Opinion

Haaland seizes control of Native American lands, rekindling past conflicts

8 Comments / Opinion / By

Washington Democrats were surprised Native Americans were not rejoicing with them when U.S. Department of the Interior Interior Secretary Deb Haaland seized control of the Navajo Nation land surrounding the Chaco Culture National Park in northwest New Mexico. They were shocked when members of the Navajo Nation kept Secretary Haaland from celebrating her actions at Chaco. 

What will Washington Democrats be if the Nation Navajo files suit against Secretary Haaland and her seizing control of land belonging to the Navajo Nation?   

In my forty years of experience working with members of the 19 Pueblos, Hopi, Dine, and Apache, I learned of the many challenges they faced individually and as communities.

 I quickly became acquainted with the competing interests within their communities, among the surrounding native communities, and with local and state governments. I learned never to become enmeshed in Native American Politics. 

Secretary Haaland’s unilateral actions rekindled the conflict between the nineteen Pueblos and the Navajo Nation when she seized control of the land surrounding Chaco.

The image to the left is a full-page advertisement in the June 11, 2023, edition of the Albuquerque Journal. 

In 1853 the federal government forced the Dine off their land, and they marched over four-hundred miles to an unfamiliar land in the dead of winter. The Dine still referred to this as “The Long Walk.” In 1868 Washington allowed the Dine to return to eastern Arizona, also home to the Hopi people. What was once a friendly relationship between Hopi and Dine became bitter rivals.  It took almost 150 years, hundreds of millions of dollars, and thousands of acres of land to settle the conflict between the Hopi and the Dine that the federal government created. Now Deb Haaland, Secretary of Interior, is behaving with almost just a heavy. 

 Secretary Haaland rekindled old conflicts between the nineteen Pueblos and the Navajo Nation when she unilaterally seized control of over 350,000 acres of Navajo Nation Land and BLM land surrounding Chaco on behalf of nineteen  Pueblos on June 2, 2023.  UNESCO website states, “Chaco Canyon, a major centre of ancestral Pueblo culture between 850 and 1250, was the focus for ceremonials, trade and political activity for the prehistoric Four Corners area.” 

The nineteen Pueblos and the Navajo Nation have been discussing how to manage energy development in the area surrounding Chaco and protect the rights of the Dine who live on those lands. Secretary Haaland usurped the ongoing discussion and seized control of the land, which favored her Laguna Pueblo and the other eighteen Pueblos. 

Secretary Haaland has demonstrated that she is no different from any other Secretary of Interiors who preceded her. She seized control of native lands without regard for agreements and Native Sovereignty. This is why Native American leaders have not approved of her actions. They understand they could be next.  

Washington leaders, bureaucrats, and lobbyists still view the West and its inhabitants in terms of 1800 caricatures, and they believe they are as benevolent as the Wizard of Oz, which could not be further from the truth. This needs to change now. Joe Biden should start by rescinding Secretary Haaland’s unilateral order and encourage the Navajo Nation and the nineteen Pueblos to create an agreement that addresses their competing interests on their lands. Joe Biden should continue with President Donald Trump’s decentralization of the Department of Interior. 

Host, “To the Point with Mick Rich.” 2018 Republican nominee for U.S. Senate (NM). Founder & CEO, Mick Rich Contractors. Husband, father, grandfather. Read more from Mick Rich at MickRich.substack.com.

Opinions expressed by Piñon Post contributors do not necessarily represent the viewpoints of the publication or its editorial staff. Submit an op-ed to the Piñon Post at news@pinonpost.com.

Lujan Grisham’s new abortion hotline cloaked in secrecy

12 Comments / New Mexico, News, Opinion, Politics / By

The far-left Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham administration recently unveiled its new abortion hotline that is purported to support women’s access to “reproductive health” despite abortion forcibly ending the reproductive process.

The New Mexico Department of Health (NMDOH) website claims it is meant to “​​help when looking for abortion information.” The hotline is likely to push abortion businesses like the Albuquerque-based Southwestern Women’s Options, the Las Cruces-based “The Pink House West,” and Planned Parenthood locations littered across the state. 

No information about life-affirming options other than abortion is noted on the NMDOH website despite many of these pro-life pregnancy resource centers offering free help for women in crisis pregnancies.

The website reads, “Help is available for people of all genders and ages. We can help people from any state. You will not be asked any information about citizenship,” apparently showing an aim to push abortion on illegal immigrant women and attempt to service the “trans” community.

