LAS CRUCES POLICE – UNDER CONTROL OR IN CONTROL?

       Back in my day, all was not well.  My precocious political antennae were attuned to the threat to democracy posed by Wisconsin senator Joseph McCarthy, who exploited a widespread fear in the late 40s and early 50s of communism and communists.  ( “A,” not “the,” widespread fear because another was atomic bombs—which meant to us elementary and junior-high students the need to crouch under our desks during air raid drills.)  His abusive investigations targeted many, some prominent, left-wing individuals; tarnished reputations with reckless accusations of being communists or “fellow travelers,” spreading communism, committing espionage, and undermining America; and thus ruined many careers and many lives.  Although McCarthy was only a senator, he managed to erode constitutional rights and damage government institutions.  Loyalty oaths existed before McCarthy, but, at the height of this “Second Red Scare,” even now-liberal California acquired a certain notoriety in requiring public employees at The University of California to swear “loyalty oaths.”  The irony of McCarthyism is that, in his presumptive effort to protect democracy, he undermined it.

In our day, all is also not well, and it takes no precociousness to detect its ailments.  We now have a small-minded, mean-spirited, smut-mouthed president in Donald Trump, who exploits fears of immigrants and LGBTQ+ people, operates like an authoritarian, and lacks any cause except himself, his wealth, and his power.  In addition to golf and groping women, his pleasures derive from humiliating and hurting people and destroying public institutions; name-calling—“radical left lunatic,” “terrorist”—and insults are his specialty.  His conduct based on the resentments of his fragile ego is unbounded by decency or law.  He knows nothing of truth, empathy, or service to others.  He believes in none of the political ideals, principles, or provisions of the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution.  His enemies are no part of objective reality.  Immigrants are less a criminal threat than citizens; LGBTQ+ people, minorities, and women are no bigger threats than straight, white, males.  “Woke” threatens no one; DEI threatens no one.  Many of his directives are petty and perverse—and potentially dangerous.  He has directed that, until further notice, TSA’s K-9 dogs, who are used to detect drugs and bombs, be withdrawn from service and then not be fed, kenneled, or treated by vets.  Not fed?  Yet he claims to be the man to make America great again.

 

But smash-and-grab tactics are Trump’s latest tactics to deport immigrants regardless of their status, whether or not they have proper credentials or criminal records.  The hundreds recently rounded up for deportation to El Salvador were not all liable for deportation.  The doctor refused re-entry and sent back to Lebanon had nothing to deny her, only some literature about Hezbollah and pictures of a dead Hezbollah leader—materials protected by the First Amendment.

 

Smash-and-grab tactics used on the East Coast have recently been used in New Mexico.  In mid-March, 48 Hispanic men were “disappeared” in Albuquerque, Roswell, and Santa Fe.  In a recent blog, I warned of such police conduct.  “As the federal government moves against targeted groups by infringing on their legal rights, state and local governments follow or are forced to follow its lead.   [Trump] has warned state and local police to obey federal demands or face prosecution for obstruction.  Police are responding with promptitude.  They have begun to violate safe havens like churches and temples, schools, and hospitals.”

 

I did not imagine that police would be targeting school buses and private homes—or so soon.  As reported, Border Patrol agents at the checkpoint near Hatch boarded a Las Cruces school bus and demanded documentation from students on high-school swim teams.  According to a rumor, personnel in uniforms labeled “police” conducted a local raid involving several SWAT vehicles and other police cars.  They seized and “disappeared” three immigrants, status unknown, seized the Las Cruces judge in whose house they were seized, but later released him.  Such is the authoritarian way by which police violate civilians’ civil rights.  I have tried to refute or confirm this rumor; ICE says that it conducts so many raids that it cannot identify this one without more information, and the LCPD says it knows nothing about it—not a denial.  You may take its word.

 

I do not.  I believe the rumor; its details and the fact of raids elsewhere in the state make it credible.  I also believe that the LCPD would know—it certainly should know—whether ICE conducted a raid in the city.  The lack of professional discipline by LCPD officers—their use of profanity, insults, rough handling, and excessive force reflecting escalation, not de-escalation—suggests that they would readily comply with requests for feigned ignorance or silence about a raid involving violations of constitutional rights, including “disappearances” of citizens.  In this context, I note the Department’s request for funding for five SWAT vehicles (and Councilor Cassie McClure’s obliging support simply because Police Chief Jeremy Story asked for them).

 

More than ever, citizens are right to be distrustful of the police, as then-Deputy Police Chief Dominguez testified before Council 5 years ago, and fearful of the police, as I infer them to be. His statement was a remarkable one.  But no one on Council remarked; no one on Council asked the obvious question—why.  Why not?  Because no one on Council wanted to know the answer.  Everyone was afraid of the truth about the LCPD because each was afraid of the police.

 

Thus, Council members and Story oppose a truth-seeking organization under Council auspices.  Which explains why Council has hired a business dedicated to whitewashing police departments.  OIR processes data selected by the LCPD according to OIR’s narrow contractual guidelines, reports bland findings and conclusions, and suggests a few tweaks to improve the Department.  Only those who fear the truth and refuse to believe ill of the LCPD accept OIR reports.  Others are justifiably skeptical.  In the 5 years during which OIR has earned its fee by making Council members feel good about the Department, its officers have crippled or killed about one harmless civilian per year—a rate higher than before OIR began its auditing.

