Democrats The Right Choice

There’s still time to conservative leaning independent voters to come to their senses and reject the extremism that has taken over the Republican Party both nationally and here in Texas. There are a few things that they should be reminded of when deciding on whom to vote for this election.

In May, 68 Republican members of the House and Senate voted against military aid to Ukraine. A week ago House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy made it clear that if the Republican Party takes power after the election; Ukraine will receive less support from the United States as it tries to defend itself and re-capture territory taken during Vladimir Putin's unprovoked invasion. At a recent Harvard Kennedy Center even Republican Representative Liz Cheney ripped into McCarthy for signaling support for slashing aid to Ukraine and former vice president Mike Pence called out GOP “Putin apologists” who have sympathized with Russia even as it invades a sovereign nation.

Can you imagine how different Europe and the U.S. would be today Franklin Roosevelt had been prevented from sending weapons, ammunition, and ships to the Allies while Hitler was invading country after country? If Putin isn’t stopped in Ukraine, which country will be next? How would the citizens and leaders of any other nation continue to consider the U.S. to be the leader of the free world?

Leading Republicans, including Representative Jodey Arrington (R-Texas), have stated that next year’s deadline to raise or suspend the debt ceiling is a point of leverage they'll use to cut Social Security and Medicare if their party can win control of the House in the November midterm elections. The debt ceiling is an artificial limit on the government’s ability to borrow money. That may not sound like a big deal or it might sound like a good idea until you realize that in reality it just limits the ability to pay for services and products that have already been delivered. It’s like ordering pizza delivered then when the driver arrives you take the pizza into the house and start eating it then tell the driver your spouse won’t let you use the credit card to pay for it.

The United States used to have the highest credit rating in the world because unlike other nations we always stood behind our debts. That credit rating has been damaged repeatedly over the last decade by Republican obstruction when it comes to raising the debt ceiling. You may remember when the federal government was shut down for 16 days in 2013. Or you might remember the 2018 shutdown that lasted 35 days which was caused by Donald Trump being unwilling to sign the appropriations bill that didn’t fund his useless border wall even though Senate Republicans passed the bill unanimously. Some of my customers were affected because their businesses operate on federal property, some of my neighbors were left without paychecks and had difficulty making mortgage payments.

If House Republicans take control of congress and get their way anyone on Social Security or Medicare and those who will become eligible in the next few years will suffer reduced income and higher medical bills. In contrast Democrats have raised Social Security benefits almost 9% this year to cover inflation.

So I have to ask, which party really cares about the economy? Which party cares about the health and welfare of our senior citizens? Which party truly supports in national security? Only Democrats can be trusted to address those concerns at this time.

Published in the Seguin Gazette - October 26, 2022

Biden Right on Marijuana Policy

President Joe Biden has finally taken initial steps to correcting both an injustice and bad health policy by instructing the Department of Justice to begin the process to issue full and unconditional pardons for citizens and legal residents with a federal conviction for simple possession of marijuana. This pardon will help thousands with prior convictions seeking housing, employment, benefits, and educational opportunities who are currently ineligible based on federal statutory or regulatory bars on individuals with prior drug convictions. The House passed a bill in 2020 that would have legalized and tax marijuana but the Senate never voted on it.

The President has asked the Secretary of Health and Human Services and the Attorney General to begin the administrative process of reviewing how marijuana is scheduled under federal law. Marijuana is currently a Schedule I drug, treated the same as heroin and LSD and more strictly than fentanyl and methamphetamine – the drugs driving our overdose epidemic. Changing how marijuana is scheduled would advance research and facilitate the appropriate medical use of marijuana.

Until 1916 marijuana was legal in all U.S. states, by 1931 29 states had outlawed it, then came the Marihuana Tax Act of 1937 which outlawed it nationally over objections from the American Medical Association regarding medical usage. Most historians familiar with the topic agree that the scare tactics used to encourage making possession and use illegal even for well documented medical purposes were just cover for racism against Mexican and Black men who were the primary recreational users.  One way to know the laws and their enforcement are racist is that white and Black and brown people use marijuana at similar rates, a disproportionate number of people arrested and convicted are Black and brown. According to historian Eric Schlosser’s article in The Atlantic “Police officers in Texas claimed that marijuana incited violent crimes, aroused a ‘lust for blood,’ and gave its users ‘superhuman strength’.” Apparently police aren’t any better witnesses than civilians as anybody who has been around a marijuana user will disagree with those characterizations. Lust for food maybe, but there’s much more evidence of alcohol fueled violence.

