Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
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Immigration is, and will continue to be, a controversial topic. The least controversial aspect, however, is naturalization. Becoming a U.S. citizen is the pinnacle of my practice, and it is the pinnacle of the immigration process. Last week, I was honored to be asked to be the keynote speaker for the swearing-in of 30 new citizens at a courthouse in the suburbs of Philadelphia. These were my remarks: Most people, when asked to give an address before an audience say that “it i...
I turned 63 on Dec. 4. Unlike many women of my vintage, birthdays are a very public celebration in my house. It’s always been that way. From the time I understood the concept of getting older, the fourth day of the last month has been a chance to revel in the joy of having made it safely through the birth canal — thank you momma — and into this amazing world. For youngsters with their hopes of presents and sugary delights, that’s a normal thing. But as we get older, we’re s...
There have been some interesting discussions about birthright citizenship, intensified by Donald Trump’s election a few weeks ago. A number of people who are angry at the chaos at the border have jumped right over the normal processes and procedures that would guarantee illegal border crossings are limited, and hit right at one of the core principles of our nation, one embedded in the 14th Amendment – if you are born here, regardless of the status of your parents, you are a U...
You know the old song lyrics “Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right, here I am?” I’ve been hearing that on a loop in my inner ear over the past two weeks since Donald Trump pulled off what some have called a surprise landslide but which, after the votes were counted, seems to be more of an anti-Kamala “boy are they blue” wave. In other words, I doubt that America has embraced Trump because he’s received a lower popular vote percentage than almost every prior winne...
There is a great old movie, a black and white classic called “Advise and Consent.” I make sure to watch it at least once a year, not just because of the incredible cast that includes Charles Laughton, Henry Fonda, Gene Tierney, Walter Pidgeon and Franchot Tone, but because it is incredibly relevant six decades after it debuted in theaters. It’s about the tug and pull of politics in D.C. and a brutally honest examination of how the sausage is made. The title refers to the p...
Now that the shock of the election results has subsided a bit, we can take a deep breath and rejoice that we’ve all returned to some semblance of normalcy. Said no one, ever. The past two weeks have been filled with anger, desperation, accusations, pretentious pronouncements of moral superiority, threats of vengeance, attempts to flee the country and seek asylum in places where the government subsidizes Aperol Spritzes, and other such nonsense. I have noticed on a l...
About a month ago, I had lunch at a great diner in South Philly. My omelet was fantastic, oozing with cheese and fresh veggies and — dare I say it — bacon. The place was plastered with political messages attacking Trump. There wasn’t even a shade of nuance about who the owners and operators are supporting in the upcoming election. That’s fine. I have no problem with private business owners making whatever statements they think are appropriate. We are not living through Mao’s c...
Kamala Harris has decided, likely as a result of prodding from some very nervous handlers, that she should finally visit the border. The Border Czarina, who refuses to accept the title thrust upon her by her current boss, has skirted around an issue that will be central in the upcoming election. She even laughed when Lester Holt reminded her in a televised interview that she had not gone down to see what was happening in Texas, Arizona, New Mexico and her home state of...
When I was in college, there was this campaign against what was just beginning to be called “slut shaming.” I remember seeing flyers on campus that declared women should be able to wear anything we wanted, say anything we wanted and go anywhere we wanted without having to worry that we’d end up assaulted at the end of an evening. That was common sense, although a bit naive. I remember thinking at the time that no one deserved to be a victim, but that accountability matte...
I had so many ideas for this column. But every time I started to write, the sentences would fall flat. Fortunately, as I sat at the keyboard, inspiration came to me in the most natural way. I was sitting at the same desk I’d been at on Sept. 11, 2001, as the second plane hit the World Trade Center. It was the same keyboard I’d used to write an email to my brother Michael in Manhattan after the family couldn’t get through to him on the phone. It was the same chair I’d collaps...
As I watched the Kennedy siblings close ranks against Robert F. Kennedy Jr. because of his support for Donald Trump, it reminded me of the fragility of human bonds. Over the past eight years, since Trump burst onto the political scene, I’ve witnessed the crumbling of so many relationships, including marriages and childhood friendships, based upon an absolute inability to deal with difference and dissent. I know very few conservatives who have disowned liberal friends. The o...
I am what J.D. Vance would have called a single cat lady. Actually, I don’t have, nor do I particularly like, cats. I am more along the lines of a single black Lab lady, or a single bearded dragon lady. But the label still matches my civil status. I have neither spouse nor spawn, which puts me in the demographic targeted by the Republican VP candidate in his critical commentaries on the state of civilization. And guess what? I agree with him. I was not offended when I heard Va...
