Santa Fe New Mexican endorses Dianna Duran

From Capitol Report New Mexico - A Republican has not been elected as New Mexico’s Secretary of State for 80 years but on Friday (Oct. 22), the Santa Fe New Mexican editorial board endorsed the GOP’s Dianna Duran over Democratic incumbent Mary Herrera: The office of the New Mexico secretary of state is, to put it mildly, a mess: a politicized pit where paranoia reigns supreme and public service is a distant second — if even that, according to disgruntled former employees. Even taking their complaints with necessary grains of salt, the office has lost the confidence of too many of the New Mexicans it purports to serve. Since that office is the one people count on for record-keeping and for ensuring fair elections, it’s time to clean house — beginning with the secretary herself. Mary Herrera might have, as she claims, inherited an office in disarray; her predecessor faces federal indictments. But four years later, the operation is borderline chaotic. New Mexico’s voters need to break 80 years of Democratic rule in that office — and elect Dianna Duran secretary of state. Read more

Santa Fe New Mexican endorses Dianna Duran

Scandal? Martinez bought supplies from Hicks’ niece

From NM Politics.net - by Heath Haussamen - Doña Ana County District Attorney Susana Martinez’s office bought supplies and equipment from a business owned by the niece of an employee at the same time that her office was making purchases from a business owned by that employee. Martinez’s office bought about $2,200 worth of office supplies and electronic equipment in May 2004 from KPM Enterprises of Roswell, a business owned by Janetta Hicks’ niece, Kristen Huddleston. Martinez’s office purchased more than $60,000 in office supplies and equipment from Hicks’ business, Titan Office Supply, in 2003 and 2004. At the time, Hicks was one of the top prosecutors in Martinez’s office. She’s now a district attorney in Eastern New Mexico. Read more

Scandal? Martinez bought supplies from Hicks’ niece

ND Vote Could Ban Big Game Hunting on Fenced Land

From the Blaze.com - LISBON, N.D. (AP) — Butch and Deb Dick’s lifelong dream was to open a big game hunting preserve and after years of preparation, they expected to welcome the first customers to their southeastern North Dakota ranch this month. Voters will decide next month whether to shut them down. Measure No. 2 on the Nov. 2 general election ballot seeks to abolish fenced preserves where people pay to shoot big game such as deer and elk. Supporters of the measure say the practice is unethical because the animals can’t escape. Opponents say it’s free enterprise. There are thousands of big game breeding operations in the United States. Although it’s not clear how many offer hunting, there’s no federal law banning fenced hunting and a majority of states allow it. “I think it comes down to property rights,” Butch Dick, 34, said quietly, gazing from a ridge that overlooks his wooded and hilly Dragon Creek Ranch in the surprisingly rugged Sheyenne River Valley 8 miles west of Lisbon. Most of eastern North Dakota is flat farmland. About a dozen of the state’s more than 100 game preserves offer hunting for a fee. The cost of a hunt depends on the size of the animal, but some packages can run more than $10,000. Read more

ND Vote Could Ban Big Game Hunting on Fenced Land

The next emperor

From the Economist.com - A crown prince is anointed in a vast kingdom facing vaster stresses. China is in a fragile state - “WITH you in charge, I am at ease,” Mao Zedong is supposed to have told his successor, Hua Guofeng. It proved a disastrous choice. Mr Hua lasted a couple of years before being toppled in 1978. A decade later succession plans once again unravelled spectacularly, against a backdrop of pro-democracy unrest. Only once, eight years ago, has China’s Communist Party managed a smooth transfer of power—to Hu Jintao. Now a new transition is under way. The world should be nervous about it for two reasons: the unknown character of China’s next leader; and the brittle nature of a regime that is far less monolithic and assured than many foreigners assume. The man ordained to take over Mr Hu’s twin roles as party chief in 2012 and president the following year is hardly a household name. On October 18th Vice-President Xi Jinping was given a new job as vice-chairman of China’s Central Military Commission, which Mr Hu heads. This is a position for leaders-in-waiting. The portly son of one of Communist China’s founders, little known to the outside world until a few years ago, Mr Xi is preparing to take the helm of a country with the world’s second-biggest economy and its biggest armed forces—and which is in the midst of wrenching social change. Read more

The next emperor

Chevy Volt dubbed a 'fraud'

