Hope for a Happy New Year

 As much as the two time popular vote loser has angered me along with millions of other Texans by pardoning his cronies and potential witnesses against him I thought that given we’re about to start a new year I should write about something positive instead so here are a few things that our incoming president, Joe Biden, can and should do even if Georgia fails to elect two Democrats to the U.S. Senate.

Biden has promised to fight the COVID-19 pandemic by immediately appointing a “national supply chain commander” and establishing a “pandemic testing board” upon assuming office. Incoming White House chief of staff Ron Klain coordinated the federal government’s response to the 2014 Ebola outbreak.

For the last four years the Department of Justice was not interested in fighting voter suppression. That’s likely to change quickly regardless of who Biden nominates to head the agency. Strict voter ID laws have been the main tool in the Republican voter suppression toolbox. One powerful step that Biden could take is giving people the option to add a photo to their Social Security card, since most people already have one, and that would ensure that they can’t be barred from voting in the red states like Texas  where concealed carry licenses are fine, but student IDs are not accepted. It’s a simple administrative rule fix requiring no congressional approval.

The president-elect has already stated he will bring the U.S. back into the Paris Climate Accord as one of the first orders of business. This pact is an agreement among nations to reduce emissions. Biden does not need the Senate to do so, because the Accord is an executive agreement; Biden just needs to send a letter to the United Nations stating his intent to rejoin. Furthermore, Biden can reverse the more than 125 environmental rules that Donald Trump overturned by fiat, such as rules on energy efficiency, oil exploration, and use of biofuels.

To help our low income citizens keep more of the money they earn the new administration could institute postal banking.  Unlike the other 49 states North Dakota has a very popular public bank that competes with private banking. President-elect Biden and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders convened a task force to look into the creation of a public banking option. Such a public bank would be set up through the U.S. Postal Service and the Federal Reserve to provide low-income and middle-income families with low cost widely available banking services where they could cash payroll checks and get small short term loans are reasonable rates unlike at commercial pay-day lenders. Biden can do some of that work without any legislation, such as USPS offering their own refillable, prepaid debit cards.

Student loan debt is the only debt that you can’t discharge through bankruptcy, thanks to a 2005 law. President Biden can undo this debt the first day he takes office with the stroke of his pen. Over 90% of the student debt in this nation is owed to the federal government. Student loan debt is a huge burden to millions of people who are currently paying at 10% or more of their income every month, and will for at least a decade. Forgiving it can provide much-needed relief during the COVID-19 pandemic as well as spur economic recovery.

There are many other actions Biden can take upon assuming office that don’t require a single vote in Congress such as rewriting rules on who is eligible for overtime, extending the enrollment period for the Affordable Care Act, restoring government unions, breaking up monopolies, rescheduling marijuana and more.

Happy New Year!

Published in the Seguin Gazette - December 30, 2020

Not Much Peace and Joy

This holiday season instead of the peace and joy that we long for, tension and anxiety abound. For millions of Americans it is the anxiety of not knowing if they’ll be able to keep a roof over their heads and feed their families while employers layoff more workers due to the pandemic. For others it’s worry about family members who have tested positive for COVID-19 many of whom are hospitalized. For some it is ongoing attempts by Republicans led by the con-artist in chief and egged on by convicted criminal Gen. Michael Flynn to subvert the constitution and turn this country into an authoritarian state.

Low income workers are the ones hardest hit by the pandemic and the pathetic response our government has provided. Around 20% of workers who were earning less than $12 an hour are unemployed now, that’s depression level unemployment. Food banks are overwhelmed by the demand for nutritional assistance. Many more Texas children are going hungry this year than last. Texas senators John Cornyn and Ted Cruz are responsible for making the aid package that congress finally passed a day late and a dollar short. The pandemic relief legislation only provides a $600 per person of direct payments compared to $1200 per adult in the Spring.  According to CNN other provisions include “Aid for struggling small businesses, including more than $284 billion for forgivable Paycheck Protection Program loans” As well as “$300 per week for enhanced unemployment insurance benefits, $25 billion for rental assistance and an eviction moratorium extension, $13 billion in increased Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and child nutrition benefits.” The bill also includes “Funding totaling in the billions of dollars to support coronavirus vaccine distribution, testing and contract tracing efforts and health care workers.”

The winter season only started Monday but the predicted spike in COVID-19 infections and deaths didn’t wait. The 7 day average of deaths due to the virus exceeds 2,500 a day with one day reaching 3,400. Hospitals are once again running out of space and personnel to treat those infected. Our medical professionals have learned a lot about treating the virus and have improved survival rates yet the rate of death is still climbing. Early in the year rural areas felt safe and residents thought the virus was only a problem in cities but that changed this fall and now they realize they’re at risk too. The incompetent in the White House and his bumbling staff have repeatedly failed the country, first in not coordinating efforts to acquire and produce personal protective equipment for medical staff then in failing to order more of the vaccine when Pfizer offered additional supplies months ago. It’s a good thing the Moderna vaccine has proven safe and effective and has now been approved in the U.S. In a hopeful sign the incoming Biden team has made it clear that fighting the pandemic is among its highest priorities.

While it’s true that Trump’s “crack” team of lawyers has repeatedly failed to convince any court in the land that their conspiracy laden and fact free lawsuits have any merit that hasn’t stopped the president from spreading those false claims and encouraging his supporters in the general public to use force to overturn the election. The convicted criminal Trump pardoned, Gen. Michael Flynn, is reported to be advocating for the president to declare martial law and send troops to collect voting machines in several states where new elections would be held. Until Joe Biden and Kamala Harris take office I won’t stop being worried.

All that said, I wish you peace and joy this holiday season.

Published in the Seguin Gazette - December 23, 2020

Republicans Holding Help Hostage

More Americans are like my brother, Michael, than like me. Like most Americans my brother doesn’t really keep tabs on politics or government in general. Michael had been out of work for nearly 6 months due to being laid off by his employer when business got so slow due to the pandemic. During that time he became quite frustrated that congress failed to pass a second stimulus and many expanded unemployment benefits had expired. My brother, like many Americans, blamed both parties for unwillingness to compromise.

I explained to him that the Democratic controlled House had passed two more stimulus bills since the initial CARES Act while the Republican controlled Senate led by Mitch McConnell and John Cornyn hadn’t even bothered to hold hearings on either bill let alone vote on them. I told showed him that members of the House leadership were continuing to negotiate with the Senate leadership but that the sticking points are serious and meeting Republican demands was dangerous for the public. It’s important to understand that what McConnell and Cornyn are demanding could result in the deaths of thousands more Americans because immunity from liability for injury caused by failure to adequately protect workers and customers from exposure to COVID-19 would encourage more employers to put workers health at risk. That’s not just a possibility, it already happened in many work places including meat packing plants in the mid-West that ended up closing back in April and May when so many of their employees became ill.

Republicans argue that business will suffer without immunity as too many spurious lawsuits will be filed. So far there have been fewer than 250 businesses sued across the nation over COVID-19 issues, which is a drop in the proverbial bucket compared to the 10,000 lawsuits brought over the usual issues that occur every year. There is a simpler way to address such concerns and but the Trump administration has failed to take action. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has the responsibility and power to write rules for workplace safety, they simply haven’t done so. Instead OSHA has written recommendations with weasel wording like “if feasible” and “when possible” rather than setting a rule stating the employers “will” follow the directive. If OSHA simply wrote and promulgated such workplace safety rules the only businesses at serious risk of being sued would be those that didn’t comply with the rules.

The other ridiculous demand that Republicans are making is to drop financial assistance to states and cities all of which have found budgets suddenly cut due to massive reductions in sales tax revenue because the pandemic has so many people staying at home and out of work so they can’t spend. Unfortunately that doesn’t mean that we don’t need police, firefighters, and other city and state workers. Since cities and states cannot legally run deficits many have already laid off critical workers because there simply isn’t enough money to pay them. This not only hurts everyone in that community by the loss of the service, it also just adds another person to the roles of unemployed and therefore need assistance paying their bills.

During the election, Republicans made spurious claims about Democrats wanting to defund the police, in reality Republicans are the ones who are actually doing it. As in most cases this is not a both sides are to blame situation, Republicans are the ones who are withholding support for hungry children in an effort to give away worker protections. If you want something done call Senator John Cornyn and give him a piece of your mind.

Published in the Seguin Gazette - December 16, 2020

Police Brutality Even Here

I am a white male who grew up in the mostly white suburbs of New Orleans attending all white parochial schools until 1977 when I graduated from high school. My only run-ins with law enforcement were due to a lead foot and never had reason to fear police. In my 20’s I didn’t really give much thought to how people of color might view police although I was aware that historically law enforcement had supported segregation, often violently, like at the Edmund Pettus bridge in Selma.

