Judge Says Boyfriend's Billboard Can Stay, For Now

From KOAT-TV.com - ALAMOGORDO, N.M. -- A state district judge has ruled an Alamogordo man can keep his controversial billboard along the city's main thoroughfare, for now. Judge James Counts wants to schedule a full hearing since the case concerns freedom of speech and the right to privacy. Greg Fultz put up a billboard in May that implied his ex-girlfriend had an abortion. The billboard shows Fultz holding the outline of an infant. The text reads, "This Would Have Been A Picture Of My 2-Month Old Baby If The Mother Had Decided To Not KILL Our Child!" The woman has taken Fultz to court for harassment and violation of privacy. Read more
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In defense of the tea party

From NM Politics.net - by Heath Haussamen - Tea partiers have forced America to risk default with their insistence on dramatic spending cuts and opposition to tax increases. But their actions are based on a genuine concern that Washington’s spending has taken us to the brink. Someone told me the other day that he hoped Congress would fail to approve an increase in the debt ceiling because we have to stop spending beyond our means. That sentiment is certainly expressed by many in the tea party. It’s true, as President Barack Obama and others have pointed out, that Congress is simply being asked to OK the paying of bills it already approved the federal government accruing. But many believe Congress shouldn’t have approved that spending to being with, and it’s time to make a stand. Read more
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Climate Change Alarmists Alarmed...They Are Wrong

Marita Noon
Newsnm note- Marita Noon is a well known national expert on energy issues. The following column appeared on Townhall.com. Noon will appear as our guest on News New Mexico tomorrow at 7:30am. Townhall - The scientist who reported on dying polar bears gave the global warming movement its mascot—even though he wasn’t studying polar bears. His study was on whales. He saw dead polar bears. While working on the whales, he made some observations based on anecdotal evidence—not science. Monnett’s report is filled with words like: speculate, suggest, may, presume, apparent, almost, and could. The basic conclusion found in his polar bear mortality paper is that the dead polar bears were the result of high waves during a storm. On the last page of the report, he states: “Although a number of published papers have discussed implications of climate change on polar bears, to date, mortality due to swimming has not been identified as an associated risk.” Despite the statement that the “poster-child” of global warming propaganda isn’t drowning due to climate change, and regardless of the fact that there have not been increasing reports of downing polar bears (other than those mistakenly killed by the researchers), alarmists embraced the polar bear as the icon—making it into the star of An Inconvenient Truth.
But now, the integrity of the author of this foundational work of the global warming movement is under investigation—bringing into question the integrity of the entire theory.
On July 28, the Globe and Mail, updated a report that indicates that melting ice—which is supposedly causing the polar-bear drownings—is not caused by global warming. Instead, Canadian scientists found that ice is melting more quickly than the predictions and it is melting due to varied salt levels in the older ice versus the younger ice. Simon Boxall of the Catlin Artic Survey explained that it is a more complicated process than simple warming. “Because fresh meltwater is colder than seawater, that means relatively warm water is being forced upwards. And that may be part of the reason that sea ice is melting so much faster than anyone thought it would.”
In the same week that the misconduct investigation was announced and the sea ice report was updated, The University of Alabama issued a press release heralding new findings from NASA’s Terra satellite. In short, as reported in Forbes, “The study indicates far less future global warming will occur than United Nations computer models have predicted, and supports prior studies indicating increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide trap far less heat than alarmists have claimed.” Another assumption bites the dust. Unfortunately, billions of dollars of taxpayer money have already been spent in questionable projects resulting in a campaign to promote expensive ethanol, wind, and solar energy to fix a problem that doesn’t appear to exist.
Add these news items—all from just one week—to the climategate scandal, the overall lack of warming, and other predictions from the alarmists that have not been borne out, and one has to wonder how the alarmists can still believe. More and more, the American public is hitting the snooze button, and it is the alarmists who should be alarmed. It looks like they will have to find a new clarion call—a new way to spread fear, and a new way to restrict energy and control freedom. Read full column here: News New Mexico

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Biden: GOP Like "Terrorists"

