Free Republic

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...

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...

Perhaps universities should begin teaching ethics again, or at least bioethics. In the course of her investigation into the sale of fetal tissue, illegal under federal law, U. S. Rep. Marsha Blackburn, R-TN, discovered a relationship between the University of New Mexico and a local abortion provider. Rep. Blackburn, who chairs a House Select Investigative Panel, wrote to the attorney general of the state, urging him to investigate further. She cc'd New Mexico Governor Susana Martinez on the letter. The section of the federal code "which forbids the transfer of fetal tissue for valuable consideration" also "requires that safeguards be...

AmeriCorps has been embroiled in an abortion scandal. A special congressional panel has referred the University of New Mexico and an abortion business nearby for criminal investigation and possible charges following a review triggered by last year’s release of undercover videos investigating Planned Parenthood’s baby body-parts trade. Rep. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., chairwoman of the House Select Investigative Panel assigned to investigate abortion providers’ medical practices, on Thursday wrote to New Mexico Attorney General Hector Baldera Jr. The document, nearly 300 pages long, includes evidence the panel discovered regarding the body-parts trade and more involving the school and the Southwestern Women’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...

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.

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...

Few people today regard the American vice presidency the way John Nance Garner did when he described the job as one that “isn’t worth a pitcher of warm spit,” probably a softened version of his actual words. Yet modern-day politicians would rather talk about arcane parts of the tax code than publicly acknowledge speculation that they’re being mentioned as vice presidential timber. U.S. Sen. Martin Heinrich, a Democrat from Albuquerque, is one of them. Heinrich, who endorsed Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton back in 2014, is among a couple of dozen names that often surface when political writers and commentators discuss...

TIJERAS — Several hundred people whose homes, animals and ways of life are threatened by the Dog Head Fire heard Gov. Susana Martinez promise during a public meeting here Friday to commit more resources to help them through their ordeal. Martinez told anxious Manzano Mountain area residents, jammed into the Roosevelt Middle School gym, that she has ordered more New Mexico National Guardsmen to provide security for neighborhoods that have been or may be evacuated, and that she would look into the possibility of making the fairgrounds at Expo New Mexico available to accept animals being removed from the path...

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (KRQE) — A sensational report of a New Mexico sheriff’s deputy arresting an undocumented “Islamic refugee” who had gas pipeline plans with her as she crossed the desert near the border appears to be unfounded. The report cited involvement by the FBI, U.S. Border Patrol and the Luna County Sheriff. Each of those law enforcement agencies told KRQE News 13 that there’s no evidence the incident ever happened. Still, the article has been widely shared across social media since it was published Wednesday on the website of the conservative group Judicial Watch. The organization says it “promotes transparency,...

Massive Wildfires Force Evacuations In at Least 3 States; New Mexico's Dog Head Fire Explodes to 12,000Major wildfires burning across the West have consumed tens of thousands of acres and forced evacuations in at least three states. In New Mexico, one particular wildfire exploded in size on Thursday. Dry conditions are hampering firefighting efforts in a region that is expected to see dangerous and potentially deadly heat over the weekend and into early next week. "Humidity values less than 15 percent and dew points as low as the single digits will be present and persistent across a large portion of...

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...

Albuquerque police spokesman Tanner Tixier said there was no evidence that shots were fired or that there was an active shooter in the building, but he said officers were still investigating reports of a possible hostage situation.

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...

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...

President Obama will visit Carlsbad Caverns National Park in New Mexico and Yosemite National Park in California next week as part of a trip celebrating the 100th anniversary of the National Park Service, according to the White House. The trip is scheduled from June 17-19 – next Friday, Saturday and Sunday – but it’s unclear exactly when the president will be in New Mexico. Details are still emerging.