President Donald Trump suggested Sunday that New Mexico could be next on his list of geographic rebrands, sharing a state map on Truth Social with &#8220;Mexico&#8221; struck through in red and &#8220;America&#8221; written beneath it — an unofficial stab at &#8220;New America.&#8221;
The post arrived just days after Trump signed an <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/trump-officially-renames-lake-ontario-lake-america">executive order</a> on August 27 renaming Lake Ontario to &#8220;Lake America,&#8221; a move tied to frustration over a collapsed trade agreement with Canada. That order followed a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/trump-announces-u-s-to-change-name-of-the-gulf-of-mexico">similar directive</a> renaming the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
<a href="https://t.co/Jh3DHXnflT">pic.twitter.com/Jh3DHXnflT</a>
— The White House (@WhiteHouse) <a href="https://x.com/WhiteHouse/status/2096657477928448250?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 6, 2026</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.x.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script> 
Whether Sunday&#8217;s post reflects any actual policy intent remains unclear, and the White House did not immediately respond when the Daily Wire asked it to confirm plans for a formal renaming effort. The image appeared alongside a string of unrelated posts Sunday, including one <a href="https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/117224901332470028">mocking Robert De Niro</a> and another depicting <a href="https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/117225346749407203">Trump on horseback beside George Washington</a>, suggesting the New Mexico post could be little more than provocation.
The idea has circulated in various forms for months. Fact-checkers including Snopes <a href="https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/rename-new-mexico-to-new-america/">debunked</a> a viral Tuesday X <a href="https://x.com/DailyNoud/status/2094856215708733828?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E2094856215708733828%7Ctwgr%5E8c7d3fd32b8adb824c9c0610fd55155000e09bd8%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&amp;ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.snopes.com%2Ffact-check%2Frename-new-mexico-to-new-america%2F">post</a> claiming Trump had already signed an executive order renaming the state. Similar hoaxes or satirical posts surfaced in April 2025 after the Gulf of Mexico order, prompting a New Mexico governor&#8217;s office spokesperson at the time to call the renaming &#8220;clearly fictitious and not grounded in any reality&#8221; in a <a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/fact-check-did-trump-announce-a-name-change-for-new-mexico-to-new-america-spoiler-new-mexico-is-a-us-state-9015879">statement</a> to a local outlet.
Trump&#8217;s earlier geographic name changes have drawn mixed reactions. A Reuters/Ipsos <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/us/majority-americans-oppose-trumps-new-canada-tariffs-renaming-lake-ontario-2026-09-01/">poll</a> from Tuesday found only 14% of Americans approved of the Lake Ontario switch, even as Google and Apple <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/google-maps-complies-with-trumps-lake-america-order">updated their U.S. map applications</a> to reflect it.
New Mexico, admitted to the Union in 1912, derives its name from the Spanish colonial territory of Nuevo México, predating the modern nation of Mexico by two centuries.

President Trump Signs Executive Orders In The Oval Office

Trump Sets Sights On US State For Next Geographic Rebrand

donald trump

gulf of america

lake ontario

new mexico

politics

truth social

New Mexico&#8217;s children are hurting. Their state is beautiful — freckled with red rocks, cacti, and the occasional Allsup&#8217;s. As a seventh-generation Texan, I admire our shared endless deserts and rich histories.
Still, the Land of Enchantment is unknown to most Texans, let alone the rest of the country. Routinely ranking last in education, yet <a href="https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/per-pupil-spending-by-state">spending more</a> than <a href="https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/rankings/education">top-ranking neighbor</a> Colorado, New Mexico is a genuine mystery — an American black hole.
When the New Mexico legislature passed <a href="https://www.nmlegis.gov/Legislation/Legislation?Chamber=H&amp;LegType=B&amp;LegNo=7&amp;year=23">HB 7</a> in 2023, proponents of gender medicine celebrated. Under HB 7, public regulation of &#8220;gender-affirming care&#8221; became, for all intents and purposes, illegal. Any attempts at regulation — or basic gatekeeping — must be measured against a &#8220;medical standard of care&#8221; that itself is in dispute.
It&#8217;s no coincidence that this bill lumps &#8220;gender-affirming care&#8221; together with the hot-button issue of abortion: Planned Parenthood, one of the state&#8217;s top providers, champions both.
In the first half of 2026, visits to New Mexico Planned Parenthood clinics jumped by 50%, half of them from out of state. Texans have moved there to circumvent our own protections for minors under <a href="https://capitol.texas.gov/tlodocs/88R/billtext/pdf/SB00014F.pdf">SB 14</a>. Some have said so publicly, and Planned Parenthood’s leaders <a href="https://www.abqjournal.com/news/new-mexico-becomes-refuge-for-transgender-care/3033443">share</a> they’re proud to enable it.
New Mexico is surrounded by states with protections like Texas’s. A second law, <a href="https://www.nmlegis.gov/Legislation/Legislation?chamber=S&amp;legtype=B&amp;legno=13&amp;year=23">SB 13</a>, sealed its black hole status: it grants legal immunity to those involved in “transitioning” children and shields the practice from out-of-state investigations into the harm it causes.
In July, I drove from Roswell back home to Austin. It took eight hours; the hotel was thirty bucks. The pipeline is that easy to reach: cheap, legal, and largely off-grid. A black hole emits no light of its own, and what falls in rarely comes back out. The families arrive, the appointments are kept, the numbers climb — and the country goes on not looking.
This month, our nation’s children return to school, and it&#8217;s worth asking what New Mexico has <a href="https://www.independentwomen.com/new-mexico-report/">prepared</a> for them. The answer isn’t a secret, though you wouldn’t know it from the state&#8217;s marketing. New Mexico <a href="https://assets.aecf.org/m/resourcedoc/2026-KCDB-profile-NM.pdf">ranks</a> 47th in the nation for child well-being, and 50th in education.
Its own families had to sue to force the point. In Yazzie/Martinez v. State of New Mexico, a court found in 2018 that the state was failing its most vulnerable students: Native American, poor, disabled, and those still learning English. Seven years later, New Mexico remains under that order and out of compliance, its latest fix rejected by the very families it was meant to serve.
Set that pattern of failure and disregard for child well-being against the speed and pride with which the state hands out gender medicine. All kids are vulnerable, yet the population riddled with dysphoria — creative, autistic, weird — mirrors the very populations going unserved in New Mexico schools.
New Mexico can move a Texas 14-year-old onto hormones over a long weekend, but it cannot teach a New Mexico fourth-grader to read. It’s quick with what is immediate and irreversible, and slow with what is ordinary and lasting: the education that actually prepares a child for a life.
When I told my <a href="https://www.iwfeatures.com/documentary/how-one-detransitioner-found-peace-outside-of-medicalization/">own story</a> — a teenager chewed up and spat out by the gender-affirmation pipeline — it made a difference. People have stopped me at local coffee shops and written to say how learning about my healing gave them hope, or even influenced them to make different decisions in their own lives. In 2023, I sued the providers responsible for my care. After one tried to use my state&#8217;s tight statute of limitations to escape accountability, the Texas Supreme Court <a href="https://www.independentwomen.com/2026/06/26/texas-supreme-court-unanimously-revives-detransitioner-lawsuit-paving-the-way-for-accountability-in-pediatric-gender-medicine/">ruled</a> this year that my case could proceed on its merits, underscoring the unique nature of &#8220;gender-affirming&#8221; harm.
We need more <a href="https://www.iwfeatures.com/state/nm/">stories</a> from New Mexico — more families willing to say what we know is happening, more reporters willing to follow the road where Planned Parenthood leads. Right now, the state shovels tax dollars into a failing school system, <a href="https://www.governor.state.nm.us/2023/03/16/governor-signs-house-bill-7-reproductive-and-gender-affirming-health-care-act/">proclaims its devotion</a> to all New Mexicans, and enables their harm — while inviting the rest of the country to share in it.
A state that can&#8217;t teach its own children to read is in no position to dictate best practices. And a child never taught to read may never learn enough to question it. New Mexico owes its kids a classroom, not science fiction or an artificially complicated life.
***
Soren Aldaco is an Independent Women ambassador and subject-matter expert on issues of identity, health, and wellbeing. Her <a href="https://www.iwfeatures.com/documentary/how-one-detransitioner-found-peace-outside-of-medicalization/">story</a> of transition and detransition was first featured in IW Features’ “Identity Crisis” series.

