On Thursday, it was reported first by the Santa Fe New Mexican’s Daniel Chacón that two of embattled Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham’s cabinet secretaries are jumping ship for greener pastures.
Dr. Tracie Collins of the Department of Health, who only recently joined the administration in February, and Information Technology Department secretary John Salazar is leaving as well after joining the administration in February of 2020.
These are just the latest officials to leave the scandal-ridden administration, following people such as former Department of Workforce Solutions secretary Bill McCamley and senior advisor to the Governor, Dominic Gabello.
John Bingaman, the Governor’s former chief of staff, left the administration to manage a private investment firm, and in January, Victor Reyes, the governor’s legislative director, stepped down. Gabello was involved in the payments the Governor made to a former staffer, James Hallinan after she was accused of pouring water on his genitals and groping him.
Last year, Department of Finance and Administration secretary Olivia Padilla-Jackson, Department of Health secretary Kathy Kunkel, and state epidemiologist Dr. Michael Landen all resigned, among others.
Collins is reportedly returning to her former job at the University of New Mexico and Sanchez is focusing on his family, with his wife ailing with a medical issue regarding her leg.
“Although it’s time for me to return to my academic career, I look forward to continuing to work hand in hand with the governor and her administration to enhance public health throughout our state,” Collins said in a statement.
The Department of Information Technology has been caught instructing, upon the Governor’s request, state employees to use the “Microsoft Teams” application to delete messages in 24 hours, which likely violates the Inspection of Public Records (IPRA) Act.
The Governor has been under scrutiny for belittling opposition, specifically calling opponents “QAnon lizard people.”
On Wednesday, the liberal television news outlet KOB 4 released approval polls done by SurveyUSA regarding embattled Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham and multiple issues relating to her tenure.
According to the poll, 50% approve of her performance while 32% disapprove and 18% were unsure.
She did especially well in Doña Ana County and with adults ages 50-64. According to the report, the Governor “scored low with conservatives, people making more than $80,000 and Hispanics.”
With her handling of the economy, 42% of New Mexicans disapprove, 49% approved, while 9% were unsure.
However, on public safety, she fails in the poll. Regarding crime, 44% of New Mexicans disapprove while only 40% approve. In regard to policing issues, Lujan Grisham fails again, garnering only 40% approval while 43% disapprove.
The poll asked respondents what the most important issues for them were, and the economy (25%) and crime (18%) scored highest among all categories, showing that these disparities in her approval regarding the issues will hurt her in 2022. UNM political science professor Lonna Atkeson said, “the low public safety scores are a vulnerable spot for the governor’s re-election bid.”
The governor refused to comment on the low scores for the economy and crime, with KOB’s Chris Ramirez writing on Twitter, “Tonight, @KOB4 is revealing @GovMLG‘s approval ratings at 10pm. You won’t hear from her though. She wasn’t interested in talking about what her constituency thinks about her. For the record, @GovMLG has declined every interview request I’ve made this year.”
Tonight, @KOB4 is revealing @GovMLG's approval ratings at 10pm. You won't hear from her though. She wasn't interested in talking about what her constituency thinks about her. For the record, @GovMLG has declined every interview request I've made this year. #nmpol#Accountability
While touring a military cemetery on Monday, scandal-ridden Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham opined on the new fear tactic created by liberals in the form of the “Delta variant” of the coronavirus, which is now being used to force masking on citizens across the globe.
The discredited World Health Organization (WHO), which claimed at the beginning of the pandemic that there is “no evidence of significant human-to-human transmission and no health care worker infections have been reported,” is now instructing people to put masks on even if they are fully vaccinated.
Lujan Grisham has adopted the fearmongering stance by the WHO, telling the Santa Fe New Mexican, “If you’re not concerned about the variants, you are playing into that ‘COVID is over’ mentality.”
“It’s a deadly virus, it’s not going to go away. This variant is serious,” she added.
