I have to hand it to them, it's an incredible bit to publicly lose a game of chicken, admit that's what happened, and then spend the next day lecturing everyone about courage and tenacity

I’m luckier than many Americans I don’t need life saving medication on a daily basis, so when I pay quadruple insurance premiums for worse coverage and doctor prescribed medication is denied by my shitty ACA insurance I will still be able to work and pay my taxes so elected officials can get rich

The Journal took home some NMPA awards this weekend, including one that came home with me.

The right to make fun of feds shall not be infringed…

“…Many of them are not aware that we are still here.”

From my colleague, Dan Boyd…

In 2022, a man stopped by his mom's house in Deming to retrieve his ice cooler. His stepfather shot him to death in front of his kids. Today, the Supreme Court of New Mexico upheld the stepfather's murder conviction.

I’m just a Giglio And everywhere I go Police are getting fired cuz of me…

Speaker Johnson is officially keeping the House in recess again next week. This will be the eighth consecutive week the House has been out of session. The chamber hasn't met since Sept. 19. Adelita Grijalva, who was elected on Sept. 23, has not been sworn in.

Proselytizing has really escalated. I've been approached lately while studying at the public library, in cafes while I'm obviously working, even while pumping gas. I've seen cars pull over to accost me while walking down the sidewalk. 1/3

A tale of two almanacs.

Almost like New Mexico should have a full-time legislature, nu?

The right to bear sandwiches shall not be infringed: Jury calls baloney.

Every day, as a Jew, I am going to call the ADL's tip line to report Mamdani anti-Semitism with at least three seismically moronic insights. I will begin with an accusation that the new mayor prefers strawberry and blueberry bagels to savory, and sometimes schmears butter. Fuck Jonathan Greenblatt.

Not the right tie, and too narrow for his face. It’s inside the line of his ears which makes it clownish.

The election places Holguin among the youngest mayors in the country and in New Mexico history. Holguin is the same age as Sunland Park Mayor Javier Perea when Perea was appointed to his office in 2012.

Sunland Park is growing. Some at the county are worried that residential expansion is on a collision course with industrial growth.

One of my favorite features of New Mexico law is that if an election is tied, and remains tied after a recount, the election is decided by a game of chance. In 2021, I drove across the state to witness this and it was well worth the trip.

Before clicking and sharing the articles, maybe pause. There is no such thing as a tariff on people. It is nonsense. The governor who made the remark about New Yorkers moving to his state is trolling and certain online personalities and digital newsrooms are running with it for attention and clicks.

If the jury convicts with a blue cheese enhancement, he could do some time.

Western New Mexico University’s former president, Joseph Shepard, is suing the university and several present and former state officials alleging that they conspired to “destroy his reputation.”

Sapulpa’s downtown parking plan threatens several historic buildings A consultant for the city of Sapulpa, Oklahoma, has proposed tearing down five historic buildings in the downtown area to address parking concerns. The plan comes in the wake of a survey of residents by Planning Consultant Scott…

A strange movie that was something of a trailblazer for independent film in the Mesilla Valley. There is not even a listing for it in the vaunted Psychotronic Encyclopedia of Film, despite it earning a nationwide release in 1966.

Generally I like this translation of Epictetus and the annotations, but coming across “user-friendly” in one of the discourses was jarring, a bit overly contemporary and wedded to software design and marketing. Suddenly I’m wondering if Epictetus was a proto-influencer…

New from Desert Sage…

ICE Agent, 7-Year-Old Both Wearing Same ‘Military Commando’ Halloween Costume

A jury on Thursday afternoon found former Las Cruces police officer Felipe Hernandez guilty of voluntary manslaughter in the 2023 death of Teresa Gomez.

The defense rested this afternoon in the murder trial of former Las Cruces police officer Felipe Hernandez. Hernandez spent most of the day on the stand, followed by an expert witness called by the defense. Closing arguments tomorrow, and then it will be in the hands of jurors.

