From Capitol Report New Mexico - Late last year, a state employee got physical with Gadi Schwartz of KOB-TV for shooting video outside the PERA Building in Santa Fe, with the employee uttering the memorable and Orwellian words, “This isn’t public property; it’s state property.” Click here for that story. And in the most shameful moment of the most recent legislative session, the state Senate by a 35-3 vote passed a measure that requires members of the public who want to photograph or videotape committee meetings to first ask for permission from the committee chair and vice-chair. Click here for that story. And you can click here and here for a couple other stories of public employees going nuts when a citizen or journalist merely points a camera their way. Now, we’ve got another story. It happened in Las Vegas, NV when a man videotaped the aftermath of police bust in his own neighborhood. A policeman assaults the man, breaking his nose and then arrested the man on charges of assaulting a police officer (although he did not) and obstruction of justice. Read more
Another assault in the War on Cameras: Police beating of Las Vegas man caught on tape
Posted by
Michael Swickard
on Sunday, April 24, 2011
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Understanding "Market Price Thinking"
Posted by
Jim Spence
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Spence Columns
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Jim Spence |
Of course, this approach ignores the fact that constantly rising housing market prices have plenty of negative consequences too. What about the prices young people and other first time home buyers must pay? Why aren’t more Americans concerned about the prices buyers of housing must pay? Buyers make up exactly 50% of the parties involved in every housing transaction. There is no balance in the attitudes Americans have about housing market prices. The opposite imbalance is true when it comes to the dialogue on the market prices of oil and gas products.
Elected officials are NEVER happy about rising oil and gas prices. However, when the market price of crude oil (and gasoline) plunges, nearly every political hack trumpets this as great news. Again there is no balance in market price thinking.
How did we ever become this naive? The answer rests in how we educate ourselves. Americans have been indoctrinated in the area of market price ignorance over several generations. Self perpetuating propaganda machines control the curriculums offered to each new generation of Americans. We are encouraged to be suspicious of rising oil and gas prices. The brainwashing begins at an early age. Though America has not changed its oil and gas consumption patterns, a pernicious “dumb down” process has continuously discouraged several generations of Americans (and elected officials) from seizing the domestic opportunities associated with actually embracing the ownership of oil and gas production. Experiencing the damages done by ignoring the realities of market pricing when making public policies is relatively new in America. However, Eastern Europe, Russia and China are places with several generations of experience in the utter folly of public policies that encourage market price ignorance. Especially in China, the leaders have come to recognize that markets really don’t give a damn if their nation’s leadership cultivates and exploits for political gain, the widespread ignorance on market prices.
Mao |
Make no mistake. Radical environmentalists and global-warming climate change preachers are firmly in control now. Their hopes for retaining policy-making power rest mainly in the hope that Americans will become increasingly ignorant about the reality of market prices. It is ironic in the face of record cold temperatures in many parts of America and Europe earlier this year that reinvigorating the man-made climate change-global warming theories is the key to spreading the religion of socialism. Americans should be forewarned. Following the preaching of those who require ignorance of the truths of market prices is the economic equivalent of putting the Reverend Jim Jones in charge of our economy. Watch out for the Kool-Aid and have a Happy Easter!
Understanding "Market Price Thinking"
Report on Push to Re-Organize State Govt.
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Jim Spence
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New Mexico News
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Steve Terrell |
Report on Push to Re-Organize State Govt.
Cartels: Los Zetas Not Just Mexico's Concern
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Jim Spence
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Border
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Washington Times - The signature crimes of the most violent drug cartel in Mexico are its beheading and dismemberment of rival gang members, military personnel, law enforcement officers and public officials, and the random kidnappings and killings of civilians who get caught in its butchery and bloodletting. But this disparate band of criminals known as Los Zetas is no longer just a concern in Mexico. It has expanded its deadly operations across the southwestern border, establishing footholds and alliances in states from New York to California. Just last year, federal agents tied a cocaine operation in Baltimore to the Zetas. “Those of us who live and work along the border know they’re already here,” said Zapata County Sheriff Sigifredo Gonzalez Jr., whose Texas county lies on the Rio Grande 50 miles southeast of the Zetas’ stronghold of Nuevo Laredo. “There’s already been killings and many residents here are living in fear.”
Sheriff Gonzalez, whose Texas Border Sheriff’s Coalition sought help from the federal government to control growing violence along the border, said the rising brutality of Mexican drug gangs, particularly the Zetas, “never stops shocking me.”
Trained as an elite band of Mexican anti-drug commandos, the Zetas evolved into mercenaries for the infamous Gulf Cartel, bringing a new wave of brutality to Mexico’s escalating drug wars. Bolstered by an influx of assassins, bandits, thieves, thugs and corrupt federal, state and local police officers, the Zetas have since evolved into a well-financed and heavily armed drug smuggling force of their own.
“The Zetas are determined to gain the reputation of being the most sadistic, cruel and beastly organization that ever existed,” said George W. Grayson, professor of government at the College of William & Mary and an expert on Mexican drug gangs. “Many of Mexico’s existing drug cartels will kill their enemies, but not go out of their way to do it. The Zetas look forward to inflicting fear on their targets. Read full story here: News New Mexico
Cartels: Los Zetas Not Just Mexico's Concern
Geithner Credibility Downgraded to JUNK Status
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Jim Spence
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Tim Geithner |
Geithner Credibility Downgraded to JUNK Status