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. ]