Most New Mexicans live in one of the cities along the Rio Grande, while the rest are scattered across rural New Mexico. In my travels across the state, neither “city folks” nor the “country folks” trust or understand each other. The newspapers and media contribute to that divide, which is most apparent during the election season.
A newspaper editor wrote that it was hard to choose between the two candidates for the NM CD-2 race because she was a political moderate. I smiled; just because the editor is just right of her fellow liberal writers does not make her moderate, only slightly less liberal. An average person does not label themselves as moderate. Their actions do. The same can be said of the newspapers.
The Rio Grande Newspapers published Jon Hill’s letter to the editor seeking volunteers for their bipartisan organization. A scan of the letter indicated it was a partisan organization, and a more straightforward search uncovered it was a Super-PAC supporting the NM CD-2 Democrat candidate. When I notified the newspaper’s editors of their error of judgment, it was met with silence.
The combined image from NM Democrat Party Flyer Image on the right is from NM Republican Flyer.
The image on the left is from Herrell Campaign. The image on the right is a doctored image.
The Rio Grande Newspapers published in-depth articles on the republican flyer of the barber with dark hands, including lengthy interviews with Democrats. The Rio Grande Newspapers were silent on the democratic flyer of the candidate with a bleached face and did not interview the Herrell campaign organizations.
The Rio Grande Newspapers were silent when the Democratic NM CD-3 whitewashed the Republican candidate’s last name by omitting Martinez. Again, silent when New Mexico Democrats run television advertising with Republican candidates with stark white skin in black and white photographs while their candidates are in color videos with warm skin tones.
Observation Platform near Animas, NM. Puerto Rican National Guard personnel are in the GSA Pickup. Photograph by Mick Rich.
The Rio Grande Newspapers wrote about Florida Governor DeSantis sending illegal immigrants to Martha’s Vineyard. In contrast, silent when Florida Governor DeSantis sent Florida National Guard troops to New Mexico’s Southern Border to help secure our border. Meanwhile, NM Governor keeps NM NG in their barracks.
The Rio Grande Newspapers are silent about Puerto Rico’s National Guard now on New Mexico’s Southern border. Silent that Puerto Rico’s Air National Guard has aircraft while New Mexico’s Air National Guard has none. They are silent while the US Air Force considers downsizing their fleet by thousand aircraft and what impact that will have on Holloman AFB.
The Rio Grande Newspapers endorsed Democrats for NM CD-1,2,3. Already New Mexico delegation has little clout in Washington despite having a Democrat President, a Democrat majority in the US Senate & House, Democrat Governor and Democrat Legislature, and a Democrat Congressional Delegation (less Rep. Herrell). If New Mexico has an all-Democrat delegation and Republicans control the Senate and House, New Mexico will have no clout in Washington.
The Rio Grande Newspapers endorse the Bernalillo District Attorney even though he and his fellow Soros DAs created a violent crime epidemic in their communities. In his appearance on “To the Point with Mick Rich,” Gerald Madrid stated that he observed an Assistant DA play video games in the courtroom while the defense attorney prepared. Once they stood before the judge, the Assistant DA agreed with the defense attorney. As a result, another violent criminal was released back into Bernalillo’s streets.
One Rio Grande Newspaper asked a republican state house candidate if they supported their liberal democrat sister running for state house. Her response was, did you ask my sister that question? The reporter’s response was no. Not surprising.
Rio Grande Newspapers did not endorse any Republican candidate that supported the idea that the 2020 election was stolen. No Democrat was asked if they believed George W Bush in 2000 or Donald Trump in 2016 stole the election. They needed to identify what constituted a stolen election. Does Stolen Election mean: counting illegal ballots, not counting legal ballots, hindering legal voters from voting, allowing non-legal voters to vote, censoring candidates and candidate’s supporters, government interference in campaigns, and illegal activity of government agencies in campaigns?
Journalism Departments should require their students to study classical physics and the life of Galileo. Today’s journalists view the universe from where they are standing, while physicists view where they are standing from the universe. Galileo died after eight years of house arrest, un-swayed in his proof that the earth rotated around the sun. As then, today’s Conventional Thinkers are trying to banish the Free Thinkers.
I have many individuals commenting that they like my unique perspective on what is happening in our community, state, and nation. I also have others commenting on my inability to write. Both comments stem from the same root. I have an engineering degree, two years of required math and sciences, one year of engineering needed sciences, and one required writing class. Please share a free subscription with others if you like what you read.
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.
Over the past few weeks, a self-proclaimed “progressive” calling himself Chris Edwards — also known as “Martin Christopher Edwards” — has been launching vicious attacks against conservatives, specifically pro-lifers who he opposes in Alamogordo. They include conservative Alamogordo City Commissioner Karl Melton and myself, the Republican nominee for New Mexico House District 51.
