Hypocrisy Thy Name is Republican

 The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines hypocrisy this way: "a feigning to be what one is not or to believe what one does not, behavior that contradicts what one claims to believe or feel; especially, the false assumption of an appearance of virtue or religion." Today's Republican Party and most of its elected officials and candidates seem to embody hypocrisy, let me count the ways.

While claiming to support parental choice as an excuse to provide public tax dollars to private for profit schools the Gov. Abbott and the Texas legislature also banned parents from providing gender affirming medical care to their children. The parents most likely to send their children to private schools either already do or are in the upper income range and likely vote Republican.

The Texas legislature passed another book ban measure that Gov. Abbott signed all in the name of protecting children while the state cut Medicaid for thousands of Texas children preventing the most vulnerable from accessing healthcare. The standards set in the Texas book ban bill are so vague, they are likely to snag books that are not inappropriate, and materials dealing with LGBTQ+ subject matter are more likely to be targeted for bans. Texas has the highest percentage of children in poverty, without medical insurance, and unsure they’ll have enough to eat on any given day.

Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick got all lathered up over children attending drag shows with their parents; remember these are the same people with their hair on fire about parental choice. The legislature started out with a bill to ban children at drag shows then caught wind of the fact that they might have trouble in court so they went with more general language that is so vague it may even ban padded bras on female performers. The public and children have been exposed to performers in drag since before I was born, in fact in 1959 the movie “Some Like it Hot” appeared in theaters starring Tony Curtis and Jack Lemon in drag. The movie was a box office success and won 6 Academy Awards. Then there’s Bugs Bunny in drag in at least 40 cartoons and you can’t tell me that’s not aimed at children.

While claiming that the Voting Rights Act was a burdensome over-reach preventing states from holding elections without federal interference Gov. Abbott and the Texas legislature banned cities from enforcing health and safety laws to insure that outdoor construction workers get adequate water and rest breaks in 100+ degree summer heat. In fact the bill bans cities from regulating anything that the legislature doesn’t give them explicit permission to regulate. You might notice that is exactly the opposite of the way the U.S. constitution is phrased as it says the federal government can only regulate what is specified therein while the states can address anything else. Texas has violated the letter and spirit of the Voting Rights Act for at least the last 3 redistricting cycles or more than 20 years, gerrymandering districts to protect their overwhelming majority in the legislature when based on statewide voting results the majority should be much thinner.

This list is far from exhaustive but it’s all I have the patience for as just reviewing this batch made me angry. Remember this when it is time to vote in 2024.

Trump Indictment Charges No Comparison

 When the topic of the latest indictment of Donald Trump comes up you’ll no doubt here various defenses, excuses, and what-aboutism, don’t accept any of their weak arguments. The indictment makes very clear with quotes from the evidence heard by the grand jury that the crimes Trump is charged with are serious and involved others in a conspiracy. The indictment includes 34 felony charges against Trump for which the penalties range from 5-20 years in prison and fines of up to hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Trump engaged in entirely different behavior than Joe Biden and Mike Pence with regard to classified documents they had in their possession after their terms were up. After Biden and Pence became aware they were in possession of classified documents they immediately contacted the relevant federal agencies and arranged for their return. Trump always knew he had classified documents and there is clear evidence that on several occasions he showed it off to people with no security clearance at all. Trump then attempted to retain possession of the documents claiming he didn’t have them, then that he had de-classified the documents and they belonged to him, then returned some claiming that was all he had, while he conspired with an aide to hide some of them when the FBI informed him they were coming to look for themselves.

While any president can de-classify some types of documents there is a process for that which Trump didn’t follow therefore the documents were never legally de-classified. In addition not all documents can be de-classified by executive action including one of the documents Trump held onto and referred to in the indictment as document #19 from the Department of Energy which is labeled as “Undated document concerning nuclear weaponry of the United States”. Such documents typically include information about the US nuclear weapons stockpile quantities, nuclear weapons safety and storage, nuclear weapon yields, and locations of US nuclear weapons.

The indictment includes a transcript of an audio recording of a meeting on July 2021 at Trump National Golf Course in Bedminster, New Jersey in which Trump shows a writer, a publisher, and two of his staff members a document that he says a senior military official whose name is redacted, but believed to be Gen. Mark Milley, gave him discussing a possible attack on a country the name of which is also redacted, thought by most reporters to be Iran, and proceeds to tell them “This is secret information. Look at this.”  Later Trump says “See as president I could have declassified it.” After laughs and a response by as staff member Trump says “Now I can’t, you know, but this is still a secret.” The recording makes clear that Trump knew that documents in his possession were still classified and therefore not to be shared.

