Aggies win opener 49 - 19

NewsNM Swickard: Fine game with both teams looking good. The NMSU Aggies played well and made few mistakes. Final score: 49-19 for the Aggies.Aggies Win Season Opener 49-19

LAS CRUCES, N.M. (Aug. 30)-The New Mexico State football team opened its season with a 49-19 victory over Sacramento State inside Aggie Memorial Stadium. Sophomore quarterback Andrew Manley and sophomore wide receiver Austin Franklin led the Aggie offense with career-high performances. Manley finished with a career-high 367 passing yards and three touchdowns on a 14-of-22 showing through the air. Franklin recorded a career-high 236 receiving yards and a pair of touchdowns.
Defensively, junior linebacker Trashaun Nixon led the team with 15 tackles, his first career double-digit tackle performance. Junior linebacker Bryan Bonilla and senior safety Davis Cazares also finished with double-digit tackles. Bonilla finished with 11 tackles, his second career double-digit tackle performance, while Davis finished with 10, his first career double-figures performance.

Aggies win opener 49 - 19

New Mexicans upset networks snubbed governor's speech

NewsNM note Swickard: since it was all major networks except Fox I have to believe it was a political statement not a television statement. For three years I worked for KOB-TV and regret they are caught by the network decision to omit the Martinez speech. From KOB-TV.com - A lot of New Mexico voters and viewers are ticked off about what happened - or better yet, what didn't happen during Wednesday night's coverage of the Republican National Convention. All three major broadcast networks cut away from the podium when New Mexico Governor Susana Martinez delivered her prime time speech, and now there's plenty of fallout over how it was handled. NBC, CBS and ABC all pulled away from the action when Martinez was onstage, while viewers here scrambled to find the speech elsewhere - on cable, satellite and internet sources. Martinez got a ringing introduction as "the first Hispanic female Governor in the history of the United States", and her first words to the audience were "thank you and good evening."  While Gov. Martinez delivered her speech the networks all cut to talking heads, analysis and color commentary. Thousands of New Mexicans and millions across the country never saw the speech. Plenty of viewers wasted no time in letting us know how they felt. "My wife and i are extremely upset that NBC thought it was more appropriate to listen to the bantering of Tom Brokaw and other NBC News people than the electrifying speech by our governor," went one email. Others felt the move was disrespectful to the state and Martinez. "They apparently didn't feel New Mexico, women, Hispanics count," said another. "What a slap in the face of all New Mexicans! Shame on NBC!" Dozens have sent their criticism directly to the KOB 4 newsroom and Facebook page. "It truly amazes me that you guys would not carry Susana Martinez's convention speech live!!??" a third e-mail stated. You guys. That's what really hurts. If it was "us guys" we would plead guilty and say we're sorry. But it was a decision made by NBC News.  Tonight NBC issued this statement: "The one hour broadcasts of the convention on the broadcast network are not meant to provide wall to wall coverage. Our producers made a decision to focus on the (Condoleezza) Rice and (Paul) Ryan speeches... Read more 

New Mexicans upset networks snubbed governor's speech

Sowell: Entitlement Reforms



Thomas Sowel

Commentary by Thomas Sowell - For those of us who like to believe that human beings are rational, trying to explain what happens in politics can be a real challenge.  For example, that segment of the population that has the least to fear from a reform of Medicare or Social Security is the most fearful -- namely, those already receiving Medicare or Social Security benefits.  It is understandable that people heavily dependent on these programs would fear losing their benefits, especially after a lifetime of paying into these programs. But nobody in his right mind has even proposed taking away the benefits of those who are already receiving them.
Let's stop and think, if only for the novelty of it.

If you make any change in anything, you are ending it "as we know it." Does that mean that everything in the status quo should be considered to be set in concrete forever?  If there were not a single Republican, or none who got elected to any office, arithmetic would still end "Medicare as we know it," for the simple reason that the money in the till is not enough to keep paying for it. The same is true of Social Security.  The same has been true of welfare state programs in European countries that are currently struggling with both financial crises and riots in the streets from people who feel betrayed by their governments. They have in fact been betrayed by their politicians, who have promised them things that there was not enough money to pay for. That is the basic problem in the United States as well.  We are not yet Greece, but we are not exempt from the same rules of arithmetic that eventually caught up with Greece. We just have a little more time. The only question is whether we will use that time to make politically difficult changes or whether we will just kick the can down the road, and keep pretending that "Medicare as we know it" would continue on indefinitely, if it were not for people who just want to be mean to the elderly.  Read more

Sowell: Entitlement Reforms

Udall visits Mescalero Schools to talk language preservation

U.S. Senator Tom Udall speaks with Jennie Pea's fourth-grade
Apache classroom. (photo by Duane Barbati, Daily News)

