Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
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In 2021, two employees of the state’s Children, Youth and Families Department revealed it was using a secure text messaging app that automatically deleted all of their messages, in clear violation of the state’s public records law. Then-CYFD Secretary Brian Blalock responded by firing the employees, Clifford and Debra Gilmore, while defending the app as being necessary to protect the privacy of children in the CYFD system. Since then, the state has paid a $650,000 settlement to the Gilmores for damages and back pay, Bla... Full story
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton was indicted by a grand jury in 2015 on two counts of securities fraud and one count of failing to register with the state. He allegedly defrauded investors in a tech startup company called Server Inc. He has thus far been able to delay the start of his trial. But, those criminal charges were not the reason Paxton had 16 articles of impeachment filed against him by the Texas House of Representatives, which is controlled by Republicans. They were sparked by a letter sent by Paxton’s former f...
Maybe the Aggies can compete at the top level. The late-season success of the New Mexico State University football team under first-year coach Jerry Kill — winning five of its last six games, with the only loss coming against Missouri, and earning an invitation to play in the Quick Lane Bowl — should silence critics like me who have suggested that the team should drop from the Football Bowl Subdivision to the Football Championship Subdivision. That’s especially true now that all the sports haters on campus have their ire s...
A few weeks ago, when the Omicron variant of the COVID-19 virus was sweeping through Africa and just beginning to make its presence known here, the dimmest members of the anti-vax crowd suggested that the global wave of death and illness was really just a ploy by the Democrats to win a few more House seats in next year’s midterm election. “Here comes the MEV — the midterm election variant. Democrats will do anything to cheat during an election, but we won’t let them,” proclaimed Rep. Ronny Jackson, R-Texas, who is likely be...
Democrats in the state Legislature were able to tilt the playing field to their side this year for the first time in three decades, and they have taken full advantage of it. The last two times our state has gone through the redistricting process that happens every 10 years after the census, the power of the Legislature was checked by Republican Govs. Gary Johnson and Susana Martinez. That led to expensive court battles both years, where the final district maps were drawn. With Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham now in office,...
New Mexico has the third-highest poverty rate in the nation, ahead of only Mississippi and Louisiana, according to the state Department of Workforce Solutions. But, while families throughout the state are struggling, the state government is more than flush. The latest revenue estimate for the state projects that lawmakers will have an additional $1.6 billion to spend when they meet in January for a 30-day budget session. That's money in addition to the $7.4 billion in this year's budget. And, that budget did not include billi...
Plenty of good seats were still available at kickoff Nov. 27 for the Aggies’ final game of the football season, which was unfortunate but not surprising. Unfortunate, because New Mexico State beat the University of Massachusetts in an exciting game between two evenly matched teams played on a beautiful, sunny afternoon. Not surprising, because almost none of the previous games this season have met those criteria, except for the beautiful afternoon part. NMSU started the season with more than 19,000 fans for the first home g...
One year after leading the effort to strip police officers of their qualified immunity from civil lawsuits, Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham is now seeking additional funding for law enforcement. The governor will call for an additional $100 million to hire 1,000 more law enforcement officers throughout the state when the Legislature meets in January, according to the Albuquerque Journal. She is also expected to call for reform of the bail system, following a constitutional amendment passed by voters in 2016 that limits the use...
The New Mexico Legislature has finally passed a rule banning guns in the state Capitol building. Now, it needs to provide that same common-sense protection for local school boards and city councils. The Legislative Council Committee, which includes leaders from both parties and chambers and meets each month when the Legislature is not in session, passed the new rule on an 8-5 vote, with all Republicans in opposition. Past attempts to ban firearms at the Roundhouse through legislation have failed, following contentious...
Worried that federal spending was getting out of control, Sen. Everett Dirksen warned in 1973 that “a billion here, and a billion there, and pretty soon you’re talking about real money.” Dirksen’s quote seems quaint these days, in light of new spending passed or proposed by Congress to combat and counteract the impacts of the pandemic. The American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, passed under former President Donald Trump, had $1.9 trillion in new federal spending. That was followed by the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Secur...
A great nation is able to teach its history honestly, celebrating its triumphs and correcting its mistakes. That’s what the New Mexico Public Education Department is trying to accomplish with its proposed revision to the social studies standards. The 122-page plan lays out in fine detail what would be taught to students in social studies classes from kindergarten through high school. That’s one of my concerns. Dictating every detail from Santa Fe wouldn’t seem to leave much room for the teachers. The revision comes at a tim...
State Treasurer Tim Eichenberg has apparently decided that if the weak and subservient New Mexico Legislature will not stand up for itself, he’ll do it for them. Eichenberg, who previously served in the state Senate, has written a court brief in support of a lawsuit filed by two senators, Republican Greg Baca and Democrat Jacob Candelaria, challenging the authority of Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham to spend federal relief money without going through the legislative process. This is the second time in the last few weeks that I’ve...
Democrats in the New Mexico Legislature will soon have to choose between good government and good politics. On the side of good government is the New Mexico Citizen Redistricting Committee, a seven-member board headed by former Supreme Court Justice Edward Chavez, which has been holding public meetings throughout the state to gather input from residents to guide the redrawing of political district maps, as required every 10 years after the Census. According to the group’s website, its mission is to “propose district lin...
