Truth About Wilderness Area
For months now, the Wilderness Alliance and the Progressive Democrats have been lying to the people of Dona Ana county bout what a Wilderness Area would mean to the people. It is a commendable thing to create a Wilderness Area if it benefits the wild life and the people as well, but the area of the Potrillos is not one of these areas.

To begin with the area Bingaman, Jeff Steinborn, Fischman and other who are pushing to make the area of the Potrillos into a Wilderness Area do not conform to the guidelines or intent of such an area, according to the 1964 Wilderness Bill. Part of the designation for a Wilderness Area is that it must be remote and must have no maintained roads in the area. The area Bingaman is trying to bring into a Wilderness Protection Area has not only maintained roads, but county roads that cut through the area, and though it is considered remote by someone from the city, there are ranchers who live and maintain ranches adjacent to the area in question.

An abstract of the definition of this bill is ‘A wilderness, in contrast with those areas where man and his own works dominate the landscape, is hereby recognized as an area and its community of life are untrammeled by man, where man himself is a visitor who does not remain.’

A further definition  of wilderness is: “An area of wilderness defined in this Act is an area of undeveloped Federal land, retaining its primeval character and influence, without permanent improvements or human habitation, which is protected and managed to preserve its natural conditions of which;
(1) It generally appears to have been affected primarily by the forces of nature, with the imprint of man’s work substantially unnoticeable;
(2) Has outstanding opportunities for solitude or a primitive and unconfined type of recreation;
(3) Has at least five thousand (5,000) acres of land, or is of a sufficient size as to make practicable its preservation and use in an unimpaired condition;
(4) And may also contain ecological, geological, or other features of scientific, educational, scenic or historical value.”

Man has been in this valley for thousands of years from nomadic Indians to Onate settlements from 1598 and Anglo settlements following. Their imprint is seen in all of the proposed wilderness areas. And as stated before there are many roads in the Potrillos, rancher improvements, such as fences, windmills, roads and trails, buildings, corrals and other improvements.

Food Water Control
If the problems of the run off in the Organ Mountains/Desert Peaks Wilderness Act are not addressed to accommodate flood waters with dikes, dams, diversion maintenance or such diversion construction, and also included in the proposed National Conservation area for protection against flooding, it will cause more flooding of homes in Hatch, Vado and Anthony as well as parts of El Paso in Texas and Tijuana, such as occurred in 2006.

The ranchers are the best conservators of the land since the Indians roamed the United states and do more to protect the land than anyone. It is a misguided conception that they are money hungry individuals, interested in only making a fortune at the expense of the land. If they were not to conserve the land, it would become useless and untenable for their cattle.

Limited Access
Currently 54% of lands in Dona Ana County, due to restrictions put on the land by U S Department of Fish and wildlife, U S Department of Agriculture, State of New Mexico, New Mexico State University, private land owners and the U S National Park Services. but most people currently have good access approximately 46%, to land under the jurisdiction of the Bureau of Land Management. The proposed Wilderness Area would limit access to over 400 square miles of BLM land, or over ¼ (26%) of all BLM acres in Dona Ana County.

Rhetoric Spread by Bingaman
Bingaman, the Wilderness Alliance and Jeff Steinborn are telling the people that the Border Patrol has a handle on the drugs and illegal immigration in this area and there is no problem with drug interdiction if the proposed Wilderness Area is enacted. This is an out and out lie. If the Organ and Potrillos are allowed to be designated as Wilderness Area, there can be no mechanical or motor driven devices in the area, According to the rules of the Wilderness Act of 1964. Bingaman will try to attach an addendum to the bill that will allow horses to be brought up by the (Border Patrol (ICE) and the County Sherriff’s office) for pursuit of criminals, drug smugglers and illegals crossing into our country from Mexico, (all of which are not just Mexican Nationals looking for work but also terrorists form the middle east as well) with pursuit of these criminals on horseback, who are driving motorized vehicles on the land in violation of the Wilderness area and evading the law.

What will this mean to the citizens of this state and county? You will see more drugs available to your children and the communities of the state; it will open a veritable safe conduit for all types of illegal activities, such as illegal aliens and drug smuggling. This will make it unsafe for the ranchers in the area of the Potrillos and the many county roads in the area are perfect for bypassing the border checkpoint on I-10.