From the Alamogordo Daily News - By Harold Oakes - MESCALERO -- Some of the things U.S. Sen. Tom Udall (D-N.M.) heard during his visit to Mescalero Apache Schools Wednesday were in a language he does not understand but is working to save. Udall visited first-grade, fourth-grade and middle school Apache language classes and greeted the children with "What's the news?" in Apache, which brought giggles from the children. Before his visit to the classrooms and a question-and-answer session in the auditorium with all the students, Udall sat down with Mescalero Apache President Fredrick Chino, three members of the tribal council and school officials to discuss programs to preserve the Apache language. "I believe for you to retain your culture, for you to hold on to your culture you have to retain your language. If you don't do that, the culture slowly disappears," Udall said. Chino said the Apache language has been disappearing. "Back in 1960 they did a study on the Mescalero Apache Reservation about the Apache language," Chino said. "At that time 99 percent spoke the language. In 1990 they did the study again and the number who spoke Apache was down to 30 percent." Tribal council member Freddie Kaydahzinne said in 2000 the number of Apache speakers on the reservation was down to 25 percent. Read more

Udall visits Mescalero Schools to talk language preservation

Susana makes her star turn at GOP convention

From Capitol Report New Mexico - Susana Martinez got her shot Wednesday night. And the early reviews were good. The New Mexico governor seemed to touch all the political bases Republicans hoped she would hit when she made her national debut in front of millions of Americans on Thursday night (Aug. 29) at the Republican National Convention in Tampa. The first Hispanic female governor in US history received a plumb spot on the speakers’ roster, following former Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice and preceding vice presidential pick Paul Ryan and her 10-minute speech brought delegates to their feet on at least three occasions:
*with Mitt Romney needing to appeal to Hispanic voters, one of the first things Martinez said in her speech was “En America, todo es posible.”
*recalling her time working for her parents’ security business, she fired off her first big applause line by saying, “I carried a Smith & Wesson .357 magnum.”
*although it’s a familiar story for New Mexico political followers, she recounted how she long considered herself a Democrat. But after a lunch date she and her husband Chuck had with GOP officials, she declared, “I’ll be damned, we’re Republicans.”
*took a shot at President Obama’s “you didn’t build that” comment by saying, “If he can take credit for government building small businesses, then he can accept responsibility for breaking his promise and adding 5 trillion dollars to the national debt. Because he did build that.”
Within minutes of the speech, #SusanaMartinez was trending on Twitter and the Washington Post’s Chris Cillizza wrote, “This is very good stuff from Susana Martinez. I am a little surprised how good she is tonight given she’s never done this before.” As you’d expect, conservatives on the blogosphere raved about her performance. On Powerline, Paul Mirengoff wrote: I confess to wondering about the decision to give the New Mexico governor a plum speaking time on a big convention night, just in front of Paul Ryan. But then I had never really seen Susana Martinez in action. Now that I have, I wonder no more. The sky could be the limit for this rising star. But even liberals gave her good reviews. The convention live blogger for the über-lefty Daily Kos wrote: Susana Martinez is giving a terrific speech, I think. Which I assume means Republicans will hate it. Here’s more from Cillizza who placed Martinez under the heading of the night’s “winners”: * Susana Martinez: Before tonight most people — including most Republicans — didn’t know much (if anything) about the New Mexico governor. Martinez changed that — in a good way — with a down-to-earth delivery and ease in the moment that many politicians with much more experience on the national stage would rightly be jealous of. Read more

Susana makes her star turn at GOP convention

Isaac Hits New Orleans, Police and Guard on Patrol

Hurricane Isaac's floodwaters spilled over a levee just outside of New Orleans today. The gigantic slow moving system weakened to a tropical storm this afternoon. New multibillion-dollar barriers paid for with the nation's taxpayer dollars, which were constructed to protect the city after Hurricane Katrina, seemed to be holding.
Reuters quoted New Orleans Mayor Mitchell Landrieu as saying, "The federal levee system ... is fine," when he was asked about the city that was built below sea level today.
"There are no risks. It is holding exactly as we expected it to and is performing exactly as it should," he added.
Police and National Guard units, patrolled the downtown area of the city to protect businesses and homes from looters who use crippling storms as an opportunity to steal.
Despite widespread flood damage, a few injuries, and devastating power outages that are fairly typical of any hurricane, the mainstream media was relieved that unlike the damages and threats to life caused during Katrina, the damages and destruction caused by Issac were not a result of racism. Only hurricanes that occured between 2001 and the end of 2008 that hit cities constructed below sea level, that have large minority populations that ignore advance storm warnings, are storms that cause death and damages due to racism.

