Free Republic

Officials say that the Laney’s can redeem their 80 cattle for $40,950Southwest New Mexico – The Diamond Bar Ranch was acquired by the Laney family in 1986, and its adjacent Laney Cattle Company was allowed to utilize grazing lands since 1883. According to the US Forest Service, however, they are no longer entitled to do so, and the USFS has posted notices along the fence line of their property advising people not to attempt to enter the ranch. Lands are being seized, and the cattle removed, “one way or the other.”Now they say that the cattle may be redeemed if the Laney’s pay for the costs...

When Kit Laney answered a knock on his door Saturday, law enforcement officers from the U.S. Forest Service handed him a piece of paper announcing his Diamond Bar Ranch in southwest New Mexico would be shut down Wednesday and his 300 head of cattle grazing there would be removed – one way or the other. Other Forest Service officials were busy nailing similar notices on fence posts along the highway and informing neighbors that after Feb. 11, they should not attempt to enter the Diamond Bar property. Laney was not surprised. He knew someday there would be an on-the-ground confrontation...

“So many people thought they knew the governor,” Mother Jones reporter Andy Kroll told KOAT in Albuquerque, “and then went on to govern in a different way.” Er, she did? Susana Martinez has a 52% approval rating in New Mexico, according to PPP, and her re-elect polling has her with double-digit leads, according to RCP. Mother Jones wants to change all that by suggesting that Martinez is the next Sarah Palin, only with an extended vocabulary:

A scathing profile of Gov. Susana Martinez published in the politically liberal magazine Mother Jones – featuring 4-year-old recordings of Martinez and her campaign staff cursing about her 2010 election opponent and criticizing public school teachers as overpaid because they have summers off – touched off more political skirmishing in New Mexico on Wednesday. Martinez attacked the 5,000-word article as a “desperate” liberal media assault and asked campaign supporters in an email for financial help to fend off political attacks in her re-election bid. Several Democrats seeking their party’s nomination to oppose her in November used the article to blast...

SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) - Democrats called Wednesday for Republican Gov. Susana Martinez to apologize after a liberal publication released recordings in which she and aides used profanity and offensive names to describe political opponents. The governor, who’s seeking re-election this year and is viewed as a possible rising star in national GOP ranks, also came under fire for making critical remarks about public school teachers while telling aides that it was a view that couldn’t be expressed publicly during her campaign. “Governor Martinez and her aides’ comments are inexcusable. We have clear proof of her intent to deceive voters...

A plan, now stealthily making its way through state legislatures with astonishing speed, would junk the Electoral College and award the presidency to the winner of the popular vote. The plan involves an Interstate Compact where states would commit to select electors pledged to vote for the national popular vote winner regardless of how their own state voted. When enough states pass this law, sufficient to cast 270 votes which is the majority of the Electoral College, it will take effect. So far, nine states and the District of Columbia, casting 136 electoral votes, have joined. This is halfway to...

Latinos and immigration activists are warning of political peril for President Barack Obama and Democrats in the fall election unless the president acts boldly and soon to curb deportations and allow more immigrants to remain legally in the U.S. Many activists say Obama has been slow to grasp the emotions building within the Latino community as deportations near the 2 million mark for his administration and hopes for immigration legislation fade. With House Republicans unlikely to act on an overhaul, executive action by Obama is increasingly the activists’ only hope.“There is tremendous anger among core constituencies of the president and...

Donald Trump said that “not only is Obamacare a disaster, it is the single greatest lie that I have ever witnessed. As far as immigration is concerned, Trump boasted that he is a builder and that he likes to build things. He said that, if he was in charge of America, “I would build a border fence like you have never seen before.”

"......The California car firm yesterday revealed plans for the factory that would employ up to 6,500 people , cover 1,000 acres, and cost $5 billion, said the Wall Street Journal, Solar and wind farms would at least in part supply the huge power needs of the plant in either Nevada, New Mexico, or Arizona. Reno is thought to be a favorite. Tesla needs its own production to hit its cost target for a more affordable car. Tesla Chief Executive Elon Musk's idea is a "Gigafactory" that takes in raw materials and produces finished lithium-ion batteries. He has said he intends...

Two federal judges on the U.S. Sentencing Commission said Thursday that Attorney General Eric Holder stepped “outside the legal system” and exceeded the authority of the executive branch by sending “improper instruction” to federal prosecutors to reduce drug sentences before they were officially approved by either the commission or Congress. “I have been surprised at the attorney general’s steps taken to proceed with this reduction outside of the legal system set up and established by the Sentencing Reform Act of 1984,” Judge Ricardo Hinojosa, the commission’s vice chair, said during a public hearing in the Thurgood Marshall Federal Judiciary Building...