Edwards has a so-called media operation that is seeking to mislead Otero County Republicans and infiltrate our conservative community with far-left radicalism. Beyond his “progressive” views, Edwards is also a convicted felon with a long criminal record who had fled to Mexico, suffers from undiagnosed bipolar disorder, according to his attorney, and has actively promoted Democrats, including Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), along with longstanding support for Planned Parenthood.
Otero County Republicans should read on to learn the dangers of this shady individual and should also be wary of trusting anything published by Edwards’ blog “2nd Life Media” and a publication Edwards is closely connected with, “New Mexico’s Influence Magazine.”
Chris Edwards’ Far-Leftist Activities
Edwards is a fervent supporter of Planned Parenthood and social justice causes. He is pro-lockdown and pro-Dr. Fauci. Edwards says he has “consulted” on at least two local Democrat candidate campaigns in the 2022 Primary and General elections. He claims his clients include pro-abortion judge candidates Rev. Warren Robinson and Claudia Powell. Despite the claims, according to finance reports, Edwards is on neither of the candidates’ payrolls.
As he wrote on his own website, in 2020, Edwards “aligned” with two left-wing organizations to attack conservative candidates via “opposition research” and previously publicly shamed donors to a political action committee that supported a ballot measure he opposed. On his LinkedIn profile, he writes that he “has demonstrated results in crafting opposition negative campaign ads,” along with “opposition marketing tactics.”
He is the “co-owner” and “CEO” of an entity called 2nd Life Media/ ROADRUNNER EMPORIUM Inc. on New York Avenue in Alamogordo, according to a filing with the New Mexico Secretary of State. The other owner is his partner, a man named Rene Lee Sepulveda.
According to Edwards’ blog, “2nd Life Media Inc is a vertically integrated consulting and operating company.” He calls it a “multimedia and consulting company” partnered with “Roadrunner Emporium Fine Arts, Antiques and More Gallery, Gallery 1209, and via the soon to be revitalized Sands Theater Partnership.”
A twice-failed candidate for Napa City Council in California, Edwards was accused in his previous races of “dirty politics” for misleading elderly voters during candidate forums.
Dee Cuney, a woman who attended Edwards’ controversial forum, said, “It’s very, very disappointing that people were misled,” adding, “That’s dirty stuff.”
Edwards has posted on his Facebook page a multitude of “LGBTQ+” pride content, anti-Trump posts, support for the ANTIFA-linked Black Lives Matter hate group, and photos with Democrat politicians and activists, such as Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and George Takei. Other posts include photos reading “#IStandwithPP” (Planned Parenthood) and “Unapologetically Pro-Choice (Abortion),” support for failed Democrat presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and former President Obama, posts reading, “I stand with Fauci,” “I support DACA,” among others disparaging conservatives and promoting far-left politics. Yet Edwards is trying to dupe conservatives into believing he is an “independent” voice. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Edwards’ Long Criminal History
Along with his “dirty” left-wing political activity, Edwards has a years-long past of criminal activity, pleading guilty and being convicted of felony mail fraud and tax evasion in 2014. The Department of Justice charged him after he was wanted by the FBI as a fugitive for 23 counts of mail fraud, wire fraud, and money laundering. The “fraudster,” as the Bureau put it, was finally apprehended after fleeing to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, seven months following his failure to appear in federal court. He was found at Hacienda Escondida Private Villas, where he claimed to work as a “sales marketing director,” according to his LinkedIn profile.
The Department of Justice charged Edwards, and he was found guilty of embezzling $900,000 between May 2010 and October 2012 from his employer, the online fulfillment wine company, The Wine Tasting Network, a subsidiary of 1-800 Flowers. He did this by directing the network to make large payments through a fake entity he set up called Dufrane Compliance Trust. The Department of Justicesaid that the fictitious entity “purported to provide compliance services to wineries and wine retailers.”
According to the FBI, “Edwards … deposited these funds into an account he controlled and withdrew them for his own personal use, including the purchase of a BMW, which has since been seized by law enforcement authorities.” Along with the BMW, Edwards used the embezzled funds for “ expensive vacations and lavish meals.” According to Edwards’ Twitter account, he spent time on vacation in such places as Hawaii. He claims to have “traveled to 46 countries.”
One portion of Edwards’ criminal indictment reads, “MARTIN CHRISTOPHER EDWARDS, did knowingly and intentionally devise a scheme … to defraud, and to obtain money and property by means of materially false and fraudulent pretenses … and concealment were false and fraudulent when made, and, for the purpose of executing such scheme and artifice, did knowingly cause the following items to be sent and delivered by the United States Postal Service, and private and commercial interstate carriers (emphasis added).”
