The Economy is Strong Due to Democrats

 No one likes inflation, I certainly don’t like that my grocery bill has gone up $40 or so per week in the last 5 or 6 years. Having said that many have gotten pay increases that either cover the difference are at least significantly reduce the impact. The fact is that those on the lower end of the wage spectrum have gotten the greatest increases. The reason for that is increased demand for workers.

During the Biden administration, not only is unemployment near historically low levels but overall employment is way up because the labor force has grown to meet demand. The growth is due to people who had given up looking for a job or retired coming back into the labor market, in addition there are more immigrants with work permits employed as well.

If you still want to gripe about the price of goods consider that Trump’s tariffs on Chinese goods are paid by consumers, meaning you and me. Tariffs are essentially a surcharge added to the cost of goods purchased by U.S. businesses from Chinese businesses. Unless the seller chooses to lower their price to absorb the charge in order to maintain market share the buyer has to pay more for the goods and while they too could absorb the increase rather than pass it on to you and me when we ultimately buy those goods in the stores they rarely do. You can tell that U.S. businesses haven’t absorbed the tariff costs because the prices for Chinese goods have gone up and U.S. corporate profits are at record levels. Trump’s tariffs are coming out of our pockets not China’s. Does that remind you of Trump’s border wall that “Mexico will pay for”? It should because as usual he lied.

When I was in college as a business major it was made very clear that free trade lowered costs for consumers. Apparently that lesson didn’t stick in Trump’s small brain. Trump’s latest pandering on economic issues is his supposed plan to make auto loan interest tax deductible like home mortgages. While that sound nice at first glance, the reality is that 90% of U.S. taxpayers don’t itemize their taxes so most car buyers won’t be able to take advantage of that deduction. Those earning more than $100,000 per year are much more likely to do itemize and even then only about 10% do. Like many of Trump’s tax policies the people who really get to take advantage are the ones already quite wealthy.

The Federal Reserve has done a remarkably good job of driving down inflation while maintaining a strong job market. Yes, mortgage interest rates are still higher than they were for the previous 20 odd years but that was actually a historically low period. Even a year ago when mortgage rates reached the recent high of over 7% that’s still significantly lower than the rates seen from 1973 to 2000. For the last years mortgage rates have been trending down again and now stand around 6.3%. The strong Biden economy continues on with more Americans enjoying the benefits of decent wages and the purchasing power that comes with those wages. Kamala Harris has proposed economic policies that are at least as strong as Joe Biden’s and with momentum of the economy suggests that between Americans can look forward to continued improvement in their living standards. 

Early voting starts Tuesday next week, vote Kamala Harris for president, Colin Allred for U.S. Senate and all the Democrats if you want to see a continually improving economy.

Published in the Seguin Gazette - October 16, 2024

Colin Allred A Better Choice

 I hear independent voters as well as those who claim to be moderate Republican voters complain about border security and blame the Biden administration and Democrats for the number of migrants crossing the Mexican border into the United States. Oddly enough they seem to already have forgotten that earlier this year there was a bi-partisan border security bill written by a hard line Republican that passed the House by a significant margin and seemed as though it would pass in the Senate until Donald Trump told Republicans to kill the bill. Ted Cruz and his Republican colleagues went along with Trump and the bill failed leaving Texas and other border states without the Border Patrol agents, immigration judges, and other staff as well as facilities needed to stem the flow of people seeking asylum.

Mr. Trump’s goal was to provide himself with an issue that he could blame on President Biden, and now VP Kamala Harris. If Trump truly wanted to secure the border all he had to do was stay out of the way. If Ted Cruz was the centrist he professes to be in his most recent advertising in which he claims to work with both sides of the aisle he could have taken a leadership role and urged his colleagues to ignore Trump and pass the border security bill. The fact that Cruz didn’t step up says he doesn’t really care about border security or Texas.

