Immigrant Bashing for Votes and Bad Policy

 Florida under Gov. Ron DeSantis is showing Texas what happens when a state passes draconian immigration laws. Undocumented immigrants flee the state which then shuts down construction businesses and leaves unpicked crops in the fields. Republicans in Florida are getting mad at DeSantis for wrecking their businesses while he grandstands on his harsh immigration policies while campaigning for the Republican presidential nomination in states like Iowa.

Gov. Greg Abbott just signed S.B. 4 last week which is similarly harsh regarding undocumented immigrants sending them to jail or deporting them quickly. In a few months there will be crops that need tending, homes that need building, and repairs that need doing but not enough people to do them here in Texas just like Florida today. Of course if Texas Republicans could remember as far back as 2011 they’d know this all played out before in Georgia and Alabama leaving millions of dollars in crops rotting in fields.

Florida has a 2.8% unemployment rate, which is more than 25% lower than the 3.9% national rate, so the argument that immigrants steal jobs from citizens is easily discredited. In fact there are only 53 people looking for work for every 100 job openings in Florida. Now the Republican controlled Florida legislature is considering solving the “problem” by loosening child labor laws to allow 16 and 17 year olds to work overnight during the school year. Such regulations were originally put in place to prevent work from interfering with children’s health, safety, and education. This isn’t about doing something positive for children it’s about bailing out the legislature from its own bad policy and giving benefits to corporations. From their point of view Republicans probably think high-schoolers that work too much and end up not finishing their education are a gold mine of future voters as the lower a voter’s educational attainment the less likely they are to vote for Democrats.

20 years ago Democrats and Republicans shared similar views in that they equally believed that immigrants strengthened the country. Today that’s no longer true as Republicans candidates and media talking heads have found a receptive audience for immigrant bashing. Donald Trump’s first presidential campaign and presidency raised such bashing to new heights all while Republican legislators have fought any form of comprehensive immigration reform. Today Republicans are using the desire of President Biden to continue supporting Ukraine in protecting its borders and citizens against the Russian invasion as leverage to push further harsh measures on immigrants and asylum-seekers.

Strangely we have blowhards like Senator Ted Cruz raising a ruckus about supposed open borders under Biden, a claim that is patently untrue, but which is getting media attention in Central and South American countries thereby encouraging migrants to rush to our southern border. Cruz and his Republican colleagues are actually a major cause of the very “crisis” they’re so loudly complaining about.

Then you have Congresswoman Nicole Malliotakis (R-NY) whose mother was a Cuban refugee who fled the island nation in 1959 when Fidel Castro took power. When Malliotakis campaigned to represent the 11th District of New York in 2022 her rhetoric consisted of attacking asylum-seekers. That's more than a little hypocritical coming from the direct offspring of someone who came here seeking political asylum.

Democrats have repeatedly tried to pass comprehensive immigration reform that is both fair and effective but their colleagues across the aisle refuse to cooperate. If Republicans really wanted to address immigration they’ve had plenty of opportunities but have chosen not to because they prefer to use it as a hammer when campaigning and fund-raising.

Published in the Seguin Gazette December 27, 2023

Proof Republicans Lack Moral Courage

It’s astonishing to me that contrary to what Republican legislators like Senator Bryan Hughes says about his 2021 anti-abortion bill SB8, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is dead set on proving that claims that Republican passed anti-abortion laws apply even when a woman’s life, health, and future ability to have a child is at risk.

This latest episode started with Kate Cox, a 31 year old Dallas mother of two, who was delighted to learn she was pregnant with her third child then months later learned that the fetus suffers a lethal anomaly which could cause it to be born only to die within hours at best and at worst die in her uterus and a cause fatal infection that even if treated could cause to be unable to ever have another child at worst. She wants to terminate her pregnancy and while Sen. Hughes and others claim the law allows that doctors and hospitals and their lawyers say that’s not what the law says. A Travis County district judge granted a temporary restraining order allowing Mrs. Cox to terminate her nonviable pregnancy.

A.G. Paxton then sent a letter to three hospitals, threatening legal action if they allowed the abortion to be performed at their facility. Next Paxton asked the Texas Supreme Court to intervene and they have issued a stay on the temporary restraining order, meaning the existing law remains in effect so no abortion for Mrs. Cox, she’ll just have to suffer the consequences of Republican over-zealousness.

Some months ago Hughes wrote a letter to the Texas Medical Board asking for an investigation into "disturbing allegations" that patients with serious pregnancy complications were being sent home from the hospital without care. Hughes wrote "Pregnancy complications such as these should be swiftly and reasonably treated to prevent or address a medical emergency determined by the physician," asking the Texas Medical Board to issue guidance on the issue.

Paxton is the state’s lawyer and he believes that there are no conditions under which terminating a pregnancy is not a violation of Texas law. This is the same Ken Paxton who has been impeached for accepting bribes and other crimes in order to cover up his adultery and provide his mistress with a job and home in Austin. Paxton has also been indicted for violations of federal securities laws.

About half the population of Guadalupe County is represented in the Texas Senate by Dr. Donna Campbell who talks about her career as an emergency room physician and her anti-abortion stance whenever she campaigns. You’d think that a physician, a career that most of us associate with extreme compassion, would be the first to recognize that sometimes terminating a pregnancy is medically necessary. Campbell has not once made an effort to amend the state’s anti-abortion legislation to make it possible to address the complexities of pregnancy that she must know full well exists. Of course, she’s also among the majority of Senate Republicans that voted to acquit Ken Paxton in his impeachment trial even after Paxton’s former chief assistant described his efforts to encourage Paxton to step back from his dishonorable actions and dismay at having to resign and report Paxton’s behavior.

There’s a reason that maternal mortality dropped over much of the last century but has been going back up here in Texas for the last few decades. How many women will have to die, how many will have to lose their ability to have children before these Republicans who lack empathy are forced to back off even a little on their zealous application of narrow-minded law?

Published in the Seguin Gazette - December 13, 2023

Believe Trump When He Tells You Who He Is

Respected media sources such as NBC and the right leaning Washington Post have recently reported disturbing plans that show Donald Trump and groups supporting him, especially the Heritage Foundation, marching further into right-wing authoritarianism. What’s more frightening is how positively Republican voters have reacted to his plans and pronouncements.