 

Council members incapacitated by fear of the Department thus oppose efforts to reform it.  Their paralysis has cost lives, diminished services, and multi-million-dollar settlements.  These costs will grow if Council does not reform the LCPD; citizens’ distrust and fear of police, who disregard public safety, the law, and the Constitution, will also grow.

 

Council members must overcome their fears and reform the LCPD to bring it under control.  A first step should be to charter a citizens’ commission to solicit information about the police unfiltered by the Department and undistorted by OIR, so that the commission can discern and report the truth.  If, instead, they prefer personal comfort and political safety by avoiding the problem of out-of-control police, they will enable the Department to control Las Cruces in compliance with the wishes of the nation’s first autocratic president.

GUILT WITHOUT EVIDENCE IN AMERICA AND LAS CRUCES

      There are many ways to corrupt and cripple the legal system.  With the emergence of Trump’s autocratic regime in Washington, those many ways are innumerable.  One of the least creative but no less effective is to base police action on the lack of evidence of criminal activity.

The obvious example is a major case about allegations without evidence unfolding in the Washington court of Judge Boasberg.  On 17 March, the Trump administration deported about 250 Venezuelans purported to be members of the Tren de Aragua (TdA) gang to El Salvador.  The administration is refusing to disclose the identities of those deported and the evidence of their membership in a violent gang.  Indeed, it has no evidence:

 

In a sworn declaration, ICE Acting Field Office Director of Enforcement and Removal Operations Robert Cerna argued that “the lack of specific information about each individual actually highlights the risk they pose” and “demonstrates that they are terrorists with regard to whom we lack a complete profile.”  (ABC News, 18 Mar)

 

In other words, the absence of evidence of mutual affiliation or criminal conduct by individuals is evidence that they are risks to society because they are “terrorists.”  The administration’s spurious reasons—the president’s exclusive authority in matters of foreign policy and national security—cannot conceal the obvious facts of deportation unjustified by an inapplicable law and violating various Constitutional rights.

 

There are more parallels, notably allegations against colleges and university students for exercising their rights to associate freely, protest freely, and speak freely on certain subjects.  The Trump administration is investigating them on the presumption of supporting terrorism—a word meaning whatever Trump says it means—if they oppose Israeli attacks or support Palestinians attacked in Gaza, free speech notwithstanding.  But the untethered Trump will oppose dissenters outside academe marching to protest his administration’s policies on domestic and foreign issues: cutting Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid; shutting the Department of Education and USAid; weakening or leaving NATO and abandoning or trading Ukraine; and acquiring Canada, Greenland, Panama, and Gaza.  Marchers on 5 April might face police or troops, arrest, charges of terrorism, and jail despite the First Amendment.  The administration’s operating principle is guilty without evidence and until proven innocent, with Constitutional rights flouted or refused.

 

Such absurd illogic of guilt without evidence is not original with the Trump administration or confined to the federal level.  Similar corrupt legal thinking pervades the LCPD.  To justify five false allegations of code violations, Chief Codes Administrator James Chavez reported in a 11 Sep 2019 memorandum to Police Chief Patrick Gallagher that the warning notice reflected “the possibility [my emphasis]” of those violations.  (Later in his memorandum, Chavez wrote that one allegation was wrong.)  LCPD officers do not understand that the purpose of their site visits is to ascertain the actuality, not the possibility, of allegations.  Just think of how many tickets the LCPD could issue on the basis of mere possibilities.

 

To conclude his investigations of the allegations, Sean Mullins, IA investigator, reported in his 5 February 2020 memorandum to Gallagher that Juan Valles, Animal Control Officer, justified one allegation by claiming that, though “he was unable to completely view the entire backyard….he was unsure if there was any animal waste in the parts he couldn’t view/access.”  Again, just think how many code violations LCPD could allege in the absence of evidence.

 

Valles also reported that, at the direction of supervisors for 10 years, officers must allege two violations even if the citizen is unavailable to discuss the violations.  Just think about allegations justified because of a doctor’s appointment or a bridge game at the senior center.  Valles implied that such legal thinking is widespread in the LCDP; he said that any officer would have ticked off all five allegations although Mullins found all unsupported by evidence.  The critical issue involved in these instances is defiance of a fundamental principle of American jurisprudence: the LCPD presumes citizens to be guilty and ignores their innocence even after proof of it.

 

For proof of innocence has not been good enough for the LCPD to expunge unsupported allegations.  When I met with Police Chief Jeremy Story in his office in December 2023, I asked that he clear my file, as no prior police chief would, because of false allegations.  As I reviewed the few basic documents, he muttered that he saw things in them which he did not like, but he did nothing.  When I met him at a public meeting in June 2024, I asked him about my file.  I did not call out his lie when he said there was no file.  I insisted that I had a file and could prove it; he invited me to do so.  I sent him the proof: the warning notice itself and email from a former city manager saying that he had found it.  Story emailed me that he would check into it and get back to me.  He never did, despite my reminders.  Why not?  First, Story, like police chiefs before him, is not a man, or man enough, to admit mistakes..  Second, he is irritated at me for criticizing the LCPD and some of its personnel.  Third, he wants the file for future use (“Judge, we have had trouble with Mr. Hays before.”).  Fourth, he keeps it to weaponize his antisemitism, both personal and departmental.  I invite anyone who doubts my analysis to call Story to ask him why he lied about the existence of the file, did not admit its existence, and did not expunge it.