Recently the American Medical Association reported that 26,000 women became pregnant after being raped in Texas and not a single one was allowed to have an abortion. Ted Cruz shares responsibility with Gov. Abbott and the Texas legislature for the fact that those 26,000 Texas women were forced to give birth to their rapist’s child since the Supreme Court overturned the right of women to choose how to care for their own bodies less than 2 years ago. Cruz was one of the senators who voted to confirm Brett Kavanaugh, a man who has been accused of sexual assault, to the Supreme Court and Kavanaugh is among the right wing justices who then overturned Roe v. Wade enabling Texas to prohibit abortions in nearly all instances including rape.

Among Ted Cruz’s other questionable “achievements” was the 2013 government shutdown that lasted 16 days and put 800,000 federal employees out of work. It also cost an untold number of contract workers and those employed by businesses in national parks and other federal properties out of work and those folks never recouped their losses. Speaking of national parks tens of thousands of vacationers had their long planned trips ruined when the parks were forced to close. If Cruz had caused the shutdown over some important principle his action might be seen as honorable but it was a temper tantrum over the Affordable Care Act which he compared to the oppression of Cuban dictator Fidel Castro. How he got oppression out of an effort to assure that everyone who needs it can get the healthcare they need is beyond me.

In 2018 Cruz pulled out a narrow victory over Beto O’Rourke to win his second term in the senate. This term is opponent is Colin Allred, a civil rights lawyer and 3 term member of the United States House of Representatives since defeating Republican Pete Sessions in 2018. Allred has made further expanding access to healthcare a hallmark of this time in congress and vows to continue his work on the issue.

Starting on October 21 when early voting begins you have the opportunity to forcibly retire Ted Cruz by voting for Colin Allred.

Published in the Seguin Gazette - October 9, 2024

Texas Abortion Law Kills Mothers

 In October 2021, shortly after Texas passed the SB 8 abortion law Kaitlyn Kash, 37, of Austin was 13 weeks into her second pregnancy when she was told by her doctor that the fetus had a rare genetic disorder affecting bone and cartilage growth. “We were told that his bones would break in utero and he would suffocate at birth,” Kash said in an interview. “We were expecting our doctor to tell us how we were going to care for our baby, how we were going to end his pain.” Instead “We were told that we should get a second opinion, but make sure that it was outside of Texas”.

In August 2022 Amanda Zurawski of Austin was carrying her first child, she and her husband were thrilled until there were complications then they learned that although there was no chance the child would survive and it was likely she would suffer an infection she would have to carry the fetus until she either expelled it on her own or she became so sick it threatened her life. Afraid to travel out of state to get an abortion since her water could break at any time and she might not be able to get to a doctor in time she stayed in Texas. When she began running a temperature of 105 and couldn't stop shivering in the summer heat her husbad took her to the hospital but they still didn't perform an abortion until much later and by that time the sepsis infection had damaged her reproductive system so badly that she may never be able to give birth.

According to a investigation by the New Yorker magazine Yeniifer Alvarez of Luling, Texas who died in 2022 would likely be alive today as all indications are that SB8 tied the hands of the doctors caring for her until it was too late to save her. Kate Cox, Kristen Anaya, and Elizabeth Weller along with many other women have also suffered and continue to suffer life threatening health emergencies under Texas’ draconian abortion ban.

Of course all those horror stories are anecdotes, they’re just here to give you a taste of what the statistics from Centers for Disease Control mean in the lives of Texas women. CDC data for 2019 to 2022 show that Texas has experienced a 56% increase in maternal mortality during that time and it’s pretty clear that the cause of that is the Republican passed SB8. Nationwide maternal mortality has only increased 11% and without states like Texas and much of the south where similar abortion bans are in place there would have been decrease nationally.