According to the Napa Daily Register, Edwards’ lawyer claimed during the trial, “Edwards suffered from chronic depression, a bipolar disorder, drug and alcohol addictions, all of which contributed to his compromised judgment.” Whether or not Edwards is currently treated for bipolar disorder is unknown.
Edwards was sentenced in September 2014 to nearly three years (33 months) in federal prison and ordered to pay $894,222 in restitution to the Wine Tasting Network. Bay City Newsreported that prosecutors “said Edwards did not declare any of the [embezzled] money on his federal income tax returns in 2010, 2011 and 2012. Edwards’ plea agreement also included an enhancement for obstruction of justice for a flight he took to Mexico to avoid prosecution.”
This is not the first run-in Edwards had with the law.
Previously, Edwards was convicted of two misdemeanors for larceny-theft in Cabarrus County, North Carolina. He was initially charged with two felony counts of embezzlement for defrauding the fast food company Hardees, where he worked at the time in its corporate offices, “but Edwards agreed to plead guilty to two misdemeanor counts of larceny for an amount more than $200 and was ordered to pay restitution,” according to the DailyRegister.
The news of his previous conviction came out during Edwards’ failed 2005 run for Napa City Council, where he said he was “dismayed that public records still contain information about his conviction,” according to the newspaper. With his later 2014 conviction, it appears Edwards did not change from his old ways.
Edwards Attacking Alamogordo Conservatives
Edwards has recently transplanted himself to Alamogordo, New Mexico, where he admits to pushing progressivism in the heavily conservative area, including viciously attacking conservative candidates and pro-life policymakers who are moving the community forward.
The attacks ramped up as Alamogordo City Commissioner Melton proposed, and the Commission successfully passed a resolution declaring Alamogordo a sanctuary city for the unborn in August. The only two dissenting votes came from Mayor Susan Payne and Commissioner Sharon McDonald. Payne insisted she is “100 percent pro-life” but refused to support a resolution protecting life.
A long-time supporter of Planned Parenthood and the abortion industry, Edwards wrote in 2017, “I have supported the missions of Planned Parenthood for years,” while bashing pro-life sidewalk counselors outside of abortion clinics as “extremist.” He added in the post, “ I stand pink to show my support of Planned Parenthood.”
Screenshot of Edwards’ post professing to support Planned Parenthood for “years”
Apparently angered that Alamogordo stood up for the lives of the unborn, he attempted unsuccessfully to elevate pro-abortion organizers’ petition demanding a special election for a referendum on the pro-life resolution.
After the pro-abortion petitioners, calling themselves “New Voices Otero,” failed to reach the mere 589 signature goal despite having 30 days to organize, Edwards wrote a blog post viciously attacking Commissioner Melton and myself, paying homage to his former days of “dirty politics” in Napa. He claimed criticisms of the mayor were “propaganda” despite her vote against the pro-life resolution and her signature prominently featured on a petition, which bashed the commission that she oversees as “extremist.”
Increasingly angered by his political loss when the petitioners’ signatures were thrown out by the City Clerk, Edwards decided to attack me, claiming with absolutely no evidence that I or someone affiliated with me sent copies of his federal indictment to unknown individuals via the U.S. Postal Service. Now, Edwards is falsely claiming mail fraud, when in actuality, he spent years in federal prison after being convicted of not only mail fraud but also tax evasion and larceny, among other crimes. Mr. Edwards appears to be projecting his own previous criminality. If such letters did, indeed, get sent out, the plausible suspect would be himself.
After Edwards’ attacks against myself and Commissioner Melton fell flat, Edwards filed a slew of frivolous Inspection of Public Records Act (IPRA) requests with the City of Alamogordo, attempting to undermine the premise of the resolution, claiming there was no support for it. In the process, Edwards doxxed a local resident who requested Commissioner Melton propose the measure. He posted in a blog entry a screenshot of an email showing personal information about where she lived and even published her unredacted email address.
For someone who claims to be so invested in Alamogordo and has so much at stake, he seems fine with wasting city staff’s time and money with his manic IPRA requests.
In one subsequent unhinged blog post, Edwards got confused and falsely accused Commissioner Melton of submitting a September IPRA request under my name, despite not checking the signature. A simple signature match could have proven he was incorrect. Still, he published the defamatory article anyway without a hint of fact-checking. More Napa Valley “dirty politics.”
Edwards has continued to attempt to lace together conspiracy theories about Commissioner Melton, who owns a legitimate conservative consulting service, Conservative Compliance LLC, unlike Edwards’ fictitious Dufrane Compliance Trust that defrauded nearly $1 million. Edwards cooked up multiple far-out conspiracies through his “2nd Life Media” Facebook account. One such false claim was that Conservative Compliance’s client list included County Commissioner Couy Griffin, even though that would legally be required to be reported to the Secretary of State’s office.