Joe Biden
Politico - Vice President Joe Biden joined House Democrats in lashing tea party Republicans Monday, accusing them of having “acted like terrorists” in the fight over raising the nation’s debt limit. Biden was agreeing with a line of argument made by Rep. Mike Doyle (D-Pa.) at a two-hour, closed-door Democratic Caucus meeting.
“We have negotiated with terrorists,” an angry Doyle said, according to sources in the room. “This small group of terrorists have made it impossible to spend any money.”
Biden, driven by his Democratic allies’ misgivings about the debt-limit deal, responded: “They have acted like terrorists,” according to several sources in the room. Biden’s office declined to comment about what the vice president said inside the closed-door session. Earlier in the day, Biden told Senate Democrats that Republican leaders have “guns to their heads” in trying to negotiate deals.
The vice president’s hot rhetoric about tea party Republicans underscored the tense moment on Capitol Hill as four party leaders in both chambers work to round up the needed votes in an abbreviated time frame.
The bill would raise the debt limit by as much as $2.4 trillion through the end of next year and reduce the deficit by an equal amount over the next decade. Democrats had no shortage of colorful phrases in wake of the deal. Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-Mo.) called it a “Satan sandwich,” and Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.) called seemed to enjoy the heat analogy, saying: “the Tea Partiers and the GOP have made their slash and burn lunacy clear, and while I do not love this compromise, my vote is a hose to stop the burning. The arsonists must be stopped. Read full story here: News New Mexico

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The TRUTH About "Cuts"

Ron Paul
The Hill - One might think that the recent drama over the debt ceiling involves one side wanting to increase or maintain spending with the other side wanting to drastically cut spending, but that is far from the truth. In spite of the rhetoric being thrown around, the real debate is over how much government spending will increase. No plan under serious consideration cuts spending in the way you and I think about it. Instead, the "cuts" being discussed are illusory, and are not cuts from current amounts being spent, but cuts in projected spending increases. This is akin to a family "saving" $100,000 in expenses by deciding not to buy a Lamborghini, and instead getting a fully loaded Mercedes, when really their budget dictates that they need to stick with their perfectly serviceable Honda. But this is the type of math Washington uses to mask the incriminating truth about their unrepentant plundering of the American people. Read full column here: News New Mexico
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Guilty Plea From Corrections Dept. Facilities Manager

NM Watchdog - A former Corrections Department facilities manager must forfeit $237,080 and could face as much as 10 years in prison after she pleaded guilty on Thursday to accepting bribes in exchange for state contracts. The company that paid the bribes is still contracting with the state. The Santa-Fe based Omni Development Corporation so far this year has landed state contracts totaling more than $1.6 million. Omni netted nearly $2.2 million in state contracts last year, and more than $4 million in Corrections Dept. business alone in the three years during which Chapman collected bribes. Former corrections facility manager Lauri Chapman pleaded guilty to 30 various federal counts based on charges that she took bribes from Omni between February, 2007 and April, 2009. A price agreement procedure Chapman first implemented in 2007 let her select contractors without soliciting competitive bids. Omni became the sole provider of roofing service for the department. An audit of contracts Chapman oversaw revealed extensive irregularities, including $3.7 million in insufficiently documented or disallowed costs charged by Omni and two other companies. Omni was paid nearly $1.3 million for costs that were not supported by state purchasing procedures. Read full story here: News New Mexico
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What's Happened in 13 Months

Today we passed a milestone. We are now thirteen months into the News New Mexico project. On day one of News New Mexico (July 1, 2010) we decided to document the amount of debt each taxpaying couple in America has been accumulating since that day. The totals are staggering. In thirteen months, the federal government has borrowed $22,848 for every couple paying income taxes in the U.S. ($11,424 for each individual taxpayer). And since the government actually spends an additional 1.5 times what it borrows, the government is actually spending $57,120 for every taxpaying married couple in the nation ($28,560 for every individual taxpayer). Now some people scoff at those who think about these numbers and suggest government is too big. And with 51% of all American households sitting out the taxpaying and debt service efforts, we can only wonder why those who think we CAN'T keep borrowing and spending like this are branded as nothing but a bunch of crazy social terrorists and racist extremists that don’t care about the “middle class.”