As I have gotten older, seen the wider world, and made friends of other ethnicities, I’ve become a little more sensitive to how black members of my community can have different experiences with the same law enforcement officers that I have never had reason to worry about. Over the last couple of years that awareness has expanded further as we have seen horrific videos of black men and sometimes boys beaten after being subdued or shot by police officers while running away. I still had hopes that at least the police in my city and the cities around it weren’t the sort to do that.

A few weeks ago I found out that I was wrong when Schertz police officers beat and repeatedly tased 18 year old Zekee Rayford after he was subdued in front of his home. It’s clear from the video provided both by his family and Schertz police that Rayford was not attacking the officers, had no weapon, and was not a threat to anyone. It is clear is that police used excessive and unnecessary force against an unarmed, non-threatening, young man over a purported traffic violation.

As it happens, the Fifth Circuit Court ruled on a similar case on November 20, just a few weeks after Mr. Rayford being abused by police officers. Lawyers for the Gretna, LA police officers argued in federal court that they had qualified immunity from prosecution for their actions in the death of Kendole Jackson. Mr. Jackson was apparently suffering from mental health issues when he was spotted staring at a schoolyard full of children, when approached by law enforcement he ran and tried to hide in a convenience store where, curled in a ball on the floor, he begged the clerk to call the real police as the people chasing him wanted to kill him. Sadly in the end they did just that.

Here’s what Judge Don Willett wrote in the three judge ruling: “What is the virtue of a proportional response?” an exasperated President Bartlet demands in a memorable scene from the first season of The West Wing. Anything more, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff coolly advises, would be a “staggering overreaction . . . you’ll have doled out a $5,000 punishment for a fifty-buck crime.” For those in positions of public trust—from Commanders in Chief (who must “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed”) to City of Gretna Police Officers (who “vow to protect life and property while safe guarding constitutional guarantees”)—proportional responses are good policy. We expect those charged with executing and enforcing our laws to take measured actions that ascend in severity only as circumstances require. A disproportionate response is unreasonable. And if it describes physical force inflicted by a police officer, it is unconstitutional.

Whether or not Schertz police officers violated department policy, they violated Rayford’s constitutional rights as soon as they began using more force than necessary once he was on the ground. Judge Willett is no bleeding heart liberal, he is a Republican appointed to the federal bench by Trump.

Published in the Seguin Gazette - December 9, 2020

Transition and Democracy

The Sore Loser-in-Chief has delayed a peaceful transition of power for over three weeks and though he’s finally allowed some of the transition to move forward he and his minions are still actively the incompetently attempting to overturn the election results. Over six million more Americans voted for Biden than the squatter in the White House, that’s more than twice the margin that Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by and still 28% of Republicans think the election was stolen. The “dear leader” continues to spread his anti-democratic message, that small “d” democratic meaning the concept not the party. Even Republican Secretaries of State and Governors have taken exception to his claims of voter fraud.

Trump’s attacks on domestic democratic processes mirror those of Hitler according to Burt Neuborne, one of the nation’s foremost civil liberties lawyers. In his book When at Times the Mob Is Swayed: A Citizen’s Guide to Defending Our Republic Neuborne notes “Hitler attacked the legitimacy of democracy itself, purging the voting rolls, challenging the integrity of the electoral process, and questioning the ability of democratic government to solve Germany’s problems.” “Trump has also attacked the democratic process, declining to agree to be bound by the outcome of the 2016 or 2020 elections when he thought he might lose, supporting the massive purge of the voting rolls allegedly designed to avoid (nonexistent) fraud, championing measures that make it harder to vote, tolerating—if not fomenting—massive Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, encouraging mob violence at rallies, darkly hinting at violence if Democrats hold power, and constantly casting doubt on the legitimacy of elections unless he wins.”

In addition to the damage the “Sore Loser” is doing to our democratic institutions by his failure to accept losing the election by the biggest margin for a sitting president since 1932, the delays he is causing in the transition endanger both national security and the lives of many Americans. The COVID-19 pandemic continues to rage causing hospitalizations and deaths to rise for the third time this year. Millions Americans have lost their jobs and many small businesses have closed permanently. Lines at food bank distribution centers continue to lengthen and more children go hungry every day. Delays in passing information to the next president’s team puts the entire country at risk as the new administration will be less well prepared to take the reins of government than they should be.

On the positive side Joe Biden has made it very clear that he takes climate change seriously and says his taking an administration-wide approach so that every agency will be expected to take action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. As climate change is the existential threat to human civilization that our children and grand-children will be force to live with I’m grateful that we’ll finally have a president who is willing to take action. Unfortunately none of the measures he has proposed go far enough to actually reduce the threat. It’s going to take action from all of us to convince him and our congressman to do what’s needed and not just give lip service to addressing the crisis. There is no time left to act.

In January and Biden’s inauguration I’m looking forward to Donald Trump returning to something he’s good at, perhaps as a contestant on the USA Network’s reality show “The Biggest Loser”.

Published in the Seguin Gazette - December 2, 2020

Election Results in Mixed Emotions

Like many Democratic voters and activists the recent election results have left me with mixed emotions. We’re all pretty happy that Joe Biden will be president in January. Many of us are disturbed by the level of support the reality show star pretending to be president received from Republican voters. The man is incompetent and yet 10 million more Americans voted for him in 2020 than did in 2016. Fortunately nearly 13 million more voted for Biden than Hillary Clinton. No sitting president has lost by as wide a margin since 1932 when the Great Depression was in full swing and Franklin Delano Roosevelt defeated Herbert Hoover.

I’m frustrated because even with such an overwhelming margin of victory control of the United States Senate is in doubt and the only chance we have is for Georgia to elect two Democrats in the runoff there in early January. If they both Democrats win, each party will have 50 senators and Vice President Harris will be the tie breaker. If either or both lose we will likely see Majority Leader Mitch McConnell doing everything he can to obstruct President Biden, much like he did to President Obama. That will mean preventing the appointment of dozens of federal judges all over the country, refusal to confirm cabinet nominations, failing to hold hearings on legislation passed by the House and much more.

I’m encouraged that judges appointed by Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush are shutting down lawsuits claiming election fraud but providing no evidence. I worry because the Republican Party has lurched toward authoritarianism under the current president and its leaders like Lindsey Graham and Marco Rubio are continuing to lead the charge with full throated support of debunked election fraud claims that their own judges have rejected.

I look forward to Joe Biden reversing much of the damage done by his predecessor but that’s not enough. I want real progress on really important issues like climate change and health care. I fear that once again too many will sit on their hands now that he has won and forget the lesson of the Obama administration which is that if we the people don’t demand such progress Congress will be all too happy to just go along to get along.

The increased support voters have shown for authoritarian leaders here like in much of Europe gives me great concern about 2024. There is precedent for my trepidation, just look at Hungary where Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and his ruling Fidesz party have politicized the courts, decimated independent media, destroyed academic freedom, hobbled civil society, and promoted xenophobia. Orbán’s seizure of absolute power at the beginning of April, under the cover of the coronavirus pandemic, culminates a decade of authoritarian moves. Turkey is another example of the trend toward authoritarian leaders where President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has gone from being a model of democratic political Islam to a traditional autocrat, using a counterterrorism campaign to crack down on dissent and a failed coup as an excuse to purge political opponents.

If you want to see improvement in your life and the lives of your family you’re going to have to stay engaged for the long term. Voting every two years isn’t enough, even participating in get out the vote activities for a few months each election cycle isn’t enough. It’s going to take calling our legislators and badgering them about the issues that matter to you to prevent our democracy from failing like Hungary and Turkey. As President Obama once pointed out “We are the change we’ve been waiting for.”

Published in the Seguin Gazette - November 18, 2020

Redistricting Texas Part 2

Last week I promised to continue my discussing redistricting and gerrymandering and I’ll get to that in a moment but first I have one very important thing to say; Donald Trump, you’re fired! I’ve been aching to say that for four long years and just had to get it out of my system, now on to redistricting.

Last week I closed by pointing out that in Texas like many other states both parties have been responsible for partisan gerrymandering when the opportunity presented itself.  In 1990, the last time Democrats controlled redistricting the drew maps that allowed them to win 70% of Texas’ congressional seats will only winning 49.9% of the votes while the 47.8% of the votes Republicans received only earned them 30% of the congressional seats in the 1992 election. 20 years later in 2010 Republicans returned the favor by drawing maps that allowed their 50.4% of the votes to earn them 69% of congressional seats while Democrats won 46.93% of the votes but only earn 31% of the congressional seats in 2018, long after the maps had been in place.

