Free Republic

Monday night's CNN/YouTube "debate" among the candidates for the Democratic presidential nomination was billed as a dramatic departure from politics as usual. Unfortunately, aside from fact that one aspiring questioner dressed like a Viking, the debate was only a little better than the one where CNN's Wolf Blitzer was hogging the microphone. To be sure, the YouTubers were more interesting, informed and mercifully concise than Blitzer, who managed to make himself the centerpiece of the last CNN debate. Indeed, the YouTubers were often poignant and powerful, as when Mary and Jen from Brooklyn asked the candidates: "If you were elected...

DES MOINES, Iowa — Democratic presidential candidate Bill Richardson said today that if he won the White House, he would name a top-level envoy assigned to rebuilding shattered ties to the Muslim world. Richardson also called for a "multilateral Marshall Plan" to rebuild the Middle East. "Winning the war against al-Qaida has a lot to do with building goodwill," he said. "For a small fraction of the cost of the Iraq war, which has made us so many enemies, we could make many friends." The New Mexico governor spelled out his foreign policy views in a speech in Des Moines...

An activist group is considering filing a lawsuit against the cities of Orlando, Apopka and even Orange County over red-light cameras on roads. The Florida Civil Rights Association said red-light cameras that photograph and ticket drivers who ignore the signals are unconstitutional. The group cites a recent Minnesota Supreme Court ruling that the cameras violate due process because car owners cannot confront their accuser in court since the accuser is a machine. Also, Minnesota justices call red-light cameras unfair because the car's owner is automatically assumed to be at fault and since the cameras are not at all intersections, the...

CBS encamped 40 kids in an abandoned New Mexico ghost town for more than a month. The kids performed on camera for more than 14 hours at a stretch, seven days a week, making their own meals. They were filming during the school year, yet no studio teachers were present. They were working on a major television production, yet no parents were on the set. The show is CBS’ upcoming reality series "Kid Nation." When rivals first got wind of the concept, they declared the production an impossible endeavor: From a legal, labor, public relations and logistical standpoint, this show...

Mr. Richardson gave a speech and held a question-and-answer session with about 150 people at the United Steelworkers Local 105 hall in Bettendorf as part of his tour through Iowa this week. "If you want to be part of an insurgency, I'm it!" Mr. Richardson told the crowd, getting some laughs. Mr. Richardson said later that being an insurgent candidate meant being the underdog, he said in a phone interview with The Dispatch/The Rock Island Argus/The Leader. "I don't want to be an underdog much longer."

(AP) SANTA FE, N.M. -- New Mexico has a new medical marijuana law with a twist: It requires the state to grow its own. The law, effective Sunday, not only protects medical marijuana users from prosecution — as 11 other states do — but requires New Mexico to oversee a production and distribution system for the drug. "The long-term goal is that the patients will have a safe, secure supply that doesn't mean drug dealers, that doesn't mean growing their own," said Reena Szczepanski, director of Drug Policy Alliance New Mexico. The state Department of Health must issue rules by...

State’s average second highest in the nation Never mind red or green. The attorney general has a new state question: Why are New Mexico’s gasoline prices higher than the national average? State Attorney General Gary King has sent a letter to petroleum suppliers, distributors and retailers, asking them to respond by July 25 with reasons for the higher prices. He also asked industry representatives to suggest how the state and federal governments could help address price disparities and high prices. “Recognizing that there are many factors contributing to the retail price of motor fuels in our state, I still believe...

Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt. — Abraham Lincoln Governor Richardson, I’ve got a message for you from President Lincoln: “Too late.” All the Democrats in Sunday night’s New Hampshire debate had one thing in common: The more they talked, the worse they sounded. And the poster boy for this trend was indisputably Bill Richardson. Who’s been spreading the idea that Richardson is the “break out” candidate in this race? He was lousy in the last debate and worse in this one. Richardson’s rambling, ill-informed musings were so jaw-droppingly...

The New Mexico Department of Health is prepared to keep New Mexicans safe if any individual in the state is affected by the U.S. resident who was diagnosed with extensively multi-drug resistant tuberculosis after traveling between Europe and the United States. Earlier this year, the Department of Health used its authority under the Public Health Act to quarantine an individual with multi-drug resistance tuberculosis who may pose a significant health risk to the public. The Department committed the patient to a secure treatment facility because the patient was actively infectious with a threatening communicable disease and had a history of...

SANTA FE— Rene Nicole was high on cocaine and weighed just 5 pounds when she came into this world. Her mother admitted to taking crack cocaine two days before the baby's birth in 2003. Now, it's up to the New Mexico Supreme Court to decide whether Rene Nicole's mother committed child abuse. Attorneys representing the mother contend New Mexico's child abuse laws don't apply to unborn children and argue that the state's highest court would be setting a "radical" precedent if it interpreted them as such. "This would be an unprecedented expansion of the law," Joseph Goldberg told the court...

