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President Obama on Wednesday will designate nearly half a million acres in New Mexico as a national monument, the latest in a series of executive actions intended to improve environmental protections of federal lands. The president will sign a proclamation establishing the Organ Mountains Desert Peaks National Monument, the largest such designation of his presidency, during a ceremony at the Department of the Interior, the White House said Monday. It will be the 11th time the president has established a national monument during his term, and the largest designation in terms of land mass during his presidency.By contrast, former President...

Obama Administration is set to unilaterally designate a 600,000 acre national monument in New Mexico near the U.S.-Mexican border. The sanctuary, which will be called the Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks National Monument, has drawn sharp criticism from law enforcement who say it will impede border security. "By creating this monument, President Obama is ensuring a pathway to get drugs into the country" Zack Taylor, Chairman of the National Association of Former Border Patrol Officers, told Breitbart Texas. The Obama Administration will ultimately control how much access Border Patrol agents will have to the land, including whether or not they will be...

President Obama on Wednesday will declare a national monument in southern New Mexico, delivering a win for environmentalists but angering ranchers and local law enforcement, who say the land restrictions will end up creating a safe haven for drug cartels to operate within the U.S. Mr. Obama will declare about 500,000 acres as the Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks National Monument. About half of that land is expected to be set aside as wilderness, meaning it will be closed to vehicles and construction.

A pending proposal from President Obama to create a vast new wilderness area on the U.S.-Mexico border is drawing criticism from Republican lawmakers and local law enforcement officials who say it would significantly impede border security. The Obama administration is set to designate a 600,000 acre national monument in south-central New Mexico to be managed and controlled by the Bureau of Land Management, a federal agency. The designated land will be called the Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks National Monument, and environmentalists have long-sought the designation.

Los Alamos National Laboratory packed 57 barrels of nuclear waste with a type of kitty litter believed to have caused a radiation leak at the federal government's troubled nuclear waste dump, posing a potentially "imminent" and "substantial" threat to public health and the environment, New Mexico officials said Monday. State Environment Department Secretary Ryan Flynn issued a formal order giving the lab two days to submit a plan for securing the waste containers, many of which are likely stored outdoors on the lab's northern New Mexico campus or at temporary site in west Texas.

Challengers see themselves in the Texas senator, even in races where their odds of an upset are considered steeper than Cruz’s surprise victory over a GOP establishment figure two years ago. He’s made endorsements in the Oklahoma and Nebraska Senate races, plus the Nebraska gubernatorial race, and sent almost $26,000 to federal candidates through his leadership PAC. “Ted Cruz would be extremely helpful as an endorser and a fundraiser,” said C. Edmund Wright, a consultant to longshot South Carolina Senate hopeful Lee Bright, in an email. “Rand Paul and Mike Lee would be great also.” But, he said, “the reason...

Veterans with serious heart conditions, gangrene, and even brain tumors waited months for care at the Albuquerque VA hospital, a whistleblowing doctor tells The Daily Beast. Add Albuquerque, New Mexico’s to the growing list of VA hospitals accused of keeping secret waiting lists to hide delays for veterans seeking medical care. And it may already be too late to get to the truth and find out what harm, if any, was done to veterans there—VA officials are already destroying records to cover their tracks, a whistleblower inside the hospital tells The Daily Beast. Last month, word broke that the Department...

Albuquerque police promoted a commander who was accused in a lawsuit of burning off part a homeless man’s ear with a stun gun, officials announced Thursday. Albuquerque Police Department Chief Gorden Eden said in a statement he was promoting two Albuquerque commanders to the newly created rank of major in response to a harsh U.S. Justice Department report that was critical of Albuquerque police’s use of excessive force and demanded the agency adopt a number of reforms. Foothills Area Commander Timothy Gonterman and Criminal Investigations Commander Anthony Montano will now oversee the East and West Side Field Services Divisions respectively,...

A rural New Mexico county has voted to defy the federal government and give a rancher's cattle access to a watering hole fenced off by the Forest Service in the latest dispute over federal control of public land in the U.S. West. Commissioners in Otero County voted 2-0 on Monday night to authorize Sheriff Benny House to open a gate allowing nearly 200 head of cattle into the 23-acre area despite Forest Service restrictions. A third commissioner was out of town for the vote. "We are reacting to the infringement of the U.S. Forest Service on the water rights of...

There is something very, very wrong with the Albuquerque, New Mexico police department, and the citizens have just about had enough. Before I get into the heart of this story, I need to provide you with a little background. The Albuquerque Police Department (APD) is well known for its outrageous and inappropriate use of violence. So much so that it has been under investigation by the Department of Justice, which wrote a letter to the Mayor of Albuquerque on April 10, 2014 condemning the police force. Here’s an excerpt from the letter: Based on our investigation, we have reasonable cause...