“According to state data, there were more than 11,000 reported abortions statewide last year compared with nearly 4,900 abortions reported in 2021,” wrote the Associated Press.

According to a KOB 4 report, “A spokesperson from the governor’s office says the hotline is run by nurses already working at the Department of Health. They’re from the Epidemiology Division [and] helped with the COVID-19 hotline…. The governor’s spokesperson says the hotline is also meant to connect women with housing and transportation needs as well.”

“Call the NM Reproductive Health Hotline for help when looking for abortion information. Your safety and health are important. We do not share your information with anyone. The hotline is staffed by nurses who can answer questions and connect you to health care. The hotline is open weekdays from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. MST and weekends 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.,” reads the website. 

NMDOH also notes, “You can schedule an appointment with a provider to discuss your options. Please call NM Reproductive Health Hotline (1-833-76REPRO) in order to get information about clinics in NM, as well as wait times.” This appears to indicate abortion facilities are the main push of the hotline, contradicting the governor’s spokesperson.

Despite little to no information available about the hotline, it is prominently featured on the NMDOH website. The hotline remains cloaked in secrecy, but no doubt it is meant to continue pushing abortion up-to-birth in the state where no limits whatsoever exist on abortion, including no standards of care to protect pregnant women or their babies in the womb.

Gaslighting from Soros-backed MLG on election integrity reaches new levels

27 Comments / Opinion / By

Recently, Democrat New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham tweeted out a link to a story from NPR titled, “How the Far Right is Making Voter Fraud Easier,” with an at-a-girl message for New Mexico’s corrupt SOS, Maggie Toulouse Oliver: 

The Tweet garnered 80 retweets – 60 of which were hidden by Twitter – all of which are skeptical of the linked article and the governor’s assertion that the Secretary of State supports a strong voting system and accurate election in New Mexico.

“You’re joking, right?” asked one Twitter user. Another simply stated, “crook.”

A screenshot of a social media post Description automatically generated with medium confidence

One particularly informed Twitter user asked the Governor, “Without ERIC, Dominion couldn’t do what you all need it to do, no?”

The linked audio story from state-sponsored NPR decries a recent exodus of nine states (Texas, Iowa, Missouri, Louisiana, Alabama, Florida, Ohio, West Virginia, and Virginia) from the program called ERIC (Electronic Registration Information Center), and naturally, they blame the “far right” and their “conspiracy theories” as the reason ERIC is crashing and burning.

Not to be carried away by the radical left’s emotional name-calling, let’s take just a moment to examine the facts surrounding ERIC: 

Since 2012, ERIC collects member states’ registration data to supposedly collaborate with other states to clean voter rolls and reduce fraud by cross-checking data across states and alerting states of duplicate registrations.  At its height, ERIC had 31 members.  ERIC charges each of its members a hefty annual fee. New Mexico had its first year’s fee of $75,000 paid for by the leftist Pew Charitable Trust as an enticement to join.

A less-advertised feature of ERIC is that they cross-check data with other sources, such as each state’s Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) database, to look for people who may be eligible voters but are not registered. Then they send lists of eligible but unregistered voters to the election jurisdictions, who then send out mailers at taxpayers’ expense to those people inviting them to register to vote.

An obvious problem with using DMV data to try to find new voters is that non-citizens are often in these databases. ERIC has a strange rule that states, “Under no circumstances shall the members transmit any record indicating an individual is a non-citizen of the U.S.” So, ERIC wants DMV data, but they don’t want the data to indicate which people are citizens and which are not as they compile their lists of potentially eligible voters. 

Can we trust our election officials to filter the lists they get from ERIC so that they only solicit people to register to vote who are citizens? Apparently not. The SOS of Colorado was caught sending invitations to register to vote to 30,000 non-citizens. She claimed the mistake occurred because of a “database glitch,” but that “database glitch” may very well have occurred because of ERIC and its process of identifying adults over the age of 18 in each state. 

What has become clear in the last few years as citizens across the country have investigated the accuracy of their voter rolls by door-to-door canvassing is that ERIC has not “cleaned” the voter rolls in any state where it is present. The voter rolls in every ERIC state have only grown since they joined ERIC, and the data is a mess. 