One young man sitting on bench at school yard. Break time. Back view.

Inside New Mexico’s Off-Grid Gender Border Pipeline

detransition

gender affirming care

planned parenthood

texas

I am a mother of three. Over the years, our family has relied on daycare, preschool, nannies, babysitters, and even the childcare center at our local gym. Each was the right fit for a different season of life.
Our family&#8217;s experience isn&#8217;t unique. We are among the millions of American parents who understand, intimately, that there is no single childcare arrangement that&#8217;s right for every family.
It is also why there is no universal child care solution — and why our policies shouldn&#8217;t pretend there is.
For many families, affordability is a massive challenge. In many parts of the country, <a href="https://www.federalreserve.gov/publications/2026-economic-well-being-of-us-households-in-2025-living-arrangements-care-work.htm">child care rivals housing as one of the largest monthly expenses families face</a>. Making care more affordable should absolutely be a priority, particularly if we want to make it easier for couples to start families and have the number of children they hope to have. But affordability alone isn&#8217;t enough if families aren&#8217;t free to choose the type of care that best fits their needs.
That requires expanding the range of options available to families. Parents don&#8217;t all want the same thing because their families don&#8217;t all have the same needs. A nurse working overnight has different childcare needs than a teacher working a traditional school schedule. A child with special needs may thrive in one setting, while another flourishes somewhere entirely different. Public policy should expand those choices, not limit them.
Ultimately, addressing America&#8217;s childcare problems isn&#8217;t about getting more families into one model — it&#8217;s about helping families find and afford the model that&#8217;s right for them.
Unfortunately, many policymakers are focused on making universal, taxpayer-funded daycare the centerpiece of childcare policy. New Mexico recently became the first state to implement universal child care. The <a href="https://www.nmececd.org/universal/">program</a> makes child care cost-free for families who choose state-approved providers. That may sound appealing, but when public resources are directed toward a single model of care rather than giving families the flexibility to choose the arrangements that best fit their needs, the result is a system that favors one type of child care instead of respecting the diversity of American families. Public policy should be family-directed rather than provider-directed. Not only do families have different preferences, but <a href="https://bipartisanpolicy.org/download/?file=/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/BPC_One-Third_June-2022_Analysis-002.pdf.">nearly six in 10</a> parents say they would prefer informal care over a childcare center, even if the center were free and conveniently located. That means policymakers in New Mexico are pushing parents towards their less preferred option.
Policymakers often believe that formal, institutional childcare programs are better than alternatives like home-based care, but Head Start offers an important lesson. After decades in operation, the federal government&#8217;s own <a href="https://www.heritage.org/education/report/head-start-earns-f-no-lasting-impact-children-first-grade">evaluation</a> found no lasting academic benefits, and another <a href="https://psycnet.apa.org/doiLanding?doi=10.1037/dev0001301">study</a> of state-run pre-K identified some negative emotional outcomes for Head Start participants. While intensive programs can help some very at-risk, low-income children, the evidence <a href="https://www.independentwomen.com/2023/07/18/two-truths-and-a-lie-the-return-on-investment-of-governments-childcare-subsidies/">does not support</a> expanding one government model as the solution for the general population.
The pandemic also demonstrated the risks of building a childcare system that depends too heavily on any single model or set of decision-makers. Families relying primarily on one centralized system had <a href="https://acf.gov/opre/report/understanding-child-care-and-early-education-program-closures-and-enrollment-during">little control when programs closed</a>, while those with other childcare arrangements — those not dependent on government funding — often had greater flexibility. In many communities, privately operated schools and preschools <a href="https://about.burbio.com/school-opening-tracker">reopened</a> before their public counterparts, giving families who had access to those options greater continuity.
A better approach is to build the strongest possible childcare ecosystem — one that includes daycare centers, home-based providers, faith-based programs, family caregivers, nannies, and every other arrangement that helps parents balance work and family life.
That also means removing unnecessary regulations that create barriers for small and home-based providers while preserving strong health and safety standards so more can enter the market, families have more options, and costs come down through greater competition. <a href="https://oklahoma.gov/content/dam/ok/en/okdhs/documents/okdhs-publication-library/14-05.pdf">Oklahoma</a>, for example, has excessively detailed toy requirements, with stipulations for the number of toys and the variety of their categories. It even specifies how many balls of various sizes are needed for each number of children. Many regulations, including those adopted with good intentions, have <a href="https://www.mercatus.org/students/research/working-papers/regulation-and-cost-child-care">increased childcare costs and made it harder for providers to enter the market</a>. The result is fewer providers, higher costs, and fewer choices for families.
The best childcare policy is the one that trusts parents to make decisions for their own children and gives them the freedom to choose from a wide range of affordable, high-quality options.
America doesn&#8217;t need a universal childcare solution. It needs a universal commitment to helping families choose the child care that&#8217;s right for them. Because there is no universal American family, there never will be a universal childcare solution. Our policies should reflect that reality.
***
This is part of a series of op-eds based on Independent Women’s new report, “Flourishing Families: An Agenda to Help Families Thrive.” The report, found <a href="https://www.independentwomen.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/IW_Flourishing-Families-Report.pdf">here</a>, details ways to support families without direct government subsidies or radically distorting the tax code to redistribute resources to families.
Heather Madden is the vice president for policy initiatives at Independent Women.

