Examining Why Trump Started This War

Other than trying to maximize attendance at the March 28 “No Kings” rally, why has Donald Trump started an unlawful and unwise undeclared war against Iran?

I thoroughly agree that there’s a lot not to like about the Iranian regime. . But if I don’t like how my neighbor yells at his kids, I don’t get to lob a grenade over the fence.

The chief “why” theories, other than Benjamin Netanyahu leading Trump by the nose, are: (1) Trump’s claim that Iran was dangerously close to nuclear weaponry and (2) the obvious need to distract folks of all political complexions from Trump’s abysmal poll numbers and years as Jeffrey Epstein’s wingman. (Illegally killing foreigners is also fun and makes one feel important.)

Evidence demolishes the first theory. We had a 2015 agreement under which Iran had stopped its nuclear development. Neutral observers and experts, including extraordinarily intrusive International Atomic Energy Agency inspections, said Iran was complying with the nuclear restrictions. But (1) in 2018 Trump broke that agreement, because undoing President Obama’s work was a higher priority than forestalling Iranian nuclear development, and (2) just months ago, Trump bragged that Iran’s nuclear development facilities were “completely and totally obliterated.” (Trump also weeps for Iranian protesters, while deporting Iranian refugees back to persecution by the same government.)

Certainly his poll numbers are abysmal. Republicans fear the mid-term elections. Trump’s State of the Union broke records for length but not for persuasiveness. Most recently, only 38% approve his immigration pogroms; his tariffs are raising prices; and roughly one-quarter of us approve the Iran strikes. Some of his closest one-time allies are appalled. A Facebook post complained of the high gas prices caused by everyone’s fear of shipping oil through the Strait of Hormuz; and when someone else commented, “Still not as high as in the last administration,” a third commented, “Yeah, during the last administration a dictator started a stupid war; and in this administration another dictator started another stupid war.”

A cynic might note that Mr. Trump’s new war serves the interests of the Gulf States that have recently invested heavily with Trump’s family and given him a jet.

The war is killing many innocent people. It may ultimately improve Iran’s governance; but a disintegration of the nation, with violence between the 70% Persian majority and other ethnicities seems at least equally likely.

Let’s not forget why we’re in this. In 1953, Iran had a genuine national leader, a socialist planning to give Iran a bigger share in its oil income, so the U.S. and U.K. took care of him and installed Shah Reza Pavlevi. A dictator. More modern-thinking, but repressive. In 1979, when the nation overthrew him and installed a religious fundamentalist leader as head of state, most all Persians welcomed him. Even Persian friends who were freethinkers and enjoyed all the illicit pleasures of U.S. life welcomed a fundamentalist replacing a U.S.-installed dictator.

Talking with Kuwaiti friends deepens my sadness. I visited Kuwait before and after the Iraqi war. I heard their accounts and saw familiar places suddenly destroyed. They don’t like what’s going on now.

But I digress. Even the folks who favored Mr. Trump for President, when I did not, favored him partly because he would lower prices and keep us out of foreign wars. Well, we all get scammed now and then.

I also wonder how Donald will explain this to the Nobel folks?

                                                   - 30 – 

 

[The above column appeared Sunday, 8 March 2026, in the Las Cruces Sun-News and 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/). ]

[Writing columns about fast-moving events can be challenging. The Iran picture is almost as murky as it was, though. Trump and his minions have offered a bunch of sometimes contradictory explanations. Iran seems to be digging in. The choice of the younger Khamanei as the new Supreme Leader symbolizes that, and also amounts to a selection who can hit the ground running, since he’s been a big part of running the country for a long time. Interestingly, Trump may have sealed his appointment. His father had told others for the last couple of years that although his son was great and beloved, choosing him as his father’s successor would be too much like the hereditary monarchy the U.S. and U.K. installed in Iran, which the revolutionaries had pledged never to copy. While I understand the conventional wisdom that a war helps a U.S. President retain power, I think the Iranians, not being stupid, can well understand that if they can persevere, Trump will want to get this over with, lest it further dampen his party’s prospects in November. Higher oil prices, caskets coming home from an undeclared war most people didn’t support, and more money wasted on battle when folks are jobless or without health care . . . doesn’t sound like a wonderful prescription for victory. Trump’s only hope – as he seems to know – is a draconian and maybe unconstitutional election law that would keep many, including me, from being able to vote. So he’s pushing that insanely hard.]

