Speaker 1: Welcome to it could happen here a show. I've had
Speaker 1: a bunch of ship actually, but but our our core
Speaker 1: is collapse and UH, political violence in the United States.
Speaker 1: That's that's where we got our bones. And today we're
Speaker 1: getting back to basics. We're we're going into the roots. UM.
Speaker 1: Those of you who live in New Mexico are probably
Speaker 1: broadly familiar with the kind of basics of this story. UM.
Speaker 1: Many of you probably will have heard aspects of this.
Speaker 1: But there have been a series of shootings that took
Speaker 1: place in December of last year in January of this year,
Speaker 1: UM at the homes of to state legislators and two
Speaker 1: county commissioners. No one was injured, thankfully, UM. But this
Speaker 1: was obviously something that was scaring the hell out of
Speaker 1: a lot of people, UM, liberals and people on the
Speaker 1: left in New Mexico over the last several weeks because
Speaker 1: they were clearly politically motivated. UM. New Mexico has had
Speaker 1: shootings at protests and it's its share of the political
Speaker 1: violence that has swept a large chunk of the country.
Speaker 1: And this seemed like a real scary years of lead
Speaker 1: style escalation. UM. Very recently within the last couple of
Speaker 1: days of US recording this, it was announced that the
Speaker 1: police had brought in the guy who was responsible for
Speaker 1: organizing this. Um. He did not carry out the shootings himself.
Speaker 1: His name is Solomon Penia UM and he was a
Speaker 1: former Republican candidate for local office who hired foreman Um
Speaker 1: in order to shoot at the homes of elected Democrats. Um.
Speaker 1: Those are the basics of it. Uh. The arrest Warren
Speaker 1: affidavit says that Penia intended to cause serious harm or
Speaker 1: cause death to the occupants inside their homes, which seems
Speaker 1: pretty credible based on what we know objectively about what happened. Um.
Speaker 1: It's also worth noting that Penia had donated repeatedly in
Speaker 1: the past to Lyndon LaRouche, which I'm sure we'll it
Speaker 1: into a little bit later. But I want to introduce
Speaker 1: my guest for this episode who knows the story much
Speaker 1: better than I do, a local, uh New Mexico based activist,
Speaker 1: Lucas Herndon. Lucas, how are you doing today, buddy? I'm
Speaker 1: doing good man. Glad to be back, sort of really
Speaker 1: glad to have you back. You've been on the show before.
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna kind of let you take it from
Speaker 1: here now that I've sort of laid out the bones
Speaker 1: of it. Yeah, thanks, And just a couple of clarifying points, um,
Speaker 1: which only because things have been moving very quickly today. Um,
Speaker 1: this is the day after he was arrested. There is
Speaker 1: actually now evidence put out from the A p D
Speaker 1: that um Penya himself uh was in the car and
Speaker 1: attempted to fire at least one of the targets. Apparently
Speaker 1: he had an A R fifteen that quote unquote jammed.
Speaker 1: It didn't stop that shooting from occurring. His accomplice, who
Speaker 1: is unnamed at this time, at least to our knowledge, UH,
Speaker 1: did fire a glock out of the car during that
Speaker 1: That I mean, so that there was still a shooting
Speaker 1: that happened. Yes, but it is worth noting that he
Speaker 1: was not just the mastermind, but also an active participant,
Speaker 1: at least according to what we know today. Yeah, it
Speaker 1: looks like the weapon that was used was a tan
Speaker 1: and black block with a drum magazine. UM or at
Speaker 1: least the drum was seized at the thing doesn't really matter. Um.
Speaker 1: But yeah, So I'm interested kind of first in if
Speaker 1: you want to walk us through how you became aware
Speaker 1: that these shootings had happened, and how you would kind
Speaker 1: of characterize the impact it had on on the community
Speaker 1: around you, because this obviously is is intensely frightening and
Speaker 1: is the kind of thing most of us have been
Speaker 1: paying attention, have been worried about happening for for quite
Speaker 1: a while, right exactly that. Yeah, so, UM, you know,
Speaker 1: in in the in the political nonprofit world, which which
Speaker 1: I work in professionally, UM, it's not uncommon for the
Speaker 1: whole movement sort of takes the last part of December
Speaker 1: off for the holidays. UM. So unfortunately, there was sort
Speaker 1: of not a lot of eyes on stuff in the
Speaker 1: latter part of December. But as soon as we got
Speaker 1: back to work on the third of January, a series
Speaker 1: of events happened where there was a realization that there
Speaker 1: were shootings that happened at different elected officials houses. Right,
Speaker 1: and UM, it turns out or it looks like that
Speaker 1: the cops were just starting to put it together themselves.