Siblings playing with blocks, trains and cars

There Is No Universal Childcare Solution

childcare policy

head start

independent women

opinion

universal childcare

Signal-jamming devices have been a real game-changer in gaining control of the skies for tactical purposes, but the impact they can have on civilian GPS can be deadly.
That is exactly <a href="https://archive.is/UboHA#selection-1259.70-1259.114">what happened</a> to a civilian medevac plane that took off from Roswell, New Mexico, this past May — and flew directly into a military training operation that disabled its navigation capabilities. While they were able to eventually get their GPS back online, it was too late — and the plane crashed into the Capitan Mountains. All four on board — two medevac pilots and two nurses — were killed instantly.
The flight should have been an easy one — 60 miles from Roswell to Ruidoso to pick up a patient — and the pilots, though relatively new, were well-qualified. Captain Keelan Clark, aged 30, had gotten his commercial pilot&#8217;s license a year and a half earlier, and first officer Ali Kawsara, 23, had previously worked cargo flights.
But medevac flights are often inherently riskier than most civilian flight operations, largely because they are often planned at a moment&#8217;s notice — and because, since lives are at stake, pilots often fly in weather that might be ill-advised under other circumstances.
The weather was not a factor on May 14, but the flight was arranged at the last minute — and it was only once they were airborne that they realized visibility was a problem. There was no moon, and almost no visible light on the ground as they traveled over rural areas, so they contacted Albuquerque Air Route Traffic Control Center and asked for permission to fly into Ruidoso &#8220;instruments only,&#8221; meaning they would not have to rely on visual cues from outside. Their request was granted.
About 100 miles west of their location, however, a training exercise known as NAVFEST was in progress at White Sands Missile Range, conducted by the U.S. Air Force&#8217;s 746th Test Squadron of the 704th Test Group. Before that weeklong exercise, the FAA had put out a warning stating that navigation systems as far as 400 miles away could be impacted by the GPS-disrupting technology being tested between May 12 and May 18.
Clark and Kawsara <a href="https://www.ainonline.com/aviation-news/business-aviation/2026-08-03/business-aircraft-accident-reports-augsut-2026">quickly realized</a> that their GPS was disabled and asked the air traffic controller for a magnetic heading instead. They were told to fly west, and then north a minute later. Air Traffic Control in Albuquerque promised to give them vectors to assist with landing, but additional calls from other planes that had also lost their navigation capabilities kept ATC tied up for several minutes — at which point the medevac flight had already overshot the mark.
By then, the pilots were close enough to Ruidoso to see the lights at the airport — so they called in a request to &#8220;go visual&#8221; and approach the runway by sight. The request was granted, and they turned toward the airport — but they could not see the Capitan Mountains directly in their path.
The <a href="https://apnews.com/article/new-mexico-plane-crash-medevac-ntsb-gps-d95ba57711f926082d7f11d2c20f0f0d">crash</a> sparked a wildfire that burned for several weeks in the Capitan Mountains and destroyed more than 30,000 acres.
Rep. Gabe Vasquez (D-NM) <a href="https://www.organmountainnews.com/gabe-vasquez-ntsb-ruidoso-plane-crash-military-jamming-2026/">spoke</a> with National Transportation Safety Board officials about the crash, pushing for a full investigation: &#8220;This week, I communicated with NTSB officials that a thorough investigation must be concluded to fully understand the cause of this tragic and fatal crash, and prevent future accidents.&#8221;
GPS-disrupting devices have already changed the face of battle, as missile systems and unmanned drones often rely on GPS to reach their intended targets — but the tradeoff has always been the risk that friendly communication and navigation systems could also be disrupted at the same time.
In an effort to mitigate that risk, the United States Army recently tested a GPS-disrupting system known colloquially as the &#8220;<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/the-armys-new-hammer-of-the-gods-could-change-modern-warfare">Hammer of the Gods</a>&#8221; — which can disable the navigation systems of enemy missiles and drones while allowing open communications between friendly operators.

