Why Did We Lose?

 After the devastating results of last week’s election it is no surprise that various and sundry talking heads and pundits have been offering their “analysis” of the cause. Turnout was down 6% in Texas even as more people were registered to vote then ever before. Nationally turnout was down about 1.5% and lower turnout is invariably bad for Democrats. 

I’ve read and seen a number of those critiques many of which blame Harris for running a bad campaign. Others say and I agree that Harris actually ran a technically great campaign yet those pundits aren’t entirely wrong. I think that Robert Reich, former Secretary of Labor during the Clinton administration, and Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) have the best answer. Both Reich and Sanders have long promoted the idea that working stiffs like you and I are getting a raw deal from corporate interests, whether you work for one of those big corps or even run your own small business.

Businesses can right off expenses like corporate jets and even yachts if they claim they are for business use but you and I can’t even get a tax deduction for the interest payments on our student loans. Businesses can declare bankruptcy and essentially get all their loans forgiven or pay just pennies on the dollar but if you or I declare bankruptcy we still owe the entire balance of a student loan plus interest.

Reich and Sanders argue that the average American worker has every right to be fed up with neo-liberal Democrats who have passed legislation in favor of corporations while at the same time failed to pass even a long overdue increase in minimum wage. Yes, Joe Biden has been good to labor over the last four years but it hasn’t been near enough and it isn’t just his fault. Too many Democrats in Congress have been captured by the uber-wealthy donors who fund their political campaigns. It’s a lot like Stockholm Syndrome or the phenomenon known as regulatory capture, those legislators spend so much time schmoozing with big money donors that they start seeing the world through the eyes of those donors. Once their worldview aligns with big money they are more easily convinced that voting in the interests of their “friends” is a good idea.

I don’t excuse them for losing sight of the reason they were elected but I do understand how it can happen. That’s brings up another issue that Sen. Sanders points out in his analysis and has been campaigning against for a long time; which is the problem of money in politics. Campaign finance has always been problematic but ever since the Supreme Court decision known as Citizens United which overturned many of the limits on campaign donations at the federal level the amount of money donated and therefore the amount of money any campaign needs to win an election is 5 times what it was in 2000 and that’s after adjusting for inflation.

None of this is to say that Republicans have a better track record on labor issues just that Trump at least recognized it as a significant campaign issue. His “solution” was to blame immigrants just like he did in his to previous campaigns regardless of the fact that immigrants aren’t the problem. He certainly isn’t about to blame big business as those campaign donors favored him. While Trump isn’t actually going to do anything helpful many of the 60% of Americans who live paycheck to paycheck voted for him because they felt he at least was listening to them and Democratic candidates weren’t.

Published in the Seguin Gazette - November 13, 2024

Vote for Harris to Lower Grocery Bill

 Some of those complaining loudest about problems the Biden – Harris administration hasn’t solved are folks who voted for Republicans in 2022 which left Democrats with a single vote majority in the Senate and a Republican controlled House. Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) has such a thin majority that the high number of cranks in his party has left him unable to even pass budget bills in a timely fashion.

One of the complaints you’re likely to hear most often is that grocery bills have gone way up. There are voters who somehow believe that Trump’s policies would bring grocery bills back down, but let’s face it once inflation raises prices they rarely go back down more that a small amount. Trump’s proposed national sales tax Trump is proposing on all goods that are imported would increase prices for a typical family by thousands of dollars per year. We’re talking about staples like food, clothing, gas, and medicine. As an example, Trump would place tariffs on coffee, bananas, and seafood, of which there is little production of in the United States. Almost none of the coffee or bananas consumed and imports 75 to 80 percent of seafood are produced in the U.S. yet they are staples for many American households. In fact, an economist at the Tax Foundation, a business friendly non-partisan organization, has found that the Trump sales tax would raise costs for some families by as much as $6,000 each year.

When Trump was asked recently about his plan to bring down food prices, he responded that he would block food imports from entering the country. Obviously the fool doesn’t understand supply and demand because when you cut supply prices go up unless demand goes down and I don’t see people eating less food. All blocking food imports would do is raise food costs and cause food shortages without increasing food production here in the United States. Many agricultural products that American families rely on every day, such as bananas and coffee, can only be grown in the United States at a much higher cost than if they were grown elsewhere. Simply demanding that American families can only buy food grown here in the United States would raise costs while reducing the variety of everyday food items that working families need.