Another problem that will develop is the same thing that has happened in southwestern Arizona, with the illegals and drug smugglers crossing into this country via the for pursuit of criminals, drug smugglers and illegals na O’Odham reservation. This large area cannot be effectively patrolled by either the ICE or the local Sherriff’s office because of its vast size and lack of roads and sheer desolation. It has become a favorite conduit for illegals and drug smuggling despite the many dangers involved. Backpacking drug smugglers (mules) and people (coyotes) leading unsuspecting illegals across this area is virtually uncontrolled. This not only lets many illegals into our country, but now is open season for the (mules) that bring in drugs.

There are literally hundreds of illegals that are left by the (coyotes) to die in the desert when they think there is a chance of getting caught by patrolling planes or Border Patrol on horseback or in four-wheel drive vehicles. Trash from water bottles to cast off clothing, diapers, etc. litter the land in places like arroyos, where these people either rest, or wait for a more opportune time to continue their trek into Tucson or towns further north. Mexican women are raped and killed; babies die and even some of the more hardy men. This is what could and probably would happen if this Wilderness bill passes.

Do not believe the lies of Bingaman and remember that Jeff Steinborn draws a salary from the Wilderness Alliance, so how can he represent your interests. Look at the truth and be informed. Let your voice be heard by your state and Federal representatives that you don’t wan this kind of thing happening in your area. Stop the Wilderness act before it is passed. It is harder to repeal a law, than to enact one.

Take a drive into this area and see what good the ranchers do as stewards of the land. See the problems that would arise with a Wilderness designation of this area. See the damage it would do to a working rancher if he could not use mechanized equipment or mechanized devices, to repair and maintain the land. It is a beautiful drive and well worth your time, (if it isn’t raining) and you can see the difference in land that has had no cattle on it for 20 years or more and then look at the difference where the ranchers have maintained the growth of native vegetation by rotating their pastures, much as a farmer would rotate crops to get the best yield.

Tea Party Core Values
The Tea Party convention was in full swing in Nashville, Tennessee and the fervor is running high. The Tea Party core values that are to uphold the Constitution, fight against excessive taxation and limited government, secure our nation and our borders seem to have struck a cord in many Democrats, Independents and Conservatives as well. It is no surprise that most of the core values are the same as those held by the Republican Party, but the same values that are held by millions of Conservative Democrats as well.

Where Is Tea Party Headed?
There seems to be some loss of credibility by the National Tea Party efforts though because some of the people trying to lead the party are trying to swing the Tea Party into a position of being an extension of the Republican Party. It has not seemed to make a difference in the number of people joining their voices to the organization and crying out the messages they propound. It must be said though that the Tea Party may be in some trouble in the future, if the Republican Party ceases trying to dominate the group.

Further Core Values
Being a Conservative first and a Republican second, I have my own set of core values that I fully stand behind. They take in the core values of the Tea Party but go much further into my conservative values. They are not necessarily in the order of importance to me but contain God, family, children,country, liberty and freedom, upholding the Constitution, securing our nation and our borders, fight against excessive taxation and for limited government. The first in my list of core values is of course God.

If we do not pursue the will of God as our nation was founded on, we are doomed to failure. There are many cults, sects or so called religious groups that would usurp what we have and would love to see it be destroyed. Much of this comes under the guise of helping the oppressed people in this country, such as the ACLU, the Progressive and the Islamic radicals that have taken over much of the Muslim faith and many other groups. These organizations do not want to help the oppressed of this or any other nation. They want to control the minds of the people, control the actions of the free nations, turning them into socialist and communist nations.

We must not stand idly by while this happens, nor should we bow to any of these groups. We have what the rest of the world wishes they could have and they will expend any effort or wile to get it. What they do not understand is that it will not be there when they complete their missions, for it will crumble into dust.

History has seen many powerful nations and city nations fall, such as the “Roman Empire, which at one time controlled the known world, the Ottoman Empire, Germany, Russia, and Argentina to name a few. The list goes on as do the people who fight against what they do not understand and what they do not have.

