Alamogordo NM
6-24-2025 4:58pm

Senate Parliamentarian Nixes Sale of Public Lands Including Otero County BLM Lands

Gov Grisham speaks at Western Governors Conference - AlamogordoTownNews.org

A proposal to sell off federal public lands which included land in Otero County controlled by the Bureau of Land Management and the Forest Service was nixed by the Senate Parliamentarian.

The propoal 3,200 square miles of federal lands has been ruled out of Republicans’ big tax and spending cut bill after the Senate parliamentarian determined the proposal by Senate Energy Chairman Mike Lee would violate the chamber’s rules.The proposal received a mixed reception Monday from the governors of Western states which met for the Western Governors Conference.

Western Governors Conference Chair and Democratic New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham called it problematic in her state because of the close relationship residents have with public lands.

Republican Wyoming Gov. Mark Gordon voiced qualified support. “On a piece-by-piece basis ... we can actually allow for some responsible growth in areas with communities that are landlocked at this point,” he said at a meeting of the Western Governors’ Association in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Lee, a Utah Republican, had proposed selling millions of acres (8.300 square kilometers) of public lands in the West to states or other entities for use as housing or infrastructure. The plan would revive a longtime ambition of Western conservatives to cede lands to local control after a similar proposal failed in the House earlier this year.

Lee’s plan has revealed sharp disagreement among Republicans who support wholesale transfers of federal property to spur development and generate revenue, and other lawmakers — including GOP senators in Montana and Idaho — who are staunchly opposed.

MacDonough, the Senate parliamentarian, also ruled out a host of other Republican-led provisions Monday night, including construction of a mining road in Alaska and changes to speed permitting of oil and gas leases on federal lands.

While the parliamentarian’s rulings are advisory, they are rarely, if ever, ignored. Lawmakers are using a budget reconciliation process to bypass the Senate filibuster to pass President Donald Trump’s tax-cut package by a self-imposed July 4 deadline.

New Mexico Sen. Martin Heinrich, the top Democrat on the energy committee, said Lee’s plan would exclude Americans from places where they fish, hunt and camp.

“I don’t think it’s clear that we would even get substantial housing as a result of this,” Heinrich said earlier this month. “What I know would happen is people would lose access to places they know and care about and that drive our Western economies.”

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6-25-2025 8:04am

This is hardly a story, both party's include unrelated amendments to bills all the time, just to see if anyone's paying attention.
There will most likely be a sell off of some federal lands in the near future.
It's just not going to be included on the One Big Beautiful Bill.

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6-25-2025 6:03pm

may the lord bless elizabeth macdonough, and give her strength and length of days.
dear leaders desire to pass everything from soup to nuts in the "one big butt-ugly bill", has the repubs cramming more bs into a reconciliation bill than ever before seen in congress. this is because they can't get close to cloture with this steaming load of reichwing bull - and they know that presented sequentially a lot of their "faithful" will choke on numerous portions.  so, it's all aboard the good ship lollipop, and full steam ahead.
and don't forget...the punchline for this is the tax cuts for our needy billionaires - so don't spare the horses.   medicaid will just have to be gutted...and pay attention to what that will do for hospitals in small towns and rural locales (like Alamogordo). being able to bill medicaid for reimbursement for many citizens (guessing 30% hereabouts) helps keep much health care viable.
by the way, i gassed up today - gas is already up 30 cents or so. evidently no one told dear leader that bombs/wars/political unrest in the middle east oil fields leads directly to gas price increases in usa...i figure we will see $3.25 - 3.50 gasoline by the end of july.
but on the bright side, egg prices are returning to normal - so, if you just stop buying gasoline and stock up on eggs, everything is just spiffy. 

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6-25-2025 8:02pm

Please point out the exact provisions in the bill that give tax cuts to billionaires.
If ANY hospital or medical center can't survive without gaming the system, I say let it close.  Closing the mortuary on the hill here in Alamogordo would probably end up saving lives in the long run.

I take it you would have a problem with gas going up to the same price it was here last year under the Soro's administration. But don't worry, crude prices are already lower than before Israels first strike on Iran.
The markets, like the conflict, settled quickly because of a thing called leadership.  Trump didn't send a person with a beard and a dress to negotiate with Iran, he sent 14 ambassadors along with 30 advisors who were able to explain the US position on nuclear weapons clearly and succinctly.

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6-26-2025 9:56am

gasoline is a commodity, which by definition varies with supply/demand, but the point is that bombing a nation that produces/exports oil from the middle east has an unsettling effect on the market - and invariably results in higher prices....but, eggs are a bargain.

kinda hard to point to exact things when the BBUB is 1,116 pages long, but that's exactly the task that madam macdonough is performing.  it is her job to winnow through the jungle of weasel words, using the byrd rule, and remove any proposals that are not purely budgetary in nature.  that means there cannot be policy changes disguised as budget items...and there's a lot of that - just like the plan to sell off public lands - to favored business interests, and needy billionaires.

so, in addition to your being in favor of just letting the national forests burn, you also favor letting rural hospitals close...and you think that would save lives in the long run???  mighty charitable of you, neighbor.  

