Free Republic

The Santa Fe High School shooter who killed between eight and ten people has been named as student Dimitrios ‘Dimitri’ Pagourtzis. Pagourtzis, 17, shared chilling photos on his – now removed – Facebook of a ‘Born to Kill’ t-shirt shortly before Friday morning’s massacre. Plane 'containing 107 passengers' crashes in Havana, Cuba An Instagram account that appears to belong the 11th-grader shows him following multiple gun-related accounts, including ‘sickguns,’ ‘gunspictures’, as well as others called Guns Fanatics, Guns Lovers and Guns Glory. Only three photos were uploaded to it – a toy rifle attached to an arcade video game, a...

SANTA FE – A national trend in favor of so-called “soda tax” initiatives took a hit Tuesday when Santa Fe voters soundly rejected a proposed 2-cents-per-ounce tax on the distributors of sugar-sweetened beverages in a special election unlike anything New Mexico’s capital city has seen before. Santa Fe’s 2-cents-per-ounce proposal would have matched Boulder, Colo., as the highest in the nation and was aimed at financing an effort to make 1,000 pre-kindergarten education slots available to Santa Fe children for free or at affordable rates. The campaign drew intense interest locally and money poured in from outside the state, with...

Voters in New Mexico’s capital city rejected a tax increase on sweetened beverages Tuesday, handing a rare victory to the soft-drink industry after a string of recent defeats. The tax failed with 11,533 votes against and only 8,382 votes in favor, the Santa Fe City Clerk’s Office announced. The special election came after similar taxes were adopted last year in cities from Philadelphia to San Francisco. Outside groups and political committees spent more than $3 million on the special election in Santa Fe, with opponents led by the soft-drink industry and supporters by billionaire Michael Bloomberg, a staunch supporter of...

or Patricia Pautke, going to Walmart is a fairly normal thing to do, but one trip quickly turned embarrassing. According to KOB, Pautke went into the store to browse the Halloween merchandise with her son. On her way out, an employee stopped her in the middle of the entrance. ““He said, ‘Ma’am are you pregnant?,’ and I said ‘Yes I am,’ and he said, ‘You did not look pregnant five minutes ago,’” said Pautke. “He said, ‘I’m going to need you to lift up your shirt right now and prove to me that you don’t have anything under your shirt.’”...

About a dozen pastors, including the Rev. Jim Velazquez of Temple Baptist Church of Santa Fe, complained during a gathering outside the state Capitol this week that under the Obama administration some Christians are being forced to comply with transgender-friendly policies that go against their religious beliefs. Baptist Pastor Franklin Raddish of Capitol Hill Independent Baptist Ministries in South Carolina helped lead what was billed as a Bible study session Thursday morning that drew about 13 people, most of them clergy. The event was a shot at President Obama’s May 13 order that directs public schools nationwide to allow transgender...

First Lady Michelle Obama came to listen to the 2016 graduating class of the Santa Fe Indian School. And then she spoke from her heart.(snip) Mrs. Obama was welcomed to the podium as “the mother of our nation,” and she addressed the graduates as a mother might speak to her children, saying over and over how proud she was of them, as they beamed that pride back at her. While she adhered pretty rigorously to her prepared remarks, sometimes she deviated from the script. “I wish I could spend a whole week with you,” she declared. “I love you all...

Santa Fe Mayor Javier Gonzales will travel this week to Qatar, and the trip is drawing criticism that the mayor is breaking his own directives. Qatar is known for its anti-LGBT laws, and Gonzales' trip was announced just days after the mayor reaffirmed Santa Fe's ban on city employee travel to states that have passed what advocates say are discrimination laws against the LGBT community.

SANTA FE - Former New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson was cited for following too closely and failing to report an accident after a hit-and-run fender bender in downtown Santa Fe on Wednesday morning. According to the police report, the accident occurred about 8:15 a.m. during wet, snowy conditions. Richardson rear-ended a vehicle driven by a Santa Fe woman while both were traveling east on Marcy Street at the intersection with Paseo de Peralta. The woman told the police a yellow Jeep hit her car from behind while she was stopped at a stop sign. The Jeep then hit her a...

Susana Martinez claimed she and her companions, including a disabled sister, were only having pizza and drinking cokes. The audio tapes between Martinez and police were released Friday and siezed upon by her critics at ProgressNow New Mexico. ... A statement from her office said Martinez was hosting her annual staff holiday party at the downtown hotel's ballroom Saturday night. Some 200 people attended; there was a live band and dancing. After the party, Martinez and staff helped clean up and retired to a staffer's hotel room to eat pizza, the statement said. ... Fox News has confirmed with Santa...