Trump hasn’t even been subtle about his desire to turn the Department of Justice into a retribution organization that he’d unleash on his “enemies” including his own former Attorney General William Barr, and Chief of Staff John Kelly. Trump is miffed by their harsh criticism of him since he left office in 2021. That’s in addition to Trump threatening to tap a special prosecutor to “go after” Biden and his family.

The Heritage Foundation is working on a guide for use by the next Republican administration which they’ve named Project 2025. The guide envisions changing federal service rules that would allow Trump to cut tens of thousands of civil service workers and replace them with ones deemed loyal to Trump’s agenda. The guide also calls for invoking the 1871 Insurrection Act on the first day in office in order to use military forces against protestors.

CNN reports that according to a source familiar with it Trump’s anti-immigrant plan involves rounding up undocumented immigrants already in the US and placing them in detention camps to await deportation. This sort of thing has been done before and often ends up with U.S. citizens being deported because they have brown skin and no one believes them when they claim citizenship even when documentation is provided.

Trump has said he would require local law enforcement agencies to use the widely disparaged stop-and-frisk tactic in order to receive some Justice Department funding. He’s also suggested he would deploy the National Guard to cities dealing with high levels of crime.

In a policy aimed at combating homelessness Trump calls for the building “tent cities” on “inexpensive land” staffed by health care workers, then giving homeless people a choice between relocating to the tent city or facing jail time. That’s not a solution, that’s hiding the problem and past experience with other attempts to hide problems like orphanages and homes for pregnant girls shows the residents are often abused, sometimes fatally.

In his speech at a Veteran’s day rally Trump said that “we will root out the communists, Marxists, fascists and the radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country.” The “vermin” comment wasn’t an off the cuff remark, it was contained in the written remarks provided to the press. Trump is using the same kind of language as previous genocidal leaders. Nazis characterized Jews as “rats” infecting their pure Aryan society, in Cambodia, the Khmer Rouge described their enemies as “worms” and “leeches” and in Rwanda, Hutu leaders called Tutsi “cockroaches”.

The poem on the Statue of Liberty says; “Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!” Apparently welcoming and openness is no longer appreciated by Trump and the vast majority of Republicans.

All this ugliness has been revealed by Trump and his team yet he is gaining support among Republican voters. Both Trump and his supporters are telling us who they really are, we should believe them and act accordingly.

Published in the Seguin Gazette - November 29, 2023

Not Conservative, Reactionary

The contortions that the conservative mind can go through to justify an action or choice is mind boggling. A case in point is the reaction to the claims that Hillary Clinton has classified information on her personal server and therefore risked national security. Only one actually was ever actually marked classified and it was inconsequential in content. Trump supporters chanted lock her up. Seven years later, it has become quite clear that Trump retained more than one hundred classified or higher level national security information after leaving office. Many of those documents were stored in boxes or scattered on desks at his Mar-a-Lago club behind doors with locks a ten year old could pick while foreign nationals wondered around un-escorted. I have yet to hear a single one of those chanting lock her up in 2016 say such a thing about Trump even though his behavior is far more egregious especially considering that we now know that he bragged to Australian business tycoon Anthony Pratt providing details on how stealthy our nuclear submarines are and how many nuclear missiles they carry.

Here in Texas the state legislature with the backing of Gov. Abbott passed a bill to provide incentives in the form of low interest loans to electricity generators that use fossil fuels, gas in particular. They did this claiming that it’s to brace up the electricity grid which is in danger of failing due to high energy demand. The reason we barely escaped the summer without blackouts is the record high temperatures experienced across much of the state. It is beyond doubt that climate change is causing the extreme weather and that human activity, such as burning fossil fuels and thus dumping massive amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere, is causing it. We know all that and yet our governor and state legislature are all in on building more power plants that will dump more CO2 into the atmosphere exacerbating the problem rather than mitigating it. They’d rather give away taxpayer dollars to their fossil fuel friends than arrange to build out sufficient transmission lines to the west Texas wind mills and solar power facilities that investors are anxious to build but can’t get permits because there isn’t enough transmission capacity. Let’s not forget the big freeze in 2021 when most of the state was without power for 3 days was due to gas powered plants and pipelines not being sufficiently weatherized to deal with extreme low temperatures, and nothing has been done about that.

There many other examples of the hypocrisy and denial that Republican voters and their elected officials engage in but I’ll leave you with just one more. The pro-life crowd rants about the sanctity of life but does nothing to make that life better for either child or the mother. In reality they are simply pro-birth and are quite happy to leave children go hungry, lacking in health care, with inadequate education and worst of all no hope. They will lie about abortion risking the health of the woman when the fact is that carrying a child to term in Texas is much riskier especially if you are a poor black woman.

In summation Republicans can claim to be conservative but that’s a lie, they are reactionary and I’m sick of it.

Insurrectionist in Charge

Last week House Republicans finally managed to select a new Speaker of the House to replace Kevin McCarthy. It took three weeks and several false starts to accomplish. They finally settled on Louisiana Rep. Mike Johnson, a man who’s most outstanding accomplishment is having provided the legalese of what is essentially the dog ate my homework quality excuse for voting to overturn the 2020 election in favor of Donald Trump which was then used by two thirds of the Republicans in the House.

Not only is Johnson an insurrectionist, he has voted for a nationwide ban on abortion with no exceptions and against same sex marriage. Johnson is one of the extremists even if he isn’t as loud as the first speaker candidate Jim Jordan, or Matt Gaetz who threw Kevin McCarthy under the bus.

In an interview with journalist Irin Carmon in 2015 Johnson said “Many women use abortion as a form of birth control, you know, in certain segments of society, and it’s just shocking and sad, but this is where we are. When you break up the nuclear family, when you tell a generation of people that life has no value, no meaning, that it’s expendable, then you do wind up with school shooters.” That’s a wild and evidence free connection between school shootings and abortion.

Johnson’s way out there conspiracy theory like ideas don’t stop there. He delivered a sermon at Christian Center of Shreveport in 2016 and claimed the United States was founded as a Christian nation but had gotten off track in recent years with the introduction of things like “no-fault divorce laws,” “legalized abortion,” and the teaching of evolution, per the MeidasTouch PAC.

