Probe Reveals New Black Panther Ties to Hezbollah

From examiner.com - Two separate investigations into the New Black Panthers have been conducted this month, one in response to charges of homegrown terrorism and the other in response to the group's placing a bounty on the head of George Zimmerman, the alleged shooter of Florida teenager Trayvon Martin. The results of the twofold probe, one of which was released yesterday, reveals New Black Panther ties to the Middle East terrorist group Hezbollah.  Congressman Peter King, R-NY, has been investigating Hezbollah's activities within the United States as part of a Congressional probe into homegrown terrorism. King is Chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security. Part of the results of his investigation can be read here.  On the heels of King's report came another significant development yesterday as a researcher who works with retired General Paul Vallely, a former Fox News analyst, issued a separate report, published here, which exposes significant collaboration between Hezbollah and the New Black Panthers.
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NM Ranked First In Solar Power Per Capita

From bizjournals.com - The national Solar Energy Industries Association has ranked New Mexico No. 1 in the nation for installed solar power per state resident in 2011. The association’s annual Solar Market Insight report, released in mid-March, said New Mexico installed 116 megawatts of solar photovoltaic capacity last year, the fourth highest amount among all U.S. states.  The report says New Mexico has reached a total of 166.9 megawatts of cumulative installed solar generation, equal to 77.3 watts of solar power per capita. That makes New Mexico No. 1 in the U.S. for solar per person, and No. 1 in per capita additions in 2011, said SEIA President and CEO Rhone Resch.  More News New Mexico
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Marathon Runner Micah True Found Dead

From nytimes.com -The ultra-marathon runner Micah True, missing for four days in the rugged wilderness of New Mexico, was found dead on Saturday, the police said.  True, 58, was found in the early evening in the mountainous Gila National Forest in southwest New Mexico, near the Arizona border, said Tom Bemis, incident commander with the New Mexico State Police. Nicknamed Caballo Blanco, or White Horse, True became a celebrity after he was featured in the best-selling book “Born to Run” by Christopher McDougall.   More News New Mexcio
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The "Luevano Incident"

Life for active duty military servants is complicated. The words “permanent” and “residency” can never be used with any certainty.
Consider N.M. House District # 16 candidate Johnny Luevano who just finished a twenty year career in the U.S. Marine Corps. In doing so, he, like all others who serve in the military, essentially surrendered his freedom of movement. It was up to his commanding officers in the Marines to decide where his temporary residences would be. Whenever and wherever the Marines wanted Luevano to go, it was his sworn duty to go there.
Several years ago Luevano could see the end of his military career approaching. Accordingly, he purchased a building lot in House District # 16 in Albuquerque. In recent years, while paying taxes on his permanent residential lot, he made plans to build his post military career residence there. Construction of the new home began in 2011.
Luevano voted his entire active duty career as a New Mexico resident. Recently he was stationed in Tucson, Arizona. On January 1, 2012, Luevano’s retirement from active duty became official. And also early in 2012, the Luevano family began the joyful process of packing their belongings in anticipation of a move to a long awaited and well-deseved permanent residence. As luck would have it, construction and permitting delays at the city of Albuquerque kept the family move to the permanent residence in limbo until March. And then suddenly, all hell broke loose.
Progress Now New Mexico, a partisan radical fringe group made a huge media splash when it falsely accused Luevano of casting his final active duty vote illegally. Preposterously, the progressives demanded a "criminal" investigation.
Johnny Luevano
Since then the smear of this 20 year Marine veteran has been on. And so far there has been little or no recognition of the implications of Luevano’s active duty status in the media. Why would anyone want to smear Luevano and suggest he committed fraud? It is all very simple. He had the gall to run for elected office against one of Progress Now New Mexico’s favorite darlings, Representative Antonio “Moe” Maestas.
For his part Maestas, an attorney, has filed a lawsuit to try to have Luevano removed from the ballot. The hearing is set for April 9th. It is simply amazing to contrast this situation with the recent technical flaws in filing documents submitted by elected officials. If that contrast is not enough, consider the circumstances surrounding the candidates in the recent Sunland Park municipal elections.
With the unemployment rate for returning veterans at somewhere between 20 and 30%, and all of the seemingly heartfelt “Support the Troops” efforts made in our society, the “Luevano Incident” seems to have finally put all sense of shame and decency to rest. What people will do now days to hold on to political power is simply remarkable. American citizens who claim to “Support our Troops” should come from all over the nation and defend the rights of Johnny Luevano to serve his country and when he finishes, run for elected office.