After the 2010 Census, 75% of the growth in our population came from the Hispanic community. Texas gained 4 congressional seats, three went to Democrats and one to Republicans in the 2012 election, yielding 24 to 12 seats. 2014 saw Republicans pick up one more to yield a 25 to 11 split that remains today.

We the voters will get no help from the Supreme Court on this issue as they court ruled on case Rucho v Common Cause on June 27, 2019. By a vote of 5-4, the justices ruled that courts should stay out of disputes over partisan gerrymandering. The practice of partisan gerrymandering may be distasteful, the court concluded, but it is a problem that politicians and the political process, rather than courts, should solve. That’s a problem in Texas because at the state level there is no process for voters to petition for change of any kind unlike in Missouri, Colorado and Michigan.  In those states and others a ground swell of voter dissatisfaction encouraged activists to organize petition drives to put non-partisan and citizens redistricting commissions on the ballot either as legislation or constitutional amendments. Those measures passed with overwhelming voter support.  California has had a non-partisan citizens redistricting for a decade now which has drawn much more representative maps than the politicians of either party ever had.

We all pay a steep economic price for a legislative system that has no accountability for results. We end up with legislators that are not responsive to the needs of the people. When legislators draw safe districts for themselves, they essentially move the true race for the election to the primary. Since so few people turnout to vote in the primary, that means less than 10% of the general population are determining who our elected officials are.

Like many activists in Texas I had hoped that this year Democrats would win control of the state House which would have pitted the against the Republican controlled Senate and perhaps given both sides some incentive to compromise by putting redistricting in the hands of a non-partisan body. Now, with no change in the House there’s little incentive to give up power and I’m betting that Democrats will end up with only one of the three new congressional seats when all is said and done.

Published in the Seguin Gazette - November 11, 2020 

Redistricting Texas Part 1

Possibly the most important piece of business that the state legislature will address when it convenes in January is redistricting since the decennial census results will be distributed early next year. If the election results have been good to Democrats in the state house; 2021 will be the first opportunity Democrats have had in more than 20 years to have some say in how state senate, state house, and congressional districts are drawn and more important the process that draws those districts.

Once each state has been allocated its congressional seats state legislatures or other state based bodies are required to draw lines for each congressional district which are required to contain the same number of residents in each district plus or minus a small percentage. Notice I said residents, not voters or citizens. The constitution says in Article I, section 2, clause 3 “Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed." As the population of Texas has grown substantially over the last decade while some state have been stagnant or seen declines we’re likely to gain 3 more congressional districts.

Gerrymandering refers to drawing districts in such a way that it favors one party or group of people over another. There are two types: racial and partisan. Racial gerrymandering was outlawed by enactment of the VRA in 1964. Partisan gerrymandering is still allowed. The problem is that race and partisanship often go hand in hand, in other words elections are racially polarized in our state. White people usually vote one way, and minority groups will vote the other. This means that partisan gerrymandering easily turns into racial gerrymandering. And, Texas is a repeat offender when it comes to discriminating against minority groups in our election maps, and both the Democrats and Republicans have been found guilty. Partisan gerrymandering has been ingrained in our political system since our country’s founding. In 1812 the Boston Gazette published a story on such redistricting using an illustration of a salamander and referring to a beneficiary, Elbridge Gerry, naming it gerrymander.

We live in Congressional District 15 which is around 287 miles north to south and State Senate District 21 at around 221 miles end to end. Then there’s Congressional District 35 running from south Austin to east San Antonio through a narrow strip on 1-35 that often contains nothing but the highway. All these districts are drawn to pack Democratic voters in the fewest possible districts so that more districts can be drawn with Republican majorities, it’s called packing.

Packing is when a political party concentrates opposition party’s voters into a few districts in order to reduce the opposition’s voting power. This creates districts that are heavily in favor of the opposition’s party, reducing that party’s representation in other districts.

Cracking is when a party dilutes supporters of the opposing party by spreading them across many districts. This denies the opposition’s supporters a chance to have group representation in their district.

Gerrymandering is about politicians picking their constituents rather than constituents picking their elected officials. Since politicians routinely abuse the process voters in some states have taken the process out of their hands. Both parties in Texas have gerrymandered districts when in power and have suffered it when not in power. Now might be a good time for both parties to consider creating a non-partisan process so they’ll never be on the short end of the stick again. I’ll talk more about this next week.

Published in the Seguin Gazette - November 4, 2020

Vote Like Your Life Depends On It

With 7 days left before election day, the popular vote loser in the White House claims COVID-19 is going away. Hospitals are once again reporting a surge in patients with COVID-19 all across the country, including in San Antonio. We’re into the third surge in infections while Republican elected officials continue their push to re-open everything and even relax mask requirements. Over 18,000 Texans have died of COVID-19 so far that’s 61 deaths per 100,00 residents giving Texas the 18^th highest rate of deaths in the country well ahead of Republican’s favorite punching bag California which has had 44 deaths per 100,000.

The U.S. death toll stood at 225,000 as of this weekend, that’s the ninth highest rate per hundred 100,000 worldwide. Sunday, contrary to the president’s remarks his own Chief of Staff, Mark Meadows, said “We’re not going to control the pandemic”. That’s pathetic considering that so many other nations with much less to work with have done so much better at caring for their people.

Last week I listened to an interview with former National Security Advisor John Bolton in which he tore into the administration’s pandemic response. Bolton told the interviewer that the Obama administration developed a complete playbook on how to handle a pandemic and that document was left for future administrations to use, in addition the current administration had run its own exercise and developed its own playbook in 2019 yet the president didn’t bother to use either one. In the interview, Bolton referred to the president as “the empty chair behind the Resolute desk”; a reference to the desk nearly every president since 1880 has used which is made from the oak timbers of the British ship H.M.S. Resolute and presented as a gift to President Rutherford B. Hayes from Queen Victoria.

After his tantrum shortened interview with 60 Minutes correspondent Lesley Stahl, the president’s staff provided Stahl a thick binder which they claimed held the present’s health care plan. When Stahl reviewed the binder, all it contained were copies of his executive orders and existing legislation. The president has been claiming to have a plan since he was running for president the first time in 2016 and still there is nothing. Republicans in Congress like John Cornyn have been talking about Repeal and Replace for years and still have not produced a replacement plan either.

In the midst of a worsening pandemic, Republican leaders have no plan to protect the health of the American public. Those same Republican leaders are suing to kill the Affordable Care Act which will cause 28 million Americans to lose their health insurance at a time when a million Americans have been hospitalized due to the pandemic. Even with insurance many of those who have been hospitalized have been left with large medical bills and men like John Cornyn and the president want to destroy what little protection many of us have from bankruptcy or death. Back in May, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick told Fox News “Those of us who are 70 plus, we’ll take care of ourselves. But don’t sacrifice the country”. The only people sacrificing the country are Republican senators who refuse to hold a vote on the HEROES Act that would provide aid to states, cities, and individuals during the economic downturn caused by the pandemic.

There are 6 days left until election day, and the race has tightened here in Texas. Your vote could be the deciding factor in throwing out John Cornyn in favor of MJ Hegar so make a plan to vote and then go VOTE.

Your Health Insurance At Risk

Today, around 28 million Americans have health insurance they would not otherwise have had because of the benefits of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). In Texas alone nearly one million more would have those same benefits if Gov. Abbott accepted federal money to expand Medicaid like many other states did. Considering that the state would only have to contribute $1 for every $9 provided by the feds and even that $1 would be largely or totally recovered from taxes on additional spending by the medical community there’s no financial or economic reason for that refusal.

It’s that same petulance that has made the popular vote loser in the White House work to reverse everything done by his immediate predecessor. It is the same petulance that has infected the entire Republican Party since the passage of the Affordable Care Act in March of 2010 and given rise to their slogan Repeal and Replace. They had a full two years at the beginning of the president’s term when they controlled all the levers of power and couldn’t pass a bill to either repeal or replace, not once did they offer a replacement plan. The president claims to have finally offered a plan a few weeks ago but it is so lacking in detail that it doesn’t even appear on his campaign website. His fig leaf of an executive order on pre-existing conditions is meaningless to private insurers as executive orders are nothing more than directions to federal agencies and the only one that actually insures people is Medicare which has always covered pre-existing conditions.

Senator John Cornyn has been at the forefront of the movement to kill the Affordable Care Act and take away health insurance from 28 million Americans who are only covered because of it. Killing the Affordable Care Act will also remove the requirements that insurers covered annual wellness checkups and mental health as well as pre-existing conditions. Killing the ACA will also mean that insurance companies can go back to charging different rates for men and women, as well as eliminating the requirement that they spend at least 90% of premiums on health care instead of executive salaries and advertising.

