Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
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This month, Professor Ruth Ben-Ghiat, author of “Strongmen: Mussolini to the Present,” commented that “one of the most alarming things” about “Project 2025” is the blatant admission that Donald Trump did not accomplish everything he intended to in his first administration. “They got a slow start […] so their codeword is ‘day one,’” Ben-Ghiat told MSNBC’s Katie Phang of the think-tank’s proposal document, which is assumed to represent a considerable percentage of Trump polic...
When it comes to the issue of debates, perception is often just as crucial as reality and substance. There is no way to codify the fact that Joe Biden’s debate performance last month was nothing short of dismal. The ferocity we witnessed at his State of the Union earlier this year was absent, although his performance did incrementally improve as the evening progressed. The debate was an opportunity for Biden to ask the American people about what direction they wanted the n...
Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry was brimming with pride and arrogance when he signed into law a requirement that every classroom in his state — from kindergarten to college chemistry labs — will be required to display a copy of the Ten Commandments. “I can’t wait to be sued,” Landry said before signing the bill. While other states have proposed similar bills, no one besides Louisiana has been successful enacting such efforts, especially with the threat of legal battles looming o...
Here we are. Another year, another June and the nation is celebrating another Juneteenth holiday. On June 17, 2021, President Biden signed the bill into law making Juneteenth the 11th holiday recognized by the federal government. At a White House ceremony, Biden singled out Opal Lee, an activist who at the age of 89 walked from her home in Fort Worth to Washington, D.C., and called her “a grandmother of the movement to make Juneteenth a federal holiday.” On June 19, 1865, abo...
Earlier this month, during an event in Philadelphia supporting Donald Trump and the Republican Party, Florida Rep. Byron Donalds made the attention-grabbing assertion that Black families were stronger and more conservative under the Jim Crow era. “You see, during Jim Crow, the Black family was together,” Donalds said. “During Jim Crow, more Black people were not just conservative — because Black people have always been conservative-minded — but more Black people voted con...
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg deserves to take a bow following his undeniable victory. A New York jury delivered a guilty verdict in a trial largely devoid of political theater and intense media upheaval. That’s thanks to a judge who, during the multiple-week trial, managed to maintain civility and order and ensure the rights of all parties were upheld fairly. Former President Trump was convicted on not one, not two, but 34 felony counts. Supporters are outraged. D...
Right-wing politicians have made no secret of their disdain for the rule of law as well as our current state of democracy. One of the more blatant acts of far-right hostility to our current government was Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito’s flying an upside down flag at his Washington, D.C., residence signaling support for the Capitol insurrection in the days after Jan. 6, 2021. Alito said his wife hung the flag in this position after a contentious dispute with a neighbor, w...
To state the 118th Congress is an exercise in debasement, dereliction, and dysfunction would be an understatement. But what happened on the House Oversight Committee this month took things to a new low. House Republicans were advocating for holding Attorney General Merrick B. Garland in contempt of Congress — an action the committee chairman, Rep. James Comer of Kentucky, gleefully promoted in a fundraising appeal. They would eventually get “to the business at hand” but not be...
This month, right-wing commentator Ann Coulter told former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy to his face she would not have voted for him because he’s Indian. “There is a core national identity that is the identity of the WASP,” Coulter said on Ramaswamy’s “Truth” podcast, using an acronym for White Anglo-Saxon Protestant. “And that doesn’t mean we can’t take anyone else in ― a Sri Lankan or a Japanese, or an Indian. But the core around which the nation’s...
History on the rerun. Ghosts of Mississippi. Magnolia State maintains its horrendously racist image. Any of the statements could be used to describe the images shown across the nation at the University of Mississippi at Oxford. Dozens of students at the university’s flagship campus gathered to protest Israel’s war in Gaza and to call for the school to be transparent in its potential dealings with Israel. These demonstrators were confronted with hundreds of counter-protesters,...
For almost a decade, Donald Trump has sent the Republican Party and much of the mainstream media into a political whirlwind. Trump’s bombastic behavior and searing personal attacks have angered many establishment Republicans while endearing him to hard-line conservatives. But it’s nothing new for the Grand Old Party. Over the past half-century, Republicans have engaged in behavior that has allowed individuals like Trump to rise and flourish in their ranks. Much of it can be...
For those too young to fully remember the OJ Simpson trial, it was a television spectacle with all the makings of a Hollywood blockbuster. Sex and violence, interracial relationships and marriage, infidelity, alcoholism, sexual deviancy and a host of lurid details that titillated and fascinated the public. Stories covering the trial became daily tidbits, as just about every outlet – from weekly tabloids to highbrow magazines and newspapers – intensely covered the trial. You...
Thanks to the so-called culture wars, debates about events on college campuses are being employed as useful weapons for attacking the gradual democratization that has occurred in higher education since the 1950s. Those of us who are academics and see education as crucial should be alarmed at the specter of partisan attacks, not to mention the garish and outlandish headlines that adversely affect many people trying to make sense of and understand their lives. Academic freedom,...
