News New Mexico

State Senator Steve Fischmann on NewsNM

State Senator Steve Fischmann from District 37 will be on News New Mexico in the 8 o'clock hour today. He has been quite vocal about improving education in New Mexico and is on the State Senate Education Committee.

January 11, 1989... President Reagan's Farewell Address

On this date in 1989 Ronald Reagan gave his farewell address – “I'm (still) out there stumping to help future presidents - Republican or Democrat - get those tools they need to bring the budget under control. And those tools are a line-item veto and a constitutional amendment to balance the budget…

And how stand the city (Washington, D.C.) on this winter night? More prosperous, more secure, and happier than it was eight years ago. But more than that; after two hundred years, two centuries, she still stands strong and true on the granite ridge, and her glow has held steady no matter what storm. And she's still a beacon, still a magnet for all who must have freedom, for all the pilgrims from all the lost places who are hurtling through the darkness, toward home…”

Reagan’s 100th birthday is February 6th “Whatever else history may say about me when I’m gone, I hope it will record that I appealed to your best hopes, not your worst fears; to your confidence rather than your doubts. My dream is that you will travel the road ahead with liberty’s lamp guiding your steps and opportunity’s arm steadying your way.”

Martinez budget spares Public Safety, teachers

From the Santa Fe New Mexican.com - Gov. Susana Martinez proposed Monday to cut state spending by about 3 percent next year to balance a $5.4 billion budget for public education and governmental services. In releasing her budget recommendations to the Legislature, the Republican governor proposed that public schools find $30 million in savings in administrative operations. However, she said school districts should be able to find the savings without cuts in classroom spending, which she had pledged to protect during last year's gubernatorial campaign. Martinez also recommended that government workers and some educators pay more for their pensions. It's a change that would trim take-home pay for public employees, although part of that would be offset by lower federal payroll taxes. No tax increase would be required to balance the budget under Martinez's plan, which would trim state spending by about $179 million in the fiscal year that starts July 1. A budget proposal by the Legislative Finance Committee calls for cuts of about $194 million. Like the legislative panel, Martinez gained much of her proposed savings by requiring state workers and some educational employees to pay an additional 2 percent of their salaries for their pensions. The state would reduce its pension payments by a similar amount, saving about $39 million next year. Read more

Progressive: Blame Game Beat Goes On

Matthew Rothschild

Progressive.org - His web postings reflect “a jumble” of far right views. And some anti-Semitic white nationalists shed no tears over Gabrielle Giffords. The alleged shooter, Jared Lee Loughner, has links to the far right. On My Space, he acknowledged he had political motives. “I define terrorist,” he said, adding he was using violence “as a political weapon.” In his rambling messages on the web, he railed about the U.S. currency and the need to return to the gold standard, which are views that often circulate among the tea party crowd and other on the far right. He also, according to the Guardian, was anti-abortion. Read full column here:

Blame Game Won't Work

Carol Platt Liebau

Townhall - As the nation reeled from news that a gunman had shot a group of Arizona citizens including Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, an all-too-predictable response emanated from some on the left. Despite news reports suggesting that the shooter, Jared Lee Loughner, was simply insane – a devotee of Karl Marx and Adolf Hitler, who believed in mind control and “conscience dreaming,” and who was convinced he would become the treasurer of a new currency – many left-wingers sought to attribute his despicable acts to a conservative political agenda. Read full column here:

A Tale of Two Target Lists

In the wake of the horrifying shootings in Tucson, and the predictable opportunist finger pointing that began soon after, it didn't take long to find many examples of political "target" lists out there in cyberspace. Both CBS News and ABC selectively chose to only report on a target list of Sarah Palin on the Sunday talk show circuit. Both networks referenced Palin's target list of house members on sarahpac.com. However, what these news outlets did not bother to mention was all the other congressional "target" lists posted by various competitors and interested parties in the political space.

In two minutes we found an article and list using the term "BULLS EYE." One can read a 2008 article contaning one such list from the popular progressive website Daily Kos. Listed along with many other "blue dogs" as a legitimate target for defeat is Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords. Is this list or this article that was posted on Daily Kos significant? Not really. The only thing significant about this list and article is its omission by once reputable news agencies like ABC and CBS in their atrocious reporting on the horrifying acts of a madman.