Speaker 1: But it came from, um, the fact that the first
Speaker 1: two targets were at the time ceded county commissioners in
Speaker 1: berno Leo County. UM. Just for extra added confusion, UM,
Speaker 1: one of those targets was she finished her term at
Speaker 1: the end of the year, so she's now she's not
Speaker 1: technically sitting as a commissioner anymore, just just for clarity UM.
Speaker 1: But then over the course of of you know, those
Speaker 1: weeks that we were all out, there were also then
Speaker 1: shootings at UM one of the state senators homes, and
Speaker 1: then in January there was also shootings at the campaign
Speaker 1: office of who the gentleman who is now our state
Speaker 1: attorney general. Within our sort of movement of people that
Speaker 1: work on you know, political things, we were all gearing
Speaker 1: up for the session are in New Mexico. Our legislative
Speaker 1: session kicks off a sixty day term actually started today
Speaker 1: on January, and it became clear to all of us
Speaker 1: that this was happening, and we started, you know, talking
Speaker 1: amongst ourselves, and we really we did find out that
Speaker 1: at that point the cops had started piecing it together.
Speaker 1: They were piecing together pieces of information. It turns out
Speaker 1: that after the shooting on the third, UM the only
Speaker 1: other named accomplice so far, this guy, Jose Trahio, was
Speaker 1: arrested forty minutes after the shooting, UM a p D
Speaker 1: because of ongoing issues with UM crime in the in
Speaker 1: the city of Albuquerque has like a quick response like
Speaker 1: system set up that like tracks gunfire and yeah, so
Speaker 1: they were they were able to track this guy down. Um.
Speaker 1: He was driving a car that was registered to Penya
Speaker 1: Um and uh, there was other connections obviously that the
Speaker 1: you know, cops put things together and then yeah, and
Speaker 1: they executed the search warrant yesterday. There was a swat situation.
Speaker 1: It sounds like it was um preventative more than anything,
Speaker 1: but it But but some of the stories that have
Speaker 1: come out is that he was reluctant to leave at first,
Speaker 1: but there wasn't actually any overt threats of violence. But
Speaker 1: you know, the cops did respond was swat when they
Speaker 1: arrested him. Yeah, I mean, given the fact that he
Speaker 1: had carried out a series of shootings. Uh, not surprised
Speaker 1: to hear that. Now, I'm I'm kind of curious. Was
Speaker 1: there a commune ay response prior to sort of Pinia
Speaker 1: being exposed and arrested. Was their community response kind of
Speaker 1: reacting to the fact that there were was an escalating
Speaker 1: series of shootings targeting local elected leaders. Yeah. So the
Speaker 1: company I worked for, Progress Now New Mexico, we put
Speaker 1: out a series of tweets. UM. Basically as soon as
Speaker 1: we had started putting two and two together. UM, you know,
Speaker 1: we we were careful to say that this appears politically motivated.
Speaker 1: We don't have hard evidence, but it's hard to not
Speaker 1: put those two things together. We at progress now and
Speaker 1: and me specifically, having worked here for a very long time, UM,
Speaker 1: I have been tracking political violence here in the state,
Speaker 1: UM for for a while, and and i've i've i've
Speaker 1: been part of it in the sense that I was
Speaker 1: threatened and docked in as were some of my other colleagues,
Speaker 1: and so you know, these things hit close to home,
Speaker 1: right and on the and on the one hand, it's
Speaker 1: it's tough to see these things as anything but political
Speaker 1: violence for for those of us like you, Robert, that
Speaker 1: like we see it all the time because we're paying
Speaker 1: attention to it. On the other hand, there is unfortunately
Speaker 1: a lot of gun violence in Albuquerque, and you know,
Speaker 1: so there were there were some pushback. People thought, oh,
Speaker 1: I know, this is just you know, there's just that
Speaker 1: much gun violence quote unquote, but that's you know, that
Speaker 1: was a silly premise. Honestly, this was very clearly politically motivated.
