The Government Leading us Backwards -- and Here's a 110th Birthday Wish!

About 120 years ago, small towns argued over roads. Horses and bicycles were how we traveled. Some crazies thought horseless carriages were the coming thing, though they were noisy and unreliable, with constant tire blowouts. Mules often pulled the fancy toys out of mud puddles.

Soon towns tried to modernize roads – despite bitter rearguard actions by city aldermen who owned livery stables, harness factories, or bicycle shops. Tinkerers made fortunes, established fortunes were lost.

Fifty years ago, when I was a young reporter here, Tommy Tomson was a powerful city commissioner. He owned the Palms, our biggest motel and conference venue, but completion of the Interstate 10 section running from I-25 toward Deming turned Picacho Avenue into a ghost town. Can even ten per cent of our citizens find the Palms on a map? And 150 years ago, Mesilla, on established wagon routes, was our great political and commercial center. Las Cruces was scattered farms. Then came the railroad. Stopping in Cruces.

Once wagon taverns lined major roads across many states, providing travelers and buses food, lodging, wheels, harnesses, and whatnot. If you were surveying for the planned railroad, you hid your identity from those folks, who were determined to maintain their income-producing wagon taverns, and demanded politicians delay railroad-building. So did mayors and major citizens of canal towns, and mule breeders and tow-path operators, although railroads would move goods faster, further, and more efficiently than canals.

Would you have invested in whaling ships if you’d talked to Thomas Edison?

Two headlines today reminded me of that stuff. Our President has lowered royalties to help oil companies dig more oil wells on federal land; and he has shut down wind farms in the Atlantic. Leading us rapidly backwards.

Tow-path operators and livery-stable owners couldn’t stop time. Nor can Mr. Trump. Whether or not we like it, whether or not we admit humans caused climate-craziness, whether or not we inherited Standard Oil stock from our grandparents, the world’s immediate need is for extremely-efficient vehicles and renewable energy sources. Future fortunes will be made by companies – or countries – that lead the world in figuring out how to provide those.

While most of the world, notably China and Norway, struggles to solve those issues, we struggle to get our heads deeper into the sand. While most of the world, inspired by the development of mRNA vaccines at stemming the pandemic, is working toward using those to combat flu and even cancer, the U.S. has reduced funding. Our leader loathes mRNA vaccines because the pandemic (and his denial of it) embarrassed him publicly, and the major issue in world affairs is how anything affects DJT’s bruised ego and swelling purse. Meanwhile, we are racing to revive measles.

We will intentionally fall behind in every important scientific and commercial area!?

I can’t write 100+ years ago without saluting Clayton Flowers. Mr. Flowers, whose mother taught in a Virginia one-room schoolhouse, was born Christmas Day 1915. Before the U.S. entered the Great War. He moved North to enlist in the Army for World War II, not wishing to be stationed in the South. Before the U.S. Army was even integrated, he was a war pilot, a Tuskegee Airman, and trained other pilots. They collectively won a Congressional Medal of Honor. After decades of teaching school in New York City, he moved in the early 1980s to wonderful Las Cruces, where he still lives. That’s bloody awesome!

                                             – 30 – 

 

 [The above column appeared yesterday, Sunday, 28 December 2025, in the Las Cruces Sun-News and on the newspaper's website and will presently appear on KRWG’s website (under Local Viewpoints). A shortened and sharpened radio commentary version of this Sunday column will air during the week on KRWG (90.1 FM) and on KTAL-LP (101.5 FM / http://www.lccommunityradio.org/). ]

[Happy New Year, everyone!]

We Might Get to Correct a Mistake -- and Still Screw Up!

Acoma, LLC [“who!?”] has applied for permission to generate as much gas-fired electricity each year as the rest of New Mexico generates. Forever.

Part of Project Jupiter, Acoma is a separate LLC to limit liability. One wonders if county leadership awakened long enough to make sure that if Acoma screws up, citizens can be made whole.

This 2700-2800 Megawatts of natural gas power generation is bigger than expected. Engineer Phil Simpson says Jupiter’s plants will emit nearly twice the CO2e as all present electricity generation in NM. (Proponents mentioned 700 MW of gas generation, with additional generation solar plus battery.)

That makes our “Energy Transition Act” a pathetic joke. If we otherwise cut non-renewables use to 0 by 2045, the state would emit as much poison then as now – or more. Proponents and the County misled folks by saying their plans were "fully compliant" with the ETA.  That sounds like “We’ll meet carbon free ETA standards by 2045.  But Jupiter isn’t violating the ETA because the ETA exempts gas-fired plants that don’t’ sell power to others.)