Johnson then explained how in his addled mind this leads to mass shootings: “And people say, ‘How can a young person go into their schoolhouse and open fire on their classmates?’ Because we’ve taught a whole generation, a couple generations now of Americans, that there’s no right or wrong, that it’s about survival of the fittest, and you evolve from the primordial slime. Why is that life of any sacred value? Because there’s nobody sacred to whom it’s owed. None of this should surprise us.”

In addition to voting for a nationwide abortion ban Johnson has co-sponsored three anti-abortion bills all of which carry criminal penalties of up to five years in prison for physicians who perform abortions.

In a September 2022, Johnson spoke about is ahistorical view of the doctrine of separation of church and state saying, “The founders wanted to protect the church from an encroaching state, not the other way around. If anybody tries to convince you that your biblical beliefs or your religious viewpoint needs to be separated from public affairs, you should politely remind them to review their history and you should not back down.” Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and John Adams all said differently.

When he was chair of the Republican Study Committee, which puts out budgets, last term Johnson proposed extreme cuts to programs like Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.

The fact that the entire Republican caucus voted for an insurrectionist is another example of what I wrote a few weeks ago, voting for Republicans is voting for an authoritarian takeover of the country.

In my view Johnson’s best attribute is he has zero experience raising big campaign donations for his party which is one of the primary functions of the Speaker after setting the House agenda. Between his extremist views and lack of fundraising prowess he should be helpful in enabling a Democratic takeover of the House in 2024.

Published in the Seguin Gazette - November 1, 2023

Republicans the New Fascists

“When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross,” is a quote often mistakenly attributed to Sinclair Lewis. Given some of his books, “It Can’t Happen Here” among them, it certainly has the ring of authenticity. While Lewis wrote in the 1930’s his commentary on capitalism and politics as practiced in the United States is still relevant today, nearly a century later, and that’s truly sad. When Donald Trump campaigned for a second term as president he quite literally wrapped himself around a flag and kissed it at the Conservative Political Action Committee convention in February 2020. Later that year, in June, after days of protests over police brutality Trump strutted over to the steps of the nearby St.  John’s Episcopal Church and struck several poses holding a bible for press photos.

Merriam Webster dictionary defines fascism as “a political philosophy, movement, or regime that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition”. Trump has frequently made ugly, racist remarks about immigrants, particularly those from South and Central America while exalting white evangelicals over everyone else. Trump has threatened on numerous occasions to sue or direct the Department of Justice to punish detractors and has only been stopped from doing so by the increasingly fragile guardrails of democratic norms.

As he Republican Party has continued to move rightward becoming an expressly Christian nationalist/fascist party following Trump I fear what may happen if he or one of his clones like Florida governor Rick DeSantis were to win the presidency in 2024. Just look at what’s happening here in Texas and other southern states as women’s right to control their own bodies has been taken away and some counties even creating ordinances to make it a crime to drive a woman across that county in order to obtain and abortion out of state. They’re turning County Sheriff’s and Constables into Gestapo agents.

It’s not just the political leaders to be blamed. Republican voters are complicit as they go along with this anti-democratic behavior. If you doubt this just check the polling results for the Republican primary and you’ll see Trump leading at nearly 60%. Republican voters are willing to give up control of government by the people in order to have a leader that speaks to their bigotry. It didn’t start with Trump although he has given permission to use the ugly, racist language that until recently wasn’t spoken out loud. Look at the language and imagery attacking Barack Obama back during his term as president, it was awful including a photo of the president painted over to look like an African witch doctor and claims he wasn’t born in the United States even though Hawaii recorded his birth certificate.

In 2024 if someone votes for Trump or one of is clones they’re making a statement that they are in favor of the nation being led by a fascist tyrant. If someone tells you they didn’t want Trump or a clone but couldn’t vote for Biden because anything, they’re telling you they’re okay with an autocrat running the country. If a local official runs as a Republican and doesn’t repudiate Trump and his clones then they are complicit in wrecking this country. Whether voters or elected officials if they don’t act to stop Trump they’re as bad as Germans who joined the Nazi party but claimed they just did it to keep their jobs.

Published in the Seguin Gazette - October 18, 2023

False Patriots

When the vote to pass the continuing resolution to prevent a government shutdown was held in the House 90 Republicans voted no, 16 of them were from Texas including Chip Roy who represents Comal County. In the Senate, Ted Cruz is one of 9 Republicans who voted no. Cruz and his fellow cranks were perfectly willing to put well over 6 million Americans out of work. 4 million of who would lose out on their pay entirely as they are contract workers such as office cleaning staff, groundskeepers, and others who don’t work directly for federal agencies.

Then there are all the businesses that depend on those employees to spend their money, like the food truck or sandwich shop nearby which then furloughs employees or cuts their hours. In addition, when national parks are closed it isn’t just the park rangers who suffer, there are all the folks who made plans months in advance that would not be allowed visit the park or would be forced to leave early, the hotels they’d have stayed in, the restaurants they’d have eaten in, the gift shop in the park that is also closed so their staff is laid off. The overall economic impact on small businesses is staggering. Most estimates suggest a shutdown costs the economy over $310 million per day in direct costs.

There is also the affect a shutdown has on citizens who have business with federal agencies, often with appointments that were set weeks or months in advance. The Federal Housing Administration (FHA) would stop insuring some new mortgages. The Department of Agriculture (USDA) would stop new loan and loan guarantee activity.

All the turmoil and damage to peoples’ lives and a lot of Republicans don’t seem to care at all. Here’s one example, in an interview on C-SPAN Republican Rep. Brandon Williamson of New York said “I don't think you're going to find a huge amount of sympathy, you know, for people that have been furloughed, or early retirement, or laid off, or their pension going bankrupt.”

The big concession that was made to pass the bill to keep the federal government open for 45 more days was eliminating funding for aid to Ukraine in it’s war to eject the Russian occupiers from its territory and protect its people from the murders, rapes, and kidnapping that have been perpetrated by Russian troops. Republicans talk a good game about defending freedom and were big on “fighting communism” but they’re just fine with autocrats invading democracies. The Russian invasion of Ukraine orchestrated by Vladimir Putin was unprovoked and illegal under international law, but Donald Trump and his MAGA crowd including members of the House like Paul Gosar (AZ) and Matt Gaetz (FL), was well as J.D. Vance (OH) among others in the Senate are willing to turn their backs on the desperate people of Ukraine. They are unwilling to stand up to the bully even though no American troops are involved and most European countries are handing over equipment, ammunition, and supplies in addition to providing training for troops and repairs to damaged equipment.