Speaker 1: And now that we have a person to attach this to,
Speaker 1: and we can look at his social media history and
Speaker 1: and you know, stuff we've found in telegram, stuff on
Speaker 1: his Twitter. It's so clear. I mean he we just
Speaker 1: actually even today, right before we got on here, we
Speaker 1: just published another telegram piece that we found on our
Speaker 1: Twitter that he threatened the Secretary of State after he
Speaker 1: lost his election, UM telling saying that he she should
Speaker 1: quote unquote hang until she's dead. So yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: he's this has been an ongoing part of his UM
Speaker 1: ideology for a while. You know, he has a lot
Speaker 1: of pro maga posts UM, a lot of big lie
Speaker 1: you know, teainted election, you know, uh rhetoric all over
Speaker 1: his social media such as it exists anyway, Now, have
Speaker 1: this altered it all um or had an impact on
Speaker 1: your thinking of UM. You know, when when you have
Speaker 1: attacks or a series of attacks like this, as you said,
Speaker 1: it's impossible to say prior to kind of knowing who
Speaker 1: did it, that like this is certainly politically motivated, But
Speaker 1: at a certain point it becomes kind of reasonable and
Speaker 1: and safe to make that assumption. And I think also
Speaker 1: necessary when you're trying to two protect a community and
Speaker 1: get people prepared for the likelihood that they're going to
Speaker 1: encounter of violence. UM. We've also had those cases where
Speaker 1: like it, it is impossible to know. You know, we
Speaker 1: had a series of attacks on power plants last year.
Speaker 1: We still don't know who did the ones in North
Speaker 1: Carolina or who did the one it's in Portland. But
Speaker 1: it turned out that the folks who did that Christmas
Speaker 1: Day attack UM on power substation in um Washington State
Speaker 1: were um uh just robbing a place right effectively non political.
Speaker 1: So it is kind of impossible to get Has this
Speaker 1: altered it all your kind of feelings on when and
Speaker 1: at what sort of point do we start raising the alarm? Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, I mean I think that progress now you know,
Speaker 1: my my, my organization that I work with, we as
Speaker 1: soon as we heard something was afoot, we put out
Speaker 1: the word for us. It was for us it was
Speaker 1: a matter of safety, as as as people who have
Speaker 1: lived through it ourselves. UM, this was a time that
Speaker 1: the community needed to be aware of these things and
Speaker 1: be thinking about it. Um and and to be honest
Speaker 1: at you know, our our group discussion about it was
Speaker 1: it was better to be safe than sorry. If if
Speaker 1: somehow this wasn't political, or if it was maybe personalized
Speaker 1: or something like that um at you know, at the
Speaker 1: legislators and lawmakers, rather than it being overtly just political ideology.
Speaker 1: You know, that would be we could walk it back.
Speaker 1: But again it was for us we made the decision
Speaker 1: that no, this information needs to be out there. Um.
Speaker 1: We have, especially as we were gearing up for the session,
Speaker 1: there was just there's too much on the line. Um.
Speaker 1: You know, up until a couple of years ago, at
Speaker 1: our state legislature, which we call the Roundhouse because it's
Speaker 1: a big round building. Um. Up at the Roundhouse, you
Speaker 1: could carry firearms into the building. Um. It was just
Speaker 1: a sort of a remnant of New Mexico's sort of
Speaker 1: wild West days, I guess. Yeah. Yeah. But uh, but
Speaker 1: with the with the rise of with the rise of
Speaker 1: far right related violence, and you actually did have armed
Speaker 1: insurrection minded people showing up um in and around January six, um.
Speaker 1: But even before that, really during during lead up with
Speaker 1: a lot of the MAGA rallies, the Trump trains and
Speaker 1: all that, Uh, the legislature passed their own you know
Speaker 1: rules saying you couldn't bring guns into the into the legislature,
Speaker 1: and that was upped even further this year by the
Speaker 1: installation of metal detectors. So, but that's new. But that
Speaker 1: was directly related to this, this this looming threat over
Speaker 1: over lawmakers in the state. Um, they didn't know if
Speaker 1: they were going to have anybody in custody before things
Speaker 1: started started today, and so the legislature made that decision
Speaker 1: for themselves that they were going to institute that policy
Speaker 1: and have metal detectors on the way in. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean that that that that makes sense and that I
Speaker 1: as I understand it that it's still the law in
Speaker 1: the state of Texas actually that you can be armed
Speaker 1: inside the Capitol building. I certainly had been during protests
Speaker 1: years ago. It's interesting the watching kind of the simultaneous
Speaker 1: adaptation by the law enforcement, by kind of elected and
Speaker 1: sort of standard centrist Democrats and by the left in
Speaker 1: different ways to this escalation in in political violence, and
Speaker 1: kind of the acceptability on the right of using the
Speaker 1: threat or the practice of violence to try to push
Speaker 1: um for political ideology. UM. Because everyone is kind of
Speaker 1: adapting in real time to it. UM. I'm wondering, how
Speaker 1: are you kind of looking at this from the left,
Speaker 1: How are you how are you feeling about the way
Speaker 1: in which the actual state has responded so far. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's complicated. UM. So the tradition in New Mexico is
Speaker 1: on the opening day of the legislature the governor gives
Speaker 1: the state of the state address. UM. And I covered
Speaker 1: that earlier today. One of her key points and she
Speaker 1: and she tied it to this very issue, was she
Speaker 1: is pushing as a priority bill this year a quote
Speaker 1: unquote assault weapons ban. Uh. There is also another legislator
Speaker 1: who is pushing, um a what we would call a
Speaker 1: standard capacity but what they call a high capacity magazine ban.