[I shouldn't give such short shrift to the most simple explanation: Mr. Trump has discovered recently that it's fun to kill people and blow stuff up, and one really feels important while doing so.  If you have no conscience and no compassion, why not?]

Here's a Big Mess We Can Avoid!

It’s truly frightening that our Public Regulatory Commission might approve acquisition of a Public Service Company of New Mexico, despite clear statutory language requiring such an acquisition to be in the public interest.

Consistently increasing energy costs to increase distant shareholders’ profits is inequitable; and many, many New Mexicans are especially vulnerable. There’s a lot of poverty here. Higher electricity costs could harm kids’ health and nutrition, as parents make hard choices. Can we heat the home this winter? Can we keep lights on as long as kids need to study? Which food items can we cut this week to pay Blackstone. That’s frightening, and our governor should help protect citizens.

It’s also about our future. Voters here care about the environment and the threat of climate craziness. Our Energy Transition Act mandates a major switch to renewable energy; but Blackstone, has major investments in fossil fuel companies. Blackstone would have a motive to deal with companies it owns, as it has elsewhere. Why not? Maximizing investor profit is its duty to shareholders. Blackstone already has a long rap sheet.

Nor could the PRC police that. A committee of non-experts overseeing many areas – is way overmatched by Blackstone. Compare PRC’s $29.3 million 2026 annual budget with Blackstone’s overall annual take of #13.2 billion. That’s 683 times the PRC annual budget. That gives it huge and undesirable influence on decision-makers – and Project Jupiter has just reminded us how unappetizing and powerful such influence can be. Blackstone’s size means both that we’ll need a far bigger enforcement staff and that the staff would be handicapped by Blackstone’s ability to fight forever in court or buy officials who’ll wink at enforcement or even change laws. As we’re seeing with Jupiter.

A huge company slyly gouging us by dealing with its own partners just ain’t in New Mexico’s interest.

Further, none of this is necessary.

PNM’s claim that it needs Blackstone’s capital is nonsense. PNM wants the enhanced price per share Blackstone will pay to acquire PNM. Logic tells you the only reason for paying such premium is to make it back, and more, in profits – from electricity bills paid by New Mexicans. PNM could obtain capital by the usual means of loans, bonds, and other maneuvers companies routinely use.

If PNM must be obtained by someone, why not by New Mexico? (New Mexico’s State Investment Council already invests with Blackstone.) We could buy PNM for a small fraction of what we have in New Mexico’s Permanent Fund . Advantages are obvious. Profits from the New Mexico utility would go to New Mexico; and the utility could honestly consider the public interest in its decision-making. New Mexico doesn’t operate myriad other private enterprises that could make higher profits through sweetheart deals with the electric utility. Further, if there are problems, and required investigations, our transparency laws would make those routine, whereas Blackstone’s extreme secrecy would make investigations nearly impossible.

By law, the PRC must decide based on whether or not the acquisition is in the public interest. To say it is would require a pretty absurd lie. If our Governor’s employees adopt that lie, I hope she has no future political plans this side of Greenland.

Blackstone claims its wealth means long-term financial security for PNM. But a regulated utility is already secure, guaranteed a nearly ten per cent return on investments.

In May, the PRC should decide this. Before then, speak up!

                                                    – 30 -- 

 

[The above column appeared Sunday, 1 March 2026, in the Las Cruces Sun-News and 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/). ]

 

Robert Duvall - am Appreciation

At a young age, I watched my mother star in a local production of Dial M for Murder, (At the cast party I wasn’t too nice to the actor I’d just seen try to kill her.) Around then, Robert Duvall co-starred in a professional production (1956).

Duvall’s first film role was Boo Radley in the marvelous To Kill a Mockingbird (1962). I was a wiseass kid watching it at prep school. Along with having black friends and rooting for Jackie Robinson, maybe the film helped me develop a loathing for racism. (Three years later, I was a civil rights activist.)

