Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
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The loss of Ruth Bader Ginsburg is a double blow. It will be felt as a personal loss by millions of Americans, and it will stress America's politics at a moment when its fabric is already threatening to come apart. Consider this a measure of the country's current plight: What could be sadder than to fear that the death of a selfless and extraordinary public servant is more likely in the coming weeks to divide the nation than unite it? Justice Ginsburg taught many lessons over the course of her career in the law. One of the...
In politics, what looks like sordid intrigue often turns out to be garden-variety incompetence. Case in point: After much testimony and investigation, it seems likely that the U.S. Postal Service was not engaged in a plot to derail November’s election by slowing down the mail, as many of President Donald Trump’s critics have alleged in recent weeks. The truth about the service’s recent decline is, in all probability, mundanely disheartening rather than sinister. Anecdotal reports — some quite grim — of foul-ups and delays in...
Kudos to Bernie Sanders for saying that he will celebrate tax day by releasing his tax returns for the last 10 years. Quite right. And congratulations to the Vermont senator and Democratic presidential candidate for acknowledging that he has become a millionaire. The next step might be for Sanders, who routinely vilifies “millionaires and billionaires” on the campaign trail, to say something constructive about work and wealth, and how to use public policy to promote them. When asked about his happy financial status, Sanders o...
The process of funding the U.S. government begins when the president submits a budget request to Congress in February. Then everything falls apart. At least, that’s the way things have been going, year after year. In a more rational world, Congress would prepare a budget resolution of its own, as the law requires. The details would be worked out in committees, and compromise between House and Senate versions would be achieved. Then Congress would use the final resolution to arrive at appropriations for each federal d...
Forty years ago, military veterans made up roughly three-quarters of Congress. By 2017, the proportion had dwindled to fewer than one in five. The number of veterans on Capitol Hill will dip slightly again next year, because of retirements — but the elections of 2018 were nonetheless a turning point of sorts. At least 170 veterans received major-party nominations for national office and at least 75 won office. (The figures are estimates: There’s no official tally.) Of these, at least 18 are new to Congress — the most in ne...
President Donald Trump has announced his first potentially strong action against America’s inordinate prescription drug prices — the first that could meaningfully lower Medicare drug spending. The idea is to narrow the gap between U.S. prices and those of other countries. The plan is far from finished, and pushback from the pharmaceutical industry will be fierce. But to drive U.S. drug prices down, a move of this kind is going to be needed. The strategy concentrates on drugs administered by doctors — mainly the newer, expen...
Whether or not U.S. Rep. Chris Collins engaged in insider trading, as federal prosecutors allege, his indictment last week exposes what a poor job Congress has done to guard against such transgressions. Collins, a New York Republican, is accused of sharing insider information about the value of a publicly traded Australian biotech company. Collins didn’t gather the inside information in Congress — that would violate the 2012 Stock Act, which made it illegal for members and their staff to trade on privileged knowledge hav...
Having driven his country and its once-rich oil industry into a ditch, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro is now pushing for snap elections that would allow him to lock in another term. The U.S. can halt Venezuela’s slide toward autocracy, if it convinces other countries to do more of the heavy lifting. That’s easier said than done. Getting Venezuela’s neighbors, who face their own troubles and elections, to ratchet up the pressure on Maduro will require canny behind-the-scenes diplomacy. U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tille...