Anyone who thinks that if Putin succeeds in Ukraine he’ll stop hasn’t studied history at all. They should go back and review Neville Chamberlain’s policy of appeasement when Hitler violated the terms of the treaty that ended World War 1. Hint, Hitler invaded Poland, Denmark, Norway, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, France, Yugoslavia, and Greece in just 2 years.

Republicans are willing to wreck American lives and the economy as well as world peace. Remember that when they claim to be patriots.

Published in the Seguin Gazette - October 4, 2023

Paxton Acquittal Proves Republicans Corrupt

Last Saturday proved that most of the Texas Senate’s Republican membership is just as corrupt as their federal counter-parts by acquitting Attorney General Ken Paxton of all 16 charges. Only two Republican senators, Kelly Hancock of Fort Worth and Robert Nichols of Jacksonville, had the integrity to vote for conviction.

The evidence presented of criminal wrong-doing, such as Article 10 accusing Paxton engaged in bribery in violation of the Texas Constitution when Paul provided extensive renovations to Paxton’s Austin home and in return, Paul received favorable legal help from Paxton’s agency, was overwhelming yet 16 of 18 Republican senators ignored the facts and testimony of former staff in order to fulfill an entirely partisan agenda. It’s not even like removing Paxton from office would have somehow placed a Democrat in the Attorney General’s office, after all an appointee of Gov. Abbott has been running the office since Paxton was suspended after the House impeached him months ago. Every senator who voted go acquit is now complicit in the Paxton’s crimes.

I’m no stranger to crooks holding high public office, I lived in Louisiana when Edward W.  Edwards served four terms as governor and the only time I voted for him was in 1991 when the Republican candidate was Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke and even many Republicans voted for Edwards. At the time there was a bumper sticker that many Republicans put on their cars “Vote for the crook, it’s important”. Here in Texas we voters knew Paxton was dirty and we didn’t have such a poor choice in the last election and yet Paxton won handily.

As Common Cause Texas Executive Director Anthony Gutierrez pointed out after the acquittal, "During the course of this trial, corruption, bribery, abuse of office, and dereliction of duties were proven beyond a reasonable doubt. In any impartial court in the country, the verdict would almost certainly have gone differently." Now that even more evidence of Paxton’s corruption has been presented to the public we can hope that real independents and the few Republicans with integrity will vote him out of office in 2026.

Every Democrat will have to talk to their friends and family about Paxton’s criminality and the complicity of Republican senators when they’re up for election again. We’ll have to be more persuasive than Republican cultist and Gazette columnist Terry Harper who was one of the leaders of the effort to censure Rep. John Kuempel for among other things not being sufficiently “conservative”.

As reported in the Texas Tribune Rep. Steve Toth, a Republican from the Woodlands and a member of the House’s Freedom Caucus stood outside the Senate chamber after the acquittal and stated “The Texas House owes all of Texas a big apology, this was a sham … This is terribly destructive to the Republican Party of Texas.” Toth said he expects there to be “retribution” by voters for his fellow Republicans who supported Paxton’s impeachment. And he agreed that the party’s internecine conflict has no end in sight. Since Rep. Kuempel voted in favor of impeachment I suspect he’ll find himself challenged in the primary. Conversely Senator Donna Campbell who voted to acquit probably won’t. The radical right truly does run the Republican Party of Texas.

Edwin W. Edwards finally went to federal prison in 2001, five years after leaving office. With the current federal criminal cases hanging over Paxton we can only hope justice is served quicker than in Edwards’ case.

 Published in the Seguin Gazette - September 20, 2023

Electricity, Money, and Diversion

 For over a decade Texas and the rest of the world has been suffering record high temperatures in June, July, and August with more frequency. Across the globe we see Arctic sea ice at unusually low levels. In some parts of the world continued dissipation of glaciers have revealed bodies of early humans and extinct animals that were once encased in hundreds of feet. In the United States and elsewhere, there have been both massive wildfires spreading heavy smoke over thousands of square miles and torrential rains that caused rivers to overflow destroying homes and lives. Hurricanes have already struck both California and Florida and there are two more very powerful storms out there, Lee in the Atlantic and Jova in the Pacific off Baja California.

Here in Texas a few weeks ago we came within a hairs breadth of the rolling blackouts to prevent the entire grid from shutting down. One of the ways that the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) avoided such drastic action was to pay nearly $32 million to Riot Platforms, a Bitcoin miner to “voluntarily curtail its energy consumption”. In other words they powered down most of the computers they have running all day every day making calculations that run the crypto-currency exchanges. What’s really disgusting is that $32 million which we’re paying as part of our electric bills is nearly 4 times what Riot Platforms would have earned had they left the computers running. Riot Platforms isn’t the only crypto-currency mining operation in Texas with this kind of sweetheart deal it’s just the one that announced receiving such excessive payments in a press release.

Rather than take action to address the increasing demand for electric power in Texas by helping homeowners improve insulation or provide incentives to install solar panels and batteries the state legislature pass SB 2627 which a low interest load program funded by the state for companies that build or upgrade power plants and pay a bonus for getting them connected quickly. The program will not provide loans for battery storage facilities even though they could serve to provide significant buffers during high use periods like 5pm when temperatures are highest and people are getting home from work and turning on their air conditioners.

All this is just more proof that the Republican controlled Texas legislature is more concerned with enriching their friends in the fossil fuel industry than addressing the very real threat of global climate change. Coffee production in Columbia, corn and soy beans in Argentina, as well as other crops throughout South American has been hurt by a multi-year drought. Here in Texas, corn and sorghum production is down and cattle ranchers are selling of parts of their herds due the ongoing drought in much of the state.

To divert voter attention from their 20+ year failure to actually make the lives of Texans better the governor and legislature spend their time fighting faux villains like trans-gender athletes and drag queens. It’s up to independent voters that lean conservative to recognize that they’re being conned into voting for those who only want to enrich their already very wealthy friends while exercising power over women, those of other faiths, and people who don’t fit in easy gender classifications.

Published in the Seguin Gazette - September 13, 2023

Chaplains Don't Belong in Public Schools

On Friday, September 1, one of the new laws taking effect in Texas, SB 763, authorizes public school districts to hire chaplains using funds allocated to improve school safety and security. There are several problems with this, no requirement for training in child psychology or development, no prohibition on proselytizing, and it is clearly unconstitutional.

