Republican Rhetoric Leads to Violence

Monday last week the FBI served a search warrant at the previous president’s residence in Florida. Within hours and without knowledge of the grounds for the search warrant; Texas Republican leaders jumped to his defense. Sen. Ted Cruz tweeted “The FBI raiding Donald Trump is unprecedented. It is corrupt & an abuse of power. What Nixon tried to do, Biden has now implemented: The Biden Admin has fully weaponized DOJ & FBI to target their political enemies.” Gov. Greg Abbott used similar language in his tweet as well, "This is next-level Nixonian. Never before has the country seen an Administration go to such extent to use the levers of government to target a former President and political rival. This weaponizes power to squelch dissent. Such abuses must have limits".

More importantly they and others in the Republican leadership used inflammatory language which has been picked up and acted upon by armed men. In Cincinnati on Thursday Ricky Shiffer, armed with a rifle, tried to force his way into the FBI office leading to a standoff and ultimately his death. On Friday, in Phoenix, Arizona protestors armed with rifles showed up outside the FBI office.

Trump’s one time political advisor Steve Bannon called the FBI “the Gestapo” and said, “We need to choke down the FBI and choke down the Justice Department.” Another former Trump adviser, Michael Caputo, said, “With this militant raid on President Trump’s home, we have become Russia. The FBI is the KGB.” Fox News political commentator, Dan Bongino called the FBI’s action “some third-world bullshit.” In an interview former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, said the FBI has “declared war on the American people at such a level and with such total dishonesty.” We are seeing “the ugly face of a tyranny.”

There’s plenty of talk of “lock and load” and a “civil war” on social media, especially Trump’s Truth Social platform. Much of that language has long used by top cable pundit Tucker Carlson.

Amazingly or not the calls for violence and death threats against federal law enforcement have surged following the raid on Trump’s home, but Republicans have largely been quiet about the spike, despite previous campaign rhetoric claiming to support law enforcement when Black Lives Matter protests against repeated local police shootings of unarmed Black people were occurring across the country.

In an interview Steve Scalise, R-LA suggested that FBI agents who executed the warrant were rogue agents. Considering that the FBI is run by Christopher Wray, a Trump appointee, and that Attorney General Merrick Garland and federal judge Bruce Reinhart both signed off on the warrant I don’t see any “rogue” agents involved.

Trump and others called for the search warrant to be unsealed so A.G. Garland requested that the judge do so and late last week the warrant was published for all to see. Now Judge Reinhart is receiving death threats.

Republican leaders and conservative commentators are using the same kind of rhetoric bashing federal law enforcement as Timothy McVeigh, the man who bombed the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, OK and killed 168 people including 19 children.

Republican leaders are both irresponsible and behaving like the authoritarians that took power in Europe a century ago. I am frightened for our nation and its citizens.

In November you have a chance to send them a message they can’t ignore by voting them out of office. Get out and vote, bring your family, bring your neighbors, it has never been more important.

 Published in the Seguin Gazette - August 17, 2022

Cornyn and Cruz Betray Veterans

Republicans would have you believe that they’re all about supporting the troops and our veterans. Last week our senators, John Cornyn and Ted Cruz, proved once again that support is just talk as they both voted against medical care for our veterans.

Back in March, when President Joe Biden made his State of the Union address one of the issues he brought up was U.S. troops stationed in Iraq and Afghanistan who were exposed to toxic smoke from burn pits. “These burn pits that incinerate waste — the wastes of war, medical and hazardous material, jet fuel, and so much more,” said the president.

Medical evidence says that as a result, many servicemen and women who breathed in fumes from these burn pits returned home and experienced serious symptoms. Prolonged exposure to burn pits may be responsible for cancer in some veterans. Biden has made no secret that he believes toxic exposure may have contributed to the brain cancer that killed his son Beau.

In his speech Biden called on Congress to approve a law “to make sure veterans devastated by toxic exposure in Iraq and Afghanistan finally get the benefits and the comprehensive healthcare they deserve.” The legislation congress introduced, known as the Honoring Our PACT Act (Promise to Address Comprehensive Toxics Act), would expand treatment eligibility, and it has wide support in Congress.

At least it had wide support until it was announced that Senator Joe Manchin had reached agreement with Majority Leader Chuck Schumer to support a bill on an entirely different topic that has no effect on veteran health care. Then in a fit of pique 25 Republicans who previously supported the Honoring Our PACT Act flip flopped and voted against it which stopped the bill dead in its tracks as it only had 55 of the 60 votes needed to break the filibuster.

The bill Republicans are angry about is The Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 which includes measures to reduce the budget deficit by among other things raising taxes on billionaires to fight inflation. The bill also calls for investing in domestic energy production and manufacturing, and reducing carbon emissions by roughly 40 percent by 2030. In addition the bill will finally allow Medicare to negotiate for prescription drug prices and extend the expanded Affordable Care Act program for three years, through 2025.

Among the provisions of The Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 related to health care is a cap on Medicare patients’ out of pocket costs at $2,000 per year, with the option to break that amount into monthly payments of around $170 each. Currently, there is no cap on spending for prescription drugs seniors buy from pharmacies. This bill ensures that a devastating diagnosis, like cancer, will never again mean paying tens of thousands out of pocket for just one drug.

On the deficit reduction and tax side the current statutory corporate tax rate is 21%, but more than 200 highly profitable, large corporations use various tax loopholes to avoid paying that rate and actually pay below 15%, some pay no income tax at all. The corporate alternative minimum tax proposal would impose a 15 percent minimum tax on adjusted financial statement income for corporations with profits in excess of $1 billion.

So the reason that Ted Cruz and John Cornyn betrayed sick veterans is they’re mad their billionaire campaign donors might pay slightly higher taxes and pharmaceutical companies could see some of their outrageous profits reduced.

Just like the lies that Republicans spout about voter fraud, they also lie supporting veterans. Remember to vote them out of office in the upcoming election.

Published in the Seguin Gazette - August 3, 2022