One of the Ten Commandments is “thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s house” and the United States is our house. We should adhere to its Constitution and protect it with our very lives if need be. This is the only way to preserve what we have and wish to save for our children, and our children’s children.

The Tea Party is a good group that is fighting to preserve what we have in this nation, but they cannot do it alone. It takes all the American people pulling together, working out our problems, preserving the structure that was set down in 1776 by a group of very wise men. The Boston Tea Party before our present day Tea Party led the way, but it took the rest of the people to work as one to succeed in bringing forth a nation.

Death  Comes To Many
Many who were here in 1990 remember the sad day of February 10, 1990 as the day they lost family and friends in the massacre that took place when two men robed the Las Cruces Bowl and shot seven people, killing four of them. Many more will look back on this day as a day that brought death to the doors of a once peaceful city. The pain they must suffer in this time will never go away, it will live in their memories for the rest of their lives.

Ida Holguin will never be the same because of the trauma she suffered after being shot in the head. Her life had to be relearned: remembering her home became a strange place to her, learning the basic skills that she once took for granted all over again as though she had just been reborn. Regaining all the skills that were lost to her was a trial she would endure for many years to come.

The sad part of it all is that the two people who committed this heinous crime have never been brought to justice. Crime Stoppers has a reward for the capture and conviction of the duo, and detectives are still investigating the 20-year-old crime, but this will not bring much closure to the people who lost a loved one, until the perpetrators are caught. There is a gnawing hunger for justice for their loved ones and family that continues for the victims’ families that just won’t go away. It will live on until there is a solution to the crime, and the ‘why’ for it will live on for the rest of their life.

To execute so many people for a paltry sum of money is terrible, but this is the world we live in today. It is a world that has become so violent that we look across our borders to Juarez with little shock at the numbers killed in the last year with a shake of our head but little empathy with the victims or their families. We have become so used to violence that it has become commonplace in our society.

Living With Violence
It is a sad thing when we as people have turned so far away from God, have become so callused by that same violence that we think of it a common circumstance. I have had many people who have told me they are afraid to go into Juarez because of the killing that goes on there. My answer to this is, you don’t have to go to Juarez to lose your life, look around you at the violence in your own neighborhood, the drive by shootings, the robberies, the stabbings and all the other crimes of violence that happen far too often.

The respect we have for one another and that is taught from our childhood is not engrained in the child deep enough. Much of this is due to the lack of discipline that has been taken from the family, and the lack of the teachings of Christ.

There was a day not too many years past that I can remember leaving my home unlocked and feeling safe in my mind that everything would be safe until my return. I don’t feel this way any more. Even locking my doors isn’t enough to make me feel safe about my possessions. Now we have burglar alarms, neighborhood watches, and so many other devices to deter crime, yet we do not feel safe even on the streets.

We are afraid of being mugged, shot in a drive by gang shooting, robbed of our possessions at gun point, assaulted on the streets and campuses of the universities and schools, just to name a few. The question in most of our minds is what we can do about it. What can we do to stop the violence that has so encroached on our lives? Some of the answers lie in not fearing fear itself, of not walking with our eyes darting around for the next violent act to happen.

We need to be aware of our surroundings at all times, put our faith in God to protect us, work with the authorities when a crime happens, not being afraid to become involved and living our lives according to the golden rule. Living in fear is similar to being a prisoner in our own environment. The rest of the answer and by all means the most important, is living our lives as children of Christ. If we do these things, God will take care of the rest. Remember that Christ can do all things. To Him nothing is impossible. All we have to do is ask.

Leadership
The final answer to our violent society is better leadership by our government. How can we believe in our neighbors and fellow men when we are subjected to a leadership that sells us out at every turn? I am a conservative, with strong beliefs in God, family, home, freedom, secure borders, secure country and the Constitution. If you believe in the teaching so Jesus Christ, how can you be other than a conservative. He teaches that we should love one another, be kind to one another, respect our elders, do good unto others and live in peace. How many of our leaders espouse these teachings? 

What can we learn from all this? We can learn to replace the ones who work against the teaching of the Bible, the men and women who take advantage of us and who steal from us through our taxes, our children’s education, and the very bread that we eat. We can stop being sheep and fight for what we want and need, just as the Christians from the Bible did when they were oppressed.