The Otero County Audit conducted last year in New Mexico included a random survey of over 2,000 residences and found that 30 percent of those residences had people registered who were not actually living at those addresses – and 40 percent of those cast ballots in the 2020 election.  The canvass found a German man who was surprised he was being surveyed as he had never registered to vote, knowing he was not eligible as a non-citizen. How did he end up on the rolls? Did it have anything to do with ERIC? Our SOS has expressed no interest in finding out.

If ERIC isn’t really cleaning voter rolls or keeping them accurate, what are they doing? To answer that question – it’s necessary to investigate the origins of this shady program:

ERIC was founded by a Democrat election attorney named David Becker. The initial grant to create ERIC was provided by none other than George Soros’ ultra-radical Open Society Foundation. After Becker had gotten ERIC on its feet, he established another leftist non-profit called the Center for Election Innovation and Research (CEIR) in 2016. 

A researcher named Peter Bernegger discovered in April 2023 that ERIC was passing voter information directly to its sister non-profit, CEIR. CEIR works with another company called Catalist, which claims it “compiles, enhances, stores, and dynamically updates data on over 256 million unique voting-age individuals across 50 states and the District of Columbia.” Essentially, they have the goods on every human in the U.S. over 18. They also say, “Our data and models are continually improved with the data returned to Catalist by our partners and clients. This virtuous circle ensures the national file is more accurate and more powerful for our clients.” 

And who are Catalist’s clients? According to their website, “Catalist works exclusively with Democratic and progressive organizations that share [their] values.” These include political campaigns, Planned Parenthood, the American Federation of Labor, America Votes, and others.

So, states pay ERIC tens of thousands of dollars per year for the privilege of having data on virtually all their citizens and non-citizens harvested by a Soros-funded organization. This organization then passes along this data to CEIR, which has an intimate relationship with Catalist, which compiles data on essentially every voting-age adult in the country. Catalist, in turn, provides high-quality data exclusively to Democrat politicians and organizations. 

Since we know no state has ended up with cleaner voter rolls after becoming an ERIC member, we can safely assume that the purpose of ERIC and all its incestuous relationships with the radical left is to inflate voter rolls across the country and provide Democrat candidates and organizations an unfair advantage with the data it harvests at the taxpayer’s expense. Citizens of all ERIC states should be outraged that their election officials are participating in this obviously biased scheme to provide an unfair advantage to one party. 

So why would Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham and Secretary of State Maggie Toulouse-Oliver join NPR to defend the indefensible? Maybe because, like ERIC, they are both sponsored by George Soros and are staunch advocates of everything the radical left wants to do to unfairly tip the political landscape in their favor to enact its radical policies. 

The data cataloging the political donations made directly by George Soros include only about 165 officeholders or candidates in the last 13 years. Maggie Toulouse Oliver and Michelle Lujan Grisham were both recipients on this exclusive list. 

Contrary to the Governor’s Tweet and attempt to shield the Secretary of State from justified criticism – ERIC does not exist to keep elections free and fair. It doesn’t even do what it advertises. Rather, as all 80 people who responded to the Tweet have figured out – the real reason for the existence of ERIC is to keep the voter rolls as large as possible. That way, Democrats like Grisham and Oliver have plenty of available votes to work with throughout the Election Season to ensure they maintain control over the serfs.

Opinions expressed by Piñon Post contributors do not necessarily represent the viewpoints of the publication or its editorial staff. Submit an op-ed to the Piñon Post at news@pinonpost.com.

Wagyu beef and cocaine hot dogs

15 Comments / Opinion / By

Over the past few months, New Mexico has been getting quite a lot of media attention for unfortunate reasons, including a recent biker gang shootout in Red River over Memorial Day weekend, a Sonic hot dog found with a bag of cocaine in it, and Democrats’ extremist abortion up-to-birth policies, to name a few. 

Jeffrey David Salazar, 54, of Española, faces felony charges after he “lost” his bag of cocaine during his shift at Sonic, where a woman found the drug bag in her hot dog.

“(Salazar) stops cooking and appears to be frantically searching the area as if he lost something,” a detective wrote in the affidavit.

This made national news. 

Democrat Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham’s move to try and ban localities from halting abortions in their communities and pushing “gender-affirming care” on children via H.B. 7 recently made national news also – further enshrining New Mexico as the abortion capital of the United States. This sad record was affirmed by another bill that will harbor criminal abortionists in New Mexico who are wanted in other states.

A biker gang’s recent shootout in Red River, killing three and injuring at least five, made national news also, with Democrats almost in unison, using the dispute to push for extreme anti-gun laws. It splashed the headlines of national news outlets for days.