 

Both of these examples of guilt without evidence at the federal and local level mean that, without the rule of law, anyone is liable to authoritarian abuse.  Anyone can be accused of anything and hauled off without warning to anyplace out of the way—disappeared.  The Trump administration’s strategy is to use and “mediafy” these abuses to accustom the public to them.  Characterizing people as “terrorists” or “criminals” or “lunatics” or “deviants” dehumanizes them so that they are alienated from respect, compassion, and support through the legal system.

 

What the Trump administration is doing on a large scale Las Cruces has already been doing on a small scale as practice for doing it on a larger scale.  Story’s SWAT vehicles will come in handy.  So all of the lofty promises of members of City Council and pledges from the city’s police chiefs will be worth nothing when the time comes—or should I say now that the time has come?  The LCPD handling of my case is just an omen which the “it can’t happen here” crowd, including Council members, has chosen to ignore, at every citizen’s peril.

TRUMP’S DISREGARD OF ALLIES IS A CLEAR AND PRESENT DANGER TO THE U.S.

     The Cuban Missile Crisis in October 1962 scared almost everyone that World War III was imminent.  The Soviet Union had been discovered to be building missile-launch facilities in Cuba and shipping missiles there.  At the time, I was a commissioned officer not yet trained for active duty; instead, I had a temporary deferment while earning a master’s degree in education and doing my student teaching in central New York state.

Late Friday, 19 October, I returned to my temporary motel quarters to make my dinner and listen to the news.  The midterm election campaigns were in full swing, but Kennedy, who had been in Chicago that day, unexpectedly flew back to Washington for treatment of a severe cold, so it was reported.  Thinks I, who in their right mind would think that Kennedy could not get treatment for a bad cold in Chicago?  Who in their right mind would not think that Kennedy flew back to Washington to confer with his advisers and take action?  I lay on the couch after dinner, stared at the ceiling, and pondered what that action would be.  It took me only a few minutes to figure out that he would impose a blockade of Cuba, one option among many being proposed at the time, and force the Soviet Union to decide what to do in case of a confrontation nearly ten thousand miles from the Kremlin.  I slept soundly that night.

 

In all of my Monday classes, the students were anxious and fearful.  They wanted to know whether I thought there would be a war.  In the morning, I said that I was sure that there would be no war; in the afternoon, I said that I was certain there would be none.  The difference was the news which I got at lunchtime on my car radio (the school did not have a radio!).  As I recall, votes of support for the US were lopsided in the UN General Assembly (like 120 to 15) and the Organization of American States (19 to 0, with an abstention for lack of instructions).  In short, in both organizations, all US allies and an overwhelming number of other countries, supported the US against the USSR.  Results: the USSR backed down, and Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev was ousted from his political positions two years later.

 

*       *       *

 

This instance is only one of many.  Britain supported the US throughout the Berlin Airlift.  Several countries supported the US in Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan.  The countries in NATO, OAS, and ANZUS fulfilled their treaty obligations after 9/11 as the US fought against terrorist groups.  Whatever judgment we make about these wars, in all of them, the US had allies who supported its efforts and made the efforts stronger than they would have been if the US had fought alone.

 

Since at least the First World War, the US has been the dominant political and military leader in the world.  Its record is blemished because it has invaded countries, installed or overthrown governments, and meddled in civil wars.  With the exception of Vietnam, most of these actions are peripheral blemishes.  The US record in opposing aggression by major powers (Germany, Japan) or proxies supported by major powers (North Korea) is a distinguished one.  US military forces were the difference between victory and defeat in the First World War, the Second World War, and Korea.  Again, the US did not win those wars alone; it had allies contributing to victory.

For the past eighty years since the end of the Second World War, the international order has been predicated on the strength and stability of the US throughout the world and of NATO in Europe.  NATO’s coherence depends on a beneficial mutuality of interests shared by the US and its European allies.  In the past twenty years, the US has joined with other democratic countries to form military alliances in the Pacific.  In short, the US has long recognized the value of allies with similar political systems.

 

*       *       *

Times have changed, America has changed, presidents have changed.  Under the direction of President Trump, the US is limiting its participation in or withdrawing from  these democratic alliances; even offending, threatening, and betraying long-standing allies; and thereby causing allies to question the reliability of the US as their leader.  His display of favoritism toward Russia has created widespread distrust in NATO countries as well as in other countries around the world which have relied on US commitments and treaties for their protection.  Despite the novelty and magnitude of these departures from US foreign policy, Trump has not provided any coherent, much less cogent or convincing, rationale for these reversals of direction in international relationships.  At best, he expresses a sense of national victimhood, as if the US has long been duped in providing military support to allies not paying what he thinks is their fair share for defense.  At worst, some reasons appear personal and petty, like his responses to foreign leaders; others appear political, like his disdain for democracy and admiration for dictators.

