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CHILILI — U.S. Forest Service officials on Friday confirmed Journal reports that the cause of the Dog Head Fire in the Manzano Mountains was tied to a federally funded wildland brush and wood clearing effort designed to prevent fires. Specifically they said the 18,000 acre blaze was started by a masticator, a forest thinning or brush cutting machine. The clearing effort — known as the Collaborative Landscape Restoration Project — is a joint effort of Isleta Pueblo, Forest Service and Chilili Land Grant. An Isleta crew was working the masticator in the area the day the fire started and members...

In one of the most disturbing pieces of evidence yet, a U.S. Congressional panel found that an abortion facility may have provided aborted babies’ brains to a summer camp for youth in New Mexico. The horrific detail was part of a larger body of evidence that the U.S. Congressional Select Panel on Infant Lives sent to the New Mexico Attorney General this week. The evidence indicates that the University of New Mexico and the Southwestern Women’s Options abortion clinic may have broken a state law that prohibits the gifting of aborted babies’ body parts. Included in the evidence were sections...

Mitt Romney still can’t see himself voting for presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump. However, he can’t bring himself to vote for the Democratic counterpart, Hillary Clinton, either. But the 2012 GOP nominee has a solution: putting his own wife’s name on the ballot. “It’s a matter of personal conscience,” Romney told CBS News’ John Dickerson Wednesday at the Aspen Ideas Festival. “I can’t vote for either of those two people.” Romney explained that he simply cannot get behind Trump’s divisive character. “Our nominee is saying, ‘Hey look it’s these people here. It’s these Mexicans coming across the border... it’s...

Brad Thor dropped a major bomb-shell on Glenn’s radio program Thursday, saying he’s committed to running for president of the United States. Glenn introduced his friend by reminding listeners about the author’s courage in the face of controversy. “I believe Brad is one of the most courageous people out there. Because — he is in business. You’re selling a book. And what you said — I shouldn’t say what you said — because what you said was not controversial,” Glenn said. Some may recall the flak Glenn received following Thor’s fiery remarks about Donald Trump in his previous interview on...

On a cool spring day at the Capitol, Toni Atkins delivered a series of blows unlike anything the tobacco industry had ever felt in California. Then speaker of the Assembly, the San Diego Democrat had been a lame duck for the last six months since the house elected Anthony Rendon to replace her. It was a Thursday morning in March and her final session as speaker, a tenure that lasted just shy of a year and 10 months. In a series of quick votes, the Assembly passed six smoking bills, the most significant of which raised the age to buy...

Utah is certainly not turning out to be friendly territory for Donald Trump. A new UtahPolicy.com survey gives the presumptive GOP nominee a 9-point lead over Democratic foe Hillary Clinton. The survey, conducted by Dan Jones & Associates, finds Trump with 36% of the vote in Utah. Clinton would get 27%. Libertarian Party candidate Gary Johnson has 10%, while Green Party nominee Jill Stein pulls in 2%. 18% said they would prefer another candidate while 2% were undecided. Trump's share of the vote is virtually unchanged from a recent Salt Lake Tribune poll that showed Trump and Clinton tied at...

Democrat Hillary Clinton leads Republican Donald Trump 47 percent to 42 percent in a new CNN/ORC poll released Tuesday. When voters are given a choice of a four-way race, Clinton's advantage over Trump narrows to 42 percent to 38 percent, with Libertarian Gary Johnson receiving 9 percent and Green Party candidate Jill Stein 7 percent.

A new Morning Consult poll shows national security is back at the forefront of voters’ minds following the mass shooting in Orlando that left dozens dead and injured. In a national survey taken in the days after Omar Mateen’s attack on Pulse, a gay nightclub, almost three out of 10 voters (29 percent) said security was their top issue under consideration when casting their vote — a 10-point increase from a poll in early June. Similar spikes in voters’ concerns about national security were observed following the attacks in Paris, San Bernardino and Brussels. Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump...

Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus has been quietly having conversations with state party leaders to discuss the latest push by convention delegates to nominate anyone other than Donald Trump. Priebus has spoken with GOP party chairmen in multiple states in recent days in part to get a better sense of how large the anti-Trump faction is among their convention delegations, according to two people familiar with the conversations. While Priebus has made clear in these conversations that he is not spearheading the latest push for a coup, his involvement sends a signal that the RNC is taking this effort...

RNC Chairman Reince Priebus tapped former congressman Enid Mickelsen to chair the all-important rules committee during the convention. Just two weeks ago, Enid had this to say about the presidential race: Ryan Struyk @ryanstruyk Enid Mickelsen just named chair of GOP convention rules panel. Here's what she told Salt Lake Tribune two weeks ago. She has also spoken approvingly of the idea that the rules could be changed to allow delegates to vote for someone other than a candidate they are bound to by result of primary or caucus. It's unkown if Trump was consulted about the choice.

