Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
Sorted by date Results 51 - 75 of 194
Memorial Day is Monday, and we will once again honor those who have made the ultimate sacrifice for their service to this country during a time of war. Alas, I fear that we are on the brink of another major war, and I see our government doing little to curtail these fears. For more than a year, we have been involved in a so-called proxy war in Europe that our government continues to insist we have no actual responsibility for. We continue to provide weapons, ammunition and...
Two recent stories in The Washington Post about the Ukraine debacle have left me flabbergasted. The first is an item sourced to classified U.S. intelligence documents that maintain the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, proposed to bomb a pipeline that transfers Russian oil to Hungary, which happens to be a NATO member. Does this scenario seem familiar to anyone besides me? In point of fact, the Druzhba pipeline is one of the world’s longest and largest oil pipeline n...
There are three things we know for sure about the Nord Stream disaster that occurred last September. The first is that it was an act of sabotage. This information was provided by the Swedes who investigated the event shortly after it happened. Second is the fact that when Sweden completed its investigation, it refused to published the findings on the grounds that these findings would impact national security. It was never made clear exactly whose national security would be...
Last week I wrote about the latest chapter in the Hunter Biden laptop saga. When the laptop story was initially broken in 2020, it contained embarrassing as well as damaging and potentially criminal information about the Biden family that could have impacted the November presidential election. In October 2020, 51 former senior national security professionals signed and published a letter alleging that the Hunter Biden laptop story was an elaborate hoax by Russian...
Antony Blinken has been linked to the story about the 51 former CIA officials who signed a letter in October 2020 declaring that the Hunter Biden laptop showed all the signs of a Russian disinformation op. All 51 of these individuals could now face legal liabilities for aiding in a Biden campaign ploy that raised doubts about the validity of Hunter Biden’s laptop. What follows is taken (in part) from a letter sent by Rep. Jim Jordan to Secretary of State Blinken: In a transcri...
Last year, I penned an editorial that argued the war in Ukraine consisted of three wars. These were the economic war, the actual battlefield actions and the propaganda war. The economic war consisted of a “shock and awe” sanctions campaign against Russian oil, that would cause the ruble to fall and force the Russian economy to collapse. After more than 10 additional layers of sanctions, the Russian economy is still functioning. In fact, the International Monetary Fund, no frie...
Periodically, while perusing my local newspaper, I discover some latest piece of news or what purports to be news that fascinates, startles, or amazes me. Below are two examples of these. Dany Werfel has recently been sworn in as the new IRS commissioner, and while I’ve never met Werfel, I’d like to shake his hand. In an article by AP reporter Fatima Hussein, Werfel is quoted as saying, “This is our moment in history to transform the IRS. We have a great deal of work ahead...
China brokered a truce between Saudi Arabia and Iran in March. Tensions had been high between Iran and Saudi Arabia since the kingdom broke off ties with Iran in 2016. This deal should impact the civil war in Yemen, where Houthi insurgents with links to Iran took control of Yemen’s capital Sana’a, demanding a new government. In March 2015, a coalition of Gulf states led by Saudi Arabia, began a campaign of air strikes against the insurgents with U.S. logistical and int...
Last month, what has been called everything from “troubles in the banking sector” to a “banking crisis” became apparent when the CEO of Silicon Valley Bank notified shareholders the bank needed to raise $2.25 billion after suffering substantial losses. This precipitated a run on the bank and bank regulators placed the bank into Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. receivership. Shortly after that, the Treasury, the Federal Reserve and the FDIC announced that New York-based Signatu...
During President Bill Clinton’s administration, the U.S. signed a treaty to establish the International Criminal Court. The U.S. said it strongly supported “international accountability,” but believed the treaty, known as the Rome Statute, had “significant flaws” that still needed addressing. The court investigates and brings to justice people responsible for genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes, intervening when national authorities cannot or will not prosecute....
Approximately two months ago, the Seymour Hersh article, “How America Took Out the Nord Stream Pipeline” appeared on Substack. No major newspaper chose to publish this extensive, detailed look at one of the most shocking acts of terrorism since the destruction of the Twin Towers. More recently, articles have appeared in the “New York Times,” “The Washington Post” and “The Times” (used to be “The Times of London,”) from a variety of authors alleging that a different set of ac...
Approximately two months ago, the Seymour Hersh article, “How America Took Out the Nord Stream Pipeline” appeared on Substack. No major newspaper chose to publish this extensive, detailed look at one of the most shocking acts of terrorism since the destruction of the Twin Towers. More recently, articles have appeared in the “New York Times,” “The Washington Post” and “The Times” (used to be “The Times of London,”) from a variety of authors alleging that a different set of ac...
Last week I discussed Seymour Hersh’s charges that Nord Stream was destroyed by the U.S. government, acting under the direction of President Joseph R. Biden. These charges have resulted in Illinois College of Law Professor Francis A. Boyle, preparing a Resolution of Impeachment against the president of the United States. In an interview on YouTube with American journalist and political commentator Don DeBar, Boyle notes that he delivered copies of his resolution to every R...
