Daniel Webster, GOP House Candidate, Proposes Budget That Would Cut Social Security Benefits

From the Huffington Post - A Republican House candidate in Florida wants senior citizens to share the burden of reducing the national budget deficit through cuts to Social Security benefits. "My number one priority would be to cut spending, turn off the spigot. We can do that, and the way we would do that is to roll back the budget to 2007," said Daniel Webster during a Tea Party forum for Republican candidates Read more

Daniel Webster, GOP House Candidate, Proposes Budget That Would Cut Social Security Benefits

New lawsuit filed over Chicago's gun limits

By Bob Unruh - WorldNetDaily - Only months after the Supreme Court struck down the city's restrictions on guns, Chicago is the target of a new lawsuit because it now requires gun owners to practice at gun ranges but bans the ranges themselves. "While the city has adopted new regulations that make it legal to own handguns," said Alan Gottlieb, executive vice president of the Second Amendment Foundation, "they have crafted this new ordinance to make it virtually impossible for prospective gun owners to meet all legal requirements unless they travel outside the city for mandatory training. The new ordinance prohibits public gun ranges inside the city yet the city demands that handgun owners get at least one hour of range training time." Read more

New lawsuit filed over Chicago's gun limits

Toeing the Party Line: Are You Voting for Nancy Pelosi?

by Meredith Turney - Last week Minnesota Senator Al Franken provided a less-than-ringing endorsement of embattled South Dakota Congresswoman Stephanie Herseth Sandlin. One of many incumbents facing a tough reelection campaign, Democrats are rallying to save those vulnerable members of their party from the growing anti-incumbent anger amongst voters. But, even in a tough election season, what would cause one of the most liberal members of the U.S. Senate to advocate for the co-chairman of the Blue Dog Democrat Caucus? Franken was clear that, although he doesn’t always agree with Herseth Sandlin on key policy issues (she’s much too conservative for über-liberal Franken), there is one thing that causes him to support her reelection. “She has voted differently than I voted on a couple of things, but we need to be able to have somebody here in South Dakota who’s going to vote for Speaker Pelosi, not for Speaker Boehner," explained Franken. For Democrats, that’s what this election boils down to: who will return Nancy Pelosi and her ilk to leadership? It’s a crass political calculation that voters must take into account as they cast their ballots this November. Read more

Toeing the Party Line: Are You Voting for Nancy Pelosi?

Flooding Near Schools a Peek into the Future?

Mesa Middle School off Jornada Road

It looks like the temporary road LCPS plans to build near Mesa Middle School and Monte Vista Elementary is not going to be the only flood plagued road in the area. Apparently a portion of the "other" access road to the schools is also unable to deal with rains. Too bad the Las Cruces City Council denied the special assessment district financing from moving forward that could have provided $10 million in New Mexico Finance Authority funds to alleviate some of these problems. It appears at the fateful "work session" back in April, the council compounded this mess instead helping. Below is the Dona Ana County press release on the quagmire.

Monte Vista Elementary School off Jornada Road

FLOODING FORCES CLOSURE OF COUNTY ROAD D-66 - Doña Ana County road crews have closed County Road D-66 near the pavement’s end on Jornada Road near the new school construction site. The roadbed was heavily flooded, and cars were getting stuck. The road will reopen when it’s dried and can be re-graded. Warning signs and detours will be posted. Motorists are advised to use alternate routes where possible and to slow down and expect delays near the closure areas. Motorists also are reminded to exercise caution in all areas where workers are deployed.

Flooding Near Schools a Peek into the Future?

Retirees and Other Bond Investors Getting Hosed

Bond investors seeking top-rated securities face fewer alternatives to Treasuries, allowing President Barack Obama to sell unprecedented sums of debt at ever lower rates to finance a $1.47 trillion deficit. While net issuance of Treasuries will rise by $1.2 trillion this year, the net supply of corporate bonds, mortgage-backed securities and debt tied to consumer loans may recede by $1.3 trillion, according to Jeffrey Rosenberg, a fixed-income strategist at Bank of America Merrill Lynch in New York.

Shrinking credit markets help explain why some Treasury yields are at record lows even after the amount of marketable government debt outstanding increased by 21 percent from a year earlier to $8.18 trillion.

Last week, the U.S. government auctioned $34 billion of three-year notes at a yield of 0.844 percent, the lowest ever for that maturity.

