Wall Being Built in NM by Private Right Wing Org Halted by Sunland Mayor, Poll Shows Sen JA Smith Vulnerable to Primary

By paulgibson51 on May 29, 2019 • ( 0 )

Open House at SF Dreamers, Teresa Leger Campaign Kickoff, Poll Shows Sen. John Arthur Smith very vulnerable to Democratic primary challenge, and Sunland Mayor puts halt to privately funded, privately constructed segment of Wall in NM. Plus a 90 second video assault on Fox News from GOP strategist.

Today’s post is a hodge-podge of news, events and updates. Tomorrow I will report on a tremendous Truthout article that describes our historic failure to incorporate the cost of fossil fuel and meat industries into their cost to consumers and how that bill is coming due with Nature being the impatient bill collector. It will be most worth your time to check that out. Read on.

Open House at Santa Fe Dreamers Today, 5-7pm. Santa Fe Dreamers has a nice new office and a lot of really cool staff working on amazing projects and they are psyched to share it with you. Feel free to invite anyone who might want to learn more about what they are doing here in Santa Fe, across NM, on the border, and in immigration prisons across the Southwest. Definitely one of our favorite organizations, doing heroic work under extraordinary circumstances. If you can’t make it, click here to make a donation. We did.

What a deal. You can drop by Dreamers at 5, talk with staff and Allegra Love the Director and then head over to hear from Teresa Leger as she kicks off her campaign for Congress in what is becoming an increasingly crowded field of candidates, the best of whom you can meet today. See below.

Teresa Leger Fernandez, Democratic Candidate for Congressional District 3, Wednesday May 29, 2019, 5:30-7:00pm. Adelitas Restaurant, 3136 Cerrillos Rd, Santa Fe. A mom of three boys, a cancer survivor, former acequia commissioner, an attorney for tribal sovereignty and advocate for Latino cultural expression, Homewise board member, business woman , active community participant and proud daughter of Northern New Mexico. Did I mention that she argued before the NM Supreme Court to force Santa Fe to adopt Ranked Choice Voting? Guess who won? Us, Come find out more about her plans and priorities as our next US Representative for Northern NM. Teresa will be my guest on Retake Our Democracy on KSFR this Saturday morning at 8:30am.

Wednesday, June 5, 6:30 pm – 8:30 pm, Retake Our Democracy, Input & Strategy Session at the Center for Progress Justice, 1420 Cerrillos, in Santa Fe. On May 9, we had a great turnout and a tremendous meeting where we began sketching a 2019-2020 legislative and election strategy, as well as an outreach and organizing process. If you missed that meeting, we took detailed notes and have provided a page with them all organized to follow easily. Take a look to get caught up on what transpired and what we will be discussing a week from today. And please let us know if you can make it by emailing me at Paul@RetakeOurDemocracy.org. Time to get moving in preparation for the Interim Hearings, 2020 Roundhouse Session, the June Primaries and the November general election. Clifford Rees will devote 20 minutes to present on how the Interim Hearings work and how we can effectively plug in and use our presence to cultivate the soil for the 2020 session. Please join us. To review the notes from the last meeting, click here.

Pat Monahan Reports That John Arthur Smith Could Be Very Vulnerable to 2020 Primary Challenge. Today, Patrick Monahan reported on a privately conducted poll of likely Democratic voters and found that only 44% had a positive view of Sen. Smith. And that was the good news. When informed of Sen. Smith’s opposition to HB 51, Abortion Decriminalization, background checks and increasing permanent fund appropriations to early childhood, only 22% of those polled said that he would get their vote. Word is that a challenger is in the offing, although Monahan’s report did not reference this. From Monahan: “The defeat of Smith could be the beginning of the end or indeed the end of the coalition of conservative Democrats and Senate Republicans that have for years ruled the Senate and today are a hurdle any Governor must jump over whenever they stray from the coalition way of thinking.” From our CD-2 trip, I can say that there will more primary challenges for some of members of the conservative Democratic Coalition. I’ve written often of late about the political calculus in the Senate and how legislators drafting bills must incorporate that calculus in their bill design if they want to see it get through the Senate. Should that Coalition weaken or dissolve a whole new game may be possible in the Roundhouse. Stay tuned.

Privately Funded Wall Construction Halted in Sunland, NM. Who Knew a Permit Was Required to Construct an International Border Wall? When Roxanne and I were driving through Las Cruces Friday, Roxanne spotted five or six semis carrying what looked like “the wall.” I tried to get a photo as we passed one truck (left and right). But when we shared this with LC activists, they assured us no construction had begun, while acknowledging it sure looked like Wall parts..Then Monday reports surfaced that a private group had indeed begun building a Wall segment in Sunland, NM. It turns out that a private group, We Build the Wall has raised $22M to do what the Federal government has been unable to do, as yet, actually begin building the Wall. And this effort in Sunland is their first segment of Wall to be produced.

Except they didn’t complete the permit process and they refused to allow city inspectors onto the private property where the Wall segment was being constructed. So yesterday, the Mayor of Sunland, Javier Perea ordered a cease and desist order saying that the Wall was started without a permit and that the Wall exceeds height requirements in Sunland. Kudos to Mayor Perea for having the gumption to stop this operation. Stay tuned.

In solidarity,

Paul & Roxanne

Fox News Called Out by GOP Strategist

Yesterday, we posted about the pernicious influence of Fox News citing one article in particular that focused on the Green New Deal and how states are now trying to implement state GNDs. But the author really got his facts wrong (not really a problem at Fox) as he focused on NM and its new Green New Deal legislation, SB 489. Well, apparently it isn’t just Democrats who are beginning to object to the non-stop flow of fact-feeble propaganda flowing out of Fox News. Yesterday a mime was published from Steve Schmidt, an established GOP strategist who parted ways with Trump in 2017 over the ban of CNN reporters from the White House. Since then, he has taken on Fox News, as well. See video below..