Tag: new mexico
Fox Buries Bust Of New Mexico Shooting Suspect -- And His MAGA Motives

Fox Buries Bust Of New Mexico Shooting Suspect -- And His MAGA Motives

Fox News has almost completely neglected to cover breaking news developments in a series of shootings that targeted the homes of multiple Democratic officials in New Mexico, neglecting a story that would potentially call further attention to the network’s own promotion of conspiracy theories about voter fraud.

On Monday, an Albuquerque SWAT team arrested Solomon Pena, naming him as the suspected “mastermind” behind a series of drive-by shootings at the homes of four local Democratic elected officials, including two county commissioners as well as the incoming speaker of the state House. Nobody was injured in the shootings, but in one instance bullets went through the bedroom of a 10-year-old girl while she was asleep.

A crucial aspect of this story is the suspect’s alleged motive, reported by the Albuquerque Journal: Pena ran as the Republican nominee for a state legislative seat last November, losing with just 26 percent of the vote, and since then has made conspiratorial claims that the election was stolen. “Once the rigging is stopped, I will be sworn in as the State Rep for district 14,” Pena wrote in one Twitter post. He also was in Washington, D.C., on January 6, 2021, when then-President Donald Trump gathered his supporters in an attempted insurrection to overthrow the results of the 2020 election, and has since repeatedly voiced his support for Trump’s false claims about elections being stolen by Democrats.

CNN has covered the story for a total of one hour and 35 minutes over the past two days, MSNBC has covered it for a total of two hours and 20 minutes, including interviews on both networks with one of the officials whose home was shot, and who described Pena’s earlier visit to her home to complain that the election had been fraudulent. In an astonishing contrast, Fox News has covered it for a grand total of less than one minute.

Pena’s false claims of election fraud align with past messaging from Fox News personalities, from defending the January 6 insurrectionists to telling viewers not to trust the results of the 2022 midterm elections before and after Election Day.

The first mention of this story on Fox News was not even intentional: The network was carrying a live feed of White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre’s briefing with reporters, when a journalist asked a question.

Fox first purposefully included the story during a headline update on Special Report, lasting less than 30 seconds. The story received another 20 seconds of coverage on Fox News @ Night, as part of a collection of stories headlined under Fox’s misleading category “America’s Crime Crisis.” Fox mentioned in both instances that Pena had lost his campaign for the state legislature, but the network did not mention his false claims that the election was stolen, the fact that he had previously visited a county commissioner’s home to complain about the results, or his presence in Washington on the day of the January 6 insurrection.

Fox News could never admit a connection between those conspiracy theories and a rash of terrorist acts, as doing so would call into question the network’s own recent coverage. Last November, for example, prime-time host Tucker Carlson questioned the election results in Arizona, where a number of statewide Republican candidates lost their races, and declared ominously that “Americans lose their faith in their democratic system and when they lose that faith, they tend to become radical and over time, they can become dangerous.” In addition, the network’s coverage last August of the FBI search for stolen documents at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate was clearly aimed at whipping up its viewers into further rage.

Methodology

Media Matters searched transcripts in the SnapStream video database for all original programming on CNN, Fox News Channel, and MSNBC for any of the terms “shot,” “gun violence,” “death,” or “attack” or any variation of any of the terms “shoot,” “wound,” “kill,” “injure,” “gunfire,” or “terror” within close proximity of any of the terms “Solomon,” “Pena,” “Peña,” “New Mexico,” or “Albuquerque” from January 16, 2023, when authorities arrested Pena, through 12 p.m. ET on January 18, 2023.

We included segments, which we defined as instances when the shootings allegedly directed by Solomon Pena were the stated topic of discussion or when we found significant discussion of the shootings. We defined significant discussion as instances when two or more speakers in a multitopic segment discussed the shootings with one another.

We also included passing mentions, which we defined as instances when a single speaker in a segment on another topic mentioned the shootings without another speaker engaging with the comment, and teasers, which we defined as instances when the anchor or host promoted a segment about the shootings scheduled to air later in the broadcast.

