Udall, Heinrich Statement on Militia Group Illegally Operating in New Mexico

by: Senator Martin Heinrich (D-NM)

Washington, D.C. - April 23, 2019 - (The Ponder News) -- U.S. Senators Tom Udall (D-N.M.) and Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) issued the following statement in response to reports of a militia group illegally detaining migrant families and asylum seekers at the border in New Mexico:

“Reports of a militia group illegally operating in New Mexico and intimidating asylum seekers must be immediately investigated by the proper authorities. Vigilante groups attempting to utilize authorities reserved for law enforcement cannot be tolerated. Threatening innocent children and families fleeing violence and seeking asylum is unacceptable and flies in the face of our values as a state and a nation. We will closely monitor this situation and work with local and federal authorities to ensure a full investigation, and that public safety and the rule of law is upheld.”

New Mexico: Comments on Anti-Free Speech Measures Ignored

Source: Concerned Veterans for America

Albuquerque, NM - October 7, 2017 (The Ponder News) -- Concerned Veterans for America (CVA) released a digital ad focusing on New Mexico Secretary of State Maggie Toulouse Oliver’s refusal to acknowledge and consider the individual comments of hundreds of New Mexicans opposing her anti-free speech measure.

After several public hearings, the Secretary’s office received over 750 comments from citizens opposed to her rule, which will force citizens to publicly list personal information in order to support a cause in the state. However, Secretary Oliver refused to count these comments individually because they were submitted using CVA’s digital tool, which allowed New Mexicans to submit official comments to her office opposing the measure. This was not a distinction the Secretary chose to draw after the first round of public comments, when several citizens submitted comments from a form letter that favored her measure.

“Government officials abusing their power to shut out the voices who disagree. This is exactly why we need to protect freedom of speech,” the ad states. The group urges New Mexicans to take action and oppose the measure by contacting the Secretary’s office.



Concerned Veterans for America (CVA) Policy Director Dan Caldwell issued the following statement:

“Secretary Oliver has shown she is willing to do whatever it takes to limit free speech in New Mexico – even silencing the citizens she was elected to protect. It is startling to see her ignore hundreds of New Mexicans who have every reason to oppose this deeply flawed measure. We share the concerns of citizens who believe the Secretary is overstepping her authority by ignoring New Mexico’s legislative process in an attempt to force this rule into law.”

CVA released a coalition letter of 29 individuals representing 14 different organizations, including former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson, to abandon her measure.

Governor Martinez vetoed S.B. 96, a similar anti-free speech measure that passed the legislature in April. CVA led a coalition of eleven different organizations and sent a letter to Governor Martinez asking her to reject the measure.

Earlier last year, CVA started “Defend the First,” a project dedicated to beating back threats against free speech at the state and federal level.

Foundation for Moral Law Defends the Ten Commandments

Montgomery, AL - August 9, 2017 (The Ponder News) -- The Foundation for Moral Law, a nonprofit corporation dedicated to the defense of the Constitution as strictly interpreted by its Framers, rose to the defense of the Ten Commandments in an amicus brief filed Monday with the Supreme Court on behalf of the City of Bloomfield, New Mexico.

After the City allowed a private person to place a monument of the Ten Commandments on the lawn of its city hall, two Wiccans successfully challenged the monument in federal court as a violation of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. The City recently asked the Supreme Court for review, and the Foundation has urged the Court to take the case.

Foundation President Kayla Moore stated: "The Foundation was established upon the conviction that the Ten Commandments are the moral foundation of law. We hope the Court will take this case. States, counties, cities, school, and individuals all over the country are looking to the Court for assurance that the Ten Commandments can be displayed in public."

Foundation Senior Counsel John Eidsmoe said: "The Ten Commandments monument is not an establishment of religion. It is a recognition of the political philosophy of the Declaration of Independence: that we are under the 'laws of nature and of nature's God,' and that those laws require respect for life, liberty, property, family, truth, and God Himself who ordained government and is the Grantor and Guarantor of unalienable rights."

Eidsmoe added: "In our brief we demonstrate that when Renaissance, Enlightenment, and Reformation thinkers sought a model of republican government as an alternative to rising state absolutism, they looked not to Greece and Rome but to the Hebrew republic. As far as we know, this scholarship has never been presented to the Court. We believe it is a game-changer that has the potential to transform the Court's thinking on the role of the Ten Commandments in the history of American law."