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.
One of New Mexico’s two national parks, White Sands, is being led in the direction of far-leftism under socialist Deb Haaland’s Secretary of the Interior. Haaland has long been a radical extremist with her anti-American views, but she has now hijacked one of New Mexico’s most treasured places to spread her political agenda.
Earlier this month, Haaland hoisted a “progress pride” flag on the roof of the Department of the Interior building in Washington, D.C. The flag mimics the commonly used “LGBT Pride” flag, which features a rainbow. However, it adds colors black, brown, and different light blue and pink hues to symbolize even more radical “social justice” movements.
But over the weekend, Haaland used the official White Sands National Park Service Instagram account to spread “Progress Pride” extremism, posting a photo of a ranger in uniform standing “on white dunes with the Progress Pride flag hanging from their shoulders like a cape,” according to the post’s description.
The caption of the post reads, “Pride Month is about celebrating growth and diversity, while reflecting on sacrifice and perseverance. Our dunes, and the plants and animals that call them home, change and grow in a harsh desert environment. Without this wonderful diversity, our park would not be the amazing place it is! We hope you feel comfortable being yourself at White Sands National Park and continue to find solace and fun in the dunes!”
Joe Biden’s U.S. embassy to the Vatican (Holy See) erected a “Pride” flag on the building, a direct affront to the Roman Catholic faith, which believes pride is one of the seven deadly sins. However, embassies to Muslim countries, such as the United Arab Emirates, Iraq, or Afghanistan did not erect the loud-colored flags.
The U.S. Embassy to the Holy See celebrates #PrideMonth with the Pride flag on display during the month of June. The United States respects the dignity and equality of LGBTQI+ people. LGBTQI+ rights are human rights. pic.twitter.com/Xentlnr16E
It is clear under the Joe Biden/Kamala Harris regime, radical extremism, such as Haaland’s, are the mainstream, despite the majority of Americans disagreeing with the unAmerican agenda, focusing on dividing Americans based on color, gender, sexual orientation, and other factors.
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.
In May, New Mexico businesswoman Anastacia “Anise” Golden Morper announced her candidacy for the lieutenant governorship.
“I have toured every county, walked with and talked with many of you about your concerns,” Golden Morper said during her announcement. “My passion for representing others and my passion for improving our state have come together to create a vision…, a vision for New Mexico, a vision for us.”
“I strongly support our United States Constitution and the Second Amendment, along with the Freedoms and Liberties they ensure to us. But most importantly, I will represent you! I strongly support creating an economy that will benefit you. I strongly support protecting your Constitutional rights. I strongly support you in reaching YOUR goals. I am ready to serve you,” she concluded.
In 2020, Golden Morper ran for Congress in the Third District, winning a New Mexico Supreme Court case against far-left Secretary of State Maggie Toulouse Oliver who tried to keep her off the primary ballot.
Golden Morper, whose campaign theme plays off of her last name, “Our Golden Opportunity,” is a third-generation New Mexican, a Christian, a sister of the Philanthropic Educational Organization (P.E.O.), a real estate broker, an auctioneer, an ombudsman, and member of the Federation of Republican Women.
Throughout her campaign, she has attended many pro-law enforcement functions and has made respect for law enforcement, including officers from local sheriffs to the U.S. Border Patrol, a key issue in her campaign, amid a national assault on law enforcers, with many far-left initiatives targeted at “defunding” the police.
Golden Morper takes an advantage from other rumored candidates with months on the campaign trail and a fundraising edge as a declared candidate. The GOP nominee for lieutenant governor will face off against incumbent Howie Morales, a leftist Democrat who has been a rubber stamp for embattled Democrat Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham’s agenda.
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.
At the Piñon Post, we have been longtime watchdogs of politicians in the state, including monitoring their, in many cases, desperate ploys for cash with fundraising asks. One of the most common offenders who likes to pull at New Mexicans’ heartstrings to raise campaign cash is Ben Ray Luján.
During his race for U.S. Senate in 2020, Luján literally begged for donations, writing, “BEGGING you” in one email headline. Another email read, “I’ll beg if I have to. Please, I’m only 429 gifts short. Could you rush a lasting $10?”
But it’s not just the Piñon Post exposing Luján’s “the sky is falling” email messages. Now, even far-left, GOP-hating columnist Milan Simonich of the Santa Fe New Mexican is jumping aboard to call out Luján’s outright desperation with his fundraising strategy, despite his term not ending until 2026.