Regarding “We’re not going to require it, but I think wearing masks inside in grocery stores and large gatherings is really important,” she said. “And if you’re not going to get vaccinated, you’ve got to wear a mask.
“The delta variant in particular,” she added, “is of significant concern.”
When asked by a veteran about the vaccination rates not meeting her benchmarks, the governor told him that she wanted the rate to be at 75%, adding, “I’m not sure I can do it in every county.”
Facing questions regarding her critics who are angered over her continued lockdown in New Mexico, which has decimated 40% of small businesses and resulted in high child suicide rates, and economic catastrophe, she said, “I think it’s an unfair criticism and is politically motivated.” She added, “I feel good. We stayed the course and we’ve been methodical.”
The embattled Governor’s tenure as governor has been marked with scandal after scandal after scandal. From forcing through the most far-left extreme bills through the Legislature to paying off sexual accusers and her own daughter with campaign cash, and then “misplacing” $250 million in Workforce Solutions money, she has weakened her chance of reelection day after day.
She repeatedly skirted her pandemic rules to buy luxury jewelry, used taxpayer funds for fine wine and $200/lb Wagyu beef steaks, berated local communities for not following her edicts, forced New Mexicans to stand in cold bread lines to get food and basic goods, fined churches and businesses tens of thousands of dollars for alleged non-compliance, removed the National Guard from the border and denied an immigration crisis, fired and hired cabinet secretaries on a dime, gave her staff hefty raises while New Mexicans lost everything, and now is giving away $10 million of New Mexicans’ dollars through a “lottery” to bribe people to take the experimental virus inoculation.
It should be noted that despite her claims that New Mexico is reopening on July 1, mask mandates remain in-place, including for children, among other restrictions.
While over half of the country has removed mask mandates, New Mexico children ages 3yo+ are still required to wear masks at school as well as during outdoor athletics. Summer temperatures in New Mexico range into the 100’s, and kids are being forced to wear masks even while running track races and playing soccer in the summer heat. New Mexico parents have reported that their children are suffering blackouts, vomiting, breathing problems, dizziness, disorientation, nosebleeds, learning problems, and other health problems as a result of the mask mandates. The youth mask mandate is clearly putting kids at risk of imminent harm, yet nonetheless, the local school principals, boards, superintendents, and athletic associations are all saying that their hands are tied by Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham’s policies.
Nationally, children have a 99.997% survival rate from COVID-19. In New Mexico, only 0.7% of child COVID-19 cases have resulted in hospitalization. It is clear that children have an extremely low risk of severe illness or death from COVID-19, and mask mandates are placing a burden upon kids which is detrimental to their own health and well-being.
Only Vaccinated Children Allowed to Unmask
NM Governor Lujan Grisham’s administration recently updated the youth mask policy to allow vaccinated student athletes to be unmasked, whereas unvaccinated students must remain masked. There is intense pressure for NM youths to receive the COVID-19 injections, despite the fact that this illness is acknowledged by the CDC to be less severe and deadly for children than influenza. NM has offered $100 cash incentives for receiving the vaccine, and was even offering incentives up to $20,000 to youth sports teams that achieve high vaccination rates (although those incentives have now been retracted).
COVID-19 vaccination of children is becoming increasingly questioned. There have been no long-term safety tests on COVID-19 injections, and thus it is unknown whether these injections will have any negative effects on children’s growth and development. The World Health Organization recently changed its policy to remove recommendations for administering experimental COVID-19 vaccinations for all children 12 and older. As of June 29, 2021, the WHO website says, “More evidence is needed on the use of the different COVID-19 vaccines in children to be able to make general recommendations on vaccinating children against COVID-19.”
Furthermore, the CDC has acknowledged a likely link between COVID-19 vaccination and increased rates of heart inflammation in young people.The CDC website says, “As of June 21, 2021, VAERS has received 616 reports of myocarditis or pericarditis among people ages 30 and younger who received COVID-19 vaccine. Most cases have been reported after mRNA COVID-19 vaccination (Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna), particularly in male adolescents and young adults.” Both the Pfizer and Moderna fact sheets have been updated to include statements about known risks of heart inflammation.