Aircraft cockpit instrument panel with navigation display and flight systems during cruise

Military Cyberwarfare Exercise Linked To Plane Crash That Killed Everyone On Board

gabe vasquez

gps jamming

plane crash

white sands missile range

In a video that has gone viral across social media this week, a bear was captured stuck on top of a utility pole in New Mexico.
While driving from New Mexico to Oklahoma, Shannon Mullens recorded the shocking video of the large animal aggressively panting on top of the pole on the side of Highway 56.
“We really didn’t believe what we saw at first, so we turned around to get another look,” Mullens told <a href="https://www.yahoo.com/news/videos/bear-spotted-atop-utility-pole-184534204.html">Storyful</a>. “At first, we thought the bear was dead, until we got closer to it and then we realized he was still alive.”
Mullens and her fellow passenger immediately called 911, as heard in the background of the video. In the clip, you can hear the dispatchers informing Mullens that they have already received many calls about the bear and notified state officials, but they could not tranquilize it and said there was nothing they could do.
“We just hope that the bear was able to get down safely,” Mullens said.
Unfortunately, that was not the case. Robin Dawson, another witness of the incident, said in Facebook post that the bear was electrocuted and died before the New Mexico Department of Wildlife could rescue it.
The department told The New York Post that “despite the best efforts of local authorities,” the animal was fatally electrocuted.
Wildlife experts said the bear’s head-scratching decision to climb the pole was most likely caused by it being frightened by a person or traffic. When bears are frightened, they are likely to climb trees to escape potential danger.

Bear

Driver Records Wild Video After Finding Bear Stuck Atop Utility Pole

bears

video

wildlife

A New Mexico Democrat running for re-election in a district won by President Donald Trump thinks that too many white people are involved in outdoor conservation and recreation, according to clips unearthed by The Daily Wire. 
Rep. Gabe Vasquez (D-NM) said he looked forward to a world where the outdoor spaces were “no longer white” and took shots at “white monied male” conservation organizations in multiple podcast appearances across 2020 and 2022. 
Vasquez, running for re-election in New Mexico’s 2nd congressional district, has a long history of attacking “white rich men&#8221; and claiming that white people have special privilege. 
“There&#8217;s amazing organizations out there that are just promoting diversity, you know, amongst the outdoors and big national organizations that are slowly and finally starting to get it and actually promote policies that create more equitable access and opportunities,” Vasquez said on the Mountain and Prairie <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3QFMRlAna8A">podcast</a> in June 2020. “And so, you know, spaces that have been traditionally white will no longer be white. Secret spots will no longer be secret, and hunters and anglers and hikers and everybody in between will look different.”
He argued that people should be actively happy if they see fewer white people out in nature.
“And so not only should you be OK with that, not only should you tolerate that, but you should embrace that, and you should welcome a new set of outdoor users with open arms,” he added. “It&#8217;s up to us to be the change that we want to see.”
Vasquez, who once said that New Mexico is built on “stolen land,” is running against Republican candidate Greg Cunningham in a race the GOP sees as a potential pickup. Trump won the district by about 2 percentage points in 2024. 
The Democrat lawmaker started an environmental group called Nuestra Tierra in 2017, an organization that <a href="https://www.nuestra-tierra.org/blogs/news/towards-equity-in-the-outdoors?_pos=2&amp;_sid=acd0847a4&amp;_ss=r">complains</a> that “public lands are predominantly occupied by white folks,” pointing to statistics that show visitors to National Forest lands were mainly white. 
Later in the Mountain and Prairie podcast, Vasquez claimed that the New Mexico Wildlife Federation, a nature advocacy organization, had no credibility with Hispanics because it has been historically led by white men. 
“I think still today, I think every single executive director of the New Mexico Wildlife Federation up until today has been a white male,” he said. “And so there&#8217;s no cultural connection there.”
Vasquez, who frequently touts his bipartisan credentials, has long pushed for so-called equity in outdoor recreation and conservation. 
In an appearance on The Trail Ahead <a href="https://www.podchaser.com/podcasts/the-trail-ahead-3703244/episodes/gabe-vasquez-environmental-equ-141308700">podcast</a> in June 2022, he said he started a conservation organization because he wanted a group led by an “all people of color board” that would send a message that “conservation/environmental organizations don&#8217;t all have to be white.”
“We are the guardians of these places that we all love and live in,” he said. “And nobody can take that away from us as long as we&#8217;re able to be here. And so that comes with inherently more power than any white-monied-male organization has, especially coming from the outside or without as deep history or cultural understanding of what those respective communities represent and who they are.”
During the podcast, he noted his efforts to push for New Mexico’s “Outdoor Equity Fund,” a government-sponsored grant program for outdoor programming. 
Vasquez, who describes himself as a first-generation immigrant from Mexico who has lived on “both sides of the border,” said in the podcast that he has lost consulting opportunities because of his race.
“I have missed out on a whole lot of opportunities just because I&#8217;ve asked for compensation, and it shouldn&#8217;t have to be that way because if I was a white consultant working with a major brand or a major nonprofit,” he said. 
A review of his social media shows that Vasquez has consistently made derogatory comments directed at white people, who make up about 30% of his district. 
“As long as white folks (mostly men!) dominate this nation’s wealth &amp; preside over our nation’s governing bodies &amp; judicial systems, the racism, killing &amp; injustice will continue,” he <a href="https://x.com/Gabe_NM/status/1265621552306905093">posted</a> in May 2020. “We need a fundamental power shift in this country &amp; it starts with electing black, indigenous &amp; POC.”
In another post from June 2020, he bashed “white rich men.” 
“Black lives matter. Until we deconstruct and rebuild the systems of oppression that keep black people in perpetual harm, justice will not be served,” he <a href="https://x.com/Gabe_NM/status/1267599464665018369">said</a> in June 2020. “That includes law enforcement, the economy, and the disgusting wealth inequality that keeps white rich men in power.”
Other posts <a href="https://x.com/Gabe_NM/status/1048697354231189511">lambasted</a> the Supreme Court as being great for “straight white males,” and another said history classrooms had been <a href="https://x.com/Gabe_NM/status/1395379735316733953">dominated</a> by the “white, male colonialist” perspective. 
This story has been updated to note the appearance on the Mountain and Prairie podcast occured in June 2020, not November 2025.