These are just national headlines from the past few weeks — not counting the other horrible things New Mexico is now known for under far-left, failed leadership that has failed to prevent such tragic stories.

We also make national headlines about our most prolific export — box-checking Washington, D.C. bureaucrats like Deb Haaland, who can’t even form a coherent sentence in a U.S. House or Senate hearing, much less run a federal agency. More national shame and embarrassing headlines.

Instead of helping quell the illegal drug trade in New Mexico, Democrats have repeatedly refused to increase sentences for drug possession and trafficking, even fentanyl — leading to “COCAINE HOT DOG” being plastered across even international headlines as far-reaching as India

Democrats couldn’t stand not having any protections whatsoever for babies, women, or doctors, as passed in a 2021 law legalizing abortion up to birth. They wanted to push abortions and transgender surgeries/hormone blockers on children also. Now, New Mexico is Texas’ back-alley abortion mill.

And instead of New Mexico legislators passing laws preventing crime by punishing thugs who break the law, three are now dead due to the recent Red River shootout. 

In recent years, New Mexico has grabbed national headlines for things such as Democrats working to weaken the state’s election laws to open the floodgates to fraud, Albuquerque Police officers fleeing the state amid anti-police policies, as well as the governor’s lavish spending on booze and Wagyu beef, not to mention her $150,000 crotch grab payout to a former campaign staffer. 

Other headlines focus on New Mexico’s worst education system in the entire country, the state’s wide-open southern border, deadly crime statistics, and the worst state for drug use in the entire country.

By electing the same people and the same failed weak-on-crime, anti-moral “leaders,” New Mexico will remain in the same sad place, with headlines focusing on our failures instead of our successes, which are few.

People need to start waking up, or else we will remain in the cadaver state (for all the children we kill via abortion, not to mention those being slaughtered through assisted suicide), biker gang shootouts, taxpayer-funded Wagyu beef steaks, and, embarrassingly, cocaine hot dogs. 

We can do many things to start fixing New Mexico, including signing a referendum petition to help stop the extremist laws recently passed in the 2023 Legislature, making sure not to stay home during ANY election, staying informed by reading what is happening in New Mexico in places like the Piñon Post, and by seizing upon every opportunity to take action in the state. 

It can be as simple as sending an email to a lawmaker or more involved, such as knocking on doors to support your local anti-Critical Race Theory school board candidate. It’s not that hard. We need to fight even harder to reclaim this state because it is a very achievable goal. We love New Mexico. Now, let’s fight for it.

Democrat state senator silenced popular legislation

30 Comments / Opinion / By

Resolutions calling for a convention of the states under Article V of the U.S. Constitution were introduced in the 2023 New Mexico Legislature: Senate Joint Resolution 5 (S.J.R. 5) and House Joint Resolution 13 (H.J.R. 13).  Common Cause New Mexico, a special interest pressure group, proudly claims credit in their fundraising letters for stopping them.

I reside in New Mexico state Senate District 10, whose senator, Katy Duhigg, chairs the Senate Rules Committee to which S.J.R. 5 was referred.  A former State Vice-Chair of Common Cause New Mexico, Duhigg refused to schedule SJR5 for a hearing, taking it upon herself to stifle the process and bury a piece of legislation her organization doesn’t like.

By its 2022 national survey, the Trafalgar Group found that over two-thirds of American voters support calling for an Article V Convention of States to propose amendments that 1) limit federal spending, 2) limit federal power, and 3) impose term limits on members of Congress and federal officials.  In fact, over 18,000 New Mexicans have signed petitions and demonstrated active support for holding a convention.

Duhigg’s tactic of intentionally not scheduling a matter assigned to her committee by the senate leadership is a mishandling of power and an affront to any lawmaker who brings any legislation forward in good faith.  The facts of the Trafalgar poll confirm the citizens of New Mexico and Senate District 10 deserve better.

Opinions expressed by Piñon Post contributors do not necessarily represent the viewpoints of the publication or its editorial staff. Submit an op-ed to the Piñon Post at news@pinonpost.com.

Heinrich desecrates Memorial Day, uses holiday to promote abortion

30 Comments / New Mexico, News, Opinion, Politics / By

On Memorial Day, most public officials used the somber holiday to honor and remember the fallen U.S. soldiers who have given the ultimate sacrifice for our country’s freedoms. 