Inspired by Jupiter’s good fortune, other big companies are already badgering the PRC for exceptions. New Mexico’s effort to fight climate craziness is dead in the water. If our Governor, a big force in making this happen, has a political future, she better get appointed to high position. We New Mexicans sure won’t elect her. Her pals and cabinet secretaries leaving to work for Project Jupiter is legal, but as unappetizing as most government/industry revolving doors.

My candid assessment of how my friends on the county commission handled this can’t be printed in a family newspaper. Yeah, they got sabotaged by business-development-mad staff. They violated public records, open meetings and other ethics, and probably laws. It ain’t right for commissioners to be exchanging documents marked “Secret” or “Confidential,” that we don’t see, or to be voting on incomplete contracts, or to have a “final” public vote (speedily!) then have one commissioner meet privately with proponents to finalize the deal. Credit Commissioner Susana Chapparo with speaking out, and requesting a more sensible and lawful process!

There are lawsuits, and complaints to the Attorney-General about the Open Meetings Act. Maybe the AG will find violations; but likely the major result will be a re-vote in an open meeting. I hope we can effect some change. I doubt it.

Basically, Big Money told staff, “We’ll make you heroes by bringing this $600 billion project to the south county, with lots of jobs!” (Such A.I. data campuses ain’t usually so great for local jobs, either.) None of us can imagine $600 billion. So everyone bowed. When Big Money said, “Listen, if you try to negotiate reasonable limits on what we do to people’s air and water, and the atmosphere, we’re outta here. Going elsewhere.” Nonsense, because A.I. is growing and because some other communities are wising up and pushing back on this stuff. But saying “$600bill” ends the meaningful discussion.

We should have said, “Great, let’s look at details and work out what works for us all. Because humans and industry are poisoning the atmosphere, we have to generate most electricity by renewables, not gas.” (Jupiter’s chief honcho told me, in the commission meeting room, the campus would use mostly solar – but the county didn’t bother to get it in writing.)

This is a huge mess we might get a chance to clean up.

                                  – 30 -- 

 

[The above column appeared Sunday, 21 December 2025, in the Las Cruces Sun-News and on the newspaper's website and will presently appear on KRWG’s website (under Local Viewpoints). A shortened and sharpened radio commentary version of this Sunday column will air during the week on KRWG (90.1 FM) and on KTAL-LP (101.5 FM / http://www.lccommunityradio.org/).

[We probably could get one of those news / betting sites to make odds, but I would bet that the AG will find an OMA violation, although there’s no certainty. If such is found, our commission doing any better with a second chance is kind of a long shot. But we should all persevere. ]

 

 

 

Our community radio station, KTAL-LP, 101.5 FM, is a vibrant community resource people will only appreciate more and more deeply as local news and discussion in other media continue drying up.

In late 2013 a fellow advised Kevin Bixby, of Southwest Environmental Center, that a low-power license would become available here. (My December 21, 2014 column notes that although such small stations didn’t interfere with others’ broadcasts, the FCC long banned such stations from existing close to bigger stations on the dial, but eventually agreed to license them.)

We wondered if we could start a radio station. Fortunately, expert Nan Rubin, who’d started several, retired around then – to Las Cruces. With her guidance, we spent years gathering funds, equipment, licenses, potential show hosts, a physical location, and broadcast-tower space, and finally went on the air in late June 2017.

KTAL-LP (after the familiar greeting, “Que tal!”) streams on its website, www.lccommunityradio.org, and broadcast an FM radio signal you can receive with line of sight to our tower. That’s most of Last Cruces and along the Interstate North and South. We help Las Cruces talk to itself – politically, culturally, artistically, musically, and otherwise. While national news tells you all about Trump and Biden, we also talk about who’s running for school board or city council, and talk with those candidates during election, and with those office-holders – and their critics – during their tenure. We also talk with local nonprofits, charities, writers, actors, theaters, businessfolk and a neat variety of others. Ironically, national news tells you about everything except the local level – which is the only one you have significant power to affect!

A recent event reminded me of challenges we rose to. One was COVID. That impeded our work. For a while, no two people could be in the station together, so a lot of shows got recorded. Then we initiated a COVID local reports series that alerted people not just to what the CDC was saying but to what was happening locally, what was open, closed, or canceled, how full the hospitals were, what emergency services were doing and offering, how the hungry and homeless were faring, and other local pandemic developments. When the Las Cruces Public Schools decided to hold graduations for each high school at the Field of Dreams, with kids driving up (in extremely decorated cars, some with way too many people in them) to receive their diplomas, the school board invited us to do play-by-play, on radio, describing the vehicles and which kids were getting their diplomas and what the kids had said. Doing that was unique, exhausting, and quite gratifying.