While trying to shift the topic after his theories disintegrated, Edwards ended up claiming that non-profit 501(c)(3) organizations are a “tax dodging ploy” in the apparent attempt to attack non-profit pro-life groups. His baseless theories seem to be a projection of his days sitting behind bars for tax evasion.
In one of Edwards’ Facebook posts, it shows an image of him with a filter reading, “I pay more taxes than Trump,” ironic since his lack of paying taxes when he systematically defrauded 1-800 Flowers landed him behind bars for nearly three years.
A photograph posted by Edwards on Facebook.
Edwards wrote in one of his blog posts that he will not quit harassing conservatives in Alamogordo until “they rise to the occasion of true leadership, end the attacks on those that differ in opinion and embrace open dialog with a civil tone to seek areas of compromise for a better Alamogordo.”
If only Edwards would take his own advice and end his obsessive attacks against people fighting to move Alamogordo forward and represent the conservative values of our community.
Now, the far-left Chris Edwards continues to ignore his self-righteous standards and instead launch vicious attacks against Alamogordo conservatives. As he keeps attacking with his Napa Valley-style “dirty” smears and promoting abortion up-to-birth/LGBTQ+ groups, locals should watch carefully the many ventures he is closely affiliated with. That includes a new magazine, “New Mexico’s Influence Magazine,” and the businesses he has purported to own or operate. At face value, the magazine attempts to come off as even-handed. However, knowing “progressive” Edwards is behind it, conservatives should use extreme caution.
More information will be released in due course on individuals such as Edwards; This first report just scratches the surface. New Mexicans must continue to be vigilant of leftists, many with crime-filled, shady pasts, attempting to implement far-left California policies into our conservative community.
As Edwards wrote in one post, “We are working to change the extremism, But we need the help and support of progressive businesses like those downtown Roadrunner Emporium, ReneFit, New York Art and Music Studio, the Game Shop on New York and others.”
What exactly is the “extremism” Edwards is trying to cut out of Alamogordo, and how exactly does he intend to do this through “progressive” businesses, many of which he has a financial interest in? It is still unclear if the $894,222 ordered in restitution for Edwards’ embezzlement has yet been paid.
While the facts presented in this article have been extensively verified for correctness and accuracy, the author’s recommendations on actions Otero County conservatives should take are purely opinion.
Groping has become essentially synonymous with the Democrat Party in New Mexico. The Democrats’ standard bearer, Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, paid out $150,000 in donors’ cash to a former staffer, James Hallinan, who accused the embattled governor of groping his penis after pouring a bottle of water over his crotch area. Gruesome stuff.
Previously, a man came forward in 2018 before the gubernatorial election accusing Lujan Grisham of groping him at a party, which led to the end of his relationship.
The man, Eddie Dehart, said of the 2005 groping incident, “In 2005, we have a party at my girlfriend’s house. It was an artisan party to showcase some art in Santa Fe and help the artists out to sell their products…During the game, it was Michelle’s shot. And she walked around the pool table and walked by me. When she walked by me she grabbed my crotch.” He said that Lujan Grisham exclaimed to his girlfriend that “you have a man here.”
“Michelle was asked to leave the party,” he said. “I didn’t do nothing [sic] to provoke it.” Dehart said that Lujan Grisham’s conduct led to a rift with his girlfriend. “Michelle’s drunkenness and her touchy hands ended up breaking us up in the long run.”
The governor’s rhetoric toward government officials and their actions go contrary to her very position, saying in July 2021 regarding indicted Democrat Sheryl Williams Stapleton, “But I will say that public confidence in government is seriously damaged by even the appearance of impropriety, or illegal activity, which is why public officials must always hold themselves to the highest possible standard of behavior.”
In 2017, former lieutenant governor candidate, state Sen. Michael Padilla, was accused of a decade-old sexual harassment charge. At the time, Lujan Grisham demanded Padilla drop out of the race for office. Padilla was just promoted to Democrat Senate Majority Whip.
She told the Associated Press, “My position on sexual harassment is clear: it is totally unacceptable and will not be tolerated by me or in my administration. Michael Padilla’s actions were wrong.” She continued, “There is no room for excuses and he should withdraw his candidacy for lieutenant governor.”
Lujan Grisham didn’t live up to her own standard, flatly claiming, “There is no room for excuses.” Her excuse for the $150,000 was that she was busy during the pandemic and didn’t have time to fight the claims.
She said at the time, “I was focused on the pandemic, and I’ll stand by that decision [to settle] every minute of every day.”