However, that did not stop New Mexico’s far-left Democrat U.S. Sen. Martin Heinrich from politicizing the day to promote his radical abortion stance.

“Service members and their families are stationed according to need. That means 40% of active-duty servicewomen live in states that have banned or restricted abortion,” he wrote on Twitter.

“We have a bill that will make sure they have access to reproductive care, regardless of where they live.” 

New Mexicans responded as expected, with Ronnie Lucero of the Republican National Hispanic Assembly writing in reply, “It’s Memorial Day and this guy is talking about killing babies.” 

Another wrote, “You are disgusting. Speaking about abortion rights on Memorial Day. I don’t think the unborn fought and died for our freedom. DISGUSTING!” 

“When you think @MartinHeinrich couldn’t sink any lower on a day of remembering the ones that served and sacrificed. He [somehow] sabotages this day. By mixing abortion into this day of remembrance,” wrote another New Mexican.

One person opined, “Never miss an opportunity even if it’s disgusting.  Then again you are what you tweet!!!”

Heinrich supports unrestricted abortion up to the date of birth. He is running for a third term in his seat amid rumblings he is trying to position himself for the governorship in 2026, as incumbent abortion up-to-birth Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, a Democrat, is term-limited. 

Cartel continues treating illegal migrants like cash cows of human meat

8 Comments / New Mexico, News, Opinion, Politics / By

The cartel continues to treat illegal immigrants they are smuggling into the United States as nothing more than cargo of human meat, each smuggling — whether successful or unsuccessful — paying approximately $8,000 each to get across the border and into America.

Over the weekend, the U.S. Border Patrol chief for the El Paso Sector, Chief Anthony Good, announced 54 illegal immigrants were found in a “stash house” in Santa Teresa (Doña Ana County, New Mexico) in “deplorable” conditions.

The Chief wrote that the Santa Teresa “Anti-Smuggling Unit, #ElPaso Sector Integrated Targeting Team & @txDPSWest encountered 54 migrants inside a local stash house living in deplorable conditions.”

According to the announcement, six illegal immigrants “were found to have prior removal orders and will be prosecuted accordingly.”

Photos from the scene show rows of migrants sitting along the front of the house surrounded by trash and debris.

Inside the house, similar scenes show illegal immigrants packed into a tiny room with only three mattresses lying on the ground along with trash surrounding them. 

The New York Post reports, “Saturday’s case is only the latest example of undocumented migrants living in squalor after crossing the border. The Texas Department of Public Safety and Customs and Border Patrol announced last month that more than 140 immigrants were found living in similar conditions across the state.”

“Officials said during last month’s raids, one house had as many as 95 migrants in it, while another was packed with more than 50 people.”

As the border crisis continues to ravage border regions, Title 42, which helped alleviate the immigration catastrophe lapsed last Thursday, appearing to create a new boom of illegal immigration into the country, with the states of California, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas feeling the hardest hits. 

The U.S. House of Representatives passed a comprehensive immigration fix Thursday, but every Democrat representative rejected it. Joe Biden has promised to veto the measure if it reaches his desk, a further sign the border crisis shall continue with renewed human suffering at scenes such as in Santa Teresa.

Is woke feminism the new patriarchy?

6 Comments / Opinion / By

I have lived long enough to experience the second wave (the 1970’s) and third wave (current) of “feminism.”   The second wave, overall, might have brought about some positive changes, at least temporarily, including an inclination towards more natural childbirth; less overall pharmaceutical medication; an increase in alternative and herbal medicine; and more societal support for women who were experiencing domestic violence, but the underbelly was ugly.

The underbelly of the second wave included a generation of young girls who were being encouraged to “Lay Lady Lay” by Bob Dylan and dozens of other musicians, including the Beatles, Rod Stewart, Led Zeppelin, and Jimi Hendrix. Love, commitment, marriage, and responsibility were now old-fashioned and “stuffy.” None of us wanted to be compared to fifties housewife archetypes such as June Cleaver (she seemed really happy now that I think of it).

 Planned Parenthood –rooted in racism and eugenics—had infiltrated all of America.  Abortions were promoted as “nothing, really,” and “the pill” was popped by my teenage female friends like candy.   If you didn’t sleep around–with all your “freedom” to abort or prevent pregnancy–while simultaneously smoking pot and being a Foxy Lady–you weren’t “hip.”   Mindlessly giving our young bodies away to men while both parties were under the influence of drugs and mind control music was the new norm. 