Dr. Donna Campbell, representing Senate District 25 in the Texas Senate is an emergency room physician. She is one of the Republicans who pushed SB8 through the state legislature. She had plenty of opportunity to address the problems with the bill both before it was originally passed and then in the following session 2 years later. She failed her constituents and all Texas women twice. Current law says that an abortion isn’t legal once a fetal heart beat is recognized, about 6 weeks after conception. What it fails to include is that when there is no longer a heart beat the prohibition is removed. The current language means that Texas women have to carry around a rotting carcass in their uterus until they are sick enough for a doctor to risk their license to practice medicine and prison time.

Starting October 21 you can retire Donna Campbell by electing Merrie Fox for Texas Senate.

Published in the Seguin Gazette - October 2, 2024

Texas Republicans Work to Defund Public Schools

Governor Abbott and his Christian nationalist billionaire campaign donors made progress in their effort to defund and destroy public education in Texas when they succeeded in getting Alan Schoolcraft nominated as the Republican candidate for State House District 44 which encompasses Guadalupe and Gonzales counties. I have disagreed with John Kuempel, our state representative since 2010, on most issues I’ve always respected his strong defense of public education. That defense cost him support from Gov. Abbott and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick earlier this year which led to his defeat in the Republican primary by Schoolcraft. Some of the money used by the Schoolcraft campaign came from out-of-state billionaire Jeff Yass, of Pennsylvania, who gave Gov. Greg Abbott $6 million to use in support of pro-voucher candidates Schoolcraft.

The coalition supporting the destruction of Texas public schools includes people like West Texas billionaires Tim Dunn and brothers Farris and Dan Wilks, who contribute to various political action committees pouring millions into legislative campaigns for candiates who support school vouchers. The men also fund or serve on the boards of a host of public policy and advocacy organizations that have led the fight for vouchers in Texas. An example of Tim Dunn’s Christian nationalism is that he once told Republican Speaker of the Texas House Joe Straus that he believed only Christians should hold leadership posts. Earlier this year, Baptist News Global published an article by Pastor Rodney W. Kennedy titled "Sorry, Tim Dunn, you are a Christian nationalist".

Recently the campaign donations from Dunn and the Wilks brothers have reached into local communities across Texas, supporting fights over library books, curriculum and vouchers.

There a many examples of the failure of school vouchers to provide high quality education to all our children. There are many reasons for this including the fact that private schools don’t have to accept students with behavioral issues, or learning disabilities. Typically research has shown that parents who use school vouchers to transfer their children to private schools end up with their 4^th or 5^th choice and those schools typically are underperforming their public school counterparts.

Since 2005 when hurricane Katrina struck it New Orleans replaced all traditional public schools with charters run by ostensibly non-profit corporations. Education results for the generation of students passing through those schools has been mixed at best, generally worse than the national average. One of the tricks used by people seeking to profit from charter schools is that while the charter is held by the legally mandated non-profit organization they turn around and subcontract with a for profit group to actually staff and run the school. Often the same people on the board of the non-profit are also on the board or payroll of the for-profit sub-contractor. It’s a scam.

As reported by the Texas chapter of the American Federation of Teachers in their 2022 report “The Lost Decade”, when you take into account actual per-pupil spending in each state compared to the amount needed to achieve the modest goal of U.S. average test scores, Texas comes in 44th place. That leaves more than 90% of Texas public school students are attending inadequately funded schools. Since government budgets are moral documents this tells you what our state leadership thinks of future generations of Texans.

Starting October 21 when early voting begins you have an opportunity to show your support for public education in Texas by voting for Democratic party candidate Eric Norman. Eric believes “It’s time we live our values and support Texas’ public schools.”

Published in the Seguin Gazette - September 25, 2024

Paxton's Voter Suppression

In a throwback to the Civil Rights era Texas Republicans are using the power of government to once again suppress the vote of minority Americans. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton sent armed teams to the homes of half a dozen Houston area members of the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC). Squads of armed officers banged on doors at 6 a.m. to execute search warrants and seize cell phones and other possessions at the homes of folks like 87-year-old Lidia Martinez, apparently for exercising her right register people to vote.

