Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
Sorted by date Results 26 - 50 of 98
The New Mexico Legislature is different from anything else I’ve ever covered. Part of that is structural, with arcane rules limiting sessions to 30 or 60 days and calling for legislators to work without pay or staff. And part of it is cultural. The time limitations mean every session is a sprint to the finish, with hundreds of bills dying a quiet death when the clock strikes noon on the final day. And yet, during each day of the session official business is temporarily set aside to make time for dancers, musicians, poets a...
Like the salaries paid by the Los Angeles Dodgers for Japanese imports, the revenue numbers for the state are getting to be so big that it’s hard to wrap your head around them. The latest estimate projects the state will collect just under $12 billion in fiscal year 2024, which runs through June. That’s up by $2.3 billion from the past fiscal year and by $3.9 billion from two years ago. All of which means that legislators will have just under $3.6 billion in so-called “new money” this year, beyond the $9.7 billion include...
While she has not yet announced her agenda for the 30-day session of the state Legislature that starts Jan. 16, Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham has made it clear that gun safety will be a priority. Success will depend on her making it the priority. Lujan Grisham overstepped her bounds when she issued an emergency order in September banning guns in all public places in Bernalillo County. While gun violence is an emergency, it is one that must be addressed by the Legislature. No governor should have the unilateral powers that...
Last summer I wrote a column praising the United States Senate for finally passing a bill to compensate those in southern New Mexico who suffered illness and death following exposure to the world’s first atomic blast at Trinity site. I ended the column with this: “That’s the good news. The bad news is that the bill now moves to the House, which seems much more interested in exploring the cocaine-fueled antics of Hunter Biden than doing anything to help the people they serve.” Now, the House has stripped funding in the def...
They said it couldn’t be done, and by “they” I mean me and just about everyone else who has followed the New Mexico State University football team over the years. In 2020, when the state was facing a $2 billion budget deficit and all but two games on the NMSU scheduled were canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, I wrote my second column calling for the Aggies to drop down to the FCS division in football. It wasn’t that I didn’t like college football or appreciate the potential benefits that come with the national exposure...
The risk of talking to people who are much more knowledgeable on a particular topic is that it may require a reevaluation of long-held beliefs. James Conca accurately describes himself as one of the 10 experts in the world on nuclear waste disposal. He was director of the Environmental Monitoring and Research Center for the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad from 2004 to 2010. WIPP is the nation’s only deep geologic site for nuclear waste storage. Conca has also been an affiliate scientist with Los Alamos since 2004 a...
I’ll be glad when the Medicare open-enrollment period ends on Dec. 10, bringing a merciful pause to the flood of ageist television ads that saturate the airways each year at this time. The worst are produced for a business called Medicare Advantage Advisors, and feature a gray-haired woman with oversized glasses, named Martha, who, we are told, “is a bit cranky” because she heard that the open-enrollment period had started. In a voice that brings back memories of the old “Saturday Night Live” skits featuring Doug and Wendy...
A package of immigration bills introduced in Congress recently by Rep. Gabe Vasquez of Las Cruces will not address the growing crisis on our border, which is now impacting nearly all of our major cities. That’s far beyond the grasp of this Congress, which has its hands full just trying to keep a speaker in place. To be fair, even in past years with stronger leaders in charge, immigration reform has always been out of reach. Both sides would rather have the problem to campaign on than a solution that seems so simple to me. M...
My simplistic, childlike worldview was changed forever a few days after the horrific murders of 11 Israeli athletes by the Palestinian group Black September during the 1972 Olympics in Munich, Germany. Two of my great loves as a kid were sports and stories. And so, I especially loved stories about sports. One of my favorites was the one about warring kings in Ancient Greece who laid down their arms and called for a temporary truce during the Olympics. That truce assured safe passage for athletes traveling to and from the...
Opponents of our support for Ukraine have started lumping in the defense of their homeland with our past wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and referring to them all as “forever wars.” Let’s break that down. The war in Afghanistan started on Oct. 7, 2001, with an invasion ordered by President George W. Bush, and ended on Aug. 26, 2021, with a withdrawal ordered by President Joe Biden. It lasted for 19 years, 10 months and 19 days, and resulted in the deaths of 2,402 American service men and women, including 13 during the withd...
LAS CRUCES — I think we can cut to the chase regarding the city of Las Cruces survey of those participating in its guaranteed basic income pilot program. In 18 months, the responses will show that families who were given $500 a month by the government benefited in all kinds of positive ways, and nearby businesses also got a boost. Results are already in from similar surveys in different communities, and show pretty conclusively that people like free money. The city has taken $2 million of the $24 million it received from t...
Bill Richardson was the most ambitious person I’ve ever met. Our first meeting was when I was a moderator for a 2002 gubernatorial debate against Republican John Sanchez and David Bacon of the Green Party. Richardson was so unconcerned with his opposition that he instead focused on Democrats in the state Legislature, warning them not to get in the way of his big tax cut. Richardson’s plan was to pass tax cuts for corporations and rich people, then advertise them on a billboard in Times Square with his face on it. Amb...
Most of our national holidays are a celebration of people and events that seem far removed. Labor Day is for us; the American worker. Our summers are bookended by three-day weekends. Memorial Day demands that we somberly remember those who died in war. Labor Day makes no demands. But we should be aware of its history. Along with celebrating workers, the holiday also recognizes the contributions made by labor unions in response to the robber barons of the 19th century who amassed obscene levels of wealth at the expense of...