 

Whatever his reasons, Trump is acting on the dubious, dangerous, damaging assumption that the US can go it alone and yet be militarily strong enough to repel or defeat, say, Russia or China in the event of a major confrontation.  Current US military assessments suggest otherwise.  Without the additional military and associated political support of allies, US strength alone is unlikely to be sufficient to ensure the attainment of its objectives.  Obviously, the risk of defeat is inversely proportional to the aggregate strength of US and allied forces.

 

Going it alone in the area of intelligence is particularly risky.  If the US undertakes actions which harm its allies, they are likely to take counter-actions to protect their interests even at the expense of the US.  Threats to the security of intelligence prompt concern, if not distrust, and restrictions on sharing.  Trump’s secretly sequestering, insecurely storing, and casually showing off highly classified documents at Mar-a-Lago alarmed US allies, especially the other members of the Five Eyes (Britain, Canada, Australia, New Zealand).  Although the US provides most of technical intelligence (e.g., SIGINT), other nations also provide much.  They also provide more, and more varied, intelligence from agents (i.e., HUMINT) and others.  They need what the US provides, but, in turn, the US needs what they provide.  As the mutual trust which enables the sharing of intelligence is eroded, the US is deprived of important intelligence.  Without it, the US is less able to know what its enemies can do, are doing, or plan to do—creating a vulnerability in defense and a handicap on offense.

 

Trump is also assuming that US allies will ignore sudden shifts in positions or policies, broken promises, and unfulfilled commitments, not to mention breaches of treaty obligations.  Ukraine, an ally, is not a member of NATO, but it desires NATO membership and is supported by many NATO countries in its fight against Russian aggression.  Biden provided Ukraine with support, too little, too slowly, but Trump has suddenly reversed the US position and switched sides.  Trump accepts and repeats Russia’s lie that Ukraine started the war.  He halted, then, after a period, promised to resume providing military equipment, supplies, and intelligence on his terms.  But by interrupting this support even if for only a few though unknown number of days, the US is materially aiding a traditional enemy and an enemy of its allies by making it more difficult for Ukraine to defend both its military forces and its civilian population, which Russia, having committed any number of war crimes, is attacking with even greater intensity.  Lacking intelligence, Ukraine has not been able to adequately defend civilians and infrastructure; as a result, many were killed and much damage done.  These losses were deliberate.  Trump wished death and destruction to punish Ukraine for not promptly submitting to his demands for access to its “raw earth” [sic: rare earths] and to advance Russian interests, a negotiated settlement of the conflict on Russian terms—cynically, in the name of peace—amounting to Ukraine’s surrender.  Because of Trump’s betrayal of an ally and support of an enemy, blood is on America’s hands.

 

The European response is anger at the US and re-assessment of its role in Western affairs.  At the personal and corporate level, this anger and reassessment are expressed in a growing boycott of American products by retailers and customers, and a refusal of some companies to re-fuel US Navy ships.  Since Trump will double-down, more European retaliation is sure to follow.

 

Elisabeth Braw, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, wrote for the Centre for European Policy Analysis this week: “Nobody – nobody – would have thought that western businesses or consumers would use such tools against America.

 

“The United States is, after all, the leader of the free world. Or was: its vote with Russia, against Ukraine, at the United Nations last month, combined with Trump’s and Vance’s verbal attack on Zelenskyy, along with Trump’s denunciation of Zelenskyy as a dictator and a refusal to use similar language about the Russian despot, suggests to many that America is no longer an instinctive member of what we term the west.”  (Peter Beaumont, “‘I feel utter anger’: From Canada to Europe, a movement to boycott US goods is spreading,” The Guardian [12 March 2025])

 

“Or was”—a turn of phrase which calls into question whether Trump’s dream to “make America great again” is not a nightmare, not only for Americans and America, but also for America’s allies, partners, and friends around the world.

 

In less than two months, Trump has undermined the Pax Americana of recent history; his means of doing so make it most improbable, if not nearly impossible, that he can restore it.  If America is to avoid a modern version of the Dark Ages, its citizens must rise to the occasion, rouse themselves from their indolent ignorance, take informed political action to replace Republicans who have enabled Trump, Musk, other oligarchic troglodytes; and disempower corrupt institutions like the Heritage Foundation and the Federalist Society which besmirch American ideals and pervert the Constitution and the rule of law.  At the same time, to avoid a repetition of authoritarian rule, they must plan for a restoration which reforms the vulnerabilities of America’s political system.  And, yes, they should plan punishment for malefactors who have committed crimes against the state and crimes against humanity.

“THEN THEY CAME FOR THE JEWS, AND I DID NOT SPEAK OUT—BECAUSE I WAS NOT A JEW”

      Two notable speculative fiction novels written in the 1990s by Octavia E. Butler about future life in America are Parable of the Sower (2024-27) and Parable of the Talents (2032).  Both are set in a dystopian America in which the government is ineffective, corrupt, and authoritarian—most evident in the practices of local police forces.  To my great surprise, the earlier book presciently mentions a president’s campaign slogan “Make America Great Again.”