The indictment includes photos of the boxes containing classified documents that were found stored in various locations within the Mar-a-Lago Club including a ballroom, a bathroom and shower, an office space, Trump's bedroom, and a storage room. The ballroom, bathroom and shower, were not secured locations and easily accessible to the public, in fact an events were held in the ballroom while the boxes were stored there. The office space is the business center where Trump employees and others routinely visited.

You can read the entire indictment for yourself, it’s only 49 pages double spaced and many pages are only half full or have photos taking up much of the page so it’s a quick and fascinating read.

Published in the Seguin Gazette - June 14, 2023

Texas Lege Failures 2023

The regular session of the Texas legislature is over and has left the citizens with important work undone. Instead of focusing on improving our state by raising teacher pay and adequately funding public education too much time and energy was spent on making life more difficult for very small number of teens who see themselves differently than most. Texas classrooms have too many students per class and often too many classes to teach while they are underpaid. Consider that many of teachers with 20 years of experience earn less than most new college graduates.

Gov. Abbott signed SB 16 last Saturday which prohibits procedures and treatments for gender transitioning and gender reassignment, including puberty blockers that delay the onset of puberty. These treatments are used with their parents support when teens recognize that are not the gender they were assigned at birth. All evidence indicates that such treatments have positive psychological effects for these young people. Unfortunately Republicans have made this small group of kids a symbol of the culture war and gleefully inflict their narrow-minded views on them.

While I’m fairly confident that the increase in the legislature’s budget was warranted it sure doesn’t look good when they failed to address low teacher pay. You can largely blame Lt. Governor Dan Patrick for holding teacher pay raises hostage by tying them to private school vouchers which rural Republicans have repeatedly shown they won’t support.

Even though the state is being sued due to the over-broad language of the previous session’s anti-abortion legislation which forced several women into life and health danger when they had mis-carriages there was no effort to make adjustments. Instead, all we got was denial that there was even a problem.

Of course, there was plenty of time for the legislature to strip cities of their ability to regulate a broad range of environmental, labor and health and safety concerns such as the right to enforce rest breaks for construction workers in the summer heat, run no-kill animal shelters and to maintain local water quality.

Once again our legislature failed to expand Medicaid even though nearly 12% of Texas children are uninsured and rural hospitals continue to close, forcing many Texans to drive for hours to seek necessary medical care. A study commissioned by the Texas Medical Association found that in 2016, the cost of lower lifetime earnings and worse health for uninsured Texans was $57 billion. The price tag for hospitals and physicians who provide unsubsidized and uncompensated care was $3.5 billion. 7 years later and those costs have only gone up. Republican orthodoxy preventing the expansion of Medicaid available through the Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare) continues to cause suffering and economic loss in Texas.

There was one small but significant of Medicaid though, soon the Texas mothers who give birth while qualified for Medicaid will be covered for 12 months after birth instead of 2 months as has been the case.

On the slightly positive side, teachers who retired in the last 3 years will get a 2% cost of living increase in their monthly checks, assuming Gov. Abbott signs SB 10 and the public votes to approve the constitutional amendment in the November 7 election. Older retirees will get either 4% or 6% increases depending on when they retired.

Now it’s on the special sessions that will likely be called to address some of the outstanding issues that Dan Patrick caused to be delayed past sine die due to his demands for private school vouchers and other unpopular legislation.

Published in the Seguin Gazette - June 7, 2023

Paxton Impeachment

Last Saturday the Texas House voted 121-23 to impeach Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton. The landslide bi-partisan vote shows this is not a political or a partisan matter. Ken Paxton has proven to be a liar, a fraud, and a criminal in multiple ways during his tenure as Attorney General. Texas citizens deserve accountability and our state representative, John Kuempel, did the right thing and voted to impeach unlike 20 other Republicans.

The House charged Paxton on 20 counts. Half of the charges are related to actions taken to benefit Nate Paul a wealthy Austin real estate developer who has made high dollar donations to Paxton’s political campaigns, rewards from Paul to Paxton, or to cover-up those actions, including the firing of whistleblowers.

In Article 1, Paxton is charged with failing to act as a public protector of charitable organizations by directing his employees in the attorney general’s office to intervene in a lawsuit brought by the Roy F. & JoAnn Cole Mitte Foundation against entities controlled Paul, harming the Austin charity in an effort to benefit Paul.

Article 9 Alleges that Paxton benefited from Paul’s decision to hire the woman that Paxton has acknowledged having an affair with. In exchange, Paul allegedly received favorable legal assistance from, or specialized access to, the attorney general’s office.

Article 10 Alleges that in exchange for providing free renovations to Paxton’s home, Paul received favorable legal assistance from, or specialized access to, the attorney general’s office.

Other charges include Article 16 in which Paxton is accused of conspiring or attempting to conspire with others to commit acts described in one or more articles. Article 17 in which Paxton is accused of misusing his official powers by causing employees to perform services for his benefit and the benefit of others. Paxton is also charged with Dereliction of Duty, Unfitness for Office, and Abuse of Public Trust among other allegations.