Requiring kids to be vaccinated in order to be unmasked is an egregious policy error that is not based on science. Governor Lujan Grisham’s policies that coerce and pressure NM youths to receive vaccination violate the fundamental principles of medical ethics and Informed Consent. Children have an extremely low risk from COVID-19, and the masking requirement is putting them in harm’s way. Multiple student-athletes have blacked out while running masked, yet the forced masking of children has continued.
Parents Unite Against Mandatory Youth Masking
Dozens of New Mexico parents are partnering with New Mexico Stands Up, a public interest legal firm, to apply pressure against Governor Lujan Grisham’s youth mask policies. Recently, New Mexico Stands Up served a Cease-and-Desist letter against youth mask mandates to Governor Lujan Grisham, NM Secretary of Health Dr. Tracie Collins, NM Secretary of Education Dr. Ryan Stewart, and Director of the NM Activities Association Sally Marquez. This Cease-and-Desist letter details the harms that masks are posing to NM children, the evidence that mask mandates are not necessary for the safe operation of schools, and the legal ramifications of imposing mask mandates in violation of Federal law. The Cease-and-Desist letter gives notice that “Organizations, schools, and government officials who impose mask mandates can be held personally liable for any injuries or damages that occur as a result of these policies,” and demands that the youth mask mandates be rescinded immediately under threat of legal action.
Furthermore, with the help of the New Mexico Freedoms Alliance, on Saturday, June 26, parents and kids from all over New Mexico joined to protest the Governor’s youth mask policies. A dozen New Mexico towns and cities participated in this statewide youth mask protest. The protesters represented the diversity of New Mexico, with young and old, Democrats and Republicans, Hispanics and whites, all united against the forced masking of NM children.
Across the state, New Mexicans are demanding that Governor Lujan Grisham “follow the science” and remove the youth mask mandates. The Governor’s recent change to allow vaccinated athletes to be unmasked is not enough. New Mexico parents demand that all students be allowed to unmask, regardless of their vaccination status.
Sarah Smith has been a natural healthcare practitioner for 8 years and is a former NASA aerospace engineer and scientist. Sarah is one of the leaders of the New Mexico Freedoms Alliance, a non-partisan grassroots coalition which advocates for civil liberties and constitutional representative government.
On Monday, KRQE 13 News bullied a local Albuquerque restauranteur, forcing an apology out of him for calling Gov. Lujan Grisham a “Nazi” and calling Joe Biden a “socialist” because of the extended unemployment benefits given during the lockdown. These government checks have lowered the numbers of Americans in the workforce because they incentivize not working.
Walden Minoli, the owner of Gecko’s in Nob Hill put up a sensible sign reading, “Gecko’s is closing our kitchen tonight at 6 pm due to a lack of staff. Special thank you to our Nazi in Santa Fe and our socialist in D.C. for trying to buy votes with extended unemployment benefits.”
But the television news station couldn’t help themselves from ambushing Minoli at his restaurant about an apology, claiming him calling Lujan Grisham a “Nazi” was anti-Semitic. Minoli said, “I was angry, and it was stupid on my part.”
According to the report, “Minoli said it’s been a frustrating year for restaurants and said he reached a boiling point this past weekend when he decided to put a sign up on the bar’s front door Saturday evening letting everyone know the kitchen was closing early because they were lacking staff. Minoli said he’s down three cooks.”
“Minoli said when the state fully reopens on July 1, he’ll maintain capacity limits and cut down on business hours because he still doesn’t have enough workers.”
Gov. Lujan Grisham’s condescending press secretary wrote in response to Minoli’s sentiments toward the scandal-ridden Governor:
“On the whole, we do not respond to people who choose to invoke that kind of language as if it doesn’t have actual, terrible meaning.
