other thing that you've got is the cultural side of this. And we are on the border. You've got Mexican black tar heroin that logically is going to come up in the United States. And we're going to be the first to see it. You know, for years and years and years, Rio River County has had the highest per capita heroin use in the nation. They've had tri-generational heroin abuse amongst family members. It's a very difficult problem and I don't think anybody's got the silver bullet. But I think the perspective we ought to have is you have to fight this from a law enforcement perspective and a treatment perspective and you have to keep going after it. You can't just say it's over and we're failed or whatever we're going to give up.

I agree with that. But you can't underestimate how much border security plays. I've mentioned before my father was an narcotics agent for years in New Mexico. And he's now the head of the San Juan County Safe Communities Initiative. 97% of the methamphetamine that we see in New Mexico either originates from below our southern border or the ingredients come from below the border and come to super labs run by Mexican drug cartels throughout the southwestern United States. They are relying on us not solving our border security problem. And we need to, if you secure the border, you shut down their economy, which is make it where it's cheap, take it where it's expensive. That's exactly what they're doing. And so if you cut down, if you cut down on the traffic and the ability to flow across the border, you reduce that economy, you'll reduce the amount that are coming across the border and taking the lives of people, you know, my age and regular citizens from throughout the state, especially in southeastern New Mexico. And there's two other efforts before I forget. I mean, there's one effort to get National Guard to inspect everything that goes across the border. And that's one way to stop this.

And the second thing is that the cartels that are running the heroin networks are getting weapons from the United States. And so there's obviously, I think most people are in agreement, we have to do something to cut the flow to and from on both sides of the equation. Jim, you've been tough on this issue on this show for a while now, since we last discussed this, there were more newspaper stories about Mexican officials, police officials seeking asylum in the United States because they can't go to their own government. I said before, and I think it's more true than ever, that Mexico does not control its northern border. And we talk about smugglers and cartels, but we are facing a threat on our southern border that is of a different dimension. It's almost quasi-governmental. They have taken over municipalities down there. Their police forces are corrupt. They cannot stand up to the cartels. The cartels are armed with heavy armaments, heavy armaments. You know, 50 caliber weapons made here in the U.S., you know, a rocket propelled grenades. And I think it's in everybody's interest, including Mexico's interest,

that we secure that border. Yes, Margaret. A couple minutes we have on this. Mr. McCain mentioned he is met with Mr. Calderon, the president of Mexico about this, and there was... McCain was there 24 hours, less than 24 hours. I think that it is to his credit that he stopped in Mexico City. This problem is not going to be solved unless it is a binational or tri-national approach. We know this week that the GAO released a report on border security. And in fact, it's the northern border that is the least secure. There were more illegal entries through Canada than through Mexico, despite all of the money that has been poured into the fence. I don't think that there is anyone who rationally, you know, isn't in favor of stopping the movement of heroin north. But this is also a demand question. And demand is about poverty.

It is about lives that are so wrecked that people look to stop the pain in some way. This is about self-medicating pain. This is about generations of people who get lost. And so I have never understood an imprisonment get tough approach. It hasn't worked. We have squandered the treasury on this problem. And we have also approached it as a unilateral problem. Without real Mexico, Felipe Calderón, who I don't particularly support, has put in real money and real training to solve this. And for the most part, he has been isolated by the Bush administration. This is not going to be solved unless it really is the forces of both nations working at the border. We should do to the Mexican cartels what we did to Al Capone.

And we need to look at decriminalization. We have lost this war. We have created cartels that have billions and billions of dollars because we have made this a criminal issue. Dick Minzer was a former state senator that wonderful op-ed in the Albuquerque Journal. He's a conservative Democrat. He's not a green party member talking about the need to start looking at decriminalization as the only way of winning the so-called war on drugs. That would be the last word. There have been a lot of campaign controversies recently from the now infamous caricature of Barack and Michelle Obama on the cover of the New Yorker to Jesse Jackson's very unfortunate comments that were overheard to all to John McCain's Iran cigarette joke, Margaret. Oh, God, I always start with this. We all want to have matters of substance discussed in these campaigns, but when these flare-ups do happen, there's usually some substance underneath. Let's take the New Yorker cover, particularly. What was your take on that? First of all, I think that Barack Obama is really being kicked around the block because people think he's humorless.

I think that he is really getting it. Having said that. Can you take a joke? Can you take it? What's the matter with you? I think that we have many examples of good satire. The Daily Show, the Colbert Report. I think that a lot of John Trevor's work is extremely good. Because it is able to show sort of what is that vulnerability. How can we turn it and sort of torque it so that we all find a little bit more about what's going on? This cover didn't work for me because those who are being satirized are out of the frame. And so what I understand is that there are those, maybe on the far right, maybe on the far left also, who are so unhappy with Obama.