Conservative Christian proponents of the bill claim without evidence the bringing religion into public schools will somehow reduce violence, drug use, and suicide in schools. I went to Catholic schools for 12 years with nuns and brothers as teachers and I can tell you from personal experience there was no lack of violence or drug use in Catholic schools. House Democrats offered amendments that would have required chaplains to have similar accreditation as chaplains who work in prisons or the U.S. military, to bar proselytizing or attempts to convert students from one religion to another; to require chaplains to receive consent from the parents of school children; and to make schools provide chaplains from any faith or denomination requested by students. All of those amendments failed.

In legislative hearings, the bills proponents like Rocky Malloy, assured lawmakers that chaplains were not interested in proselytizing. Malloy, a self-described former drug-smuggling pirate saved by divine intervention, founded and runs Mission Generation, the  group’s website says “Mission Generation has 20 years of experience bringing Jesus to the classrooms of public schools.”

The Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty opposed the bill and has organized efforts to urge school boards to keep chaplains out of public schools. In a letter to school boards signed by over 100 certified chaplains they state “As trained chaplains, we are not qualified for the duties envisioned by SB 763. We cooperate with mental health counselors – we do not compete with them. Further, professions which help children with sensitive matters, such as therapists and police investigators, typically require special training on how to interview and treat juveniles. Few chaplains have this expertise.”

I don’t know about you but when my daughter was in public school I’d have been quite upset if some Protestant or Evangelical chaplain had been proselytizing to her in the guise of counseling.

SB 763 is part of a broad push by conservative Christians to insert religion in public life claiming that separation of church and state is a false doctrine. Mind you these are the same folks who claim that if it isn’t specifically stated in the constitution that it isn’t constitutional when arguing that the Department of Commerce or Department of Education shouldn’t exist. Anyone who reads the constitution will see that there are only two mentions of religion. The first is in Article VI which says in part “The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.” The second is in the First Amendment stating “Congress make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting its free exercise.”

You have an opportunity to put a stop to this in your community. Find out when the school board meets and plan to attend at least long enough to participate in the citizens to be heard segment which is usually in the early part of the meeting. Tell them you want the board’s official policy to be that chaplains are not hired or accepted as volunteers.

Published in the Seguin Gazette - August 30, 2023

Injustice Clarence Thomas

Congressional Republicans like Monica de la Cruz and Speaker Kevin McCarthy are talking about impeaching President Biden as a way to deflect attention from all the indictments and very real corruption of the real estate con man who lost the popular vote twice and is once again the leading candidate for the Republican nomination. They’ve also now got their work cut out diverting the public’s eyes from the lengthening list of ethical and legal violations of several Republican members of the Supreme Court most especially Justices Clarence Thomas.

Research and reporting by ProPublica the nonprofit Pulitzer Prize-winning newsroom that investigates abuses of power has provided an ever lengthening list of corrupt behavior by Thomas.

During his 32 years on the Supreme Court, Clarence Thomas has enjoyed a lifestyle most Americans can only imagine which has been provided by a list ultra-wealthy corporate magnates and executives who have taken him on lavish vacations aboard their yachts, invited him to premium suites at sporting events and sent their private jets to pick him up. On more than one occasion, a 737 was sent just for him. The list of luxury is both longer and from a larger group than has been previously understood or reported. The broad range of leisure activities have been paid for by wealthy conservative benefactors who share the ideology that drives Thomas' judicial philosophy but didn’t have any connection to him until he gained his seat on the nation’s highest court.

Pro-Publica reports “At least 38 destination vacations, including a previously unreported voyage on a yacht around the Bahamas; 26 private jet flights, plus an additional eight by helicopter; a dozen VIP passes to professional and college sporting events, typically perched in the skybox; two stays at luxury resorts in Florida and Jamaica; and one standing invitation to an uber-exclusive golf club overlooking the Atlantic coast.”

None of the men who have provided the luxury travel - oil baron Paul Novelly, billionaire H. Wayne Huizenga, former Berkshire Hathaway executive David Sokol, and Texas real estate tycoon Harlan Crow - appear to have met Thomas prior to him taking a seat on the Supreme Court. Crow is the only one whose name appears in Thomas’ financial disclosures, where justices are required by law to publicly report most gifts. The total value of the undisclosed trips they’ve given Thomas since he was appointed to the Supreme Court in 1991, is difficult to measure. But it’s likely in the millions. All indications are that Thomas violated the law when he chose not to disclose flights, yacht cruises and expensive sports tickets, according to ethics experts.

Maybe more important is that even if reported the breadth of free vacation travel is well outside of judicial norms according to seven current and former federal judges appointed by both parties and other experts. Jeremy Fogel, a former federal judge who served for years on the judicial committee that reviews judges’ financial disclosures said “In my career I don’t remember ever seeing this degree of largesse given to anybody, I think it’s unprecedented.”

Since Chief Justice John Robert’s can’t be bothered to take action of Thomas’ ethics and Republican Speaker Kevin McCarthy isn’t about to impeach Thomas we’ll have to wait for Democrats to return to majority in the House. Sadly even that is unlikely to actually accomplish much as it takes 60 Senators to convict and its doubtful Democrats will gain such a majority in 2024.

Published in the Seguin Gazette - August 16, 2023

Bidenomics and You

You might think that the more than 13 million jobs created under President Biden are just recovering the jobs lost in the pandemic, but even if you exclude the 10 million jobs that got us back to pre-pandemic level, job growth since then has been about twice as fast as pre-pandemic job growth under Trump.

Something often overlooked is the incredibly low unemployment rate during this recovery for veterans. Nationally veteran unemployment hit a record low of 2.2%, and has been under 3.5% for 19 straight months, the longest such stretch on record. Workers without a high school diploma and workers with a high school degree who did not attend college are also seeing extremely low unemployment rates. Adjusted for age, a larger share of our population, 16 or older, was working at a job last month than anytime in the last 45 years, or probably ever. Unemployment in 24 states is at or below 3%, a new record. Texas is not among them, we're at just over 4%.

Private business investment in facilities and equipment accelerated, contributing 1 percentage point to second quarter growth. Private construction of facilities alone, such as factories, contributed about 0.4 percentage point, this category’s largest growth contribution since 1981.