Leave it to the right to make a cheap attempt to capitalize off human tragedy. For most people, the collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore was a disaster of horrific proportions. Americans across the political spectrum expressed their sorrow and prayers toward the victims and their families. But for many in the bombastic world of right-wing conservatism, it presented an opportunity to partake in one of their favorite hobbies: injecting racism into the issue at...
It was “The Stepford Wives” meets “The Handmaid’s Tale.” More than a week later, people are still talking about the State of the Union response given by Alabama Sen. Katie Britt, which has been widely mocked by politicians and pundits alike. It certainly didn’t require the skills of a futurist to realize her less-than-stellar efforts would result in a raw and ruthless parody on “Saturday Night Live.” One Republican pollster called Britt “creepy,” while a national Republican...
Historically viewed as a fringe belief system, Christian nationalism has become a considerable force in American politics, particularly as it relates to the current Republican Party. A new survey from Public Religion Research Institute and the Brookings Institution revealed more than 50% of Republicans believe the country should aspire to become a devoutly Christian nation by ascribing to the fundamentals of Christian nationalism, or, at a minimum, identifying with such...
Being the ever-menacing carnival barker that he is, former president Donald Trump said the four criminal cases he faces have garnered him significant support from Black voters. Why? He claims due to the historic injustices Black Americans have endured at the hands of the criminal justice system, they can identify with his legal dilemma. “I think that’s why the Black people are so much on my side now because they see what’s happening to me happens to them. Does that make sense...
It should probably come as little surprise that a majority of American millennial and Generation Z women identify as liberal. A Gallup Poll released earlier this month indicated the ideological gap between men and women across various generations has increased over the past few years, and that young women today are much more liberal than young men. Some of their findings: • Women aged 18 to 29 are now 15 percentage points more likely to identify as liberal than men of the s...
From the Duchess of Sussex and actress Meghan Markle to former Harvard President Claudine Gay to Vice President Kamala Harris, Black women have been the target of severe attacks in recent months. The most recent example are the distasteful comments made by Republican Rep. Troy Nehls of Texas toward his colleague, Democrat Cori Bush of Missouri. Nehls, an acid-tongued conservative, took it upon his shamelessly arrogant self to refer to representative Bush as “loud” and “mo...
Several years ago, Taylor Swift was far from the femme fatale some members of the MAGA far right now consider her to be. Many conservatives used to revere Swift. In 2015, Republican lawmakers invited the pop icon for personal tours of the U.S. Capitol and offered to provide donors tickets to her concerts. Even Donald Trump stated she was “terrific” and “fantastic.” How times have changed. Swift is now political poison to the right, largely despised for her progressive viewpoi...
In news you might have missed, 22-year old Madison Marsh – a second lieutenant in the Air Force and master’s student at the Harvard Kennedy School’s public policy program – was crowned Miss America in Orlando, Fla. Marsh, representing the state of Colorado, is the first active-duty Air Force officer ever to receive the national title. Southerner by birth, born in Fort Smith, Ark., Marsh graduated from the United States Air Force Academy with a degree in physics focusin...
Let’s talk about Claudine Gay, the first Black person and just the second woman to serve as Harvard University’s president, who resigned after months of turmoil. Many on the conservative right celebrated Gay’s resignation with delirious fanfare. Christopher Rufo, the far-right activist and charlatan, obnoxiously announced Gay’s exit by tweeting the word “SCALPED.” In a Wall Street Journal op-ed, he gleefully cited it as a case study in how conservatives can successfull...
Americans routinely plugged into the news cycle are aware of the fact that much ado was made about something (yes something) when Nikki Haley responded to a question from an audience member at a New Hampshire town hall about the cause of the Civil War. The Republican presidential candidate awkwardly (arguably intentionally) sidestepped the real issue that resulted in one of our nation’s most pivotal events – slavery! Rather than confront the truth head on and provide an hon...
Latchkey kids. Slackers. Caffeine lovers. Grunge. That’s how a lot of people have referred to Generation X, the 46 million Americans, like myself, who were born between 1965 and 1980. We were a generation that has been perennially pegged as cynical, self-indulgent, aimless, contrarian, and often peripheral when it comes to life and other everyday matters. But if we’re being honest, there are a lot of good reasons why many of us are cynical and disillusioned with life. Tur...
Most of us are aware of Donald Trump’s habit of routinely espousing devious and derogatory rhetoric. What we apparently were unaware of was the boundaries he was willing to cross, and his willingness to parrot the words of one of the most sadistic and scurrilous human beings to ever walk this earth. During a campaign stop at a hockey rink in New Hampshire, Trump echoed the words of Adolf Hitler with comments about migrants from mostly Africa, Asia and South America ...