Voter suppression is a tried and true method for retaining power. Paxton’s actions are suspect given that the allegations are related to the 2022 election and it seems strange that after nearly two years his investigators suddenly got to the point where they are ready to seized “evidence” given that we’re ramping up for another election. We also know that while Paxton’s office has investigated hundreds of people for voter fraud and other election related crimes spending millions of dollars yet has only led to a handful of convictions. None of those alleged “crimes” involved enough voters to even change the election outcome of a city council member let alone a member of congress or the governor.

Paxton has proven time and again that he’s willing to use Texas taxpayer dollars to fund specious lawsuits and prosecutions if it means helping Republicans win elections. In 2020 he sued four other states claiming they didn’t run their elections properly. Needless to say all four were swing states where Joe Biden and Kamala Harris beat Donald Trump. All four lawsuits were laughed out of court, just like so many of his other stunts.

It’s important to remember that Paxton is so corrupt that he was impeached by the Texas House with plenty of Republicans supporting that vote last session.

Paxton is satisfied with just harassing a handful of voting rights activists, he is also threatening to sue Bexar, Travis, and Harris Counties, where Biden/Harris won by large margins, over their efforts to send voter registration cards to everyone. Apparently Paxton doesn’t want private groups to help people register to vote but he also does not want the government to people register to vote.

These tactics are the same sort that led to the Voting Rights Act and in fact were Section 4b of that legislation still in force today many of the Republican voter suppression tactics would be prohibited and the Department of Justice would have sued to enforce it. Unfortunately a decade ago the Supreme Court held that even states with a history of voter suppression can’t be pre-empted from doing it again.

Texas isn’t the only state where Republican voter suppression is going today, Ohio and Alabama are in the act along with several other southern states. Voter suppression can’t just be overwhelmed by getting out the vote, remember that Hillary Clinton beat Donald Trump by 3 million votes and still lost the election due to the electoral college.

It’s going to take patriotic Republicans like former Vice President Dick Cheney who has put aside his partisanship and endorsed Kamala Harris and Tim Walz to restore out democracy.

Food Safety Compromised by Republican Philosophy

Republican philosophy calls for deregulating private businesses claiming regulations get in the way of job creation. Food safety is one of several areas where this philosophy is readily proven wrong over and over. You may remember a few years ago when Blue Bell ice cream contaminated with listeria killed 3 people and sickened many others back in 2015 and their products were pulled from the shelves they unavailable for months. Something similar has happened earlier this summer this time it’s Boar's Head deli meats that were contaminated with listeria killing at least 9 people and hospitalizing 57 others in 18 states, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as of a week ago. Worse it may not be over yet as it can take up to 10 weeks for some people to develop symptoms of listeriosis. Listeria spreads easily among equipment, surfaces, hands and food. The real number of sick people in the outbreak is likely higher than the number reported, as some recover without medical care or being tested for listeria.

CBS News reported last week that records released by the USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service through a Freedom of Information Act request show 69 records of "noncompliances" flagged by inspectors over the past year at the Boar’s Head Jarratt, VA plant where the listeria outbreak originated. While the Food Safety and Inspection Service is ultimately responsible for overseeing day-to-day operations at the plant, it actually relies on staff from Virginia — not USDA employees — to man the site.

Just from January this year to July inspectors found what looked to be mold and mildew around the hand washing sinks for the workers tasked with meats that are supposed to be ready to eat. Mold was also found building up outside of steel vats used by the plant as well as in holding coolers between the site's smokehouses. In addition "A black mold like substance was seen throughout the room at the wall/concrete junction. As well as some caulking around brick/metal," inspectors wrote, saying some spots were "as large as a quarter." Other locations in the plant were found to have a number of issues with leaking or pooling water, including a puddle found to have "a green algal growth" inside and condensation that was found to be "dripping over product being held." An inspector found "ample amounts of blood in puddles on the floor" and a "rancid smell" throughout a cooler used at the plant. A number of records also flag sightings of insects in and around deli meats at the plant. Another record flagged concerns over flies going in and out of "vats of pickle" left by Boar's Head in a room. "Small flying gnat like insects were observed crawling on the walls and flying around the room. The rooms walls had heavy meat buildup," inspectors wrote. Other parts of the facility were also found to have bugs, including what looked to be "ants traveling down the wall," as well as a beetle and a cockroach.