By 1972, I’d graduated from film school at NMSU, and was making small-time free-lance movies, so I watched The Godfather as a great example of what could be done. By the time Duval played a major role in Network (1976 ), a great indictment of the vacuity of our news system, I’d taken a role as a journalist too, covering Las Cruces for the El Paso Times. I loved my little job, but when Howard Beale (not Duvall) gets a nation of citizens to holler out the window, “I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore!" I was feeling it too.

A college prof could teach a “Late 20^th Century” history class just through Duvall’s movies. MASH, technically set in the Korean War but about the absurdity of war, a rapidly spreading concept in 1970; Apocalypse Now (1979), with Duvall’s Lt. Colonel Kilgore exulting, "I love the smell of napalm in the morning" in was a fitting epitaph to the stupid Viet Nam War, I’d spent years protesting; despite that, I loved him as the hard-boiled Marine Lt. Col. "Bull" Meechum Santini in The Great Santini (1979).

His disillusioned sportswriter in The Natural (1984), is all of us, in a way, after Viet Nam and Watergate. It was a time most everyone got jaded. His loneliness, mixed with guilt and lost love, as the drunken country& western singer in Tender Mercies (1983) also seemed pretty familiar. His role as big-firm trial lawyer in A Civil Action reflected the big environmental lawsuits of the time. (I was a trial lawyer at a big firm, too, but, fortunately, was able to avoid working on those cases.)

I acted a bit in my youth, and I’m awed by the sheer range of those portrayals. He so completely inhabited all those very different characters that Tess Harper, his co-star in Tender Mercies, said she never got to know Duvall, but just Mac Sledge. But Duvall didn’t just act. He’d gotten serious about riding, appalled by how foolish the western stars looked once their horses started galloping, and prepared for Lonesome Dove (1989) by seeking further horsemanship lessons with well-respected U.S. show jumper Rodney Jenkins, learning so well that he fired the stunt double they’d hired. And in Tender Mercies, which I loved, he insisted the contract include that he’d sing all the songs himself. He couldn’t see the point, otherwise. (I’m pretty sure they’re not going to tell me next that he actually flew the plane as Meechum.)

In Lonesome Dove (1989), his Gus combined grit and sentiment, like the funny but tough friend whose loyalty we’ve prized, while laughing at his throwaway lines.

Duvall was, a great actor, with an everyman quality and deep capacity for hard work on his craft and whatever a film needed. 

                                             --  30  --

 

[The above column appeared Sunday, 22 February 2026, in the Las Cruces Sun-News and 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/). ]

[Sorry not to post this Sunday, as I usually do – and sorry it’ s not a better column, too. I started with the idea of honoring both Duvall and Jesse Jackson, and interweaving both with stages in my own life. But to do that at all well would have required more than the 570 words the newspaper allows me. So the concept change. I feel as if maybe the result doesn’t live up to the standard of quality I try to maintain. Ironically, when I condensed and rewrote it for radio, it necessarily shortened itself and focused better. I like the resulting radio commentary better than many I’ve done. So, ]

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Reflections this Week

This column mentions stuff I’m thinking about today.

First, we had a shooting so early Sunday morning that it delayed my wife and the dog from reaching their Sunday strolling grounds. I am appalled by anyone who says, “A police officer shot some one, but he’s a police officer, so he must be right.” I’m almost equally appalled by anyone who says, “A cop shot a civilian, so the cop must be wrong.” Especially when we're approaching the two-year anniversary of the unprovoked killing of Officer Jonah Hernandez. Answering a call, he entered a yard, courteously and quietly greeted the guy he saw there, and the civilian knifed him to death.

I think cops are wrong more often than most folks realize. I know many are dedicated public servants doing a job most of you wouldn’t care to try. Let’s try to let facts help form our opinions. (But ICE’s conduct in Minneapolis is different, not only because we have so much video but because ICE won’t allow a proper investigation to uncover more facts. It’s a core judicial principle that in a trial, if one party is responsible for our lacking full information, the judge can instruct the jury to assume that whatever that issue is, the facts hurt the party hiding the information.)