“The number-one fixed-income conundrum is ‘Where do I go?’” said Mitchell Stapley, the chief fixed-income officer for Fifth Third Asset Management, who oversees $22 billion in assets. In credit markets, “the supply of sleep-at-night quality bonds has just collapsed,” he said in an interview from Grand Rapids, Michigan. Read more here:

Retirees and Other Bond Investors Getting Hosed

China Signals Response to U.S. Federal Reserve

Hu Jintao

China, whose $2.45 trillion in foreign-exchange reserves are the world’s largest, is turning bullish on Europe and Japan at the expense of the U.S. The nation has been buying “quite a lot” of European bonds, said Yu Yongding, a former adviser to the People’s Bank of China who was part of a foreign-policy advisory committee that visited France, Spain and Germany from June 20 to July 2. Japan’s Ministry of Finance said Aug. 9 that China bought 1.73 trillion yen ($20.1 billion) more Japanese debt than it sold in the first half of 2010, the fastest pace of purchases in at least five years.

“Diversification should be a basic principle,” Yu said in an interview, adding a “top-level Chinese central banker” told him to convey to European policy makers China’s confidence in the region’s economy and currency. “We didn’t sell any European bonds or assets, instead we bought quite a lot.” Read more here:

China Signals Response to U.S. Federal Reserve

PRC Likely to Apportion Most of Fine to Stephen Blanco

Picacho Hiils C.C. (photo by Mel - NewsNM)

From the New Mexico Independent - The Public Regulation Commission (PRC) will likely apportion much of a record $1 million to $1.5 million fine against the Picacho Hills Utility Company directly to owner Stephen Blanco, according to PRC chairman David King. But King would also like to see former company president Tony Schaefer fined, he said. “The bulk of the $1.5 million — maybe all of it — will be on Blanco,” King told The Independent. “We’ll see what commissioners want Tuesday, but (Commissioner) Sandy Jones and me feel strongly about it. Blanco inappropriately moved (company) money around and we’d like to see him pay back the utility. He probably doesn’t have the money, so hopefully it will encourage him to immediately relinquish the company to receivership.” But King also wants to see if Schaefer, who briefly served as the company’s president—unpaid— between December 2009 and May 2010, and who represented the company before the commission, can be forced to pay some of the fine, he said. Read more here:

PRC Likely to Apportion Most of Fine to Stephen Blanco

Pessimism Spreading

Confidence Index

Orders and sales at New York manufacturers decreased in August for the first time in more than a year and U.S. homebuilders turned more pessimistic, indicating the economic slowdown is becoming broad-based. The Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s so-called Empire State factory index today showed bookings dropped for the first time since June 2009, while sales fell at the fastest pace since March 2009. The National Association of Home Builders/Wells Fargo confidence index unexpectedly declined to a 17-month low.

Pessimism Spreading

Lurita Doan - Talking Taxes

Lurita Doan

The 111th Congress hasn’t done its job. The Democrat leadership team has been so busy advancing new pork projects, endorsing faux economic stimuli and opposing the extension of the 2003 Bush Administration tax cuts, that they have failed even to pass a budget for the new fiscal year beginning October 1. Meanwhile, the Obama Administration is working overtime to convince Americans that recovery is in progress and an economic boom is just around the corner. Chief spokesman claiming the country’s economic recovery is in progress and advocating for eliminating the Bush tax cuts is Treasury Secretary, Tim Geithner, perhaps the least credible person in the entire Obama Administration on the issue of taxes. Read more here:

Lurita Doan - Talking Taxes

Fed Survey Tells What We Already Know

Banks in the U.S. eased standards and terms on loans in the second quarter, even as demand for business and consumer credit was little changed at the majority of lenders, according to a Federal Reserve survey. Respondents to the Fed’s quarterly survey of senior loan officers, released today in Washington, reported easing standards and most terms on lending to businesses of all sizes. The Fed described the change as “a modest unwinding of the widespread tightening that occurred over the past few years.” It was the first survey since late 2006 that showed a loosening of standards on small business loans. Read more here:

Fed Survey Tells What We Already Know

Star Parker - In Washington Money Talks

Star Parker

Washington’s latest bailout of bleeding state governments, $26 billion worth, has gotten attention because, among other things, almost half the bailout is financed by cutting $12 billion from food stamps. But isn’t food stamps a signature program for the liberal Democrats who passed this spending bill? Isn’t government money for the poor what Democrats are supposed to be about? How, in these tough times, do Democrats who control congress decide who’ll get funded and who not? Read more here:

Star Parker - In Washington Money Talks

Where Are the Lawyers When You Need Them?

