Albuquerque city council narrowly defeats banning Kirtland Air Force Base nukes.

I could only laugh out loud when I was in Albuquerque on Friday, October 1st, and heard on the radio that the city council had "narrowly" rejected a measure which would have asked the Federal government to remove and dismantle possible nuclear weapons stored at Kirtland Air Force base, which borders the southeast part of Albuquerque.  The air force has never confirmed, nor denied, that nuclear weapons even exist at Kirtland.

The measure was sponsored by Albuquerque City Councilman Rey Garduono, who was quoted as saying: "I hope (the munitions) will never explode or have anything disastrous happen, but I don't understand why people are so reluctant to discuss the issue and deal with it. We need to."

Predictably, the 4 Democrats on the city council voted for the measure, while the 5 Republicans on the council voted against it.

Never mind that in the early days, the reason Albuquerque had grown into the city it is today is precisely because of the presence of the base, which today brings over a billion dollars a year into the area, and directly provides nearly 30,000 jobs, not to mention many thousands of ancillary jobs.

Never mind that there have been rumblings of a possible closure of Kirtland Air Force Base over the last decade, which periodically cause local politicians to spring to life as most vocal proponents of all of the benefits to the community, and state of New Mexico, provided by the base.

It would appear that the Democrats on the Albuquerque city council once again showed their true stripes by welcoming the jobs and revenue provided by the Air Force, while at the same time proposing and voting for a ridiculous measure that would essentially be a "kick in the teeth" to the very mission of the U.S. Air Force, which is to protect our nation using the most state of the art methods available, including modern nuclear weapons.

Some politicians truly do want to have it both ways, loudly proclaiming to want jobs, jobs, and more jobs, especially in today's era of high unemployment.  But then they will condemn the very creators of those jobs through nonsensical, (and incidentally non-binding) actions such as this.