Representative Vasquez Participates In Copper Wire Manufacturing Tour

Dem Running For Congress In Trump District Really, Really Hates White People

anti-white

congress

U.S. Politics

The remains of a missing woman who worked at a sensitive U.S. nuclear development lab were found decaying in a forest in New Mexico Thursday in a &#8220;skeletonized&#8221; state, according to <a href="https://www.dailymail.com/crime-desk/article-15868805/missing-scientist-melissa-casias-cause-death-final-moments.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Daily Mail</a>.
Melissa Casias, a 53-year-old administrative assistant at Los Alamos, was found dead in Carson National Forest, with her body propped up against a tree near an abandoned gun, per the Mail. She was found with a visible gunshot wound to her skull in the remote part of the Carson National Forest, local officials told the Daily Mail. Casias’ body reportedly didn’t show any signs of animal activity even though her body was left to decompose in the forest. The 53-year-old mother was last seen on June 26, 2025.
Thomas McNally, the former homicide detective who is helping Casias’ family with the case, told the outlet he suspects foul play, even hinting that Casias’ family will file a civil lawsuit against the New Mexico State Police for essentially botching the case.
The discovery of Casias&#8217; body comes after a slew of mysterious disappearances related to scientists and employees who worked at sensitive nuclear or space technology labs. Just weeks before Casias vanished, a former Los Alamos employee, 79-year-old Anthony Chavez, disappeared in a similar manner. Chavez went missing after he left his home on foot on May 4, 2025. Police have said that no foul play is suspected in Chavez&#8217;s case.
Casias worked as an administrative assistant at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, the site made famous during World War II for the Manhattan Project. The lab remains closely tied to U.S. nuclear weapon development.
The day Casias went missing, she wiped her phones before leaving them behind, along with her ID, when she walked out of her house that is settled in a remote community around 70 miles northeast of Santa Fe, The New York Post <a href="https://nypost.com/2026/06/03/us-news/missing-us-scientists-body-found-skeletonized-with-gunshot-wound-as-grisly-details-emerge-report/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reported</a>.
Just before she was last seen, Casias dropped off her husband, who worked at the same lab as her, at work before claiming she forgot her work badge and had to return home.
McNally told the Mail that Casias and her husband were arguing over a vape pen on their way to work.
The investigator claims Casias’ daughter, Sierra, saw her mom when she came back home, and Casias looked &#8220;totally normal.&#8221;
The last known sighting of the wife and mother was June 26 at 2:20 p.m. local time.
While McNally was looking into her disappearance, Casias&#8217; husband claimed she was &#8220;running around with a boyfriend somewhere,&#8221; and authorities believed the narrative, according to McNally.

Credit: Find Melissa Mondragon Casias

Missing Los Alamos Worker’s ‘Skeletonized’ Body Found Near A Gun Deep In The Forest

News

true crime

New Mexico Democratic Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham went full feminist, declaring that Democrats don&#8217;t need male votes. 
“If women, Democratic women, just show up and vote, we’re good. We don’t need any of the men.” 
Grisham made the remarks during a Democratic National Committee meeting on Thursday, focused on preparations for the 2028 presidential election.
As provocative as the remark may sound, the electoral trends behind it are real. Democrats are increasingly dependent on women voters, who have been the driving force behind many of the party&#8217;s recent victories.
Democratic governors Abigail Spanberger (VA) and Mikie Sherrill (NJ) both won overwhelming support from women while receiving far weaker support from men. Spanberger won the support of <a href="https://cawp.rutgers.edu/blog/women-voters-key-democratic-gubernatorial-wins-2025">65%</a>  of women voters but just 48% of men. Sherrill posted a similar divide, carrying <a href="https://cawp.rutgers.edu/blog/women-voters-key-democratic-gubernatorial-wins-2025">62%</a>  of women while receiving support from 49% of men.
The broader electorate reflects the same pattern. According to the Public Policy Institute of California, women are substantially more likely than men to identify with the Democratic Party. Women also vote at higher rates than men. In the 2024 election, approximately <a href="https://www.lwv.org/blog/report-women-voters-numbers-2024">91.3 million</a> women cast ballots, compared with 82.6 million men.
Experts have spent decades trying to explain the growing gender gap.
“Women consistently rank healthcare, education, and social safety nets as top priorities, while men more frequently emphasize economic growth, national security, and fiscal responsibility,” <a href="https://rebeccakreitzer.com/blog/how-gender-influences-political-opinions-in-america-2025/?utm_source=chatgpt.com">writes</a> University of North Carolina Associate Professor of Public Policy Rebecca J. Kreitzer. 
According to Kreitzer, the modern gender gap emerged during the 1980 presidential election and has steadily widened ever since. What was a relatively modest four-to-six-point difference in the 1980s grew to roughly 12-to-15 points in a majority of races by 2020.
Roosevelt Institute Suzanne Kahn <a href="https://time.com/5903399/gender-gap-politics/?utm_source=chatgpt.com">tied</a> the decline to women voting for “their economic interests” that Democrats have targeted through government programs and benefits.  
“The two parties’ increasing polarization around cultural issues might have been grabbing headlines, but women were looking at their wallets when deciding who to vote for, and one party was clearly doing more for them,” Kahn wrote. 
The gender gap is amplified by another reality: women participate in elections at higher rates than men. According to Rutgers University&#8217;s <a href="https://cawp.rutgers.edu/data/voters/gender-differences-voter-registration-and-turnout?utm_source=chatgpt.com">Center</a> for American Women and Politics, “Women have registered and voted at higher rates than men in every presidential election since 1980.”
The DNC’s recently released 2024 election autopsy <a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/4-takeaways-from-the-dncs-long-awaited-2024-election-autopsy-report?utm_source=chatgpt.com">acknowledged</a> the party’s struggles with male voters and concluded they required “direct engagement.” The report recommended that Democrats “deploy male messengers, address economic concerns, and don&#8217;t assume identity politics will hold male voters of color.”
Grisham&#8217;s comments reflect a broader reality for Democrats. As women have become the party&#8217;s most reliable voting bloc, party strategists are searching for ways to attract men to their cause.