But despite the damning payoff and excuses made by the governor, Democrats are now demanding their own Democrat state Sen. Daniel Ivey-Soto be expelled from the Senate after allegations he groped a lobbyist. The legislative panel found no probable cause for the claim.
Still the Democrats and leftist organizations demand his removal.
“They want me to be expelled from the Senate on the basis of one complaint on which no probable cause was found,” Ivey-Soto said Monday. “That’s an interesting form of justice they have.”
The Democrats, led by their Senate Pro-Tem Mimi Stewart (D-Bernalillo), allegedly sent so far as to threaten to release documents about debunked claims of sexual assault if Ivey-Soto did not resign. Ivey-Soto filed a complaint with the FBI over the apparent extortion threat by Stewart.
How interesting that Democrats are hell-bent on attackign Ivey-Soto, who recently resigned from his position as Chairman of the Senate Rules Committee, but Lujan Grisham gets a break for not only allegedly groping two men, but for paying out hundreds of thousands of dollars to settle accusations she groped her ex-staffer’s crotch.
So far, Lujan Grisham’s GOP challenger, Mark Ronchetti, has not made a big deal about the embattled Democrat’s groping. It was, however, a topic of conversation in the primary.
Whether it becomes an election issue, Democrats clearly have a groping problem within their ranks. While actual settlements for sexual assault claims made by Lujan Grisham are brushed under the rug, debunked claims of groping against Sen. Ivey-Soto are met with fury and even alleged illegal threats. Time will tell if, in November, New Mexicans see the sexually predatory aspects of the Democrat Party. Maybe don’t make the same mistake by giving the leftists more power.
In an op-ed published in The Hill Saturday, far-left lame duck New Mexico House Speaker Brian Egolf (D-Santa Fe), who is retiring after his current term, and Michigan House minority leader Donna Lasinski (D) teamed up to demand voters support pro-abortion candidates or else.
Egolf touted New Mexico’s 2021 abortion up-to-birth law that stripped all protections for mothers, babies, and medical professionals while legalizing full-term abortion in the state.
He wrote, “We cannot overstate the importance of this victory,” adding, “this is only possible because, in 2021, our Democratic legislative majority and Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham (D) repealed an abortion ban that had been on the books since 1969, ensuring it would not become enforceable again if Roe fell.”
He called pro-life laws that save babies a “nightmare scenario.”
The two pro-abortion Democrats claim that “a majority of Americans want abortion to remain safe and legal,” but lie because a recent Albuquerque Journal poll shows that most New Mexicans (59 percent) believe in restrictions on abortion.
14 recent national polls continue to confirm that most Americans back abortion restrictions, with most of these polls being conducted by academic and left-leaning pollsters.
Despite this, Egolf and Lasinski claim, “But a vocal and well-funded right-wing minority has poured dark money into state legislative races for far too many years, creating gerrymandered legislative majorities to try and inoculate Republicans from public opinion. We must keep fighting back.”
The rhetoric falls flat because Democrats are the recipients of millions in dark money from the likes of George Soros, Bill and Melinda Gates, and Michael Bloomberg, funding dark money groups such as pro-abortion Planned Parenthood, EMILY’s List, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), and others that attack pro-lifers.
Another laughable claim is that “gerrymandered legislative majorities” are supposedly “inoculating” the GOP from public opinion, but rather in states like New Mexico, Egolf’s Democrat majority gerrymandered the latest legislative maps to promote extreme Democrat supermajorities in both chambers and in all three of the state’s congressional districts. Dark money groups were even caught giving $50 bribes to those who would testify in the “Citizens Redistricting Committee” to support the partisan maps.
In the op-ed, the two Democrats conclude, “We cannot afford to sit this election out while Republicans undermine the will of the people by abolishing our fundamental freedoms state by state,” but when it comes to the “fundamental freedoms” of the babies in the womb, both are silent.
The survival of critical infrastructure that supports modern life starts with reliable energy. We must be the ones to call out the policies and the lies being told.
I was there at the new Department of Homeland Security when it opened its doors after 9-11 in 2003. (Ten years later, I served Governor Susana Martinez as the Deputy Cabinet Secretary for Emergency Management and Homeland Security.) In 2003 my team was asked to consult with a lot of other smart people to develop a Critical Infrastructure Program for the 16 critical sectors in the U.S. Sandia Lab was hired to model the interdependencies of the critical sectors. At the top of the list was and still is ENERGY. Without it, the other 15 infrastructures that we rely on for modern life fail. There is no excuse for advanced countries like those below to experience a shortage of electricity or other types of power or severe inflation of energy costs. But failing we are. How many examples do we need to change our course?
Example 1: Remember last winter when California was forced into rolling brownouts in its quest for zero-carbon power ahead of other states? They were only at 27% of meeting their renewables goal, and the electric grid couldn’t function. You see, the grid wasn’t designed for intermittent energy flows like wind and solar.