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6-26-2025 11:07am

Apparently in your opinion, Iran dropping nuclear bombs on Israel, Kuwait, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, UAE and others wouldn't have the same effect.  Oil trade would just continue normally.
Iran's first target for nukes would be Israel, and it would then tell the other nations I just mentioned to stop selling oil to the US, and Europe, among other demands for those nations.
So you get an F on foreign policy.

You also get an F in reading comprehension.
I never said let the forests burn, I said start logging and clearing under growth to stop the endless forest fires.

You complain about needy billionaires, but then argue to keep giving the health care industry, one of the richest industries in the world, illicitly obtained federal money from medicare, as well as allowing states to avoid paying their fair share of the medicare burden through the same scheme.
If any company, health care or others, can't keep their head above water without scamming the system, they need to go under.
So you get and F in economics.

I have asked you on countless occasions to explain your accusations of tax cuts and other benefits for billionaires in the OBBB, and other actions taken by the Trump administration, but you have refused to answer.
Until now that is, when you finally gave an answer of "It's too hard to find"
So you get an F on civics.
Final course grade F, Fail.
Go back to kindergarten.

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6-26-2025 11:51am

and you can continue to worship dear leader - by the way, last week you told us that pam bondi was right on the verge of establishing who was financing all these nasty protests....the soros/deep state/commie/pinko usual suspects.
has pam gotten back with you on that? inquiring minds want to know.

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6-26-2025 2:46pm

Unlike you, I'm not afraid of doing a little homework.  But then again you're a liberal in a blue state, so you don't need to provide proof of anything.
You just expect people to believe whatever you say.
The investigations have really just begun, but there's already a bit coming out into the light.
You may want to keep in mind that Patel and Bondi aren't going to waste time investigating things they don't intend to prosecute.  These are not political investigations, they're criminal.

The anti-ICE protests received funding from three main sources:

  • Government Funding: CHIRLA, a key organization involved in the protests, received approximately $34 million in government grants in fiscal 2023 [1], with 96% ($32.5 million) coming from the State of California [2]. This included:

$3 million from California's Department of Social Services
 Previous DHS federal grants totaling $1.2 million
Two "Citizenship and Integration" grants totaling $193,030 (later terminated by Trump administration) [2]
 Private Organizations: The Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL) was actively involved in funding and organizing protests [3]

  • Wealthy Individual Donors: Billionaire Neville Roy Singham has reportedly channeled over $20 million into radical organizations [3], with connections to PSL through the "Singham Network" [1]
  • The protests were not spontaneous but carefully orchestrated events [4]
  • Organizations like ActBlue were involved in coordinating and financing the demonstrations [4]
  • The FBI is actively investigating the monetary connections behind
    the riots, particularly focusing on PSL and Singham-connected networks [5]
  • CHIRLA's government funding was primarily intended for immigration assistance services, not specifically for protests [1]
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6-26-2025 7:20pm

and a glimpse of what reality looks like from across the aisle; you have no idea how crazy you sound....

and i'm an old school labor democrat who lived 60+ years in east texass, and watched it shift from solidly democrat to ruby red republican. prior to covid19, i had been an election clerk/official/judge for 33 years - and in spite of making straight F's in neighbor john's school of the gospel according to saint trump - i have a much firmer grip on reality.

and here's a secret; your dear leader ain't doing so hot right now...
https://politicalwire.com/2025/06/26/some-republicans-want-senate-parli…

https://politicalwire.com/2025/06/26/trumps-approval-rating-goes-negati…

https://politicalwire.com/2025/06/26/gops-medicaid-cuts-take-massive-bl…

https://politicalwire.com/2025/06/26/republicans-call-on-trump-to-depor…

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6-26-2025 9:40pm

So you spent 33 years actively engaged with the Democrat party and helped turn a solidly Democrat stronghold bright ruby red.  That's quite an accomplishment, thank you for your service to the Republican party.

Congressional Democrats having been holding a record low 21% approval rating for at least the past 5 months.

Trump won the popular vote on a 5 - 2 margin over Harris.

But you and your party never stop to consider why.

You say I sound crazy, but the very definition of crazy is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.

The American people are fed up with all the nonsense from the Democrat party.  I know life long Democrats that would vote for Nixon over almost anyone the Democrats are putting forward.

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6-26-2025 10:15pm

keep telling yourself that.

"trump won the popular vote on a 5 - 2 margin over harris"  you just earned an F in arithmetic.

isaac newton stated that for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction...it's just as valid in politics as in physics.

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6-27-2025 8:05am

My math wasn't off, but my information was.
Somewhere I had seen a total of 30 million votes for Harris.
I don't know, maybe it was total votes cast for Harris here in NM.
Or maybe it was the total votes she got from people over 125 years old.
Trump did win the popular vote by more than 2 million votes, an amount almost equal to the entire population of NM.

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6-27-2025 11:09am

i would disagree; when your information is wrong, there is no possibility that your calculations are correct.
that's my general complaint about a great deal of the absurd claims that you make....have you heard from pam bondi yet?

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6-27-2025 11:29am

The 2024 Election by the Numbers | Council on Foreign Relations

so dear leader actually won by a 49.8 to 48.3 margin, rather than a 5 - 2.  

best to remember that few elections these days are separated by more than a handful of percentage points.   but in special elections held since november 5th, the margins of victory in races have shifted about 10% down from republican previous PVI's....as dear leader works his magic.

remember, gravity says what goes up must come down....

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