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Only One Blasting Cap Away From Tyranny

Americans fought itself free from England based on a fundamental rejection of the heavy hand of big government. In defining our rights as free human beings, the Bill of Rights was an unambiguous message for all ambitious future government officials. We wanted there to be strict limits on the power of government. And those ten basic principles, written in the clearest possible language, spelled out precisely what sort of RESTRICTIONS we wanted to always be imposed on our government.
More than anything else, the language used in the Bill of Rights provides protection against the worst elements of human nature. In breaking away from King George III, Americans were unwilling to give government an inch, because instinctively our founders knew it would try to take a mile. They knew why they fought and they knew what was won.
Ruth Bader Ginsburg
The Bill of Rights is supposed to protect us from all human beings who would dare to use government as a tool to deny freedoms. Specifically we are promised free: speech, press, religion, and assembly. We are also guaranteed the right keep and bear arms. Unreasonable searches and seizures by people in the government are prohibited. Our freedom is guaranteed by a due process guarantee in a court of law.
Elena Kagan
And we are also protected from our government through the requirement of speedy hearings, and trials by jury. Excessive bail, fines, or punishments are also prohibited. Most important of all we are provided with the specific guarantee that any authority not explicitly granted to the government, is reserved to us, as individuals. Make no mistake, the Bill of Rights is an irrevocable CAN’T DO list for ambitious elected officials. It is based on the assumption that one of the great failing of all human beings is the tendency to use the machinery of government to dominate life and usurp individual choices.
Sonia Sotomayor
Let’s turn our attention to the legal community. For most of the 225 years since the U.S. Constitution was adopted, a parade of crafty lawyers, acting as wordsmiths, illusionists, and legal magicians, have tried to convince the courts to countermand the fundamental protections of the Constitution. The latest effort came earlier this week when the Obama administrations lawyers tried to convince a majority of Supreme Court justices that the federal government has the authority to require all citizens to enter into private commercial contracts or face fines for not doing so.
John Paul Stevens
The questions offered by some of those lawyer-judges sitting on the Supreme Court shed light on just how precarious our constitutional protections have become. We can assume that as many as four of the nine Supreme Court justices are now ready to provide blasting caps to those who argued that the "mandate" provision contained in the Affordable Health Care Act is constitutional. The Obama administration has already placed legal explosives underneath the constitutional foundation of our country. All this president needs is one more lawyer-judge to give him a perverse "opinion." George III must be smirking somewhere.

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A Republican — yes a Republican — runs for state House of Reps in same district as Sheryl Williams Stapleton

Erica Landry
Capitol Report New MexicoAt one time, Erica Landry not only supported Sheryl Williams Stapleton, she campaigned for her. Now, the 52-year-old community activist is running in Stapleton’s House of Representatives district in Albuquerque – as a Republican in a district that is heavily Democrat. “I know things are not going well [in District 19] and yes, it’s time for a change,” Landry told Capitol Report New Mexicoby phone Thursday (March 29). Landry has lived in southeast Albuquerque since 1993 and says she wants to reduce crime and improve the economic health of the district. “I want to help create wealth in an area where there is blight,” she said. A holder of a bachelor’s degree and a master’s degree from UNM, Landry was once an adjunct professor at UNM and was a director of community releations for a time at Santa Fe Public Schools. She’s also served on a number of civic organizations, including the City of Albuquerque Indicator Progress Commission, where she served as commissioner in 2007. Read More News New Mexico

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Maestas Has Two Chances to Win, Luevano One