Example 2: On August 26th, the California Air Resources Board adopted new regulations effectively banning the sale of gas engine vehicles by 2035. 17 states have tied themselves to California’s emission standards, and New Mexico is one of them. Four days later, Gov. Gavin Newsom declared a state of emergency due to excessive heat and the electric grid. The Governor is urging residents and businesses to reduce the use of electricity to avoid additional power outages by not plugging in cars and major appliances between 4 pm-9 pm! Experts say that reductions in energy supply are a direct result of California energy policy making the grid unreliable by mandating renewables. How is it that government can require everyone to have electric cars in 10 years even though we can’t even plug them in today?
Example 3: Look at the disaster that is befalling the U.K. and the rest of Europe. The U.K. is announcing that energy could be rationed for years. Why? Gas prices for the UK are more than 16 times higher than the average prices over the previous decade. Household bills for wholesale gas and power are due to increase by 80% a year from now even though the U.K. has large potential supplies of oil and gas. Countries like the U.K. and Germany are facing failure because they needlessly failed to provide for their own energy reliability and self-sufficiency. And the Biden administration is following the same path.
Example 4: France is a little better off because its electricity has come from its own fleet of nuclear power plants. It has generated 70 percent of its electricity from a fleet of 56 reactors, but 32 are now offline. The French President says companies may face energy rationing this winter. The government is working on a quota trading system where businesses can buy and sell electricity to each other. President Macron says, “The months ahead are just a step in the bigger transition that we need to make.” Boy, does that sound familiar.
Example 5: Germany’s impending disaster is one of its own makings, but with more variables. Angela Merkel announced her nation would close all its nuclear power plants after the Fukushima disaster in 2011, at the same time quadrupling down on the decarbonization of its economy. In so doing, Germany is left with relying more heavily on Russian natural gas while Putin is demanding EU nations pay for energy in rubles, thus undercutting the European economy on a whim. Germany now has the highest global electricity prices per household in the world, at ten times higher than the seasonal average for the past decade. To reduce the cost of electricity, the German government announced it will subsidize the use of more coal-fired power plants. Germany began its transition to green renewables 30 years ago, and now they are begrudgingly returning to fossil fuels — it claims temporarily. This situation of declining supply and radically higher costs is facing the US too. Could you pay a utility bill every month that is ten times more than last year?
Example 6: Meanwhile, China and India build a new fossil fuel plant every month to fuel their economy at our expense.
The elite left yearns for a utopian future and doesn’t care about the costs faced by us-its citizens in the US and Europe. We saw it last month. Gas prices rose to $7/gallon in California, and Biden said it’s just part of the transition. The transition, though, will take 20-50 years, not 2-5. Meanwhile, the energy independence and system reliability we enjoyed here in the US just two years ago slips away, and costs continue to rise. Failing we are.
Anita Statman is the Vice-Chair of Congressional District 3 for the Republican Party of New Mexico and the President of the Santa Fe Federated Republican Women.
Monday signifies the federal Labor Day holiday, celebrating working people and the fight at the turn of the last century for humane, fair working conditions. This seemingly non-political holiday to celebrate the working man and woman, of course, had to be seized by left-wing radicals to promote socialism via modern unions and initiatives that work hard to put as much government into private industry as possible.
Democrat Secretary of State Maggie Toulouse Oliver, who previously failed to run for the U.S. Senate in 2020, claims Labor Day is meant to “celebrate our unions who ensure that every worker – regardless of what you make, what you look like, how you pray, who you love, or how you identify – has the rights, benefits, standards, and opportunity we deserve.”
She then continued to tout socialist policies, such as a guaranteed living wage, universal health care, and other government-funded programs, while erroneously claiming there is an attack on the right to vote.
“Every one of us deserves a living wage, access to healthcare, good benefits, adequate working conditions, and easy access to the ballot box,” she wrote.
Democrat Rep. Teresa Leger Fernandez of New Mexico’s Third Congressional District took time on Monday to tout extremist labor leader Dolores Huerta, who said that babies in the womb do not have souls.
Huerta previously said in 2021 to promote abortions, “I know that the child has no soul until they are born. Right?”
Leger Fernandez wrote on Labor Day, “Today, we honor working Americans — and the unions and labor movement that gave us the five day work week and moved our nation forward over the decades. As one of my personal heroes, Dolores Huerta, once said: ‘Honor the hands that harvest your crops.’”
Democrat Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham shared a video on Labor Day with clips of her posing alongside Huerta while touting organized labor. She did not mention, however, that she has killed over 40% of small businesses in the state due to her brutal pandemic lockdown.