The next step is a trial in the Texas Senate, in which Paxton’s wife Angela is a member. According to the Texas constitution the senate sets its own rules for the trial so at this time it is unknown whether Senator Paxton will be allowed to vote on the charges. Since the constitution requires that two thirds of the senate members present at the trial vote to convict in order to remove an official from office that means 20 or 21 must do so depending on whether or not his wife is allowed to participate.

The partisan split in the senate is 19 Republican and 12 Democrats. I think we can be assured of the all 12 Democrats voting to convict since Paxton’s mis-deeds have been in the public eye since well before the 2022 election. The real question in my mind is whether or not there are 8 or 9 Republican senators with the fortitude to do the right thing and remove the odious Paxton from office.

Republican Senator Donna Campbell represents a section of Guadalupe County north of I-10 and west of Highway 123, Democrats Judith Zaffirini and Roland Gutierrez represent the rest of the county. We’ll have to wait and see if Sen. Campbell has the integrity to vote for conviction or prefers to pander to the Republican base.

Published in the Seguin Gazette May 31, 2023

Debt Ceiling and Republican Propaganda

 Under Joe Biden’s leadership employment has continued to increase with total nonfarm payroll employment rising by 253,000 in April, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Unemployment is down nationally to 3.5% and holding steady, while it is 4% here in Texas. All this good jobs news comes while interest rates keep rising due to the actions by the Federal Reserve Board of Governors as they try to slow inflation.

It’s unfortunate that the Board of Governors has mis-diagnosed the cause of inflation as apparently they’ve been listening to the corporate media like the Washington Post instead of economists doing actual research. Had board studied the research by Josh Bivens, chief economist at the Economic Policy Institute, they’d realize that only 8% of total inflation has been caused by increased wages while more than half has been going to increased corporate profits as can be seen by the record earnings reports from a slew of big names.

As reported by David Sirota of Level News: In March, UBS Chief Economist Paul Donovan released a revealing commentary concluding: “Recent inflation has been driven by an unusual expansion of profit margins.”

He explained: “Profit margin-led inflation is not caused by a supply-demand imbalance. Profit margin-led inflation is when some companies spin a story that convinces customers that price increases are ‘fair,’ when in fact they disguise profit margin expansion.”

Donovan noted that “widespread reports of rising agricultural prices allow supermarkets and restaurants to raise the price of food.” Other spinnable stories include “supply chain disruption (in fact global trade is at a record high), labor shortages (in fact wage costs are rising far less than prices), and in the most circular of arguments ‘general inflation,” he wrote.

Two weeks ago House Republicans voted to cut veterans’ services significantly and limit their health care. That’s just one aspect of Republican extortionate debt ceiling and budget cuts bill they passed 217-215, with all but four Republicans voting for it. Those four thought the cuts should have been deeper.

The bill is estimated to cut 22% of funding from the Veterans Administration which would mean the immediate loss of $2 billion in funding for veterans services, and 30 million fewer veteran outpatient visits. The VA would lose 81,000 jobs. That would mean fewer employees to answer veterans’ phone calls, schedule health visits, process their disability claims, and provide other critical services.

Remember, Republicans claim they are the only ones who support our veterans. With supporters like that I’m afraid our veterans are better off in the hands of those awful Democrats. By the way the Department of Defense’s budget is the only one not affected by the Republican proposed cuts.

While we’re on the subject of the Department of Defense you should know that Senate Republicans are allowing a single member to block the confirmation of 184 Defense Department nominees over an abortion policy dispute. Not only is Alabama Sen. Tommy Tuberville blocking those nominees, he’s holding up pay raises for men and women in uniform, blocking key senior military leaders from taking their posts, and jeopardizing national security.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin testified that the obstruction is harming national security. The delay, according to Austin, has caused a “ripple effect in the force that makes us far less ready than we need to be.”

Tuberville’s block includes “five three-star officers” who were supposed to rotate to new jobs by summer, including “the commander of the Navy’s 5th Fleet, which oversees military operations in the Middle East, and the Pentagon’s representative on NATO’s military committee,” according to another senior defense official. 

Published in the Seguin Gazette - May 10, 2023

Republicans and Bogeymen vs. Guns

Once again Republicans in our state legislature are more interested in wasting time on scary topics like trans-gender kids, forcing their religion on our children, and banning school library books than actually protecting those children from very real gun violence.

SB 14 which recently passed the Senate and has been sent to the House was introduced by Senator Donna Campbell, who is an emergency room physician, prohibits treatments for gender dysphoria. The American Psychiatric Association describes gender dysphoria as psychological distress that results from an incongruence between one’s sex assigned at birth and one’s gender identity. Though gender dysphoria often begins in childhood, some people may not experience it until after puberty or much later. Rather than helping our children learn to be happy in their own bodies the Republican controlled Senate has made treating them a crime. 

