3-Point Shots: Does Anyone Tell the Truth Anymore?

The War in Iran goes on, Texas prepares for NewMexit, and plans to ruin the Big Bend region with a birder wall move forward. In all three instances, the government has trouble telling us the truth.

Welcome to another edition of Three-Point Shots, a part of my Life Its Ownself Substack page. If you enjoy reading it, please 1) hit the Like button, 2) subscribe to the Life Its Ownself, and 3) share it with others in the link below. Comments are welcome and encouraged.

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But first, your moment of Zen … a rare double rainbow graces the Texas sky above the Marfa Lights Viewing Center on Tuesday, April 7, 2026. Photo by the author.

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Friday, April 10, 2026

1. The On-Again, Off-Again War with Iran

Giddy with excitement about the cease-fire in the Israeli-American War on Iran, I started writing a not-about-Iran-because-war-is-so-boring post. Then I found out the Strait is still closed, the Israeli butchers are still bombing Lebanon, and Iran is still bombing oil infrastructure in Saudi Arabia, UAE, and other allies.

In fact, the only difference is that Trump has not used nuclear weapons to bomb Iran “back to the Sone Ages [sic], where they belong.” Thank heavens for small victories.

One would almost think the “cease-fire” was never about a cease-fire, it was about giving the Mad Orange King a chance to save face while backing down from an apocalyptic threat that even he knew was too much. The problem is, we’re still at the point we were last week before the Final Countdown began.

2. NewMex-it!?!

Put this in the “Things That Will Never Happen, But That Legislators Would Rather Talk About Than Solving Actual Problems” file.

Two eastern New Mexico counties, Lea and Roosevelt, have grown tired of the dictatorial ways of New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham and the state’s Democratic leadership. They are sick and tired of the teacher pay increases, healthcare infrastructure improvements and economic development initiatives imposed by their socialist overlords. And so, they have suggested they would like to leave New Mexico and become part of Texas, where men are men and sheep are nervous.

Texas’s GOP leaders, allured by the possibility of more reliable Republican voters, have agreed to include a study of the matter in the interim charges released by House Speaker Dustin Burrows (R-Lubbock).

One genius, Rep. Carl Tepper (also R-Lubbock), has even proposed buying the counties from New Mexico. “You never know,” Tepper explained. “They’re poor and we’re rich.” (Tepper has been nominated for the 2026 Thurston Howell III Condescension Award.)

Now, wait a cotton-pickin’ minute, as my sainted father would say. We want to let these counties join the Promised Land of Their Dreams, and pay them for it? We’ll see about that.

Setting aside the numerous constitutional and legal hurdles to such a land swap, New Mexico leaders do not seem keen on the idea.

“Let me put this into terms Speaker Burrows might be able to understand: Come and try to take it,” said New Mexico House Speaker Javier Martínez, D-Albuquerque, in a statement.

3. Update on the Big Bend Border Wall

As Lenny Kravitz would say, “It ain’t over ‘til it’s over,” but tfor now the parks seem safe from destruction. The DHS/CBP has amended its border wall plan to eliminate an actual 30-foot wall through the Big Bend National and Big Bend Ranch State parks. They are still proceeding with plans to build a physical wall upriver from the state park, running from Presidio to all the way up to Fort Hancock on the outskirts of El Paso. This would run through some of the most barren and desolate land in the country, which is why border apprehensions are consistently lower in this sector tan in any other along the 1,954-mile U.S. Mexico border.

READ about the trip Marfawitz and I took down the Chispa Road, which passes through this spectacularly barren country.

Although the parks have been spared for the time being, ranchers and landowners along the river will see their livestock or pastures cut off from the river. For this reason, the battle to save the entire sector from the depredations of the wall-builders continues, with a big rally in Austin and one at Santa Elena Canyon in the national park last Saturday.

READ Joe Holley’s “Native Texan” column about the fight to save the borderlands in the Houston Chronicle.

(Big Bend area residents gather at the river to protest against DHS/CBP plans to build border walls through the region on Saturday, April 4, 2016. Photo credit: Alaine Berg)