One Woman's Viewpoint

After stating over and over that this absolutely would not happen, President Biden pardoned his son Hunter this week.

I think it's kind of lousy. But against the landscape of the previous pardons, and the pardons likely to come, from his predecessor who is about to be his successor, does Biden's action send any sort of real message? I think not.

After being handed an unambiguous loss on his attorney general pick, former President/President-elect Donald Trump needed to distract attention away from his other iffy Cabinet picks (oh, for an FBI background check!) and astonishing number of high-level executive appointments who also happen to be co-authors of Project 2025 (I count eight as of this writing).

So the night of November 25, Trump took to Truth Social and announced some tariffs. Three, to be exact. With our three largest trading partners: Mexico ($475 billion in imports and $323 billion in exports), Canada ($418 billion in imports and $354 billion in exports), and China ($427 billion in imports and $128 billion in exports), respectively.

All Mexican and Canadian goods would see a 25% import tax, and Chinese goods would see a 10% import tax.

One thing that can be said about the Trump 47 transition team: it is not wasting time.

Another thing that can be said: You can tell which Cabinet departments seem to mean the most to Trump. Also, you can see where he plans to run certain departments from the White House. There is lots of information to be had in the first two weeks since the election.

Here are the Cabinet winners: State, Interior, Energy, Commerce, and (probably) Treasury. State, Interior, Energy, and Commerce have all had functioning adults named as their secretary nominee. Serious, stable individuals with reasonable experience in the field of expertise called for by the job have all been named for these agencies: Florida Senator Marco Rubio for Secretary of State, North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum for Secretary of the Interior, Liberty Energy CEO Chris Wright for Secretary of Energy, and Cantor Fitzgerald CEO Harold Lutnick for Secretary of Commerce.

Last Friday I was wrapping up my week, writing plans and reports for clients, finishing calls, when a missed call popped up from a familiar number – a friend I hadn't spoken with for a while. I got through my virtual in-box and called my friend.

We caught up for a few minutes and then he got to the point – he needed the link to my last column and the NM In Depth story that spawned it. He wanted to track the partisan caucus PAC in-kind donations – the money hardest to track. We talked a little bit about the sheer volume of it, then I asked, "you didn't take any of it, did you?"

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

A divided country offered a huge surprise in national elections, delivering the White House, the Senate and the House of Representatives to Donald Trump and the Republicans. A gerrymandered New Mexico delivered all three Congressional seats and one Senate seat to the Democrats, where just over two-fifths of voters are registered with that party.

The Republican victory wasn't a tidal wave. But in today's polarized times, a popular vote win of 51% plus 277 electoral votes seems massive. President Trump has posted his best results yet. American voters have spoken.

America is stable. But we have serious problems.

I have been letting my moderate-ness show more in recent months and especially in recent weeks in pointing out the disappointments of the two presidential platforms and the relative insignificance of the occupant of the White House against the might of the powerful American economy.

This election matters.

A collective gasp was heard Oct. 25 when The Washington Post declined to publish an endorsement for President of the United States in the 2024 election. It quickly came to light that the Post's owner, billionaire Jeff Bezos, ordered the endorsement, already written endorsing Democrat Kamala Harris, pulled. That same day, Republican candidate Donald Trump met with Blue Origin executives. Blue Origin is Bezos' space company.

If one were to take their news solely from the presidential candidates, it could be believed that the U.S. economy is on the brink of collapse. New home buyers will require a $25,000 down payment from the government. Restaurant waitstaff must be freed from the burden of taxes on their tips. American workers and companies must be protected by tariffs on foreign goods. And so on and so on.

The reality is rather startling. The American economy, as it has been for the last 30 years, is a global marvel. According to the International Monetary Fund, in 1990, the United States made up approximately 2/5 of the gross domestic product of the world's wealthiest nations, the group known as the G7 nations. Today, more than half of the G7 GDP is American.

Following local news over the long weekend was much like any other. "Shooting." "Shooting." "Officer-involved shooting." Living in the East Mountains – the semirural communities dotting the Sandia and Manzano Mountains east of Albuquerque – many of us think we can access the amenities of the state's largest city without suffering from its ills: the traffic, the homelessness and the violence.

But we can't escape big city problems here in the mountains. On Oct. 13, deputies from the Bernalillo County Sheriff's Department responded to a call reporting gunshots in Tijeras to find three members of a family dead along with the family dog and a young man covered in blood explaining he was trying to bury them.