Speaker 1: And you know, and then there's some other ones that
Speaker 1: are maybe a little bit more UM reasonable, like safe
Speaker 1: storage um, which is something that I can get behind,
Speaker 1: you know. And I think there's a couple of things
Speaker 1: here to consider and and you know, and it gets
Speaker 1: complicated because people on the right have dominated the conversation
Speaker 1: about guns and gun control for so long that it's
Speaker 1: hard to have UM, well intentioned conversations from the left,
Speaker 1: I find UM And and yeah, yeah, so, you know,
Speaker 1: speaking personally as a gun owner and as somebody who
Speaker 1: has um made the decision of my life to be
Speaker 1: you know, armed and ready and have you know, body armor.
Speaker 1: And I you know, I don't just shoot guns. I
Speaker 1: train with guns. I train other people. I have a
Speaker 1: group of people that I work with and trust that
Speaker 1: if things ever got real bad, I would, you know,
Speaker 1: we would call each other. Um. Being that guy, I
Speaker 1: obviously have very strong feelings about being told by the
Speaker 1: state that I don't have a right to defend myself
Speaker 1: with the same types of weapons that I know the
Speaker 1: other side has. Right, so I think the answer you know, Sorry,
Speaker 1: that was a little bit of a roundabout, but the
Speaker 1: point is that, um, the person who perpetrated this, um
Speaker 1: Mr Penya. It's unclear, but he is a felon. And
Speaker 1: um there is some hay being made about um how
Speaker 1: he and others may have possessed guns. And you know,
Speaker 1: the reality we know is that it is not hard
Speaker 1: or difficult. Um two try to get guns one way
Speaker 1: or the other and so and and now you can
Speaker 1: just draw across the border to Texas for one thing,
Speaker 1: I mean, or Arizona. Yeah, yeah, or Arizona. This guy
Speaker 1: was already what was in fact restricted from being able
Speaker 1: to own any kind of firearm, right, right, And and
Speaker 1: so it is hard to be somebody who works in
Speaker 1: the political left, and I work on a number of
Speaker 1: policy issues. My my day to day work focus is
Speaker 1: more on energy issues. UM. But but you know, but
Speaker 1: I have been doing this work long enough that I
Speaker 1: step in whenever there's stuff like this happening and cover
Speaker 1: it for for my work. But it's yeah, it's UM,
Speaker 1: it's gonna be interesting to see. You know. I don't
Speaker 1: know if there's the political will in the state New Mexico. UM,
Speaker 1: even you know, moderate Democrats are our hunters are recreational shooters, UM.
Speaker 1: And I think that there's you know, there is some
Speaker 1: strong feelings about gun violence. There was a very tragic
Speaker 1: death UM involving children last year during our legislative session, UM,
Speaker 1: where where a middle schooler I believe maybe a high
Speaker 1: school or a kid either way, UM, took a pistol
Speaker 1: from his parents, you know, sock drawer basically and shot
Speaker 1: a kid. And you know, so again, safe storage is
Speaker 1: one of those things that I think most people generally
Speaker 1: can get behind, especially if we do something really good
Speaker 1: like subsidized safe storage, so that if you know, if
Speaker 1: you're a person who is of lesser means but you
Speaker 1: still want to protect yourself with a firearm, you can
Speaker 1: figure out how to get a safe or something like that. Anyway,
Speaker 1: that's so there there are things that we can do. UM.
Speaker 1: I think we know that outright bands one don't work
Speaker 1: and are hard to pass, and things like magazine capacity things,
Speaker 1: the enforcement level becomes difficult, and UM a good example
Speaker 1: of that is in New Mexico, we did pass a
Speaker 1: red flag law a number of years ago. And uh,
Speaker 1: you know, I've heard, I know you've talked about red
Speaker 1: flag laws in the past, and you know, and we
Speaker 1: had what a lot of states have had, which is
Speaker 1: that a number of sheriffs in conservative counties just very
Speaker 1: publicly said out loud that they weren't going to enforce it.