Antonio "Moe" Maestas
Albuquerque lawyer and Representative Antonio “Moe” Maestas filed a court challenge to the “residency” of his opponent Johnny Luevano yesterday. If successful the challenge would pave the way for Maestas to be unopposed in his bid to retain his House seat in District # 16.
Under the veneer of technicalities, the questions facing the courts are all about the rights of active duty military servants. Luevano has been an active duty Marine until he recently retired. He has owned the property in question and paid taxes on it for several years while serving in the military and moving from one assignment to another in various places. Expecting to move into his newly built Albuquerque-area home months ago, the bureaucracy at the City of Albuquerque dragged its feet in issuing the final occupancy permit to Luevano. Coincidentally just a few days AFTER the official residency deadline, Luevano did receive his final permit. The question of Luevano's eligibility was immediately put before Bernalillo County Clerk Maggie Toulouse Oliver by progressive political activists earlier this month. Their efforts to throw the election to Maestas failed when Toulouse Oliver made the decision to certify Luevano’s candidacy and put him on the ballot.
Johnny Luevano
The hearing for the latest Maestas challenge is set for April 9th. This hearing will be of interest to all veterans, all New Mexicans who are serving on active-duty in the military, just recently completed active duty, and all others who appreciate the service and disruption to life facing active duty military people. The case has the possibility to set a precedent to roll back basic rights surrounding active-duty military servants and their efforts to establish permanent residences. What is New Mexico's approach to those in military service who maintain their hometown residency for voting purposes and then build homes for permanent residence here after their tour of duty is over?
Instead of pondering that question and all it entails, it seems that for Representative Maestas it is all about securing as many chances to win as possible. First the progressives took their shot at the County Clerk. As a lawyer, Maestas understands he has an opportunity take Luevano into court after the Bernalillo County Clerk certified Luevano's candidacy. In doing so, Maestas has a relatively inexpensive shot at convincing the court to ignore the complications of military service and how the transition from active duty to retirement can affect the seemingly simple task of establishing permanent residency. Maestas is no dummy. This will be his second shot at winning the District #16 House seat. If he loses in the courtroom in April, he will still have one more shot, when District #16 finally gets to vote in November. Other than making running for office even more complicated for those who risk life and limb for their country, it's a pretty darn slick campaign strategy.


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Facts Not Critical to Sierra Club Approach

Earlier this week the Sierra Club announced it reached a legal settlement with PNM Resources. In what can only be accurately characterized as an extremely misleading press release, the Sierra Club suggested Public Service Company of New Mexico (PNM), PNM Resources, and San Juan Coal Company (a subsidiary of BHP Billiton, Ltd.) must spend millions of dollars to stop ground and surface water contamination caused by toxic coal ash waste and other sources at the San Juan Coal Mine and San Juan Generating Station coal-fired power plant.
The problem with the press release is there is NO ground or surface water contamination downstream from the plant and coal mine that originates from coal ash or other sources at the plant or coal mine. In fact, the settlement agreement does not require any change in the way coal is mined or handled. It also does not require any change in how coal ash is managed at the plant or placed at the coal mine. Placement of coal ash at the mine is already required by the state as part of the mine reclamation procedures. Coal ash is not regulated as a hazardous, or “toxic,” waste. And the system the companies are installing is only a “capture” system. There is no requirement that any of the water captured in the system be treated in any respect.
Despite all the bluster of the radicals in the Sierra Club, the power plants are in compliance with federal and state permits and the plant in San Juan County undergoes regular, rigorous inspection by state and federal regulators. As a result of the latest $320 million environmental upgrade at San Juan which was completed in 2009, the San Juan Generating Station became an industry leader in mercury emissions control. It has achieved a 99 percent mercury removal rate based on EPA-required stack testing and exceeds the EPA’s recently implemented mercury removal standards. Additionally, PNM scrubs 100% of the flue gas from each of the four units in the four corners area and also uses state-of-the-art technology to remove 99 percent of the particulate matter (or “soot”) in the flue gas.
In completely mischaracterizing the nature of the settlement, it appears that pining for more donations is remains the primary objective of the Sierra Club. The release also said, “PNM ought to invest in creating energy from clean sources like solar panels, instead of continuing to expose our air, water and land to toxic pollution from coal.”
Always on the offensive, what the Sierra Club failed to mention is that under mandates passed during the Richardson administration, PNM already has significant investments in renewable energy programs. In fact, PNM entered the renewable arena long before renewable energy mandates existed.
Back in 2003, PNM agreed to purchase all the energy produced by the New Mexico Wind Energy Center, which at the time was the world’s third-largest wind facility. In 2011, the utility invested $95 million to add 22 megawatts of solar power to its system. And, PNM has the state’s largest solar distributed generation program. About 2,400 customers have installed solar systems, amounting to 15 megawatts of power. PNM provides credits to these customers as an incentive to invest in solar technology. The program more than doubled in 2011.
For New Mexico citizens served by PNM it is naïve to think the company could easily move away from fossil fuels, like coal. There is simply NO technology to store wind or solar power. A complete move to these much more expensive resources is virtually impossible.
It is unfortunate that the Sierra Club feels compelled to engage in misinforming the public regarding electrical power in New Mexico. In doing so it puts pressure on existing power sources, electricity prices, and the possibility of blackouts in this area. Electricity blackouts are not GREEN, they are dangerous to the health and welfare of New Mexico.