Just look at Trump’s record to see that a second term would make consolidation in the food industry, which reduces competition and drives up prices, even worse. During Trump’s first term in office, he gave Big Ag corporations and the wealthiest Americans tax handouts. When it came to help farmers withstand his trade war with China nearly two-thirds of aid funding went to the top 10 percent of applicants rather than to family farms.

Kamala Harris has vowed to revitalize competition in food and grocery prices, because we all know that a healthy and competitive market means lower costs for consumers. She has promised to direct her Administration to crack down on unfair mergers and acquisitions that give big food corporations the power to raise food and grocery prices by instructing agencies like the Federal Trade Commission to specifically evaluate the risk that a proposed merger would raise grocery prices for consumers. On top of this, she’ll instruct her Administration to focus on investigating and prosecuting companies that illegally collude to set prices, up and down food supply chains. Finally, she will make sure the federal government has the resources to identify and take on anti-competitive practices in the food and grocery industries.

If your grocery bill is what drives your vote, then vote for Kamala Harris.

Published in the Seguin Gazette - October 30, 2024

There are so many reasons to get out and vote

When someone like my next door neighbor tells me they aren’t political and therefore they don’t vote I just want to bang my head on the wall. If you don’t vote you’re just saying that whomever those that do vote elect will be fine. That’s OK when figuring out where to eat lunch with your co-workers but it’s not so fine when the struggle for civil rights and women’s rights are at stake. We every citizen of voting age have a responsibility to ourselves, our children, our family, and our friends to vote so that the best possible people to lead our national, state, and local governments are selected.

Last week Donald Trump participated in a town hall on Univision and a 64 year old California farmer named Jorge Velazquez asked, “For many years, I have worked with these hands, hunched over picking strawberries and cutting broccoli. This tough job is mainly done by undocumented people. If you deport these people, who would do that job, and what price would we pay for food?” Trump rambled about farmers having it tough right now and how he was the best thing that ever happened to farmers but he never actually answered the question. I’ve wondered about this question myself and I’ll bet you have too, yet I have yet to see any journalist ask such a basic question of any Republican let alone Trump.

There’s no doubt that our immigration system is a huge mess. It can take over a decade for a foreign citizen to get through the hoops and hurtles even when they are the family member of a U.S. citizen. Not all applicants are successful. Our legislators keep talking about reform and even proposing legislation but as happened back in March of this year politics rears its ugly head and derails even bi-partisan efforts so that Trump can campaign on the broken system that he keeps broken because it gives him the opportunity to blame someone else.

Republicans always complain about inflation and government spending but let’s look at their solution. The Republican mantra is cut spending severely especially social programs. Argentina elected a new government early this year and their new president delivered on his campaign promises to drastically cut spending. Those spending cuts did indeed cut inflation from 26% to 4% but they also damaged the economy so much that now the poverty rate has jumped to 53%, the highest in over 20 years. Argentina’s president is an economist, though apparently a very poor one, and look at the mess he made of their economy. Trump made a mess during his first term and now he wants try again, this is a man who has filed bankruptcy 6 times. He can’t run businesses successfully so how can anyone believe he can do so for the entire American economy.

In this election we have a chance to choose between candidates, like Kamala Harris and Trump for president and Colin Allred or Ted Cruz for U.S. Senate. If elected Harris and Allred will move forward on reforming our immigration system while the same old Republicans who lie claiming that immigrants are all dangerous criminals will leave it broken or make it worse so they can continue to bash immigrants.

Even people who think their not political should recognize that letting Republicans wreck the economy over their spending cut fetish and anger to toward immigrants isn’t in their best interests.

Early voting has begun, make a plan to vote soon and bring your family, remind your friends.

Published in the Seguin Gazette - October 23, 2024

The Economy is Strong Due to Democrats

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

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

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

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

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

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

Published in the Seguin Gazette - October 16, 2024

Colin Allred A Better Choice

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

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

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

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

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

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

Published in the Seguin Gazette - October 9, 2024

Texas Abortion Law Kills Mothers

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

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

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

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

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

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

Published in the Seguin Gazette - October 2, 2024

Texas Republicans Work to Defund Public Schools

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Published in the Seguin Gazette - September 25, 2024

Paxton's Voter Suppression

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Food Safety Compromised by Republican Philosophy

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

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

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

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

Published in the Seguin Gazette - September 4, 2024

Republicans Throwing Stones While Living in Glass Houses

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

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

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

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

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

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

Published in the Seguin Gazette - August 28, 2024

Project 2025 - Plan for a Dystopian Future

While Donald Trump continues his attempts to dodge connection to the Heritage Foundation’s “Project 2025” some of the authors and contributors have been talking up their connection to the Trump campaign and telling the media how extreme the makeover of the federal government will be upon Trump taking office again. It’s important that the public be aware of the damage to governmental institutions and our lives four more years of Donald Trump will cause.