We’re all volunteers, with an extremely low budget. We invite more of you to propose and host a show – whether musical, cultural, educational, or journalistic – and/or listen to our existing shows, volunteer as a host or behind-the-scenes techie, and donate or underwrite, to help us keep performing a community service we’ll all value even more in five years or ten. We even added a fine local sports show (Thursdays) a year ago. Architect and Former City Councilor Greg Smith discusses local arts and developments Tuesdays.

As a participant, I want to utter a huge “THANKS!” to the community, for increasing support, and a promise that we’ll persevere and improve. As a show-host, I invite you to come tell us about your charity, cause, ideas, or political position.

As a listener, I’m in awe. Tune in!

                                              – 30 --

 

[The above column appeared Sunday, 21 December 2025, in the Las Cruces Sun-News and on the newspaper's website and will presently appear on KRWG’s website (under Local Viewpoints). A shortened and sharpened radio commentary version of this Sunday column will air during the week on KRWG (90.1 FM) and on KTAL-LP (101.5 FM / http://www.lccommunityradio.org/).

[We probably could get one of those news / betting sites to make odds, but I would bet that the AG will find an OMA violation, although there’s no certainty. If such is found, our commission doing any better with a second chance is kind of a long shot. But we should all persevere. ]

The Gang that Really Can't Shoot Straight -- but Currently Runs our Country

William Pryor is a conservative Republican former Alabama Deputy State Attorney General, who fiercely opposed overruling laws that criminalized same-sex encounters between two consenting adults. Appointed to the 11^th Circuit Court of Appeals by President George V. Bush in 2003, Pryor called Roe v. Wade “the worst abomination in the history of constitutional law,” and said Roe created “a constitutional right to murder an unborn child … out of thin air.” Unsurprisingly, he was on President Donald Trump’s short list for appointment to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Andrew Brasher is a conservative Republican lawyer who was Alabama’s Solicitor General until Donald J. Trump (over unanimous Democratic opposition) appointed him to the 11^th Circuit in 2020. In 2024, President Joe Biden appointed Embry Kidd to the same court.

Those three unanimously held that Trump’s lawsuit against Hillary Clinton was so frivolous that Trump and his lawyer, Alina Habba (whom Trump later tried to appoint U.S. Attorney for New Jersey) were so frivolous that Trump/Habba should be ordered to pay the defendants $1 million to defray attorney fees.

Legally, “frivolous” means that an argument is obviously not the law, and there’s no reasonable argument that the law should be changed.

The trial court stated that several legal theories were flatly forbidden by previous decisions “that the most basic research would have revealed.” As Pryor wrote, Trump alleged “‘a malicious prosecution claim without a prosecution’ and a ‘trade secret claim without a trade secret,’ plus “‘seven counts . . . which did not allege any cause of action,” which the trial court called, “the high—water mark of shotgun pleading.”

Pryor’s opinion also stated that in deciding Trump acted in bad faith the trial court had properly considered Trump’s other stupid litigation constituting “a pattern of misusing the courts.” (In my four decades lawyering, fighting hard for clients, taking aggressive positions, no judge ever found my argument frivolous.)

Again, two of these three were conservative Republicans who share Trump’s repulsive views! Another three-judge appellate panel, with two Trump-appointed judges, torpedoed Trump’s “meritless” lawsuit against CNN, holding that using the Hitler-related term “Big Lie” to describe Trump’s false claims of election fraud was First Amendment-protected opinion.

Trump’s pattern of bad faith litigation is indistinguishable from his “revenge tour” indictments of James Comey and others. When no prosecutor would prosecute Comey, Trump installed a U.S. Attorney with no criminal law experience, who lied to the grand jury to procure an indictment, screwed up procedurally, and wasn’t even properly appointed.

This gang really can’t shoot straight. Trump’s response to Habiba’s incompetence? Send the Senate her nomination as New Jersey’s U.S. Attorney; withdraw her failing nomination; then name her “interim special attorney” to avoid required Senate confirmation. Three appellate judges, two appointed by Bush, overturned Trump’s chicanery, ruling unanimously that she could not legally run the office without Senate approval. That helped maintain our separation of powers and could help stem Trump’s other power grabs.