She wrote to tout unions, “When unions exist, everything gets better. Thank you, New Mexico Labor.”
In a subsequent tweet, she promoted socialist policies, writing, “Without your organizing, we would never have achieved paid sick leave, accessible child care, a higher minimum wage, or many other policies that protect working people’s interests.”
Other far-left politicians, such as Rep. Melanie Stansbury (NM-CD-01), Democrat Second Congressional District candidate Gabe Vasquez, and others, wrote similar sentiments online, trying to tie Labor Day with socialist policies.
In a column published on Thursday, far-left Santa Fe New Mexican columnist Milan Simonich launched attacks against Republicans, including Trump-endorsed Pennsylvania U.S. Senate candidate Dr. Mehmet Oz, former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, and Georgia U.S. Senate candidate Herschel Walker, among others.
Although softly bashing all of them, Simonich launched particularly nasty comments against Walker, who just so happens to be Black.
Simonich wrote in his poisonous opinion piece, “Palin seems like a Jeopardy! champion compared to Walker.”
But Simonich’s venom against Walker was not just in his latest column. He’s been railing against the football star for weeks — in an apparent vendetta of rage for some strange reason.
In another August 23, 2022, column, Simonich launched another racially tinged attack targeting Walker, claiming GOP New Mexico gubernatorial candidate Mark Ronchetti, who is White, is “is several cuts above Walker, which isn’t hard.”
He added, “A Republican, bumbling Walker is Trump’s handpicked choice in a state the former president lost in 2020,” dubbing him “The worst candidate this year.”
“Lujan Grisham can’t afford to underestimate Ronchetti. For all his generalities, he’s no Herschel Walker,” Simonich concluded.
Why all the low blows against the Republican, who just so happens to be Black? We will let you make your own conclusions on that.
On Wednesday, both The Conservative New Mexican and the Piñon Post were denied entry into Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham’s media briefing regarding her support for abortion in the State of New Mexico.
Left-wing media went head-over-heels when a far-left reporter, Shaun Griswold, for the foreign-owned “Source New Mexico” was not admitted entry into Republican gubernatorial nominee Mark Ronchetti’s private campaign rally with Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) earlier this month.
According to the campaign, “Source New Mexico was denied a credential because they are ‘a left-wing advocacy group, not a legitimate news organization.’” The online newspaper’s liberal founding, dark-money funding, and one-sided “reporting” indicate this to be true.
Regarding Griswold not being allowed into the campaign event, leftist media collectively lost it over “freedom of the press.”
The Las Vegas Optic wrote in a melodramatic editorial, “It’s a gross overstep of authority, and one everyone should be concerned about,” adding, “We don’t know about everyone reading this, but that sure doesn’t sound like freedom of the press to us.”
The Santa Fe Reporter chimed in, claiming Griswold’s denied entry was “an obvious affront to press freedom.”
New Mexico Foundation for Open Government (NMFOG) whined that booting Griswold was “a dangerous precedent to let any public servant decide who is and is not a ‘legitimate’ reporter.”
To test this theory of supposed “press freedom,” both the Piñon Post, a news site initially founded in 2018, and The Conservative New Mexican, founded in 2021, requested press credentials for Lujan Grisham’s Wednesday press briefing.
The event was scheduled for 10 a.m. Wednesday. As of this writing, the governor’s press secretary has yet to respond to either of our requests for access.
We will see if these supposed beacons of journalistic prowess will be crowing from the top of their lungs about “open government” and “press freedom” now that two conservative-leaning outlets were denied access—to a PUBLIC event, no less.
At the presser, Lujan Grisham announced that in the 2023 Legislative Session, if re-elected, she will designate $10 million of public capital outlay money to build a new abortion facility in Doña Ana County, according to the Santa Fe New Mexican, which was granted access to the briefing.
Even more damning, every single correspondence sent from the Piñon Post requesting comment on a story or access to an official press conference has gone unanswered, both by press secretary Nora Sackett and former communications director Tripp Stelnicki.
The shameless hypocrisy of these leftist “news” outlets like the Reporter and Optic and “open government” groups like NMFOG prove that the crowing over “press freedom” is all a political ploy meant to dredge up more controversy and take jabs at Conservative voices.
We will patiently wait for these leftist editorial boards and “transparency” groups to denounce Lujan Grisham for her administration’s “affronts on the freedom of the press.”
In a hilarious move, the left-wing “Source New Mexico” blog ran an op-ed by a person called Jonathan Juarez-Alonzo, who the website says “is a queer, two-spirit Indigenous climate activist” who is “working on the frontlines of combating environmental racism and ecological destruction here in New Mexico.”
