N.M. was selling 4,000 lotto tickets a minute

From KRQE-TV.com - ALBUQUERQUE (KRQE) - New Mexicans are feeling the power of the Powerball. Lottery officials say they sold more than 4,000 tickets every minute in New Mexico. Between 1 p.m. and 4 p.m. Wednesday lottery customers spent almost $800,000 on Powerball tickets.That's about 400,000 individual tickets in just three hours.
At least 30-percent of all lottery ticket sales go to the state's struggling lottery scholarship program. Overall lottery sales this year are down about $2 million from 2011 and down a whopping $17 million from six years ago. The scholarship program is facing a $5 million shortfall, and the Legislature is looking at tighter requirements. Read more
Share/Bookmark

Roswell police warn of brazen break-ins

From KOB-TV.com - The Roswell Police Department said they’ve seen a spike in home break-ins over the past few weeks. In part, it’s due to the normal holiday surge of burglaries, but in several cases, the invasions are happening while people are home.

One woman didn’t want to be identified, but wanted to share her story with KOB Eyewitness News 4 so others would be more careful. She left her back door unlocked and heard her dogs barking so she went outside to look. She saw a man outside, closed the door but didn’t have a chance to lock it, and the man came right through. She pressed the panic button on her alarm system, but the man hit her.
“I turned around and he just nailed me right in the face, and the last thing I remember before passing out was my German Shepherd attacking him,” she said. “I woke up with my husband holding me calling my name, and RPD officers all over my house.”
She provided some descriptors of the man, but there are currently no suspects in mind.
In other cases, police have been able to apprehend burglars immediately. On November 18, 34-year-old Michael Samario and 23-year-old Richard Thyberg pounded on a family of four’s door until a man opened it, then beat the man and tried to steal some cash. Police arrived while the beating occurred and were able to apprehend and arrest both men. Read more
Share/Bookmark

Walter E. Williams: Parting Company

From Walter E. Williams, Ph.D. - For decades, it has been obvious that there are irreconcilable differences between Americans who want to control the lives of others and those who wish to be left alone. Which is the more peaceful solution: Americans using the brute force of government to beat liberty-minded people into submission or simply parting company? In a marriage, where vows are ignored and broken, divorce is the most peaceful solution. Similarly, our constitutional and human rights have been increasingly violated by a government instituted to protect them. Americans who support constitutional abrogation have no intention of mending their ways.

Since Barack Obama's re-election, hundreds of thousands of petitions for secession have reached the White House. Some people have argued that secession is unconstitutional, but there's absolutely nothing in the Constitution that prohibits it. What stops secession is the prospect of brute force by a mighty federal government, as witnessed by the costly War of 1861. Let's look at the secession issue.
At the 1787 constitutional convention, a proposal was made to allow the federal government to suppress a seceding state. James Madison, the acknowledged father of our Constitution, rejected it, saying: "A Union of the States containing such an ingredient seemed to provide for its own destruction. The use of force against a State would look more like a declaration of war than an infliction of punishment and would probably be considered by the party attacked as a dissolution of all previous compacts by which it might be bound."
On March 2, 1861, after seven states had seceded and two days before Abraham Lincoln's inauguration, Sen. James R. Doolittle of Wisconsin proposed a constitutional amendment that said, "No State or any part thereof, heretofore admitted or hereafter admitted into the Union, shall have the power to withdraw from the jurisdiction of the United States."
Here's my no-brainer question: Would there have been any point to offering these amendments if secession were already unconstitutional?  On the eve of the War of 1861, even unionist politicians saw secession as a right of states. Rep. Jacob M. Kunkel of Maryland said, "Any attempt to preserve the Union between the States of this Confederacy by force would be impractical, and destructive of republican liberty."
The War of 1861 settled the issue of secession through brute force that cost 600,000 American lives. Americans celebrate Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, but H.L. Mencken correctly evaluated the speech, "It is poetry, not logic; beauty, not sense." Lincoln said that the soldiers sacrificed their lives "to the cause of self-determination -- that government of the people, by the people, for the people should not perish from the earth." Mencken says: "It is difficult to imagine anything more untrue. The Union soldiers in the battle actually fought against self-determination; it was the Confederates who fought for the right of people to govern themselves." Read full column




Share/Bookmark

The American Dream: to control our own fate

© 2012 Michael Swickard, Ph.D. As a youngster I saw a poster with the inscription, “I am Captain of my ship, but I cannot control the weather.” I stood transfixed in front of the poster as I pondered the meaning. The poster showed a wild sea and someone grasping the wheel of the ship resolutely.