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Kilmer refocuses energy into Mark Twain project

Val Kilmer 
Santa Fe New MexicanSince selling his ranch near Santa Fe for millions of dollars last year, Val Kilmer has made something of a career shift, immersing himself in the character of Mark Twain while trying to develop his own film project. The 52-year-old actor is back in Los Angeles, where he is appearing in a one-man stage show as Twain, part of preparations to portray him in a film about the author and his historical adversary, Christian Science founder Mary Baker Eddy. Kilmer, who has been working on the project for years, posted a note on the movie's website last year that said, "I have made a crucial decision to sell my home so that I might continue the momentum that is required to create a film as unique as its subject." The website has a button where visitors can donate to the project and invites them to share ideas, including casting suggestions for the various historical figures in his original screenplay. "We have a long way to go before our film is financed," he said in a January 2011 note addressed to supporters of the project, "but there has been a weekly increase of donors and this is energizing and exciting news for us all." Kilmer, who was raised as a Christian Scientist in Los Angeles, has told interviewers that in recent years he "opted for a quiet life in New Mexico" after such career-making roles as Batman, Jim Morrison and Doc Holliday. Read More News New Mexico

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NM Green Party and NM Constitution Party File Lawsuit

From Ballot Access -On March 29, the Green Party and the Constitution Party jointly filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court, alleging that the New Mexico deadline for petitions to qualify a party is too early. That deadline is the first Tuesday of April, which this year is April 3. Here is the complaint. The case is Constitution Party of New Mexico v Duran. In New Mexico, newly-qualifying parties nominate by convention, not by primary, so there seems to be no election-administration reason for the deadline to be so early. In the past, the deadline for a new party to qualify in New Mexico has been in October, then September, and then July. In 1995 it was moved to April, apparently because the majority party in the legislature, the Democratic Party, was angry that in the 1994 gubernatorial election, the Green Party gubernatorial candidate had polled 10.3% and apparently caused the defeat of the Democratic Party nominee. So, in 1995, the legislature made several hostile changes to the election law relating to minor parties, including moving the petition deadline from July to April, and also doubling the number of signatures needed for non-presidential minor party nominees to get on the November ballot.
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Donald Rumsfeld Endorses Rick Newton

From capitolreportnewmexico.com - Donald Rumsfeld has kept a relatively low profile since he stepped down as Secretary of Defense during the George W. Bush administration but campaign officials for congressional candidate Rick Newton announced on Thursday (March 29) that Rumsfeld has endorsed Newton and given the Republican candidate the maximum contribution allowed by the Federal Election Commission. “I am proud to have his support,” Newton said in a news release that said Rumsfeld met with congressional candidate two weeks ago and talked about job creation, federal over-regulation and education. A Newton campaign spokesman said the 79-year-old Rumsfeld and his wife Joyce donated $5,000 to the Newton campaign.  Read more
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Sunland Park's Mayor Elect Seeks Help of Supreme Court

