Free Republic

Let me be clear - I am pro-life. I support that position with exceptions allowed for rape, incest or the life of the mother being at risk. I did not always hold this position, but I had a significant personal experience that brought the precious gift of life into perspective for me. My story is well documented, so I will not retell it here. However, what I will do with the remaining space is express my feelings about life, and the culture of life, as we just marked the 43rd anniversary of Roe v. Wade. I build things. There is...

Pro-lifers in New Mexico have uncovered new evidence showing that a late-term abortionist and the University of New Mexico may be breaking the law when they are harvesting aborted babies’ body parts and using them for research. The New Mexico Alliance for Life reports that it “has obtained details from a 2015 University of New Mexico research study describing … how aborted baby liver and kidney ’tissue’ [was] harvested from ‘six fetuses,’ only 15 minutes after the abortion procedure.” The university receives the aborted babies’ body parts from late-term abortionist Curtis Boyd. “This leaves many alarming questions concerning how notorious...

A nonprofit group founded by ex-New York SEIU boss Dennis Rivera has received big contributions from corporations that do business with the Puerto Rican government, while employing the governor's brother as its only employee. This arrangement was reported today by Alana Goodman of the Washington Free Beacon, based on information provided by NLPC. The charity, now known as "Sociedad Económica De Amigos del Pais," was founded in New York in 1996 by Rivera and former New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson as the Hispanic Education and Legal Fund (HELF). Its name change, relocation to Puerto Rico and change of mission...

New Mexico plans to sue the federal government and the owners of two Colorado mines that were the source of a massive spill last year that contaminated rivers in Utah and other Western states, officials said Thursday. The New Mexico Environment Department said it filed a notice of its intention to sue the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency over the spill. The lawsuit would be a first and also would target the state of Colorado and the owners of the Gold King and Sunnyside mines. Utah leaders have also reserved the possibility of legal action against the EPA. In a statement...

BURNS--Members of the armed standoff at the Malheur National Wildlife refuge said Monday that they've recruited ranchers to stop paying the federal government for the right to run cattle on public. The occupation organizers are planning a 'signing ceremony' Friday where ranchers will sign documents renouncing their obligation to pay fees tied to the federal grazing lands allotments, said spokesman LaVoy Fincicum. Two ranchers-one from Oregon and one from New Mexico-have agreed to sign the papers and "I hope they bring a couple more in tow" Fincicum said...... Leaders of the occupation, now in its 17th day, plan a public...

He turned me down. By the time I asked for an interview, Albuquerque police officer Chris Poccia had already been all over the media – in our newspaper, on TV news and talk radio locally and nationally and in every imaginable way on social media. The Albuquerque Police Department put him in the public eye almost from the moment he became the center of the city's best happy-ending story in weeks, maybe months, maybe longer than that. Poccia had been the one to find a little bundle of purple named Caraline Leon-Alcocar, a 3-year-old girl who for five hours Saturday...

SANTA FE - Former New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson was cited for following too closely and failing to report an accident after a hit-and-run fender bender in downtown Santa Fe on Wednesday morning. According to the police report, the accident occurred about 8:15 a.m. during wet, snowy conditions. Richardson rear-ended a vehicle driven by a Santa Fe woman while both were traveling east on Marcy Street at the intersection with Paseo de Peralta. The woman told the police a yellow Jeep hit her car from behind while she was stopped at a stop sign. The Jeep then hit her a...

Gary Johnson, a two-term Republican governor of New Mexico who became the Libertarian Party's 2012 presidential nominee, will officially announce his 2016 campaign on Fox News on Wednesday.

While here in Wisconsin the storm caused us headaches at our farm by dumping snow, then sleet and then a fine layer of ice, we dealt with everything and moved on. Goliath was barely a blip on our radar. However, the farmers and ranchers in New Mexico, West Texas and the Oklahoma Panhandle ended up with far more than a blip on their radar. Goliath pummeled the area and now early estimates are saying that up to 20,000 cows and calves are dead. Just like Winter Storm Atlas, this story isn’t making the news and most of the people in...

A growing number of state organizations seek to remedy what they consider negligent policies and shoddy oversight of public land on the part of federal agencies. Under the umbrella name Transfer of Public Lands, the movement offers a solution to the problem that is simple in concept: transfer ownership and management of public lands administered by federal agencies to equivalent state agencies. These agencies, being accountable to governors, state legislators and citizens, will manage the public lands in a more conscientious, cost-effective way. ... Unlike states east of the Continental Divide, public lands in Western states such as Washington and...

Groups question keeping Four Corners Power Plant open for 25 more years. A coalition of environmental groups has filed a notice of intent to sue the Office of Surface Mining, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and others over a July decision to allow the Four Corners Power Plant to operate through 2041. A coalition of environmental groups announced earlier this week its intent to take legal action against several federal agencies for extending operations at the Four Corners Power Plant and Navajo Mine just outside Farmington. On Dec. 21, San Juan Citizen Alliance, among other regional and national conservation groups,...

