News New Mexico: 12/29/11

Gov. Martinez pushes for tougher DWI laws

From KOB-TV.com - (AP) - With New Year's Eve fast approaching, Gov. Susana Martinez and others are continuing their push to get New Mexicans to put down the bottle if they have any plans on driving. Martinez will be at a DWI checkpoint in Albuquerque late Thursday to share her message. However, the push for awareness and tougher laws started earlier this fall after a pre-holiday spike in fatal drunken driving accidents. The governor and anti-DWI advocates are planning to push a series of legislative measure next year that include a statewide vehicle seizure program and increased penalties for repeat offenders. Read more

Albuquerque Gas pump tapped for hundreds of gallons

From KRQE-TV.com - An Albuquerque Northeast Heights gas station said two thieves stole thousands of dollars in gas from one gas pump. “It started at about 11:30 and it ended like at 2:30 a.m.,” said the gas station manger Johnny Bauer. For three hours on the night of Dec. 26 the manager of the Texaco on the corner of Lomas and Juan Tabo boulevards said two crooks pilfered hundreds of gallons of gas. “He actually opens the pump up and he removes and tampers with thing that allows it to flow after the counter has stopped,” Bauer said. The two men filled up a couple of barrels in the bed of the truck, once those are full, they took off. But they are not done yet. The two came back a second time, and it is the same routine. Finally they came back a third time. However on their final trip they showed up with two different trucks, each one loaded down with barrels. "They stole about 688 gallons from this pump itself in diesel and another 93 in unleaded,” said Bauer. The thefts were discovered the next day during a review of the overnight transactions. In order to start the pumps the crooks had to use a credit card. Bauer said the same card was used during all the thefts, and he hopes it leads officer to the fuel bandits. Bauer also believes the men in the video must have some sort of background in the gas business because they knew exactly how to break into the pump. Read more

Santa Fe announces minimum wage increase

From the Santa Fe New Mexican.com - Workers at businesses inside the Santa Fe city limits will earn more than $10 an hour beginning in March, according to an announcement today from the city's Economic Development Division. Santa Fe's minimum hourly wage will increase next year by at least 30 cents, based on changes in a federal index on the cost of living. While officials won't know the exact amount of the new wage until 2011 numbers are completed in mid-January by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, they already know that the current Santa Fe "living wage" of $9.85 an hour should have gone up by 1.4 percent this year — to $9.99. Last month, after inquiries from The New Mexican, Mayor David Coss said it appeared city staff had made an oversight in neglecting to adjust the wage this year as required by law when the regional Consumer Price Index shows an annual increase. Coss and the city manager decided this month not to pursue a retroactive wage change for workers, the mayor said Thursday, but to add the 2011 increase to the 2012 adjustment. Based on the first 11 months of the year, the wage will increase by an estimated additional 3 percent — taking it to between $10.22 and $10.32 per hour, according to estimates from Kate Noble, a city economic development specialist. Read more

Swickard: The truth about the year 2011

By Michael Swickard - It has been quite a year. America started 2011 in severe financial crisis with far too much governmental spending. We end the year without any real effort by our government to deal with the crisis. Most politicians refuse to even admit there is a crisis. Europeans are several years ahead in their financial crisis. They are even more intentionally ignorant of the financial calamity. We could watch them and learn from their mistakes, but we do not. Two issues: what is really happening financially in our country, and secondly, that the politicians and the media are not being truthful. There will be a time in the future when these extremely bad actions will have to be redeemed by the next generation’s taxpayers. They will pay for political influence entirely consumed by this generation. At best they will be sullen, at worse, mutinous. Read commentary

Man, 99, divorces wife of 77 Years over 60-year-old affair

From ABC News - This year has been filled with its share of sudden and surprising divorces in the entertainment and political world, but this split may take the cake. A 99-year-old Italian man filed for divorce from his 96-year-old wife of 77 years after he found letters from an affair she had 60 years ago. The man, identified in court papers as Antonio C., discovered the letters exchanged between his wife and a former flame in an old chest of drawers days before Christmas, according to the Telegraph. He confronted his wife, Rosa C., who reportedly admitted to the affair, and tried to convince him to stick with their marriage. But despite the nearly eight decades that they spent building a life together, a scorned Antonio C., moved ahead with the divorce. (Guess he never heard of “let bygones be bygones.”) The letters were the latest woes in the couple’s long marriage during which they had five kids, 12 grandchildren and one great-grandchild together. Read more

21st century Whoops!