Speaker 1: And sure enough, you know, last year during the summer,
Speaker 1: when we hit the two year mark of the lab
Speaker 1: beying into effect, it had been used less than a
Speaker 1: dozen times um statewide. And so yeah, I mean, and
Speaker 1: one of the one of the things that's of obvious
Speaker 1: concern is if you have a lot of people living
Speaker 1: in these conservative areas where the sheriffs aren't enforcing the laws, um,
Speaker 1: they effectively have the ability to take the firearms they
Speaker 1: can acquire there to the areas that have maybe more
Speaker 1: restrictive gun control where there are elected Democrats and then
Speaker 1: shoot up their houses. Um, yeah, I think kind of
Speaker 1: outside of that, I'm wondering. So, and obviously we're still
Speaker 1: looking at the fall out of this. There's still quite
Speaker 1: a bit we don't know. I don't think there's a
Speaker 1: lot of context on how Penya found these men that
Speaker 1: he hired. Um, although I am interested in that. I
Speaker 1: think it'll be it'll be worth learning. Is there kind
Speaker 1: of a lessons learned that that you're going through with
Speaker 1: us here? Has this altered it all kind of going forward?
Speaker 1: How you think you might respond or your community might
Speaker 1: respond the next time something like this occurs. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean I think there's a couple. I mean, actually,
Speaker 1: one of the things you just said is that we
Speaker 1: don't necessarily know how we found these guys. And and
Speaker 1: that's true because we still don't know the names of
Speaker 1: some of them. But the one, the one man we
Speaker 1: do know, UM was one of was a was a
Speaker 1: person who donated money to him while while he was
Speaker 1: running because because again remember this this is this was
Speaker 1: a man who was running for office last year and
Speaker 1: lost three to one. Um And and yeah, and so
Speaker 1: this this one accomplice whose name we have Jose Triho
Speaker 1: donated to him, and um, they're very you know, they're
Speaker 1: they're clearly, um, they clearly know each other and have
Speaker 1: some sort of a connection there. But I think what's
Speaker 1: worth noting is that going down that path. Right, So
Speaker 1: when I looked up that guy, I found the political
Speaker 1: a nation from last year. And while I was there
Speaker 1: looking at political donations, I just happened to look at
Speaker 1: all the other names, which is how I found the
Speaker 1: other uh you know the name of the other man
Speaker 1: who has his connection to him, um Fletcher and Michael Fletcher. Right,
Speaker 1: And that guy two years ago, during the you know protests,
Speaker 1: drove a car through a crowd of protesters, and thanks
Speaker 1: to some amazing um, you know, anti fascist organizers here
Speaker 1: in New Mexico, they were able to identify them, even
Speaker 1: though the cops never did anything about it. And so
Speaker 1: I think that if if there's gonna be lessons learned here,
Speaker 1: it's that these people have been showing their true colors
Speaker 1: for a long time. And um there's if if if
Speaker 1: we're going to have police in this world we live
Speaker 1: in and we're going to ask them to quote unquote
Speaker 1: keep us safe, Uh, then they have to do their job,
Speaker 1: and they have to follow up with with things like know,
Speaker 1: somebody driving through a crowd of people. The video is
Speaker 1: on our Twitter thread. It's very scary. I mean, I
Speaker 1: know people have seen it all over the country. It
Speaker 1: wasn't just unique in New Mexico. But um, anyway, that
Speaker 1: guy was Penya's third highest donor and he's a young man.
Speaker 1: His his listed profession is security guard and um and
Speaker 1: the other guy, jose A Trihio, is listed as a cashier.
Speaker 1: So there's a lot of questions about how how did
Speaker 1: these young men have so much money it with jobs
Speaker 1: that are you know, you don't necessarily have a lot
Speaker 1: of money lying around if you're a cashier a security
Speaker 1: guard at least at least not to donate to political candidates.
Speaker 1: Back when I had jobs like that, I didn't anyway, Um,
Speaker 1: and especially then also for all the guns they have, right, Like,
Speaker 1: there's pictures of these guys with a table full of
Speaker 1: glocks and um, you know and mag's and that's that
Speaker 1: stuff is not cheap, so I don't there's there's there
Speaker 1: is a these people were known to law enforcement one
Speaker 1: way or the other, because again Penya was a felon
Speaker 1: and um, I want to be clear he was able
Speaker 1: to run in New Mexico because in Mexico we believe
Speaker 1: felons deserve a second chance for things like running for office.