Pete Hegseth is the poster child for Trump’s disastrous appointment of unqualified cronies to important positions. Result: poor security, war crimes, and a cover-up full of inept lies.

Trump resembles a pro football team owner who calls all the plays, though he was too scared to play football as a kid, and insists the coach play friends and relatives who are loyal or good-looking, but played third-string at Division 2 colleges.

No fan wants that.

Nor do thoughtful and patriotic U.S. voters.

                                                – 30 – 

[The above column appeared today, 7 December 2025, in the Las Cruces Sun-News and on the newspaper's website newspaper’s website and KRWG’s website (under Local Viewpoints). A shortened and sharpened radio commentary version of this Sunday column will air during the week on KRWG (90.1 FM) and on KTAL-LP (101.5 FM / http://www.lccommunityradio.org/). That website also contains station show archives.]

[Not a lot more to say – or, way too much. Just continually amazed. An enterprise run solely to satisfy the leader’s ego and fill his pockets is not likely to do real well for others, except – while it lasts – ass-lickers like Kash Patel, Bondi, Rubio, Hegseth, and others. Some, like Rubio and Vance, should know better; and someone recently posted a clip of each of them, and Cruz, and a couple of other toadies, saying, before he beat them, that he was a vile human being and a danger to our democracy. But they’ve forgotten. ]

 

An Interesting Possible Land Deal Here

The New Mexico State Land Office’s possible trade of certain land near Las Cruces to the Mescalero Apache tribe implicates a lot of value judgments, history, and potential collisions of interest.

The parcel is about a mile and a half from Tortugas Mountain and under two miles East of I-25. Years ago, we fought vigorously against an effort to develop the area near Tortugas Mountain. Hikers, conservationists, and local tribes, which climb that hill annually, united. No one wanted to see the mountain’s natural peace mucked up by shops. (I don’t know whether local tribes have any interest in or history with this parcel.)

As Land Commissioner Stephanie Garcia Richards sees it, this land was tribal land before the Feds took it, then gave it to New Mexico so that income from the land could help fund education here. The tribes, particularly the Mescalero, managed that land well. Some of it was also sacred to the tribes. She has therefore offered tribes the possibility of trading land parcels to recover former tribal land.

Two such trades have occurred. This would be the third. It’s merely at the request-for-consideration stage. That’s early. The tribe has consistently stated that it is interested in this land for ceremonies and dances, and might build an amphitheater or other structure to accommodate those. The tribe has said such a structure would be harmonious with the surrounding land. The tribe also has a long record of good land stewardship.

A public meeting in November generated strong reactions, including a great deal of concern about development, perhaps even a casino. Some neighbors feel strongly opposed to the trade unless strict stipulations are first put in place. Concerns have included access along the residential street, Tellbrook Road; and the absence of infrastructure where the parcel sits. One column accused Richard of trying to push this through despite the valid, deep-seated concerns of the residents. “ram this through.”

The tribe’s leadership will discuss that public input internally, then advise the SLO of the tribe’s thoughts. The tribe may or may not change its plans, or possibly wish to consider a different parcel. If the tribe and SLO opt to go forward, a second public meeting would be set for early 2026. It’s worth noting that the land would go to the tribe in fee simple, making it subject to state and county rules and zoning. The fact that the tribe has not yet identified, and may not yet own, a parcel to trade to the SLO illustrates how early in the process we now are. Too, if the process is not finished in 2026, a new land commissioner will take office in January 2027.

I tend to trust the tribe. Indeed. this was the tribe’s land, wrongfully taken from the tribe. I believe they intend what they say they intend.

Still, if I were Richard, I would seriously consider negotiating stipulations to protect neighbors from a possible later change of heart (or leadership) by the tribe. Stipulations could include that the land would remain in fee simple, and not go into trust, and could limit development. Those contractual commitments would bind future leadership.

It’s early now, but this could be controversial next year. How should we balance remedying past wrongs and the interests of residents.

Meanwhile, enjoy Thanksgiving! Don’t let concern about our ongoing national disaster impinge too much on your personal life. That accomplishes nothing.

                                                              -- 30 -- 

 

[The above column appeared today, 30 November 2025, in the Las Cruces Sun-News and should presently be on the newspaper’s website and KRWG’s website (under Local Viewpoints). A shortened and sharpened radio commentary version of this Sunday column will air during the week on KRWG (90.1 FM) and on KTAL-LP (101.5 FM / http://www.lccommunityradio.org/). That website also contains station show archives.]

