By Rob Nikolewski │ New Mexico Watchdog
SANTA FE – Allegations of what the Human Services Department has called “credible allegations of fraud” among behavioral health providers has sparked a heated debate.
The source of the discourse is the department’s decision to suspend Medicaid payments, and both sides have they’ve taken to the airwaves with radio spots.
In [...]

By Rob Nikolewski │ New Mexico Watchdog
New Mexico Sen. Tom Udall has a mild-mannered disposition but he gave John Kerry the most forceful push-back of any senator on the Foreign Relations Committee when the secretary of state appeared on Tuesday to argue for the Obama administration’s call for possible limited military action in Syria.
Udall, who [...]

By Rob Nikolewski │ New Mexico Watchdog
The past week New Mexico has seen a dramatic shift in the debate about same-sex marriage. It’s now legal in some places while illegal in others.
A number of state judges and county clerks in cities from Las Cruces to Albuquerque to Taos have begun issuing marriage licenses to gay [...]

By Rob Nikolewski │ New Mexico Watchdog
Recent New Mexico Watchdog stories were featured during a roundtable discussion on “New Mexico In Focus,” the public affairs program broadcast on a statewide basis by KNME-TV, the PBS affiliate in Albuquerque.
Rob Nikolewski took part in a panel discussion, and among the topics was the Watchdog interview with former Secretary [...]

Is it really necessary that it takes two years of training to repair a door in New Mexico?
Does it make sense that you need more professional training to be a cosmetologist than to be an emergency medical technician?
New Mexico Watchdog brought up those questions two weeks ago in a story questioning the requirements for occupational [...]

Confused by the national political scene that seems to get crazier every day?
Well, a music video making the rounds on the Internet may not clear things up for you on issues like gun control, drones and the NSA domestic surveillance debate but at least you can hum along while you ponder the words of Joe [...]

By Rob Nikolewski │ New Mexico Watchdog
Here’s reaction outside the U.S. Federal Court in Albuquerque where Judge M. Christina Armijo on Friday granted a temporary restraining order against a horse slaughterhouse that was scheduled to open on Monday in Roswell, as well as another proposed processing plant in Iowa:

Contact Rob Nikolewski at [email protected] and follow him [...]

The 101st anniversary of free-market icon Milton Friedman is Wednesday, and we pause to take a look back.
The Nobel Prize winner died in 2006, but his legacy as an influential economists thrives. Freidman’s theories about monetary policy and his unstinting support of choice in public schools are still debated by his supporters as passionately as [...]

New Mexico has to do a better job of educating its children. Few New Mexicans would argue that point. How to get there, however, is a matter for debate.
Thursday, one of the most influential committees in the Roundhouse heard from a national expert, who emphasized the importance of keeping good principals in schools and effective [...]

Defending her administration’s Department of Human Services decision to suspend funding for 15 behavioral health providers across the state, Gov. Susana Martinez on Tuesday (July 16) said, “We’re not going to leave people without services.”
In the last three weeks, providers have complained that an audit alleging fiscal mismanagement has unfairly targeted them, put their businesses on the brink and jeopardized care [...]