Isaac Hits New Orleans, Police and Guard on Patrol

courtesy of http://www.conservativedailynews.com/

http://www.janice2012.us/

Erhard pledges to focus on ‘the plight of the people’

Evelyn Madrid Erhard, Candidate for Congress

From NMPolitics.net - by Jeff Berg - “I’m running for congress, and I’m a Democrat,” Evelyn Madrid Erhard offers strongly and convincingly. I ask Erhard, why now? Here’s what she says:“I came to Las Cruces in 1975, and for most of that time the district has been Republican. First it was Joe Skeen and now it is Steve Pearce. They’re always with the Republicans – there was the ‘Contract for America,’ Skeen was there for the start of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Halliburton incidents and so on. Now the Republicans are bringing the U.S. close to failure and deep poverty.” Her website includes this note: “Their agenda was always to take care of their own interests and the interests of the top 1%. They have supported laws that created corporate loopholes and stripped American workers of pension and health insurance benefits.” Because of those concerns, and having received leadership recognition from the Democratic National Committee and being invited to participate in Hispanic leadership conferences, Erhard felt that her time to try and make a big difference had come. Although always a long time political observer – “I remember having an interest in politics starting about the time that JFK was assassinated,” she said – Erhard never really had an opportunity to get involved until the Obama campaign of 2008. “My husband really encouraged me, even though I was busy all the time,” she said. “He knew that I listened to other people’s stories, and when the Obama office opened here in 2008, he told me to go there.” She did, and found herself busy as a volunteer from the first day. She helped sign up more volunteers and assisted in arranging campaign events locally for Obama and former U.S. Congressman Harry Teague, who lost to Pearce in the last election. Her efforts did not go unnoticed, and in 2009, she was one of a handful of supporters to be chosen to meet President Barack Obama at a rally in Rio Rancho. “He did a talk and there were some pictures of us taken with him,” she said. “He called me and encouraged me to continue to work hard, and recently has given me his support for my campaign.” Read more

Erhard pledges to focus on ‘the plight of the people’

PolitiFiction

Pants On Fire

From National Review Online - he website PolitiFact is going to be truth-squadding the Republican convention speakers this week, delivering verdicts on which claims are “mostly true” and which deserve a “pants on fire” rating. Our advice: Pay no attention to those ratings. PolitiFact can’t be trusted to get the story right. Its recent rulings on Medicare have demonstrated the point thrice over. PolitiFact said that Romney’s comment that Obama had “robbed” Medicare of $716 billion to pay for Obamacare was “mostly false.” Among its reasons: “The money was not robbed in any literal sense of the word.” So if Romney led anyone to believe that Obama had held Medicare at gunpoint and ordered it to hand over its wallet, they can now rest easy, because PolitiFact is on the case. PolitiFact’s other arguments are that Medicare spending will continue to rise and that Obama’s spending reductions are “mainly aimed at insurers and hospitals, not beneficiaries.” Leave aside the economic naïveté of that argument, and focus instead on the irrelevance. Romney said that Obama had taken money that was going to be spent on Medicare and instead spend it on Obamacare, and suggested that this was a bad thing. In other words: an absolutely true claim, and an opinion based on it. If PolitiFact disagrees with that opinion, let it publish its views under a different name. Read more

PolitiFiction

Obama Team Rejects Catholic Request to Participate, But Will Host 2 Hour Muslim Prayer Event at Convention

The Blaze - The Democratic National Committee is raising a number of eyebrows after choosing to proceed with hosting Islamic “Jumah” prayers for two hours on the Friday of its convention, though it denied a Catholic cardinal’s request to say a prayer at the same event.
The event is being promoted on the official Charlottein2012.com page. You can watch the promotional video, via the Bureau of Muslim Affairs, which is partnering with the DNC for the event.
The first two minutes are rather dry, but around 2:04 a muezzin sings the call to prayer with an American flag background, and the video “picks up” considerably:

Up to 20,000 people are expected to attend the Friday prayers and Jibril Hough, a spokesman for the Bureau of Indigenous Muslim Affairs (BIMA), said the purpose of the event is to hold political parties accountable for the issues faced by Muslim-Americans.

In particular, the event will target the Patriot Act, the NYPD, the National Defense Authorization Act, and anti-Shariah sentiment.

Imam Siraj Wahhaj

And while Muslim-Americans undeniably face distinct challenges, those who are well-informed on the dangers of radical Islam are expressing their doubts about the event. Dr. Zuhdi Jasser, a devout Muslim and the Founder and President of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy, wrote: “The leaders of this event – Jibril Hough and Imam Siraj Wahhaj are not moderates. They are radicals. These individuals embrace Islamist supremacy and have demonstrated support for radical ideologies.

Obama Team Rejects Catholic Request to Participate, But Will Host 2 Hour Muslim Prayer Event at Convention