That they are willing to spread these rumors. That that's what this is about. And attempt to really collapse all of those rumors into one frame. I just don't see the myth makers there. The other thing is, I really wonder whether people would stomach having all of our candidates subjected to this. That I think it is because he is cool. He is sort of this, you know, above the fray. But do we want Mr. and Mrs. McCain, she with her drug problems, he with his adultery problems. There's a lot of baggage there that is really the fodder. But the clear answer is no. And Mrs. Senator McCain came out right away and said the Obama campaign put it perfectly.

Tasteless and offensive. It was interesting to see John Trevor talk about this in the Albuquerque Journal because he said it's difficult to criticize another cartoonist because we all teeter with the appropriate, inappropriate line. But he was right in saying the problem with the New Yorker cover was the fact that it was trying to depict a certain message. And I think Margaret nailed the message right. But to the lay person, they didn't get the message. Instead they saw it for what it was. And that that's a damaging, inaccurate portrayal of a presidential candidate. But everybody, I mean, I've not heard anybody embrace this really as something that was, that was possible. The point, interesting to recall another New Yorker cover some months back of Iranian President Ahmadinejad in the bathroom reading a newspaper in a foot coming from the joining stall. Pretty controversial, but it depends on who's the one being spoof Terry to Margaret's point. It really depends on who the victim is here. Yeah, it does.

And what disturbs me and what what I come across periodically is these rumors about the various candidates. And things like this, I think, subversively substantiate those rumors and get them embedded in people's minds. And, you know, we, I periodically see emails that say Obama's a Muslim. Obama wasn't qualified for military service and all these totally ridiculous things. And then you get completely sane people that start to believe them. And so what you see on the newspaper racks, what you see on your email, that gets put in your head enough. And then you in the back of your mind start to believe that. And that's what worries me a little bit. I mean, I'm hoping it's such a special, important year to voters that they'll look beyond this stuff and really focus on the issues and not get distracted. Jim Skarantino right in front of you there on the table. This John Stewart said it's a cartoon people just calm down. And I think Barack Obama misplayed this. I mean, he's he's starting to look almost like a prima donna. He has such a thin skin and he's concerned about people attacking his wife.

Yet she's on the stump just like another, you know, surrogate. And it's just satire. It's part of the American heritage. George Bush has been vilified on the cover of the New Yorker. I am sure we will see John McCain on the cover of the New Yorker. You know, if you go out in the blogosphere, we had caricatures of George Bush as a drunk and Dick Cheney as this wild-eyed guy shooting old people. This is just American politics. It's a full-contact sport. And Barack Obama made a bigger thing of this than it otherwise would have been. I know people who've never read the New Yorker who told me about this cover before I saw it. Because of Barack Obama. The question that I would have is, where is the truth that is being spoofed here? I mean, because if we talk about Cheney and the shooting incident, there's a germ of truth there. If we talk about Bush and his, you know, spoonerisms, there's a lot of truth there. But where is the truth here that supports what is called the meme, right?

That idea that gets embedded, where pretty soon it's viral. You can't get rid of it. You can't not think of the elephant. They are close. It's not close. I mean, that's what it is. And they're black. That's where. You just hit the essence of what the problem is here. What are they satirizing if it's based on rumor or truth, as Terry mentioned, what becomes the truth at the end of the day? But right now, it's time to put our panelists on the infamous clock. They'll have just one minute as a group as Jim puts away his New Yorker magazine. We're going to tackle some subjects here. First up this week, Senator Obama, again, was recently quoted as saying that kids in the U.S. need to learn Spanish, Margaret. Do you think that was a well-fought-out statement? Of course, some paraphrasing. There was a lot more to it than that. But some folks had some issue with it. What was your take on that? Because I don't understand why someone is going to think that knowing another idiom is something wrong. The ability to manage another language is adored to another consciousness.

It's another way of understanding the world. I don't truly do not understand why there is such resistance in the United States. But when we dig deeper, it's about Spanish. It is that Spanish has been racialized. And, in fact, the language itself becomes infected with the racism. I was a kid that dumb kids took Spanish and the smart kids took French. Guess which one I had to take. It wasn't French. I don't think so. I think most people agree it's good for students too. And we should encourage students to learn a second language. The problem was he's so flippantly stated, kids will learn English. They will. The problem is they're not. And especially not in New Mexico. And that's why we have to teach English first proficiently enough for our kids to be able to succeed in the workforce and provide for their families. And that's not happening. I'll get you two in on the next one. New Mexico was reaping, I know, Terry.