The recovery under President Biden has been significantly stronger than Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projected when he first took office. In 2023, the CBO says there will be more than 3 million more individuals employed than they projected when Biden took office. The latest data shows we’re on track to have the first, second, and third best years for new business applications on record, all under President Biden.

It’s not just government agencies making these claims, Morgan Stanley has revised its economic projections upward. Here’s why, infrastructure spending is surging and manufacturing is booming. Both of those forces, manufacturing and infrastructure, are the key parts of President Biden’s economic agenda, which the media is beginning to call Bidenomics.

There’s been a shift in economic arguments that have gone on for many years to one that says investing directly in American workers and American families, via the expanded Child Tax Credit, was the right thing to do in bad economic times. Then in 2021 and 2022, as we moved from relief to recovery, the administration pushed Build Back Better which was not just a slogan, but an actual idea premised on a better way to manage the economy, the Biden team made an affirmative decision to invest in America directly, including over a trillion dollars in infrastructure. And even more cutting-edge was their decision to build safer, stronger supply chains: bringing jobs back home through laws that would build everything from semiconductors to wind and solar to cars and batteries, mostly here at home.

This is Keynesian economics all over again; that’s the Depression era policy that President Roosevelt used to start the country on the road to recovery.

The experience of the past 2.5 yrs shows that we have the tools to avoid painful spells of unemployment and to keep workers empowered with a strong job market. President Biden has been focused on using these tools, and American workers and the American economy have reaped the benefits.

In short Biden’s and the Democrats he leads have been incredibly good for workers in this country and all indications are it will only get better while he’s in office.

NDAA and the Republican Agenda

Congressional Republicans claim that diversity training in the U.S. military is somehow a threat to our national security and have amended the National Defense Authorization Act to prohibit such training. One of the amendments proponents, Rep. Eli Crane (R-Ariz.), said the quiet part out loud while advocating for his amendment saying it had “nothing to do” with “whether colored people, or Black people, or anybody can serve.” Needless to say such bigoted language caused quite a stir in particular among black members of Congress. Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas) commented: “You can’t make this up. This is who these people are, and who they’ve always been.”

Republican amendments restricting the funding of abortion services, diversity initiatives and gender-affirming care were approved Thursday. The House voted 221-213 to prohibit the secretary of Defense from covering expenses relating to abortion services, with our congressman Rep. Henry Cuellar the lone Democrat voting for the amendment.

Quite a few GOP members of the House tried to restrict the Biden administration from providing military hardware and supplies to Ukraine while it struggles to defend itself against the illegal invasion by Vladimir Putin’s Russian troops. I’m amazed that the party that claims to be all about national security and supporters of the troops has so many members who are unwilling to help a friend to stand up to a bully. Fortunately that amendment was roundly defeated.

If that’s not enough, Christian nationalist Rep. Mike Turner introduced an amendment making it illegal for members of the military to even communicate with Military Religious Freedom Foundation. The MRFF advocates for service members who have been penalized for not participating in religious services even when they are of some other faith, among other inappropriate religiously oriented activities of their commanding officers. That amendment was buried amongst a bunch of other last minute detail and was passed without a fuss because no one noticed.

Now the NDAA goes on to the Senate which is controlled by the Democrats where at least some of these ridiculous amendments are dead on arrival. Nevertheless there will be a fight during reconciliation of the two versions of the bill that is required for final passage.

On the Senate side Tommy Tuberville, former Auburn University football coach and now U.S. Senator from Alabama, continues to hold up promotions of more than 260 one-, two- and three- star generals and admirals. Tuberville’s holds also delay the confirmation of the Pentagon’s top leaders, who make up the Joint Chiefs of Staff, including the chairman. Right now the U.S. Marine Corps is without a confirmed leader for the first time in a century. The current Joint Chiefs chairman, Army Gen. Mark Milley, is required by law to step down at the end of September, while the current Army chief will leave his post in early August. Tuberville’s tif is over the same abortion related policy that the amendment to the NDAA seeks to prohibit. Tuberville’s pettiness is forcing less experienced leaders into top jobs and raising concerns at the Pentagon about military readiness.

The fact that no one in the Senate’s Republican caucus has put pressure on Tuberville to withdraw his hold tells you all you need to know about how they really feel about military readiness.

I’m a little more disgusted with Republican leaders and the people who vote for them every day.

Published in the Seguin Gazette - July 19, 2023

Hypocrisy Thy Name is Republican

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

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

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

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

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

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

Trump Indictment Charges No Comparison

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

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

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

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

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

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

Published in the Seguin Gazette - June 14, 2023

Texas Lege Failures 2023

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Published in the Seguin Gazette - June 7, 2023

Paxton Impeachment

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Published in the Seguin Gazette May 31, 2023

Debt Ceiling and Republican Propaganda

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Published in the Seguin Gazette - May 10, 2023

Republicans and Bogeymen vs. Guns

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Published in the Seguin Gazette - April 26, 2023

Republicans Subverting Our Democracy

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Published in the Seguin Gazette - April 19, 2023

Greg Abbott Panders to Violent Right with Daniel Perry Pardon Announcement

 The last few months have seen a high number of outrageous legislative and executive actions taken in Texas, Florida, and other states by the radical right wing neo-fascists in control. Most recently our governor, Greg Abbott, has publicly stated that he will pardon convicted murderer Daniel Perry as soon as the paperwork hits his desk. Perry is the man who in 2020 drove his car into a group of peaceful protesters and proceeded to gun down Garrett Foster. Black Lives Matter protesters were on the streets of Austin for days legally and peacefully protesting when Perry ran a red light and drove into the crowd then pulled a gun and shot Foster. The 12 member jury unanimously convicted Perry after learning that he had made numerous social media posts discussing ideas on how to create a situation in which he could shoot a protester and then claim self-defense. The judge hasn’t even sentenced Perry, nor has an appeal been filed yet. Legal experts including a former criminal court judge and a law professor say Abbott’s actions are unprecedented. Abbott is a former Texas Supreme Court justice and knows that his actions are legally wrong.