Laws and enforcement tightened further over the next three decades until middle and upper class whites started getting arrested at which point most states backed off due to political pressure.  Then in 1976 a parent's movement against marijuana began affecting public attitudes which lead to the 1980s War on Drugs. Mandatory sentences were re-enacted by President Reagan including the "three strikes you're out" policy, requiring life sentences for repeat drug offenders. The failed War on Drugs has persisted ever since.

I am particularly interested in the use of marijuana for treating chronic pain as my wife suffers from it and has been prescribed opiates like morphine and fentanyl which can both be highly addictive unlike marijuana.

President Biden has urge all Governors to follow his lead and issue pardons for state marijuana possession offenses. Just as no one should be in a federal prison solely due to the simple possession of marijuana, no one should be in a local jail or state prison for that reason, either. Gov. Abbott’s press office responded that he no intention of following Biden’s lead. Abbott’s Democratic opponent, Beto O’Rourke, on the other hand says he’ll work to legalize marijuana in Texas and expunge the record of those convicted of possession.

Social justice, new treatments for pain and other ailments, and better use of criminal justice resources, all from one change in policy. I’m voting for Beto O’Rourke for Governor of Texas and I hope you will too.

Published in the Seguin Gazette - October 12, 2022

Fascists Have Come to Cibolo

I’ve known for years that Republicans had lost sight of the principles on which this nation was founded but it was driven home Saturday as I was leaving my neighborhood to get the latest COVID-19 booster and flu shots. Driving toward the exit of the neighborhood I came across an older white man in a red t-shirt standing in the median holding a sign that said “Purge Democrat Voters…”. I couldn’t catch the rest at 25 mph in the smaller typeface but just what I could read said all it needs to say.

I’m among the last of the baby boomers, the children of the “Greatest Generation”, those who fought and bled in World War II. My dad was a private in the Army Air Corps, two uncles were in combat in Europe during the Battle of the Bulge, another served in the Navy in the Pacific supporting General Douglas MacArthur’s “Island Hopping” campaign. I can’t help but feel that the authoritarian direction of so many Republican candidates and voters is a direct insult to the men and women like my father and uncles who fought so bravely against fascists like Mussolini, Tojo, and Hitler. I had to restrain myself from stopping the car and getting out to confront the sorry excuse for an American.

The right to vote for our elected representatives is the most sacred right of every citizen of this nation upon reaching the age of 18. The very idea that this man and so many like him believe it is right and proper to disenfranchise someone with whom they disagree is beyond the pale.

These are the same people who rant about the constitution and yet either don’t seem to have read it or simply don’t understand it. They are the same people who will look you straight in the face and tell you that if it isn’t in the constitution then the federal government can’t do it while at the same time claiming that the United States is a Christian nation when the constitution says nothing of the sort and in fact says in Article VI: “…no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.”

One of their long running non-sense claims that has been pushed to the fore once again is the notion that the United States is “a republic, not a democracy”. That’s like a child saying that they're holding chocolate ice cream, not ice cream. Encyclopedia Britannica defines republic as follows: form of government in which a state is ruled by representatives of the citizen body. Modern republics are founded on the idea that sovereignty rests with the people, though who is included and excluded from the category of the people has varied across history. Because citizens do not govern the state themselves but through representatives, republics may be distinguished from direct democracy, though modern representative democracies are by and large republics. A republic is a flavor of democracy, a representative democracy, rather than a direct democracy where everyone votes on every issue of government. Not every nation holds true to the name they of their nation such as the USSR which was the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics; just like calling something a rose doesn’t make it smell sweet.

It’s important the people like the guy standing in the median with his frightening sign are overwhelmed at the polls so that the authoritarians that the Republican party has been raising into leadership don’t get their way. Just you voting is not enough, bring your family, bring your friends too.

 Published in the Seguin Gazette - October 5, 2022