NM has 195,700 government workers

NM Business Weekly - Millions of voters are demanding the downsizing of government, but their wishes remain largely unfulfilled. Government employment has actually increased in 30 states and the District of Columbia during the past five years, according to a new On Numbers study. Topping the list is Texas, which contains 77,600 more federal, state and local government employees today than in November 2006. Other big gainers are Virginia (up 29,500 government jobs in five years), Maryland (up 23,600), Tennessee (up 22,000) and Colorado (up 21,400). Wyoming has experienced the biggest upswing in percentage terms, increasing its number of government jobs by 14.4 percent in half a decade.
New Mexico has 1,800 more government employees today than in November 2006, for a total of 195,700. The increase ranks the state 26th among the 50 states and D.C. Read full story here: News New Mexico

Low Profile of John Sanchez

John Sanchez

Albuquerque Journal - John Sanchez is no Diane Denish. You can decide whether that’s good or bad. The job of lieutenant governor is what you make it. Denish made a lot of it. Sanchez, not so much. Denish was high profile and aggressive, both in terms of helping set public policy and seeking the public spotlight. Sanchez has been decidedly low profile in his first year on the job. Go to the lieutenant governor’s official website and click on “public addresses.” There are none. As for “latest news” on the site, none of it even mentions Sanchez. Denish had as many as nine employees. Sanchez had two as of Dec. 1, according to government personnel records. Heck, he had only one as of Nov. 1. Read rest of story here (subscription required): News New Mexico

Non-Partisan Municipal Elections Discriminate?

Daily Caller - A U.S. District Court judge has rejected a challenge to Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 — filled when the Department of Justice barred the city of Kinston, N.C. from holding nonpartisan elections — reasoning that lack of access to party affiliation would discriminate against minority voters who otherwise wouldn’t know how to find Democratic candidates on a ballot. The challenge was initiated after the Justice Department rejected a 2008 referendum vote in which the city of Kinston voted to stop listing candidates’ party affiliations on ballots. Under Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, the Justice Department must approve changes to election law in regions with a history, however distant, of racial discrimination. The Justice Department prevented the 2008 referendum change, arguing in part that “the elimination of party affiliation on the ballot will likely reduce the ability of blacks to elect candidates of choice.” Advocates for nonpartisan elections including Republican state representative Stephen LaRoque and several other Kinston residents subsequently sued the Justice Department, challenging the constitutionality of Section 5.

“When it comes to questions of federalism, there may not be a bigger intrusion into state sovereignty than the Voting Rights Act,” The John Locke Foundation, a conservative North Carolina think tanks, wrote in a recent newsletter. “There’s simply no basis for requiring certain jurisdictions to get pre-approval of voting procedures more than 45 years after the Voting Rights Act was passed.” Read full story here: News New Mexico

Lobos Blow NMSU Away

Steve Alford

LAS CRUCES – The rout was on from the opening tip. Steve Alford's UNM Lobos absolutely crushed Marvin Menzies NMSU Aggies last night at the Pan American Center in Las Cruces. Up by 34 points with a little more than 7 minutes to play in the second half, the twenty point margin in the final score made the blowout seem closer than it actually was. The game that was never in much doubt all night and it ended with a final score of 89-69.

With the win the Lobo's basketball dominance of the Aggies under Steve Alford continues. Alford is 8-2 against the Aggies over the last ten games despite a November loss in the Pit back in November.

"Laser-Like Focus"

Courtesy of Conservativedailynews.com

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