Abbott didn’t attend Perry’s trial so he hasn’t seen the testimony yet he has already instructed the Board of Pardons and Paroles to investigate the case as he intends to issue a pardon. Since the governor appoints the members of the Board of Pardons and Paroles his instructions and public statements make it clear what is expected of them. This is a travesty of justice. Worse it is dangerous as it encourages other white men to attack protestors or anyone else they disagree with on the assumption that they’ll be protected by the government. This sort of behavior by a high government official is what you expect in places like El Salvador and Uganda where the rule of law is given short shrift by those in power.

Between Gov. Abbott’s outrageous statements and the pronouncements of far right talking heads like Fox News’ Tucker Carlson it’s as if the right can’t see how their own rhetoric and actions are reminiscent of Italy in the 1920’s when fascist dictator Mussolini became Prime Minister on a nationalist platform. There are also elements of the 1994 Rwandan genocide in the calls for violence against other peaceful members of our society. It’s a frightening time to live in this country. The governor is playing politics by pandering to gun cult and white nationalist voters as he prepares to run for president in 2024 and endangering the public to do it.

Our governor isn’t the only Texas elected official pandering to white nationalists, there’s also state representative Bryan Slaton out of Greenville who filed HB 2889 which if passed would provide property tax discounts of 10% for each child living with their married parents. So a family with 10 children would pay no property taxes. That might seem innocuous at first but consider that the bill disallows that discount if either parent has ever been divorced. Slaton is pandering to Christian conservatives who push against the availability of divorce. Those are the same voters most likely to be White Christian nationalists who also don’t recognize our constitution’s express separation of church and state.

Republicans like Abbott and Slaton keep raising the stakes so they can stand out from the crowd of right wing extremists.

Published in the Seguin Gazette - April 12, 2023

Biden's First Term Achievements

I often discuss the bad policies of Republicans but seldom talk about the good things Democrats do. To at least partially correct my failing I’ll point out just of few of the many things that President Biden has been at least partially responsible for and for which we should all be thankful.

As you may recall when Joe Biden took office in January 2021 the COVID-19 pandemic was still raging and our economy was a wreck with many businesses shuttered and Americans out of work. Soon after taking office, congress passed and the President signed the American Rescue Plan which changed the course of the pandemic and jumpstarted our economic recovery. That legislation funded our successful vaccination campaign, safely re-opened schools for in-person learning, and helped 200,000 child care providers keep their doors open, while delivering financial relief to American families.

In August 2022 Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act which is a historic achievement that lowers costs for families, combats the climate crisis, reduces the deficit, and finally makes the largest corporations pay their fair share. Never before has Medicare been allowed to negotiate the price of certain high-cost drugs. Because of that bill a month’s supply of insulin for seniors is capped at $35 and Medicare beneficiaries pay $0 out of pocket for recommended adult vaccines. In addition seniors’ out of pocket expenses at the pharmacy will be capped at $2,000 a year.

Thanks to President Biden’s economic plan, 2021 and 2022 were the two strongest years of job growth in history. Nearly 11 million jobs have been created since President Biden took office, including 750,000 manufacturing jobs. The unemployment rate is at a 50-year low, and a record number of small businesses have started since President Biden took office. Black Americans and Hispanic Americans have near record low unemployment rates and people with disabilities are also experiencing record low unemployment.

As a result of historic legislation President Biden has signed into law, there is a manufacturing boom taking hold across America: in two years, companies have announced nearly $300 billion in manufacturing investments in the United States. These investments are ensuring the technologies of the future are made in America, and bringing back supply chains from overseas. Numerous rechargeable battery and semi-conductor factories have been announced as a result of the CHIPS Act. These new plants are creating good-paying jobs, including union jobs and jobs that don’t require a four-year degree, meaning that prosperity will be shared widely.

Under Joe Biden’s leadership the U.S. is positioned to achieve our ambitious climate goals of cutting our emissions in half by 2030 and net-zero emissions by 2050. The President has taken executive action and signed legislation to develop clean energy at home, accelerate the adoption of electric vehicles, and reduce pollution that endangers overburdened communities. And, the President is lowering energy costs for families, creating good paying jobs, and ensuring America leads the global clean energy economy. The President also protected more lands and waters in his first year than any President since John F. Kennedy.

It’s unfortunate that Republicans took control of the House this January as they have will slowed down or stopped any further achievements this term. There is much more that our current president has achieved in just the first two years of his term and I’ll likely point them out in a future column.

Published in the Seguin Gazette April 5, 2023

Lobby Trip to Austin - Education Budget

 

Every two years the Texas state legislature meets address the needs of the citizens by passing legislation and budgets for the next two years. Budgeting state funds is always a contentious affair, especially education funding. A couple of friends and I went to Austin a two weeks ago to speak to our state representative John Kuempel and our state senator Donna Campbell in support of increasing state funding for public education and against private school vouchers.

Our first meeting was with John Kuempel. My friends took the lead on urging his support for raising teacher pay and increasing state funding for retired teachers. Kuempel was quite receptive and said he fully understood as his wife had been a public school teacher until recently and he had a very clear idea of what they do and what they deserve. I then brought up our concerns about private school vouchers and the use of tax payer money supporting religious schools. Representative Kuempel told us he was firmly against such legislation this term just as he has been in every other session of the legislature as it doesn’t make any sense for his district. He also said that he is speaking with his colleagues in the House advocating against any such bill. Needless to say we thanked him for his support and encouraged him to keep it up.

Once we made our way through the capitol building to Senator Campbell’s office we met with her staff member specializing in public education, a woman around 30. As we spoke with her about our interest in a strong public education system we learned that has two young children in Austin ISD schools and is therefore also interested in quality education. She explained that while Sen. Campbell wants to see teacher pay increased she’s unwilling to support just increasing state funding to bring the percentage of school district budgets provided by state funds back to the historical average of 50% from the current low of 41%. She told us that the senator feels that school districts can’t be trusted to spend the money on teacher salaries so instead she’ll support some form of narrowly constructed bill that forces districts to only use the money on teacher pay.

I then asked her how that reconciled with the philosophy of local control and the assumption that local school boards knew best the needs of their districts. Her defense was that school board elections are low turnout affairs and that often leads to boards which make poor decisions that aren’t truly representative of the people in the district. Rather than continue to argue this point I moved on to our view on spending taxpayer money on private school vouchers. The staff member said that Sen. Campbell is a strong supporter of vouchers and has been since first being elected as are many of her constituents. I told her that we believed that taxpayer funds should only be spent on public schools as there would be no transparency on how those funds were spent since private and religious schools don’t have publicly elected boards and aren’t required to make their budgets publicly available. We were told that Sen. Campbell didn’t share that concern.