It’s important to note, and I hope your reporting does, that the Federal Reserve studied this specifically and found that the $300 benefit is not keeping people on unemployment longer the $300 benefit is not keeping people on unemployment longer than they would be otherwise – “the value of a job significantly outweighs the benefit of temporary additional UI income.” Additionally, we are not seeing dramatic swings in unemployment in the states that have cut the $300 benefit – while some may try to say otherwise, such an assertion is not based in the reality of the job market, which the NY Times also covered this weekend. The best thing the state can do to assist both employers and those workers who are not yet ready to return to work for health or family reasons is to end the pandemic quickly, which is exactly what we’re doing, in addition to supporting New Mexico small businesses with grants and funding, making over $1 billion available for reopening and rehiring.
I’ll also note that the $300 supplement expires on September 5th regardless and requires a one-month notice per the federal program, my point being that any action to end the supplement and provide that month notice would only minimally advance the program’s end date – a program that, again, is not incentivizing people to stay on unemployment at the expense of finding a job.”
Sackett’s analysis uses far-left sources from the New York Times to bolster her non-answer to the question, where economist analyses, such as by the left-leaning U.S. Chamber of Commerce notes that “the $300 benefit results in approximately 1 in 4 recipients taking home more in unemployment than they earned working.”
Many states, run by both Democrats and Republicans, are cutting these benefits to unemployed workers to push people back into the workforce. They would not do this if the incentive was not keeping Americans from returning to work.
On Monday, the conservative nonprofit 501(c)(4) organization, State Solutions Inc., released an ad targeting Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham for ignoring the Biden border crisis despite other border-state governors sending National Guard reinforcements to the border to help with the crisis.
The group wrote in a press release, “Today, on the heels of [Kamala] Harris’ visit to Texas, State Solutions Inc. unveiled a new digital video targeting Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham for ignoring the crisis at her state’s border.”
“The video reminds voters that Governor Lujan Grisham refuses to send national guard troops to the southern border in response to President Biden’s border crisis, as the neighboring state Governors of Texas and Arizona have done,” reads the announcement.
“Governor Lujan Grisham cannot be allowed to turn a blind eye to the ever-mounting crises at New Mexico’s southern border,” said Dave Rexrode, President of State Solutions Inc. “Instead of ignoring the problem, Lujan Grisham must take action and immediately follow the lead of her neighboring states’ Republican governors and deploy the national guard.”
The transcript of the video reads as follows:
A crisis at America’s southern border…
Thousands of unaccompanied minors are flooding into the U.S.
The highest levels ever recorded.
Little children found wandering the New Mexico desert alone.
What is Governor Lujan Grisham doing about it?
Nothing.
While governors in Arizona and Texas have called up the National Guard and sent additional resources to the border to protect these children…
Governor Lujan Grisham has been AWOL.
Call the Governor and tell her it’s time to secure the border.
Previously, Lujan Grisham left the border defenseless by yanking National Guard troops early into her term. However, she supplied Joe Biden’s installation in January of 2021 with National Guard reinforcements to guard an empty U.S. Capitol.
WATCH State Solutions Inc’s ad:
.@KamalaHarris’ visit to Texas reminded voters that the crisis at the border still isn’t solved.
On Monday, embattled Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, in another desperate move, sent out an email to donors requesting campaign cash.
She wrote to her donors, “In spite of all the good we’ve done together, some in New Mexico are looking to stifle our voices and endanger our democracy.” She erroneously cited that she cut taxes for “working families” and touted her passage of recreational marijuana, which she also erroneously claimed will “bring new jobs” to the state.
“Let’s face it: Donald Trump has friends running for office in our state – and these are the same kind of far-right extremists that attacked our democratic institutions on Jan. 6,” she claimed.
“To keep our state safe from Trump loyalists, we need to spread our message of hope and elect Democrats up and down the ballot – so I need your help to make critical investments in these early days of my campaign.”