From Red Alert.com - Last summer, General Motors, commonly called "Government Motors" since the Obama administration takeover last year, unveiled the first of its "Obamamobiles," the Chevrolet Volt, a compact electric car that is priced to sell at $41,000. At the end of July, Obama permitted himself a Dukakis moment, allowing himself at a GM plant in Michigan to be photographed looking somewhat nervous and uncomfortable behind the wheel of a production-line model of the Chevy volt. Now it turns out the GM promotion about the Volt being the first truly all-electric car was just a lot of hype. In its editorial, the daily Wall Street newspaper Investors Business Daily charged GM and the Obama administration with fraud over their promotion of the Volt. "Advertised as an all-electric car that could drive 50 miles on its lithium battery, GM addressed concerns about where you plug the thing in en route to Grandma's house by adding a small gasoline engine to help maintain the charge on the battery as it starts to run down," the IBD editors wrote. "It was still an electric car, we were told, not a hybrid on steroids." IBD objected: "That's not quite true. The gasoline engine has been found to be more than a range-extender for the battery. Volt engineers are now admitting that when the vehicle's lithium-ion battery pack runs down and at speeds near or above 70 mph, the Volt's gasoline engine will directly drive the front wheels along with the electric motors. That's not charging the battery – that's driving the car." IBD concluded the Volt is not an all-electric car, "but rather a pricey $41,000 hybrid that requires a taxpayer-funded $7,500 subsidy to get car shoppers to look at it." Read more

Chevy Volt dubbed a 'fraud'

O'Reilly: a "View" to a Kill

Bill O'Reilly

From Townhall.com - Now that I've had a week to think about the big controversy on "The View," I've come to the conclusion that my comment that "Muslims killed us on 9/11" was really not what caused Whoopi Goldberg and Joy Behar to walk off the set. No doubt that pithy piece of analysis ticked them off, but there is more to this deal than meets the eye. Keeping in mind that I could be wrong about my speculation, let's walk through this. I've been on "The View" a number of times, and usually things are lively but under control. We've even had some laughs. But when I entered the studio last week, I picked up a different vibe, especially from Goldberg. Read more here:

O'Reilly: a "View" to a Kill

13 Dead and 20 Wounded in Juarez

From the El Paso Times - Gunmen killed 13 young people and wounded 20 others at a birthday party Friday night in Juárez - a massacre that has once again brought international attention to one of the world's most violent cities. The Chihuahua state attorney general's office reported that the dead ranged in age from 13 to 30 and included six women and girls. The 20 people wounded, including a 9-year-old boy, were being treated at various hospitals. The multiple killing was condemned at the highest levels of the Mexican government and shocked the city accustomed to several murders a day, due in part to a war between the Sinaloa and Juárez drug cartels. Shortly before 11 p.m. Friday, the victims were celebrating a birthday party in two homes on Arquitectos street in colonia Horizontes del Sur in east Juárez, according to an initial account from state authorities. The assailants, armed with assault rifles, arrived in two vehicles, stormed into the homes and began shooting indiscriminately as party guests attempted to run to safety. Read more here:

13 Dead and 20 Wounded in Juarez

Aggie Volleyball Sweeps Utah State; Wins 7th Straight

bleedCrimson.net Report

The Aggie volleyball team won their seventh consecutive match by sweeping Utah State in Logan on Saturday night to improve to 9-1 in WAC play and 15-9 overall. The Aggies rallied to win the first set 25-23, controlled the second set winning 25-18 before holding off the UtAgs 25-21 in the third set.

The Aggies hit .444 for the match and committed just 12 attack errors, four in each set. The Aggies hit .432 in the firs set recording 20 kills then followed that with 17 kills on a .481 hitting percentage and then closed out the match hitting .429 in the third set and recording 19 kills.

Kayleigh Giddens recorded 17 kills on 32 swings with just four attack errors to hit .406 while fellow outside hitter Rocio Gutierrez added 12 kills on 21 swings with just four attack errors to hit .381. Middle blocker Kelsey Brennan also finished with 12 kills and did not make an attack error in 17 swings and finished with a .706 hitting percentage. Click here to read more.

Aggie Volleyball Sweeps Utah State; Wins 7th Straight

Aggies Fall 37-14 At Idaho

bleedCrimson.net Report

The Aggie football team fell behind 17-0 in the first quarter as Idaho scored on all three first quarter drives and could not recover falling 37-14 in Moscow on Saturday afternoon.