Washington (CNN)A police recording made public this week reveals a police sergeant and a hotel security guard discussing whether New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez was "inebriated" at a holiday party earlier this month. The recording, obtained by CNN affiliate KOAT and other outlets, raises questions about what happened at a raucous holiday party in Santa Fe and how Martinez, once a rising GOP star, handled a police inquiry into a noise complaint at the hotel. Police arrived at the El Dorado hotel late on December 12 after it was claimed that bottles were being thrown from a fourth-floor balcony, KOAT...

Susana Martinez claimed she and her companions, including a disabled sister, were only having pizza and drinking cokes. The audio tapes between Martinez and police were released Friday and siezed upon by her critics at ProgressNow New Mexico. ... A statement from her office said Martinez was hosting her annual staff holiday party at the downtown hotel's ballroom Saturday night. Some 200 people attended; there was a live band and dancing. After the party, Martinez and staff helped clean up and retired to a staffer's hotel room to eat pizza, the statement said. ... Fox News has confirmed with Santa...

Governor Susana Martinez says she regrets the way she handled a late-night phone call to Santa Fe police following a noise complaint involving a party for the governor's staff held at a posh Santa Fe hotel. Recordings of the phone call obtained by KRQE News 13 reveal a conversation between emergency dispatchers and the governor, as she tries to convince police that there's no need for them to respond to the complaint early Sunday morning. On several occasions, Martinez pressures the dispatcher and hotel staff to reveal the identity of who made the complaint. The dispatcher and hotel staff refuse....

Selecting San Francisco's former police chief to head the U.S. Border Patrol would encourage more illegal border crossings because she has a record of not enforcing federal immigration laws, Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., argues. Heather Fong advocated San Francisco's "sanctuary city" policy of non-cooperation with federal immigration officials, Johnson said in a letter Monday to U.S. Customs and Border Protection Commissioner R. Gil Kerlikowske. "The selection of such a candidate would send a strong message-both in the U.S. and outside of the U.S.-that enforcing our immigration laws is not a priority of U.S. Customs and Border Protection," Johnson wrote.

A short history of Obama administration accountability: 1. No one fired at ATF or the Justice Department over Fast and Furious gun walking scandal 2. No one fired at IRS, two employees temporarily demoted over targeting scandal 3. Only 6 managers at the VA fired or allowed to resign over falsifying wait time records 4. No HHS employee fired over Obamacare exchange fiasco 5. No senior officers have been demoted or removed from CENTCOM for "cooking the books" on ISIS intelligence 6.. No EPA employee disciplined for toxic spill at Colorado mine As for that last scandal, Interior Secretary Sally...

Republicans alleged a "whitewash" of a Colorado mining accident that unleashed 3 million gallons of toxic wastewater and requested a nonpartisan investigation after the Interior secretary said Wednesday there was no evidence of criminal negligence. A U.S. Environmental Protection Agency cleanup crew doing excavation work triggered the spill in August at the inactive Gold King mine near Silverton, Colorado. It fouled rivers in Colorado, Utah and New Mexico with contaminants including arsenic and lead, temporarily shutting down drinking water supplies and raising concerns about long-term effects to agriculture. The accident prompted harsh criticism of the EPA for failing to take...

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. - He wouldn't stop hitting her. Thunk. Thunk. Thunk. He jabbed her forehead with his meaty hand, she said, his fingers like sledgehammers, her head snapping back and forth so violently she thought she would pass out. Or worse. "It hurt," Marlina James said. "It just hurt so bad. I just wanted it to stop. I kept asking him to stop. 'Please stop,' I kept saying. 'Leave me alone,' I said. Honest to God, I couldn't take it anymore. He just kept hitting me and hitting me." James, 36, tells her story in the office of her lawyer,...

Since the start of the Syria's civil war in the spring of 2011, the U.S. has admitted 2,311 Syrian refugees and resettled them in 36 different states. According to data from the State Department's Refugee Processing Center the top three destinations for Syrian refugees since the beginning of the conflict are California, Texas, and Michigan. From March 15, 2011 through December 1, 2015, California received the most (261) Syrian refugees, Texas received the second most with 242, and Michigan has received the third most with 217. Other states that have received Syrian refugees since March 2011 include: Arizona (182), Illinois...

Todd Hennis claims EPA planned mine spill to usher in Superfund. the Environmental Protection Agency-contracted crew's triggered blowout on his property, effectively turning the Animas River into an orange spectacle. He was speechless and horrified, but not surprised ... I have been trying to make everybody aware of the dangers posed by the Sunnyside Mine pool for 14 years .. when I saw the pictures, I just felt my life was over. I just thought, Oh God, what did they do? ... Hennis, for his part, has long maintained increased flows from the Gold King Mine are a result of...