In late September of last year, a series of explosions destroyed the Nord Stream pipelines that connected Russia with Germany. After several weeks of investigation, the Swedish government ascertained that the pipeline was destroyed by sabotage. Initial media reports implicated Russia as the perpetrator of this disaster, but the Swedes declined to name any particular nation state as the culprit. Since that initial investigation, Sweden has refused to share any information on...
There is little hope that 2023 will usher in a new era of peace throughout Europe. Ukraine shows no indication of abating and as I write this piece, news reports reveal that several Western countries have “sent an ultimatum” to Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic, demanding that Serbs in the northern part of the breakaway territory, Kosovo, end their stand-off with local authorities. Serbia is one of the six separate nations that evolved as a result of Yugoslavia’s break...
The Christmas season always makes me think of music. Not “Jingle Bells,” or “Frosty the Snowman,” but the sacred music that I grew up with in western Iowa and eastern Nebraska: “O Holy Night,” “When Blossoms Flowered Mid the Snows,” “O Little Town of Bethlehem,” Adeste Fideles,” “Bring a Torch, Jeanette, Isabella,” “What Child is This,” “Joy to the World,” and the most loved, “Silent Night,” to name a few. To really get the full impact of choral music, and especially Christma...
I thought John McCain was a terrible politician, and a worse presidential candidate. He never met a war that he didn’t back and his campaign was a disaster. The only bright spot I remember about it was Sarah Palin, and he threw her over the side when he thought she became a distraction and an inconvenience. Kind of a harsh requiem, huh? On the other hand, John McCain was a bona fide U.S. American hero. His father and his grandfather were both admirals in the U.S. Navy. That d...
My early predictions for the winners in 2023: USA Whoever decided to destroy the Nord Stream pipelines created what Secretary of State Anthony Blinken described as a “tremendous opportunity.” Blinken was correct in his assumption. Without Russian gas, Europe turned to the U.S. to provide Liquid Natural Gas. The U.S. was happy to provide LNG to Europe at a cost 6 times what they had been paying for it. Additionally, the Inflation Reduction Act provided subsidies for any ind...
My early predictions for the losers in 2023: Ukraine Ukraine is running out of ammunition, manpower and time. Ukraine currently fires about 2,000 rounds of artillery a day, while the Russians fire between 20,000 and 50,000 rounds. The casualty rate is reported to be as high as 8 or 10 to 1, favoring the Russians. The Ukrainians are being subjected to missile and drone attacks on an almost daily basis that are wrecking fuel, power and transportation systems. These attacks will...
Several weeks ago, the world was closer to WWIII than at any time since the Cuban missile crisis of October 1962. Although everyone has heard the phrase, “the fog of war,” it really is extremely problematic to grasp what is happening in the middle of hostilities. Having said that, anyone who arrives at a conclusion with any degree of certainty for a movement or action that happens in any given moment should think carefully before initiating counter action. Rather, they sho...
I have written before about the George Santayana quote, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” I’ve also noted that when I first became aware of that quote, I assumed that the “cannot remember the past” part referred to some significant length of time, maybe a century or two. Alas it’s much less than that. Recently the Pentagon confirmed that there were, indeed, American troops on the ground, in Ukraine. These troops were not combat troops, rather the...
In spite of the fact that Thanksgiving and Christmas decorations started going up in the stores in early October, often times confusing the Halloween parties, I’ve always looked at this week as the start of what we call the “holiday season.” It’s still a little too early for Christmas music, but I could stand to hear that old Thanksgiving classic, “Over the River and Through the Woods,” a time or two. As I ponder what I just wrote, it dawns on me that today’s generation ha...
This week we will celebrate Veterans Day, on Nov. 11. As I’ve written before, when I was a child we celebrated that day as Armistice Day. During the Great War, on the Western Front, at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month in 1918, after fighting more than four years, an armistice was signed, and the guns on the Western Front fell silent. Also, as a child, we were required to memorize a poem from that conflict written by a Canadian doctor and teacher who served in t...
The conflict in Ukraine continues to drag on. Regardless of how the conflict began or who was responsible for starting it, the fear remains that the war may get out of control, or may already be at that point. Whatever happens, the war may very well have unintended consequences just as most wars do. One of these consequences may be the impoverishment of Europe for many years to come. At the onset of the struggle, the strategy of the Collective West as explained by its leaders...
At the onset of the television age, most Americans remember Walter Cronkite as the go-to guy when it came to getting the real scoop on what was happening in the news. Ending each show with, “And that’s the way it is …” Cronkite made CBS News No. 1in its time slot. Numerous television reporters of that age got their start in newspapers, then went on to radio and had a wide range of diverse experiences before they came to television, including many from the world war. Contras...
