State Officials Break Up Driver’s License Ring

Luis Raul Collazo-Medrano

Albuquerque Journal - A phone call to the New Mexico Motor Vehicle Division from a Brazilian woman living in Georgia helped investigators uncover a complex scheme that likely resulted in hundreds of New Mexico driver’s licenses being issued to illegal aliens. “This is one of the largest and most sophisticated driver’s license fraud rings we have uncovered,” state Taxation and Revenue Secretary Demesia Padilla said at a news conference here Wednesday. Padilla was joined by 9th Judicial District Attorney Matthew Chandler, who said the ring — run by a family of Mexican nationals and their colleagues — used eight rented houses in Portales and Clovis over a two-year period to help 54 illegal aliens obtain New Mexico licenses. The ring, allegedly headed by Luis Raul Collazo-Medrano, used the addresses to obtain fake documents — such as rental agreements, utility bills, vehicle titles and proof of auto insurance — to get driver’s licenses. One of Collazo-Medrano’s accomplices, Veronica Diaz of Portales, is alleged to have used her notary public status to fraudulently notarize hundreds of such documents. Chandler said Collazo-Medrano recruited illegal aliens living in Illinois, Georgia, Florida and South Carolina, and charged them $4,000 apiece to transport them to New Mexico, obtain the illegal documents and get a driver’s license. Fifty-four such licenses have been linked directly to the eight addresses in Portales and Clovis, and helped illegal aliens from Mexico, El Salvador, Brazil, Guatemala, Uruguay and Honduras get licenses. Read More News New Mexico (subscription)

State Officials Break Up Driver’s License Ring

Gila Fire 22% Contained

KRWG - There will be a community meeting Wednesday in Glenwood at the Community Center starting at 6 PM. The incident management team will be providing an update on progress and fire containment.
In the west and northwest portion of the fire, crews focused on mopping up the previous days burn out activities. In the south and southwest sections of the fire boundaries, firefighters finished prepping cabins for potential fire movement and patrolled for increased activity. In the eastern boundary, hotshot crews continued to build line by hand and strengthened with small burn out operations. Read full story here: News New Mexico

Gila Fire 22% Contained

Obama Surrogate Sought GSA Secrecy

Washington Times - A top administrator at the General Services Administration who worked on President Obama’s presidential transition team sought to keep secret the agency report that uncovered massive waste at a lavish taxpayer-funded GSA conference in Las Vegas, records show.
The 2010 conference, which cost $823,000 and featured a mind-reader, clowns, magicians and a red-carpet party, forced the ouster of several top GSA officials after the agency’s Office of Inspector General released its findings in April. But months earlier, as word of the report was circulating among GSA officials, Ruth F. Cox, the agency’s regional administrator for several Western states, contacted a colleague in Washington asking what could be done to shield the report from public view. Read full story here: News New Mexico

Obama Surrogate Sought GSA Secrecy

Courtesy of Conservative Daily News

     

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Tea Party View of Wisconsin

Newsmax - Tea Party Express chairwoman Amy Kremer blasted the Wisconsin recall as a “waste of taxpayer dollars” in a CNN interview on Wednesday, calling the election “unnecessary” and explaining, “We didn’t need to go here. They should have waited. [Wisconsin Republican Gov. Scott Walker] was elected fair and square in 2010 and he should have been able to serve out his term without going through this.” The conservative activist praised the Wisconsin voters who saw that Walker’s “reforms are working,” continuing, “The facts are the facts. The people saw that, and you see it with the exit polling, that 35 percent of households that have union members voted for Governor Walker yesterday.” Read full story here: News New Mexico

Tea Party View of Wisconsin

Progressive Magazine's Take on Wisconsin

Progressive - A BRUTAL NIGHT IN WISCONSIN - Tuesday night was a brutal, brutal night for progressives in Wisconsin. I was stuck in a local TV studio watching the dismal returns roll in, and it felt like someone was kicking me in the teeth over and over again.

