Happy Thanksgiving!

At News New Mexico we are grateful. We give thanks to all of our listeners, site visitors, sponsors, and team members for making the first five months of operations an endeavor that exceeded our wildest dreams and expectations. Please accept our heartfelt wishes to you and your family for a happy and healthy Thanksgiving! We will not stream a show on Thanksgiving Day or Friday November 26th on the Internet. However, KSNM AM-570 will air Best of News New Mexico shows on both days. We look forward to reconnecting with you on Monday November 29th for another live edition of News New Mexico.

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Military:Costs $181K an Hour to Run Air Force One

From foxnews.com - The average American could buy a house for the amount of money it takes to run Air Force One every hour. The U.S. military has provided an updated estimate on that cost, first published by a taxpayer watchdog group and confirmed by FoxNews.com, and the number is staggering -- $181,757 per hour. That's the price tag for shuttling around President Obama, who, as it turns out, has spent more days abroad in his first two years than any other president. Read full story here
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Meg Whitman's Maid Story Was Pushed by Nurses Union

Meg Whitman
From sfgate.com - One of the most tantalizing mysteries in California's 2010 gubernatorial election involved the connection between one of the state's poorest women and one of its wealthiest. How did an undocumented, Mexican-born housekeeper, Nicandra Diaz Santillan, end up in the national spotlight, boldly confronting her former boss, billionaire GOP gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman? The short answer: with the help of a union. Read full story here

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Progressive: Peace is Simple..."Hold direct talks between Washington and Pyongyang and move to a formal peace agreement"

Newsnm notes - Sometimes Progressive Magazine really amazes. How could Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush, Clinton, W. Bush, and Obama not realize how easy it is to obtain peace with North Korea. Read here for some real diplomatic enlightenment!  From Progressive.org - Over at Fox, they’re ready to risk nuclear war on the Korean peninsula right now after the North’s foolish shelling of that South Korean island. Michael Scheuer, Fox’s terrorism expert, said Obama should immediately destroy North Korea’s navy. “The North Koreans can do without a navy for a while,” he said. “Instead of spending money on nuclear stuff, they can build new boats." At that, the host, Brian Kilmeade, added compassionately: "Yeah, let their people starve.” Read full column here:
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Bozell: "Gulag" Now Acceptable

Russian Gulag Prisoners
From Townhall - by Brent Bozell - Our liberal scribes and pundits savaged the Bush administration as being a privacy-shredding, terrorist-suspect-abusing tyranny on the march. Now that President Obama is in charge, they lamely suggest that "the government" has failed, but with no president's name attached in the blame game. For years, the media insisted that the terrorist holding pen at Guantanamo was a horrific stain on our global reputation. It was a "cancer" (CBS's Bob Schieffer) and the networks uncritically aired Amnesty International quacks denouncing it as "the gulag of our time." Any denunciation had the words "Bush" and "Cheney" inexorably attached. But now the outrage has died, and the story is being downplayed, since the Evil Bush is no longer the target. Take the case of Gitmo prisoner Ahmed Ghailani, who participated in the U.S. embassy massacre in Tanzania in 1998. When the federal judge crippled his trial in mid-October by omitting a witness, ABC and NBC skipped over it. "CBS Evening News" offered an anchor brief, with Couric calling it a "big setback for federal prosecutors." Nothing was attributed to the Obama administration. Read full column here:
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Morris and McGann: Obama Using Executive Orders to Implement Radical Agenda

From Townhall.com - Does President Obama plan to move to the center in response to his overwhelming rejection at the polls on Nov. 2? No way! Instead, he is moving to implement, through executive action, two of the most controversial items in his 2010 agenda -- a carbon tax and pollution permit system and a ban on the use of secret ballots in union elections. Through executive action by the Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) and the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), the Obama administration is planning to effectuate both policies without asking Congress. Read full column here:
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Nuclear Power's Search For the Taxpayer’s Wallet

From rockbridgeweekly.com - As the new Congress convenes in Washington next year, nuclear power’s apparently limitless quest for federal subsidies will test the resolve of representatives elected to end Washington’s culture of entitlement and the costs it imposes on American taxpayers. For ten years now, lobbyists favoring a “renaissance” in building new U.S. reactors have been lining up financial help from taxpayers. They need this help because these new reactors are far more expensive than other ways of generating or saving electricity. Consequently, private investors won’t take the risk of losing a lot of money. More here

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Texas Congressional Grab

From redstate.com - Texas is going to make big gains in the census and pick up some congressional districts. Conservatives across the country must be concerned that the man who will have the heaviest hand in drawing those lines is 100% NARAL supported and ridiculously corrupt.
We must fight at the state level here to help the conservative cause nationally in the 2012 elections. And what happened late yesterday should concern everyone — really concern everyone, not to mention embarrass all the Texans. As I previously mentioned, Straus sent out his loyal lieutenant Larry Phillips to tell a number of Republican State House members that if they did not vote for Straus, Straus would draw them out of their districts.  When the accusation was made, Straus referred the matter to the House Ethics Committee. Larry Phillips just so happens to be Vice Chair of that committee. Here is where it gets fun. Read full story here:
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Stalin and Genocide