This makes very clear that big business has no incentive to protect consumers since it’s not like plant managers could have missed the disgusting conditions of the facility. It also shows that food inspection is under-funded which is why the USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service relies on staff from the company to report problems rather than having actual federal employees overseeing food safety. Who is it that keeps complaining about taxes and cutting government spending? Republicans of course and now at least 9 people are dead. What were their lives worth? Remember, it could have been you.

Published in the Seguin Gazette - September 4, 2024

Republicans Throwing Stones While Living in Glass Houses

 The nominating processes of both the Republican and Democratic parties are over and the most popular third party candidate suspended his campaign then endorsed Trump. The presidential election is now a choice between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump. It puts a smile on my face that Republicans including Trump and his vice presidential choice, Ohio senator J.D. Vance, are having trouble finding something to tarnish Harris or her running mate Tim Walz. It’s not for lack of trying but now that Trump is no longer running against Joe Biden, who is only 3 years older, his “Biden is too old” tune doesn’t work anymore.

Attacks on Harris for being soft on crime have fallen flat due to her record as a prosecutor and California attorney general. Attacks on Harris for not being a mother we trashed by her step-children and even her husband’s ex-wife. When those didn’t work Republicans attacked Tim Walz for signing legislation, as governor of Minnesota, that requires all Minnesota public schools to provide feminine hygiene products in the girl’s bathrooms, and women gave them a stoney-eyed glare. They Republicans attacked Walz’s military service record complaining that his 24 years in uniform weren’t enough while using doctored transcripts of a speech which has two minutes of material in the middle missing to make it look like Walz lied about being in combat. Veteran’s organizations have come out in defense of Walz. You can make anyone look bad if you pick and choose which words to repeat.

Last week when Walz’s nomination became official and he took the stage at the Democratic National Convention, the best Republicans could do was target Walz’s 17 year old son, Gus, who cried as he was overcome with emotion. Well Republicans really walked into a meat grinder on that one because that young man has ADHD, an anxiety disorder and a non-verbal learning disorder. Many families with children who have learning or emotional disorders are less than pleased Republican bullying behavior.

Nothing has stuck to the Democratic candidates because there is nothing there, unlike Trump’s 34 felony convictions. Of course, you can watch the video of Trump when he says the Presidential Medal of Freedom was "much better" than the Congressional Medal of Honor whose recipients are usually "dead" or in "very bad shape." If you are or know a veteran you might take exception to that.

Trump tries to claim he had no part in the January 6 insurrection that caused the Capitol Police evacuated both chambers of Congress and several buildings in the Capitol Complex. It seems pretty odd then that next Thursday he is hosting a fundraiser to help pay the insurrectionists legal defense bills at his Bedminster, New Jersey golf club where he is expected to speak. Of course it’s not all that different from his attempts to distance himself from Project 2025, the plan to overturn our government that was authored by more than a one hundred of his former administration members. There are still several other criminal cases outstanding such as the one in Florida regarding over a hundred classified documents that Trump refused to return to the federal government which took and FBI raid to get back. There are also two election interference cases awaiting trial, one is a federal case in Washington, D.C. and the other is a state case in Georgia. There’s plenty of dirt out there but so far none of it applies to Democrats.

If we want a government that is based on truth and the interests of the people we need to get out and vote for Democrats in November.

Published in the Seguin Gazette - August 28, 2024