This is stunning and I have TONS of questions about how this story was reported and the editing process, which have all been asked and apparently the Times of London has declined to answer. You can't just delete the story and say "our bad" and pretend it didn't happen.

Second day of testimony in the murder trial of former Las Cruces police officer Felipe Hernandez.

Watched court testimony get snagged for quite a while today because no one could immediately convert metric to English system. Prosecutor struggled to translate centimeters and kilograms. Expert witness pathologist said “my whole life…” (not to mention most of the world) “…is metric, sorry.”

David Clements was fired from his tenure-track faculty job at New Mexico State University in 2021 for refusing to comply with COVID-19 campus policies. Now, citing actions by HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., he is suing the university for reinstatement, claiming his views have been vindicated.

Google's digital parrot, Gemini, claims in search results that Dorothy Parker was once NMSU's provost. (Mixing her up with former provost *Carol* Parker.) Familiar AI stupidity, of course, but what a delightful thing to imagine. Regents meetings would have been lively.

Small thread: We could begin to repair this republic if the Sunday Q&A panels were replaced. The ask-a-question-get-a-lie-ask-another-question formats no longer work in this post-fact hellscape. Instead, I propose a single, one-hour block entitled not Meet The Press or Face The Nation but rather...

We are now grabbing visiting journalists and expelling them for speaking before groups the administration does not like or who criticize U.S. allies. It also furthers the administrative narratives that criticism of Israel is inherently anti-Semitic, as a way to police thought. Happy Monday.

From my colleague, Hannah Garcia.

Roar!

The FAA concluded a four-month investigation into the municipal airport last month.

Opponents filed separate civil court petitions this week asking a state district court to review county ordinances supporting the financing of Project Jupiter.

The Pentagon is barring nearly all Defense Department personnel, from talking to Congress or state lawmakers unless they have received prior approval from the agency's office of legislative affairs, according to a memo signed by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, obtained by CNN. https://cnn.it/4qiv1zH

State lawmakers assigned to the Legislature's Federal Funding Stabilization Subcommittee visited the border Tuesday to hear reports from the industrial and agricultural sectors. They also paid a visit to one of the busiest ports of entry on the U.S.-Mexico boundary.

Haussamen continues digging into the evolving documentation codifying Project Jupiter. He also reports one of two lawsuits that have been filed in District Court challenging the counties authorization of industrial revenue bonds to finance it. haussamen.com/2025/10/20/p...

“Dear students, I’m scared too. Let fear keep us honest. Let uncertainty manifest possibility. In the classroom and on the page and, when the moment comes, in the streets, you and I will meet.”

From Desert Sage: A tale of presidential jests and hot mic moments, plus an opportunity to see Sage in person…

The town’s original mercantile has been in continuous operation for generations and has served hot meals for nearly 40 years. This fall, it was selected as one of 50 establishments awarded a grant through a program supporting small historic restaurants nationwide.

I remember certain “hot mic” moments in which former presidents were caught making jokes or comments about people that were considered unbecoming of their office, and the scandals lasted days or weeks. This is a whole other league of inappropriate, and barely a blip in 2025.

That’s exactly what my hometown paper has become. This is what Gannett does. Gannett is the Dutch elm disease of local news.

It’s a work-flow problem. Hyperlinks generally fall to reporters, it takes a little time to set each one up, and when you’re pushing deadline they are easy to skip, especially those days when I’m handing in two or three things and I’m getting text messages asking where the hell my copy is…

At the Journal, this has happened to be zero times. I almost never interact with the owners. There is no “The Message” coming from the corner office. The news editor just wants us to hand in our shit on time, spell the names right, and leave out the Oxford commas.

Sometimes I wish we could livestream newsroom meetings as a window into how news is discussed, produced and edited by those doing the work. You would hear a lot of swearing and dark jokes. It would also refute a lot of popular rumors about what influences us.