Daniel Salinas
The mayor-elect of a troubled New Mexico border town is turning to the state Supreme Court to help get him into office. The high court scheduled arguments Tuesday on the request by Daniel Salinas, who has been barred from taking office in Sunland Park by the terms of his release from jail. He faces charges that he tried to force an opponent out of the mayoral race with a secretly taped video of the other man getting a topless lap dance. Salinas' attorney asked the court on Wednesday to direct the 3rd Judicial District Court to revise an order that prevents him from going to City Hall or having any contact with any Sunland Park workers. Under state law, Salinas must be sworn in by April 5 or forfeit the seat. But the city clerk must administer the oath. Salinas' attorney argued the court order violates his constitutional rights and amounts to the court indirectly interfering with an election.  Read more
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NM Town Requires $100k Insurance Policy for Pit Bulls

From liveinsurancenews.com -Elephant Butte, a town in New Mexico is now requiring the owners of certain dog breeds – including Pit Bulls, Rottweilers, and German Shepherds – to purchase a special form of liability insurance policy. Regardless of the training and past behavior of the animals, as of March 1, 2012, the dogs in those breeds were considered by the city to be potentially dangerous, and their owners had been given 90 days in which to take out a personal property liability policy, worth a minimum of $100,000, to cover them. Alan Briley, the City Manager, explained that this requirement is a response by the city to an occurrence last year in the neighboring town of Truth or Consequences, where there was a fatal mauling by a Pit Bull.  More News New Mexico
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Albuquerque police union to end shooting payments

From KOB-TV.com - ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) - The Albuquerque Police Officers Association is ending its controversial practice of giving money to police officers who have been involved in shootings. The union, along with Albuquerque Mayor Richard Berry and Police Chief Ray Schultz, made the announcement Thursday after the union named Sgt. Greg Weber as interim president and Sgt. Tom Henderson as interim vice president. The Albuquerque Journal reported last week the union gave 20 officers involved in shootings in 2010 and 2011 $300 or $500 each to help them get out of town and decompress. Read more

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Affordable Care Act bad for NM, worse for US

Dr. Deane Waldman
From NMPolitics.net - By Dr. Deane Waldman- Very clearly, the forced passage of the Affordable Care Act had much more to do with partisan domestic politics than the health of either health care or We The Patients.  The U.S. Supreme Court is discussing the ACA, the latest abbreviation for the Patient Protection and Affordable Health Care Act of 2010, pejoratively named Obamacare. Defenders of the law like State Senator Dede Feldman say the law is good for both New Mexico and the United States. They argue that it brings lots of money into our state, creates new jobs, increases insurance coverage, and eliminates the exclusion for pre-existing condition. ACA may bring large buckets of federal dollars into New Mexico, but that money will be spent on bureaucracy, not on patients. ACA is likely to increase jobs – 38,000 to 47,000 new bureaucrats, regulators, insurance adjusters, IRS investigators, and compliance officers, but not one new nurse or doctor.Read column

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Obamacare Increased Insurance Premiums

From investors.com -Leaving ObamaCare in place while striking its individual mandate isn't good enough. The full plan must be scrapped before it drives health premiums even higher. ObamaCare is wildly unpopular with Americans. Even a new CBS-New York Times poll finds two-thirds want it shot down. ...The cost of an average family premium shot up 9.5% in 2011 — the highest rate in seven years and three times the rate of overall inflation, finds a major new survey of employer plans by Kaiser Family Foundation.  Just before Obama signed his health overhaul, he vowed it would "bring down the cost of health care for families, for businesses and for the federal government." In December, he told CBS' "60 Minutes" he was "putting in place a system that's going to lower health care costs." In fact, there's evidence ObamaCare is fanning medical inflation. Kaiser attributes the premium spike to "changes from the new health reform law." The 200-page study explains: "Significant percentages of firms made changes in their preventive care benefits and enrolled adult children in their benefits plans in response to provisions in the new health reform law."  More News New Mexico
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Spaceport Board Approves $7M Runway

From washingtonpost.com -The nearly two-mile-long runway at Spaceport America in southern New Mexico will have to be extended to accommodate Virgin Galactic’s sleek rocket-powered spacecraft, spaceport officials confirmed Thursday.  New Mexico Spaceport Authority board members voted during a regular meeting Wednesday to extend the runway by another 2,000 feet. Spaceport America is the world’s first terminal, hangar and runway built specifically for commercial space travel.  More News New Mexico
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Irrigation Season Starts in Southern N.M.