Texas is at the forefront of the effort to kill the ACA another way, the state is a plaintiff in a case before the Supreme Court that seeks to invalidate the law. John Cornyn’s willingness to steal a Supreme Court seat from President Obama in 2016 and his advocacy for swift consent on the nomination of Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the court weeks before the presidential election is just another way to influence the result of the case. If Republicans get their way and the Supreme Court does overturn the ACA there will be many consequences unforeseen by the public and I expect you’ll see Republican elected officials distance themselves and blame those consequences on the court.

In some ways I hope Republicans finally succeed in overturning the Affordable Care Act so Joe Biden and the new Democratic Party majority in the senate are prompted to create a new more comprehensive plan with expanded coverage that leaves no one behind even in Texas. The only way to make sure that there are people in power who will work to mitigate the damage and make life better for all of us is to elect Joe Biden for president and MJ Hegar to the United States Senate. The polls are open, go vote. If you’ve received a mail-in-ballot, get it in the mail so you can be sure it gets to the elections office in time to be counted.

Published in the Seguin Gazette - October 21, 2020

Election More Than Federal Races

I’m fairly sure that most if not all of the news, noise, and campaign material you’ve probably seen has been for federal candidates Joe Biden, MJ Hegar, and Vicente González. There are 11 other races that also matter quite a bit and some of them matter in ways not everyone recognizes.

Even some Texans don’t realize that the Texas Railroad Commission doesn’t regulate railroads, it regulates the oil and gas industry and this election we have an opportunity to elect a highly qualified individual who recognizes that global climate change is an existential threat to the existence of our way of life. Her opponent operates oilfield waste disposal businesses and stands to make more money by keeping oil and gas industry regulation to a minimum. If you drive through west Texas at night you’ll seen dozens if not hundreds of fires roaring into the sky as oil wells flare off natural gas that they don’t want to bother with capturing and instead is allowed to be wasted on top of contaminating the environment with the CO2 and other damaging gases. Because the Railroad Commission rules state that all three commissioners have to agree to a permit to flare at a well if Chrysta Castañeda were elected she would have the power to stop the wasteful and environment damaging flaring.

The State Board of Education (SBOE) is another state agency with a role that many don’t know or understand. The SBOE has two main functions, oversee the investment of money from the proceeds from the sale and the mineral-related rental of many public lands in Texas which in turn funds textbooks for every public school student in the state and setting curriculum standards then reviewing and adopting instructional materials. Our representative on that board is up for election this year and the incumbent isn’t running. This is a golden opportunity to elect respected teacher and former Fulbright Scholar, Rebecca Bell-Metereau. I first met her about a decade ago and know her to be conscientious and deeply committed to raising the quality of education in our state. She will work to reduce the load of standardized tests our students are put through so that teachers aren’t force to teach to the test. Bell-Metereau has two daughters who graduated from Texas public schools and understands the limitations forced on both students and teachers by Texas’ many make or break tests.

If you’re among those who have requested a mail-in ballot I urge you to fill it out and mail it as soon as possible to avoid any chance that it will be delayed by the disruption of mail service caused by the recently appointed Postmaster General’s edicts eliminating overtime and shutdown of mail sorting equipment at many facilities. If your ballot doesn’t reach the elections office by Wednesday November 4 it will not be counted. In person early voting started yesterday so take advantage of the extra week and get it done early when crowds are light to help protect yourself from potential infection. The longer you wait the heavier the crowds are likely to be and the longer you’ll be stuck with a bunch of other people. This election is ours to lose and the way to do that is to not show up to make your voice heard. There are 14 Democratic candidates on the ballot in Guadalupe County, since we can no longer vote straight ticket be sure to mark all 14 of our candidates on your ballot.

Published in the Seguin Gazette - October 14, 2020

The President's Dereliction of Duty

 “It’s going to disappear. One day, it’s like a miracle—it will disappear”, so said the science denier-in-chief on February 27. The president repeated such claims for months. Now it’s the first week of October, he’s is in the hospital with a case of COVID-19. As of Sunday afternoon the smoke and mirrors put up by the White House has obscured just how sick the president is.

We do know that his symptoms are severe enough that his doctors have given him a three drug cocktail including an experimental drug and Dexamethasone, which is a steroid that the World Health Organization and the National Institutes of Health recommend be given only in severe cases. One in ten cases of COVID-19 requires hospitalization; less that two in a hundred require treatment in an intensive care unit (ICU). Being the president it’s likely that he is being monitored similarly to an ICU patient regardless of the severity of his condition but the drugs he’s being given suggest he is in bad shape and of those who have been ill enough to be treated in an ICU less than half survive. I’d like to point out that his doctors are not treating him with his fantasy drug of choice, hydroxychloroquine, which he touted repeatedly as a cure.

We know the president tested positive on Wednesday so he was infected already when he appeared at the debate and made fun of Joe Biden for always wearing a mask. Perhaps if he had shown the leadership that Americans expect of a president he would have been wearing a mask since March and would have encouraged his followers to do so as well instead of advocating against them. Had he done so, his aide Hope Hicks and three Republican senators might not have also tested positive for COVID-19 last week. This nation might also not have suffered at least some of the 210,000 deaths attributed to COVID-19 so far if he’d actually taken the leadership role expected of a president.

This president’s failure to act according to expert advice from the medical community has put public health at risk. That failure has left us with the ninth highest rate of deaths per capita in the entire world. We’re in company with such third world nations as Peru, Bolivia, Chile and Ecuador. This isn’t just incompetence; as Professor Allan Lichtman, a historian at American University for 50 years, put it “This is the greatest dereliction of duty in the history of the U.S. presidency.”

Typically a COVID-19 hospital stay is one to two weeks while those who are treated in an intensive care unit and survive typically exit the hospital in two to four weeks. So if the president recovers he’ll likely have just three weeks left to campaign and possibly much less. I wonder how his supporters will spin his hospitalization. How will they react if he actually dies of COVID-19 in the coming weeks? Will they shrug it off? Will they claim some sort of liberal or deep state conspiracy is responsible? More important, how will the 4% of likely voters who are undecided see this failure to even protect himself?

Republicans from the president on down to the state legislature have failed to take action to minimize the spread of a deadly contagion and they deserve to be voted out. In Guadalupe County there are fourteen races with Democrats running and this is the first election since straight ticket voting was eliminated. Be sure to pick all fourteen Democrats when you go to the polls or fill out your mail in ballot.

Published in the Seguin Gazette - October 7, 2020

SCOTUS Nominee Unfit

The popular vote loser in the White House has named an exceedingly controversial nominee to replace esteemed Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Aside from the fact that it turns out that our senators, John Cornyn and Ted Cruz, along with every other Republican in the senate lied to us in 2016 regarding the reason to deny then President Obama his constitutional right to name a Supreme Court justice and thus steal a seat, this nominee doesn’t deserve confirmation simply because she doesn’t believe in the actual constitution or at least the parts she doesn’t like.

She, along with numerous far right “thinkers”, claim that the fourteenth amendment is illegitimate. The Fox News crowd suggest that birthright citizenship clause was only intended to help those who had been directly enslaved, and is not applicable to future generations. Some go so far as the claim that since southern senators weren’t seated at the time due to the aftermath of the Civil War both the fourteenth and fifteenth amendments are null and void.

Sen. Jacob Howard (R-MI), the Senate sponsor of the 14^th Amendment, explained that Section One incorporates:

“The personal rights guaranteed and secured by the first eight amendments of the Constitution; such as the freedom of speech and of the press; the right of the people peaceably to assemble and petition the Government for a redress of grievances, a right appertaining to each and all the people; the right to keep and bear arms; the right to be exempted from the quartering of soldiers in a house without the consent of the owner; the right to be exempt from unreasonable searches and seizures, and from any search or seizure except by virtue of a warrant issued upon a formal oath or affidavit; the right of an accused person to be informed of the nature of the accusation against him, and his right to be tried by an impartial jury of the vicinage; and also the right to be secure against excessive bail and against cruel and unusual punishments. . . .

The last two clauses of the first section of the amendment disable a state from depriving not merely a citizen of the United States, but any person, whoever he may be, of life, liberty, or property without due process of law, or from denying to him the equal protection of the laws of the state.  This abolishes all class legislation and does away with the injustice of subjecting one caste of persons to a code not applicable to another.”

Now let’s consider what it means if Justice Barrett got her way and voided the 14^th Amendment. State and local governments could take away your guns, they could infringe on your right to freely associate with others of like mind, states and counties could impose teaching whatever religion those in power decided. Those in power at state or local levels could shutter press outlets that disagreed with them. The governor or mayor could have you arrested for protesting against local government policies. There would be nothing to stop state or local governments from denying women equal rights.

