It’s hard to understand the thinking of people who believe it’s quite alright to financially undermine programs like Meals on Wheels or strip federal dollars from programs for the poor and homeless, including food assistance and job training, and cut off funds from Habitat for Humanity, the Rural Business Cooperative, and the Corporation for Public […]
The Public Health Menace of Rising Heat and the War on Regulation
Changing climate in the Southwest has become an object of grim fascination for many citizens. Despite the political ostrichism on the part of conservative bureaucrats who’ve recently come to power, it’s clear to thoughtful people that increasing temperatures have become one of the greatest public health menaces our region has ever faced. Rising heat and […]
Eliminating the NEA: An Asteroid Smashing Into the New Mexico Economy—Will the Arts Go Extinct?
New Mexico’s impoverished economy received a devastating blow last week when the extremist Republican establishment, fronted by the Trump administration, finally did what it has longed to do – begin the down and dirty process of eliminating the National Endowment for the Arts, the Institute of Museum and Library Services, and the National Endowment for […]
New Mexico and the Crippled EPA: The Last Nail in the Coffin? Or a Call to Arms?
The budget of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is about to be cut to around the size it was in the Reagan years. The exact numbers are not available yet, but leaks about the Trump administration’s budget indicate that the agency could lose as much as 25 to 30 percent of its funding this […]
Transgender Victims of Bully Politics and States’ “Rights” to Bigotry
Among the saddest and cruelest acts in the first five weeks of chaos in the Republican controlled U.S. government was directed at one of the most vulnerable and besieged populations in our country – transgender school children. The Trump Whitehouse countermanded guidelines for non-discriminatory bathrooms and locker facilities in public schools issued last year by […]
Presidential Hate Speech: A Veiled Threat of Violence?
The President, at a talk recently, exercised his constitutionally guaranteed freedom of speech by calling the “media” the “enemy of the people.” Using the word “enemy” to describe a vast, constitutionally protected profession caused many worrying questions. It prompted retired Navy Adm. William McRaven, a former Navy SEAL and head of Special Operations Command, to […]
Neil Gorsuch: Originalism and Thinking Backwards in the Information Age
Federal appeals judge Neil Gorsuch, the current President’s Supreme Court nominee, is apparently a gentleman Coloradoan, cordial, cultured, profoundly conservative, an all around charming guy, a witty writer, a fly fisherman, and a man who espouses a curious judicial philosophy known as originalism. He shares this view with the late Justice Antonin Scalia, in which […]