The “Mandate for Leadership, The Conservative Promise” which is the official title of the document known “Project 2025” says on page 592 “Congress should provide flexibility to employers and employees to calculate the overtime period over a longer number of weeks. Specifically, employers and employees should be able to set a two- or four-week period over which to calculate overtime. This would give workers greater flexibility to work more hours in one week and fewer hours in the next and would not require the employer to pay them more for that same total number of hours of work during the entire period.” So if your employer wants you to work 60 hours one week and only 20 hours the next week there’s no need to pay you overtime and you can’t complain about the mess that makes of your personal life.

In 1932 at the peak of the Great Depression congress passed the Glass-Steagall Act to make the banking industry safer especially for average Americans. Those protections were largely repealed in 1999 and just 8 years later the country suffered the near collapse of the economy brought on by big banks taking on risky and overly complex investment scheme. This period often called the Great Recession was marked by tens of thousands of Americans losing their homes in foreclosure. Unemployment sky rocketed and banks failed. The response from congress was the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. Almost as soon as it passed big banks and their Republican toadies started complaining and have been trying to overturn it. “Project 2025” page 705 calls for merging functions of the various regulatory agencies. “The new Administration should establish a more stream­lined bank and supervision by supporting legislation to merge the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the National Credit Union Administration, and the Federal Reserve’s non-monetary supervisory and regulatory functions.”

Banking interests claim have always claimed that restricting banks to taking deposits and making loans while preventing investment banks from taking consumer deposits makes markets less stable. We have now have empirical evidence that they’re wrong, the 1999 repeal of Glass-Steagall protections clearly led to 2007 banking collapse yet bankers and Republicans can’t see past the chance to make more private profit while socializing the losses on the backs of the American public.

It’s bad enough that Texas women have lost their bodily autonomy and continue to suffer the lasting health consequences of being unable to get medical care while a miscarriage leaves a rotting carcass in their womb. “Project 2025” states on page 458 that the FDA should “reverse its approval of chemical abortion drugs” then goes on for another dozen pages on how abortion should be further restricted and what lies should be used to promote their nationwide anti-abortion agenda.

These are just some examples of the dystopian future that a Donald Trump win in November would bring upon you and your loved ones. It isn’t enough for you  to vote for Democrats, it is incumbent on you to inform your family, friends, and neighbors then encourage them to vote as well, otherwise we will all suffer.

 

Republicans Hate Children and Workers

 Last week both our U.S. senators, Ted Cruz and John Cornyn, joined 40 other Republican senators in voting against an expansion of the child tax credit that would have raised 400,000 children out of poverty. The bill had already passed the House with a large bi-partisan majority. Considering that Republicans claim to be the party of families their vote seems counter-productive. In reality they are more interested in denying Joe Biden a victory than helping hungry children.

It’s not just Republicans at the federal level who are heartless. 2.9 million Texas children are going hungry this summer because Gov. Abbott rejected around $350 million in federal funds that would have gone a long way to reduce childhood food insecurity. Abbott joined a dozen other Republican governors who refused to participate in a $2.5 billion program created by Congress, in which eligible low-income households will receive about $1.33 per day for food per child over the three summer months when school-based free and reduced-price lunch programs aren’t available.

Not satisfied with just letting poor kids go hungry, recently the Republican Study Committee – which represents 100% of House Republican leadership and nearly 80% of their members released plans to cut Medicare, Social Security, and increase prescription drug, energy, and housing costs. Their plan would even raise the Social Security retirement age. All this so they can provide tax giveaways for the very rich.