Ironically, in the first paragraph of her email, she wrote that she is “taking the high road” and that she wants “all New Mexicans have the opportunity to provide a better life for their children.” It appears that by writing “all” New Mexicans, she does not mean President Donald Trump supporters, or “loyalists” as she calls them.
Despite her claims in the article, Lujan Grisham’s administration pushed for raising taxes, including a 20+ cent gas tax on the poor, which every single Democrat state senator voted for. In the Governor’s H.B. 291, which she signed, it actually increased taxes on New Mexicans, including many small business owners.
During the pandemic, Lujan Grisham’s lockdowns resulted in the killing of 40% of small businesses in the state and New Mexico remains at the second-highest unemployed state.
During a special 2021 legislative session called by embattled Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, Democrats rammed through their extreme marijuana bill despite health, safety, and economic concerns raised by New Mexicans. One main argument against legalizing the contraband substance, which is still registered as a Schedule 1 narcotic federally, is that its economic impacts would be meager while increased law enforcement and administrative costs associated with implementation would make it financially useless.
At the time, the Piñon Post made clear that this bill, if implemented, would not even be a drop in the bucket for the state budget, which the Governor desperately wants to be oil and gas-free. In March, we wrote, “Weed, no matter if it passes or not, won’t make the slightest difference in the state’s budget, but Gov. Lujan Grisham sure wants to make New Mexico dependent on drug money–either by 20% taxed dope through her plan–or on the streets through contraband merchants of the product.”
We reported the following:
According to that leftist legal recreational pot plan’s fiscal impact report, New Mexico would take in at most $15.1 million in revenue after years of losses to implement the program.
For context, the MOST such a revenue plan would generate in revenue wold be 0.204% of the needed funds to plug the gaping hole in Gov. Lujan Grisham’s budget.
The oil and gas industry, in contrast, generated $2.8 billion directly to the state general fund in fiscal year 2020. That is approximately 37% of the state’s budget coming from oil and gas.
In states that have already legalized adult-use marijuana, the largest of them being California, the state only brought in a total of $1.5 billion since 2018. The state’s budget is approximately $202 billion.
Now, far-left publications, including the Santa Fe New Mexican, are finally agreeing with the cautionary assessment made by many before the passage of the radical bill.
On Monday, the New Mexican quoted multiple people in the economic community who said much of the same. Marijuana “will not replace oil or gas,” Sarah Stith, an assistant professor of economics at the University of New Mexico told the paper.
“A lot of [recreational marijuana] revenue is dependent on tourism and consumers’ willingness to pay given the added cost of the tax,” Ismael Torres, senior economist for the Legislative Finance Committee, was quoted. Torres was speaking about the 12% tax on marijuana which the radical Governor’s bill will implement in combination with local taxes (such as in Santa Fe, which is 8.4375%, feeding the black market’s market share due to 20% taxed pot.
The Legislative Finance Committee in a March fiscal impact report predicted the first full fiscal year of recreational marijuana sales starting in July 2022 would produce an estimated $19.1 million in net tax revenue for the state and $9.4 million for local governments. Fiscal year 2023-24 could see $30.1 million in net state tax revenue and $15.1 million for local governments.
“Legal, homegrown marijuana and continuing black market sales could take further bites from taxable sales, Stith added,” the report said.
“There could be a substantial impact to revenues if more medical-use licenses are sought to avoid the cost of taxes or if medical users begin to purchase cannabis recreationally as accessibility grows,” Torres added. “Shifts between recreational and medical cannabis is a big, unanswered question for us.”
“There will be a lot of supply, but will there be the demand?” James Wheeler, owner of Commercial Properties Inc. in Santa Fe said. “One of my clients said 90 percent of novices going into this are going to fail.”
But the Governor did not pay attention to the economically catastrophic results of marijuana implementation in New Mexico. She did whatever necessary to fulfill her campaign promise to her far-left supporters of “legal weed” — no matter the cost. She said that she would “not take no for an answer” and refused to wait until the next legislative session for a more digestible bill.
