Meet 2020’s Veteran Small Business Champion of the Year

Ron Edwards knew he would start his own business one day, but the path to launching Santa Fe’s Focus Advertising Specialties was paved with a variety of jobs and small-business ventures.

The most influential of his early occupations was his overseas service in the Marines, Edwards said. Thirteen weeks in basic training and four years in the military “challenged me in different ways,” he said. “I learned that I can go further than I think I can.”

Working within fixed budgets also taught Edwards how to keep operations tight.

Those lessons in endurance and efficiency prepared him for the challenges of civilian life...

Part one of two

The New Mexico in Depth article about dark money in New Mexico really misses the mark [7/31]. It’s not surprising. This is such a long standing issue that many don’t recognize the extent of the problem.

Congress saw the problem with money in politics long ago and passed the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971. But in 1976 the Supreme Court [Buckley v. Valeo] nullified the legislation, holding that by setting limits on election spending the act was unconstitutional. The first to exploit this were political operatives Paul Manafort and Roger Stone [both of whom decades later became two of the eight convicted felons for their work with President Trump].  They saw...

“Theirs not to reason why, theirs but to do and die”. This often repeated phrase celebrating the valor of the British Light Calvary in carrying out their orders, regardless of the nearly inevitable outcome is heard frequently by our soldiers, revised as “Ours is not to reason why….” I know I heard it when I was in the service.

On the battlefield it is appropriate.  But for us back home in a democracy, it constitutes a dereliction of our duty as citizens not to carefully examine the reasons we send lethal force across the seas to foreign nations. It’s with that in mind I submit the following regarding US activities in Africa and now China.

Chicago Tribune editor Ivo...

Conference to be held as three-part virtual series this year

 

ALBUQUERQUE—Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham will give the keynote address at this year’s New Mexico KIDS COUNT Conference. She will appear in the first of three virtual events that will take place online Aug. 25, Oct. 13, and Dec. 3. The series will address anti-racist policy reforms to improve child well-being and the impacts of COVID-19 and the current recession on children and families in New Mexico.

The first session, titled “Status of Child Well-Being in New Mexico & KIDS COUNT Data Book Release,” is Aug. 25. Governor Lujan Grisham will present “Improving Child Well-Being in New Mexico,” Karina Jimenez...