News New Mexico: 10/18/10

Tea Party’s First Victim: Earmarks

From Human Events - by Brian Darling - A fiscally responsible thing happened on the way to the November 2 election: Rep. Eric Cantor (R.-Va.) announced on behalf of the House Republican Leadership an internal party rule mandating that Republicans will not earmark in the next Congress. This is excellent news for the Tea Party movement and it fills in a missing element of the “Pledge to America.”Late in the summer, House Republicans fumbled the ball on the issue of earmarks. On August 23, House Republican Whip Cantor was quoted in Politico saying that earmarks might return in the next Congress based on “merit, not muscle.”If this weren’t enough, because of intraparty disagreements, the House Republicans did not write anything in the Pledge expressing a promise to rid the budgeting process of the corrupting, wasteful earmarking process. Last week, though, Cantor picked that ball off the turf and ran with it. It looks like GOP leaders will now take it into the end zone in the House and Senate Steering Committee Chairman Jim DeMint (R.-S.C.) will make that same run in the Senate. Read more

What is wrong with this Fox map?

Joseph Phillips - Social Security Reform

Joseph Phillips

There is, perhaps, no better testament to how far this nation has drifted from the principles of individual liberty, free markets, and private property than that those proponents of real reform of the Social Security system are now looked upon as radicals. Senate majority leader, Harry Reid (D-NV), running for his political life, accused his opponent, Sharron Angle, of wanting to “kill Social Security.” Of course, Harry Reid has a rather elastic definition of “the truth,” so his attack lacks a measure of veracity. Angle has taken the position that in order to save Social Security we must stop raiding the (non-existent) lock-box and that “going forward, we need to personalize Social Security the same way that Harry Reid has a personalized account.” Reid has routinely characterized Angle as an extremist. Alas, Reid also suffers from the political malady known as “Venetian memory:” Recalling that which is advantageous and forgetting everything else. Read more here:

Lurita Doan - Obama's Job Killing Regulations

Lurita Doan

With the prospect of a Republican majority in the House, and, possibly, the Senate, President Obama may continue his anti-business, job killing agenda by issuing intrusive, regulatory, executive orders. Americans should be concerned that federal agencies are drafting new regulatory edicts that will continue the Obama economic policy of stifling innovation and job creation, while rewarding union loyalists. Read more here:

Boise State Gets the Shaft...........Again

BCS Computer Programming Team

NewsNM note- Two football programs, both with losses to Boise State in their most recent head-to-head battles, leapfrogged over the Broncos and their quest for justice. Boise State is the most disrespected football program in the history of the BCS. And that is saying something when considering this serial anti-trust violater's slimy existence.
From Bloomberg - Oklahoma and Oregon claimed the top two spots in the season’s first Bowl Championship Series rankings, with Boise State third at the start of the two-month race for a berth in college football’s national title game. The University of Oklahoma improved to 6-0 with a 52-0 rout of Iowa State two days ago. The Sooners, who won the BCS championship after the 2000 season and lost the title game following the 2003, 2004 and 2008 campaigns, have a rating of .922 out of 1.000 in the standings. The University of Oregon is second at .892, followed by Boise State at .890. Both schools have 6-0 records this season and Boise State has won 20 straight games overall, the nation’s longest winning streak. Read more here:

Fed Wants to Hoodwink Public - Only Fooling Itself

Caroline Baum

From Bloomberg by Caroline Baum - If I were a central banker, I would be afraid. If I were a central banker getting ready to embark on another round of quantitative easing, I would be very afraid. Here’s why. Central bankers in the U.S. are being bombarded with market-based signals suggesting their fears of deflation, or falling economy-wide prices, may be misplaced. Gold prices continue to set new highs. The U.S. dollar, the global reserve currency, keeps sinking amid expectations the Federal Reserve will dilute the existing stock starting at its Nov. 2 to 3 meeting. Read more here:

Health Care Ruling by Year-End

A federal judge in Virginia said he’ll rule by yearend whether President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul is constitutional, adding that his decision will be a “brief stop” in the case on its way to the Supreme Court. U.S. District Judge Henry E. Hudson in Richmond, Virginia, heard arguments today over whether the law’s requirement for individuals to buy health insurance is overreaching by Congress. Justice Department lawyers have argued that failure to have health insurance is an active decision with broad economic effects that can be regulated by the government. Read more here:

Another Bad Number - Production Declines in U.S.

Production in the U.S. unexpectedly dropped in September for the first time in more than a year, evidence of the slowdown in growth that is concerning some Federal Reserve policy makers. Output at factories, mines and utilities fell 0.2 percent, the first decline since the recession ended in June 2009, according to figures from the Fed today. Another report showed builders were less pessimistic than projected this month. Read more here:

Cameron: Tackles the U.K. Welfare State

David Cameron

British Prime Minister David Cameron threw a party Oct. 14 to celebrate his predecessor Margaret Thatcher’s achievements. This week, he will set out plans to tackle something even she couldn’t in her three terms: the U.K.’s welfare state. In doing so, he’s challenging the doctrine that the government should offer, in Winston Churchill’s words, security “from the cradle to the grave,” and he risks opposition from all sectors of society -- including his Liberal Democrat coalition partners -- after the longest recession on record. Read more here:

Corn: There's Already a Big Winner

David Corn

The midterm elections are still 2½ weeks away, but one set of 2010 winners can now be declared: monied interests that want to shape the government to their liking. If you've paid attention to the political back-and-forth of the past week, you know that the Obama White House and the Democratic National Committee have been tussling with Republican operatives Karl Rove and Ed Gillespie, as well as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, over whether Rove and Gillespie's political groups and the chamber have been funneling foreign money into House and Senate campaigns to benefit GOP candidates. Read more here:

Progressive Magazine: Not Happy with Harry Reid

Harry Reid’s in trouble, and he deserves to be. Not because his opponent, Sharron Angle, is running an honorable campaign. Anything but. In their debate last Thursday, she was given an opportunity to backtrack on a flat-out lie she’s been saying, which is that Harry Reid supports Social Security benefits for undocumented workers. He does not. But Angle kept right on saying it. She also said, “Every state should have a sheriff like Joe Arpaio” in Arizona: the most viciously anti-immigrant official in the country. Read more here:

Tom Mullins - Drunken Sailors

Tom Mullins

From NMPolitics.net - Speaking of Congress, Ronald Reagan said, “You could say they are spending like drunken sailors, but that would be unfair to sailors because they are spending their own money.” In 2009, Congress racked up a $1.4 trillion deficit for the year. Our collective national debt is now $13.2 trillion and rising daily. How is it going to be paid? It will be through taxes and inflation, sometimes called the silent tax, which will burden future generations to the point the debt has been called fiscal child abuse. Read more here:

Matt Chandler to Appear on News New Mexico

Matt Chandler

Republican Attorney General candidate Matt Chandler will appear on NewsNM Monday morning. Chandler opposes incumbent Democrat A.G. Gary King. King is part of one of the most powerful ruling families in the history of New Mexico.
Matt Chandler is currently the District Attorney of the Ninth Judicial District of New Mexico, representing the citizens of Curry and Roosevelt Counties. You can learn more about Chandler on his website by clicking here:

Contact Jim

News New Mexico

Total Pageviews

Archives

Michael Swickard's new novel about New Mexico