The Republican Study Committee plan calls for over $1.5 trillion in cuts to Social Security, including an increase in the retirement age to 69 and cutting disability benefits. If you work an office job working an extra couple of years before retirement might not seem too bad, but if you work a physical labor job like my dad did as a pipe-fitter adding two more years of lifting heavy materials and suffering through Texas summers outdoors is asking a lot. Years of hard labor have often damaged joints making it increasingly difficult to get the job done and suffering even when they can accomplish the task.

The Republican plan also raises Medicare costs for seniors by taking away Medicare’s recently gained authority to negotiate prescription drug costs, repealing $35 insulin, and the $2,000 out-of-pocket cap in the Inflation Reduction Act.

The Republican plan includes transitioning Medicare to a premium support system which means that it would simply provide a fixed amount of money for seniors to use to purchase private insurance from the same for profit providers that gouge Americans now. The Congressional Budget Office has found that such a premium support plan would raise health care costs for many seniors.

Other aspects of the Republican plan cut Medicaid, the Affordable Care Act, and the Children’s Health Insurance Program by $450 billion a year, taking away health insurance away from millions of people, including seniors, children, and people with disabilities. Republicans would have us go back to the days where people could be denied care for pre-existing conditions and charged more for health insurance simply for being a woman.

In return for the harm to children and seniors Republicans want to give $5.5 trillion in tax cuts mostly to the wealthy and large corporations, including permanently extending the Trump era tax cuts which increased the budget deficit that Republicans only complain about when Democrats are in office. The Republican plan also calls for repealing the minimum tax on billion-dollar corporations the President Biden signed into law.

Clearly Republicans care more about satisfying their wealthy benefactors than they do about children, families, and people who work for a living.

Tell them what you think by voting in November.

Published in the Seguin Gazette - August 7, 2024

J.D. Vance Has No Empathy

 A lot has happened in the past two weeks, Trump named J.D. Vance as his running mate and Joe Biden announced he has decided not to run for re-election then endorsed his vice president, Kamala Harris. Republicans are now in disarray as their whole campaign strategy was centered on Biden being “too” old. Now that gimmick won’t work and J.D. Vance’s ugly remarks about women and his flip flops on significant issues are making his nomination a drag on the Trump campaign instead of broadening support.

In a 2021 Fox News appearance Vance discussed controversial remarks he’d made to the Intercollegiate Studies Institute earlier that month. In it, he called a number of prominent Democratic leaders the “childless left” whom he said had “no physical commitment to the future of this country.”

During the Fox interview Vance said "We are effectively run in this country … by a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they’ve made, and so they wanna make the rest of the country miserable, too. It's just a basic fact. You look at Kamala Harris, Pete Buttigieg, AOC (Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez), the entire future of the Democrats is controlled by people without children. And how does it make any sense that we’ve turned our country over to people who don’t really have a direct stake in it.”

Vance added that “if we want a healthy ruling class in this country, we should invest more, we should vote more, we should support more people who actually have kids. Because those are the people who ultimately have a more direct stake in the future of this country.”

There is so much to take apart in Vance’s statement so let’s start with the inaccuracies. Kamala Harris is the stepmother of her husband’s two children and had been for over 6 years when Vance shot his mouth off. Pete Buttigieg and his husband had been working toward adopting a pair of twins for quite a while and the adoption was finalized just months after Vance’s insulting assertion. As to AOC, yes she is currently childless and she is also young enough at 34 that she may just not feel ready to have children but then again so what is she chooses not to have kids. AOC has done far more to insure the well-being of Americans and especially children than Vance has.

Then there’s Vance’s claim that people without children have no direct stake in the country. We already know that Republicans have no empathy toward those outside their own families and close friends. Vance can’t see how anyone without children of their own can have the best interest of others unrelated to them in their hearts because he doesn’t and simply projects his feelings on others.

Vance’s utterance regarding a “health ruling class” is the final nail in his coffin. That tells you he sees the world as a place divided between those ordained to rule and those who serve. That’s like the divine right of kings that George Washington, James Madison, and Thomas Jefferson fought for this nation’s independence from.

Vance is also being taken to task for his flip-flops on issues like climate change where he’s gone from being a big investor in green energy solutions to climate change denier and pushing legislation to provide government support for dirty coal fired power plants.

Perhaps the biggest flip-flop is Vance’s conversion from privately calling Trump “America’s Hitler”, a “moral disaster” a “total fraud” who didn’t care about regular people and “reprehensible” to accepting Trump’s offer to be his running mate.