Here we are in 2025, with a president having the same campaign slogan.  His second term more than his first one threatens a dystopian America by making its government ineffective, corrupt, and authoritarian with the aid of the world’s richest man.  Authoritarians acquire and secure power by exploiting group rivalries and by using the criminal justice system—police forces, prosecutors, courts—to enforce their whims and will, overpower the populace, and protect themselves by suppressing dissent in the media, curtailing demonstrations in the streets, and rounding-up undesirable Others.  Trump is following the example of other authoritarian leaders.

 

Trump is encouraging bigotry and aggressive, even violent, police behavior.  Years ago, he urged officers not to be gentle in putting suspects in police cars.  Recently, he shut down the national database on police misconduct so that police departments cannot check on applicants’ backgrounds and discharged officers can transfer without disclosure of their record.  He supports the militarization of police forces.  Locally, Police Chief Jeremy Story urged City Council to request state funding to further militarize the LCPD with five SWAT vehicles for purposes unstated and situations unimaginable.  Story and two subordinates refused my requests, direct or indirect through Councilor Cassie McClure, for information about them and a rationale for their use.  Taking its cue, McClure did not object to their refusal and ignored my questions about it.  The LCPD seems to think that the public would disapprove of enhanced military capabilities for use against civilians.

 

Dystopian rot begins in the federal government, then spreads to state and local governments.  As the federal government moves against targeted groups by infringing on their legal rights, state and local governments follow or are forced to follow its lead.  Trump has threatened sanctuary cities with financial penalties if they do not cooperate with police forces in rounding up illegal immigrants.  He has warned state and local police to obey federal demands or face prosecution for obstruction.  Police are responding with promptitude.  They have begun to violate safe havens like churches and temples, schools, and hospitals.  At the checkpoint near Hatch, Border Patrol agents boarded a Las Cruces school bus and shouted demands at students on swim teams for documentation before they left without obtaining what they had demanded.

 

In his first weeks in office, Trump initiated varying degrees of discriminatory harassment.  He prioritized Hispanics presumed to be illegal immigrants for round-ups and deportation.  He threatened deportation of Muslim and Arab residents and restrictions on Muslim and Arab immigration.  He targeted LGBTQ+ citizens for exclusion from military service and sports teams.  He promoted policies with adverse racist and misogynistic effects.

 

Despite the steady increase in antisemitic occurrences, Trump is letting Jews await their turn, but their day will come, as it always does.  The chances that such a day will arrive are greater today than they were yesterday, and it is more likely to arrive earlier in Las Cruces than it is likely to arrive elsewhere.  Yet most people think that it can’t happen here—until it does.  Where non-Jews require Nazi parades, swastikas on flags and armbands, and “kill-the-kikes” chants as proof of antisemitism, Jews know that quiet, little things—hostile attitudes, derogatory language, and differential treatment—mean a lot and often lead to pogroms or worse.  I am not paranoid, only sensitive to the non-negligible chances that my day might come if, now 85, I do not die beforehand.  After all, the majority of Las Cruceans are culturally and socially conservative, Catholic, and antisemitic, though not presently virulently so.  Their antisemitism sleeps lightly.  Still, when awakened unexpectedly, it can exhibit remarkable strength and persistence.

 

I came face to face with it when a friend and I met with McClure to discuss ways to improve city government.  I had provided her with several documents.  Some concerned a Public Works project which was ineffective, environmentally destructive, aesthetically spoiled, and hugely expensive.  Others concerned five false allegations of code violations.  Only one document suggested that the motive for them might be antisemitism.

 

When McClure joined us but even before she sat down, she peremptorily declared that she saw nothing antisemitic about the alleged code violations.  Since the topic of the meeting was government improvements, not antisemitism, I did not address or challenge her opinion.  But I knew two things immediately.  One, by starting with and stressing the issue of antisemitism, she revealed that it mattered more to her than problems about government operations in Public Works and the LCPD.  Two, by curtly dismissing that issue, she adopted a forceful offense in defense and thus revealed herself to be antisemitic.

 

McClure’s outburst was the first—I should add only—comment on antisemitism in my case by any member of City Council.  Until that moment, all members had avoided the issue for over five years.  Their avoidance tolerated the discriminatory—antisemitic—treatment which I have experienced from city government officials.  None of them asked City Managers, City Attorneys, or Police Chiefs to explain why a veteran officer made five false allegations at a self-identifying Jewish home.  None is a Jew; all have less experience with, information about, and insight into antisemitism than I have.  If they did not believe my claim of antisemitism, they should have asked me to explain it.  But antisemites prefer to hide behind silence to avoid, not address, the issue.  When a well-known civic activist wrote to urge them to take up my case, neither Mayor Miyagishima nor any councilor responded.  Responses to my complaint other than McClure’s denial and Council’s defensiveness signal that antisemitism pervades city government.

 

Thus, Internal Affairs ended its investigation of my complaint without addressing any of the five allegations and thus violated my due process rights.  It did not admit mistakes, charge the officer for violating police policies, take steps to correct them, and, most important, explain the mistakes.  It ignored my suggestion of antisemitism, a fraught issue beyond its competence, until I published a blog about its failure to act on it, then botched its attempt to do so.  Worse, the Law Office tried to hide the results of the IA investigation, withheld IA’s finding that the allegations were unsupported, and intervened to prevent a City Manager from making an apology for and retracting the false allegations.  Councilor Johana Bencomo heard his admission of error and his desire to right the wrong but did nothing when the City Attorney prevented him from doing so.  She was not alone in having been fully informed of my case and having done nothing.  The city can respond even now in one of two ways: either prove that the LCPD has treated others as it has treated me—handed out multiple false allegations of code violations—or admit that it is permeated by antisemitism.

