Solving the Mystery of the Disappearing Doctors - Part I

How should New Mexico deal with our deepening doctor shortage?

It’s a national problem, but especially bad here. Reasons include our sparse population, the paucity of each year’s UNM Medical School graduates, the high number of hospitals here owned by private equity, our gross receipts tax, and our relatively high malpractice insurance rates. Too, many people here are on government insurance, which tends to reimburse providers at lower rates.

During 2019-2024, New Mexico was the only state with a net loss of physicians. All New Mexico counties but one are are classified as Health Professional Shortage Areas. Our doctors’ older average age means we’ll see higher retirement figures than most states.

I like Senator Bill Soules proposal to use a small amount of our permanent fund to increase residencies for doctors here. The feds fund those, but there aren’t enough. Many doctors stay where they did their residencies. In those years, one makes contacts and friends, finds the good tennis or poker games, or maybe marries someone local. But this would have no immediate impact.

In 48 states, a doctor isn’t required to charge patients gross receipts tax. Patients pay less and doctors have no irritating and time-consuming state GRT paperwork. This isn’t the major factor in doctors’ selections of states; but it’s an unnecessary burden, unfair to patients, and wholly in the state government’s hands.

Another obvious problem is our disproportionate number of private-equity-owned hospitals. Some physicians seek to escape corporate limits on the time they can spend with patients. Some have told me of hospital quality control being minimized. Prior research taught me that safety concerns and overall results decline when private equity takes over a hospital. New Mexico has the highest proportion of private equity-owned hospitals in the country at 38%, compared with a national average of 8%. One Albuquerque medical malpractice attorney, testified to a legislative committee hearing that medical negligence occurs more often in New Mexico because of this high number of private equity-owned hospitals. (I’m agree!) She suggested a Corporate Practice of Medicine statute guaranteeing providers more autonomy and requiring safe nurse-to-patient ratios.

The real tension is between folks who would end or cap punitive damages, or otherwise limit patient’s rights, so as to decrease the high malpractice insurance rates that contribute to physicians leaving and new physicians avoiding our state. (Even if reformers exaggerate this problem, as trial lawyers insist, it exists.) New Mexico has a very high number of such lawsuits, per capita. Some folks are suggesting draconian measures. Trial lawyers – for a mix of good and bad motives – are pushing back. Reformers wrongly demonize the trial lawyers; but trial lawyers are significant players in our state government, and they got on the wrong side of the Ethics Commission by trying to hide an advocacy group’s funding. I hate everyone, but have some suggestions.

I like the suggestion that we allow doctors to apologize and explain without having that hung around the doctor’s neck by plaintiff’s lawyer. When patients whose surgery has gone wrong feel unheard, or disrespected, that can encourage litigation and render it more bitter. Some bad results are not mistakes. If 1% of patients have some negative side effect, someone’s in that 1%. Doctors should be able to express sadness about what happened without having that used against them at trial.

This topic won’t fit in one column. My suggestions regarding litigation will appear next Sunday, in Part II.

                                                   – 30 – 

 

[The above column appeared Sunday, 18 January 2026, in the Las Cruces Sun-News and will presently appear on the newspaper’s website and 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/). ]

[As noted, this is Part I of my comments on this complex situation. I’m no expert; but I’ve had the benefit of discussing this on radio with folks who are, and of sitting in on a recent meeting between a key legislator and three articulate doctors that featured frank and thooughtful discussion. ]

An Illegal and Unwise Invasion

Donald Trump’s invasion of Venezuela has no lawful basis, no ethical basis, and will help fracture international alliances we depend on.

It broke international law. Trump hasn’t seriously tried to argue otherwise.

Starting a war without Congressional approval seems to violate US. law. Not only invading and kidnapping the country’s president, but seizing oil tankers and massacring fisherman amount to acts of war.

The administration claims this was lawful armed-forces assistance to a law-enforcement action, since Maduro had been indicted on drug charges. Trump’s regime-change rhetoric and talk of “running Venezuela” for its petroleum negate that excuse. (They’ve had to admit that Trump’s oft-repeated claim that Maduro ran a drug ring, Cartel de los Soles, is nonsense. That group doesn’t exist.)