Since 1992, Republicans have been smarting their loss by claiming that Ross Perot stole enough votes to elect Bill Clinton. Even as much as the loyal opposition seeks to demystify the winner's victory, the Perot-elected-Clinton lie has only served to force the GOP to adopt pro-immigrant pro-big-gov narratives. Perot was more liberal than Slick Willie himself. http://www.ontheissues.org/Ross_Perot.htm He was pro-abortion, pro-homo, and for tax hikes on fossil fuel, the driver of American jobs. Bush I's job approvals in 1992 were as low than Jimmy Carter's in 1980 http://spectator.org/63682_bushioisie-wrong-ross-perot-didnt-cost-ghw-bush-white-house-1992/ http://www.gallup.com/poll/116677/presidential-approval-ratings-gallup-historical-statistics-trends.aspx Of course Bush was 1000x better than Surrender Monkey Dhimmi, but...

The number of celebrities who support Donald Trump continues to grow as UFC Hall of Famer and current Bellator fighter Tito Ortiz has now publicly endorsed the presumptive GOP presidential nominee. The 41-year-old was spotted in attendance at a Trump rally in Anaheim, Calif., this week. His appearance caused a stir as Ortiz was pictured holding a sign that said, “Hillary Clinton Killed My Friends,” and later joined in a “build that wall” chant.

Police arrested an illegal Middle Eastern woman in a Luna County, New Mexico, during a routine traffic stop by a deputy sheriff. The woman had a copy of the region’s gas pipeline plans in her car according to law enforcement officers. Local authorities notified the U.S. Border Patrol, FBI and Joint Terrorism Task Force officials, who are investigating the case. Law enforcement verified that the gas pipeline plans included the Deming region, a city located about 35 miles north of the Mexican border and 60 miles west of Las Cruces, population about 15,000.

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — The Bernalillo County Sheriff’s Office says it will begin a mandatory evacuation of Chilili residents as the Dog Head Fire, which reportedly tripled in size Wednesday, moves their way. The county posted the announcement on social media around 7:30 p.m. The county also said N.M. 337 is closed at N.M. 217 because of the evacuation. “It’s very very close to the town itself,” Forest Service spokeswoman Arlene Perea said. “It’s knocking at the door.” The fire broke out Tuesday morning in a section of National Forest land in the Manzano Mountains near Tajique. It remains uncontained. Perea...

Police in a U.S. town bordering Mexico have apprehended an undocumented, Middle Eastern woman in possession of the region’s gas pipeline plans, law enforcement sources tell Judicial Watch. Authorities describe the woman as an “Islamic refugee” pulled over during a traffic stop by a deputy sheriff in Luna County, New Mexico which shares a 54-mile border with Mexico. County authorities alerted the U.S. Border Patrol and the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) Joint Terrorism Task Forces (JTTF) has been deployed to the area to investigate, sources with firsthand knowledge of the probe confirm. The gas pipeline plans in the woman’s...

Gary Johnson, the Libertarian presidential candidate who is polling in the low double digits since winning his party’s nomination, offered two careful responses to the mass shooting in Orlando. In a Sunday afternoon tweet, Johnson called for “a time to mourn, be strong & be what makes America great.”(continued)

The Howell man whose impromptu strip tease last month at the Libertarian Party's national convention made headlines across the U.S. has been suspended from the party. James Weeks II announced Sunday evening that Libertarian Executive Committee officials approved his suspension earlier in the day because of his actions. Weeks, chairman of the party's Livingston County branch and an announced party candidate for county sheriff, said "the reasoning behind this suspension is their disapproval of my use of free expression in lieu of a speech during my run for Libertarian Party chair at the national convention." Weeks has maintained his dance...

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton has sunken to third place among independent voters, a new poll reveals. Clinton pulled just 22 per cent of the independent vote in the latest Fox News poll, finishing behind Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump and Libertarian Party candidate Gary Johnson. Trump led among independents, pulling 32 per cent of the vote, while Johnson, a former governor of New Mexico, got 23 per cent. 'This is very bad news for Hillary Clinton,' Republican strategist Susan Del Percio told the New York Post. 'She needs independents to win in November.' Clinton did, however, show a three-point...

Libertarian Party presidential nominee Gary Johnson leads presumptive Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton among self-identified independents, a new poll finds. A Fox News survey released Thursday found Clinton leading overall with 39 percent support, followed by Donald Trump at 36 percent and Johnson at 12 percent. But among independents, Trump leads, at 32 percent, followed by Johnson, at 23, and Clinton, at 22.

Almost a half-million acres in southern New Mexico were designated as a national monument two years ago. Now, members of the state's congressional delegation are pushing for portions of the Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks area to be set aside as wilderness. While praised by environmentalists, the effort is reigniting the concerns of local law enforcement about their ability to access the area to fight crime. The legislation introduced by Sens. Tom Udall and Martin Heinrich, both Democrats, would set aside more than 376 square miles - or nearly half of the monument - as wilderness. ... The Southwestern Border Sheriffs' Coalition...