We rounded all times to the nearest minute.

Reprinted with permission from Media Matters.

GOP Candidate Who Cried Voter Fraud Is Arrested In New Mexico Shootings Case

GOP Candidate Who Cried Voter Fraud Is Arrested In New Mexico Shootings Case

In December and January, the homes of Democratic officials in New Mexico have been the target of no-so-random shootings. State Sen. Linda Lopez and Antonio Moe Maestas had shots fired at their home and workplace respectively. Three bullets entered the room where Lopez’s 10-year-old daughter slept. Bernalillo County commissioners Adriann Barboa and Debbie O’Malley’s homes were also the target of gunfire. Luckily no one was hurt.

On Monday, Albuquerque Police Chief Harold Medina held a press conference to announce a break in the case. Medina said that former Republican state House candidate Solomon Pena had been arrested. According to Medina, MAGA-candidate Pena is accused of “conspiring with, and paying four other men to shoot at the homes of two county commissioners and two state legislators.”

The motivation seems to have been that Pena didn’t believe he had lost his election. They even had video of Pena being arrested.

According to reports, Pena’s arrest comes about a week after an unnamed suspect was taken into custody. Police Chief Medina said the break in this case couldn’t come a day sooner. “We are very grateful that we were able to get this individual into custody and to hopefully bring a little relief to those that were affected and all of our lawmakers, especially with state legislature starting tomorrow.”

The Albuquerque Journal reports that investigators are looking into whether or not shots fired near Raúl Torrez’s campaign office—he ran for Attorney General—and shots fired near the office of State Sen. Antonio Maestas might be connected. However, at this time, a spokesperson for the Albuquerque Police Department say there is no evidence linking the group being accused of conspiracy in the other shootings with these shootings.

Pena was a Donald Trump, Kari Lake, Big Lie proponent who was trying some of that same pre-election day doubt-casting back in November.

The results were the same. He lost. Bigly. Watch his arrest.

Police make arrest after standoffwww.youtube.com

Let’s leave this here for posterity.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.

New Mexico Judge Ousts January 6 Perp From County Commission

New Mexico Judge Ousts January 6 Perp From County Commission

A judge in New Mexico ordered that Otero County Commissioner Couy Griffin should be removed from office, effective immediately, as a result of Griffin's participation in the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the United States Capitol.

Griffin is a former rodeo rider who cofounded the group Cowboys for Trump. In March, Griffin announced he would not seek reelection. Later that month, a federal judge convicted Griffin of illegally entering restricted U.S. Capitol grounds on the day of the riots led by supporters of former President Donald Trump. In June, Griffin was sentenced to 14 days in jail and was given a $3,000 fine for his role in the attack.

On Tuesday, New Mexico district court judge Francis J. Mathew ruled that Griffin violated the 14th Amendment of the Constitution when he entered the restricted grounds of the Capitol to try to block the transition of power from Trump to President Joe Biden. The 14th Amendment states that anyone who has "engaged in insurrection or rebellion" against the United States is barred from holding state or federal office.

In his opinion, Mathew wrote that "political violence predictably occurred at the Capitol on January 6" and that Griffin "made that happen."

The 49-page ruling lays out Griffin's behavior in the lead-up to the Jan. 6 attack, his actions on that day, and the comments he made following his participation in the violent attempt to keep Trump in office.

Ahead of the insurrection, Griffin spoke at a number of "Stop the Steal" rallies across the country, where he vowed there would be "war" and that "there might be some of us that might lose our lives." He added that "We'll win it ... in the ballot box or we'll win it in the street," and threatened to "hunt down" any "sellouts" or "RINOs."

On the day of the insurrection, Griffin threatened then-Vice President Mike Pence, whom Trump supporters wanted to block certification of Biden's win.

And he was seen on the inaugural stage set up on the West Terrace of the Capitol shouting, "I love the smell of napalm in the air" after law enforcement had deployed tear gas and pepper spray to try to disperse the violent mob breaking their way into the building. Griffin later declared the insurrection to be "a great day for America" and that "people are ready for fair and legal elections, or this is what you're going to get, and you're going to get more of it."