Forming Of A Government
What goes on in Washington never ceases to amaze me, with the present administration blaming Bush for their foibles. Every President since the turn of the century has tried to pass the blame to the one before, especially if it was a different party. For a legislature to believe the rhetoric is bull to begin with, because most of the problems could have been stopped by the Congress and the Senate. It is simply ‘passing the buck’; trying to take the blame from the present administration’s shoulders.

The blame lies with the administration in power, not the President before. Though all administrations have made their mistakes, it is not the President who is singularly to blame. The President is only the elected leader with limited power to act. It takes the Senate and the Congress (in agreement) to make policy and law. When our founding father’s formed our constitution and our form of government, they saw that a need was there for a check and balance system.

This is why the Senate and Congress, or the legislative branch of government is there to pass our laws. The President has power to use executive privilege in emergency situations, but it is not the enactment of laws. Thereby the two branches of government, the Executive and the legislative branches, have to agree as a majority on each enactment passed into law.

This was not enough for the founding fathers, so they placed a third branch of government in power over both these, the judicial branch was formed, to keep the other two from gaining total power. When the executive and legislative branches abused their power or did something that was against the rules of the Constitution it is the judicial branch in place to correct these mistakes and bring our government back on track.

This is one reason that each President is elated when they can appoint ne people to the Supreme Court. Those appointments do however have to be passed by the Congress or judicial branch of the government. In essence if an appointed candidate to the Supreme Court is too far ‘left leaning’ or too far ‘right leaning’, the legislative branch (which is made up of both parties and even a third party) can override the appointment in many cases. This keeps the balance of power fair and representative of the people for the life of those appointed to the bench.

It is another reason for keeping the balance on the Supreme Court close to equal. They are the final say as to our government and its workings. Their appointment is for life or retirement. Sometimes the Supreme Court becomes unbalanced when a judge steps down or retires during the tenure of one side or the other, but it usually stays pretty well balanced. This is supposedly our protection from a totalitarian government taking control of the existing form we have. It is a Republic form of government, and has proved to be the best form in the world for the last two hundred years.

I can remember, as many of you can, when a Democrat President coined the phrase “the buck stops here”. He pretty much adhered to this phrase during his tenure as President, but like all humans he too disavowed certain mistakes as not his doing, but he couldn’t pass it on to the previous President, because that President was also a Democrat. In this case he had to stand behind most of his actions or blame the Senate and Congress, which he did on occasion.

Change In Our Government
When a President preaches change, but gives no direction in which he wants to change it, we wind up with someone like Barack Obama, who thinks he can change our government to a system that is totally out of context with the founding fathers and the Constitution of the United States, a government that has proven to work better than any other form of government in the entire world. True it isn’t perfect, but it has proven better than Nazi, Communist, Socialist, Dictatorship or the Oligarchy we see in many of the nations to our south.

What does our African Colonialist President see for our utopian future? He sees a downtrodden black race, whose rights have been trampled on for generations by the white authoritarian government that ruled Africa for the last three hundred years. He sees slaves that have not been given equal chance in this country since their freedom after the Civil War. Is any of this true or is it simply in the mind of the President? Has the Republican Party been the oppressor of the black race or has it been the Democrat Party who wanted slavery to continue and fought the Civil War to perpetuate the slavery system?

Wasn’t it the Democrat Party that formed the Klu Klux Klan, hung innocent people in the name of a supreme white race? Wasn’t it the Democrat Party that passed the Jim Crow laws and fought against the progress of the black race? Wasn’t it a member of the Democrat Party, (Governor Wallace) that used his power in the State of Alabama to put down the marches for civil rights by Martin Luther King, yet try to shift the blame to the Republican Party for all these deeds?

Wasn’t it the Democrat Party that went after the unions in this country to break them, while spouting rhetoric that they were the working man’s party? What party was in office when John L Sullivan’s union lost most of its power? Who sent Jimmy Hoffa to prison on a miniscule charge? In some cases, putting down corruption was used as the excuse. Was this really the reason, or did they want men with that much power out of the way?