US-VOTE-POLITICS-DEMOCRATIC-CONVENTION

Girl Math: Democrat Gov Says Party Doesn’t Need Any Male Voters

democratic national committee

Gender

Students in New Mexico will learn more about the January 6 Capitol riot and climate change than the moon landing.
New Mexico high school <a href="https://defendinged.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/High-School-United-States-History.docx.pdf">history guidelines</a> contain over a dozen references to the January 6 riot while only mentioning the moon landing once. The guidelines, part of the New Mexico Instructional Scope for History, are largely focused on racial and gender grievances and encourage teachers to promote Democratic politicians and lament how the richest men in the United States today are “mostly white.&#8221;
“The freedom of those in America and Ukraine after the 2021 Capital [sic] Insurrection and Russian invasion of Ukraine are two events that reveal the rights and safety of women, immigrants, children, and the LGBTQ community are at risk,” an example discussion in the guidance reads. 
Teachers are also instructed to show footage from NBC showing “Americans armed with weapons and military-type gear storming the Capital, breaking glass, defacing sacred art, political statues and podiums on and in our Capital [sic] building in Washington, DC.”
The purpose of the footage is to “disprove some of the beliefs that it was not violent or a threat to our democracy.”
The repeated misspelling of &#8220;Capitol&#8221; in the January 6 section is one of several errors in the guidelines. In another section, teachers are encouraged to list Democratic politicians from racial and sexual minorities, including &#8220;VP [Kamala] Harris, Transportation Secretary [Pete] Buttigieg, Interior Secretary [Deb] Haaland and Supreme Court Justice Brown.&#8221;
The last example appears to be a reference to Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson.
Rhyen Staley, the director of research at Defending Education, said the documents were an example of politics being pushed in the classroom.
“These state level documents expose a troubling pattern by education activists of pushing leftwing political and social biases into K-12 classrooms as established ‘facts,'&#8221; Staley told The Daily Wire. &#8220;Students and families deserve an education that values a politically neutral approach to weighing different sides of issues, not political indoctrination.&#8221;
The <a href="https://web.ped.nm.gov/bureaus/curriculum-instruction/new-mexico-instructional-scope-nmis/">New Mexico Instructional Scope</a> is an “educator influenced tool designed to provide guidance and support to assure that all students in New Mexico have access to content at their grade level combined with the use of impactful instructional strategies.”
The history guidelines reveal a heavy focus on left-wing activism and grievance politics.
Teachers are suggested to ask students why the United States still struggles “with the idea of racial equality,” discuss the pros and cons of reparations, and assess “who is responsible for the socio-economic disparities in early U.S. immigration to today.”
In contrast, the moon landing and the space race are each only mentioned once
The guidance also suggests that states like Georgia and Florida have implemented laws that are similar to voting restrictions on black people during the Jim Crow era. Teachers are recommended to provide “Current suppression of voting rights” in examples of Georgia, Texas, Florida, and New Mexico.
“How does the current suppression of voting rights compare to the suppression of voting rights during and immediately following the Reconstruction Era?” a question for students said. 
Another suggested discussion is whether there are “more opportunities for minorities today in the business realm.”
“Absolutely there is more opportunity today than there was back then, but that doesn’t mean that things are totally equal. Even though there are lots of Black owned businesses, the richest men in the country are still mostly white,” a suggested student response to the question said. 
Other guidance included in the history materials is for students to be encouraged to “join a program already in existence and help spread their message to prevent global warming” or write to their representative about climate change. 
Students should be able to define LGBTQ (“Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, queer or questioning”) and PFLAG (“Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays”).
“How do historically underrepresented groups such as women of color, LGBTQ and Indigenous people offerse [SIC] diverse views of society,” teachers should ask students, according to the guidance. 
Similar politically focused guidance is found in materials for instruction on <a href="https://defendinged.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/High-School-World-History-NMIS.pdf">world history</a> and <a href="https://web.ped.nm.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/High-School-Ethnic-Cultural-and-Identity.docx.pdf">ethnic studies</a>. 
In the guidance for world history, “equity” is defined as the principle “that all citizens have had different opportunities and experiences, and allocates the exact resources and opportunities needed to reach an equal outcome.”
The world history guidance also contains guidance recommending that students “create their own posters that show their actions on climate change” after watching a climate alarmist documentary from former Vice President Al Gore. 
The ethnic, cultural, and identity guidance discusses left-wing groups like the Southern Poverty Law Center, Black Lives Matter, and the Human Rights Campaign.  
“How do advocacy at the local, community, national and global levels work together to achieve change over time?” a supporting question asks. 
It also introduces students to the concept of “gender identity,” which it defines as ”identification with, or sense of belonging to, a particular group based on gender, such as cisgender, transgender, agender, bigender.”
New Mexico, a solidly blue state, has previously come <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/new-mexico-government-survey-asks-middle-and-high-school-students-if-they-are-two-spirit?author=Leif+Le+Mahieu&amp;category=News&amp;elementPosition=undefined&amp;row=0&amp;rowType=Vertical+List&amp;title=New+Mexico+Government+Survey+Asks+Middle+And+High+School+Students+If+They+Are+‘Two-Spirit’">under scrutiny</a> for asking high school students whether they identify as “two-spirit” or transgender through its Youth Risk and Resiliency Survey.

