Free Republic

New Mexico's oldest and most-used national forest restrooms will soon get a potty break thanks to $2.8 million in the federal pipeline. The money from the federal economic-stimulus package is set to be spent on repairing and replacing aging toilets in three of the state's national forests including the Cibola National Forest where Jim Hughes is a park host. "Because we got some places that need it real bad," Jim Hughes, a park host in the Cibola, told KRQE News 13. When Mother Nature calls he's seen people do desperate things in desperate times....

It is the hot new thing on Wall Street, a way for a handful of traders to master the stock market, peek at investors’ orders and, critics say, even subtly manipulate share prices. It is called high-frequency trading — and it is suddenly one of the most talked-about and mysterious forces in the markets. Powerful computers, some housed right next to the machines that drive marketplaces like the New York Stock Exchange, enable high-frequency traders to transmit millions of orders at lightning speed and, their detractors contend, reap billions at everyone else’s expense.

It might be the start of a New Mexico political campaign season dominated by talk of ethics. With a blast of the icy air from inside the state Supreme Court's front door, Lt. Gov. Diane Denish stepped out into the summer heat Thursday and made it clear that it would take a while to outline her lengthy proposal to revamp ethics laws. "You might want to get into the shade," she told reporters gathered on the front steps. And a while it took. Denish, a second-term lieutenant governor, will seek the state's top executive post in 2010, in the wake...

Massachusetts, the first state to legalize gay marriage, sued the U.S. government Wednesday over a federal law that defines marriage as a union between a man and a woman. The federal Defense of Marriage Act interferes with the right of Massachusetts to define and regulate marriage as it sees fit, Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley said. The 1996 law denies federal recognition of gay marriage and gives states the right to refuse to recognize same-sex marriages performed in other states. The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Boston, argues the act "constitutes an overreaching and discriminatory federal law."

Perhaps nothing defines the differences in political positions in this country as much as how one views 9/11. Most folks with common sense know the unprovoked attacks on that day defined the world in which we live, that there is evil in this world which means freedom-loving people harm, evil that will not rest until it is utterly vanquished. To us, we live in a post-9/11 world. Then there are liberals, such as talk radio host Randi Rhodes who have another view. Rhodes says we're wrong....

It was a most unusual Fourth of July holiday. While we, the American people, were celebrating the passage of the Declaration of Independence on the Fourth of July, 1776, our only nationally-elected leaders, the President and Vice-President, seem to have forgotten its meaning.

(T)he Supreme Court denied the review of a lawsuit brought by Valerie Plame Wilson and Joseph Wilson, ending the quest for redress of their constitutional rights. The Court's decision reflects the trend toward closing the door on any recourse for a citizen who has been injured by federal officials. The Court's message is clear: federal officials can use their publicly funded positions to attack political adversaries without consequence.

Even journalists are beginning to revolt at tactics the government is now using to spin the Global Warming myth. Controversy erupted this week at the World Conference of Science Journalists over the National Science Foundation's "underwriting" of media projects. It turns out that the NSF, which is heavily invested in propagating the Global Warming party line, has been quietly producing content for news outlets, content which the casual observer might not recognize...

Arianna Huffington has proved herself in l'affaire Pitney to be both a hypocrite and so ignorant of journalism that she should not be allowed near a news-oriented website, even to read it... Pitney was given a press pass for the event, and was specifically called on, for one reason: to make it appear that Obama was taking "a question directly from an Iranian," in Pitney's own words. The nature or wording of the question didn't matter; Obama would give his carefully prepared response, no matter the details. It was a sham. A charade. Stagecraft, in which...

With a change in directions so sharp that it could give observers whiplash, Arianna Huffington is defending the carefully orchestrated question posed by a Huffington Post writer at the presidential news conference last week. After braying criticism during the Bush administration over perceived coziness between the press and the White House, she is now defending the HuffPo's hand in glove--or should I say, hand on keyboard--cooperation with....

If the President of the United States does not stand for freedom, who will? In a time of crisis, with lives in the balance, in the conflict between two powerful ideologies -- one that prizes freedom, one that would strangle its people in a totalitarian grip -- an American president spoke directly to those whose lives and liberties were most threatened and told them ... What? Not that we stand with them. Not that the fists and clubs and boots that rain down on them wound us all. Not, as the founders said far more eloquently than I, that freedom...

Members of the press threw softballs at Robert Gibbs this evening, but that doesn’t mean the White House spokesman had an easy night. Before a planned luau on the White House lawn for members of Congress and their families, journalists were invited to dunk Mr. Gibbs in exchange for a voluntary donation to charity. According to Lynn Sweet of The Chicago Sun-Times, Ben Feller of The Associated Press and Bill Plante of CBS sent Mr. Gibbs into the tank.

A New Mexico whistleblower has filed a second pay-to-play lawsuit that makes a connection between the pay-to-play investigation in New York and the actions of firms working for New Mexico’s two largest pension funds. Frank Foy’s allegations are far-reaching, naming some two-dozen financial firms and claiming investments made by the new Mexico Educational Retirement Board and the State Investment Council (SIC) were meant to benefit New Mexico state governor Bill Richardson. Foy, the former CIO of the ERB, also made a connection between pay-to-play practices in his state and the high-profile investigation going on in New York.