Published in the Seguin Gazette - August 31, 2024

Assassination Not Acceptable in a Democracy

 All I can say is that it’s a good thing that Thomas Matthew Crooks was as incompetent as his target. Most important is that there is no place for violence in a democracy. A distant second is that I think a live Trump is easier for any Democrat to beat than any other Republican who could point to him as a “martyr”. While Trump eggs on his supporters/cult members to be prepared to use violence if he doesn’t win the election, any reasonable adult understands that violence just begets violence and everyone suffers.

The last time a president or presidential candidate was injured in an assassination attempt was when Ronald Reagan was shot John Hinckley, Jr. on March 30, 1981. At that time 3 others were seriously injured including Reagan’s press secretary James Brady. Brady was so severely injured that he was never able to return to work or walk again due to brain damage. After his recovery, Brady and his wife, Sarah, spent much of the next 12 years working with anti-gun violence advocacy groups and later running the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence.

The Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act enacted November 30, 1993 and signed by President Bill Clinton, it is often referred to as the Brady Bill or the Brady Act. The Brady Bill mandates federal background checks on firearm purchasers in the United States. The intention of the act was to prevent persons with previous serious criminal convictions from purchasing firearms.

Even though the promoters of the bill were Republicans, its passage was due to 3 times as many Democrats as Republicans voting in favor of the bill. Their own beloved president nearly being murdered wasn’t enough for Republicans to take action on reducing the availability of firearms, as they couldn’t see the value of greater care in limiting who could possess one.

Today with the Republican Party being so closely tied to the firearms industry I can’t see even the small fraction of their federal legislators who voted for controls on firearms in 1993 supporting any further efforts to prevent gun violence now. I realized a long time ago that a major difference between Republican and Democrats is that Republicans lack empathy for anyone not like them. Having reviewed the history of James and Sarah Brady’s efforts to pass their simple and reasonable bill I now realize that Republicans lack of empathy even applies to their own tribe, unless something awful happens to a member of their immediate family they simply can’t appreciate that suffering and therefore don’t care to takes steps to ameliorate or prevent that suffering. Of course they’ll pray for you, for all the good that does.

Last weekend’s violence is unacceptable, not just in the political arena. A former fire chief died protecting his family and two others were seriously injured by the shooter. No one should be able to perpetrate such a violent crime and cause the suffering of others.

Unlike the 6 Republican Supreme Court justices who just weeks ago threw out Trump’s own restrictions on the modification of semi-automatic rifles that allowed the shooter in Las Vegas in 2017 to murder 60 people at a single event, I don’t believe for a moment that the founders of this nation had any intention to enable such a calamity.

I hope that it doesn’t take another dozen years to pass legislation to stop the slaughter of Americans and make it stick. I have no hope at all that Republicans will be any help in accomplishing that unless a family member is murdered.

Published in the Seguin Gazette - July 17, 2024

Project 2025 - Plan for an Authoritarian State

 Donald Trump can deny knowledge of the Heritage Foundation’s “Project 2025” all he likes but the fact that 16 of the 39 named authors of the 920 page document are former members of his administration should tell you something. Some of the more well known members of the group are Benjamin S. Carson, Sr., MD who was Trump’s Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, Peter Navarro whom Trump appointed to the Office of Trade and Manufacturing Policy, and Ken Cuccinelli who served Trump as Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security. It’s hard to imagine that with that many of his former appointees involved in a project he wouldn’t know something about it.

The reason “Project 2025”; officially titled “Mandate for Leadership, The Conservative Promise”, is important for every American to be aware of is that it is a plan for how the next Republican administration can gut our federal institutions and remake this nation into a authoritarian state.

In 1883 the Pendleton Civil Service Act was adopted, requiring government jobs to be awarded to individuals based upon merit and not political affiliation. The Pendleton Act also made it illegal to fire government workers solely for political reasons. Trump already tried to overturn the protections of this act in his first term but waited too long to implement it. “Project 2025” offers a plan far more thorough, going deeper into all federal agency structures to replace scientists, accountants, and other subject matter experts with people whose sole qualification for the job is loyalty to Trump.