Trump Supporters Hold “Stop The Steal” Rally In DC Amid Ratification Of Presidential Election

Students In Blue State Spend More Time Learning About January 6 Than The Moon Landing

Capitol Riot

education

History

January 6

The following is an edited transcript excerpt from <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/ep-1913-are-aliens-real-the-truth-about-obama-s-interview-explained?elementPosition=1&amp;row=0&amp;rowHeadline=Recent+Episodes&amp;rowType=Horizontal+Show+Episodes+Carousel">The Michael Knowles Show</a>.
* * *
Liberal podcaster Brian Tyler Cohen just interviewed Barack Obama, and the former president decided to make a little news. 
Obama declared that aliens are real.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
I asked <a href="https://twitter.com/BarackObama?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@BarackObama</a> if aliens are real. <a href="https://t.co/ZPw5zT9PfD">pic.twitter.com/ZPw5zT9PfD</a>
— Brian Tyler Cohen (@briantylercohen) <a href="https://twitter.com/briantylercohen/status/2022808515082096843?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 14, 2026</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Credit: @briantylercohen/X.com
<blockquote>Cohen: &#8220;Are aliens real?&#8221;
Obama: “They&#8217;re real, but I haven&#8217;t seen them, and they&#8217;re not being kept in — what is it?&#8221;
Cohen: &#8220;Area 51.&#8221;
Obama: &#8220;&#8230; Area 51. There&#8217;s no underground facility. Unless there&#8217;s this enormous conspiracy and they hid it from the president of the United States.” 
Cohen: “What was the first question you wanted answered when you became president?” 
Obama: “Where are the aliens?” </blockquote>
That’s a funny answer. But Cohen just moves on. 
Brian Tyler Cohen has set the new gold standard for incompetence at interviewing. There&#8217;s no follow-up. 
A president of the United States declares that aliens are real, and Cohen decides to not follow up on it. Oh, how do you know that? How do you know aliens are real?
Obama has now come out <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/barack-obama-clarifies-seen-no-evidence-aliens-saying-real-rcna259232">to clarify</a> his statement, offering a whole lot of liberal nonsense about the distance between solar systems:
<blockquote>I was trying to stick with the spirit of the speed round, but since it’s gotten attention let me clarify. Statistically, the universe is so vast that the odds are good there’s life out there. But the distances between solar systems are so great that the chances we’ve been visited by aliens is low, and I saw no evidence during my presidency that extraterrestrials have made contact with us. Really!</blockquote>
Liberals always say things like this — the solar system is so large, statistically there has to be intelligent life elsewhere in the universe.
But they never explain why that is. Because in order to ascertain the probability of something, you have to know how that thing came about in the first place. You have to know something, anything, about that thing. And at the level of pure nature, we don&#8217;t.
Now from a theological and anthropological level, I think we do know. But from the point of view of nature, we do not know how life came about. We don&#8217;t know, for instance, how one goes from inorganic to organic matter. There have been a zillion theories over the years, and none of them have been proven, but some of them have been disproven. 
So the argument that the universe is really, really big actually does not imply that there is intelligent life — or life of any kind anywhere else.
But the reason that the libs love aliens is because the existence of aliens diminishes the distinction of human beings. It makes us less special. That&#8217;s usually their explicit argument.
They say things like, What, you think you&#8217;re so special? A universe that&#8217;s eight gazillion bajillion miles wide and expanding, with countless worlds — you think you&#8217;re so special?
And my answer — and I believe the Christian answer — is yes, I think we’re pretty special.
The deeper reason the libs always promote aliens is because it diminishes the Incarnation. Because Christ is a man, because God becomes a man. He doesn&#8217;t become E.T., he doesn&#8217;t become a gazelle. He becomes a man, and he raises our very humanity to inestimable dignity.
<h3><a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/ep-1913-are-aliens-real-the-truth-about-obama-s-interview-explained?elementPosition=1&amp;row=0&amp;rowHeadline=Recent+Episodes&amp;rowType=Horizontal+Show+Episodes+Carousel">WATCH: The Michael Knowles Show on DailyWire+</a></h3>
And the libs (and demons) want to diminish that. Satan falls from heaven because he can&#8217;t bow down to a man. Basically that&#8217;s what&#8217;s at the heart of this. I&#8217;m not saying that all the libs who promote the alien stuff are actively working with demons. I&#8217;m not. I really am not. I don&#8217;t see demons under every rock. But it is curious that so much of liberalism comes down to a prideful attempt to exalt man above his station and ends by degrading man below his station.
It begins by this notion that we&#8217;ll have no kings or priests. Man will only be free when the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest. We&#8217;re just humanists now. We&#8217;re going to raise humanity up. We&#8217;re going to maximize individual autonomy.
And then what&#8217;s the end of it? The end of it is we degrade ourselves. We pretend that we&#8217;re just sacks of meat that exist only for pleasure. We promote things like abortion, slaughtering babies, and degrading humanity. We promote things like suicide, slaughtering ourselves, again degrading humanity.
We reduce ourselves below the station to which we&#8217;ve been raised. No surprise there. So when Obama says, look, I&#8217;m clarifying, I don&#8217;t see any evidence of aliens — I think he&#8217;s probably being honest here. I think his knee-jerk reaction of, well, of course aliens exist, the certainty in that just comes from his liberalism: we have to be — humans aren&#8217;t special. You think you&#8217;re so special?
But we are. We are actually.
It&#8217;s actually a harder truth. It is a more realistic view, but it&#8217;s more difficult, and it entails more responsibility to say yes, we are special. It&#8217;s kind of weird, right, that we, among all of the created things, have rational wills. Isn&#8217;t that kind of weird that we can conceive of abstract things? Unlike every animal and plant and all organic matter on Earth? We are finite and mortal, we die — but we have this immortal, eternal aspect to ourselves because we can reason.
Isn&#8217;t that kind of weird that nothing else that we&#8217;ve ever encountered or really even can conceive of has that combination of flesh and reason and will?
That makes us kind of special.
You are special, believe it or not.

