Roswell Daily Record THE VOICE OF THE PECOS VALLEY
Vol. 123, No. 153 75¢ Daily / $1.25 Sunday
June 26, 2014
New VA clinic opens in Artesia BY JEFF TUCKER RECORD STAFF WRITER
The U.S. Department of Veterans Af fairs has opened a new outpatient clinic in Artesia, although at least one local veteran says the VA has not notified local veterans of the clinic’s new location. The New Mexico VA Health Care System announced there will be a grand opening of the new community based outpatient clinic in Artesia from
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11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. on July 3. The clinic’s new location is at 2410 W. Main St. in Artesia. It replaces the for mer clinic located in a strip mall at 1700 W. Main St. The VA’s website still lists the former address of the Artesia clinic, with no mention of a relocation. Veterans looking for the new clinic are probably having a difficult time, said U.S. Air Force veteran Mark Rowland of Roswell.
Rowland, who has a service-connected disability, said an 8-1/2-by-11-inch notice posted on the former clinic last week announced the new clinic would open June 23, but did not list the new clinic’s address. Rowland said the new clinic is also hard to distinguish.
“Veterans are probably driving all around Artesia trying to find the new clinic’s location,” Rowland said. “I would have liked them to properly notify us.
For goodness’ sake, how many veterans are driving around town wondering where the clinic is at?”
Rowland said he did not receive a notification from the VA about the Artesia clinic’s new location.
“There are people driving around I’m sure are wondering what the heck,” he said. “The VA is good about sending out notifications of upcoming appointments and things like that. Why See CLINIC, Page A3
Mary Morgan Photo
The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs opened a new outpatient clinic in Artesia on Monday. An official grand opening will be held July 3 at the new facility at 2410 W. Main St.
Feds say they will discourage child immigration
NOGALES, Ariz. (AP) — Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson warned Central American families on Wednesday that “there is no free pass” in the U.S. immigration system after touring an Arizona facility holding hundreds of children apprehended at the border in recent weeks.
AP Photo
This June 18 file photo shows young detainees being escorted to an area to make phone calls as hundreds of mostly Central American immigrant children are being processed and held at the U.S. Customs and Border Protection Nogales Placement Center in Nogales, Ariz.
Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer, who has long been a staunch critic of the Obama administration’s immigration policies, toured the converted warehouse in Nogales with Johnson and declared that the gover nment is not doing its job in stifling the overwhelming surge in children illegally migrating to the U.S.
“Dang it, the federal government has got a job to do,” she said. Asked whether the state should provide resources during what many say is a humanitarian crisis, Brewer said only that the federal government has made it clear she does not have any authority in addressing illegal immigration. Brewer was referring to a federal lawsuit against Arizona after Brewer signed into law the sweeping immigration bill known as SB 1070. Thousands of Central American families and unaccompanied children have been coming to the See IMMIGRATION, Page A3
Abortion protesters ‘Shipping Wars’ upsets cemetery officials target Gov. Martinez
ALBUQUERQUE (AP) — The group that forced the nation’s first, but unsuccessful, effort to ban lateterm abortions at the municipal level is now targeting Gov. Susana Martinez, saying the Republican hasn’t done enough to fight abortion and is courting pro-abortion voters to win re-election. Protest ABQ, led by antiabortion activists Bud and Tara Shaver, has been showing up at recent public appearances by Martinez, the nation’s first Latina governor and rising star in the national GOP. Last weekend, members of the group had a confrontation with Martinez’s political strategist, Jay McCleskey, after they took their protest to his neighborhood. Tara Shaver said
McCleskey “degraded” the group with vulgar language. McCleskey said he confronted the group of about 20 as they marched in front of his house and raced a truck with a graphic billboard up and down the residential street.
“As a father, I objected to this group terrifying young children innocently playing in their neighborhood on a Saturday morning, including my own 8-year-old son, with grotesque posters and billboards of dead fetuses, and I think most parents would share my disgust,” McCleskey said. The confrontation and the governor’s office’s response has only increased tensions, with Tara Shaver saying Wednesday that group “is going to keep exposing her.”
AP Photo
House Speaker John Boehner of Ohio meets with reporters on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday. Boehner said he's "all in" to remain as House speaker in the new Congress that will meet next year.
HIGH 101 LOW 68 TODAY’S FORECAST
BY RANDAL SEYLER RECORD STAFF WRITER
The Gen. Douglas L. McBrideRoswell Veterans’ Cemetery was featured on A&E’s “Shipping Wars” television show earlier this week, but the show wasn’t exactly delivered as promised. One segment of the show featured the delivery of a columbarium to the veterans’ cemetery, which happened here on May 7. The Chaves County Veterans’ Cemetery Board and local veterans joined together in early May to hold a dedication ceremony for the delivery of the columbarium. In the show, which aired on Tuesday, the veterans’ cemetery took a backseat to a tombstone dedicated to aliens, which was also delivered by the “Shipping Wars” driver. However, local officials associated with the cemetery had been assured that the alien would not usurp the Roswell segment. “What they did was wrong,” said City Councilor Jeanine Corn Best
Randal Seyler Photo
The tractor-trailer from the A&E television show “Shipping Wars” delivers a columbarium to the new veterans’ cemetery in Roswell on May 7. The episode aired on Tuesday night.
said on Wednesday. “This was supposed to show America how this group banded together to create this cemetery for our veterans and they sh-t on it. A&E sh-t on our veter-
ans.” “I was very disappointed in it, it made the alien deal look bad and it See CEMETERY, Page A3
Boehner says House plans to sue president WASHINGTON (AP) — The House will vote next month on legislation authorizing a campaignseason lawsuit accusing President Barack Obama of failing to carry out the laws passed by Congress, Speaker John Boehner announced on Wednesday. In a memo distributed to House members, Boehner, R-Ohio, accused Obama of “aggressive unilateralism” and said if left unchecked, it would give the president “king-like authority at the expense of the American people and their elected legislators.” White House press secre-
• JACK FRANKLIN GOODNIGHT
tary Josh Ear nest dismissed any suggestion that the president has failed to act within the law in issuing executive orders or taking other actions. “We feel completely confident that the president was operating within his authority as the president of the United States to take these steps on behalf of the American people,” he told reporters. Whatever the outcome of the suit in the courts, Boehner’s announcement guarantees creation of yet another political struggle between Republicans and Obama and his Democratic allies in a campaign
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already full of them. “On matters ranging from health care and energy to foreign policy and education, President Obama has repeatedly run an endaround” on the public and Congress, the speaker wrote. He accused him of “ignoring some statutes completely, selectively enforcing others and at times, creating laws of his own.” At a news conference, Boehner strongly brushed aside a question of whether impeachment proceedings could result from the suit. In his memo, he stopped short of accusing the presi-
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dent of violating his oath of of fice. Instead, he said Obama was “straining the boundaries of the solemn oath he took on Inauguration Day.”
Other Republicans have been less restrained. Rep. Lou Barletta, R-Pa., said recently the House probably has the votes to impeach Obama, although he said he wasn’t calling for it. One former tea partybacked lawmaker, ex-Rep. Allen West of Florida, has called for the House to vote to remove the president from office.
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