President Nixon signed the Environmental Protection Act in 1970 and it has been improved upon over the decades such that we now have cleaner air and water than we did a century ago leading to healthier lives for all. The author of the “Project 2025” section on the Environmental Protection Agency suggests that Trump’s hand waving reclassification of High-Level nuclear waste to Low-Level is a great way to complete cleanup of various retired nuclear facilities and sites. This attitude toward safe disposal of nuclear waste carries over into all forms of hazardous waste site cleanup. Reclassification doesn’t magically render hazardous materials less hazardous it just allows inadequately processed dangerous materials to continue to threaten the health and well-being of anyone who ends up living or working near the site or the disposal location in the future.

“Project 2025” proposes abandoning efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions responsible for climate change, including by repealing regulations that curb emissions, downsizing the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and abolishing the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). They want to abolish NOAA because the agency provides much of the data that enables scientists to track climate change and its effects.

“Project 2025” seeks to extend the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 and recommends simplifying individual income taxes to just two brackets, 15% and 30%, thus creating a nearly flat tax on wage income beyond the standard deduction. It aims to reduce the corporate tax rate to 18%, while suggesting setting taxes on capital gains and dividends at 15%. After these changes are implemented, it recommends that a three-fifths vote threshold be required to pass legislation that increases individual or corporate income tax, making it virtually impossible to ever change tax rates again. The Congressional Budget Office has reported that extending the 2017 tax cuts would increase the deficit by $4 trillion by 2028. You'll notice that Republicans only complain about the budget deficit when Democrats are in office even though it is Republicans who increase it the most.

There is much more that you should make yourself aware of.

Published in the Seguin Gazette - July 10, 2024

Biden Debate Results

 Many of us who watched the Presidential debate last week were disappointed in Joe Biden’s performance. Maybe that’s because he set such a high bar at the State of the Union address or at various venues during the primary. Those of us who want a Democrat in the White House wanted him to hit it out of the ballpark, but even great players have bad nights. Ask Barry Bonds who broke Hank Aaron’s Major League Baseball home run record.

Yes, Biden had a difficult night on stage and there was suddenly lots of fantasy talk that he should step down. You and I know what it’s like to have to go to work or take care of the family with a summer cold; we don’t have the energy to be cheerful and forceful. The reality is the people who most needed to be reached and convinced to vote for Biden, overwhelmingly saw through the lackluster energy and the verbal stumbling. Univision, the Spanish language television organization, hosted a focus group of independent and undecided Hispanic voters whom they interviewed after the debate. The previously undecided voters swung hard for Biden because they saw through the noise and recognized that Biden’s policies and aspirations were better for them than the vitriol and lies spewed by the convicted felon who opposed him.

Other news organizations found the same thing in their focus groups and the polls that checked in on voters after the debate showed similar results. Those who were previously undecided and watched the debate generally said they were more likely to vote for Biden than before the debate and less likely to vote for the former president.

If you still have anxiety over Biden’s debate performance check out his campaign event a day later, he’s far more energetic and forceful in his delivery.

I’m not sure that Trump made a single truthful statement the entire night other than perhaps when talking about his golf game. He most certainly lied about who thought it was a good idea to overturn Roe v. Wade and send abortion regulation back to the states. Trump lied about his purported success controlling the flow of undocumented immigrants, as such border crossings were higher during his administration’s 4 years in office than under former President Barack Obama’s 8 years.

If you go to the grocery you can’t have missed that grocery prices have gone up significantly over the last several years. My experience of around a 20% increase turns out to be about what the national statistics say grocery prices have increased which is a far cry from the tripling or quadrupling that Trump claimed. Heck, if Trump’s claim was true my monthly grocery bill would be significantly than my mortgage payment.

Trump is still making claims about election fraud in the 2020 election even though various state officials, including Republicans in Georgia, said the 2020 election was legitimate. Trump’s own attorney general, William Barr, said that he had not seen fraud on a scale that would invalidate Joe Biden’s victory. Those aren’t all the lies Trump told, just some of the highlights.

The most important reason to support Joe Biden is the same reason former Republican congressman Adam Kinzinger has endorsed Biden despite his differences on policy. Kinzinger said “I’ve always put democracy and our Constitution above of all us. It’s because of my unwavering support for democracy that today, as a proud conservative, I’m endorsing Joe Biden for reelection.”

Published in the Seguin Gazette - July 3, 2024

Party Platforms Show Opposing Views On Democracy

 In 2024 there is a marked difference between the directions of the Democratic and Republican parties in Texas. The Republican Party of Texas (RPT) platform urges that majority rule be taken away and replaced with essentially rule of the minority, which happens to align with conservatism and Republican’s in control. The Texas Democratic Party (TDP) platform insists upon greater respect for voting rights and the very concept of democracy, majority rule. In this week’s column I’ve provided quotes from both platforms that specifically address how each party views democracy and the value of it.