Scott Walker

After a historic uprising in February and March of 2011, after months and months of organizing for this recall, when all is said and done, Scott Walker remains governor of Wisconsin. He even won by a bigger margin this time than last. In 2010, he beat Tom Barrett 52-47 percent, with a 125,000-vote surplus. This time, he beat Barrett 53-46, with a 173,000-vote surplus. Walker got 202,000 more votes than last time; Barrett got 154,000 more than last time, but it wasn’t enough. Not nearly.
Here are some of the reasons why Walker won. Read rest of column here: News New Mexico

Progressive Magazine's Take on Wisconsin

Immoral Beyond Redemption

Walter Williams

Townhall - Benjamin Franklin, statesman and signer of our Declaration of Independence, said: "Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters." John Adams, another signer, echoed a similar statement: "Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other." Are today's Americans virtuous and moral, or have we become corrupt and vicious? Let's think it through with a few questions.

Suppose I saw an elderly woman painfully huddled on a heating grate in the dead of winter. She's hungry and in need of shelter and medical attention. To help the woman, I walk up to you using intimidation and threats and demand that you give me $200. Having taken your money, I then purchase food, shelter and medical assistance for the woman. Would I be guilty of a crime? A moral person would answer in the affirmative. I've committed theft by taking the property of one person to give to another.
Most Americans would agree that it would be theft regardless of what I did with the money. Now comes the hard part. Would it still be theft if I were able to get three people to agree that I should take your money? What if I got 100 people to agree -- 100,000 or 200 million people? What if instead of personally taking your money to assist the woman, I got together with other Americans and asked Congress to use Internal Revenue Service agents to take your money? In other words, does an act that's clearly immoral and illegal when done privately become moral when it is done legally and collectively? Read full column here: News New Mexico

Immoral Beyond Redemption

Susana's PACs Fared Better in Dem Races

Susana Martinez

Roundhouse Roundup - It looks like Reform New Mexico Now got better results than the other political action committee located at 6100 Uptown Blvd. NE; Suite 590, Susana PAC -- meaning Republican Gov. Susana might have had more influence in the Democratic primaries than in the GOP contests she got involved in. “We are encouraged that New Mexicans stood with Democratic candidates who are willing to work across the aisle,” McCleskey told The Associated Press. But he apparently doesn't feel that way about Republicans who do the same. In Martinez's effort to choose the GOP candidate to replace retiring Sen. Clint Harden of Clovis. she backed Angie Spears, who lost to rancher Pat Woods. Spears hired McCleskey and went intensely negative on Wood -- largely for contributing money to Democrats who had helped him on agricultural issues. Wood responded by making McCleskey an issue in the campaign urging east-side Republicans to reject "mudslinging" by a "slick Albuquerque consultant." They did. Though there might be a couple of awkward moments between Woods and Martinez, he's likely to be a reliable vote on most issues. He's taken conservative positions on virtually all the issues and last night in a radio interview, Woods predicted he and Martinez will get along fine once she gets to know him. Read More News New Mexico

Susana's PACs Fared Better in Dem Races

Scientist at NM’s Sandia National Labs pleads not guilty to passing research to China

Jianyu Huang

Washington Post -  A former scientist at Sandia National Labs in New Mexico has pleaded not guilty to charges of stealing research to share with China. Jianyu Huang was arraigned Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Albuquerque. The Albuquerque Journal (http://bit.ly/MdLHSe) reports Huang faces five counts of federal program fraud and one count of false statements. Authorities say he passed off nanotechnology research that belongs to the U.S. as his own. They say he went online to share the data with state-run schools in China. Huang is also accused of lying about taking a lab-owned laptop computer there. Sandia Lab says Huang was fired in April for violating procedures and he never had access to classified national security information. A message left Wednesday for Huang’s public defender, Brian Pori, was not immediately returned. Read More News New Mexico

Scientist at NM’s Sandia National Labs pleads not guilty to passing research to China

Courtesy of Conservative Daily News

     

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