Elephant Butte Dam
Albuquerque JournalCABALLO (AP) — The Bureau of Reclamation says water will begin flowing from Caballo Reservoir into the Rio Grande in southern New Mexico early Sunday. The Rio Grande below the reservoir has been dry for several months, and the agency wants to warn anyone working or recreating in the area in the coming days about the change in the river’s state. The agency says it began moving water from Elephant Butte to Caballo Reservoir a few days ago to prepare for the first release. Federal water managers say this is shaping up to be a lower-than-average year for snowpack in all of the basins that feed the Rio Grande. The result is the Elephant Butte Irrigation District in southern New Mexico and irrigators in the El Paso area and Mexico have only 20 percent of their full allocation. Read More News New Mexico

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SIC financial adviser under fire for Earthstone/Growstone investments

Leonard Lee Rawson
Capitol Report New Mexico - State Investment Council (SIC) board member Leonard Lee Rawson is ticked off at the manager of an investment firm and next month the company may see its contract with the SIC terminated. “In my eyes, [Brian Birk] has lost all credibility with the council,” Rawson told Capitol Report New Mexico by phone Tuesday afternoon (March 28). Birk is the managing partner of Sun Mountain Capital, an investment firm based in Santa Fe that acts as the SIC’s in-state venture capital adviser. Rawson and other council members brought up concerns about Sun Mountain investing $2.5 million in state venture capital money in Growstone, a company that’s a spinoff of Earthstone International, a company that received some $11 million in SIC money during the administration of then-Gov. Bill Richardson. New Mexico Watchdog has investigated the company, raising sharp questions about its financial stability, political connections and whether the state has much chance of recovering any of that money.Rawson made a motion to terminate the contract between Sun Mountain and the SIC during Tuesday’s monthly meeting of the council, which was attended by Gov. Susana Martinez. Read More News New Mexico

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Parents of Murdered Students Criticize President Obama

From Gateway Pundit -  Today the parents of two British students murdered in Florida slammed President Barack Obama for his lack of compassion over their son’s deaths. The Telegraph reported: His failure to respond to three letters sent to the White House was because there was no “political value” and not worthy of a few minutes of his time.  They spoke out as teenager Shawn Tyson began a life sentence after being found guilty of the murder of James Cooper and James Kouzaris last April.  The 17 year old, who shot the men as they begged for their lives, will die in prison. His conviction of first degree murder carries an mandatory life sentence without the chance of parole. Later speaking after Tyson was jailed Davies and Hallett lashed out at Mr Obama saying the deaths of their friends was “not worthy of ten minutes of his time.” Davies said: “We would like to publicly express our dissatisfaction at the lack of any public or private message of support or condolence from any American governing body or indeed, President Obama himself. Mr Kouzaris has written to President Obama on three separate occasions and is yet to even receive the courtesy of a reply. “It would perhaps appear that Mr Obama sees no political value in facilitating such a request or that the lives of two British tourists are not worthy of ten minutes of his time.” The rebuke follows Mr Obama’s personal intervention into the shooting in Florida of a young black teenager by a white neighbourhood watch captain.  More News New Mexico
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Ruidoso stews over wildlife feeding ban

From KRQE-TV.com - by Gabrielle Burkhart - RUIDOSO, N.M. (KRQE) - Wildlife officials and some Ruidoso residents are butting heads over a proposed ordinance that would ban feeding wildlife The ban would apply an area where officials say the animals have become a problem. Deer calmly grazing in someone's yard right next to the roads are lately not an uncommon sight in Ruidoso. It's part of the reason wildlife biologist Quentin Hays proposed an ordinance that would put a stop to people feeding wildlife in the village. "Just as the community grows, and particularly as we're faced with drought and sort of increases in these wildlife-human conflicts, I felt like it was something that really needed to be addressed," Hays explained. But the proposal isn't sitting well with some people. Hays said he believes the people feeding wildlife in Ruidoso are in the minority, but they're having a major impact. "We have deer and elk in our communities now that are completely unafraid of humans and of dogs and everything else," said Hays. He also explained that the concentrated deer population brings predators closer to humans, which also poses a threat. Read more

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Ski Apache to close season early; last run is Sunday