Last Friday the Senate passed Senator Phil King’s SB 1515 which would, if passed by the House and signed by Gov. Abbott, require that every public elementary school classroom post a 16”x20” poster of the King James version of the Ten Commandments. That’s not the version that Lutherans or Catholics use. So right off the bat Republicans in the Senate have acted in a discriminatory manner even if you foolishly assume that all public school students are some variant of Christian. Given that Texas has a very diverse population that includes, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Sikh’s, and other faiths as well as those of no faith, this is a case of the majority shoving their religion down the throats of everyone else.

A couple of weeks ago the Senate passed SB 13, authored by half a dozen Republicans, this bill would ban books based on vague characteristics involving sexual identity and behavior. A Texas judge recently ruled against similar book bans in public libraries on First Amendment grounds. It would also require school districts to create committees of local citizens with the power to further restrict the reading material on public school campuses. 

Several bills were filed related to gun safety, and gun sales and in every instance those bills were filed by Democrats. SB 360 by Sarah Eckhardt and SB 1736 by Roland Gutierrez, along with several similar bills in the House all languish in committee without even a hearing. 

Every day in Texas nearly 4 people are murdered and nearly 6 people are injured by someone using a gun. Every day 1 Texas child dies by gun violence. Texas Republicans like to say they don’t want to be California but people are a lot safer there since we’ve got a 65% higher rate of gun violence. It’s not just Texas, all 12 states with the highest rates of gun violence are controlled by Republicans. 

Republicans in our legislature continue to promote solutions to make believe issues in order to distract from the fact that they are unwilling to actually address real problems. Conservatives are easily motivated by fear, that’s why Republicans need a bogeyman. Trans-gender kids are the current one but there have been and will be others. As long as Texas continues to have a dismal voter turnout we will continue to be governed by opportunists using fear to drive their voters.

Published in the Seguin Gazette - April 26, 2023

Republicans Subverting Our Democracy

Texas Republicans aren’t satisfied that their gerrymandering and other anti-democracy activities have put a lead thumb on the scales of every election. Now they’re working on putting an entire lead hand on the scale. In the last few weeks they’ve advanced several bills through committee that if passed by both House and Senate will further subvert our democracy. One such bill is SB 990 which repeals the highly popular countywide voting program that allows any voter registered in a county to vote at any polling place in that county. Some of us like this option because we can go to a less crowded polling place, some like it because they can more easily get to a polling place on the way going to or from work. I well remember the years ago being at a polling place when voters were turned away because back then you had to vote at the one polling site in your precinct and if you went to the wrong you had to stand in line all over again at the right one. Some folks didn’t even know what precinct they were and got so frustrated they just didn’t vote. Now Republicans are all for going back to the old way just to stir up confusion and suppress the vote. Only Republicans like a representative of the Republican Party of Texas and another from the State Republican Executive committee testified for the bill in committee, good government groups and election administrators uniformly testified against it.

When the Senate scheduled hearings on several other anti-democracy bills they provided less than 48 hours notice, making it very hard, if not impossible for interested parties to arrange to attend and testify. Possibly the most dangerous is SB 1993 which would give the Texas Secretary of State the ability to overturn election results in Harris County without requiring any proof that claims of problems actually occurred. You can tell the legislature is working to hide their intentions because they don’t name any counties in the bill, instead it sets a threshold for population that only Harris county meets.

SB 823 and its House companion HB 2020 would allow the Secretary of State to get rid of election administrators without cause. If there is no cause like illegal or unethical behavior removal would only make sense for partisan control. 

SB 220 and its House companion HB 549 would create partisan-controlled election law enforcement division. Actual cases of voter fraud are a very rare occurrence in Texas and currently investigated by the Texas Rangers and the Attorney General. This new office is part of a coordinated effort already seen in states like Florida to intimidate and scare voters away from the ballot box with the threat of criminal prosecution for inadvertent mistakes.

SB 1070 and its House companion HB 2809 would create a path for Texas to leave ERIC (Electronic Registration Information Center), the cost-saving and effective bipartisan and multi-state voter list maintenance tool that has saved tons of money and made cleaning voter rolls both efficient and accurate. The only reason to do this is to provide the opportunity to purge eligible voters from the rolls from behind a partisan smokescreen.

SB 1933 would make it easier to allow sham election audits like the one Arizona held in the aftermath of the 2020 presidential election. The state already has plenty of power to review elections if there is evidence of impropriety, more power is unneeded and dangerous to assign.

All of these bills make it harder to vote or easier for those in power to steal future elections.

Published in the Seguin Gazette - April 19, 2023