Continuing my thoughts on equitable justice, I ask why our national business/government is so intent on stonewalling the courts in a few deportation cases. What's the big deal? Why don't they just bring these few individuals that were wrongly deported back? My answer leads to other issues of equity.
Our president's Big Beautiful Bill hides a small passage which makes contempt of court decisions of federal courts completely meaningless. To explain the importance of this new rule, I go back to my earlier discussion of justice and focus on the type of justice called "equity." It's a big deal.
The usual passivity from T or C city commissioners when the electric department director reported the solar farm hasn't operated for two years. We're just hearing about it now? Cancel the stupid contract for nonperformance while you can!
How many voters understood they were raising taxes when they approved the new flood control taxing district on the November 2024 ballot? How many voters understood there was already a 1.50 mill levy for flood control?
Sixty years of neglect of city infrastructure on top of yearly operations makes for a swollen budget. New City Manager Gary Whitehead and staff have a very good handle on the issues and on the finances, which shows in the budget document.
Yesterday, Haaretz, a leading Israeli newspaper, reported that two Israeli soldiers were killed in Gaza. That makes eight soldiers killed in the last two months. I try to think about what that means, especially since now that the military situation in Gaza gets less and less coverage in the media.
Riverbend's glacial slow-walk as a legal strategy paid off, scrapping off all but one protestant. It has cornered the market on commercial hot springs, maybe to the detriment of the whole system, with the city and Office of the State Engineer looking away.
The past winter was not kind to us, and we are faced with water shortage in the Rio Grande this summer. I link to several descriptions of where we are and what is predicted. Impacts will be important for farmers, ranchers, recreational businesses. We might get sued again by Texas.
The reverberations of this child's death are still rippling outward, with accountability for child abuse and neglect extending from the father to the city, city police and CYFD.
High cost of home insurance is here to stay. I link to several recent articles on homeowners' insurance, its relation to climate change, its relation to banking, to construction, to real estate, to what the state is doing about this problem. I try to explain those relationships.
Trump supporters say his policies may hurt in the short-term but will bring jobs and economic security to the country. I respond to this in three ways: an AI generated meme traveling around the world, a poem ("Arbeit macht frei"), and a historical note on the poem's title.
What is justice? And, why should justice matter? When a government becomes a business for making money, is there any reason for it to be concerned with justice? Is the disappearance of justice both as an idea and as a political structure the sign of the end of government?