 

Bottom line: about two dozen city officials, police officials, and city attorneys have resisted by silence—ignored or dismissed—my claim of antisemitism for over five years.  That fact alone proves that antisemitism is a fact of life in the City of Three Crosses.  When the time comes, Las Cruces will bend the knee to authoritarians, obey their commands, and carry out evictions or pogroms against the harassed and the hated, the weakest and the smallest, groups—and not only Jews—among its citizens.  Who will be left?  You?

BY MILITARY STANDARDS, TOM COTTON IS DESPICABLE

      Many members of Congress have military backgrounds, tout that experience in their election campaigns, and often refer to it in political comments on the floor and in the media.  They hope that we voters think that the honor and courage with which they might have served followed them into office.  Time was—of course, I was younger and probably naïve—when I trusted that thought.  In my time in the Army, both in the Washington area and in Vietnam, almost without exception, my fellow officers, ranking both higher and lower than me, were honorable, decent people and would likely have remained so in their civilian lives.  But I no longer trust that thought about former military officers if they go into politics.  It corrupts many of them. 

Consider, Joni Ernst, Republican junior senator from Iowa and former Army officer.  After indicating her concerns about Pete Hegseth, she was threatened with a richly endowed primary challenger.  She reversed her position and supported his nomination for Secretary of Defense.  In doing so, she abandoned her obligation to advise and consent presumably on the merits of the nominee.  In doing so, she also abandoned the integrity and bravery associated with her military service and required to serve her country.  She put service to herself above service to America.

 

Focus on Tom Cotton, Republican junior senator from Arkansas, also a former Army officer.  Some have questioned whether he made entirely true claims about his service.  Qualified as a Ranger, he did not serve as one though he claimed that he did.  So his word might be suspect.  But no one would question his aggressive politics, which include mean and mendacious remarks.

 

Cotton, a Harvard Law School graduate, has not addressed the proprieties of what is likely a quid-pro-quo deal between the Department of Justice and Eric Adams, Mayor of New York.  At least half a dozen federal prosecutors in New York and Washington resigned rather than approve DOJ’s dropping corruption charges against Adams.  Cotton, in his combative partisan mode, “wondered on social media where ‘the sanctimonious DOJ resignations’ were when Biden pardoned a number of his family members just before leaving the White House.”

 

There is much to say about Cotton’s response because it not only is typical of many Republicans’ rhetoric, but also shows the abandonment of anything like decent and respectful behavior which might be expected of someone touting his experience as an Army officer.

 

First, Cotton’s response says nothing about the alleged quid pro quo—a sign that this Harvard-trained lawyer avoids the difficult, if not impossible, task of defending DOJ’s action.  Second, instead, by characterizing these resignations as “sanctimonious,” he smears the motives of those acting out of professional integrity in adhering to standard prosecutorial practices.  His claim that the controversy is “’pure politics’” is of a piece with this smear.

 

Third, and most interesting, is Cotton’s wondering “where ‘the sanctimonious DOJ resignations’ were when Biden pardoned a number of his family members just before leaving the White House.”  There is no basis for Cotton’s comparison.  One, Adams’s arrangement was reversible and possibly temporary.  His charges were not dropped with prejudice, only suspended without prejudice.  In other words, as lawyers have pointed out, DOJ can refile the charges at its discretion and, as critics have alleged, for non-compliance with his promise to support Trump on immigration in the city.  Biden’s pardons are irreversible, permanent.  Two, the prosecutors were assigned to units dealing with corruption and integrity; presidential pardons do not fall within the scope of their responsibilities; they had no reason, professional or personal, to address them.  Third, Biden’s pardons gave no advantage to the President, raised no suspicions about a “deal,” and secured only the protection of family members (and others) from persecution by baseless prosecution insinuated or threatened by Trump and by Republicans hoping for political benefit.

 

Cotton was not having a bad day when he was quoted on this issue; the substance and style of the quotation were not a one-off, as I know from having attended to his political comments over many years.  I have never read or heard a kind or generous word from him about a politician of the opposite party.  He routinely deals in political smut of the kind which I have just analyzed.  Because of what I expect of a (former) military officer, I believe him to be the most despicable senator in that chamber.  Other senators are despicable—in particular, I think of Marsha Blackburn—, but most cannot be judged by military standards because they never served.

ELON MUSK IS ONE OF TWO THREATS TO NATIONAL SECURITY

      Dorothy Parker famously said, “If you want to know what God thinks of money, just look at the people he gave it to.”  She foresaw Elon Musk.  His great wealth and the word of others testify that the world’s richest man is a brilliant businessman in high-technology enterprises.  His conduct as the First Buddy of President Trump and head of the spurious “Department of Government Efficiency” demonstrates that he is as great a fool as he is a mogul.  For Musk has mindlessly created a threat to national security. The story is an example of his incompetence.

