News New Mexico: 05/17/11

Illegal Immigrant License Fraud Increases

From kasa.com - New Mexico’s appeal to foreign criminals eager to exploit a state law allowing illegal immigrants to obtain driver’s licenses is increasing. However, state investigators are trying to blunt that trend by using new tools to track the license requests and identify possible fraud before the licenses can be issued. “This problem is only growing bigger by the day,” said Alvan Romero, who heads up a team of fraud investigators for the state’s Taxation and Revenue Department. That department oversees the New Mexico Motor Vehicle Division. According to a breakdown of phone numbers gathered during the application process, 37 percent of the 16,000 requests received between August 2010 and April 2011 came from out-of-state. Most came from Arizona, Georgia, and Texas. “That simply tells me that something’s going on,” Romero said. “It’s a total red flag.” Another breakdown shows some phone numbers used dozens of times to make appointments. One New Mexico number was used 228 times. A phone number with an Arizona area code was used 24 times. A similar list shows the same pattern with New Mexico addresses. One address in Albuquerque was used more than 70 times in the application process. More News New Mexico

Willie Nelson Endorses Gary Johnson

Willie Nelson

From newmexicoindependent.com -Legendary country musician and well-known marijuana smoker Willie Nelson and his Teapot Party have endorsed Gary Johnson for president. The former New Mexico governor, who is running for the Republican nomination, is a well-known advocate for legalizing and taxing marijuana.
“I am truly gratified to have the endorsement of such a legendary entertainer and champion for individual rights as Willie Nelson,” Johnson said in a statement. “Not only is Willie a superstar talent but, he is a strong advocate for social change, as seen through his tireless work on behalf of family owned farms and hard working Americans. More News New Mexico

Cartel Violence Spillover is Under-Reported

Slain Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry

Townhall - by Katie Pavlich - Rep. Michael McCaul, chairman of the House Oversight, Investigations and Management Subcommittee, doesn’t believe that Americans are getting a clear picture of what the rate of crime along the southern border really is, considering the types of crimes excluded under the definitions of crime in the FBI Uniform Crime Report. The Obama Administration and officials in Homeland Security can conveniently cite border cities as some of the safest in the world because the report is used to declare violence is not in the United States, just in Mexico. “If you’re excluding all of these crimes, how can these statements be correct that there isn’t spill over violence in the United States,” Rep. McCaul asked during the hearing. “I just want an accurate assessment of the level of crime.”

Williams claimed that resources allocated to enforce the border through Homeland Security are working, but law enforcement officials on the ground aren’t seeing results while fighting ruthless cartels who use violence as a method of intimidation. “While I am pleased we have added more resources to the border it is not secure. It has never been more violent than today,” McCaul said. Zapata County Texas Sheriff Sigifredo Gonzales reiterated McCaul’s statement, saying he sees spill over violence everyday. “We see almost on a daily basis spill over violence,” Gonzales said. “Politicians will disagree with me about spill over violence, but we have spill over violence.”

Gonzales added that cartel members are going to police officers homes in the United States to intimidate them and that deputy sheriffs are being shot at while cartel members are bringing drug loads through U.S. neighborhoods. “In almost 10 years we have seen nothing but broken promises when it comes to protecting our nation,” Gonzales said. “There cannot be homeland security without border security.” Read full story here: News New Mexico

Offering Pre-Natal Care Is Risky

South Florida Sun-Sentinel: Fifteen obstetrics-gynecology practices out of 105 polled by the Sun Sentinel said they have set weight limits for new patients. Some of the doctors said the main reason was their exam tables or other equipment can't handle people over a certain weight, but at least six said heavy women run a higher risk of complications. "People don't realize the risk we're taking by taking care of these patients," the newspaper quoted Dr. Albert Triana of South Miami as saying. "There's more risk of something going wrong and more risk of getting sued. Everything is more complicated with an obese Read full story here: News New Mexico

Is New Energy Economy Group Destroying Our Reliable Energy Sources In New Mexico?

