Two weeks ago I wrote “Toxic Culture, Not Gun Culture, Fuels Violence,” lamenting how we as a society have grown intolerant toward our fellow Americans, our logic hobbled by a short fuse over insignificant disagreements, the willingness to resort to violence as a result, as if the absence of civility itself might be spurring us toward civil war. On Thursday, at an event to erect a statue of New Mexico’s first Spanish governor, the conquistador Juan de Oñate, another protest turned violent. A man was shot during the altercation. He remains in the hospital as of this writing. The only video cir ..read more

If it weren’t for the accused seditionist Russian asset rapist in a golf shirt running against him, Joe Biden would be polling in the 20s right now. He and Trump are neck and neck in their presidential re-match, and nobody is excited about it. All Democrats need to do to retake the White House is to turn out their base. No Republicans cross-voters required—they could even lose a few states in 2024 and still pull out an electoral victory. The problem isn’t Biden’s policies. It’s not the corruption allegations with Hunter (“smartest guy I know”). A quarter of the country doesn’t even have an op ..read more

“Pick me! Pick me!” Even Democrats were left scratching their heads earlier this month when New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham declared a “public health emergency” to prohibit law-abiding citizens from carrying firearms in public. The gun ban instantly went viral, citizens took to the streets to protest the executive order, law enforcement refused to enforce it, and the courts immediately suspended the ban. Few politicians have done as much to raise the profile of Second Amendment rights in such a short time as Grisham has in September 2023. What was she thinking? The governor admitted dur ..read more

What’s the incentive to do the right thing if you only get chastised for it? The U.S. House of Representatives is considering a resolution to condemn Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham for “subverting the Second Amendment of the Constitution and depriving the citizens of New Mexico of their right to bear arms” following her short-lived gun ban in Albuquerque earlier this month. Gun violence is a problem that concerns everyone, but removing a law-abiding citizen’s means of self-defense does nothing to reduce violence. The governor admitted this when she replied, simply, “No,” when asked if criminals w ..read more

For politics junkies, cultural rot seems to come up in every conversation about the state of the nation. After small talk about kids and dogs and the latest home improvement projects, the topic always veers toward the world we’re leaving our kids. The homelessness and poverty and violence that anchors New Mexico to the bottom of national well-being rankings. Record homicides. Record suicides. Drug addiction. One story always comes to my mind as an example of how little hope is left: the murder of a 52-year-old at a movie theater in Albuquerque this June. It didn’t receive the attention of som ..read more

Eddie Moore / ABQ Journal – A photo is worth a thousand words. Two Republican state representatives are moving to impeach Democrat governor Michelle Lujan Grisham for violating her oath of office and New Mexicans’ constitutional rights. On Friday, the governor declared a public health crisis and banned the open and concealed carry of guns. Asked by Brian Kilmeade on “Fox and Friends” Monday morning if he thinks he can get Democrats on board, Rep. John Block (R-51) said he did. “I think there are many Democrats who absolutely could join us on this… We saw Ted Lieu, her former colleague in Cong ..read more

“Helping solves everything,” one official said. “If everyone just helps, there won’t be anyone who needs help anymore. See?” Interventionism. It worked out wonderfully for Native Americans, whose culture is mostly relegated to movies and history books. It has been a boon to New Mexico education, which ranks second to last in the nation despite more ideas, studies, programs, resources, and taxpayer money year after year. And it will be the cure-all for homelessness and the drug addiction, panhandling, and crime that plague the once beautiful city of Albuquerque. Helping is the modern approach t ..read more

Nobody in politics came away from the 2022 elections thinking, “If Republicans had only been more pro-life….” High hopes of a “red wave” in the midterms had Conservative pundits predicting a 30-to 100-seat pickup in Congress. Instead, Republicans entered the 118th Congress with a net gain of nine seats, a slim majority in the House, and one fewer seat as the minority party in the Senate. Pundits rightly blamed the June SCOTUS decision overturning a constitutional right to abortion. States now decide their own abortion laws. After decades campaigning against Roe v. Wade and Dobbs v. Jackson Wo ..read more

In January, New Mexico legislators considered a bill to ban expulsions in grade school. Crying racism, the state’s early childhood education secretary, Elizabeth Groginsky, claimed that “the white dominant culture” suspends or expels Blacks, Indians, Hispanics, and students with disabilities at disproportional rates to Whites. “We all have biases,” she told NM Political Report in February: “The white dominant culture has taught us to think things about people of color. Not intentionally but it’s very much implicit. It’s very saddening, actually, because that’s how ingrained it is i ..read more

Conservatives conserve nothing by losing elections. Shut up already. It’s hard to argue with anti-abortionists. “What could matter more than a human life?” they say. They are not wrong, only limited in their view of what all encompasses “life.” In America “Life” itself is the rock upon which “Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness” stands. And what kind of Life, at this point, is Conservatism conserving if they continue to lose elections? If the Republican Party holds to hardline stances on losing issues, they’re not just ceding elections. “Voter fraud” aside, a lost election is the result of a ..read more