Speaker 1: In fact, it would be great someday to have somebody
Speaker 1: who's maybe got that life experience to become a legislator. Obviously,
Speaker 1: there are circumstances like maybe this one that proved that
Speaker 1: people haven't you know, turned around from whatever life they
Speaker 1: were leading beforehand. But we're also but we're also not
Speaker 1: here excluding people from being Um, being a felon does
Speaker 1: not make you a bad person, That's what I'm really
Speaker 1: trying to say here. But a felon who has a
Speaker 1: history like this and then has clearly demonstrated a will
Speaker 1: towards violence and hangs out with violent people, UM, maybe
Speaker 1: there should be some things done to keep an eye
Speaker 1: on those people. This is one of those situations that
Speaker 1: there's a number of difference to lucitions too or I
Speaker 1: think things that will will lead to solutions. But it's
Speaker 1: also it's much more muddled than people would like it
Speaker 1: to be. Um. I think I tend to think that
Speaker 1: from the perspective of like people who are activists, who
Speaker 1: are members of the community. One of the better things
Speaker 1: that we can do is keep an eye, as y'all do,
Speaker 1: on who's doing what. Like you know, when you have
Speaker 1: people who are donating to one of these right wing,
Speaker 1: you know, fascist kind of candidates, Um, when they're saying
Speaker 1: certain things on social media, or the candidates saying so
Speaker 1: things on social media that are seen as incitements to violence. Like,
Speaker 1: keeping those people on your radar is useful and keeping
Speaker 1: you know, as you did, being able to kind of
Speaker 1: document once somebody actually starts acting, Hey, this person has
Speaker 1: has made further threats in the past. Um, these are
Speaker 1: groups of people that might be at risk from them.
Speaker 1: We know the person, Like, here's evidence that this person
Speaker 1: is and has been a threat. That's all really useful. Um.
Speaker 1: The question is always is like, how do we actually
Speaker 1: stop these people before they carry out violence? Um? And
Speaker 1: this is a question that that to to be certain,
Speaker 1: law enforcement the state don't have very good answers for
Speaker 1: because they only kind of come in and take action after, um,
Speaker 1: the attacks have started. We just got lucky in this
Speaker 1: case that nobody was hurt or killed. Um. You know,
Speaker 1: there have been a couple of of mass shootings averted
Speaker 1: as a result of anti fascists finding someone who was
Speaker 1: making threats, who had firearms and in some cases like
Speaker 1: was not legally supposed to have them, and making that
Speaker 1: public ahead of time. Um, but more often than not,
Speaker 1: it's sort of this case as it as it was
Speaker 1: pen where we're the name comes out, we realize who
Speaker 1: it was, and it's like, yeah, we had we had
Speaker 1: this guy documented, We knew this dude was a threat.
Speaker 1: And I think that's the that is still kind the
Speaker 1: the thing that we don't have a good answer to
Speaker 1: is what is the actual how do you how do
Speaker 1: you actually take action to stop these people from carrying
Speaker 1: out the attacks? Because obviously there's a thousand different legal
Speaker 1: issues with that, there's a number of different moral issues
Speaker 1: with that, because for every guy like Pinia who talked
Speaker 1: about carrying out attacks and then attacked people, there's a
Speaker 1: couple of dozen who talk about ship like this and
Speaker 1: don't do anything. But UM, I don't know, this is
Speaker 1: this is something that I think that I think has
Speaker 1: to be answered and it's not on you know, you
Speaker 1: specifically or the New Mexico activist community to figure it out,
Speaker 1: but it is it is like, this is a big
Speaker 1: part of the struggle. I think because the the cops
Speaker 1: and the state, we'll do the thing that they do,
Speaker 1: which is when there are bodies or when there's bullet
Speaker 1: casings on the ground, generally, eventually someone will get arrested,
Speaker 1: not always, not necessarily, even the vast majority of the time. Again,
Speaker 1: nobody's caught the fucker's we're blowing up power stations in
Speaker 1: North Carolina. But you know, so, I think the question
Speaker 1: for us that and I'm sorry, folks, I'm not going
Speaker 1: to be im not gonna be saying, here's how we
Speaker 1: solve the problem of armed right wingers carrying out attacks
Speaker 1: on people is how do we how do we get
Speaker 1: from knowing who's a threat to stopping them effect effectively
Speaker 1: stopping them from carrying out actual attacks. And that is,
Speaker 1: you know, as our years of lead, if that is
Speaker 1: what we're in and boy, things like this make me
Speaker 1: think that that's a reasonable way to describe the present
Speaker 1: political situation in the United States. Um, this is something
Speaker 1: we're going to have to answer. And obviously you know,
Speaker 1: I've asked you kind of your lessons on it. We don't,
Speaker 1: we don't. I don't think there's much more to say
Speaker 1: at the moment. But it is this is this is
Speaker 1: the question, right, Um, it's a question we ask ourselves.
Speaker 1: I know people are asking themselves up in Portland. Um,
Speaker 1: the guy who carry out an attack almost exactly a
Speaker 1: year ago at a protest in Portland at a long
Speaker 1: history of making threats online and now one person is
Speaker 1: dead and others paralyzed, several more have been have been injured.