Untitled design (18)

Obama Tells Liberal Podcaster Aliens Are Real

Aliens

barack obama

bible

conspiracy theory

Liberals

Michael Knowles

podcast

Sen. Ben Ray Luján (D-NM) will not face an official Republican challenger on the November ballot in New Mexico after the only Republican candidate, Christopher Vanden Heuvel, did not receive enough signatures to seek the party’s nomination.
Three candidates in other races in New Mexico were also determined not to have enough signatures to make it onto primary ballots, including Democratic congressional candidate Thomas Wakely, Republican gubernatorial hopeful Belinda Robertson, and Republican congressional candidate Carlton Pennington, according to the <a href="https://www.abqjournal.com/news/four-new-mexico-candidates-disqualified-after-failing-to-meet-ballot-requirements/2978003?utm_campaign=mrf-twitter-ABQJournal&amp;mrfcid=20260211698cbbd4871dae073950f595" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Albuquerque Journal</a>. The outlet noted that the Senate race has never had just one of the major parties on the ballot for the state.
&#8220;He&#8217;ll continue earning their support on the campaign trail while doing the job they elected him to do by lowering costs and delivering results for New Mexico,&#8221; a spokesperson for Luján&#8217;s campaign told the local publication. &#8220;That commitment does not change based on who else is [on] the ballot.&#8221;
Self-described democratic socialist Matt Dodson is also seeking the Democratic nomination against Luján.
New Mexico Republican Party Chairwoman Amy Barela said in a statement on Thursday that the party &#8220;made repeated outreach efforts to candidates who were short on signatures and offered assistance.&#8221;
&#8220;In the case of the U.S. Senate race, we were proactive well before declaration day, engaging in conversations to evaluate the landscape and explore possible remedies ahead of the filing deadline. Our approach was deliberate and strategic. While we sincerely appreciate every individual willing to step forward and place their name on the ballot, our duty as party leadership is to ensure viability, coordination, and competitiveness in every race,&#8221; she stated.
&#8220;That level of success requires communication and partnership. The candidate has also shared that he is in direct contact with the Secretary of State’s Office and believes he has received information that differs from what is in the NM Election Handbook. We respect his effort to seek clarity. If the Secretary of State ultimately confirms his qualification based on that information, we will fully support his placement on the ballot and stand firmly behind his candidacy moving forward,&#8221; the chairwoman continued.
The news did garner some frustration among Republicans. <a href="https://www.the-downballot.com/p/morning-digest-for-the-first-time" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Downballot</a> reported that a Republican wanted to run as a write-in candidate has a March 17 deadline.
“Did you know that Republicans won’t have ANY New Mexico Senate candidate for the federal election this November?” GOP activist Scott Presler posted to X. “Yes, you heard me. Democrat Senator Lujan (NM) will walk into re-election [because] Republicans don’t have a candidate. He’s AGAINST the SAVE America Act, by the way.”
Luján is seeking his second term in the Senate. He won the seat in 2020 after defeating Republican Mark Ronchetti with just under 52% of the vote. Nearly 46% of the votes went for the Republican. Luján also served in the House from 2009 until 2021, including time as assistant House speaker and four years in charge of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.
New Mexico has other major races this year, including the contest to succeed Democratic Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham. In 2024, Sen. Martin Heinrich won re-election against Republican Nella Domenici by roughly 10%. The state was seen as mildly competitive during the 2024 election, with Trump obtaining nearly 46% of the vote after holding a rally in the Land of Enchantment just days before the election.
Republicans are in a tough battle to keep the Senate in 2026, as they currently hold a 53-47 majority. According to the Cook Political Report, the most competitive races are expected to be in Maine, Georgia, Michigan, and North Carolina.

Budget, Nominee Hurdles Sow Senate Frustration

Democratic Senator Won’t Face Any Republican Challengers In November

Democratic Senator Expected To Not Face Any Republican Opponent In November

2026 election

senate

Actor Timothy Busfield has been indicted by a grand jury on Friday on four counts of criminal sexual contact of a child.
The celeb pleaded not guilty on all counts. His lawyer, Stanton &#8220;Larry&#8221; Stein, said the indictment was expected but still disappointing.
&#8220;As the saying goes, a grand jury will indict a ham sandwich,&#8221; the attorney said in a statement. &#8220;What is deeply concerning is that the District Attorney is choosing to proceed on a case that is fundamentally unsound and cannot be proven at trial. The detention hearing exposed fatal weaknesses in the State’s evidence — gaps that no amount of charging decisions can cure.&#8221;
“This prosecution appears driven by something other than the facts or the law. Mr. Busfield will fight these charges at every stage and looks forward to testing the State’s case in open court — where evidence matters — not behind closed doors,&#8221; he added.
Busfield stands accused of sexually assaulting twin boys beginning when they were 7 years old. The actor worked with the child actors, born in 2014, on the set of “The Cleaning Lady,” which aired on Fox from 2022 to 2025. Busfield directed some episodes and was named an executive producer.
An investigation began in November 2024 when a University of New Mexico Hospital doctor reported his suspicions of sexual abuse and grooming to authorities. Investigators initially didn’t press charges, but the case was reopened in September 2025 when one of the boys reported the alleged abuse to his doctor.
The actor faced two previous sexual assault allegations in 1994 and 2012, but was never charged. Busfield recorded a video of himself professing his innocence just before turning himself in to the police last month.
His wife, actress Melissa Gilbert of “Little House on the Prairie” fame, released a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/melissa-gilbert-speaks-out-after-husband-timothy-busfield-charged-with-sex-abuse">statement</a> in late January thanking fans for their “love, patience, and support” as she and her husband went through this “extraordinarily difficult time.”
&#8220;As with all criminal proceedings, Mr. Busfield is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty in a court of law,&#8221; Bernalillo County District Attorney Sam Bregman said in a <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/DUbF_SPlHHs/?hl=en">statement</a> shared on social media. “This case will proceed through the judicial process and is expected to move forward to trial.&#8221;

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