“With Luján, everything is about money. His abiding interest is collecting cash for his campaigns,” writes Simonich.
He pointed out a specific email from Luján titled “dialing for dollars,” which read, “We have fallen behind on our fundraising goals for our upcoming FEC fundraising deadline. This is a real problem, which could endanger everything we’ve worked so hard to build over the last few years. Instead of pulling Ben Ray away from doing his job to fundraise, we hope to make up this shortfall with your help.”
Simonich went off on Luján, writing the following:
What an admission. An ailing country is trying to recover from a pandemic, but Luján’s camp says the senator needs more of your money, or he might ignore the job he was elected to do.
Imagine the backlash if Republican Congresswoman Yvette Herrell announced she might spend her days soliciting campaign contributions instead of doing her job.
Herrell would take a public whipping. Critics all across New Mexico would call her greedy and pummel her for misguided priorities. Democrats might be incensed enough to find a candidate to run against Herrell, the only Republican in the state’s five-member congressional delegation.
Luján has been a senator for only six months. Yet he’s confident enough in the state’s double standard that he believes most people won’t care if a freshman Democrat puts fundraising ahead of work in the Senate.
The columnist noted how, unlike everyday New Mexicans who are not guaranteed a fat salary, Luján is sitting pretty in D.C. while New Mexicans still are forced to deal with the recovery from the economically devastating lockdowns from the pandemic.
Simonich wrote, “Many other members of Congress operate almost like Luján. They’re always asking for money, and they always claim the sky will fall if they don’t get it. The difference is not many others are brazen enough to announce they might ignore their job so they can solicit donations.”
The roasting of Luján didn’t come without bashing of Republicans in the state, although it shared a rare glimpse into even far-left extremists like Simonich not buying Luján’s dramatic fundraising strategies.
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.
On Friday, embattled Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, who has been criticized far and wide for her scandal-ridden tenure full of crotch-grabbing settlements and mismanaging taxpayer funds, is now lashing out at the Republican candidates for governor who are working to fire her in 2022.
In an email to supporters asking for money titled “calling out far-right extremism,” Lujan Grisham, who previously called anti-MLG protesters “QAnon lizard people,” has once again devolved to name-calling and gaslighting.
She wrote, “[A]ll our progress could be wiped away if Trump’s allies take control of the governorship.”
Her email continued:
I’ll be frank: The GOP candidates for Governor are a danger to our state’s progress. These candidates parrot Trump’s lies about the 2020 election and are hellbent on disenfranchising voters. Many of the GOP’s top picks also cater to far-right extremist groups – pushing hateful agendas to take away LGBTQ rights and reproductive freedom and threatening to roll back all of the progress we’ve made in the last two years.
We’ve seen what divisive, radical agendas do to states and their economies. The GOP’s slate of candidates for Governor are out of touch with New Mexicans. If they are elected, it would be disastrous for the people of New Mexico and our state’s economic progress.
… Please, friend, donate $10 – or whatever you can spare – by midnight tonight to help me keep our state safe from far-right extremism:
The latest attacks by Lujan Grisham appear to grasp for straws, bashing Republican opponents as “extremists” for wanting to fight election fraud and trying to claim Republcians’ economic policies would cripple New Mexico, despite her very own policies plunging New Mexicans into poverty while Republican-led states, such as North Dakota and Florida that did not lock down their citizens during the pandemic have rebounded tremendously, outperforming New Mexico’s snail-like recovery.
Three Republicans have announced their runs for governor, including business Karen Bedonie of Mexican Springs, Sandoval County Commissioner Jay Block of Rio Rancho, and Albuquerque financier Greg Zanetti of Albuquerque.
On Thursday, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) pressured the Alamogordo Public School (APS) Board of Education into submission with a letter that claimed sanctity of women’s and girls’ sports resolutions are “an act of violence,” writing that such policies violate state and federal law.
The letter was sent to Alamogordo Public Schools Board of Education President Angie Cadwallader, Alamogordo Schools Superintendent Jerrett Perry, Alamogordo Athletics Director, and Title IX Coordinator Johnnie Walker, as well as Republican Party of Otero County Chair Amy Barela and state Rep. Zach Cook, who represents the northern part of Otero County.
