Gun Debate Saga

There’s been plenty of partisan bickering over gun laws since the Orlando mass shooting. Let’s all step back and review the logic being used by defenders of guns of any kind anywhere, anytime. All five conservative members of the Supreme Court agreed with Justice Scalia’s opinion in the 2008 Washington D.C. v. Heller decision which expressed approval for bans on weapons like the military’s M-16. There is precedent for limiting what weapons we as a society are willing to allow on our streets such as, the now expired 1994 assault weapon ban which Ronald Reagan worked hard to see passed. Perhaps it is time to write a ban on weapons with removable magazines or on magazines with a capacity of more than 10 rounds.

Republicans in Congress prevented passage of a bill that would have made it illegal for someone on the federal no fly list to buy a gun. They argued that it would be an unconstitutional infringement on the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms if the would be purchaser has not been convicted of a crime. I get that, but I have to wonder why it’s OK to prevent someone who hasn’t been convicted of a crime from flying on a plane. Is it just because methods of travel aren’t mentioned in the Constitution? I also have to wonder why the those same legislators are so quick to defend the Second Amendment but were the instigators and perpetuators of the abridgement of our Fourth Amendment right to privacy by the Patriot Act. Why are they supportive of the surveillance state that the United States has become with the NSA recording who we talk to, listening to what we say, and reading our emails without a warrant?

Leaving aside constitutional issues, congressional Republicans also killed a bill that would have closed what is erroneously called the gun show loophole. Actually any private sale doesn’t require a background check. The bill would have required that all gun purchasers be subject to the same federal background check as those already required when purchasing from a federally licensed firearms dealer. I still haven’t figured out why they are willing to allow individuals to sell guns over the internet without a background check. Oh sure, the apologists will say that isn’t the case but if the seller is a private individual and posts their gun for sale on a site likes armslist.com they can arrange to deliver the gun to an individual at their home or a parking lot and there is no federal requirement for a background check. The same holds true for any private sale whether at a gun show or between neighbors. Upwards of 85% of Americans want all gun purchasers to be background checked. Why aren’t Republicans willing to support this common sense regulation?

It would seem, in this election year, that Republicans simply want to score points with extremists who believe guns should be unregulated. Apparently they’re not concerned that 85% of Americans disagree with them.

Party Unity Means Persuasion Possible

In the media lately there’s been much talk of “party unity” when discussing support for the presumptive nominees of both parties. While I had worked for and contributed to Bernie’s campaign and had real hope he could pull off an upset we can now see it was not to be. I hope my fellow Bernie supporters, especially those of the “Bernie or Bust” mindset, will take heed of what I have to say.

First you must understand that although the national party apparatus didn’t help Bernie get his message out and various establishment members did put their fingers on the scale to assist Hillary Clinton it’s clear now she didn’t need it, she won resoundingly. She is the choice of the majority of Democrats. I won’t belabor the discussion with statistics other than to say she won millions more votes and won them in the most democratically run primaries, meaning elections not caucuses. We don’t have to like it, we just have to make the best of it.

Now here’s why it should matter to you that Hillary becomes our next president instead of the reality show blow hard. To explain I’m going to tell you a little story about how our then congressman Henry Cuellar came to support the Affordable Care Act back in 2010. Cuellar, who is the only Democrat endorsed by the right wing, anti-tax group called Club for Growth, was unwilling to commit to voting for the bill. I and others called his offices repeatedly that winter and spring urging him to come out in support of the bill. When he continued to keep his distance we organized rallies in Schertz and Seguin and met with his local staff several times hoping to up the pressure. We wrote him letters and emails, we wrote letters to the editor. We made such a nuisance of ourselves that we heard through back channels that he was asking his contacts what was going in Guadalupe County since we’d never made a ruckus before.

Late one evening a couple of days before the vote was to take place I received a phone call from a member of his Washington, D.C. staff asking if I could manage to get some Affordable Care Act supporters to attend an event in Laredo the next day at which he was speaking and would likely commit to vote for the bill and he knew there would be opponents present. Since I was working with a nationwide group and had the phone number for an organizer with a wider range of contacts I called her and she agreed to make some calls. When Cuellar spoke the next day there were roughly equal numbers of supporters and opponents and he committed to vote in favor of the bill.

In an effort to persuade Kay Bailey Hutchison and John Cornyn to support the bill knowing that it would improve the lives of nearly one million Texans we held many more events with many more people in attendance. We held petition drives and delivered the petitions to their local offices. We organized phone calls to their offices from Texans from all over the state. Even with all that effort neither of them ever showed the slightest inclination to support the bill.

If you haven’t figured out my point yet, I’ll make it crystal clear. It is better to elect a wavering Democrat who can be pushed to move in our direction than to allow a Republican of any sort to hold office as we won’t have any persuasion power over them at all.

Trump Would be Pillager-in-Chief

Now that it’s pretty clear who the major party candidates will be in November let’s compare their resumes. Trump claims to be a billionaire though he hasn’t disclosed his tax returns so we can’t really know. He said he couldn’t be bought because he was self-funding his campaign but that’s not true now that he’s won the primaries he’s begging for dollars the same as every other candidate.

Trump’s experience is all in real estate and entertainment where he became a household name through is “reality” show “The Apprentice”. His experience with government has been as an applicant for licenses for casinos and permits for construction projects. He’s never held elected office or even an appointed one like Planning and Zoning Commissioner.

Last Sunday the New York Times ran a well researched and documented story on Donald Trump’s financial dealings in Atlantic City. When Trump talks about it he says he hit it big there brags about how much money he made. What he doesn’t say and the story reveals is that he ventures in Atlantic City were an unmitigated disaster for everyone but him. Whether they were an investor, supplier or construction contractor almost everyone lost money by dealing with Donald Trump.