KOB - TV - ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) - Critics of a rate hike request by New Mexico's largest electricity provider are questioning why the utility hasn't considered closing part of its coal-fired power plant in northwestern New Mexico. The environmental group New Energy Economy says investing millions of dollars in the San Juan Generating Station near Farmington would be a waste of money given uncertainty surrounding future state and federal environmental regulations. The group says ratepayers shouldn't have to bear the costs. What Public Service Company of New Mexico can recoup is being debated by experts who have spent the last several days testifying before the state Public Regulation Commission. Read full story here: News New Mexico

Pelosi Galore: 38 Obamacare Waivers Granted by White House in Her District.....in April

Nancy Pelosi

Daily Caller - Of the 204 new Obamacare waivers President Barack Obama’s administration approved in April, 38 are for fancy eateries, hip nightclubs and decadent hotels in House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi’s Northern California district. That’s in addition to the 27 new waivers for health care or drug companies and the 31 new union waivers Obama’s Department of Health and Human Services approved. Pelosi’s district secured almost 20 percent of the latest issuance of waivers nationwide, and the companies that won them didn’t have much in common with companies throughout the rest of the country that have received Obamacare waivers. Other common waiver recipients were labor union chapters, large corporations, financial firms and local governments. But Pelosi’s district’s waivers are the first major examples of luxurious, gourmet restaurants and hotels getting a year-long pass from Obamacare. Read full story here: News New Mexico

Entire State of Nevada Receives an Obamacare Waiver

Reid After Accessing Senator's Healthcare

Las Vegas Sun - The Health and Human Services Department announced late Friday that Nevada had secured a statewide waiver from certain implementation requirements of the Obama administration’s health care law, because forcing them through, the department found, “may lead to the destabilization of the individual market.” The announcement makes Nevada one of only three states to have compliance requirements under the health care bill waived. Nevada’s Insurance Division had appealed to the feds to reduce the federal requirement that health plans serving people who buy insurance on their own must spend at least 80 percent of the money they collect on medical expenses. Under the national rule, companies that don’t spend that percentage of revenue on medical costs have to cut policyholders rebate checks starting this year. Nevada asked that requirement be reduced to 72 percent for one year, arguing that top insurance providers would be so strapped to make the payments that they’d exit the state market. Read full story here: News New Mexico

Senator Wirth: Pocket Veto Politics

Peter Wirth

NMPolitics - The City of Santa Fe’s No. 1 priority in this year’s legislative session went to a silent and unceremonious death. Governor Martinez pocket vetoed Senate Bill 8, legislation proposed to close a legal loophole in state law that currently allows new condominiums to circumvent local zoning requirements. Supported by the city’s Land Use Department, neighborhoods and the New Mexico Municipal League, SB 8 was not a mandate on local governments, but offered cities and counties the option of requiring zoning compliance with the formation of new condominiums. Had SB 8 been signed into law, it would have stopped the legal uncertainties facing purchasers and land use planners dealing with non-compliant condos. It also would have helped our neighborhoods maintain the integrity that zoning ordinances provide. A lot of work went into SB 8. When first proposed by the city in January 2010, the language in the proposed bill was opposed by some realtors and land-use lawyers. To address these concerns, instead of introducing legislation in the 2010 30-day session, a draft bill was presented to the Courts, Corrections and Justice interim committee last summer. All parties worked together to reach consensus and propose legislation that the interim committee unanimously endorsed. Read full story here: News New Mexico

Bingaman: National Park Service is Best Suited For Managment of Valles Caldera

Jeff Bingaman

From therepublic.com -U.S. Sen. Jeff Bingaman says the National Park Service is the agency best suited to handle long-term management of the Valles Caldera National Preserve in northern New Mexico. The New Mexico Democrat made the comment Wednesday after a committee hearing on legislation that directs the agency to take over management of the preserve in a way that protects the area's natural and cultural resources. Bingaman and fellow New Mexico Democrat Tom Udall introduced the legislation. Read full story here: News New Mexico