The APS Board was originally set to consider President Angie Caldwaller’s proposal to protect girls by having boys’ and girls’ sports remain exclusive to the biological gender of the athlete.
After the letter from the ACLU, the school board’s scheduled June 26 work session on the topic, as well as Critical Race Theory in social studies textbooks, was abruptly canceled.
The ACLU letter includes much rhetoric that goes beyond the scope of what the resolution does, claiming, “Beyond the potential legal consequences this proposed policy invites, it also generates an environment of fear that significantly and meaningfully impacts the lives of trans children that live in your district. Although your athletic director admits he is not aware of any trans athletes currently out in the district.”
In the ACLU letter, the group demanded the following:
1. Immediately pull this proposed resolution and make public that this has been done;
2. Make clear in a public form that the resolution was ill-advised and illegal;
3. Publish a document, signed by the School Board, clarifying that the district welcomes, supports, and affirms trans students of all kinds; and
4. Engage in trans-specific sensitivity training as a Board, and make this training available to district staff as well.
Supporters of Superintendent Jerrett Perry, who has been under fire from liberal members of the APS Board of Education, will meet at 5:30 p.m. on Friday, Juneau 25, 2021 in front of the flag pole at Alamogordo High School on 103 Cuba Ave. to pray for him as he fights to protect the children of Alamogordo.
ACTION ALERT: Contact the Alamogordo Public Schools Board of Education and ask them to not be deterred by the ACLU’s threats and support the sanctity of girls’ sports.
On Saturday, New Mexicans will gather in cities across the state to protest embattled Gov. Lujan Grisham’s continued school mask mandate in schools, forcing young children to sit for hours in classrooms and at playgrounds while fully masked.
According to a press release from the organizers, the New Mexico Freedoms Alliance, “Although over half the states in the USA have no school mask mandate, NM school children are still being forced to wear masks, even when playing outdoor sports in 100+ degree heat.” The group contends that unmasking athletes who have had the virus jab is not enough, and that “ALL students must be allowed to unmask, regardless of their vaccination status.”
“Parents, it is up to us to free our kids from MLG’s sports and school mask mandates. Our Governor knows how damaging masks are to our kids but continues her own agenda vs. protecting them. No one is going to step in and save our kids. It’s up to us. This stops when we stop allowing it to happen. This protest is our chance to expose her abuse,” said Artesia organizer Stacey Turner of Concerned Citizens for Artesia.
Las Cruces organizer Piper Gibson said, “Wake up New Mexico! It’s time to unmask our kids and ourselves!! The rest of the US is open; people are mask-free and there is no social distancing. Here we are still forcing our kids to wear masks, even outdoors in 100-degree heat. Kids in NM are not at risk and according to studies most of us have antibodies from previous infections. It’s time to cut out the nonsense!”
Here’s a list of all the NM localities holding these anti-masking of children rallies. All protests begin at 10:00 a.m. on Saturday, June 26, 2021, although the Raton rally will begin at 11:00 a.m.
ARTESIA – @ corner of Main & 7th @ 10am
LAS CRUCES – @ Albert Johnson Park on corner of main and Picacho
CARLSBAD – @ Carlsbad Waterpark; area between Water park and gazebo
ROSWELL @ Courthouse 4th and Main in Roswell
FARMINGTON – Animas Valley Mall Lawn near Applebee’s
ALBUQUERQUE – Target/Lowes on Paseo Del Norte and San Pedro
Another protest is happening on Saturday at the Roundhouse in Santa Fe, which is both a combination between an anti-masking of children protest and a protest against Gov. Lujan Grisham’s name-calling of New Mexicans as “QAnon lizard people.”
A press release from Leanna Derrick of Call to Action New Mexico reads, “We are publicly assembling as LiZARD People to stand united against illegal monetary incentives, discrimination, and masking our kids in schools and sport activities. WE have a Constitutional Right to Peacefully Assemble without reprisal by the government.”
New Mexicans are meeting for a caravan at 10:00 a.m. from the Bernalillo/Placitas Exit US and I-25 exit going to Santa Fe.
At 11:00 a.m., cars are set to meet at the Capitol for the pre-event at 11:30 a.m, and the gathering begins at 12:00 noon. At 1:00 p.m., there is set to be a prayer, the Pledge of Allegiance, the singing of the National Anthem, and then the main protest event with speakers.