In what some are calling a replay of the standoff with Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy, a New Mexico county board agreed Monday to instruct the sheriff to remove the Forest Service gates blocking thirsty cattle from reaching water, setting up a clash with federal agents over state water rights and endangered species. The Otero County Commission voted 2-0, with one commissioner absent, to “immediately take steps to remove or open gates that are unlawfully denying citizens access to their private property rights.” Ranchers became alarmed earlier this year when Forest Service officials refused to open gates allowing cattle in the...

Forest Service says it's mouse habitatThe Obama administration’s crackdown on Western land use has sparked a furor over the Forest Service’s decision to fence off a creek used by thirsty cattle in drought-stricken Otero County, New Mexico. The Otero County Commission is scheduled to meet Monday to discuss whether to order the sheriff to open the gates against the wishes of Forest Service officials, who have argued that the fence is needed to protect the Agua Chiquita riparian area and habitat for the New Mexico meadow jumping mouse. Otero County Sheriff Benny House said he worries that the increasingly tense...

The May 10 All-Terrain Vehicle (ATV) ride into restricted Recapture Canyon is still moving forward, threatening a collision between local residents and the Bureau of Land Management (BLM). The ATV ride is planned by a group of Blanding residents in an attempt to force the BLM to make a decision on who has jurisdiction within the canyon, which is just east of Blanding. Motorized access to the trail has been in dispute since the BLM forced its closure in 2007. San Juan County Commissioner Phil Lyman, who has planned the ride, does not plan to back down to mounting pressure...

When Fracing Was Nuclear - Einstein, The A-Bomb, & Project Gasbuggy Some of the finest mountain scenery in the Southwest US is found in the 1.5 million acres covered by the Carson National Forest. Elevations rise from 6,000 feet to 13,161 feet at Wheeler Peak, the highest point in New Mexico. Beneath the forest lies the Woodward shale, which was identified in 1967 as an ideal testing ground for an aggressive new method using nuclear explosions to extract natural gas from shale rock. Deemed Project Gasbuggy, the industry (and government) forayed into "atomic fracing." The technique employed was dubbed "nuclear...

Only a few weeks after President Obama's controversial decision to delay the building of the Keystone XL pipeline, the Obama administration is expected in the next several weeks to approve a 500-mile green energy transmission line project running through Arizona and New Mexico that his own Defense Department says may pose "an unacceptable risk to national security." The multibillion-dollar electric power line project, financed by a group called SunZia, would connect wind power facilities in eastern New Mexico to the electric grid and supply power to Arizona and California. About 45 miles of the transmission lines would be located in...

... About 200 of residents and game enthusiasts gathered early Saturday in southeastern New Mexico to watch backhoes and bulldozers dig through the concrete-covered landfill in search of up to a million discarded copies of “E.T. The Extraterrestrial” that the game’s maker wanted to hide forever.... The “E.T.” game is among the factors blamed for the decline of Atari and the collapse in the U.S. of a multi-million dollar video game industry that didn’t bounce back for several years. Tina Amini, deputy editor at gaming website Kotaku, said the game tanked because “it was practically broken.” A recurring flaw, she...

I’ve always thought there must be a special place in this world for women who call other women bitches. And now I’ve found it. It’s the New Mexico Governor’s Office. And I’ve always wondered if there is any place on the planet where people call other people “retard.” There is. It’s on the communications staff of the New Mexico Department of Human Services, which serves developmentally delayed clients. We know this thanks to a Mother Jones magazine story that included leaked email exchanges and sound bites from debate preparation sessions while Susana Martinez was running for governor in 2010. There...

A new report analyzing the financial ramifications of a takeover of some of Nevada’s millions of acres of federal lands suggests the state would benefit from such a transfer. A transfer of 4 million acres of U.S. Bureau Land Management land could bring in anywhere from $31 million to $114 million a year, based on a review of four Western states that have significant amounts of trust lands under their control, the report says.

From a necktie to heartburn medication, from personal cellphone bills to new tires, Gov. Susana Martinez’s chief of staff used his government-issued credit card to make thousands of dollars in personal purchases in violation of state policy and procedures. Keith Gardner has reimbursed the state nearly $5,000 since August 2012 for more than 40 card purchases at Walmart, Best Buy, Target and more. And after a Journal inquiry, he has paid $241 in interest required under state policy and procedures when an employee uses a government credit card for personal purchases. Using a state government credit card for any purpose...

Sounds like the very definition of elitism. The elites in Washington DC, most of whom have never set foot in Nevada (outside a casino), controlling what the local citizens can or cannot do on the land within their state boundaries? This is not the way America was intended to be governed. Ever heard of local control? Self-government? States rights? To many of us out here in the West, pursuit of happiness means ranching, farming, logging, mining, drilling, hunting, fishing, or just living in and enjoying God's great outdoors. It's un-American and unconstitutional for unelected, unaccountable bureaucrats in Washington DC to...