“We further resolve that all amendments to the Texas Constitution require a majority of the voters in at least 191 counties (three-fourths), instead of a simple majority of the votes.” Here's what this really means, the smallest 191 counties in Texas each had populations less than 55,000 people. The actual total population of those counties in 2023 was approximately 3 million while the state population is 30.5 million so less than 10% of the state's population lives and votes in those 191 counties. There were over 11 million votes cast in Texas in 2020. You can see that the Republican party doesn't believe in majority rule, they want the 10% of Texans living in rural counties and who vote overwhelmingly in favor of Republicans and conservative policies to have full control of the Texas constitution. This is anti-democratic, and I don’t mean anti-Democratic Party, I mean in opposition to democracy, also known as majority rule.

"The State Legislature shall cause to be enacted a State Constitutional Amendment creating an electoral college consisting of electors selected by the popular votes cast within each individual state senatorial district, who shall then elect all statewide office holders." We know from history that the national electoral college was originally created as a compromise with the lower population slave-holding states in order to allow them to prevent free-states from outlawing slavery. We know from presidential elections that since 1988 when George H.W. Bush won his single term in office that there has only been one other Republican to win a majority of the popular vote and that was George W. Bush won his second term in the 2004 election while we were at war in both Afghanistan and Iraq. Republicans have not won the popular vote for president in the last 20 years. Texas Republicans see the handwriting on the wall and are determined to prevent control of state government changing hands regardless of what a majority of the state's voters might desire. How un-American?

Conversely the Texas Democratic Party platform demands more respect for one person, one vote and majority rule. The platform states: “Support elimination of the Electoral College and join the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, and until the compact is effective, proportionally award Texas's presidential electoral votes based on the U.S Presidential results within the state.” Short of passing a constitutional amendment participating in the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact is the only way to insure majority rule in this country.

The Democratic Party platform also calls for the elimination of “barriers to voting and encourage full participation in elections and governance.” Recognition of “November’s Election Day as a state and federal holiday.” In addition our platform recommends combining “local, state, and federal elections to minimize how often voters have to go to the polls each year.” To improve voter turnout among young Texans the platform insists on removal of “undue burdens on students by placing polling locations at all institutions of postsecondary education.”

The TDP wants to provide more democracy. Who will you choose in November?

Published in the Seguin Gazette - June 19, 2024

Would you hire this guy?

 Assuming you’ve filled out a job application in recent memory, I’ll be you noticed a question asking if you’d ever been convicted of a felony. It’s there as a screening tool meaning that nearly all employers look at that and if the answer is yes, they stop bothering with the application and move on to the next one. Ask your employer or the Human Resources Department if you doubt me. 

When you’re being seriously considered for a job, the prospective employer will usually do some checking to confirm that what you’ve said on your application and in the interviews are true.

We know from trial testimony in the E. Jean Carroll case, the New York civil fraud case, and the most recent criminal case, that Donald Trump is sexually abusive, an inveterate liar, and now a convicted felon. I don’t know too many businesses that will hire someone with such a record. If most businesses won’t hire a convicted felon why are so many business owners so enthusiastic about hiring one as the next president?

Convicted felons cannot join the military if they are on probation or parole, in jail, or facing criminal charges. Donald Trump has been convicted of 34 felonies. His former Chief-of-Staff General John Kelly certainly doesn’t want him in the oval office again. Kelly was quoted in a CNN interview as describing Trump as “a person that thinks those who defend their country in uniform, or are shot down or seriously wounded in combat, or spend years being tortured as POWs are all ‘suckers’ because ‘there is nothing in it for them.’ A person that did not want to be seen in the presence of military amputees because ‘it doesn’t look good for me.’ A person who demonstrated open contempt for a Gold Star family – for all Gold Star families – on TV during the 2016 campaign, and rants that our most precious heroes who gave their lives in America’s defense are ‘losers’ and wouldn’t visit their graves in France.” Then there’s the classified documents case in which Trump not only refused to return various highly secret documents to the appropriate government agency but even lied claiming he didn’t have them until his home was raided by FBI agents who found over 100 of them in various rooms many of which were publicly accessible. Trump also discussed nuclear submarines and the number of missiles they carry with Australian business executive Anthony Pratt, a man with no security clearance whatsoever. Remember that Trump led the chant to have Hillary Clinton locked up over less than a handful of email messages stored on a secure server.