Speaker 1: You know, these are this is. This is a tough question,
Speaker 1: and it's it's not one that uh, I think just
Speaker 1: kind of raw ideology actually gives us a very good
Speaker 1: answer on because there's the there's the emotionally satisfying answer,
Speaker 1: which is like, well, we just need to get some
Speaker 1: folks together and go like fuck these people up. And
Speaker 1: it's like, well, you can't. That's actually not a realistic
Speaker 1: thing because number one, there's so many people making these threats,
Speaker 1: like you don't actually have the human bandwidth two for
Speaker 1: that to be realistic outside of the fact that those
Speaker 1: people would be destroying their lives and throwing themselves into
Speaker 1: the mall of the state to do it. So this
Speaker 1: is this is a toughie. I do. There's I mean,
Speaker 1: there's one there's one part of this that I think
Speaker 1: New Mexico can can offer some some I don't know.
Speaker 1: There's one thing we got right, and um, I don't
Speaker 1: know if if you know, everybody out there is familiar
Speaker 1: with the name Coy Griffin or his organization Cowboys for Trump.
Speaker 1: But during the lead up to the election, this guy
Speaker 1: kind of made a name for himself. He went around
Speaker 1: the country on horseback with a bunch of dudes and
Speaker 1: they all dressed up like Larkin as cowboys. Um, most
Speaker 1: of them are not and um, and you know they
Speaker 1: had American flags and they yeah, literally called Cowboys for Trump.
Speaker 1: This guy was a seeded county commissioner in Otaro County
Speaker 1: here in New Mexico. And um, he went to January
Speaker 1: six and he was the first convicted person from the
Speaker 1: January six fallout, and he lost his seat in in
Speaker 1: Otaro County, which is like the smallest amount of thing, right,
Speaker 1: Like it's the man should have been locked up. But um.
Speaker 1: But one of the things that is frustrating but also
Speaker 1: maybe good, is that probably you know, through my work
Speaker 1: doing what I do, I had been documenting this man
Speaker 1: for years because he'd been saying all kinds of crazy shit. Um.
Speaker 1: Sometime in nineteen I think or maybe it was. He
Speaker 1: like went up on top of a mountain to pray
Speaker 1: this is his words, and recorded himself on a Facebook
Speaker 1: live and like literally said that black people should go
Speaker 1: back to Africa and like this. This video was on
Speaker 1: his Facebook and I mean it had been out for
Speaker 1: days and nobody said anything about it anywhere until I
Speaker 1: clipped it and put it on Twitter. You know, I
Speaker 1: took I took away the forty minutes of other weird shit,
Speaker 1: he said, and I put that thing out into the
Speaker 1: world and said, this man deserves to be like under
Speaker 1: so much scrutiny, it's ridiculous. And then of course it
Speaker 1: got pressed, and then of course he came under fire,
Speaker 1: and then a couple of people were paying attention. So
Speaker 1: then when he went to January six and again on
Speaker 1: a live video because people can't stop instagramming their crimes,
Speaker 1: he said he was taking all of his guns and
Speaker 1: going to meet his you know, homies in in Washington,
Speaker 1: and so he got arrested. He got arrested there. He
Speaker 1: was one of the few people who got arrested like
Speaker 1: on the ground that day because the FBI and the
Speaker 1: Secret Service were already looking for him. Because again somebody
Speaker 1: else had been out loud about saying, uh, this man
Speaker 1: literally just said he's taking guns to d C. Is
Speaker 1: somebody please going to do something about this? So I
Speaker 1: don't know, it wasn't great and I feel like more
Speaker 1: could have been done, and again, fortunately no one got hurt.
Speaker 1: I mean, I guess people did if you wanted to
Speaker 1: take the whole of January six into into UM mean,
Speaker 1: but I guess. I guess. My point is is that
Speaker 1: it's sort of just a constant vigilism, right, It's like
Speaker 1: you just have to be and it's not you know,
Speaker 1: and obviously one person can't do it, but you have
Speaker 1: to have groups of people that do it. I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm I'm one guy who works with an organization of
Speaker 1: people and we work on a number of policy things
Speaker 1: in the state. And again I don't necessarily do this
Speaker 1: all the time, but I also know that there's a
Speaker 1: number of amazing people, especially in no Tarot County, UM
Speaker 1: which is a very conservative county, but there's a number
Speaker 1: of amazing people who do really hard work and they
Speaker 1: show up at county commission meetings and they get thrown out,
Speaker 1: and they go to school board meetings and they get
Speaker 1: thrown out, but they go and they document it, and
Speaker 1: they tweet and they TikTok and and it's it's you know,
Speaker 1: it's that work that puts the word out from these little,
Speaker 1: tiny places. You know. The last time I was on
Speaker 1: the show, Robert, we were talking about the school board
Speaker 1: stuff here in Los Cruces and the right wing chuds
Speaker 1: that had showed up to that, and you know, it's
Speaker 1: the same thing, right, It's like, you don't I mean,
Speaker 1: you can't do it alone. But it doesn't take that
Speaker 1: many people to show up. And as you know, and
Speaker 1: once you once you show them that you're not afraid
Speaker 1: and that there's more of us than there are of them,
Speaker 1: they tend to slink away. And I think that there's
Speaker 1: I think that there's value in that, and there's you know,
Speaker 1: it's not the answer that you're talking about, but there's
Speaker 1: there's a modicum of hope they're worth remembering. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: think that's a really good point. That's all. Those are
Speaker 1: all really good points. Um well, Lucas, I think that
Speaker 1: more or less covers what we came to talk about today.