I spoke to my father about the notion. He smiled indulgently and offered what he thought he was going to be doing upon high school graduation. It was photography, but he could not anticipate how it all changed because World War II started midway through his senior year. He quit school to join in the service of our county. Instead of taking hometown Wedding pictures, he became a combat photographer. He held a camera as he always intended to do, but the weather was quite different.
The more I thought about the poster the more I could see I was in control of myself and at the same time was not completely in control of all of the stuff around me. The weather notion held my attention through many years and many times when the weather had the upper hand over me and yet I always felt I controlled my destiny. I have that saying over my desk as I write.
Perhaps it is true since against all advice I write and talk for a living after coming from stock that worked with their hands. While I am able to repair and construct stuff, I would rather do something else. And who is to stop me other than myself? That is the essence of the American Dream.
Among other things it is the American Dream for each of us to control our own destiny. That is a freedom our country was founded upon, that each of us has our own future in hand and can select different futures if we want. Most of us did not ask someone before we went after a dream, and many of us succeeded or failed against the advice of loved ones and friends. We individually own our failures and successes.
In the Old Country where generations ago many of us originated, if you were born the son of a pig farmer, you would more than likely die a pig farmer. Why? Because your future was not yours, it belonged to the society which needed a dependable supply of pig farmers. You lived for the society so there was little control of your own destiny.  Read full column
Share/Bookmark

Newsbreak New Mexico 5pm Webcast 11/28/12

Newsbreak New Mexico 5pm Newscast with Vanessa Dabovich

                                     Listen here:


Rural postal service cut
Research lab gets animal control exemption
RGA keeps Martinez
NM lottery facing crisis 






                                          Visit spenceassetmanagement.com 
Share/Bookmark
Courtesy of Americans for Limited Government


Share/Bookmark

LANL working on security problems


Los Alamos National Security is bringing in outside help to deal with the botched construction of a security upgrade at the lab. 
The Los Alamos Monitor reports that the trade journal Nuclear Weapons and Materials Monitor says Los Alamos National Security has hired attorneys to help the lab pursue claims against subcontractors that did the work on the security system. 
Lab Director Charlie McMillan told employees in a memo that the system was supposed to cost $213 million, but cost overruns have jacked the project up to $254 million. The cost overruns could be paid for by money that had been earmarked for the Chemistry Metallurgy Research Replacement facility or the bonus that LANS receives for running the lab.


Share/Bookmark

Newsbreak New Mexico 12pm Webcast 11/28/12

Newsbreak New Mexico 12pm Newscast with Vanessa Dabovich

                                     Listen here:


RGA keeping Martinez on executive committee 
LANL fixing security problems
Man facing charges for killing hawk
GOP appoints House leaders 






                                          Visit spenceassetmanagement.com 
Share/Bookmark

Share/Bookmark

UNM students helping to solve lottery scholarship crisis

The New Mexico Lottery Scholarship is running out of cash fast, so Tuesday students at the University of New Mexico gave their ideas on ways to preserve the fund. 

The fund will be broke by next year, according to projections. According to the study, more and more students have become eligible for the lottery scholarship since it began in the late 1990s. Right now, 80 percent of incoming freshmen at UNM meet the scholarship’s requirements. 
On Tuesday, a couple dozen students and a few teachers offered suggestions to keep the fund solvent, such as raising eligibility requirements, increasing needs-based requirements or a combination of both.
 The student group will give their opinion to legislators during the upcoming legislative session in 2013.  


Share/Bookmark

NM man faces charges for killing hawk

A New Mexico man is facing possible federal charges after he admitted shooting a trained hawk.  

18-year-old William Hefley was arrested on an extreme cruelty to animals charge for shooting and killing a five-year-old Harris Hawk valued at $3,000.
 Luna County Sheriff's investigator Israel Saenz saysHefley told deputies he shot the bird while out to kill a family dog that was old. The owner of the hawk holds a registered Falconry Permit and apparently raised the hawk from a young age after being given permission to rescue it in Texas.
 Investigators said the case is being turned over to the New Mexico Game and Fish Department.



Share/Bookmark

GOP appoints House leadership

Republican state Rep. Donald Bratton of Hobbs was picked as minority leader of the New Mexico House of Representatives. 

The Albuquerque Journal reports that Bratton will replace Tom Taylor of Farmington as the top-ranking Republican in the Democratic-controlled House. 
House Republicans also elected several members of the party's younger guard to top-ranking positions. Rep. Nate Gentry of Albuquerque will serve as the new House GOP whip, while Rep. Alonzo Baldonado will be the Republican caucus chairman. 
The leadership posts were filled during a closed-door caucus meeting held Monday night in Albuquerque.


Share/Bookmark

U.S Justice Dept. launches APD investigation

The U.S. Justice Department says it is launching an investigation into the Albuquerque Police Department after a string of officer-involved shootings and a number of high-profile abuse cases. 

A press conference was held Tuesday to announce the details of the pending probe following a visit by federal officials to New Mexico's largest city more than a year ago. 
The Albuquerque Police Department has been under fire from civil rights advocates in recent months. The department has had 25 officer-involved shootings since 2010 — 17 of them fatal.
 The department also has been criticized over a number of cases alleging abuse by officers.


Share/Bookmark

NM cuts down on unemployment fraud

New Mexico labor officials say they have cut the unemployment insurance fraud rate over the past year and continue to crack down on improper payments.  

The New Mexico Department of Workforce Solutions says the state now leads the nation in reducing improper payments. Between 2011 and 2012, the improper payment rate dropped to under 11 percent. 
Gov. Susana Martinez says the progress is a testament to her administration's commitment to cracking down on fraud and strengthening the system for businesses and workers. 
In January, the state will launch a new system under which jobless New Mexicans will be able to apply online for benefits. 


Share/Bookmark

Newsbreak New Mexico 8am Webcast 11/28/12

Newsbreak New Mexico 8am Newscast with Vanessa Dabovich

                                     Listen here:


Man facing charges for shooting hawk
GOP appoints House leaders
FBI investingating APD






                                            Visit spenceassetmanagement.com
Share/Bookmark