In football, it’s fine for 49er or Packer fans to decide all Dallas Cowboy players are bad folks. But making such judgments about all public officials, all members of this or that political party, all cops, or all motorcyclists ain’t fair. Also, it’s stupid. Humans are wonderfully varied, as are facts. This morning I watched a cop’s chest video from Kentucky. They’re searching for a lost child. Helicopters and all. Can’t find him. A dog shows up and starts barking at the officer, like he has something to contribute but happens to be a dog. The cop follows him into a back yard. The dog approaches a car and barks furiously at it. Trapped inside, the kid hugs the cop like there’s no tomorrow once they jimmy the lock. That cop has patrolled that neighborhood for years. Never saw that dog before. Or since.

I also wish we’d make 2February a national holiday. Not to celebrate the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, signed that day in 1848, but to remind us that the border our federales treat peoples so badly for crossing jumped over all of us. Mexico’s border used to be as far north as southern Wyoming. President Polk coveted San Francisco. When Mexicans declined to sell it for $30 million, we took it. (Gee, ya wonder why Greenland and Canada are nervous?) Point isn’t “Don’t protect the border!” It’s “Yo, this border jumped right into a community, so maybe use a little human decency and discretion.” At least, realize!

Lastly, will our governor, whom I loved when she first visited our radio show, be as infamous as Susana? She’s given us Jupiter. Now, when a regulated monopoly guarantees utilities a profit way better than stocks, and our permanent fund could buy PNM for a fraction of its funds, her appointees may let one of the worst private-equity firms buy it instead – so decisions get made with no concern for us, and profits go to distant investors.

That makes no sense. Not for us New Mexicans. Plenty for Blackstone. And maybe for the governor?

And we’re still Germans in 1933.

                                                 --  30  -- 

 

[The above column appeared Sunday, 15 February 2026, in the Las Cruces Sun-News and on the newspoaper’s website ( sub nm These Things Are on my Mind; they Should Be on Yours ) and on KWG’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/). ]

 

County Appears to Vioilate Due Process

Except in the Trump Administration and Doña Ana County, a key principle of our country is due process: the government can’t take away a right without fair notice, a fair hearing before someone neutral, and a route to appeal.

If they think you stole something, you get a court trial with a lawyer, and can appeal. Taking someone’s welfare benefits or medical license also requires “due process.” That distinguishes us from the Nazis, Saddam, or Attila.

The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution is important. It’s first. You have a right to free speech, although it can be limited in schools or jails. Public input at the city council or county commission is a “limited public forum” at which you have a right to speak. That’s a Constitutional right the Supreme Court has long recognized.

You also have a First Amendment right to videotape officials at work, including police officers, although ICE might kill you for exercising that right in Minneapolis. Surprisingly, our county might jail you for it.

A local gadfly videotaped county officials more than they wanted to be videotaped. County Manager Scott Andrews and Interim County Attorney Cari Neill got angry and sent him a “trespass” letter purporting to ban him from county meetings for vaguely-alleged intrusive videotaping. No specifics; no hearing; no appeal.

That’s unusual. The courts have held that banning someone from county public-input requires due process: clearer charges, a fair hearing, and an appeal procedure. When folks pointed that out, Andrews/Neill said they were the bosses and knew what they were doing. I doubted that.

When the trespassed citizen attended a meeting, wearing a comical false mustache and waiting quietly in line to speak, they called police. LCPD declined, perhaps wisely. When they called Sheriff Kim Stewart, she probably had no choice. (She’s said on radio she had to act, whether she agrees with county officials or not.) The citizen was then arrested and jailed – and kept in jail for a day.

Preparing this column, I repeatedly asked the county officials about their conduct. I’d litigated this stuff as a lawyer since before they were born. And any fool can ask Chat GPT “What due process is required constitutionally for a county to ban a citizen from public meetings?” I’d also talked to relevant organizations. But I figured maybe I’d missed something. I sent them a long letter asking appropriate questions. Pathetically, they said they couldn’t say anything at all because there might be a lawsuit. I’ve rarely seen a public entity that unable to address such an issue. Most good lawyers, when you ask them to explain their positions and the legal support, do so readily – to convince you or learn their weaknesses. These folks’ silence isn’t a great sign that they have a clue.