From the El Paso Times - By Victor R. Martinez - Skiers looking to get that one last run in before putting away the skis have until Sunday if they want to hit the slopes at Ski Apache. "We were going to try to push it back to April 8 but it's a little too warm," said Justin Rowland, director of operations at Ski Apache. "We are two weeks ahead of when we closed last year. But our last big snow fall was a week before the Texas spring break when we got about a foot of snow." Ski Apache, the ski resort in Alto, N.M., near Ruidoso, has drawn more than 140,000 skiers and snow boarders this season. "The snow, the staff and the beauty of the mountain were all magnificent this season," Rowland said. "The season was great. We had snow just at the right times. We had a lot of people up here which kept us very busy. We had a great season." Ruidoso was hit with heavy snowfall right before Christmas which helped during the always busy holiday season and again in mid-March when it received more than a foot of snow. The Ruidoso area was snowed upon again last week which increased the base on the slopes to 102 inches. Read more
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The Science of Half-Baked Ideas

From the American Thinker - by Christopher Chantrill -  The more we learn about climate science, the more we learn what a shabby, back-of-the-envelope business it is. Dr. Michael Mann, the climate science poster boy who simplified the global climate of the last millennium into a hockey stick, just came out with a book to remind us how anyone who disagrees with him is a shill for dark forces. It's déjà vu all over again, of course. Fifty years ago, another academic published a shabby little paper and then succeeded in bullying everyone into endorsing his view that saturated fat was the cause of heart disease. Ancel Keys, inventor of the K-ration and his wife (an expert in measuring cholesterol) investigated several hundred people in the general population of Naples, Italy in the early 1950s and found that they measured low on cholesterol and had less heart disease than the fat-eating Neapolitan rich. Keys decided pretty quickly that dietary fat was the main cause of heart disease and spent the next couple of decades doing research to confirm his hypothesis. The political situation back then was eerily familiar to our own time. In the early 1950s, the health establishment had just finished up the greatest public health success story of all time. With sanitation and vaccination, public heath had conquered the great scourges of infectious disease. So what could it do for an encore? It could solve the post-World War II heart-disease scare and apply the same epidemiological tools that had isolated the cause of cholera and typhoid. It was a no-brainer. Fast-forward to climate science in the 1980s. The environmental establishment had just achieved the great goals of clean air and clean water and had transformed the U.S. metropolitan environment. What could it do for an encore? It could apply the same science, public relations, and regulatory tools used for the environmental success and save the planet from catastrophic global warming!  Cimate science is a young science, and it doesn't know all that much about the climate. Not yet. The same was true back when heart disease became the number-one killer in the years immediately after World War II. What was killing all those middle-class Americans? Ancel Keys decided that it was the saturated fat in foods, and he couldn't wait for the results of his research -- people were dying. So he persuaded the government to fight cholesterol with low-fat diets right away. When the research results came in, they were close to the Folgers taste test: "no difference." But by then, big budgets and reputations were committed to the idea that a high-fat diet causes heart disease, and the government couldn't change its mind.  People with half-baked ideas that are not ready for prime time instinctively grasp that they need the bludgeon of government force. There's a long and tragic history of half-baked ideas linked up to government, from Horace Mann's half-baked idea in the 1830s that government education would reduce crime, Marx's half-baked critique of capitalism, and on to Lysenko and "whole language" reading.So also did Ancel Keys' cholesterol theory get established into a huge government war on fat.  Read column
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Swickard: Oh those Econ 101 deniers

Commentary by Michael Swickard - Last week’s column mentioned political energy policy as one of five major issues Americans need to keep their eyes on this election and not be distracted by hundreds of other lesser political issues. When I mentioned drilling to lower gas pump prices, my email filled up with Econ 101 deniers who said supply and demand does not work in the oil patch because oil is global. That answer is simple, quick and wrong.  Econ 101 deniers say all nations drink from only one bucket (a very large one) so the price of oil in India is exactly the same price as it is in Indiana. It is not. There are many reasons why crude oil price is different by nation, not the least of which is the actual purity of the oil. Further, we use oil products regionally; therefore regional influences adjust the prices. It is important to count the major ways our government is a factor in the pump price of fuel. Read column

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Cornyn Offers Amendment to Block Lizard Listing