If your ancestors were not recognized as citizens at the time of the revolution or naturalized citizens afterward you would lose your citizenship and therefore your right to vote or even be present in the United States. Justice Barrett has no business getting anywhere near the constitution and I urge you to tell that to John Cornyn and Ted Cruz.

Published in the Seguin Gazette - September 30, 2020

Justice and Elections

 I had planned to write about the courts this week as a reminder that Texas is among the minority of states in that we elect our judges including at the appellate level. We therefore have both the opportunity and responsibility to determine who will make the final decisions in a wide range of legal cases, setting precedent and providing guidance to lower courts throughout the state. The death last week of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg brings that point home in ways that my words never could. It isn’t enough to just vote for Joe Biden and leave the rest of the ballot untouched. It’s important to vote in every race at every level.

The Court of Criminal Appeals is Texas highest court on criminal matters and has been dysfunctional for a decade. As examples please consider that a justice there once refused to consider a last minute death penalty appeal because the filing was delayed past office hours due to a printer breaking while it was being printed. Worse the same court has been slapped down by the Supreme Court of the United States twice on the same case for failing to do its job of reviewing the law regarding whether an intellectually disabled person should be executed. Judge Elizabeth Davis Frizell, Judge Tina Yoo Clinton, and Judge Brandon Birmingham are running to replace these lazy and apparently incompetent clods. All three are committed and experienced, with strong records of acting in the best interests of their respective communities. They deserve your support on election day.

In early 2016 when Justice Antonin Scalia suddenly died more than eight months before the election and President Obama had the responsibility to nominate a successor; our senator, John Cornyn, repeatedly stated that the next president should choose that nominee because it was an election year. Cornyn is quoted in numerous media sources and his own website saying: “It's not about the personality, it's about the principle ... that it's up to the American people in this next election, no matter who they choose, to make the nomination for this important seat on the Supreme Court.” “My view is that this is not about the potential nominee; it's about who chooses. And I believe strongly this should be a referendum on who chooses in November.” “I believe the American people deserve to have a voice in the selection of the next Supreme Court Justice, and the best way to ensure that happens is to have the Senate consider a nomination made by the next President." Now, when early voting has already begun in some states and election day is less than seven weeks away; he has changed his tune retweeting Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s statement: "President Trump’s nominee will receive a vote on the floor of the United States Senate."

If John Cornyn has a shred of integrity he’ll rethink that and be guided by his own 2016 statements to allow the winner of the election to choose the next Supreme Court justice. You have the responsibility of reminding him of that by calling his office either in San Antonio at 210-224-7485 or in Washington, D.C. at 202-224-2934. Another way to put the fear of God in him would be to make a donation to his Democratic opponent, MJ Hegar, at https://mjfortexas.com/ .

Published in the Seguin Gazette - September 23, 2020

Rigth-wing Partisanship Deadly Dangerous

Partisanship in the 21^st century can be deadly dangerous, let me give you a few examples. Republican led Texas continues to rise on the list of states by proportion of COVID-19 deaths as compared to population, now standing at number 17 with more than 30% greater proportional death toll than California, the state Texas Republicans like to bash most. According to a recently published study by Elisa F. Long, M. Keith Chen, and Ryne Rohla at the Anderson School of Management, University of California Los Angeles, Republicans were more than 10% more likely Democrats to disregard local orders to evacuate their coastal residences in the hours before a hurricane struck the area. The Department of Homeland Security now run by illegally appointed Chad Wolf has been downplaying and shelving reports on the threat of white nationalist terrorism according to a whistleblower complaint by intelligence-division chief Brian Murphy, he was told it was blocked because of the way it might “reflect upon President Trump.”

It’s been pretty clear for a while now that COVID-19 is deadly and while not a Black Plague level catastrophe, it has now killed nearly 200,000 Americans making it the third leading cause of death in the U.S behind cancer and heart disease. COVID-19 has proven to be more than three times as deadly as the flu and the year isn’t over yet. With more than three months left to 2020 the death toll is likely to approach four times the worst flu rate in decades. The U.S. has the tenth highest proportion of deaths to population in the world. Much of the death toll could have been prevented if the president had taken the measures that other countries such as South Korea and Germany did. Even if you’re inclined to discount the recording of Trump telling journalist Bob Woodward that he was downplaying the danger of COVID-19 to avoid a panic it is clear that the president failed to take appropriate measures in a timely manner and continued to discount the danger in public. His supporters in government and those in the public at large have followed his rhetoric with dangerous actions, some have paid the ultimate price by dying from the disease they didn’t believe was deadly.

In the days before hurricane Irma struck Florida in 2017, right wing blowhards Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter used their media platforms to downplay the seriousness of the hurricane claiming it was a liberal hoax. Evacuation patterns show that a significant fraction of Republican voters fell for their spiel and risked their lives as a Category 5 hurricane made landfall nearby.

While the popular vote loser occupying the White House continues to spout claims of the dangers of antifa and Black Lives Matter, he and his appointees are misleading both the public and state and local law enforcement agencies with distorted reports downplaying white nationalist groups like “Boogaloo Boys” and others while at the same time falsely claiming liberal groups are the real danger. Since these reports are coming from federal agencies that have been respected for providing factual information in the past state and local law enforcement act on that information and thus improperly allocate resources and endanger the public.

The final run-up and aftermath of the November election likely will see all of this get worse as Republican voters fall for the president’s claims of voter fraud and election results are delayed by the need to unusually high numbers of mail in ballots. Remember that when asked if he would leave the White House if he lost the election he said “We’ll see”.

Don the Fascist and Police Violence

I have no doubt that most police officers take on the responsibility they do for the right reasons and most are disturbed by the murders committed by their fellow officers. However, the fact is that all the protests across the nation and the mood of even white suburbanites swinging toward demands for accountability hasn’t stopped some officers from continuing to murder unarmed black men. The former reality show star in the White House had little to say about stopping violence against citizens perpetrated by police during his record length 70 minute acceptance speech Thursday night. Instead he talked about stopping rioting, looting, and arson; none of which would be happening if police stopped shooting black people who weren’t shooting at them.

There’s a reason for police violence hasn't stopped and it’s important that we realize that those officers aren’t just a few bad apples. In order for Derek Chauvin to have been able to kneel on George Floyd’s neck for over eight minutes while two other officers stood by, there has to be a culture within that department that says it’s acceptable to do. If such a culture didn’t exist at least one of those officers would have demanded that Chauvin back off long before Floyd suffocated. The fact that those two officers witnessed the murder and took no action at all says to me that either of them might very well have done the same thing. It also begs the question: What other less extreme abuse have these three officers perpetrated on people they’ve come in contact with? Since all three were fine with Floyd’s death and that attitude can’t have been limited to just them that entire department needs a thorough house cleaning.

As I write this, Jacob Blake is paralyzed from the waist down after being shot seven times in the back by officers in Kenosha, Wisconsin. The fact that officers continue to use extreme violence against black men three months after the start of protests against such violence says there is a culture in many departments that says extreme violence perpetrated against black men is okay.

The president’s fascist “law and order” rhetoric is being repeated by Republicans up and down the ticket, most recently by Alabama Republican congressional nominee Barry Moore who praised the white 17 year old vigilante who is charged with the murder of two and shooting of another as they were organizing a protest against police violence in Kenosha. The police chief there had the gall to blame the protesters for their own deaths and injuries because they violated curfew. The vigilante is not surprisingly a big fan of the president.

Since the election of this president there has been a significant rise in hate crimes. This year alone there have been arrests in 90 cases of domestic terrorism and the majority of those cases “are motivated by some version of what you might call white supremacist violence” according to FBI Director Christopher Wray in testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

The reality TV star is behaving much like his fascist predecessors in the 1930’s who exhorted their followers to commit violence against those they blamed for their countries’ problems. Here, in this era he blames anyone not white and anyone who disagrees with him. This is the man who hinted at “Second Amendment” remedies to the possible election of Hillary Clinton in 2016. The same man who says that there are some very fine people amongst white supremacists. The same man who says he isn’t sure he’ll leave the White House if he loses the election.

 

Incompetence, Cheating, and Corruption

The Incompetent in Chief is up to no good once again, this time he’s harping on vote by mail as being wracked by voter fraud when all the evidence is to the contrary. One of the steps he’s taken is to appoint a Postmaster General in his own image who has already begun dismantling the United States Postal Service. Of course, the party of unfettered capitalism has for years attempted to privatize postal operations claiming without evidence that private enterprise can supposedly do it cheaper.