Every four years, Americans flock to the polls in droves to elect a new president. Last year, more than 155 million people cast their ballots, most of them just happy that the campaign was finally over, at least for a minute. Two years later, we have the midterm elections, where we elect a new governor, and all members of both the state and U.S. House are up for re-election. Next year, voters will get to weigh in for the first time on the governor’s aggressive public health order to combat COVID-19. In odd-numbered years l...
I remember an old poster from my college days that asked, “What if they gave a war and nobody came?” That’s kind of what happened Sept. 18 in Washington D.C. Capitol Police who survived the battle on Jan. 6 were prepared for a second round. But this time nobody came. Sadly, I fear it was a reprieve, not a reversal of what has been a disturbing trend. During debate earlier this year on a bill that would have prohibited protests outside of private residences, members of the New Mexico Legislature talked about the threats they...
When the New Mexico Legislature put additional money in the budget last year to wipe out the debts of the athletic programs at New Mexico State University and the University of New Mexico, it was hoped that the schools would no longer need to put our football teams up as cannon fodder in so-called “money games.” “I’m sick and tired of both universities having to take money games,” said then-Senate Finance Committee Chairman John Arthur Smith. “We’re not competitive, and we’re getting crushed. But they’ve got to play these...
Thousands of Afghan refugees whisked to safety during the massive evacuation that concluded recently experienced their first taste of freedom in New Mexico’s Doña Ana County. The Doña Ana Range Complex, a part of the Fort Bliss Army base that extends into Doña Ana and Otero counties in New Mexico, is being used as a temporary holding site for those evacuated from Afghanistan as part of Operation Allies Rescue. As many as 10,000 evacuees are expected to be processed there. The Department of Defense has said that up to 22,0...
This month, the United States joined a long list of nations that have tried and failed to rule Afghanistan. The Soviet Union came immediately before us. Their adventures in Afghanistan left them vulnerable to the collapse of the Soviet empire that was to follow. The British, Sikhs, Persians, Mongols and Greeks all suffered the same fate, dating back to Alexander the Great and Genghis Khan. The fact that our 20-year effort in Afghanistan was no more successful than all the great empires before us should not be surprising....
When President Joe Biden announced a plan to send local public health workers door-to-door on a mission to increase COVID-19 vaccinations, conservative pundits warned that those foolish enough to open their doors would be forcibly vaccinated against their will. U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene went one step further, as is her wont, comparing those health care workers to the Nazi Brownshirts who aided Adolf Hitler’s rise to power. Greene has become the leader of a perverse effort on the far right that seems intent on keeping o...
One of the few things Republicans and Democrats seem to agree on in our divided nation is a desire to restrict speech on the internet. Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996 has become a favorite target for partisans on both sides. The provision states that owners of an internet platform “shall not be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information” posted on their site, and are therefore protected from libel laws. Republicans want to see the provision rescinded because they believe conservative voi...
In 2019, the New Mexico Senate rejected a bill that would have removed an old, invalid abortion law from the books. One year later, voters had their say. Six Democratic senators who had voted against the bill were removed from office, including powerful veterans such as former President Pro Tem Mary Kay Papen and Finance Committee Chairman John Arthur Smith. Clearly, the bill was supported by not only Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham and the House but also by a majority of voters in New Mexico. But, it was passed against the...
A few years ago I was scammed by callers claiming to offer a great deal on my satellite TV service. I felt bad about losing the money, but felt worse about being duped. It’s a human reaction. All of us like to think we’re too savvy to be taken in, and it stings the pride to admit it when we’re not. A few months ago, an HBO documentary exposed Ronald Watkins, a 30-something porn-addled techie living in Asia, as “Q,” the secretive mastermind behind the QAnon phenomenon. Q was supposed to be somebody in the highest reaches o...
There are no free lunches. If you don’t work, you don’t eat. Everybody has to pitch in and carry their weight. These aphorisms from my youth, passed on by my parents and others from their generation who survived the Great Depression during their childhood, pop into my mind each time I hear about a new government plan to give people free money. Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang proposed a plan in which all citizens of working age, regardless of their income, would get $1,000 checks each month from the federal gov...
When the New Mexico Legislature passed Senate Bill 94 earlier this year, allowing college athletes to profit from the use of their name, image or likeness, some lawmakers feared we were picking a fight with the mighty NCAA. If that were the case, the masters of collegiate sports just cried uncle. The NCAA has changed its rules, just as new laws here and in other states were taking effect. College athletes will now be able to hire agents, sign endorsement deals, make commercials, leverage their presence on social media and...
Frank and I were home after our first year of college and Bruce had just graduated from high school in the summer of 1977 when we decided it would be safe to smoke pot in an abandoned field off a quiet road. We were in an abandoned field because none of us had a home of our own at the time. We were all staying with our parents for the summer. The abandoned field wasn’t a great hideout. The police officers dumped our baggie into the wind, took down information from our IDs, gave us a stern talking-to and ended by t...