Williams: Minimum Wage's Discriminatory Effects

Walter Williams

Townhall - The best way to sabotage chances for upward mobility of a youngster from a single-parent household, who resides in a violent slum and has attended poor-quality schools is to make it unprofitable for any employer to hire him. The way to accomplish that is to mandate an employer to pay such a person a wage that exceeds his skill level. Imagine that a worker's skill level is such that he can only contribute $5 worth of value per hour to the employer's output, but the employer must pay him a minimum wage of $7.25 per hour, plus mandated fringes such as Social Security, unemployment compensation and health insurance. To hire such a worker would be a losing economic proposition. If the employer could pay that low-skilled worker the value of his skills, he would at least have a job and a chance to upgrade his skill and earn more in the future. Minimum wage laws have massive political support, including that of black politicians. That means that many young black males will remain a part of America's permanent underclass with crime, drugs and prison as their future. Read full column here: News New Mexico

Finally! Some GOP Members in Congress Attempt to Recognize Drug Cartels For What They Are

Daily Caller - Some Republicans in Congress are ratcheting up efforts to designate Mexican drug cartels as terrorist groups, making it easier for the U.S. to seize bank accounts and impose stiffer penalties on the gun runners who supply the groups with weapons. Mexican drug cartels have been blamed for more than 36,000 deaths in Mexico in the past five years. Their methods are brutal and include beheadings, torture and mass killings. Cartels such as Los Zetas and Sinaloa use terror to ensure their business – drugs and money – move freely throughout Mexico and across the U.S. border, said Steve McCraw, director of the Texas Department of Public Safety, on Wednesday at a House subcommittee hearing. “The barbarism – al Qaeda has nothing on these Mexican cartels,” McCraw said. Read full story here: News New Mexico

Harbison: Atlas Shrugged is Prophecy

Jim Harbison

I reluctantly went and saw the movie “Atlas Shrugged” recently. To me it was as great a surprise as “King’s Speech”. It was well directed and acted. It was a realistic movie about the death of capitalism and the rise of government control over our entire way of life including private property and economic opportunity.

Many of us in the audience knew this was just a fictional movie about what could happen in a future society. Unfortunately, we have all become increasingly aware of similar actions being undertaken by the current Obama administration. In order to impose “green energy policies” oil companies are being denied permits to drill and restrictions are placed on timber and mining industries which essentially prohibit their operations. Obama offers to support oil exploration and development in Brazil while prohibiting it in the United States. He is systemically implementing an environmental agenda that is destroying our free market system.

He campaigned on “change” but his change is to implement government control over the means of production. Again reminiscent of the Ayn Rand novel. The Obama Czars, right out of the Atlas Shrugged novel, are administratively implementing regulations that are destroying our capitalist free-market system. A case in point is the mandated elimination of the incandescent light bulb. It is the American entrepreneurial way to develop a “better mouse-trap” and if the development of the Compact Fluorescent Light bulb (CFL) was viewed by the public as a better product its success would be guaranteed. New companies sprout up all across the nation if given the opportunity to succeed. Unfortunately, this administration does not support this entrepreneurial spirit and instead makes every effort to regulate American innovation, production, and prosperity.

This administration has negatively impacted healthcare, manufacturing, banking, energy production and numerous other businesses and industries. Its restrictive and destructive policies have eliminated jobs across the nation and caused the resulting rise of dependency upon the federal government. It was recently disclosed that 51% of the population pays no income tax and more people than ever are now receiving some type of federal assistance, both partly due to the high level of unemployment. In Atlas Shrugged the government imposed restrictions on many industries to force them to adopt its policies.

Currently, we have many “public private partnerships” that have succumbed to the will of the government to stay in business. They no longer operate under free enterprise concepts and owe their very existence to the federal government just as the movie portrayed. The message in the movie was clear and it has been reinforced by the recent actions of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). The NLRB ruled that Boeing cannot open a new plant in South Carolina because it is a Right to Work State and this is an overt attempt by Boeing to circumvent employment of Union workers by relocating jobs out of Seattle, Washington. The truth is that no jobs were being eliminated in Seattle and in fact additional positions had been created. Opening a plant in South Carolina was a business decision to expand the company.

It would have created thousands of additional jobs in South Carolina and increased the tax base for that State. This Obama administration action was to increase the power and control of the unions as well as diminish the rights of private enterprise - not unlike that of the Atlas Shrugged world. It is time for the American people to recognize that the freedoms and prosperity that made this nation great are being systematically destroyed by this administration in the manner described in Atlas Shrugged.