[I wrote about this both to make folks aware of a possible problem and to let folks know that the proposed deal is merely in the earliest stages and that it may be handled by tribe and state officials in an appropriate way – but bears watching. ]

 

A Controversial Federal Arrest

Neal Garcia is a problem: he repeatedly gets arrested for allegedly doing bad things to other people, including physical attacks, but keeps on keeping on because he’s reportedly not sharp enough mentally to help his defense attorney, as a fair trial would require.

Now the FBI has him in jail. He didn’t rob a bank or threaten the president or anything. Federal prosecutors saw a public video by LCPD Chief Story about this, and arrested him, using a federal statute against extorting interstate businesses. A court will decide whether that law applies.

That’s troubling, when the current administration is illegally and dishonestly expanding its control over state administration of justice, while using the courts as weapons for personal vengeance.

Some are celebrating Chief Story for a creative solution to a difficult problem. Others are roasting him for it at city council and on social media. I sympathize with Chief Story. Victims of alleged wrongdoing (some by police) approach me too. It’s heartbreaking when I can’t help.

Garcia and others slip through the cracks. But don’t roast Chief Story. Roast all of us, for failing to solve a tough problem: how can we protect citizens from people who repeatedly harm others but can’t fairly be tried in court? (We’ll postpone discussing the root cause, that our post-capitalist society fails many, particularly as economic inequality turns from unfair to absurdly so.)

This problem is reaching crisis proportions in all states. New Mexico’s Legislature has responded more than in some states, but could do more.

We have an Assisted Outpatient Treatment AOT law, which allows for civil commitment for people with severe mental illnesses who refuse treatment) but standards are high and it’s underused. We have reforms that suspend criminal proceedings and incentivize treatment, and are running pilot programs. We’re moving toward a system that allows courts, at any point after an incompetency finding (on non-serious charges), to suspend prosecution and order a time-limited, court-supervised community treatment plan. Successful completion of that gets the charges dismissed. Quitting or failing lets the state re-file or move for civil commitment. (With Garcia, a judge refused to use such procedures.)

New Mexico has many of the pieces, but the coverage is fragmented. The fastest way to harmonize civil liberties and public safety is a statutory competency-diversion pathway plus time-limited civil outpatient restoration authority, statewide AOT roll-out tied to housing, funding, mandatory mobile crisis/CIT capacity, and strong procedural safeguards (counsel, review, reporting). A pilot Competency Diversion Program has worked out well in Cruces.

“Forensic Assertive Community Treatment” (FACT) is one of the most effective steps. A specialized team works only with justice-involved mentally ill individuals, meeting with them in the community to help ensure medication gets taken, housing is stable, and crises trigger intervention. New Mexico has ACT teams helping people with serious mental illness but not criminal-justice problems. Creating FACT teams could help. FACT programs cut arrests in half.

However: while the local FBI guys are probably decent law-enforcement folks, their top bosses are not. The present U.S. Administration disrespects free speech and other rights, executes Latin American fishermen without trial for non-capital crimes, lies to grand juries to con them into indicting indict perceived political “enemies,” and sends folks to prisons where they’ll be tortured. Give ‘em more years to appoint captive judges, and handing “presumed innocent” people to the feds will be wholly wrong.

But I’ll say nothing – they’ll have me in prison.

                                – 30 –

 

 [The above column appeared today, 23 November 2025, in the Las Cruces Sun-News and on the newspaper's website and KRWG’s website (under Local Viewpoints). A shortened and sharpened radio commentary version of this Sunday column will air during the week on KRWG (90.1 FM) and on KTAL-LP (101.5 FM / http://www.lccommunityradio.org/). That website also contains station show archives.]

A lot of folks expressed interesting opinions on this event, including Heath Haussamen and Lucas Herndon. I think we all worry about involving the feds under the present administration, lest it mistreat New Mexicans as it has mistreated so many others of late; but I also would prefer Neal Garcia not be hitting people with golf clubs and what-not. I think we all find different balances we’d advocate. Further developments may make one of us seem more “right” than others.

A key issue too few of us address, whatever our party affiliation may be, is that our capitalist society fails many, particularly when our leaders let the wealthy turn our economic inequality from an unfair situation to an absurdity, robbing the nation of potential resources. All societies have crime, and some people are just bent. But I am saying a society that so many find so unsatisfying and in which so many go bankrupt because they lose a job or have a catastrophic illness, and whole cities of homeless folks occupy our cities, ain’t how it should be. SOME of that is from cold, conscious decisions to spare the wealthy and the corporate the inconvenience of paying their fair share for a system that is enriching them. Can’t solely blame the present administration for that, although they’re sure making it worse, not better.

