New Mexico
Cruisin' with New Mexico social media star Johnny James
Johnny James has become popular for showing off the quirks of New Mexico’s culture but who is he? We took a cruise and got to know him more.
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — There’s a local man who’s been skyrocketing to stardom, simply by making videos about New Mexico’s unique culture.
Phrases and things only New Mexicans know. Johnny James is sharing with the world:
- “Down here in New Mexico, we got our own way of doing things. And we DEFINITELY got our own way of saying things.”
- “You wanna go check out that new chicken place that just opened up real quick, errr what?”
- “The classic New Mexican phrase…ombers.”
Johnny James is an unintended influencer, having some fun with his own culture. He started making videos on social media during the pandemic. There’s a certain unfiltered authenticity that has garnered him hundreds of thousands of followers.
“I started making videos from a real point of view, from us down here, for us down here. And it just cracked off,” he said.
Johnny’s life hasn’t always been something you’d want to share online.
“Totally fair to say. Straight up, I’ll be all the way honest… from like 13 to when it was done, I grew up in the streets selling dope,” he said. “I got kicked out of school in the 11th grade. Had my ‘jito when I was 16. I always kinda credit him for shifting my trajectory.”
Now, at 39 years old, Johnny has four boys and has a career in music, podcasting, cannabis and, one that he hates to admit, influencing.
He knows having an influence can be a good thing.
“If I can be like, look… we have similar backgrounds but if you take a different route, look where we are now,” he said.
Johnny is using it good. Recently, he started a GoFundMe to raise money for people affected by the Ruidoso fires and flooding. As expected, New Mexicans have turned out, raising more than $70,000.
People know Johnny. When we cruised Central with him in his ’64 Impala lowrider, many people spotted him from a mile away so we had to stop a few times.
See the full cruise and story in the video above.
The governor sets the agenda for the session, including for the budget, so here is what they are looking at so far.
SANTA FE, N.M. — As the regular session of the New Mexico Legislature is set to begin Jan. 20, lawmakers have already filed dozens of bills.
Bills include prohibiting book bans at public libraries and protections against AI, specifically the distribution of sensitive and “Deepfake” images
Juvenile justice reform is, again, a hot topic. House Bill 25 would allow access to someone’s juvenile records during a background check if they’re trying to buy a gun.
Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham sets the agenda and puts forth the proposed budget lawmakers will address during the session. The governor is calling for lawmakers to take up an $11.3 billion budget for the 2027 fiscal year, which is up 4.6% from current spending levels.
Where would that money go? More than $600 million would go to universal free child care. Meanwhile, more than $200 million would go to health care and to protect against federal funding cuts.
There is also $65 million for statewide affordable housing initiatives and $19 million for public safety.
After years of failure to land a “big fish” business for New Mexico’s economy (or effectively use the oil and gas revenues to grow the economy) Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham with the help of her Economic Development Secretary Rob Black have lured no fewer than three large data centers to New Mexico. These data centers are being built to serve the booming world of Artificial Intelligence (AI), and they will have profound impacts on New Mexico.
It is our view that having these data centers locate in New Mexico is better than having them locate elsewhere. While we have many differences of opinion with this governor, we are pleased to see her get serious about growing and diversifying New Mexico’s oil-dependent economy albeit quite late in her second term.
Sadly, the governor and legislature have chosen not to use broad based economic reforms like deregulation or tax cuts to improve New Mexico’s competitiveness. But, with the failure of her “preferred” economic development “wins” like Maxeon and Ebon solar both of which the governor announced a few years ago, but haven’t panned out, the focus on a more realistic strategy is welcome and long overdue.
Currently, three new data centers are slated to be built in New Mexico:
- Oracle’s Project Jupiter in Santa Teresa with an investment of $165 billion.
- Project Zenith slated to be built in Roswell amounts to a $11.7 billion investment.
- New Era Energy & Digital, Inc. While the overall investment is unclear, the energy requirement is the largest of the three at 7 gigawatts (that’s seven times the power used by the City of San Francisco).
What is a data center? Basically, they are the real-world computing infrastructure that makes up the Internet. The rise of AI requires vast new computing power. It is critical that these facilities have uninterrupted electricity.
That electricity is going to be largely generated by traditional sources like natural gas and possibly nuclear. That contravenes New Mexico’s Energy Transition Act of 2019 which was adopted by this Gov. and many of the legislators still in office. Under the Act electrical power emissions are supposed to be eliminated in a few years.
With the amount of money being invested in these facilities and the simple fact that wind and solar and other “renewable” energy sources aren’t going to get the job done. In 2025 the Legislature passed and MLG signed HB 93 which allows for the creation of “microgrids” that won’t tax the grid and make our electricity more expensive, but the ETA will have to be amended or ignored to provide enough electricity for these data centers. There’s no other option.
New Mexicans have every right to wonder why powerful friends of the governor can set up their own natural gas microgrids while the rest of us face rising costs and decreased reliability from so-called “renewables.” Don’t get me wrong, having these data centers come to New Mexico is an economic boon.
But it comes tempered with massive subsidies including a 30-year property tax exemption and up to $165 billion in industrial revenue bonds. New Mexico is ideally suited as a destination for these data centers with its favorable climate and lack of natural disasters like hurricanes, tornadoes, and floods. We shouldn’t be giving away such massive subsidies.
Welcoming the data center boom to New Mexico better than rejecting them and pushing them to locate in other states. There is no way to avoid CO2 emissions whether they happen here or somewhere else. But, there are questions about both the electricity demand and subsidies that must be addressed as New Mexico’s data center boom begins.
What will the Legislature, radical environmental groups, and future governors of our state do to hinder (or help) bring these data centers to our State? That is an open question that depends heavily on upcoming statewide elections. It is important that New Mexicans understand and appreciate these complicated issues.
Paul Gessing is president of New Mexico’s Rio Grande Foundation. The Rio Grande Foundation is an independent, nonpartisan, tax-exempt research and educational organization dedicated to promoting prosperity for New Mexico based on principles of limited government, economic freedom and individual responsibility
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