That was cruel. Almost $400 million windfall. Because of high prices for oil and gas. And that money could be used in many, many ways. Healthcare schools, highways, tax rebates. Terry, let me start with you. How do you think the governor should approach this? And do you like his approach to date on this windfall? Yeah, I think I like his approach. I think that in a time of an economic recession, you have to take money like this and invest it in your state. Invest it in fundamentals like education or transportation infrastructure. Those things that we need when we have the opportunity to get them. That's going to keep us competitive. And then take any extra money you have and teach people Spanish. Hmm. You have so much to do. I need mandatory Sicilian classes. The $400 million roughly matches the deficit in our transportation budget, which was caused in great part by the spike in oil prices, which make tar and macadam and building roads far more expensive. I think the money should be put in to plug that hole.

It would generate jobs. It would be locally spent. And it's infrastructure we need for the future. Quickly, Scott. Give it all back to the people in New Mexico. Government cannot spend that any more efficiently or effectively than we can to address our needs and to grow our culture. Well, I think that we can do some redressing of the inequities by making sure that the tax abatements go to the low-income people. President Bush has lifted the ban on offshore drilling. Terry, very quickly, do you think our congressional leaders will go along with this? And I'm particularly interested in everyone's take on a tarot mesa. We all feel that need to have more domestic oil. Should we be opening up all this all offshore and no tarot and everywhere else? Well, I'm not sure many will embrace it on the Democratic side. But there's 60 million acres that are currently least that are not being drilled. We just opened up more on the North Slope in Alaska on Thursday. And I think on Wednesday, actually, there's plenty of areas to drill. And so to, I think this is a big smoke screen, we're not going to drill our way out of the problem.

And we should be getting companies to drill where they are currently invested in. And there's plenty of oil out there currently. There's no reason we have to go up and just completely open new areas. There's plenty that are existing. It's amazing to me that McCain is out there saying that there were no oil spills with Katrina. I think that this is the kind of misinformation that leads to the idea that, in fact, we can drill ourselves out of this situation. And we can't. There's an estimate of 18 billion barrels of oil on the intercontinental shelf, which is equivalent to two decades of imports from Saudi Arabia. Companies like Trans Ocean, which are the leaders in deep sea drilling, are not holding land leases. We need to open those spigots and get that money in our economy instead of flowing over. So you're just going to hold you off on now one, because it's time for a little fun. We were wanting to do this for a couple of weeks. We have a little mini book club around these parts. And I'm talking about the books that we're reading for summer.

There's a little curveball for you, Terry. I'm going to start with myself. I don't have a book, actually. I'm excited about the new Kindle. I've seen that thing that can hold about 200 books. I'm going to buy that first from Amazon. And you can download books off their wireless cloud, keep them. You can annotate them if you're doing research. It's a wonderful thing. But it changes from the idea of paper. It's very interesting. So anyway, on to books themselves. Jim, what do you think? Oh, I'm going to get the nerd of the table award. It's just, my reading list is all nonfiction. I'm committed to reading Al Gore's assault on reason. Friedrich Haikes, The Road to Serfdom, and CS Lewis Mer Christianity. How interesting. I'm currently reading Shalako, which is a book written by Louis Lamore. A Western that actually takes place in the Animas Plias area in New Mexico. And I try to plow through as many of his books as I can. It's just a much simpler life that you get to read about. I haven't read a Lamore book in forever. That's a good reminder, Mark. I just finished Elizabeth Jarges. Last mystery, Carolison Redd.

I read the reluctant fundamentalist just before. I read several at the same time. Wonderful book. I really encourage everyone to read that. I'm currently reading Randy Kennedy's book, The Second Mystery, that he's written called New England White. I'm in the middle of that now. I love it. I think he's a great writer, except I hated what he did with the ending on the first book. So I'm like, so I'm very excited. And then I'm reading the shock by Naomi Klein's book. Oh, sure. The shock triplets, the shock. Well, I didn't know we were going to list five or six books. I'm reading the complete Sherlock Holmes mysteries right now. That's what I enjoy. And I'm trying to read Heidegger, which I've never read. And a book called atmospheric disturbances. That's a heavy reading, right? And then somebody told me that the book about Madonna's, about Madonna by her brother was good. But I'm not going to admit to anybody reading that.

But no, there's a lot of good books to read. Sure. And then the last one. The last one is my wife recommends the New Warden piece one. Oh, good. And the new addition of the Warden piece. Oh, good. And by Tolstoy. And I'm going to see if I can tackle that. Sure. Not bad. That's all the time we have for the second of the line. Send us your ideas for books or anything else you'd like to talk about. For an upcoming show, email address. And you can find me at www.cannemy.org. And drop us a line on our website. Canemy.org forward slash into Mexico and focus. Thanks for watching. Be sure to tune in next week for a very special show. We're going to discuss a documentary done for the PBS show POV, called The Last Conquistador. Revolving around the exploits of one day on Yachtay. Trust me when I tell you it'll be very interesting. Well, that's it for us from this, for this week. Thanks for watching and have a great week. Thank you. You