Also, in the 1970s, flag burning was interwoven with the advancing feminist agenda.  We were convinced to hate America.  As a teenager under the influence of MSM and repeatedly watching on TV the napalm bombing of women and children in Vietnam, I thought it was cool when in 1972, Jane Fonda stuck a flower in the gun of a Vietnamese soldier in Hanoi.

 Like all good liberals of my generation, I hated the Vietnam War (who doesn’t hate war) but blamed America exclusively.   But many of the facts behind the American invasion were hidden from the public.  I understand now that globally, the motivation for war is often drug and arms trafficking (i.e., profiteering), acquisition of slaves, natural resources, land, power, and profit for the global elite and is more of a cold war, Vatican, Rockefeller, Rothschild, CIA global Deep State issue, than exclusively an American one. Unless fought on your own soil, by your own military, war is rarely fought for freedom. 

Moving forward,  the newest wave of “feminism”—which is woke, which means, in part, you stay in your head and do as you are told by mainstream media ( which repeats the second wave, 1970’s format of social conditioning but on steroids with the proliferation of social media, which white billionaire men mostly control)—has, in my opinion, come full circle to become what we all said we hated the most—the “patriarch”—but also,  in its fruition, exposing the feminist movement from the onset, as a massive patriarchal psychological operation out to destroy women and families, babies, and ultimately, humanity.  

The anti-female, anti-human transgender, pro-abortion ( horrifically, up to birth) movement (as well as the deadly vaccine agenda) are deeply interwoven in feminism and heavily promoted by “feminists” such as Jane Fonda and AOC and hundreds more, especially on the radical Progressive Left. 

 It is also possible that a large population of young female Democrats who have unhealed trauma because of the first wave of feminism (and the resulting skyrocketing divorces and single-family households) are putty in the hands of the manipulative trauma-based mainstream media. 

In essence, The CIA and the Mockingbird Media are still using women, just like they used CIA agents Gloria Steinem and Yoko Ono in the 1970s and many more of us, as pons to promote this newer, even more, deadly version of feminism.

And so here we have a point, which was the point all along, to a degree, of feminism, at least from the top down, was transhumanism and transgenderism; the ultimate dissolution of the importance of the feminine, of women.  Mentally ill and traumatized millennial men, as part of the feminist movement, now say they are women and can give birth to children. 

 It was not enough to convince us to give up our bodies to loveless romance and our babies to abortion in the 1970s, now women are irrelevant.  We don’t even exist. Radical feminism wants to convince us that men are women, and these new hybrids (like Dylan Mulvaney) are stronger, faster, smarter, hipper, less “racist,” and less “misogynistic” than us regular women.

 The transgender movement is not about helping transgenders (of which there is a very small true amount and called “two spirits” by the Native Americans), but it is the elimination of real women, as we, healed and whole, are the greatest threat to corruption on the entire planet. 

It’s not all bad.  Just like in Rome, these systems will fall and self-destruct once we have reached the heights of hedonism. The curtain hiding the real criminals is slowly being pulled back.  The answer lies in our hearts and God and our highest powers.  Our God-given gut instinct and detaching from public figures and mainstream media will help us retrieve our strength, power, and direction.  

Both of my grandmothers had a life with much more love, peace, security, happiness, and joy than I did and, so far, more than my own daughters. It’s time we start to ask “why.”

To read more about Jane Celia Hatch and her experience in the second wave of feminism and much more, please purchase her book The Land of Broken Crystals (And the Girl Who Knew Too Much), published by Trine Day Press and available in most major book outlets. 

Opinions expressed by Piñon Post contributors do not necessarily represent the viewpoints of the publication or its editorial staff. Submit an op-ed to the Piñon Post at news@pinonpost.com.

Scathing ABQ Journal editorial NUKES Dems’ sniveling over Holtec’s green light

9 Comments / New Mexico, News, Opinion, Politics / By

A recent editorial from the Albuquerque Journal’s editorial board ripped opponents of Holtec International’s safe temporary spent fuel storage facility a new one. 

This week, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) granted a license to Holtec International for the multi-billion-dollar interim storage facility in Eddy and Lea Counties.

Democrat politicians whined and bellyached about the move, erroneously claiming the safe fuel storage facility would make New Mexico a “dumping ground” of spent “nuclear waste,” among other melodramatic rhetoric. 