Whether it was one of four bankruptcies or self-dealing Trump always won and everyone else took a loss. After a couple of Atlantic City bankruptcies and a downturn in New York, Trump used shareholder money to pay his personal debts while receiving $450,000 a month for personal and household expenses. He delayed paying for construction work on his hotels for 3 years or more and then only paid 30 cents on the dollar yet he walked away with millions personally. The Times quotes Sebastian Pignatello, a former Trump investor, as saying: “He drove these companies into bankruptcy by his mismanagement, the debt and his pillaging.”

Clinton has served eight years in the United States Senate where she served on the Committee on Armed Services, Committee on Environment and Public Works, Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions. She then served four years as Secretary of State. As the first lady of Arkansas and then the United States, Clinton has studied and advocated for better education, the availability of health care to everyone and improving the lives of women across the world.

Clinton’s life and government service haven’t been without controversy yet even after the Benghazi Committee wasted a shade less than $7 million on hearings they have found exactly nothing. Of course if you’re a conspiracy theorist there’s always the tragic suicide of her friend Vince Foster that you can let yourself be distracted by.

In the end the choice is clear we can vote for someone prepared to be the commander-in-chief or someone prepared to be the pillager-in-chief.

A Little Socialism is Good for America

Socialism has gotten a bad rap in the U.S. over the last 60 years, so much so that we don’t even recognize how much socialism we rely on every day. Did you drive to work or ride a bus? Did you get your mail? Do you have a borrowed library book on the table or perhaps download one to your mobile device? If so, you’ve taken advantage of socialism.

If there’s anyone in your family over 65 there’s a good chance that the reason that the only reason they have affordable health insurance is that there have enrolled in Medicare, the socialist insurance organization. If you’ve got a family member who is over 67 it’s sure thing that at least part of their income is from Social Security.

Cold War propaganda against the Soviet Union and Cuba, both totalitarian communist countries, has many Americans convinced socialism is evil. Communism is an extreme version of socialism just like oligarchy is an extreme version free market economics. Socialism is an economic system that thrives in democratic republics like Norway, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Canada, the Netherlands and Belgium.

The common thread found between all countries with varying degrees of socialism is that absolutely necessary services are provided for the good of the community rather than expecting a profit. Many of these services couldn’t be provided at a reasonable price by a private company. Can you imagine the cost to mail a letter to a rancher in Loving County population 82?

EPA Ruling Means More Jobs for Texans

In this week’s version of Sen. Cornyn’s weekly email to constituents he makes some spurious claims about Pres. Obama’s new EPA regulations and energy costs; especially how they will affect Texans. If anything the new regulations will hasten the switch from coal to natural gas for electricity generation which will improve the Texas job outlook.

For most of this year natural gas prices have been falling and drilling activity in the Eagle Ford shale and the Barnett shale areas have dropped precipitously. The new EPA regulations on power plant emissions will encourage electric power companies to switch to natural gas thereby increasing demand for it and hence promoting drilling in Texas again. Drilling brings jobs and good paying ones at that.

An additional benefit is that wind and solar generation will also be encouraged and they produce more high paying jobs than coal does and Texas is a prime location for both. So why is Sen. Cornyn knocking the EPA regulations? Could it be that the investors who own those old dirty coal plants that will be shuttered stand to lose out on further profits? Could it be his campaign contributors from the coal industry aren’t happy?

Campbell wants to give discounts to wealthy parents

State Senator Donna Campbell (R-New Braunfels) his introduced a bill she claims is aimed at addressing inadequate funding of public education in Texas by allowing state funds to pay $3,500 in tuition to private schools. One of the several problems with this concept, as documented in a study of a similar program in Minnesota, is that children from families are financially unable to take advantage of such a program even though they are the students most likely to attend poor performing schools. Low performing schools and districts are usually in low income areas where there isn’t a sufficient tax base to adequately fund public education needs. So parents are usually too poor to pay the difference between the state funds and the annual $10,000 to $25,000 tuition private schools charge.

This bill is really about providing a discount to parents already wealthy enough to send their children to private schools. Once enough better off parents are sending their children to private schools they may no longer care about the quality of public education or be willing to pay the necessary taxes to fund it.

All Campbell’s bill really does is broaden the gulf between the haves and the have nots.

Religious Freedom Day - Letter to the Editor

The Texas legislature will soon be in session and several ostensible “religious freedom” bills have already been submitted including one from Senator Donna Campbell (SD 25). Unfortunately neither Campbell nor her colleagues seem to understand the intent of our constitutionally guaranteed religious freedom. January 16 is Religious Freedom Day commemorating the enactment of the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom in 1786 and an opportunity to remind her and others what “religious freedom” really means.

At the time of the Revolution religious freedom was not guaranteed by any government then existent. Most of the colonies had officially established religions and citizens were expected to attend that church and pay taxes supporting that church.

Before the U.S. Constitution was drafted, future presidents Thomas Jefferson and James Madison worked to free Virginia from its official state church, the Anglican Church. Jefferson wrote the bill and Madison pushed its passage as a member of the state legislature.

Shortly after the bills passage Madison went to Philadelphia and became the primary author of the U.S Constitution and the First Amendment. During the lengthy debates between delegates to the constitutional convention several attempts were made to include statements claiming the United States to be a Christian nation but they were soundly rebuffed each time.

There only two mentions of religion in our constitution, both in the negative. Article VI prohibits a religious test in order to hold public office and the First Amendment bars laws “respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof”.