THE DISPUTE between Democratic lawmakers and the Bush administration over access to documents and interviews with officials about the firing of eight U.S. attorneys seems to be escalating, not resolving. That's unfortunate, because it's become clear that the administration must make more information available than has been forthcoming. Perhaps the clearest case for that -- and the most troubling evidence of improper political motivations -- involves New Mexico prosecutor David C. Iglesias. -SNIP- Was voter fraud the real reason for his dismissal, or his alleged absenteeism because of military service? Or was it because he failed to produce in time...

FROM THE SENATE Dismissal of U.S. Attorneys Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) chairs a Judiciary Cmte. hearing on the hiring and firing of U.S. Attorneys. D. Kyle Sampson, the former chief of staff to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, appears and is expected to testify that he did nothing wrong in coordinating the firing of eight U.S. Attorneys. THURS., C-SPAN3, 10AM ET - Click link to watch FIRING ATTYS. WEBPAGE

THERE'S GOOD NEWS in the latest Ports-to-Plains progress report for Lubbock and West Texas residents who recognize the evolving trade route's potential economic benefit to our area. Extending from the most active U.S.-Mexico border port, Laredo, through Lubbock and West Texas, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Colorado, the Ports-to-Plains Corridor links the nation's plains states to the border centers of commerce. The Texas Department of Transportation is analyzing funding alternatives including opportunities for private investment and partnerships to pay for moving freight and utilities along the trade route. Using Ports-to-Plains as a case study, TxDOT will research the best potential applications...

New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, a Democratic aspirant for president in 2008, said Monday that the wall being erected on the U.S.-Mexico border needs to go. "The wall should be torn down," Richardson told reporters after the Texas House and Senate approved resolutions in his honor. "It's bad policy. It was done to get election votes," Richardson said, referring to congressional action last year authorizing construction of a wall along parts of the border. "And the next president should not build it. I wouldn't build it." Richardson, 59, a former U.S. House member, energy secretary and ambassador to the United...

<p>He wanted to be considered because he wanted his name out there," a senior Democrat close to the vice presidential process said of Richardson. "And once his name was out there, he withdrew. So there was never a full vetting."</p>

<p>Three CD players hidden under a cathedral's pews blared sexually explicit language in the middle of an Ash Wednesday Mass, leading a bomb squad to detonate two of the devices.</p>

Intel Corp. announced that it will invest $1-to-$1.5 billion in its Rio Rancho, N.M.-based site to retool Fab 11X for production on its 45-nm manufacturing process. Fab 11X will be the company's fourth factory scheduled to use the 45nm process, with production in New Mexico scheduled to start in the second half of next year. Initial production of Intel's 45-nm products will be done at its Oregon development fab, dubbed D1D. The company is currently building two other factories that will use the 45-nm process. The $3 billion Fab 32 in Chandler, Ariz., will commence production late this year; and...

Keeping tabs on Gov. Bill Richardson as he seeks the Democratic nomination for president ... GUESS WHO'S COMING TO DINNER: Richardson and other governors attending the National Governors Association's winter meeting are invited to the White House on Sunday night for a "black-tie evening with President and Mrs. Bush." A Richardson spokesman said the governor will be in attendance, but first lady Barbara Richardson is not making the trip.— J.J. PASS THE RELISH: Richardson got a pretty big piece in The New York Times on Friday. They call him "an imposing, exuberant figure with a relish for attention." They also...

WESTON, Fla. (AP) -- For Broward County Democratic Party Chairman Mitch Ceasar, the presidential campaign of New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson has meaning far beyond how well the candidate does against his better-know rivals. Richardson, who was scheduled to speak at a Broward Democrats' dinner Saturday night, represents two important growth targets for the Democrats, Ceasar said: he's Hispanic, and he's from a western state once considered solidly Republican. ``The challenge will be for him to show not just that he's the Hispanic candidate, but that he can mobilize that base,'' Ceasar said. ``His ability to do that will be...

It was Dreaded Don Imus, whose scowl might have been due to the salty tongue lodged inside. "I've come for you, Imus," said Big Bill. "Nobody calls one of my staffers a 'sniveling little weenie' and gets away with it." Dreaded Don flashed a Jack Palance smirk from his chair by the stove. "I wouldn't push too far, Billy Boy," he said. Big Bill cupped his hand by the six-gun at his side. "Billy Boy, yourself," he challenged. "And I'm not a 'fat sissy,' either. You're dead wrong about that!" -snip- "We were friends once," Big Bill said, glaring at...