A Few of the Zillion Ways the Administration is Weakening the U.S.

 

Wherever one looks, the Administration is weakening our nation.

A major U.S. strength has been our attraction of foreign-born scientists, most famously in developing the atomic bomb first. Roughly 40% of recent U.S. Nobel Prizes in the sciences were won by immigrants or immigrants’ children. They’ve also founded more than 40% of U.S. unicorn startups.

Wanna kill that strength? Declare war on universities, drastically cut research and education funding, appoint political hacks to undermine scientific objectivity, torture some immigrants, and bar foreign scientists from the country for criticizing Donald Trump. Above all, start emulating the authoritarian governments many immigrants fled.

Most of the world is facing climate craziness. China is aggressively positioning itself to lead in developing ways to mitigate it. The U.S. isn’t. Mr. Trump says it’s all a hoax. So we’ll go slow on developing what everyone will need.

Cutting IRS enforcement jobs lets tax cheats skate free, particularly large cheats whose cases might be complex. That’ll cost more money than it saves, jacking up taxes on citizens and small businesses. And grow the deficit.

It’s a great time for crime: of 10,000 Justice Department attorneys last year, about half are gone. Judges are mocking department lawyers. While high-quality lawyers used to like the challenging work and highly competent co-workers, few qualified applicants apply now. Would you? Do an honest job, you’re fired.

It’s a great time for war. A rookie Defense Secretary is firing battle-tested top leadership arbitrarily, and hasn’t the least experience running anything, let alone our defense system. It’s especially good for cyberwarfare. In 2020 Trump fired respected, nonpartisan cybersecurity head Christopher Krebs, whom Trump had appointed, for saying the 2020 election was secure. That disrupted an important defense agency’s work, and made officials fear that speaking truth was a door to unemployment. That deters good people from applying or remaining. I’m no Commander in Chief; but if I were, I’d want subordinates telling me the truth, even unappetizing truths.

It’s a great day for poisoning air and water: the EPA has lost staff to detect, investigate, and punish violations.

Meanwhile, bizarre, inexplicable tariffs are weakening the economy. Economists can’t make sense of them, and Trump sure can’t explain ‘em. He keeps thinking foreigners pay ‘em, not us!

We’ve a huge doctor shortage. Medical education is long and costly. So part of Trump’s big, beautiful law puts an unrealistically low cap ($200,000 total lifetime) on federal graduate student loans. ($200K? But 70% of medical students have loans, the average debt load is $223,130, and 20% graduate owing $300,000+. The cap will keep lower-income students from trying. Just when we need ‘em – and we’re scaring away the immigrants.

Again, Mr. Trump isn’t solving the problem, but worsening it.

Internationally? Trump thinks unpredictability intimidates. But bizarre conduct and reneging on trade deals, and quitting alliances and climate organizations, weakens us and cedes leadership to some more trustworthy nation.

These examples of deterioration matter. Collectively, they weaken our resilience, and our government’s ability to handle crises. They limit our ability to compete globally, and impose future costs. They’ll also accentuate the dissipation of public trust in government – and teach other nations’ they can’t trust us.

Pushing people into unnecessary illnesses (and healthcare-caused bankruptcies) ultimately costs us. Yeah, the Administration loathes the very idea of helping folks with medical care, because Trump is trying to mark territory he associates with Obama. But those folks don’t just disappear.

                                                     --- 30 ---

 

The above column appeared today, 16 November 2025, in the Las Cruces Sun-News and will presently be on the newspaper’s website and KRWG’s website (under Local Viewpoints). A shortened and sharpened radio commentary version of this Sunday column will air during the week on KRWG (90.1 FM) and on KTAL-LP (101.5 FM / http://www.lccommunityradio.org/). That website also contains station show archives.]

[It just happens too often that I shake my aging head in wonder at the sheer breadth and depth – and meanness and pettiness – of the Administration’s conduct, and how a vast amount of that conduct not only enriches Mr. Trump and punishes immigrants, ethnic minorities, and “woke” folks, but just plain weakens us: you fire top military leaders to put in pals, including a Secretary of War with no managerial experience whatsoever, you weaken our military – and perhaps guess enemies won’t notice. Tariffs screw up our economy. All the misconduct concerning the Justice Department doesn’t matter to criminals or most of us, but it sure should matter to the folks who keep screaming about rising crime rates. Etc., etc. ]