The Aggies would get a pair of touchdowns, one right before halftime and one right before the end of the game as penalties hurt the Aggies all afternoon. The Aggies were flagged 11 times for 85 yards in the first half turning what could have been a competitive game into a blowout.

Matt Christian would finish the game 8-of-29 for 134 yards and two touchdowns and Kyle Nelson would catch one of the two touchdowns finishing with two receptions for 48 yards. Kenonte Howard would catch one pass for 28 yards, the final touchdown pass. Kenny Turner rushed for 77 yards on 18 carries while Matt Christian would rush 10 times for 38 yards. The Vandals limited Seth Smith to just 13 yards on nine carries.

The Aggies fall to 1-6 on the season and 0-3 in conference play with the loss. Idaho improves to 4-3 on the season and 1-1 in WAC play. Click here to read more.

Aggies Fall 37-14 At Idaho

Pivot Points in History

Plenty has changed in America in recent years. A spectacular stock market advance that began in 1982 and roared into the late 1990’s, was fueled in part by an incredible Internet boom. The stock market advance and resulting skyrocketing of federal income tax revenues came to a screeching halt when the bubble burst in early 2000. During the final year of Clinton presidency and the first two months of the Bush presidency, the stock market nose-dived in sickening fashion. And after the roaring stock market cratered, confidence killing scandals rocked corporate boardrooms resulting in jail terms for a number of scoundrels. Just over nine years ago, radical Muslims brought the world to a halt when they crashed passenger jets into the World Trade Center Towers and the Pentagon. Only the heroism of American passengers on a fourth hijacked airliner prevented even greater damage and more loss of life in our nation’s capital. Eventually America regained its confidence despite the fact that ever more partisan political bickering tended to increasingly pit neighbors against neighbors and sometimes even family members against one another. In the meantime "progressives" fumed over the fact that George W. Bush acquired political strength as a direct result of 9-11.

Even when partisan politics has been set aside, the new century has brought on a new era, wherein Americans seem to be having a difficult time sorting out the new realities. Last year’s re-escalation of U.S. troop involvement in Afghanistan by President Obama is the strongest of all indications that the terrorist intelligence reports received by the White House have not changed much despite the fact the presidency did in early 2009. These days new would-be murderers make it clear that radical Islamic terrorism will relentlessly continue to attempt to make its way inside of our borders. This is simply a cold hard reality. And though scary this is actually old news for people with sense. What is new news? The new news is "hope" has cascaded towards "despair" in only 22 months. In pathetic fashion newly elected officials in Washington D.C. have shown they have no clue about how they should manage the public trust. Somehow they miss the point of the 2006 elections when the nation’s voters had grown leery of George W. Bush's three and four hundred billion dollar budget deficits. Accordingly in 2006 the party in power, (the Republicans) paid the price. The GOP paid a price again in 2008. Still "progressives" cannot figure out why voters are so upset? They label the Tea Party movement extreme and "racist." Somehow they cannot seem to grasp that the "change" voters sought in 2008 was not $1.5 trillion dollar deficits along with projections of red ink and a far more powerful government for as far as the eye can see. So here we are in October of 2010. Once again the electorate is faced with trying to do problem-solving at the voting booth.

Tracing America’s problem-solving challenges, we can easily identify at least six key historical turning points since 1776. The Civil War, WWI, The Great Depression, WWII, The Cold War, and 9-11 all stand out as pivot points. In 2010 there is once again a dire threat facing the nation. America must find a way to regain its fiscal sanity. America is already facing a second pivot point since the turn of the century. We see commonality. Each of these pivot points in history ushered in drastic changes in the attitudes of citizens and subsequently changes in the policies of our leaders.

Six years ago the 9-11 Commission released an ominous report to the public. And yesterday NPR News Analyst Juan Williams was fired for saying what anyone with a shred of common sense thinks. While most citizens learned the basic lessons of 9-11 long ago and began to worry deeply about the grave fiscal problems we face, some entities like National Public Radio shamelessly slurp at the taxpayer trough with the support of whacked out “progressives.” These poor souls still haven’t figured out why President Obama sees the same national security threats his predecessor saw, hence his escalation in Afghanistan. And in about eleven days these same poor souls are going to wonder what hit them just like we all did after 9-11.

Pivot Points in History