From therepublic.com -Republican U.S. Sen. John Cornyn of Texas is trying to block the proposed listing of the dunes sagebrush lizard as an endangered species.  Cornyn on Wednesday filed an amendment to energy tax credit legislation that would block the lizard's addition to the federal endangered species list.  Echoing oil and natural gas producers throughout the Permian Basin, Cornyn says listing the species could bring production in parts of West Texas and southeastern New Mexico to "a screeching halt." Echoing oil and natural gas producers throughout the Permian Basin, Cornyn says listing the species could bring production in parts of West Texas and southeastern New Mexico to "a screeching halt." The basin produces more than 1 million barrels of oil a day.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has delayed until this summer a final decision on whether to list the lizard. Cornyn and congressional representatives from several other states had sent letters to the agency and Interior Secretary Ken Salazar asking for the delay.
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Will Obama Return $1.6 Million Raised by Spike Lee?

From Breitbart.com - by John Sexton - Which is really more important to this President: the tone of the national discourse or cold, hard cash?  A few days ago, Spike Lee sent what he believed to be George Zimmerman's home address into the midst of a racial firestorm. Should Obama return the $1.6 million he collected at a fundraiser in Lee's home this January to express his disapproval with this decision? Jim Treacher at the Daily Caller recalls a fundraiser President Obama held at the New York home of director Spike Lee in January. The Huffington Post reported on the evening, including the fact that the White House had approached Lee about hosting it. According to Spike, the event raised $1.6 million for the President's campaign: As the event finished, [Spike] wrote, "A Great Night. I Heard We Raised 1.6 Million Dollars From The Dinner Tonight. The President After The Q&A Shook Hands And Took Pictures.Ya-Dig." Dig this. A few days ago Spike retweeted an address he believed belonged to George Zimmerman, the shooter in the Trayvon Martin case. It's not clear what Spike hoped would happen to Zimmerman, but given the firestorm surrounding the case, he must have known it wouldn't be pretty.  Indeed, some of Spike's followers made death threats. Already at this point, Spike had crossed a line.  Only, as it turned out, the address Spike sent to his quarter million followers on Twitter was not George Zimmerman's address. It belonged to Elaine and David McClain, a couple in their 70s. The McClains have reportedly fled their home and have now retained an attorney.  So Spike Lee's actions were not only reckless and inflammatory; they were also stupid. So far, the entertainment media are being remarkably quiet about this scandal, almost as if they've decided to spike the story (couldn't resist).  But in this case, it's not just Spike's reputation but the President's that is on the line. Recall that President Obama, when asked, was happy to weigh in on offensive comments made by Rush Limbaugh. He expressed his concern about the tone of debate, a tone which could one day be turned against his daughters. He also made a personal call to Sandra Fluke to thank her for her public testimony. Isn't sending a person's home address to an angry mob looking for "justice" at least as problematic? And again, this isn't just any person; this is someone whose home Obama visited two months ago to collect campaign donations.  So why has the President fallen silent once again? After a while, people may get the idea this President cares more about his reelection war chest than he does the tone of our discourse. Read full column
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Jerome Block Jr. Gets Probation

From htrnews.com -Former state utility regulator Jerome Block Jr. avoided a lengthy prison sentence Wednesday as a state judge gave him probation for election law violations, misuse of taxpayer money and other felonies. Block had faced up to 4 years in prison after failing to comply with a plea deal requirement to complete a court-supervised drug treatment program. His attorney has said Block is addicted to prescription painkillers and cocaine. District Judge Michael Vigil placed Block on probation, including substance abuse treatment, and warned that Block could be sent to prison if he runs into more legal problems.  More News New Mexico
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Judge Weighs Release of Deming Gun Defendant

From postcresent.com -A federal judge is considering whether to release from-pretrial detention a member of a Deming family charged with selling weapons and ammunition to Mexican cartels. The Las Cruces Sun-News  reports attorneys for Ryin Reese argued before U.S. District Court Judge Robert C. Brack that their client be released with strict conditions including living with his girlfriend's mother who serves on the New Mexico Parole Board. Brack said he would take the motion under advisement and would likely rule sometime this week.  More News New Mexico
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