An eventual confrontation between second term New Mexico Attorney General Hector Balderas and a self-styled militia group is about to come to a head.
After a 2019 shooting at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas AG Balderas asked the NM Legislature for funding to form a "special investigative unit to guard against hate crimes and terrorism." Balderas' office has also been investigating predator priests. Empowered by spiteful, vindictive bombast from Donald Trump the hate group New Mexico Civil Guard has abandoned lawful protest and started shooting protesters.
You would never guess it by looking at them, but they’re thousands of miles from the nearest battlefield. These are members of the New Mexico Civil Guard, the group that made international headlines for its heavily armed presence at an Albuquerque protest that culminated in a shooting last month. Frank Fisher, an FBI spokesman, said the agency doesn’t designate hate groups and will “not confirm or deny” whether the agency is investigating the group. Mark Pitcavage, with the Anti-Defamation League, said the militia movement “as a whole” is about anti-government extremism, not white supremacy. But, he said, “there is a small amount of crossover” and some hold elements of racism and bigotry within their ranks. “Even if they don’t ever break the law, they might do damage in terms of conspiracy theories, in terms of spreading extreme rhetoric and ideas,” he said. “The militia movement is not a beneficial or benign movement … Even if a particular militia group doesn’t have a track record of violence, that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a good thing.” [NM Civil Guard is marching forward, despite calls to stand down]It's as if police in blue states like New Mexico need to be militarized to counter domestic terrorism.
Make no mistake: Donald Trump is targeting Indian Country for annihilation. His Tulsa trip is spreading the virus all over Native America. It’s called ethnic cleansing even genocide elsewhere but in Trump’s America it’s called patriotism.
AP photo.
So, we were in Bernalillo Monday and a guy in a pickup bearing Trump/Pence, NRA window decals races around us shouting obscenities, waving his middle finger and trying to provoke a response. There are Bernie 2016 and RESIST bumper stickers on our Tundra. New Mexico. #nmpol— interested party (@larry_kurtz) December 31, 2019
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