By David Swanson

Two presidential candidates, Bill Richardson and Mike Gravel, spoke Tuesday morning at the Take Back America Conference in Washington, D.C. Barack Obama and John Edwards were expected later in the day, and Hillary Clinton and Dennis Kucinich on Wednesday.

Richardson got loud applause. He focused on climate change, Kyoto treaty, a plan to reduce pollution by 20%, lower demand for oil by 50%, and raise fuel efficiency standards to 50 mpg, and require that 50% of our electricity come from renewable sources, and reduce greenhouse admissions by 80 percent. The crowd loved it. "If we can wage wars over weapons of mass destruction, we can find the will to stop the mass destruction of our planet."

After listening to the questions asked by Brian Williams in South Carolina at the first debate of announced Democratic presidential contenders, one has to wonder how much worse the moderation would have been if it had been on the Fox Network.

There was hardly an inane smear, knock, superficial or unfair attack made against any of these candidates that Williams did not go OUT of his way to highlight or demand that they defend themselves against. We had the price of haircuts, misquotes about positions on Palestine, ties to Walmart, not to mention an entire segment on Giuliani's despicable "die under Democrats" rhetoric from yesterday, instantly elevated to the status of accepted mainstream gospel and framed as such. If most of the questions had been prefaced with the words "Karl Rove says" their slant could not have been more obvious. Even the questions selected from viewer emails seemed to be selected with that criteria in mind.

Only a very few wild horses still exist in the US, and New Mexico, where in 1974 there were 6000 wild horses , now has less than 400.

Yet Bill Richardson, ubiquitously saddled-up marketer of the Land of Enchantment, seems to be waffling on signing a Wild Horse Protection Bill - after it passed unanimously in the House, and with one opposing vote in the Senate!

SB655 is the bill - that finally creates a legal definition for the wild horse in NM, and establishes protections conserving the Spanish Colonial Horse, already extinct in Spain.

The wild horse is an enchanting national treasure and an American icon, worth preserving for its own sake, but even viewed from a purely utilitarian perspective, the beautiful creatures could add economic value throughout the west through Equine Eco-Tourism, providing much- needed, clean, economic development in rural communities.

So, why don't he sign?