I point to this scheme as evidence of the president’s incompetence for the following reasons. His appointee, Louis DeJoy – a major campaign donor and fundraiser, is the first Postmaster General in 20 years without prior experience in the U.S. Postal Service. DeJoy and his wife have several conflicts of interest including between $30 million and $75 million invested in postal service contractors and competitors like J.B. Hunt trucking and United Parcel Service. If you’ve noticed that your mail is taking longer to arrive than it used to that’s probably because DeJoy has banned overtime and extra trips to deliver mail in order to reduce costs. DeJoy has also ordered the removal of mail sorting machines from a number of major postal facilities. While the president might be considered successful at sabotaging the postal service, a goal his party supports, it’s clear that it isn’t in the best interest of his most avid supporters who mostly live in rural areas populated by older voters where it is the postal service that delivers their prescriptions and other vital supplies at very low costs. In fact unlike private enterprise which charges more to deliver to out of the way places and simply hands off the package to the local post office for final delivery the postal service is required by law to charge the same amount for the same service regardless of location. I can send a letter to Onaka, South Dakota for forty cents through the U.S. Postal Service but if I use Fedex it will cost at least $27.09.

As further evidence of the president’s incompetence he actually stated in an interview on Fox News that he’s withholding support for funding postal operations in order to prevent successful completion of mail in ballots. You’d think he was a movie villain telling the hero the details of his plot just before he tries to execute the hero. What the president fails to understand is that most of the people using mail ballots are his voters, especially here in Texas where you have to be 65 and up or disabled to vote by mail. Those are the very people whose votes he desperately needs if he’s to have a chance to win in November and he seems to be working hard to sabotage himself.

The president has failed to build more than a handful of miles of “the Wall” and Mexico certainly didn’t pay for it. He’s failed in his trade war with China and Europe causing even American icons like Harley Davidson to move at least some production out of the country while causing the American tax payer to pay higher prices on imported goods. Compared to Mitch McConnell, Majority Leader in the Senate, who stole a Supreme Court seat from President Obama this president is totally incompetent and I’m glad of it because he could have been far more destructive were he actually a capable leader.

Early voting starts October 13, get out and vote so we can remove this stumbling buffoon from the White House and restore dignity and respect to the office of President.

 

Cornyn Failing People of Texas

The impeached popular vote loser in the White House and his enablers in the Senate fiddle while Rome burns. The House passed the HEROES Act months ago which would continue the enhanced unemployment benefits that have kept many Americans afloat along with providing funds for cities and states to allow them to continue to pay police, firefighters, health department staff or other critical city and state services while the national economy shrinks due to the pandemic. Frustratingly neither our senator, John Cornyn (R), nor the rest of Senate Republican leadership has shown any interest in taking up that bill. Instead they’ve been unable to even reach agreement on a wide ranging bill of their own. Worse they’ve decided to try slicing up the topics into separate bills because they can’t get agreement amongst their own membership on all the topics.

State and local governments have hemorrhaged 1.5 million jobs due to the huge downturn in sales tax and other revenues. Unemployment has continued to grow and yet John Cornyn’s Republican colleagues claim that continuing the extra $600 a week of unemployment benefits will somehow discourage people from going back to work. While that extra money does offer a few people more than they would normally earn in a week it doesn’t come close to offsetting the extra money they spend on insurance premiums usually paid by their employer. As in anything I’m sure a few people are taking advantage but that happens with anything, whether it’s the grocery with a sale on turkeys, limit 2, or health insurance fraud committed by doctors. That doesn’t even take into account that the reason so many are out of work is that there are so few jobs available. I know several people looking for work every day including weekends who can find nothing they qualify for.

National news often talks about Mitch McConnell as the Senate Majority Leader having the lead role in this travesty by we in Texas should remember that his second in command is our own John Cornyn  and like anyone in such a position he has tremendous influence in the course taken by his superior. Instead of showing any interest in addressing the pandemic or the economic devastation it is causing John Cornyn has marched in lock step with McConnell. Just a couple of weeks ago Cornyn had the gall to suggest that children might not be able to contract COVID-19, a day or two later San Antonio reported more than 200 of cases of infants with it. In the last week alone over one thousand Texans died of COVID-19, Cornyn is out of touch with the people of Texas as much as he is with reality.

Early voting for the November general election starts October 13, that gives us six extra days to vote. If we’re going to turn this ship of state around before it strikes an iceberg and sinks like the Titanic it is imperative that we all get to the polls, wear your mask, and elect people who are in touch with reality and the needs of Texans, a good start would be to replace Sen. Cornyn with former Air Force helicopter pilot M.J. Hegar.

Hegar was on her third tour to Afghanistan, when her helicopter was shot down near Kandahar on a combat search-and-rescue mission. She received shrapnel wounds in her arm and leg from Taliban ground fire, and her helicopter was forced to make an emergency landing. Other U.S. Army helicopters rescued her, her team, and the other soldiers. Hegar received a Purple Heart and the Distinguished Flying Cross with Valor device.

Published in the Seguin Gazette - August 5, 2020

Political Dissent or Law and Order

Protests against racial injustice continued across the country over the weekend in cities including Austin, Texas, Portland, Oregon, Louisville, Kentucky, Seattle, Washington, Aurora, Colorado, Oakland, California, and Chicago, Illinois. Before all of those though, there were protests in Boston where a group of protesters were yelling at and threatening a government agent guarding a government building when he’d had enough he struck one of the protesters with is weapon. The other protesters took exception and began throwing clods of dirt at the agent who then for reinforcements further inflaming the situation and shortly after the agents fired their weapons at the protesters killing five and injuring six others. More recently Boston protesters met at the harbor and destroyed merchandise being delivered.

Now if you sided with the government agents in Boston, congratulations you’re a Tory supporting King George as those were the events of the Boston Massacre in March 1770 and the Boston Tea Party in December 1773. The agents were British troops protecting a customs office.

The Boston protesters were fighting what they saw as tyranny, being taxed without having a voice in the government unlike landowners in England who elected their representatives to Parliament. Current protesters are fighting injustice perpetrated by officers of the law too often killing unarmed people, sometimes completely innocent ones such as Emergency Medical Technician Breonna Taylor shot to death when police invaded her home, while rarely being punished for it.

My conservative neighbors are quite boisterous in about their right to keep and bear arms as provided for in the Second Amendment. Unfortunately they seem to have forgotten the provisions of the First Amendment specifically freedom of assembly in their desire to see protesters arrested. Yes, there has been some looting in areas where protests are held, as in any group there will be bad apples. My neighbors should know as that’s the excuse they give for police shooting unarmed people and other abuses.

We should all be aware that the Black Lives Matter protests in Portland were winding down when the president ordered federal agents to the city ostensibly to protect government buildings and businesses. The presence and actions of those agents have incited greater furor and brought out even more people than the original protests including far more white protesters.

Among the actions taken by federal agents that have reactivated the protests have been the heavy handed use of force including blinding one individual who was simply standing holding a speaker over his head and snatching people off the street at gunpoint and without identifying themselves as federal agents, holding them for many hours and then releasing them without charges or questioning. These federal agents are not trained in riot control or de-escalation and are in fact using tactics reminiscent of authoritarian governments like Spain’s Francisco Franco in the 1930’s and the military junta that held power in Argentina in the 1970’s.

In a Fox News interview with Chris Wallace a couple of weeks ago, the popular vote loser in the White House refused to say he would accept the results of the 2020 election, adding that he will “have to see” and claiming without evidence that mail-in voting will “rig the election.”

All this has led former members of the federal government from both parties to wonder what will happen if this president loses in November and refuses to leave office. Eighty of those people met via online conference to discuss and game out what might happen and how to mitigate the damage. One conclusion is that there are no provisions in law for a president who won’t leave gracefully.

 Published in the Seguin Gazette - July 29, 2020

SCOTUS Good and Bad 2

Last week I reviewed several important Supreme Court decisions from earlier in the month which brought both good news and bad news. This week we’ll look at a few more.

Chief Justice joined the reasonable members of the court in the case of Department of Homeland Security v. Regents of the University of California. The 5-4 decision holds that the Department of Homeland Security’s move to rescind the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program was arbitrary and capricious under the Administrative Procedure Act. This means that immigrants who fall under DACA provisions are still protected against deportation. It doesn’t mean that the administration can’t try again but at least they have to follow procedure which may delay final action until the election and possibly until after the inauguration.

In a win for Americans of all political stripes the 6-3 decision in Barr v. American Assn. of Political Consultants, Inc. The court held that the Telephone Consumer Protection Act of 1991, known as the TCPA, generally prohibits robocalls to cell phones and home phones. What this means to you and me is that those annoying robocalls are indeed illegal under federal law and now we just have to get the Federal Communication Commission to take it seriously and start prosecuting people for it.