Joseph Phillips

I am fascinated that the same people who have been able to find a Constitutional right to government control of education, healthcare, and the energy industry are unable to divine from that same document any rational basis for the government to prevent a mosque from being built on Ground Zero. Of course, the issue is not whether the American Society for Muslim Advancement has a constitutional right to build a 13-story, mosque, and community center within 600 feet of Ground Zero. There are a number of things citizens have a right to do—things that the constitutional protection of speech protects—that people of good conscience choose not to do and that others might view as offensive or insulting. Read more here:

Where Are the Lawyers When You Need Them?

Subsidies to New Mexico For Price Controls

New Mexico was one of 45 states to win $1 million Monday to help crack down on health insurance premium increases, U.S. Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius announced. New Mexico plans to use the federal dollars to strengthen how the state reviews health insurers’ requests to raise premium rates, a process that has come under considerable fire in recent months. Read more here:

Subsidies to New Mexico For Price Controls

Wilderness Bill - Bring Violence Closer to Home?

Mexican Grey Wolf

The controversial "Wilderness Bill" being pushed by New Mexico Senators Jeff Bingaman and Tom Udall may well have the unintended consequence of providing a needed assist for drug cartels to expand the area they keep under threat of terror and violence. U.S. Senate Bill S.1689 -- Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks Wilderness Act will make it illegal for U.S. Border Patrol officers and other law enforcement officials to perform routine patrols areas in Southern Dona Ana County. In the meantime, over the weekend the total of body count of people murdered in Juarez soared to more than 40.

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On Sunday there were mass murders at two separate locations. According to the El Paso Times at around 1:00 AM Sunday, several gunmen crashed a party and fired more than 70 rounds. When the shooting finally stopped five people were dead and several others were wounded at a home in the Infonavit Solidaridad neighborhood according to Chihuahua state police. Later, armed men fired at a second gathering on Sunday afternoon.  There were multiple victims again but a precise count of fatalities is still unknown.

Is it time to re-think how "pristine" Southern Dona Ana County will become if we citizens stand by and allow our naive elected officials pass laws the effectively create a safe haven for drug and human smugglers on the border? You need to decide. Contact information for elected officials in on the home page of the News New Mexico site.

Wilderness Bill - Bring Violence Closer to Home?

As open land fades, wildlife is squeezed

Editorial from the Santa Fe NewMexican.com - Does New Mexico have too many bears? Or too many people? The state Game and Fish Department is gathering comment from the homo sapiens bloc — all 2 million of us — on its proposal to allow 733 black bears to be killed next year — 327 more than this year's quota. That quota includes animals hit by traffic, exterminated as nuisances and shot by hunters. And, say state officials, the numbers reflect the growing population of ursus americanus. But the game-and-fish folks don't really know what that population is; they're making educated and computerized guesses based on what their wardens see in the wild. Judging from this summer's close encounters between bears and campers, there might indeed be a population spike — although conservationists are making a case that the run-ins could be a matter of food: shortage of forage from late frosts in the high country, along with lots of it being left by recreationists, cabin-owners and campers where it invites cuddly-looking, potentially dangerous, visitors. Read more

As open land fades, wildlife is squeezed

Steve Pearce to Appear on NewsNM Today

Steve Pearce

Former New Mexico Congressman Steve Pearce, the GOP candidate for U.S. Congress in November, will appear on News New Mexico this morning at 8:30am. Pearce opposes freshman Congressman Harry Teague this fall. Teague won Pearce's old house seat in 2008, the same year Pearce was defeated by Tom Udall in an unsuccessful bid for the U.S. Senate seat vacated by Pete Domenici in 2008.

Steve Pearce to Appear on NewsNM Today

Bulletin Warned of Drug Violence in El Paso

From the El Paso Times - City police radio dispatchers Sunday alerted officers about potential violence in El Paso stemming from Mexican drug cartel rivalries. Detective Mike Baranyay said the bulletin sent out over the police radio frequency was based on unconfirmed intelligence that police received from the Alliance for Combating Transnational Threats. Baranyay said he could not release what was in the bulletin because it was coded "law enforcement sensitive," but the broadcast that dispatchers repeated several times on Sunday mentioned Joaquin "Chapo" Guzman Loera, plans for a kidnapping in El Paso, the Aztecas gang and an alleged hit man nicknamed "Carnicero" (butcher). Read more here:

Bulletin Warned of Drug Violence in El Paso

School Starts in Las Cruces Today

The Las Cruces Public Schools re-open after summer vacation today. There will be children in crosswalks and school zones with flashing yellow lights. It is time for all drivers in the area to become extra alert on the roads so that everyone is more safe.

School Starts in Las Cruces Today