Mayors from eighteen U.S. cities signed a letter to President Obama saying they are willing to take even more refugees than what has been proposed by the administration. “We will welcome the Syrian families to make homes and new lives in our cities,” wrote the mayors, all of whom are part of the Cities United for Immigration Action coalition. “Indeed, we are writing to say that we stand ready to work with your Administration to do much more and to urge you to increase still further the number of Syrian refugees the United States will accept for resettlement.” “This is...

More than 300 abortion opponents held rallies Tuesday in New Mexico demanding the government investigate whether Planned Parenthood is illegally selling aborted fetal tissue, and that it defund the national organization. The protests, at the state Capitol in Santa Fe and at Planned Parenthood clinics in Santa Fe and Albuquerque, were a spinoff of the recent national furor over secretly recorded videos posted to YouTube, showing organization officials talking about providing fetal tissue and organs for research in exchange for payment. Anti-abortion groups have seized on the videos as evidence of what one rally speaker called the “scandal of selling...

SANTA FE – Dr. Roy G. Heilbron, 51, a self-described “holistic” cardiologist in Santa Fe, has been charged with health care fraud and wire fraud in a 24-count federal indictment. The indictment, announced Wednesday by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Albuquerque, alleges that Heilbron executed a scheme to defraud Medicare and other health care benefit programs from January 2010 to May 2011 by submitting false and fraudulent claims. Heilbron entered a not-guilty plea in federal court Wednesday and was released on his own recognizance. His medical license had been suspended by the New Mexico Medical Board for three months last...

A New Mexico eighth-grader was suspended from school for letting her classmates know that they could opt out of the state’s new online standardized test. 12-year-old Adelina Silva printed out the forms from her own school’s website and was rewarded with a trip to the principal’s office. Adelina and her mother, Jacqueline Ellvinger, appeared on “Fox and Friends” this morning to explain what happened and why Adelina was punished. “I wanted the parents to know that they had the option to let the student either take the test or not,” Adelina said. …

The cost of getting caught with a little weed in Santa Fe will drop to just $25 max, thanks to a City Council vote Wednesday to decriminalize marijuana. When the ordinance goes into effect, those caught with an ounce or less of marijuana in arts loving Santa Fe will be hit with a civil fine. Previously, it was a criminal misdemeanor carrying a possible $100 fine and jail time. With the 5-4 vote, the liberal-leaning northern New Mexico capital known for its arts market and tourist draws joined the national movement to change marijuana laws, and became the first city...

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...

SANTA FE – The New Mexico State Police officer who fired shots at a van full of children while their mother was fleeing a traffic stop near Taos in late October has been fired. State Police spokesman Lt. Emmanuel Gutierrez said that officer Elias Montoya, who was placed on paid administrative leave Wednesday, was terminated from his position as of Friday. Gutierrez said he had confirmed the firing with State Police Chief Pete Kassetas. Gutierrez declined further comment “until all appeals have been exhausted ... The video of the incident received national media attention ... Media legal analysts weighed in,...

Christus St. Vincent Regional Medical Center said Monday it is eliminating 58 positions and laying off 36 employees as part of a restructuring to meet the challenges of the federal Affordable Care Act. Hospital administrators said the layoffs will stretch across all departments, including 15 management positions. Christus St. Vincent President and CEO Bruce Tassin said the reductions will trim $4 million from the Santa Fe hospital’s payroll.

Santa Fee held its third gun turn in this year on the 9th of March. 232 guns were turned in. At previous turn in events, private individuals bought some of the guns. This approach offered advantages to everyone. It took the guns off the streets, placing them in responsible hands, rewarding their former owners with more money than the formal event offered, and stretched the turn in dollars so that more low-value guns could be traded for the event premiums. At this third event, the police moved to prevent the private buyers from buying private firearms. It is hard to...

The city is paying $100 for long guns (rifles, shotguns and the like), $150 for handguns, and $200 for any armament considered an assault weapon. On Jan. 12, the program netted 194 guns. On Saturday, it had garnered about 115 hand guns and at least 95 long guns by 2 p.m., with still an hour to go before closing. -------------------------------cut----------------------- Outside the police station, a group of four or five men gathered to offer cash to people who were bringing guns in. One man in the group said they did not wish to be identified, but said that they were...

On 9 February, 2013, the Santa Fe Police Department collected 224 guns turned in to it for Visa gift cards. The cards were worth $150 for handguns, $100 for long guns, and $200 for "high capacity or assault" weapons. The police scared off a number of people who wished to offer more money than the police would give in prepaid visa cards. What legal authority the police had to do this is unknown. Another gun turn in will be held on the ninth of March. Dean Weingarten