This was never about saving US. lives: fentanyl doesn’t come here from Venezuela, cocaine doesn’t cause that many overdoses, and if Trump cared deeply about bringing drug-runners to justice he’d not have pardoned Juan Orlando Hernandez, who was tried and convicted of doing, as Honduran president, what Maduro is alleged to have done.

It’s not about human rights or Venezuelan democracy. Mr. Trump has clearly said that if Maduro’s vice-president will give the US. Venezuelan oil, she can stay in power. No freeing of political prisoners we supposedly cared deeply about.

It’s about the oil, to which we have no legal or moral right.

It will also have more negative consequences than Trump can imagine. First, “running Venezuela” might immerse us in just the sort of long-term struggles to run a divided country that Trump promised to extricate us from.

Combined with his bullying comments about taking Greenland, Cuba, Canada, and maybe Mexico, it changes the international scene in three important ways: it threatens further fracturing of international alliances; claiming this is our “sphere of influence,” essentially concedes Taiwan to China and Eastern Europe to Russia. Further, whatever vestigial shred of credibility “American exceptionalism” had, Trump tossed in into the ashcan. We are more blatantly than ever as selfish and unjust as any other empire, not some exceptional democracy seeking a better world. We won’t even keep our people healthy!

Trump’s bullying of allies, and his bizarre, possibly dementia-caused conduct and verbiage, has everyone worried. Europe has made noises toward an independence defense force, partly because Trump’s Putin-crush undermines US. support for Ukraine against Russian aggression, which endangers Europe too.

Garnering fewer headlines is Canada’s Trump-inspired declaration of independence from the US. NORAD and other common defense activities have been unusually close, cooperative, and efficient. Now, however, Canada has not only announced big-time defense-spending, it is dealing with European entities, and refusing to use US.-made systems the US. could help run. Canada will own the intellectual property. That is, in a pinch, while Canada may share information with us, we won’t be getting that information automatically and running the system. In a smaller and smaller world, with climate craziness melting northern ice, that’s a whole area of security we had a great handle on as long as Canada trusted us; but who would trust Trump? Even if one wanted to dismiss his “I’ll make Canada our 51^st State” [presumably with two senators, like Wyoming] rhetoric as age-related and innocent, when he combines it with invading another nearby country, without lawful basis, and threatening others . . . man, I’d want my own defense system. I might need it against the US.!

None of this makes the US. “great.”

                                          – 30 --

 

[The above column appeared Sunday, 11 January 2026, 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/). ]

Imagine a 1950s Family Watching an Imaginary Future President Misbehaving

There’s a new Netflix series, Gratitude, set in the 1950s.

All the men still wear hats. There’s a family – say, the Homburgs -- much like the Cleavers. Father supports the family and knows best. Mom sweetly manages everything. The kids are mischievous, but not bad.

Each episode, the Homburgs watch a futuristic and slightly frightening TV series set in 2020, when people all have little private scooter-planes that fly them quickly and safely to their destinations. (Let’s call the series “2020,” meaning both the year and seeing stuff clearly.) There are no aliens or spaceships, just regular people doing incredible harm without Bodysnatchers or Godzilla.

The Homburgs watch weekly, fascinated. It’s so funny and real, yet absolutely impossible, that they can’t wait to see what incredibly stupid thing the characters will do next. Every half-hour installment, they’re exhausted from laughing ‘til they cry, while also cringing.

In 2020, people are angry, and news is controlled by rich corporations. People sense that wealth rules them. They’re angry. So the rulers get the people to elect a rich man hoping to get richer, who loves admiration, but doesn’t know or care much about running a country. He’s angry, and the angry people all vote for him. (That’s dumb, like most sitcoms. The Homburgs know it’s just television.)

In one episode, the President loses an election, and actually tells election officials to “find me more votes” in a critical state, an obvious crime, and conspires with supporters to invade Capitol Hill to scare Congressfolk out of counting the vote. (The Homburgs laugh at their younger son, who believes this could actually happen!) When the FBI says the Soviet Union tried to rig the vote, the President tells Khrushchev that he believes Khrushchev’s denial. When he wins re-election four years later, he appoints people so unqualified that they’ll agree with whatever he says. Including as a defense secretary an actor who played one in the movies.