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The Hill Whip Count: Pearce, Lujan, Heinrich All Undecided

The Hill - The debt-limit deal announced on Sunday night is expected to attract more than 60 votes in the Senate, but its outlook in the House is much more cloudy. Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) will need Democratic votes to clear the bill through the lower chamber. How many remains unclear. A total of 216 lawmakers must vote in favor of the package for it to clear the House, and Boehner will need to rely on members from both parties. The following is a rundown of The Hill’s constantly updated whip count. Read full story here: News New Mexico
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Faces of Immigration

Martinez Gives Inaugural Address 
Newsnm note - We ran across this well written feature by Sandra B. Martinez - Santa Fe New Mexican - Susana Martinez has been scaling walls since she was a kid. At 11 and of a mind to ignore her mother's warning, she couldn't stop herself from trying to conquer the garden wall bordering her family's three-bedroom, 1,400-square-foot Thomas Manor brick home in El Paso. "Don't run on that wall, Susana," her mother, Paula Aguirre, would tell her. "You're going to fall." Little Susana would climb the cinder-block wall anyway and start racing with a friend along the narrow, rounded top of the wall. "I fell and cut my thigh," Martinez said. "I didn't cry. I just remember thinking, 'Oh no!' I was more afraid of my mom."
Martinez with husband Chuck Franco
Martinez's father, Jacobo Martinez, was a boxer, so her mother had experience caring for wounds. When Aguirre poured peroxide onto her wound, Susana clenched her teeth. The peroxide foam gurgling from the bloody gash caused her to throw up the cherry Icee in her tummy.  But she did not cry. Read full feature here: News New Mexico

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Status Quo Preserved: No Change in Direction

Wall Street Journal - WASHINGTON—After weeks of partisan wrangling, President Barack Obama and congressional leaders reached a deal Sunday night to raise the government's debt ceiling while cutting spending by about $2.4 trillion, avoiding a government default but setting the stage for months more of stormy debates over how Washington taxes and spends. President Barack Obama and the bipartisan leadership of Congress reached a deal to lift the ceiling on the federal debt and reduce future budget deficit just days before a default deadline.
WSJ's Peter Stein and Economics Editor David Wessel discuss the details. The Senate and House are expected to vote on the deal Monday, so the agreement still needs the support of many House Republicans, who have proven a restless, independent group in recent days. But if it passes both chambers, it culminates an extraordinary display of political and economic brinksmanship, coming just days before the government could have been unable to fully pay its bills. Read full story here: News New Mexico

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President is Not Polling Well

Rasmussen - The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Sunday shows that 23% of the nation's voters Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as president. Forty-two percent (42%) Strongly Disapprove, giving Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of -19. Read full story here: News New Mexico
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St. Vincent Nurses Vote to Approve Contract

KOB - TV - Late Sunday night, members of the union representing nurses and technicians at Christus St. Vincent hospital in Santa Fe narrowly voted to accept a contract with the hospital's administration. The vote began after 8 p.m., with a looming midnight deadline before their contract expired. Word of the approval of the contract came just after 11 a.m. Union officials say the vote was split. The exact vote count was not immediately available late Sunday. The union and hospital had been in a contentious fight over nurse-to-patient ratio at the hospital. Union officials say they gave up nearly $5 million in pay over the right to have a say in staffing levels. Read full story here: News New Mexico
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Biden "Rents" Cottage to Secret Service

Joe Biden
Washington Times - The U.S. Secret Service does more than protect Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. — the agency also pays him rent. Since April, Mr. Biden has collected more than $13,000 from the agency charged with protecting him and his family for use of a rental cottage adjacent to the waterfront home he owns in a Wilmington, Del., suburb. Mr. Biden, listed not as vice president in federal purchasing documents but as a “vendor,” is eligible for up to $66,000 by the time the government contract expires in the fall of 2013, the records show. Officials say the arrangement came about when a previous tenant moved out of the cottage and the Secret Service moved in. Read full story here: News New Mexico

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