This is scary, not just because it illegally abridges rights, but because it’s downright stupid and could be costly. Whatever your views on Project Jupiter, how these folks handled it broke or narrowly skirted law. One commissioner was appalled by an agenda packet full of blank or unfinished pages, and having just two days to read pretty extensive material.

This ain’t like banning your drunken uncle from your backyard. A normal citizen shouldn’t have to pay attorneys to enforce rights. If you have just cause, prove it. Further enforcing this novel idea they can ban annoying people from public input without due process, could cost the county dearly.

                                          – 30 –

 

[The above column appeared Sunday, 8 February 2026, in the Las Cruces Sun-News and on the newspaper's website 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/). ]

[I guess we’ll see what happens in the courts. As with ICE, if misconduct is allowed to go unchallenged, it will continue. Is this misconduct? I sure think so. Even if I’m wrong in my understanding of the law, and a county can toss someone out without cue process, it’s unjust and unwise. Means if the county doesn’t like how I say what I say about officials, they can send me a letter telling me not to come back. My choices are to disobey them, get cited by law enforcement, and pay lawyers to defend my criminal case, or to pay lawyers to file a declaratory relief action asking the court to declare the county’s action legal. Neither is something we should want. Neither is something county officials should want: unjust conduct and a possibility of paying a bunch of unnecessary money. ]

[And it’s all unnecessary. If these “officials” had reasonable grounds, which is certainly possible, all they had to do was arrange for someone unbiased to be the hearing officer and invite the alleged trespasser to seek a hearing on the legality of the trespass order. Simple. Just seems plain stupid – or worse – not to do so. Were these officials bending the law to satisfy Project Jupiter proponents? I know the trespassed person was a critic of the county’s approval of Jupiter; and I’m guessing maybe he videotaped Project Jupiter proponents in the parking lot, though that’s merely a guess.]

[ So far, a majority of the Commission steadfastly declines to consider that staff could be wrong here.]

  

A Polite Request to Right a Gross Injustice

This is by way of an open letter to Texas Governor Greg Abbott.

Dear Governor Abbott:

I urge you to do something just, simply because it is just.

Let me mention first several points that either we’d likely agree on or the Supreme Court has articulated as Constitutionally required:

> an all-white jury hearing non-white defendant’s criminal trial is constitutionally suspect;

> for a 44-year-old man, a 50-year sentence is essentially a life sentence.

> framing someone for a murder is bad conduct, and freeing that framed prisoner from Death Row is good conduct;

So please consider these facts: a sheriff arrives at a man’s home, intending to arrest him, but without an appropriate warrant; when the man questions whether an arrest would be legal, the sheriff draws a gun on the man, who then disarms the sheriff without harming him; the man flees, but is caught and imprisoned, and sentenced to fifty years’ imprisonment.

Would you, personally, call that just?

Legally, the conviction is valid because it survived direct appeal under Texas law. So let’s assume, although the sheriff told a TV interviewer that day that he was unharmed when the man disarmed him, that the sheriff sustained some minor injury.

In a situation where a man is rightly or wrongly defending his own home, believing himself in the right legally, and takes away the invader’s gun, without harming the man or shooting anyone, should he serve fifty years in prison?

Your only possible answer, privately, could be, “Of course not!”

If in 1996 there was some need to emphasize local law enforcement’s authority or dissuade social activism, we are nearly three full decades beyond that moment.

A 50-year sentence for resisting arrest is not normal.

You could pardon this man or commute his sentence.

Why should you perhaps not?

To protect the sheriff who may have committed perjury by claiming grave injuries at trial? Sheriff McDaniel reportedly is no longer with us, and can’t be prosecuted.

Because this has gotten entangled in the culture wars, and all of us need to stay loyal to our side, whether it makes sense or not? A man’ s life is at stake. A man who’s 71 years old and whose writings apparently have inspired many.

Because mercy would somehow undermine respect for law enforcement? If anything, showing that Texas can be fair, even to a prisoner, even to a proud Chicano, might enhance respect for law enforcement. Commuting such an extraordinarily long sentence, given his good behavior, does not say that there was error by the original prosecutor or court.

