In New Mexico, the Democratic governor apparently thinks the Constitution doesn’t apply to her.

“New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham on Friday issued an emergency order suspending the right to carry firearms in public across Albuquerque and the surrounding county for at least 30 days in response to a spate of gun violence,” the Associated Press reported. “The Democratic governor said she expects legal challenges but she was compelled to act because of recent shootings, including the death of an 11-year-old boy outside a minor league baseball stadium this week. Lujan Grisham said state police would be responsible for enforcing what amount to civil violations.”

The New Mexico governor claims that emergency powers give her the ability to simply suspend constitutional law. But the Albuquerque police chief is already saying he won’t enforce her order because it’s unconstitutional: “No constitutional right, in my view, including my oath, is intended to be absolute,” Grisham stated. “There are restrictions on free speech. There are restrictions on my freedoms. In this emergency, this 11-year-old, and all these parents who have lost all these children, they deserve my attention to have the debate about whether or not in an emergency, we can create a safer environment. Because what about their constitutional rights?”

When people speak of political fascism, this is it. When a member of the government simply declares via emergency order that they can willy-nilly violate full-scale constitutional rights based on no actual emergency — we are not talking about a tornado hitting the state or some sort of giant earthquake — that’s fascism. She is basically saying, “I don’t like that people got shot. Therefore, I’m banning you from exercising your constitutional rights.”

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You could do this for anything. Someone could say, “Listen, we have a national epidemic of hate.” (You’ve seen this in places like Chicago, where the former mayor, Lori Lightfoot, tried to declare that racism was a public health emergency.) You could see somebody like this idiot governor saying, “Racism and hate are public health emergencies, and I’m declaring an emergency. Therefore, you are not allowed to say the following words in my state,” and then just list them. That would be a significant First Amendment violation.

She could go even further. She could say, “You’re not allowed to use the internet because the internet obviously has facilitated so much violence. I’ve decided in my state, you’re not allowed to use it — not on the basis of any sort of elected legislative session, but on the basis of my own judgment that an emergency has now been constituted because I don’t like what is happening.” If all of your rights are simply dependent on one lady deciding she really doesn’t like what is happening in the world, that is tyranny. That is the essence of tyranny.

It’s amazing she would try this, but it was always going to happen. The minute we shut down everything in the world for COVID, and then maintained that for two years, even as the data emerged that it actually wasn’t the sort of national emergency that was being suggested, it was only a matter of time before Democratic officials tried to do something like this.

If this is the new way the Democrats make law, then they could do it on the basis of anything.

And that’s a pretty terrifying prospect.

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Sen. Mitt Romney, 76, the GOP presidential nominee who lost the 2012 election to Barack Obama and later became a United States senator from Utah in 2018, said he will not seek a second term in the Senate in 2024.

Interviewed by The Washington Post, Romney cited his disappointment in the GOP-controlled House and the prospect that either President Biden or former President Trump would be elected in 2024.

“It’s very difficult for the House to operate, from what I can tell,” he declared, “and two, and perhaps more importantly, we’re probably going to have either Trump or Biden as our next president. And Biden is unable to lead on important matters and Trump is unwilling to lead on important matters.”

Romney asserted that neither Biden nor Trump was serious about reducing the deficit, saying, “You’ve got both Biden and Trump saying we won’t touch entitlements. How irresponsible is that!”

Romney said he would not publicly support any of the GOP presidential candidates challenging Trump, opining, “I doubt my support will mean anything positive to any of the candidates at the finish line. I’m not looking to get involved in that.”

“It’s pretty clear that the party is inclined to a populist demagogue message,” he said, adding, “If it can change in the direction of a populist it can change back in the direction of my wing of the Republican Party.”

Romney, who served as governor of Massachusetts, was not the first member of his family to run for president; his father George, who served as governor of Michigan, was a prime candidate in 1968, losing the nomination to Richard Nixon. As a senator, Romney voted to impeach Trump twice, incurring the enmity of Trump loyalists. In January 2019, he wrote of Trump:

After he became the nominee, I hoped his campaign would refrain from resentment and name-calling. It did not. When he won the election, I hoped he would rise to the occasion. His early appointments of Rex Tillerson, Jeff Sessions, Nikki Haley, Gary Cohn, H.R. McMaster, Kelly and Mattis were encouraging. But, on balance, his conduct over the past two years, particularly his actions last month, is evidence that the president has not risen to the mantle of the office.

“With the nation so divided, resentful and angry, presidential leadership in qualities of character is indispensable,” he continued. “And it is in this province where the incumbent’s shortfall has been most glaring.”

Commenting on House Speaker Kevin McCarthy telling House committees to begin an impeachment inquiry into President Biden, he stated, “This is not an impeachment. This is an inquiry, and I have heard no allegations that rise to the high-crimes-and-misdemeanors standard of the Constitution.”

“I think it’s of paramount importance to maintain our commitment to the Constitution and the liberal constitutional order,” he stated. “And I know that there are some in MAGA world who would like Republican rule, or authoritarian rule by Donald Trump. But I think they may be forgetting that the majority of people in America would not be voting for Donald J. Trump. The majority would probably be voting for the Democrats.”

He concluded, “I do believe that our institutions, while under constant barrage, are strong, that our court system is strong and that, fundamentally, the American people stand by the Constitution and the constitutional norms.”