I think most Americans would also agree with the 9-0 decision in Chiafalo v. Washington in which the court held that a state may enforce an elector’s pledge to support their party’s nominee – and the state voters’ choice – for president in the Electoral College. This is in regard to what is commonly known as faithless electors or presidential electors that don’t vote as they committed to once the electoral college meets to actually vote on who will be president. Remember that while we use short hand and say we are voting for president, we’re actually voting for members of the electoral college who will cast the actual vote for president. In the 2016 election 4 electors voted for someone other than the candidate that the voters sent them to support. This decision says doing so is illegal for electors from states with laws prohibiting that.

Many are disappointed with the court in its 7-2 ruling in Little Sisters of the Poor Saints Peter and Paul Home v. Pennsylvania,  which held that Little Sisters of the Poor Saints Peter and Paul Home v. Pennsylvania – ACA exception to insurance coverage of contraception the Departments of Health and Human Services, Labor and the Treasury had authority under the Affordable Care Act to promulgate rules exempting employers with religious or moral objections from providing contraceptive coverage to their employees. Justice Ginsberg’s dissent points out that accommodations like these have never before “allowed the religious beliefs of some to overwhelm the rights and interest of others who do not share those beliefs.”

While the last Supreme Court issue isn’t a ruling it’s a failure to protect voting rights. The State of Florida is doing its best to avoid following the will of the people who voted overwhelmingly to restore the right to vote to felons who served their sentences. The state decided that in order to register that all fines and court costs must be paid but the state admits that it is unable to determine how much each person owes, not to mention that the proposition that was voted on had no such requirement. I district court ruled in favor of voting rights activists and then the state appealed to a higher court which issued a stay leaving about a million potential voters unable to participate in a state election in August.

Published in the Seguin Gazette - July 22, 2020

SCOTUS Good and Bad

The last couple of weeks brought good news and bad news from the Supreme Court. In an example of the old adage that “even a stopped clock is right twice a day”, Justice Neil Gorsuch agreed with the four reasonable justices in McGirt v. Oklahoma and declared that yes, treaties between Native American nations and the United States government are indeed still in force, therefore in the eastern half of Oklahoma remains a reservation for the purpose of a federal statute that gives the federal government exclusive jurisdiction to try certain major crimes committed by “any Indian” in “the Indian country.” 

Here’s the critique of the opposition view from the end of the decision: “The federal government promised the Creek a reservation in perpetuity. Over time, Congress has diminished that reservation. It has sometimes restricted and other times expanded the Tribe’s authority. But Congress has never withdrawn the promised reservation. As a result, many of the arguments before us today follow a sadly familiar pattern. Yes, promises were made, but the price of keeping them has become too great, so now we should just cast a blind eye. We reject that thinking. If Congress wishes to withdraw its promises, it must say so. Unlawful acts, performed long enough and with sufficient vigor, are never enough to amend the law. To hold otherwise would be to elevate the most brazen and longstanding injustices over the law, both rewarding wrong and failing those in the right.”

In Trump v. Vance, Chief Justice John Roberts repeatedly referenced John Marshall, the first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, who wrote an opinion in a case also involving presidential papers and agreed that the President is not above the law and is therefore subject to subpoena of documents. “ Article II and the supremacy clause of the Constitution do not categorically preclude, or require a heightened standard for, the issuance of a state criminal subpoena to a sitting president.” Most of the justices agreed with only Thomas and Alito dissenting. This ruling enables Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance to go forward with the investigation of the president’s financial misdeeds under New York state law by allowing the subpoena of documents from various financial institutions to proceed.

In Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue the court held that the application of the Montana Constitution’s “no-aid” provision to a state program providing tuition assistance to parents who send their children to private schools discriminated against religious schools and the families whose children attend or hope to attend them in violation of the free exercise clause. In effect the five conservative justices said that your tax money must support religious schools. If you send your child to a local Lutheran or Catholic school you might find this decision appealing but if you aren’t religious and don’t want your taxes supporting such schools you’re out of luck. Evangelicals and others who disparage Islam might want to think twice about this decision also because it also means that their tax dollars must also fund Muslim schools which including Madrassahs. This court has punched a big hole in the wall of separation between church and state, I can only hope that this decision is rescinded when a more reasonable group of justices sits in the majority.

There were a number of other important decisions in the last few weeks and so next week I’ll review a few more decisions from this term.

Published in the Seguin Gazette - July 15, 2020

Trumpers In Denial Over COVID-19

Many of my Libertarian leaning as well as some Trump following neighbors are up on arms over Gov. Abbott’s day late and dollar short executive order issued July 2, that “Every person in Texas shall wear a face covering over the nose and mouth when inside a commercial entity or other building or space open to the public, or when in an outdoor public space, wherever it is not feasible to maintain six feet of social distancing from another person not in the same household”. The order contains some reasonable exceptions and one I that angers me, that being: “any person who is voting, assisting a voter, serving as a poll watcher, or actively administering an election, but wearing a face covering is strongly encouraged”. Why of all things is it OK to spread the virus to other voters and election staff?

One of the ridiculous reasons for the anger of the yahoos is based on a “personal liberty” argument. One wrote: “I think disease risk is an ever present reality that comes with human contact and individuals should be left at their own discretion to what extent they want to leave the house and put themselves at risk during a pandemic.” They contend that public health concerns should not override their right to their own unsafe behavior. If this were a matter of whether not the non-mask wearing buffoon contracted a potentially life threatening disease I’d be OK with that after all the Darwinian principle of survival of the fittest would root out the idiots. Unfortunately for us, the requirement to wear a mask is to protect everyone else from the mask wearer who could unknowingly be infected and spreading the virus with every breath they exhale. They won’t say they would defend Typhoid Mary, but that’s what it amounts to. For those unfamiliar with the story; Mary Mallon, was a New York cook who spread typhoid to her employers and their families sickening over 50 and causing the deaths of 3 directly and perhaps hundreds more indirectly in the early 1900’s. When public health authorities finally caught up to her the newspapers named her Typhoid Mary.

Another of my neighbors wrote “Until we know true numbers, it is all about control and fear. What are total deaths compared to last year? How many were due to the nursing home debacle in 5 states? Why did they switch from death count to case count?” In reality there is plenty of information available from federal and state public health agencies as well as the media that confirms the 130,000+ deaths due to COVID-19 which wouldn’t have occurred without it. Yes, many of those deaths occurred in nursing homes and killed those already in poor health but that doesn’t make those premature deaths any less significant. The naysayers also seem willing to ignore the high numbers of health care professionals who have succumbed to COVID-19 after being exposed to sick patients. My sister is a nurse at a hospital in Mississippi and was sickened by COVID-19 she was exposed to there. Fortunately she had a mild case and was able to recover at home while quarantined from her family for two weeks. It’s a shame that not all health care providers have been so lucky.

The anti-mask crowd also seems to ignore the fact that roughly 20% of confirmed cases require hospitalization and oxygen, think about the whopping hospital bill. Of those requiring care in an intensive care unit there is a high incidence of long term lung damage and a possibly other organs as well. Consider those long term costs.

Published in the Seguin Gazette - July 8, 2020

Voting Safely Up To County

Early voting for the Primary runoff starts Monday next week, Guadalupe County’s Elections Administrator has announced a series of measures her office will take to prevent the spread of COVID-19 unfortunately she believes is limited by the Secretary of State guidance to suggesting voluntary measures to voters. If a voter doesn’t want to wear a face covering elections staff can’t require it and that puts both staff and other voters at risk. One good cough or sneeze not covered can spread the virus to anyone in the area by entering through the eye.

While the trend lines for the original COVID-19 hotspots like New York and New Jersey continue downward the lines for Texas and Florida are going up at about the same rates. Naysayers claim that infection rates are going up due to more testing but that doesn’t account for the increase in the number of infected found per number of people tested or the increasing number of people requiring hospitalization due to the virus.

Many areas of Texas such as San Antonio are reporting record numbers of hospitalizations and deaths due to COVID-19 over the last week with the rate going up nearly every day for the last two weeks. Several restaurants that opened in Comal County shortly after Gov. Abbott relaxed pandemic precautions have had to close again due to large numbers of their staff becoming infected.

This issue is extremely important to me as my wife has serious health issues that put her at high risk of death if she were to contract COVID-19. Her doctors have urged her to avoid going anywhere beyond the house. As it stands today state law prohibits many people like her from voting by absentee ballot. Even if she could vote absentee, I would still be at risk of infecting her if I go vote and become exposed to someone who is infected and not wearing a face covering.