Yet Obama wants to take us into a world of Socialism, or Communism, or a combination of both, that has proven not to work throughout history. When you take away a man’s right to invent or excel with his own ingenuity, you doom a society to failure. Why should a man break his back to excel or invent new devices if all the profit goes to the government to be distributed among the people that do not excel or invent? Whey should a man use his mind to create, when it will all be divided among those who do not create?

There is an old adage or cliché that says, “Be careful what you wish for, because you just might get it.” Have you truly thought about what this adage means? We have a form of government that has made us one of the richest countries in the world even though the rest of the world said it couldn’t work. What do we have to look forward to if we turn away from God and lose our very souls? Where will we turn when the government is changed and we lose all we own?

Look back at the roman Empire, Argentina, Mexico, Haiti, China, Japan, Germany, Italy, Uganda and all the other forms of government that are totalitarianistic governments, or have been, and ask yourself if you want to travel that road. Why do we still stand as a beacon to the world? Why are the people of the world fighting to get into our country? Why do they want to destroy what they cannot attain? Think very hard on that cliché; “Be careful what you wish for.” Do you really want what many of you are wishing for?

No Fair Elections For New Mexico
Well the bill for Photo Voter ID has died in committee. When it was voted on the first time around it was a tie, but the Chair called for a second vote, but due to the shenanigans of the Democrats bringing in two more representatives from the hall, it was voted down. This is proof positive that the Democrats that are in office now are the lackeys and boot lickers of Bill Richardson and do not want a fair and impartial election in this state. This is for the voters to remember when they go to the polls this year.
We need to sweep the Round House clean of these people and get on with the real business of running a clean state. They have had the last seventy years to play the games that have cost the voters of this state money for so many idiotic projects that we now are faced with them raising our taxes to cover the deficit the incumbents have gotten us into. If the rest of the people living in New Mexico are not fed up with high taxes, deals behind closed doors, malfeasance of office and just plain old down right crookedness then something has to be wrong with us as voters.
Let your voices be heard loud and clear when you go to vote this year. Let the crooks, Richardson and Denish know you will not sit still for this kind of treatment any more. Vote them out of office and hope that Richardson will leave the state quickly. They have done enough damage to a state that is not only poor, but is overburdened with high taxes.

Time For a New Game
It is time for new people who will take the interests of the voters to heart and give them a state to be proud of. Why do we have to be looked down upon by the rest of the nation and laughed at for the crooked dealings? Aren’t we entitled to fair treatment by the people we elect to office? Don’t we have the right to trust our legislative branches and our Governor? Where are the people that are put in office to protect us against theft and malfeasance, such as our State Auditor and our Attorney General, when these crimes are committed against the people?

Why do we have to wait on one honest person in the federal government to jump in and prosecute or bring to task these miscreants? And why is it that the Obama administration stops them when they do? The only people that have shown they will take down the elected or hired officials of this state are Susana Martinez and Errol Chavez with a few others like them that have put their lives on hold to serve the people of this state.

We need a complete new government in Santa Fe, with honest people, not what we now have. The Photo Voter ID bill was defeated because the Progressive Democrats control our legislature and do the bidding of Bill Richardson, but we can change the face of our state by getting rid of them. When Richardson ran the first time for Governor and won it was his fault, when he won the second time it was our fault for letting him lull us into a euphoric attitude by spewing his lies to the voters of this state.

Richardson and his crew have wasted money on a Rail Runner that doesn’t have enough riders to support the maintenance of the system let alone repay the cost of building it. He has sold the people of Dona Ana a bill of goods by promoting the building of the Space Port that is costing us millions of dollars each year, yet all the promised benefits that we were supposed to get for building a facility for private enterprise, have yet to evolve.

These are just two costly and foolish endeavors Mr Richardson has wasted millions of our tax dollars on. Then to add insult to injury, he and our State Treasurer invested the state’s money in a way that caused us to lose millions more tax dollars, just because he wanted to play for the pay.

I can’t speak for the rest of the people of this state, but I am definitely tired of this type of government. It would be refreshing to wake up and find we had a new and better one in Santa Fe. The question we must all ask ourselves is what we will do to change the face of our state and our nation.