Musk dispatched his youthful techies to the Department of Energy to eliminate waste, fraud, and abuse, so he claimed.  At some point, they encountered the name “National Nuclear Security Administration” on an organization chart or in a department budget.  The word “Administration” must have suggested a bloated bureaucracy to these presumptuous youngsters.  So, in the name of efficiency, they fired 300 NNSA employees of the nation’s steward of its nuclear arsenal.

 

I do not know about you, but if I were young again and came across the words “National,” “Nuclear,” and “Safety” in a government office building, I would have come to a screeching halt, asked myself how the hell I got here, and headed for the nearest exit.

 

At the present moment, the Department of Energy is having trouble rescinding its termination notice because those fired no longer have access to their workstations, and DOE does not have their personal phone numbers.  Officials are asking—“Please”: can you believe how humbled they are to have to use this word now?—anyone who knows their numbers to let them know that they are not longer terminated.  Preliminary results indicate that some will not return to work and some, though they will return to work, will seek employment elsewhere.

 

No matter how many of the 300 return, great damage has been done to this unit.  There is a loss of highly specialized expertise not easily replaced under any circumstances and less likely to be replaced in a callous work environment and with an insecure employment situation.  There are the delays and difficulties in getting security clearances, training new employees, and integrating them into operations—a process taking up to a year and a half.  There is the loss of morale.  There is the loss of trust in administrators.  Meanwhile, NNSA work is impeded and national security, impaired—none of these results lending themselves to efficient operations.

 

I take this incredible blunder personally.  As an independent consultant, I worked on two, high-level, classified, DOD/DOD studies of the management of nuclear weapons programs.  One was the “Starbird Study”; the other was a study by a “President’s Blue Ribbon Task Group.”  Both required TS and Q clearances, and a special access clearance, CNWDI (Critical Nuclear Weapon Design Information).  My task was editorial, not checking for serial commas and split infinitives, but ensuring the coordination and cogency of policy, program, and technical content.

 

After forty years, I have forgotten everything which I knew then.  Even if I remembered any of it, I know that all of it would now be outdated.  But what I learned about the people who work in this area gives the lie to those who disparage government workers, at least at administrative, managerial, and technical levels.  Their knowledge and skills are unmatched.  They are good at their work.  They are in demand outside government.  If they worked in the private sector, their compensation would be much, even multiples, greater than their government compensation.  The reasons for their government service are the professional challenge of their work and their belief that what they do makes a significant contribution to national security.

 

Musk and Trump know nothing about such expertise and commitment to the service of the country.  They conceive of government offices as job shops staffed by expendable or replaceable personnel and operating like call centers or automated production lines.  So Elon Musk, using the uninformed and the immature to make critical decisions about government services and budgets, is one threat to national security; Donald Trump, using Musk to direct them, is another.  Their ignorance and their arrogance in this and other areas of government make both of them threats to the welfare of the country.  They are the worst, and the worst are firing the best.

POLITICAL PONDERINGS LOCAL AND NATIONAL

 The Las Cruces Police Department Scorns City Councilor

The arrogance of the Las Cruces Police Department is exemplified by its failure to respond to repeated requests for information about the five SWAT vehicles for which the LCPD asked Council to seek state funding.

 

I made a mid-January request to Police Chief Jeremy Story for that information because I was concerned that those vehicles might be not only armored, but also armed for use in military-style attacks on homes or stores, with risks posed to people and property.  A reasonable question: will they go to the right address?  He did not provide that information; instead, he assured me that the requested vehicles were only for safe transportation of officers, not for assaults.

 

As I noted in a recent blog, I regard Story’s word as untrustworthy; withholding information which presumably would validate his word certainly seems suspicious.  So I asked Councilor Cassie McClure to request that information on my behalf.  She got the run-around.  One officer suggested that she contact another officer.  She did so and got no response.  At the same time, she asked both addressees to contact me about this information; neither did.  I wrote directly to both officers and have had no response.

 

Given my criticism of the LCPD, I imagine that it refuses to respond to these requests because they are mine or hers in my behalf.  Some readers might respond with the simple question, well, what did you expect?  To which, I have two answers.  One, I expect them to act as professionally as they hypocritically proclaim themselves to act.  After all, does not the “P” in the “P.R.I.D.E.” on LCPD patrol cars stand for professionalism?  Two, I expect pettiness and prejudice by LCPD officers, up to and including, the Police Chief.

 

I also imagine that the LCPD thinks no better of any Councilor who would make a request on my behalf.  Its discourtesy and unresponsiveness to McClure’s repeated requests register its scorn.  But I can also imagine that her requests were pro forma, and the LCPD knew it, as she has since gone silent.  Following in Kasandra Gandara’s footsteps might not be just a metaphor, for Kasandra operated the same way about LCPD’s false allegations of code violations.

 

 

Candidates’ Campaign Appeals Continue Unabated and Unimproved

 

Last year, I blew through my budgeted amount for campaign contributions to candidates for the presidency, and Senate and House seats.  I think that I got my first request for a congressional seat in early January, and other requests in text messages have continued to pour in.  My response to them all: “STOP.  I am tapped out from the last election.”