The federal government is fining an Artesia oil man more than $700,000 for failing to submit reports on production on its federal leases in New Mexico. The Department of the Interior’s Office of Natural Resources Revenue said Tuesday it has assessed Louis Fulton, doing business as C.F.M. Oil Company, a $717,136 civil penalty.

Lone Female Democratic Governor Celebrates #EqualPayDay Andrew Stiles // April 8, 2014 5:01 pm New Hampshire Gov. Maggie Hassan (D), fourth from left. New Hampshire governor Maggie Hassan (D) celebrated “Equal Pay Day” on Tuesday: Governor Hassan Proclaims Equal Pay Day, Urges Support for New Hampshire Paycheck Fairness Act http://t.co/FcVQiPlJZM— Gov. Maggie Hassan (@GovernorHassan) April 8, 2014 Of the 21 Democratic state governors, Hassan is the only woman. From the Democratic Governors Association website:There are four times as many female Republican governors:Women are amazing. Why do Democrats hate them so much?

SANTA FE, N.M. – For decades, it’s probably the most troublesome question facing education: Why are results for U.S. public school students so mediocre, despite the billions of taxpayer dollars spent? Andrew Coulson thinks he’s got the answer: Because there is no discernible correlation between spending and outcomes. “The takeaway from this study is that what we’ve done over the past 40 years hasn’t worked,” said Coulson, director of the Center For Educational Freedom at the CATO Institute. “The average performance change nationwide has declined 3 percent in mathematical and verbal skills. Moreover, there’s been no relationship, effectively, between spending...

Attorneys for the Reese family filed a petition for rehearing en banc Tuesday in the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit in Denver. This latest move by the defense challenges a March 19 decision by a three judge panel overturning a District Court decision that the family of former gun dealers merited a new trial based on the prosecution withholding evidence that a witness had been the subject of a criminal investigation. The panel’s ruling last month was another in a series of setbacks for a family that has endured an ordeal approaching three years. Arrested in...

A decision pending with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service could have huge ramifications for rural Kansans living in the western third of the state. In limbo is the question of whether the lesser prairie-chicken should be listed as a “threatened” species under provisions of the 1973 Endangered Species Act. The species inhabits land spanning Kansas, Colorado, Oklahoma, Texas and New Mexico. ... Kansas, in cooperation with the four other states affected by the issue — a coalition known as the Western Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies — has attempted to stave-off such a decision with the development of...

The family of Tony Day, the boy accused of killing his adoptive mother and adult sister, doesn’t understand why he’s allowed to take “field trips” while in custody. “There’s no sense in it. I mean—absolutely none,” Mike Day, the boy’s adoptive father said. In November 2012, police said Tony, then 14-years-old, shot Sue Day and stabbed Sherry Folts in the family’s Tucumcari-area home. The case has not yet gone to trial. “If the gun hadn't jammed, he'd have killed me and the little girl we were taking care of,” Mike Day said. Mike and his wife Sue were foster parents...

On this date in 1917, President Woodrow Wilson asked the United States Congress to declare war on Germany, following the publication of the Zimmerman Telegram (in which Germany offered to finance Mexico's entry into the war on their side and for Mexico to attempt to reconquer Texas, New Mexico and Arizona) and Germany's resumption of submarine attacks on American ships. Congress would declare war on April 6th.

Kentucky GOP Sen. Rand Paul told fellow Republicans on Tuesday that the future of their party depends on them connecting with Hispanics in a more empathetic way and on getting in front of immigration reform – a message that further signals his flirtation with a 2016 presidential run. “If we are to change people’s attitudes toward … the Republican Party, we have to show up and we have to have something to say,” Paul told a small group of conservatives gathered at the Newseum in Washington, D.C. “I hope to be part of that dialogue.” This certainly was not the...

After House Democrats filed a discharge petition on Wednesday to try to force a vote on comprehensive amnesty legislation, President Barack Obama praised the bill as one that would "make sure everyone plays by the same rules," even though it would give special treatment to illegal immigrants who have broken the law. In a White House press statement, Obama blamed "Republicans in the House" for refusing to "allow meaningful immigration reform legislation to even come up for a vote." He then applauded the "efforts of Democrats in the House to give immigration reform the yes-or-no vote it deserves." "It would...

Wells Fargo’s bank in New Mexico has taken down the American flag that was hanging inside the building for six years. It says “a few people” complained that the flag was “offensive.” When questioned as to why the flag was offensive, the bank refused to provide an answer.