By the time I knew what the term “blue collar” meant, I wasn’t. I come from a long line of blue-collar people, proud Italians and Irish who were carpenters and cooks and iron workers, and in the case of my beloved Pop Pop, a trashman. My parents were able to move way up in the social and economic ladder through lots of sweat, even more tears and dedication to each other. And while my maternal grandparents will always be two of the four most important persons in my life, I gre...
I am not a journalist. I have never pretended to be a journalist. The reason? I don’t pretend to be unbiased. I don’t usually do my own original investigation, unless the story has something to do with immigration, an area in which I can confirm my expertise. My primary job is lawyering. My hobby is opinionating. Which is why I find the so-called “journalism” of Lauren Windsor, the woman who lied her way into an interview with Justice Samuel Alito and his wife, to be as yell...
I have never been married, nor do I have any children. I grew up around married people. I descend from a whole line of married people. I have friends who are married people. I deeply admire married people, and I think they tend to be among the happiest folks in the universe. Marriage is a wonderful institution, but it does not mean the parties to that institution have actually been institutionalized and administered joint lobotomies where all semblance of individuality and...
When Kansas City Chiefs kicker Harrison Butker delivered his commencement address at Benedictine College last month, the outrage was primarily focused on his comments about a woman’s place in society. The sisters who clutch at their pearls when anyone suggests that being anything but president is a worthwhile profession went ballistic at the suggestion that motherhood was equal, if not superior in value, to the sort of person who scrubs her laptop in anticipation of an electio...
This week, I don’t want to get political. I’d like to talk to you about someone who is more important than the sum total of the occasional outrage I can muster up for strangers. Don’t worry, the outrage has no expiration date, and will be useful for another set of Sundays. There are elections to predict, wars to fight, candidates to prosecute and probably even a few more porn stars to tolerate. But not this week. Forty-two years ago this month, my father, Ted Flowers, passe...
It seems silly to write a column about the recent college protests. It’s not really news when privileged students who have never been in the line of fire and whose most pressing concern is what pronoun they’ll use on any given day decide to rise up against the establishment. And yet, here we are. Across the nation, college students have been raising their voices against what some call a “genocide” and others call “Zionist oppression.” They have been supported in their misgu...
I’m pretty sure the number of people who are mourning the death of OJ Simpson can fit into the trunk of the smallest car Hertz ever rented. He was a man who killed his wife Nicole, as well as innocent stranger Ron Goldman, and was acquitted because he played the race card. As a human being, I am repulsed by the fact that he treated women like a punching bag. As a lawyer, I am repulsed by the fact that he did the same with our legal system. But perhaps his death can serve a p...
When Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro engaged in a legal battle with the Little Sisters of the Poor over their refusal to subsidize birth control for their employees, I got very angry. As a Catholic who takes her faith seriously and an asylum lawyer who knows a little something about religious persecution, it seemed to me that the then-attorney general was violating the rights of some women who just wanted to be left alone to serve God’s glory. Of course, there are those who w...
I try and avoid writing about Donald Trump, even though I voted for him twice. But sometimes you cannot avoid the elephant in the room, literally. As a preface, I have to admit that I understand why Trump is particularly upset these days. He has been the target of prosecutions that in most cases seem stretched to the legal limits and designed to influence an election. Liberals reject that premise and believe that Trump incited a riot, that he paid “hush money” to a porn sta...
When you poke a hornet’s nest, you expect to get stung. If that hornet’s nest is filled with young girls in spangles and tutus — and their doting parents — you can expect to get skewered. That is exactly what happens if you criticize the social phenomenon known as Taylor Swift. It is a form of heresy to attack her song catalogue, her lipstick choices and her boyfriends. There is something about Taylor Swift that sticks in my craw, and it has very little to do with her politic...
Schadenfreude is a fabulous word. It means deriving happiness from the pain of others or in literal terms, “joy from damage.” And it’s what I felt watching Joe Biden try and make his grand promises about restoring abortion rights to supporters last month in Virginia. The campaign appearance was supposed to be a victory walk for the president, who is garnering fairly lukewarm support from Democrats. There is no great love for a very old man who is displaying the normal physi...
The other day, I was walking through the bookstore and ended up in the sports section. Perusing the football biographies but deftly avoiding anything that shouted “Eagles” because I’m not a masochist, I found a volume I’d always meant to read: “When Pride Still Mattered.” Its subject is arguably the greatest football coach of all time, Vince Lombardi. So I bought it, probably more because of the title than anything else. Pride doesn’t seem to matter much these days. After the...
There are two things that should be completely off limits: a person’s children and a person’s grief. You do not mock a child, something that we often forget when that child happens to belong to a politician we despise, and you do not make fun of someone in the depths of mourning. I have never had a child, but I have experienced grief. The greatest pain I ever felt, and the greatest I ever will carry, happened 10 years ago when my mother passed away. No matter how deep you...