The Democrats in New Mexico’s congressional delegation and Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham and Attorney General Raúl Torrez complained about it.

The board wrote that these whining Democrats didn’t “offer any alternatives for the storage of spent commercial nuclear fuel.” 

It wrote that despite Democrats referencing S.B. 53 passed during the 2023 Legislative Session despite bipartisan opposition, Holtec will challenge the law trying to stymie the company’s operations, and it “will likely win.”

It continued, “Sen. Martin Heinrich said in a separate statement Tuesday no regulatory commission “should be using interim standards to approve indefinite storage” until there is a permanent repository for spent nuclear fuel. Fair point. But Heinrich, the rest of the state’s delegation, the governor and the AG conveniently do not mention the U.S. lacks a permanent storage site because their fellow Democrat, the late Sen. Harry Reid, blocked the truly permanent storage site in Yucca Mountain after Congress quite literally sank $15 billion of taxpayer money into what is now the most expensive, empty parking garage in America. So there is nowhere to transfer more than 70,000 metric tons of used reactor fuel from commercial power plants at 73 sites across 39 states — even though U.S. law requires one. How about enforcing that law?” 

The board concluded with the following: 

Heinrich ended his statement: “New Mexicans didn’t sign up for this.”

Except many have. Give Carlsbad Mayor Dale Janway or Hobbs Mayor Sam Cobb a call. They’ll fill you in on the Eddy-Lea Energy Alliance that southeastern New Mexico leaders formed in 2006 and the thousand acres of remote cattle grazing land ELEA bought expressly for Holtec between Carlsbad and Hobbs. And then there are the nuclear experts who work in our three national labs and at WIPP and Urenco.

It’s time for state leaders to put their politics aside, recognize the science and the scary fact we have spent nuclear waste sitting on water tables across the country, and support the bridge carbon-neutral nuclear power offers. And it’s time for our delegation in D.C. to move beyond cheap partisan sound bites and actually do something about safely storing nuclear waste.

Now that the Holtec International project is a go, there is nothing the seething Democrats can do about the facility that will provide safe interim storage while bringing billions of dollars in investment to New Mexico. 

Governor accuses schools of ‘exploiting’ funds as ‘free’ college program backfires

10 Comments / New Mexico, News, Opinion, Politics / By

After incentivizing New Mexico public colleges to raise tuition rates by subsidizing taxpayer-funded “free” college to the tune of $146 million this year, Democrat Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham’s administration is now complaining about tuition hikes.

Last year, New Mexico State University announced an annual four percent increase in tuition, while the University of New Mexico hiked tuition rates by three percentage points. Western New Mexico University increased its tuition and fees by eight percent, while Eastern New Mexico University’s tuition remains flat. 

Lujan Grisham’s Higher Education Secretary Stephanie Rodriguez urged college regents and trustees “to keep tuition flat this year in the best interest of students and taxpayers. We are witnessing enrollment increases for the first time in over a decade and substantial investments in higher education compared to the rest of the country.” 

“These historic investments are meant to directly benefit students by funding their education and reducing the portion of operational costs passed along to students, not an opportunity to exploit state funding to increase college and university revenues through more tuition and fees.”

This year’s budget passed during the 2023 Legislative Session was a 94.7 percent increase from last year’s $75 million, essentially no strings attached, spending on “free” college programs. 

Gov. Lujan Grisham speaking at the Roundhouse about the Opportunity Scholarship (taxpayer-funded ‘free’ college).

The increases in tuition costs by state universities can be directly correlated to the increase in state funds they are getting through the so-called Opportunity Scholarship. The colleges are very much “exploiting” state funding, as Rodriguez claimed, because there are no safeguards in the Democrat legislation that would cap funding or subsidize only certain fields of study needed in the job market. 

Now, a New Mexico student could get their entire useless “gender studies” degree entirely paid for by the state’s taxpayers despite its ineffectuality.

If the state will pay for even more of the cost of tuition, then it is in the colleges’ best financial interest to raise rates since that would mean more money coming to the institutions on the backs of taxpayers. 

As the state continues its costly multi-million-dollar experiment to fully subsidize state college costs for all residents (without any income caps or requirements, students are in the country legally), the price of a New Mexico degree will be even higher. 

This comes as New Mexico graduates leave the state in droves, now along with their 100 percent taxpayer-funded degrees — another lost investment by the state’s taxpayers. 

New Mexico’s K-12 educational programs remain the lowest in the nation.

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