The Homburgs know President Eisenhower, in whose eight years the sole scandal was an aide, Sherman Adams, accepting rugs, jewellery, and a vicuña coat from a company under investigation. They can’t believe the fictional presidents’ aides get $1 million for advocating pardons for criminals. The President pardons a huge drug czar while blowing fisherman out of the water because they might be carrying drugs.

In the Homburgs’ world, the Salk vaccine has just eliminated polio. Kids still get measles and mumps. Mumps can be serious when adults catch it. By 2020, vaccines have eliminated both; but the goofy president appoints a health secretary who works to revive them.

Congress has named a national fine arts center after a tragically assassinated president. The fictional president unlawfully adds his name! Meanwhile, he insists that performances be limited to artists and shows he approves of, and threatens to arrest season-ticket-holders who fail to attend. Artists immediately cancel performances.

Of course, he sees his second term as a chance to avenge insults, ensure no appointees have a shred of independent conscience, and eliminate legal watchdogs, so as to dictate to the population more and more openly. Absolute power corrupts absolutely, and he didn’t start with much conscience or compassion. The Homburgs look at each other in amazement as the season ends, with new elections – maybe – planned for the start of next season.

“Why is the new series called Gratitude?”

“Because the Homburgs are so grateful they don’t have to live through this.”

                                                   -- 30 -- 

 

[The above column appeared Sunday, 4 January 2026, 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! By the way, I liked this when I sent it in the other day; but it seems pretty silly in light of Mr. Trump’s wholly illegal war with Venezuela.]

[Obviously I made this “Netflix series” up. But it’d be a hell of a series, seeing this dangerous madness through 1950s eyes. If Rod Serling or someone could have imagined Trump back then, we would have laughed our asses off at how preposterous this would be. Obviously the damage and lost lives outweighs the comic aspects, even though it now appears more likely than it once did that the country will avoid a permanent dictatorship that starts with Trump and continues with younger, smarter folks invoking his name and “policies.” ]

If anything, the column understates how floored grownups in the 1950s would have been – although, as they’d witnesses Hitler’s Germany, and some had fought in a war against the Nazis, they might not have found it funny.

At the same time, while it’s fun to make fun of the Donald, two important points need saying:

1. We are locked in a transformation into a much deeper imbalance of power and money than we’ve ever known before, that is not good for even the rich folks doing it, and Donald Trump is a pimple on the ass of that transformation: helping it along, but he didn’t start it or think it up, and will be off the stage soon enough, given his corpulence, bad temper, and failing cognitive abilities. And the ambitious greed of those lurking in his wake, such as Mr. Vance. He’s not quite a distraction; but being overly delighted that we slapped this fly off our national nose, should we succeed in doing that, could distract us focusing on the deeper sorts of change we need.

2. Although the 1950s were in some ways superior [ we taxed the obscenely wealthy at a more extreme rate that came closer to justice and made for healthier national economy, for example; and folks in government made some effort to govern; and we weren’t so hyperpartisan]; but in other ways, no! Not only were we about to make serious efforts to improve the lot of ethnic minorities, women, and, not too much later, folks with unconventional genders or sexual tastes, but our foreign policy, at least as regarded Latin America, was made by and for United Fruit Company. And we destroyed democracies around the world in the name of freedom. This was not a paradise, and although we covered our actions with cleverer stories than Mr. Trump does, we were doing a lot of very bad things to a lot of others, only a small amount of which could reasonably be justified by the threat Russia (the Soviet Union) then posed to us.

So let’s be clear: Donald Trump is an obscene development damaging to our national security, our society, our democracy, and our environment, but HE IS NOT THE PROBLEM. We need to move on from him, in an appropriate lawful and peaceful manner, but then, rather than celebratory toasts, we need to help our compatriots focus on what is really happening here. Failing that, the folks making out like bandits will continue to pit us against each other, by telling the credible that its all the fault of Somali welfare cheats (not obscenely wealthy tax cheats, who cheat far more cleverly) or gays, that the interesting issue of who should be allowed on girls’ athletic teams is more urgent than taking back control of our country, improving our economy for all, and even managing a health care system that works, as other nations have. ]

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. ]