I also brought up that private and religious schools aren’t required to meet the same standards as public schools with regard to curriculum or having students take the STAAR tests. I reminded her that private and religious schools don’t get graded by the state and are required to address poor performance like public schools are. We closed by asking that she relay our views to the Senator.

Published in the Seguin Gazette - March 22, 2023

More Republican Crazy Legislation

A few weeks ago in this column I wrote about some of the Republican bills filed in various states including here in Texas that really aren’t good for the country. Since then several more have surfaced; it’s almost like some of these legislators heard about what was being proposed and said hold my beer as they vie to file even more extremist bills.

In South Carolina H.B. 3549 by state Rep. Rob Harris (R-Spartanburg County) would define any unborn child, at any stage of development from the moment of fertilization, as a “person.” The bill also makes clear that all penalties for crimes against a “person” apply and since South Carolina has the death penalty that punishment can be applied to a mother who feels the need to control her own body and the doctor who performs the procedure. In addition the bill specifically says the “law of parties” applies so other members of the medical staff, the receptionist, and the friend who drove the woman to the appointment can all be charged with murder and suffer the death penalty upon conviction. As usual with Republicans Harris doesn’t understand the constitution’s stance on separation of church and state as he  justifies the legislation with religious belief as shown in this passage from its text "The General Assembly finds the following: Acknowledging the sanctity of innocent human life, created in the image of God...". Don’t think that Rep. Harris is a lone crackpot as the bill currently has gained 17 other sponsors over the last few weeks.

Then there’s Florida where Republican state Sen. Jason Brodeur filed SB 1316 just over a week ago. His bill would require bloggers who write about state officials to disclose who is paying them and how much. "If a blogger posts to a blog about an elected state officer and receives, or will receive, compensation for that post, the blogger must register" with the appropriate office within five days of the post, the legislation says. The bill says blog “does not include the website of a newspaper or other similar publication." The executive director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, Bruce Brown says "When a bill this plainly unconstitutional is introduced it's essential that journalists explain to the public why it runs afoul of the First Amendment.” Brown further explained "Our system of free expression rejected the British tradition of licensing printers because we recognized that it was the essence of self-rule to have complete freedom to criticize the public officials who act in our name. The registration regime proposed here would encumber that and deny Floridians their right to hear from a variety of voices about the conduct of their elected leaders." It never ceases to amaze me that Republicans pretend to be defenders of the constitution but in reality only care about their recent interpretation of the Second Amendment.

Texas Republicans certainly don’t want to be outdone so a slew of them in both House and Senate filed bills to prevent any governmental or business entity in the state from requiring COVID-19 vaccinations. Should S.B. 1177 filed by Senator Bob Hall pass neither public nor private schools could require students to have been vaccinated for COVID-19. Hall also filed S.B. 308 which would prohibit any public accommodation, meaning restaurant, hotel, bakery, etc. from so much as separating vaccinated customers from un-vaccinated customers. Senator Lois Kolkorst filed S.B. 1026 which prohibits employers from requiring their employees to be vaccinated against COVID-19. Representative Jeff Leach filed HB 3475 and several other Republicans filed all filed similar bills.

Published in the Seguin Gazette - March 8, 2023

Republicans Full of Bad Ideas

 A couple of weeks ago I wrote about some of the issues that school vouchers will cause if passed by the Texas legislature. That kind of ill-conceived law isn’t limited to education, nor to Texas. Unfortunately, Republicans in state legislatures around the country have some other bad ideas they’re filing bills on the recently.

In the Texas legislature, Republican State Representative Carrie Isaac, filed House Bill 2390, which would prohibit counties from putting a polling place at a college or university. This would seem to be a response to the 14% rise in registered voters among young people ages 18-24 over the last four years.

According to Common Cause Texas Voting Rights Program Manager Katya Ehresman, “We know young people who vote soon after turning 18 are far more likely than others to become lifelong, habitual voters. Texas Republicans seem determined to keep that from happening, despite the fact that Texas perpetually ranks at or near the bottom among all states when it comes to participating in elections.

Texas has the fastest growing population in the nation, largely led by young voters of color, and some politicians clearly see this as a threat. This bill is an unabashed attempt to manipulate the outcome of elections by suppressing the voices of our increasingly young and diverse electorate.”

Last week two Idaho lawmakers introduced HB 154 which would charge those who administer mRNA vaccines with a misdemeanor. The bill sponsored by Sen. Tammy Nichols and Rep. Judy Boyle says "A person may not provide or administer a vaccine developed using messenger ribonucleic acid technology for use in an individual or any other mammal in this state." Nichols said the bill is specifically about the two COVID-19 vaccines by Pfizer and Moderna.

In Florida, Republicans have instituted book bans in public schools and universities. 176 books have been removed from classrooms in Duval County, Florida, think Jacksonville. They were removed in the last year because of new laws passed by the Florida legislature and signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis. ABC News reports that upwards of 1 million books are now under review in Duval County alone. Among the books under review are titles on Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor and "Queen of Salsa" Celia Cruz. All these books are under investigation because of The "Stop W.O.K.E." Act, the Parental Rights in Education law, and House Bill 1467. The Stop W.O.K.E. Act makes the odd claim that teachers are teaching white kids that they're inherently evil racists and Black students that they're morally superior to their white counterparts. In reality Republicans just don’t want their grandchildren to learn that their grandparents were screaming death threats at six year old Ruby Bridges when she walked up the steps of the formerly all-white William Frantz Elementary School in New Orleans and had to be guarded by Deputy U.S Marshals.

Child labor law violations in the US increased 37% in fiscal year 2022 and the Department of Labor reported the problem has been going on since 2015. In 2022 688 children were found to be working in hazardous conditions. The Republican solution is to push to roll back protections against child labor. In Iowa, Wisconsin, Ohio and Minnesota, Republican legislators introduced bills to extend the hours 14 and 15 year-olds would be allowed to work and some bills would expand the types of jobs children would be permitted to do as part of approved training programs, extend allowable work hours, and exempt employers from liability if these young workers are sickened, injured or killed on the job.

Published in the Seguin Gazette - February 23, 2023