After the insurrection failed and Biden's win was certified, Griffin said on video that he was going to travel back to Washington, D.C., for Biden's insurrection and vowed that "there's going to be blood running out of that building."

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), which helped bring the lawsuit against Griffin, celebrated the judge's ruling.

"This is a historic win for accountability for the January 6th insurrection and the efforts to disrupt the peaceful transfer of power in the United States. Protecting American democracy means ensuring those who violate their oaths to the Constitution are held responsible," CREW President Noah Bookbinder said in a statement.

"This decision makes clear that any current or former public officials who took an oath to defend the U.S. Constitution and then participated in the January 6th insurrection can and will be removed and barred from government service for their actions."

Other GOP lawmakers — including Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) and Madison Cawthorn (R-NC) — have also faced attempts to disqualify them from office for their role in the insurrection.

However, judges blocked those efforts from moving forward.

Reprinted with permission from American Independent.

GOP Sabotage Of New Mexico Elections Is A Warning To America

GOP Sabotage Of New Mexico Elections Is A Warning To America

Defenders of U.S. democracy, from liberals and progressives to Never Trump conservatives, have been warning that if “Stop the Steal” MAGA Republicans and promoters of the Big Lie are able to take control of the administration of elections, they will simply throw out any election results they don’t like — which is what they brazenly attempted after the 2020 presidential election. And sure enough, MAGA Republicans in a rural county in New Mexico recently tried to do exactly that.

The county is Otero County, where MAGA Republicans on the country commission refused to certify recent election results — saying that they don’t trust the Dominion voting machines in their area. Legal experts Laurence Tribe and Dennis Aftergut, in an op-ed published by CNN’s website on January 20, warn that this is the type of power grab and attack on democracy to expect from MAGA Republicans in the months ahead.

“The commissioners had evidently fallen hook, line and sinker for the completely debunked 2020 election conspiracy theory spread by Trump and his acolyte, lawyer Sidney Powell, that Dominion Voting Systems' machines secretly switched votes from Trump to Joe Biden,” Tribe and Aftergut explain. “On Wednesday, (June 15), the New Mexico Supreme Court ordered the commission to reverse course and certify the June 7 election results.”

Tribe and Aftergut add, “That's the good news. Courts — at least those below the U.S. Supreme Court — continue to be reliable institutions affirming truth and the rule of law. The bad news is that judges are unlikely to be able to sustain the heavy burden required to extinguish the disinformation wildfires that have now spread to the election certification process. Republican election sabotage, in which GOP officials refuse to certify the winners, has started.”


The legal experts point to Otero County as proof that “Republican election sabotage in which GOP officials refuse to certify the winners has started.”

Tribe and Aftergut point to Jim Marchant, who won the GOP primary for Nevada secretary of state on June 14, as an example of the type of Republican who would refuse to honor election results he didn’t like.

“Marchant says he would not have certified Joe Biden's 2020 Nevada victory,” Tribe and Aftergut observe. “And he has said he is open to sending to Congress a slate of electors in 2024 who would not vote for Nevada's popular vote winner.”

To make matters worse, they observe, some right-wing justices on the U.S. Supreme Court are open to hearing a case involving the Independent State Legislature Theory.

“The anti-democracy premise of ISL is that state legislatures can do whatever they want in federal elections, including ignoring the winner of the state's popular vote,” Tribe and Aftergut note. “The ISL theory is pockmarked with legal holes, as law professors Vikram David Amar and Akhil Amar have ably demonstrated in multiple articles. But if you think that will stop the Court majority from favoring legislatures' ability to destroy majority rule, think again. Over the last decade, the conservative majority has given Republican-controlled legislatures carte blanche to adopt measures suppressing the voting rights of Blacks and other large blocs of voters.”

Tribe and Aftergut conclude their op-ed by warning that Otero County won’t be MAGA Republicans’ last attempt to throw out democratic election results.

“We just saw in New Mexico how broadly the disinformation fueling the conspiracy has spread,” they write. “Only We The People can stop it.”

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.