My last paying gig was covering the state Legislature for its 2021 session, which was conducted entirely over Zoom to protect lawmakers and staff from the COVID-19 virus. It didn’t go well. The Roundhouse was closed to the public, and lawmakers were allowed to stay home and phone it in, via Zoom. My favorite moment was when an older legislator from a rural part of the state attempted to participate in a committee meeting from his car in the McDonald’s parking lot because it was the only place he could find an internet con...
The Communications Act of 1934 states that everyone in the United States should have access to rapid, efficient nationwide communications services, no matter where they live. A decades-long national effort was launched to bring telephone service to the most rural parts of the country. A Universal Services Fund was created, adding a new fee to our monthly bills to finance projects that wouldn’t otherwise have enough customers to be profitable. New government boards, like New Mexico’s Public Regulation Commission, were cre...
The movie “Oppenheimer” draws attention to the events at Trinity Site on July 16, 1945, and in the days leading up to the detonation of the world’s first atomic bomb. And then the scene shifts. But for those living downwind from the blast, the damage and devastation to their lives and health caused by exposure to radioactive fallout was just the beginning, and would play out in the decades to come. Nobody died that day in the blast, but there were deaths. Much more slow and painful deaths, most involving cancer. Ameri...
The Sixth Amendment guarantees the right to a “speedy and public trial.” The Speedy Trial Act of 1974 passed by Congress interprets that to mean an indictment within 30 days of arrest and a trial within 70 days of the indictment. But that only applies to federal courts. In New Mexico, a backlog in the district courts has meant far too many defendants have been denied their Sixth Amendment right. The problem has been greatest in Albuquerque, leading the Legislature to pass the Bernalillo Criminal Justice and Review Act in 201...
Boy, it sure is hot today. How hot is it? It’s so hot I bought a loaf of bread and by the time I got home it was toast. It’s so hot my grandfather’s chicken laid an omelet. It’s so hot his cows are producing evaporated milk. It’s so hot the catfish are fried by the time you reel them in. It’s so hot the Statue of Liberty disrobed. It’s so hot I went to Congress just to be around some shady characters. It’s so hot I intentionally leave the toilet seat up to get icy stares from my wife. It’s so hot my children’s crayon...
District Judge Fred Van Soelen of Clovis has until Oct. 1 to decide if the redistricting map that allowed Democrats to wrest control of the 2nd Congressional District will still be in place for the 2024 election. Recently the state Supreme Court sent a lawsuit filed by Republicans seeking to overturn the new map back to District Court, while also giving Judge Van Soelen guidance on what he should consider in making his decision. The order instructs that “a reasonable degree” of partisan gerrymandering is permissible, so lon...
In my last column, I explained why I think the secretary of state should not interfere in an effort to force a referendum on six bills passed this year by the state Legislature. Now I’d like to look at two of the bills being targeted. House Bill 4 will make it easier for more New Mexico residents to exercise their right to vote. More specifically, the bill will automatically register voters through the Motor Vehicle Division, bringing more eligible voters onto the rolls. It will restore the voting rights of convicted f...
I love democracy … the purer the better. And so, I’ve always been a big fan of the referendum process, which allows citizens to circumvent the representative system and take their issue directly to the voters. The angriest I’ve ever been with the Las Cruces City Council was in 2014 when they relied on slimy legal tricks to stop a successful effort to use the referendum process to raise the minimum wage. I had mixed feelings about the wage, but my feelings about the City Council’s maneuvering were anything but mixed. Now, a...
The effort to create a civilian review board for the Las Cruces Police Department threatens to create a rift between the City Council and some progressive voters during a municipal election year, when police and crime will undoubtedly be a major topic. There’s little disagreement as to the need for reform. Fatal police interactions with Amelia Baca (settled for $2.5 million) and Antonio Valenzuela (settled for $6.5 million) have cost taxpayers $9 million, and taken beloved members from two families. Jonathan Strickland s...
Have drones made it too easy for the U.S. military to commit murder from thousands of miles away? Last month, U.S. Central Command issued a tweet announcing that an Al Qaeda leader had been killed by a drone strike in Northeast Syria. “This operation reaffirms CENTCOM’s steadfast commitment to the region and the enduring defeat of ISIS and Al Qaeda,” CENTCOM Commander Gen. Michael “Eric” Kurilla said. The tweet promised that more information about the strike would be released “as operational details become available.” That ne...
The United States government has a nuclear waste storage problem, and it sees its solution in southeast New Mexico. Earlier this month, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission approved the application by a Florida-based company named Holtec to build a new waste storage facility in Lea County. The license authorizes Holtec to store 500 canisters holding 100,000 metric tons of spent nuclear fuel. Holtec plans to eventually store up to 10,000 canisters, shipped in from nuclear power plants around the country. Which gives state...
My unsolicited advice for this year’s graduates is simple: Move slow and fix things. In 2014, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg coined the phrase “move fast and break things” to describe the mentality of our new 20-year-old tech-sector corporate leaders who believed all human knowledge gained over the centuries had been made obsolete by quantum computing. “The idea is that if you never break anything, you’re probably not moving fast enough,” Zuckerberg explained. He expounded on the idea during a college lecture. “A lot of t...