Daily Kos: Scrub Site and Point Finger

Markos Moulitsas Zuniga

Worldnet Daily - Shortly after news broke of the attempted murder of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., the left-leaning blog Daily Kos was swift to scrub its post from a Tucson writer explaining how the congresswoman was now "dead to me." One of the blog's diary writers, identifying himself as BoyBlue, had written a post only two days before the shooting titled "My CongressWOMAN voted against Nancy Pelosi! And is now DEAD to me!" Read full story here:

Swickard column - Evil: thy name is notoriety

© 2011 Michael Swickard, Ph.D. There is a great evil in our world gaining strength. It fosters violence and replicates itself year after year. Good citizens decry it but then do everything necessary to enable it. January 8th our nation was shocked by the mindless violence in Arizona which was neither more nor less horrendous than previous violence against innocent victims. It was merely the next time.
In the 24-hour news coverage not once have I heard, to my mind, the question we should ask: what were the incentives for this to take place? Why did the shooter think his life would be made better by this action?
The incentive question is critical since humans generally act upon a model of making life better for themselves. To themselves they frame each action as a way of living a better life. So where did the notion come from that shooting into a crowd would make things better for him? What did the shooter want to get?
Sadly, the answer is notoriety. It is one of the most prevalent influences in our society. Regardless of his stated reason, I suspect the notoriety of having everyone in our nation know his name was the lure. Axiomatic in Hollywood is, “It does not matter what people say about you as long as they talk about you.”
Yes, I am theorizing and do not know his mind. However, as I watch the coverage of major shootings in our society, all indicators point to: evil, thy name is notoriety. The perpetrator decided someone with notoriety is better off than being like the millions of anonymous common citizens.
Why use a gun? It is part of notoriety. Kids watch hour after hour of television and movies where the solution to problems is to shoot someone. They see unacceptable behavior lauded and notoriety rewarded. Children watch hundreds of “shootings to solve a problem” each week. Heroes as well as bad people, all larger than life, solve their problems with guns and become notorious for their actions. I cannot think of a major movie star who has not shot someone on screen to solve a problem.
The copycat syndrome has been well established. Many unbalanced perpetrators are only doing what they have spent thousands of hours watching on television, in movies and in video games. It is not a defense for their actions, it is an explanation. We find that perpetrators of random violence often have spent lots of time watching previous random attacks and valued the notoriety given previous shooters.
When the first news of the attempt on President Ronald Reagan surfaced in 1981 there was the notion it was connected to politics. No, the same potential assassin had tracked Jimmy Carter but was not able to mount an attack. His notoriety need was not political; it was to impress a Hollywood actress. Please note I am not using his name on purpose, nor am I using the name of the most recent shooter. I will not give that notoriety to either.
I am not saying to do away with television and movies but we must recognize where the “notoriety bug” is planted and work to deal with those effects. Do I have a quick easy answer to these problems? No, but I think we must start by identifying the problem. That problem is the incentive for some of our more unbalanced citizens to act out in search of notoriety.
So how do we deal with these shootings where for the next week the name of the shooter is the most important name in our society? This is not about guns, this is about notions. I am not for censorship but with our best minds we must see the link of celebrating (in an odd way) people like the man who planted the bomb that destroyed the federal building in Oklahoma and how some unbalanced individuals seize upon the effect of that notoriety.
Think of it like planting a tree. The best time to plant a tree was ten years ago; the next best time to plant a tree is now. The best time to start dealing with this notoriety caused violence problem was ten years ago. The next best time is now.

Brazil: Short Term Sacrifice - Long Term Gains

Lula da Silva

Bloomberg - Eight years ago, a newly elected president, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, faced the challenge of saving Brazil from economic and financial collapse. Last Saturday, Lula passed the presidency to Dilma Rousseff having done much, much more than that during his two terms. In the process, he relied on four simple pillars that other leaders would be well advised to consider.
After winning a hotly contested presidential election in 2002, Lula overcame tremendous domestic and international skepticism to guide his country to a development breakout phase. As a result, he left the presidential palace last weekend with Brazil in a position to sustain high economic growth for many years, strengthen an already robust financial situation, and better meet the aspirations of the poorest segments of its society. Read full column here:

Atrocities at Shopping Centers

How long would it take? Ten minutes? One hour? One day? In the wake of the shopping center atrocities in Tucson yesterday, one thing was as sure as night following day. Citizens will be seeing a tug of war develop in the U.S. media and in the political arena. We prepare now for a shift in focus. It will come as a result of efforts made by some to gain political advantage in the policy arena as result of an atrocity. The hopes of those who will no doubt use the horrible events at the Tucson shopping center will be that America once again commit the folly of treating symptoms.

Sadly, an ongoing disaster for our neighbors to the south will continue to go completely under-reported in the U.S. While Americans understandably recoiled in horror at the news from Tucson yesterday, another shopping center atrocity went unnoticed. In Mexico, a country where the law of the land embraces gun control, fifteen decapitated bodies were unceremoniously dumped at a shopping center in Acapulco. In fact, there were twenty-seven murders in the Acapulco area in the last seventy-two hours.

Rest assured that at this point authorities in Mexico still do not know whether the sharp objects used to decapitate the bodies were the murder weapons or the mutilation weapons. With untold thousands of murders in Mexico in 2010, most of them gun killings, law enforcement there has better things to worry about than hoping lawyers get more precise language into the statutes on the books that already ban guns. You can read about the shopping center atrocities in Mexico here:

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