 

These solicitations do as many as three things which really irk me.  One, some do not give me the candidate’s full name, his or her (or their) party affiliation, or the jurisdiction in which he or she (or they?) are running.  Two, some give me a long biography, almost invariably a story of a log-cabin birth, of up-from-poverty, boot-strapping growth, and a life-long understanding of the down-trodden.  Some appeal to their military service (as if it proves something, but Joni Ernst’s self-touted military background failed her when pressured to support Pete Hegseth, whom she knew unfit to be Secretary of Defense).  Others appeal to their elite college or law school degrees (as if Congress works best with Ivy graduates, but no one claims Yalie J.D. Vance as a classmate).  And three, none states a commitment to a particular political philosophy or specific cause.  Yes, I am for world peace and harmony, civil and human rights, clean air and water, lowered thermometers, and a chicken in every pot.  But I have resolved to contribute to no candidates who rely on safe but skimpy slogans, only to those willing to stick his or her (or their) neck out for something.  If they stand for office, they should stand for something and say so.

 

Let me offer one suggestion: a radically reformed tax system which would reduce financial inequality and simplify tax preparation.  Suppose the tax system:

·      Taxed both income and wealth

·      Treated all income from whatever source the same

·      Assessed all non-income assets at end-of-year prevailing market valuations

·      Eliminated all personal and corporate credits and deductions except for state and local taxes, accredited charities, and accredited educational institutions

·      Allowed corporate credits and deductions for research and development

·      Graduated personal and corporate taxes on income and assets in ten or so brackets.

·      Simplified tax returns of three sections: income, wealth, and allowed deductions.

Benefits of this proposal, among others: no more government-sponsored tax favoritism, with attendant forms of corruption; no more tax lobbyists, with attendant forms of corruption; no more tax lawyers of the rich circumventing the tax code; lower house costs; shorter, simplified, and intelligible tax returns.

 

Let me offer another: terms limits on senators and representatives.  Establishing term limits for Congressional seats would require a Constitutional amendment, something akin to Mission Impossible.  But advocating term limits might be an advantageous campaign talking point and preparation for eventual adoption of the amendment.  The argument for is simple.  Without term limits, senators and representatives become careerists, with an overriding career imperative of re-election, with an overriding need to raise money for re-election, with an overriding interest in serving their biggest donors.  Senators facing a maximum of two terms and representatives facing a maximum of five terms are more likely to serve the public interest and accept political risks in supporting legislation for innovation or reform.

 

 

Trump and Republicans Are Defeating Themselves

 

Republicans always know the price of everything and the value of nothing.  This proclivity is nowhere more evident than in Musk’s and his muskrats' cleaver-wielding approach to the federal government in the name of efficiency.  Presumably, these techno-vandals are addressing waste, fraud, and abuse—oddly, without benefit of forensic accountants, among others—to reduce the size and expense of government and thereby save taxpayers billions, if not trillions, of dollars by eliminating entire agencies or depopulating those which they cannot eliminate.  Their reckless actions are more likely to promote incompetence and corruption than efficiency.  Some endanger national security (note the firing of personnel at the National Nuclear Security Administration, which maintains the safety and security of the U.S. nuclear stockpile.)  Even so, the metrics of government performance are not those of corporate performance—a distinction unknown to them.  For this reason, despite the rabid Republican rhetoric of aggressive, fact-free assertion, Musk and his muskrats have demonstrated no waste, no fraud, and no abuse.

 

By curtailing agencies and federal employees, they are also curtailing services which sectors of the economy and segments of the population want and expect.  (When I consulted to the Grace Commission forty years ago, its attacks on waste, fraud, and abuse were nothing but attacks on government programs which the Reagan administration opposed.  Same, same, today, with DOGE.)  When the economy and the electorate do not get what they want and expect from government because of unasked-for reductions or cuts, a powerful reaction will set in, and reality will reassert itself to the Republican ideologues who had dismissed it.  Widespread discontent will lead to the widespread electoral defeat and discrediting of the Republican Party.  Trump will have led lemming-like Republicans over the electoral precipice.  A restored law enforcement regime, recovering previously established norms and procedures, will pursue prosecution, yes, with a vengeance entirely warranted.  Prosecutors, juries, and judges are unlikely to be sparing of those who abused the government of, by, and for the people.

 

Meanwhile, instead of Plan B to fall back on, save the Republican Party as Plan A fails, and do the country some good, Trump will blame others for the damage of interrupted, deteriorated, or cancelled services which he has directed.  He will sideline Musk and fire Cabinet Secretaries and other senior officers.  He will defame them and others, including Republican senators and representatives who had humbled themselves in his service when he was riding high.  He will have no way to unring the bell, mend the broken china, reconstitute agencies and departments, and recruit the expert staff necessary to revive them.  Or to restore his bond with his supporters.  For his voters—not once, but twice, burnt—will blame Republicans up and down their tickets.  Trump, unable to run again, will leave office and suffer nothing more than a bruised ego and a ruined reputation.  He may even enjoy their humiliating, cringe-worthy efforts to explain away their lack of courage and conviction, their abandonment of Republican principles and values, and their traitorous retreat from democracy, the Constitution, and decency.