Dr. Terry McMillan to Appear on NewsNM

Dr. Terry McMillan

In the 7:30am segment Tuesday morning we will visit with the only physician in the New Mexico legislature. Dr. Terry McMillan from Las Cruces, who is a surgeon as well as a member of the New Mexico House of Representatives for District # 37 will discuss numerous current issues facing the state. Email your questions for Dr. McMillan using the contact page at the top of our website.

Special Driver's License Session?

KOB - TV - SANTA FE, N.M. - Gov. Susana Martinez plans to ask a special session of the Legislature to stop New Mexico from issuing driver's licenses to illegal immigrants. The Republican governor said Monday she will put the politically charged issue on the agenda of a special session this fall when lawmakers are to consider redistricting plans. The governor pushed unsuccessfully to end the immigrant licensing policy during the Legislature's 60-day session, which ended in March. The House approved her proposal but it failed in the Senate. Read full story here: News New Mexico

Murphy Suspended Without Pay Following Charges

NM Supreme Court

NMPolitics - The N.M. Supreme Court has suspended Third Judicial District Judge Mike Murphy, who was indicted last week on bribery charges. The Associated Press was the first to report on the court’s order that suspends Murphy immediately and without pay. The order remains in effect until the court takes further action, the news service reported. Barry Massey, a co-author of the AP report, tweeted that the court’s ruling was 4-1, with Justice Petra Maes recusing herself. Murphy’s attorney could not immediately be reached for comment. A grand jury indicted Murphy Friday on third-degree felony charges of demanding or receiving a bribe by a public employee; bribery of a public officer or employee; and bribery, intimidation, or retaliation against a witness, in addition to a fourth-degree felony charge of criminal solicitation. Read full story here: News New Mexico

Data: Bleak Outlook for NM Unemployment

KOB -TV - A local expert says it may take years for the state's unemployment rate to get back to where it was before the recession. New Mexico's unemployment rate is now 8.1%, up from 3.7% in early 2008. Getting back to where New Mexicans were before may take longer than most people could guess and certainly longer than most people hope. For the unemployed, their pleas to end the recession may go unanswered. "Please let it be over. We need jobs here in New Mexico," says job seeker Ronald Desvigne.
The Bureau of Business and Economic Research at the University of New Mexico has new data that shows the state's unemployment rate may not return to pre-recession numbers for another six years. Read full story here: News New Mexico

$35 Million in Stimulus Went to Santa Fe Company

New Mexico Watchdog - by David Collins - The company that landed the largest direct contract awarded in Santa Fe under Pres. Barrack Obama’s 2009 stimulus bill didn’t exactly promise the moon and the stars. What Energy/Matter Conversion Corp. (EMC2 Fusion) of Santa Fe has often promised is the power that lights the stars. If the claims of EMC2 Fusion founder Robert Bussard prove true, the world soon could be on a fast track toward abundant low-cost energy produced in clean, radiation-free nuclear-fusion plants. At the time this article was posted, EMC2 Fusion’s Website proposed a working fusion reactor in four years. The company’s lead researcher says the technology might produce electricity at a cost of 2 to 5 cents a kilowatt. New coal or gas-fired plants currently produce electricity for about 9 or 10 cents a kilowatt.“So if this technology works it will be like a silver bullet, and be fundamentally superior to any competing technology. The issue is whether it works or not,” Richard Nebel told Nextbigfuture.com in 2009. Read full story here: News New Mexico

Martinez: Brief Statement on Murphy Indictment

Susana Martinez

SANTA FE – Yesterday, Governor Susana Martinez issued the following statement in response to the indictment of Judge Michael Murphy for his role in a bribery scheme in which he allegedly paid $4,000 for his judicial appointment. “The indictment of a sitting judge on charges that he paid bribes for his judicial appointment and solicited bribes from another judicial candidate is deeply troubling,” said Governor Martinez. “No one is above the law and this criminal defendant should not be given any special treatment.”

News New Mexico

Total Pageviews

Archives

Michael Swickard's new novel about New Mexico