State Senator Steve Fischmann on NewsNM

State Senator Steve Fischmann from District 37 will be on News New Mexico in the 8 o'clock hour today. He has been quite vocal about improving education in New Mexico and is on the State Senate Education Committee.
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January 11, 1989... President Reagan's Farewell Address

On this date in 1989 Ronald Reagan gave his farewell address – “I'm (still) out there stumping to help future presidents - Republican or Democrat - get those tools they need to bring the budget under control. And those tools are a line-item veto and a constitutional amendment to balance the budget…

And how stand the city (Washington, D.C.) on this winter night? More prosperous, more secure, and happier than it was eight years ago. But more than that; after two hundred years, two centuries, she still stands strong and true on the granite ridge, and her glow has held steady no matter what storm. And she's still a beacon, still a magnet for all who must have freedom, for all the pilgrims from all the lost places who are hurtling through the darkness, toward home…”

Reagan’s 100th birthday is February 6th “Whatever else history may say about me when I’m gone, I hope it will record that I appealed to your best hopes, not your worst fears; to your confidence rather than your doubts. My dream is that you will travel the road ahead with liberty’s lamp guiding your steps and opportunity’s arm steadying your way.”

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Martinez budget spares Public Safety, teachers

From the Santa Fe New Mexican.com - Gov. Susana Martinez proposed Monday to cut state spending by about 3 percent next year to balance a $5.4 billion budget for public education and governmental services. In releasing her budget recommendations to the Legislature, the Republican governor proposed that public schools find $30 million in savings in administrative operations. However, she said school districts should be able to find the savings without cuts in classroom spending, which she had pledged to protect during last year's gubernatorial campaign. Martinez also recommended that government workers and some educators pay more for their pensions. It's a change that would trim take-home pay for public employees, although part of that would be offset by lower federal payroll taxes. No tax increase would be required to balance the budget under Martinez's plan, which would trim state spending by about $179 million in the fiscal year that starts July 1. A budget proposal by the Legislative Finance Committee calls for cuts of about $194 million. Like the legislative panel, Martinez gained much of her proposed savings by requiring state workers and some educational employees to pay an additional 2 percent of their salaries for their pensions. The state would reduce its pension payments by a similar amount, saving about $39 million next year. Read more
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Spence: Is this What It Has Come To?

Jim Spence
Attributing “motives” to various political mouthpieces is always tricky. No doubt any column, no matter how simple the message, could be interpreted as one that assigns negative motives to those who disagree. It is not necessary to assign motives to those weighing in with heavy tones to try to explain the meaning of the atrocity in Tucson. And I will confess to a personal sense of discomfort when encountering any effort by any analyst to “interpret” the meaning of the atrocity.
Gabrielle Giffords
No doubt partisans on both sides of the aisle experienced a certain level of trepidation as the news of this latest horrible episode in American history broke. Would the whack job perpetrator have more evidence of “left” or “right” leaning philosophies as the investigation unfolded? Most assuredly both sides of the partisan political spectrum were quivering over the danger that they would not be the winner in the blame game.
Erwin Rommel
Sometimes in fighting, it is the first big blow landed in any “fight” that proves best. It is far better to get your enemy playing defense first right away in most fights. It was German General Erwin Rommel who once suggested, as he faced General George Patton in North Africa, that it was his plan to "annihilate" his enemy first, before his enemy could do the same to him. Since there are so many clever opportunists on both sides of the so-called American political spectrum, it was inevitable that one side would take the offensive first in what was mistakenly perceived as a political incident in Tucson. Apparently everything is political in 21st Century America. And so it is that we can now frame the events of last weekend in political terms. In this terrible event, it was the progressive blog-site Daily Kos, that was the first "publisher" to aggressively react. First Daily Kos editors quickly and brazenly “scrubbed” their own site. Removed was a radically offensive political post from earlier in the week that suggested the reprehensible “blue dog” Democrat Gabrielle Giffords was already “dead” for her betrayal of Nancy Pelosi in the speaker vote. And virtually in the next cyber-breath, Daily Kos managed the unmitigated audacity to point to the site of Sarah Palin as the source of blame for the shootings.
In an instant, during one short tragic weekend, Americans had the opportunity to experience a microcosm of what is so wrong with the task of managing the business of America. Since the elected official shooting victim could be identified politically by using a “D” next to her name, it would be the so-called political right that would play defense first in the ensuing high-stakes political blame game. It was almost like a coin toss in a political sudden death overtime period. Except somewhere lost, in this terriblly brazen opportunist shuffle, was the truth. The simple truth being that a mentally deranged man was able to bring out the very worst in America.
Is America still the land of the free and the home of the brave? You would not think so if you watched partisan suspects line up on the Sunday talk shows to take shots at their so-called “enemies.” Sadly most were pretty much allowed to do just that without any scrutiny from most corners of civilized society. Are all politicians who argue passionately for their points of view responsible for any lunatic who tries to kill others with the opposite political identifying letters? If this is in fact how far we have descended, perhaps it is time to re-think the widespread use of those two terrible letters. Do we really need "D's" and "R's"? It would seem the price society is paying for those dubious distinctions is getting rather prohibitive.


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Progressive: Blame Game Beat Goes On

Matthew Rothschild
Progressive.org - His web postings reflect “a jumble” of far right views. And some anti-Semitic white nationalists shed no tears over Gabrielle Giffords. The alleged shooter, Jared Lee Loughner, has links to the far right. On My Space, he acknowledged he had political motives. “I define terrorist,” he said, adding he was using violence “as a political weapon.” In his rambling messages on the web, he railed about the U.S. currency and the need to return to the gold standard, which are views that often circulate among the tea party crowd and other on the far right. He also, according to the Guardian, was anti-abortion. Read full column here:
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Blame Game Won't Work

Carol Platt Liebau
Townhall - As the nation reeled from news that a gunman had shot a group of Arizona citizens including Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, an all-too-predictable response emanated from some on the left. Despite news reports suggesting that the shooter, Jared Lee Loughner, was simply insane – a devotee of Karl Marx and Adolf Hitler, who believed in mind control and “conscience dreaming,” and who was convinced he would become the treasurer of a new currency – many left-wingers sought to attribute his despicable acts to a conservative political agenda. Read full column here:
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A Tale of Two Target Lists

In the wake of the horrifying shootings in Tucson, and the predictable opportunist finger pointing that began soon after, it didn't take long to find many examples of political "target" lists out there in cyberspace. Both CBS News and ABC selectively chose to only report on a target list of Sarah Palin on the Sunday talk show circuit. Both networks referenced Palin's target list of house members on sarahpac.com. However, what these news outlets did not bother to mention was all the other congressional "target" lists posted by various competitors and interested parties in the political space.
In two minutes we found an article and list using the term "BULLS EYE." One can read a 2008 article contaning one such list from the popular progressive website Daily Kos. Listed along with many other "blue dogs" as a legitimate target for defeat is Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords. Is this list or this article that was posted on Daily Kos significant? Not really. The only thing significant about this list and article is its omission by once reputable news agencies like ABC and CBS in their atrocious reporting on the horrifying acts of a madman.

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Daily Kos: Scrub Site and Point Finger

Markos Moulitsas Zuniga
Worldnet Daily - Shortly after news broke of the attempted murder of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., the left-leaning blog Daily Kos was swift to scrub its post from a Tucson writer explaining how the congresswoman was now "dead to me." One of the blog's diary writers, identifying himself as BoyBlue, had written a post only two days before the shooting titled "My CongressWOMAN voted against Nancy Pelosi! And is now DEAD to me!" Read full story here:
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