Our county commissioners can take steps to protect public health since Gov. Abbott has explicitly approved of Bexar County’s measures. We, the citizens, of Guadalupe County must advocate for public health measures similar to that of Bexar County which requires anyone entering a public building or business to wear a face covering. That means contacting our commissioners and the county judge. You can call your county commissioner at 830-303-8857 then press the number of your precinct to be connected to your commissioner, Judge Kutscher can be reached at 830-303-8867.

The county should provide disposable face masks at all polling locations so that anyone unprepared can comply with face covering requirements and still exercise their right to vote. Since this is a runoff in a primary election, turnout is likely to be relatively low so the county will have the opportunity to develop and test procedures prior to the November general election when the risk of exposure will surely be even greater due to the much higher turnout.

If proper precautions are taken by the county and all voters we can vote safely.

Published in the Seguin Gazette - June 24, 2020

Orwell, Trump, and Black Lives Matter

In a case of Orwellian doublespeak the fascist thug in the White House claimed to be “an ally of peaceful protesters” while tear gas and rubber bullets were fired to disburse crowds near the White House so Trump could walk across the street to stand on the steps of a church he doesn’t attend and flash a bible he is unlikely to have read. Days later he ordered troops to confront and intimidate peaceful protesters on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial further demonstrating that he is the true threat to our republic and our democratic institutions. US Park Police, Arlington Police, DC Metro Police and the Secret Service have all denied using any kind of tear gas on peaceful protesters in Washington, D.C.’s Lafayette Square Monday last week even though numerous canisters were recovered by journalists on the scene.  The kinds of authoritarian actions taken by this president over the last week are what I have feared since he was first elected in November of 2016.

I am not a fan of Sen. Mitt Romney (R) and his brand of vulture capitalism but it’s important to give credit where it is due so I am obliged to point out that he joined a thousand evangelical Christians marching in support of  Black Lives Matter in Washington, D.C. Sunday. Romney told reporters that he was participating in the demonstration "to make sure that people understand that black lives matter."

Former Republican Secretary of State Colin Powell said Sunday "We have a Constitution. And we have to follow that Constitution. And the President has drifted away from it." Powell joins nearly 500 other former Generals, Admirals, Ambassadors and State Department officials who "are concerned about the use of U.S. military assets to intimidate and break up peaceful protesters in Washington, D.C."

150 demonstrators participated in a peaceful march protesting police violence against black people in Vidor and other east Texas over the weekend. If it can happen in a town like Vidor which has a reputation as a racist stronghold it should be a wakeup call for Sen. John Cornyn (R) and members of the Republican congressional delegation that it’s time for them to get on board the call for racial justice; whether or not they’ll head that call is anyone’s guess.

When asked what he thought of the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police our Guadalupe County Sheriff, Arnold Zwicke, made a fool of himself saying “if people would simply comply with a lawful order, they wouldn’t find themselves in those situations.” If all lives really mattered to Zwicke and his supporters we wouldn’t be seeing protests by Black Lives Matter activists because police wouldn’t be treating our black neighbors with the violence and scorn so often aimed their way.

Admittedly Gov. Abbott and Sen. Ted Cruz have made a few remarks directed at their Texas Republican colleagues calling them out for claiming that the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis was staged and similar non-sense but I have yet to see either of them call for actually addressing the underlying reasons for the protests. No calls for accountability, no calls for systemic change in recruiting and training police, just calls to tone down language. That’s the same and saying take a nap and it will all go away. Abbott, Cruz and Cornyn need to do better and if they don’t at least Cornyn and Trump can be replaced come November.

Published in the Seguin Gazette - June 10, 2020

Trump Violates Oath of Office

It’s been an interesting couple of weeks, the squatter in the White House continues to violate his oath of office to protect and defend the Constitution by adding three new attempts to violate the Constitution to his already lengthy resume. His first violation occurred immediately upon taking office and the court case continues on his violation of the emoluments clause prohibiting a sitting president from accepting things of value from foreign governments, something Trump does every day as his Washington, D.C. hotel rents rooms to ambassadors and other foreign dignitaries. Now in the wake of declining poll numbers he’s on a tear.

The most recent three started when Trump called for re-opening the economy as he also demanded that churches be allowed to hold services with no restrictions on attendance and insisted he could force governors to do his bidding thus proposing to violate the Tenth Amendment which states: The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people. Since nowhere in the Constitution does it give the president or congress the right to force states to act in a manner contrary to their need to protect public health Trump doesn’t have that power. Any attempt to assert such control would be a violation of states’ rights. Given that the conservatives often much spurious claims that Democrats especially President Obama don’t recognize the Tenth Amendment I find it curious they haven’t made strong statements opposing Trump’s claims.

In Trump’s response to violent protests following the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police he stated “…when the looting starts the shooting starts” indicating that police should shoot protestors a looting sites. Here Trump indicates his willingness to violate the Fourth Amendment which the Supreme Court said in the 1985 case Tennessee v. Garner  “…a police officer may use deadly force to prevent the escape of a fleeing suspect only if the officer has a good-faith belief that the suspect poses a significant threat of death or serious physical injury to the officer or others.” Aside from constitutional considerations a president who was truly a leader would be acting to calm the situation and address the very real concerns of the protestors, not seeking to inflame tensions with incendiary language and threats of official violence.

And then Trump made threats to shutdown Twitter when they marked two of his tweets with fact checks showing that claims he made in those tweets weren’t truthful. Taking official action against Twitter in such a case would be a violation of the Tenth Amendment protections of freedom of expression which is oddly enough what he claims Twitter violated by showing the public he lied. Since Twitter is a private company and not a government agency nothing they could do would ever violate the Tenth Amendment as it only prohibits government censorship. Just the act of threatening to shutdown the company is in itself a violation of Tenth Amendment protections as such threat of official action can have a chilling effect on public discourse.

Sadly you won’t hear either Senator Cornyn or Senator Cruz calling out Trump for failing his oath of office or attempts to violate the constitution and that means that at least in spirit they too have violated their oath to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States. Remember in November and vote both Trump and Cornyn out of office.

 Published in the Seguin Gazette - June 3, 2020

Texas Unprepared

Two weeks after Governor Abbott issued his executive order re-opening the state for business statewide the rate of new COVID-19 cases continues to accelerate, topping 47,000 over the weekend according to the Texas Department of State Health Services. Thursday set a record for new cases in a single day at 1448 then Saturday that record was shattered with 1801 new cases. Deaths in Texas due to COVID-19 now number over 1300 and climbing as well due to Thursday’s record high 58 deaths. Remember that COVID-19 symptoms often takes two weeks to present and patients often spend a week or more in intensive care units before succumbing to the disease so there’s a strong probability that deaths due to infections contracted since re-opening aren’t included in the latest statistics and won’t show up until the end of this week or early next week.

While there have been 645,000 tests over the last 30 days the daily number of tests hasn’t increased at near the rate of infection or death. Assuming that no one has been tested twice that means just over 2% of the 29.9 million Texans has even been tested. Unlike states that are aggressively investigating COVID-19 cases by following up with people who have tested positive one on one then contacting anyone who may have come into contact with the infected person Texas is passively collecting that information by offering to accept that information on a state website. Some cities and counties such as San Antonio are operating their own aggressive contact tracing programs in an effort to stem the tide of infection and death.

So many Texans are not only unemployed, they’re also not receiving the unemployment checks they’re due. My brother is on furlough and though he applied for unemployment as soon as he was eligible it’s been a month and he still hasn’t received the money he is due nor has he been able to contact anyone at the Texas Workforce Commission about the delay as their phone number just plays a recording saying that they aren’t answering phones so they can concentrate on processing claims. Fortunately he’s not one of the 40% of Americans who lives paycheck to paycheck. Food banks all over the state have run short of food due to the overwhelming demand for their services and aside from assistance by a few private donors little is being done to alleviate the situation.

Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick’s solution is to just let people die rather than providing timely relief while protecting the lives of Texas residents.

Clearly Texas wasn’t prepared to re-open for business as usual and the employees of Texas businesses are the ones most likely to suffer for it. With the state not providing timely payment of unemployment claims and food banks running dry many Texans are going hungry. Gov. Abbott re-opening the state for business just increases the risks to workers who face a choice between not returning to work in order to protect their health thereby making themselves ineligible for unemployment benefits whenever the state gets around to paying and putting themselves at risk of not only contracting COVID-19 from someone they come in contact with at work and then spreading it to their families.

It appears that President Trump the only people whose opinion matters to Gov. Abbott and Lt. Gov. Patrick are their wealthy campaign donors who are only interested in restoring cash flow to their businesses. Remember that in November when it’s time to vote, send them a message by voting for Democrats in the state legislature races.

Published in the Seguin Gazette - May 20, 2020