Why should you? Because you can, by commutation or pardon, and because it is the right thing to do. If you are in doubt, try this exercise: sit in your backyard and consider whether God, or Buddha, Socrates or Oliver Wendell Holmes, or whomever you most admire, would keep the man in jail; explain the facts fairly to your six-year-old daughter or niece, and ask her; discuss it with your minister, if you have one, or the first lady of Texas, who earned a masters in theology, has run Catholic schools, and likely had learned a little about forgiveness; or go and talk with the man, then decide.

In an unjust world, make one thing more just.

It’s just right, is all. Please free Xinachitli, Alvaro Luna Hernández. Or explain honestly to Jesus or yourself why you do not.

                                                     – 30 --

 

[The above column appeared Sunday, 1 February 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/). ]

The Case of the Disappearing Doctors - Part II

This column continues last week's discussion of our doctor shortage and suggests tougher steps some trial lawyers might oppose.

We should change the standard of proof required to get punitive damages. The tough criminal law standard is “beyond a reasonable doubt.” As juror, if you’re as sure of guilt as you would be to make a very important personal or professional decision, vote to convict. For criminal grand juries, deciding whether to indict, it’s “more probable than not.” Most civil cases use “preponderance of the evidence.” As I’ve told juries, “If there’s ten pounds of evidence on each side of the balance, and a feather falls on the plaintiff’s side, you must find for plaintiff.” Another is “clear and convincing evidence.” That means being quite persuaded, based on the evidence, but without the level of certainty required to put someone in jail. This heightened standard makes sense, because punitive damages are punishment (not just ordering defendant to compensate plaintiff for the damage defendant’s car did) but far short of jailing or killing someone. (Six states don’t even allow punitive damages in such cases.) Among the states that allow punitive damages, most use that standard. Why shouldn’t we? (Colorado uses the reasonable doubt standard for punitive damages!)

Changes to our Medical Review Commission could help. Not every state even has one. It should be mandatory in all medical malpractice cases – and have teeth. Essentially, an expert board of doctors, lawyers, and others votes on whether plaintiff’s case is viable. I know doctors where the vote was 6-0 that the claim was crap, but the plaintiff’s lawyers kept pushing it, hoping litigation costs and the threat of punitive damages and litigation costs would extort a settlement. (Note that these suits really hurt some doctors, not just financially.) Under California CCP §998, in any civil case, when one side makes a binding compromise offer or demand, citing §998, if the other side declines, and doesn’t get a better result at trial, that party has to defray the all the offering party’s costs and attorney’s fees after the spurned offer. That sure discourages frivolous litigation.

Trial lawyers will say that’ll also weed out a few suits by desperate folks, with devastating injuries, whose suits might look dubious to the experts but not to a jury. So, maybe tinker with my suggestion. Have a unanimous vote against the case trigger the provision; or, after a 0-6 vote, let the panel vote whether or not to impose the provision; or make the possibly frivolous litigant

(or attorney) pay half the other side’s fees thereafter, not the whole. Lawyers often say, “We have the American rule, not the British, where losing litigants pay the winners’ fees. The British system can prevent less wealthy people from bringing suit.” I like our system. But we have plenty of exceptions. This should be one. I’d argue that some trial attorneys abuse our system by using bogus claims to extort unduly rich settlements.

I would not cap awards. For one thing, the small number of doctors generating a disproportionate number of successful suits suggests leaving punitive damages uncapped. Because New Mexico's Medical Malpractice Act caps compensatory damages at $750,000, patients rely on punitive damages to force hospitals to take action against problem physicians. Further, the hospital might have been negligent in continuing to allow the physician to practice here. Let’s punish that.

My suggestions could be effective – and perhaps achievable.

                                                        – 30 –

[The above column appeared Sunday, 25 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/). ]

[First of all, apologies to the newspaper and readers for three typos I didn’t catch in this, until a friend called me to point them out: most significantly, I’d written in “acquit” when I meant to write “convict” in discussing the “beyond a reasonable doubt” standard; I left punitive damages in singular form; and a sentence later on about CCP §998 was murkier than it should have been. Thanks to my helpful friend.]

[ I hope, taken together, the two columns help enrich the discussion of an issue that matters to most of us. I feel like most of the people who know a lot about it are in such entrenched opposition, vilifying each other and keeping their ears closed. That’s not usually a good sign.]

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. ]