Many people know of Stalin and his horrific deeds and mass murders but some people are uneducated or misinformed especially since the history of Stalin is not often taught in schools. I would like all those that take the time to read this article to keep in mind that recently this year a memorial bust of Stalin was unveiled in Bedford, Va., next to Western Allied leaders in World War II
From volokh.com - In his excellent recent book Stalin’s Genocides, Stanford historian Norman Naimark argues that Joseph Stalin committed genocide and not “merely” mass murder. Few any longer deny that Stalin’s regime slaughtered millions of innocent people. But the Russian government and some Western writers continue to argue that these murders were not genocidal, and that Stalin therefore cannot be classed in a category with Adolf Hitler and others who slaughtered entire racial, ethnic, or religious groups. More here

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70% of Americans Support Adopting Israeli Profiling System at U.S. Airports

From ynetnews.com - Should the US adopt Israeli-style airport security measures? A debate over just that issue has been running at full steam over the past few days due to profound public criticism of invasive security techniques which include a full body search and pat down in intimate areas.
House or Representatives delegate for Utah Jason Chaffetz, on Monday called for a probe into methods employed by Transportation Security Administration agents and for a look into alternative methods which would be based on the use of sniffer dogs with secondary use of screening machines and implementing behavioral profiling as Israel does. More here

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10 Things You Need to Know About the Dream Act

From the Center of Individual Freedom - 1. The DREAM Act is NOT limited to children, and it will be funded on the backs of hard working, law-abiding Americans.
2. The DREAM Act PROVIDES SAFE HARBOR FOR ANY ALIEN, including criminals, from being removed or deported if they simply submit an application.
3. Certain criminal aliens will be eligible for amnesty under the DREAM Act.
4. Estimates suggest that at least 2.1 million illegal aliens will be eligible for the DREAM Act amnesty. In reality, we have no idea how many illegal aliens will apply.
5. Illegal aliens will get in-state tuition benefits.
6. The DREAM Act does not require that an illegal alien finish any type of degree (vocational, two-year, or bachelor’s degree) as a condition of amnesty.
7. The DREAM Act does not require that an illegal alien serve in the military as a condition for amnesty, and there is already a legal process in place for illegal aliens to obtain U.S. citizenship through military service.
8. Despite their current illegal status, DREAM Act aliens will be given all the rights that legal immigrants receive — including the legal right to sponsor their parents and extended family members for immigration.
9. Current illegal aliens will get federal student loans, federal work study programs, and other forms of federal financial aid.
10. DHS is prohibited from using the information provided by illegal aliens whose DREAM Act amnesty applications are denied to initiate their removal proceedings or investigate or prosecute fraud in the application process.
For a breakdown of each point read here

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State Tab For Policy Consultants: $1.7 Million

SANTA FE (KRQE) - Between 2003 and 2009, nine different New Mexico state agencies paid an out-of-state consulting company nearly $1.7 million for a big bag of ideas. Mostly, those ideas came in the form of studies, policy reviews and position papers that directed state employees to do tasks they likely already knew how to do. "They have a multitude of people to work on policy issues specifically, and so one would question what's the need for some type of out-of-state assistance," said state Sen. John Arthur Smith, D-Deming. Public Works is based in Pennsylvania and "provides public policy research and analysis, organizational development and management consulting to government agencies, think tanks and non profits across the country," according to the company's website. The 19 contracts it signed with New Mexico state agencies over the six-year period was enough work for it to open up an office in Santa Fe. Five of those contracts valued at more than $100,000 were with the state Department of Economic Development. For that money, Public Works helped department officials clarify and implement the state's economic vision, according to one contract. More here

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Next step for body scanners could be trains, boats, metro

From The Hill.com - The next step in tightened security could be on U.S. public transportation, trains and boats. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano says terrorists will continue to look for U.S. vulnerabilities, making tighter security standards necessary. “[Terrorists] are going to continue to probe the system and try to find a way through,” Napolitano said in an interview that aired Monday night on "Charlie Rose." “I think the tighter we get on aviation, we have to also be thinking now about going on to mass transit or to trains or maritime. So, what do we need to be doing to strengthen our protections there?” Read more
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Spain Says No, No, No - Markets Say Yes

Elena Salgado
From Bloomberg - Spanish Finance Minister Elena Salgado said there’s “absolutely” no risk the country will need an international bailout as its borrowing costs compared with Germany’s surged to a euro-era record. Asked in an interview on Punto Radio in Madrid if Spain risked having to seek a rescue like Ireland or Greece, Salgado said “absolutely not.” The euro faces “speculative attacks” which Spain is in the “best conditions to resist,” she said. Spain’s 10-year bond yield surged 20 basis points to 5.12 percent, pushing the spread over German bunds to the widest since the euro was created in 1999, as Ireland’s bailout prompted speculation that Portugal and Spain may also need help. Irish yields jumped 28 basis points to 8.93 percent after the nation’s credit rating was cut two levels by Standard & Poor’s, and Portuguese yields rose 26 basis points to 7.32 percent. Read full story here:
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