Alonzo claims the extreme taxpayer-funded “free” college passed last year by the Democrat-dominated Legislature doesn’t go far enough because of “climate change” and funds from oil and gas being used to fund the socialist program. Because of the supposed climate crisis, Alonzo says he is “on an indefinite leave of absence from the University of New Mexico”
Oil and gas made up 33 percent of the state’s revenue in the last fiscal year.
“[F]unding these scholarships with volatile oil revenues, students like myself feel our futures are being held hostage: Do we invest in ourselves and take advantage of free higher education? Or should we even be wasting these last fleeting years of our youth in a classroom when our elected leaders are leading us down a path toward total climate collapse,” writes Alonzo.
Throughout the rest of the piece, he claims victimhood, invoking the name of slain fentanyl addict George Floyd, saying that is why he quit college to go into “criminology and social work,” writing that he grew up “surrounded by one of the most violent police forces in the nation.”
Alonzo then calls for the total decimation of the oil, gas, and all extractive industries, writing, “We’re lacking the political willpower to dismantle and transform an industry that holds every aspect of our state in economic hostage.”
“New Mexico is handing out symbolic victories like tuition-free college that are meaningless when thousands of New Mexicans are being displaced by wildfires, and our farmers are losing their crops because the acequias are running dry,” he writes, claiming that fires and droughts are caused by the fictitious “climate change” emergency.
He claims “real solutions” entail “investments in proven renewable energy and battery technologies, and investments in industry cleanup (which our politicians should make the polluters cover),” but does not take into account that states that have implemented far-left enviro-Marxist policies like California are facing raging blackouts statewide, which have led to the deaths of people.
Solar and wind have extreme environmental impacts due to the materials mined to make these “renewable” energies a reality. Also, the ecological impact kills countless wild animals, such as solar killing around 138,600 birds annually and wind turbines responsible for about 538,000 bird deaths and 900,000 bat deaths every year.
But despite the radical Democrats passing the Green New Deal via the “Energy Transition Act” to totally annihilate the oil and gas industry, that is still not enough for Alonzo and the folks at “Source New Mexico.”
While some may still see the group as a “non-partisan” organization, the League of Women Voters (LWV) is anything but.
Recently, organizers for the group that puts on debates and other events regarding elections wrote an op-ed for the Las Cruces Sun-News, which advocated for partisan Democrat gun control measures.
LWV gave its stamp of approval to the far-left anti-gun bill recently passed by Congress, saying it “limits access to guns for those who have been convicted of domestic violence in a dating relationship, creates federal straw purchasing and trafficking criminal offenses.”
As well, the group went even further to declare support for four other extreme anti-gun measures. The group wrote in the Sun-News piece, “In addition to these two features, the League recommended the following actions in a letter to the Senate and House judiciary committees: (1) closing the gun show loophole which exempts certain sales from the requirement of a federal background check of the buyer of a weapon, (2) providing universal background checks, (3) banning assault weapons and placing limits on high-capacity ammunition magazine size, and (4) funding research and reporting on gun violence in the United States.”
In essence, the group advocates for universal background checks on all firearms sold ever, banning many styles of firearms (making millions of Americans felons if the bill is passed), and extremist “gun violence” reporting, such as in New Mexico with the recently funded “Office of Gun Violence Prevention” aimed at assaulting Americans’ right to keep and bear arms, as guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution.
LWV contends in the op-ed that the fact that good guys with guns help stop bad guys with guns is “dangerous” and that “people with guns make mistakes,” whether they are good or bad. It did not, however, speak on the fact that most crimes in America are committed by criminals who do not abide by gun laws — thus, anti-gun laws do not work.
firearm during their offense. Among these, more than half (56%) had either stolen it (6%), found it at the scene of the crime (7%), or obtained it off the street or from the underground market (43%).”
The DOJ report added, “Among prisoners who possessed a gun during their offense, 90% did not obtain it from a retail source.”
Despite the facts, the League of Women Voters is propping up the far-left group run by Miranda Viscoli, New Mexicans to Prevent Gun Violence, which helped ram through New Mexico’s “red flag” law that has not been effective whatsoever in stopping “gun violence.”
Since the bill’s passage in 2020, the state has seen a sharp increase in violent crime, suggesting that the far-left anti-gun laws passed in New Mexico have not done anything but exacerbate violent gun offenses.
As well as gun-snatching, LWV put its rubber stamp of approval on socialist “free” (taxpayer-funded) college programs that are costing the state at least $75 million annually.
The group wrote, “Limitations on economic and educational opportunities also need to be addressed. Greater access to community colleges and universities through the Opportunity Scholarships and the efforts by the City of Las Cruces to lift up neighborhoods may help.”
The League of Women Voters has come out as an extremely leftist partisan organization and cannot be trusted to be anything but skewing sharply to the political left.