Speaker 1: Did you have anything else you wanted you wanted to
Speaker 1: say to the audience before we kind of roll out
Speaker 1: of here anything you wanted to plug, place you want
Speaker 1: to well, yeah, I mean yeah, I'd just like to
Speaker 1: say that, you know, I the number one donor to
Speaker 1: this guy's campaign is a corporation called Halopano Corporation. It's
Speaker 1: owned by a billionaire named Harvey Yates. He's part of
Speaker 1: the family that discovered oil in the state of New Mexico.
Speaker 1: New Mexico is the second largest producer of oil in
Speaker 1: the United States. Harvey Yates donated to every Republican candidate
Speaker 1: this cycle. And I think that what I want to
Speaker 1: like just just say out loud, because again, my my
Speaker 1: job is normally I talk about energy issues. Is that
Speaker 1: on the one hand, you know, we have questions about
Speaker 1: where some of these young men who have you know,
Speaker 1: cashier jobs and security guard jobs, where they came up
Speaker 1: with four thousand dollars to donate to a political candidate
Speaker 1: over the course of a few months. It's not unsurprising
Speaker 1: that an oil corporation donated five thousand dollars, right, But
Speaker 1: what's worth remembering is is that you know, these these
Speaker 1: mega corporations of it of all stripes, but especially oil
Speaker 1: and gas um are the backbone of the political movement
Speaker 1: that we are talking about. You know, even if we're
Speaker 1: sort of beating around the bush, right, there's there's one
Speaker 1: side here that is dominated very heavily by this far
Speaker 1: right extremism. And they and they and their funders treat
Speaker 1: them all the same, right, Like, oil and gas companies
Speaker 1: don't care if you're a quote unquote moderate Republican or
Speaker 1: a hardcore right wing maga guy or a literal Nazi.
Speaker 1: They just want somebody who's gonna like get in there
Speaker 1: and you know, give them tax subsidies. Um. And you know,
Speaker 1: and I just the the fight over energy issues in
Speaker 1: this country is often framed around climate change, as it
Speaker 1: should be, because I mean, obviously the climate crisis is
Speaker 1: something we can't ignore, but it's so much worse than that.
Speaker 1: And you know, we could do a whole other thing
Speaker 1: about that someday, but I just it's just so important.
Speaker 1: I can't let it go. Um. You know, looking looking
Speaker 1: at at this at this what I'm gonna call it
Speaker 1: domestic terrorists donation sheet, you know, and seeing that the
Speaker 1: number one, you know, his number one donor was this
Speaker 1: oil and Guests guy, Like, it's just not a coincidence.
Speaker 1: It really isn't and it's it's worth remembering. So that's
Speaker 1: that's the last thing I want to plug or last
Speaker 1: thing I want to say in terms of plugs. You
Speaker 1: can find me on Twitter. I'm just Lucas E. Herndon
Speaker 1: and if you are interested in New Mexico politics things,
Speaker 1: you can follow us now at progress Now I am awesome.
Speaker 1: Uh well you cannot find me there, but you can
Speaker 1: find me elsewhere. Um, you'll figure it out. Thank you, Lucas.
Speaker 1: This has been really I mean good is a weird word,
Speaker 1: but I appreciate it. That's what happened last time too. Yeah. Well,
Speaker 1: I'm sure we'll have you back on in the near
Speaker 1: future and we will be back tomorrow with some more
Speaker 1: ship that is hopefully, uh fun fun stuff, maybe fun stuff.
Speaker 1: I always get the episodes where it's not it could
Speaker 1: happen here, it's it did happen here, the thing has occurred.
Speaker 1: Oh no, all Rank Robert, thank you. It could happen
Speaker 1: here is a production of cool Zone Media. Well more
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Speaker 1: Thanks for listening.