Lujan Grisham took tens of thousands of dollars from the Big Pot lobby, including tens of thousands of dollars from Darren White of PurLife and others. Many state legislators also took cash from the Big Pot lobby.
According to the “Economic Recovery Dashboard” on the New Mexico Tourism Department website, embattled Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham’s harsh lockdown during the pandemic resulted in an economic catastrophe, including the closure of 40% of New Mexico’s small businesses, a devastating figure.
The figures show that in the food service and accommodations industry, nearly 60% of small businesses in that sector have been killed by Lujan Grisham’s lockdowns.
My industry means everything to me,” Kate Gerwin, the owner of the Nob Hill bar Happy Accidents in Albuquerque, told KRQE 13 News. “Knowing independent businesses are suffering kills us.”
But with the Governor’s slow reopening, even though she claims it is now at 100%, mask mandates are still in place and restrictions remain in certain areas.
During the pandemic, the Governor locked the state down completely, which crippled countless small businesses across the board. The few businesses and religious organizations that defied Lujan Grisham were plunged into even further financial ruin with fines of up to $60,000 and State Police ordered to shut businesses down.
While ruling during the pandemic, Lujan Grisham constantly bashed people across the state, even publicly shaming people in places like Española and Hobbs who she saw did not wear masks driving or eating at a restaurant.
.@GovMLG mask shames Españolans at press conference: “by I didn’t see a single mask, not one. Not in a parking lot, not in a grocery store that we passed, not at a convenience store, not at a gas station, not by someone in a car, not hanging on a rear view mirror…” pic.twitter.com/4eQ0hWxjoK
During the holidays, Lujan Grisham forced New Mexicans to stand in cold breadlines to buy food and basic goods, with elderly, disabled, and children forced to face the cold while the Governor feasted on taxpayer-funded $200/lb Wagyu steaks and skirted her pandemic orders to buy luxury jewelry.
New Mexicans are now continuing to face the consequences of Lujan Grisham’s harsh orders, many paying with the destruction of their livelihoods, including the 40% of small businesses gone forever.
On Friday, it was reported that Debra and Cliff Gilmore, two former high-ranking officials in embattled Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham’s Children, Youth, and Families Department would be suing the state under whistleblower protection laws after they were fired following concerns over open records.
Their concerns while at the Department stemmed from the use of the “Signal” app, which automatically can delete messages, in direct conflict with the state’s Inspection of Public Records Act (IPRA) law.
However, Lujan Grisham’s CYFD Secretary Brian Blalock disagrees, claiming that the messages count as “transitory” and can be deleted. According to the Associated Press, “He has said that the move to the free, encrypted app was a cheap and safe way to switch sensitive communications online when the pandemic hit.”
According to Gilmore, “At one point Secretary Blalock (pictured) told a group of roughly 30 of us staff members at a ‘leadership’ meeting that people who regularly submit IPRA requests would eventually find out we were using Signal and that, because when an IPRA request came in we would have to retain everything from that moment, we should set our Signal apps to 24-hour auto-delete.”
Since the public’s outcry over the Department’s use of Signal, it dropped the use of the application.
“While CYFD appreciates the opportunity to clarify misinformation, CYFD cannot discuss personal personnel matters or threatened litigation,” said acting spokesman Charlie Moore-Pabst.
The lawsuit will put immediate pressure on Lujan Grisham’s administration, which has instituted automatic 24-hour message deletion across all departments through the Microsoft Teams app, which has also sparked controversy.
According to documents obtained exclusively by the Piñon Post through an open records request, a state government employee asked the Department of Information Technology’s Renee Narvaiz “Have your oversight folks reviewed this for open government issues?” After asking the Department’s general counsel, Olga Serafimova, she replied to the government employee, writing, “Thank you for your question. The answer is yes, this was reviewed.”
The 24-hour deletion policy via Teams appears to also violate New Mexico’s IPRA laws, since the supposed “transitory” communications may regard information that should be available for the public to obtain.