Why would anyone serving in the military now or in the past want Trump as the Commander-in-Chief of the U.S. armed forces?

I think it is a combination of several things. One is selfishness, in that he promises to lower taxes for the wealthy. Another is racism in that he says things that they feel; like brown immigrants are the enemy or criminals but white immigrants are great. Then there’s the authoritarian leaning of conservatives in that they want to be told what to do and believe that discipline should be top down, which Trump has made clear he believes in and acts upon.

All I see is a would be Mussolini, a pretender, a fraud, and an incompetent who used his performance as an entertainer on television to convince many members of the public that he is an incredibly talented businessman when in fact he is so bad he managed to drive his casino and several other of his businesses into bankruptcy.

Published in the Seguin Gazette - June 12, 2024

Disgust With Republicans

 The last 10 days of May were tumultuous; those days included the conclusion of one of four Trump criminal trials, runoff elections for state legislature and congress, as well as the Republican Party of Texas convention, held in San Antonio.

The party that claims to be all about law and order is now the party whose likely nominee is the first convicted felon to run for president. That’s right the man leading the party since 2016 has been convicted of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records.  Falsifying those business records would have been a misdemeanor if the reason hadn’t been to cover-up another crime like violating campaign finance laws or tax evasion. He committed the crime in an effort to cover up hush money payments made to avoid scandal while running for president in 2016. Let’s not forget he’s previously been found at fault for falsifying documents related to bank loans and property taxes with a penalty of $450 million and that’s in addition to being penalized $83 million for defaming E. Jean Carroll whom he sexually assaulted. At least when Richard Nixon ran for president Republicans didn’t know he was a crook, unlike Donald J. Trump.

While I was never a fan of our state representative John Kuempel, he at least he repeatedly voted against defunding public education unlike so many of his Republican colleagues. Kuempel’s defense of public education ultimately caused his downfall as Gov. Abbott targeted him for replacement with Donald Trump bootlicker, Alan Schoolcraft. Abbott funneled millions in out of state money from school voucher supporters to his preferred primary challengers in several races including Schoolcraft. I laughed so hard watching the commercials calling Kuempel a California style liberal. If you’ve ever looked at Kuempel’s voting record you’d know that’s bald faced lie. The only silver lining I see is that perhaps having a supporter of defunding public education running for state legislature will cause Republicans and conservative independents who believe in the mission of public education to vote for Eric Norman, the Democrat running in HD-44.

The Republican Party of Texas lurched further to the right as a result of votes taken at their latest state convention. Lower than normal turnout may have contributed to the ease with which Christian Nationalist billionaires Tim Dunn and Farris Wilks used their influence to get their handpicked candidate, Abraham George, elected as party chair. The influence of Dunn and Wilks can also be seen in the ever deepening Christian Nationalist ideology appearing in the party platform.

In an interview with the Texas Tribune, Zach Maxwell, who previously served as chief of staff for former Rep. Mike Lang, and later worked for Empower Texans, a political action committee that was funded primarily by Dunn and Wilks, said the Texas Republican party has increasingly been driven by purity tests and opposition to religious or political diversity. In his opinion this year’s convention was the culmination of those trends. Maxwell told the Tribune “God was not only used as a tool at this convention, but if you didn’t mention God in some way, fake or genuine, I did feel it was seen as distasteful. There is a growing group of people who want to turn this nation into a straight-up theocracy. I believe they are doing it on the backs of people who are easily manipulated.”

To sum up, the Republican party is led by a convicted felon and Nazi sympathizer, the Texas party works to defund public education, contrary to the requirements of the state constitution, and make this country into a Christian version of Iran.

Published in the Seguin Gazette - June 5, 2024

Biden-Harris Administration Accomplishments II

 A month ago the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) finalized minimum staffing requirements for nursing homes that participate in Medicare and Medicaid. The final rule requires nursing homes to provide a minimum of 3.48 hours of nursing care per resident day, including 0.55 hours of care from a registered nurse per resident day and at least 2.45 hours of care from a nurse aide per resident day, as well as 24/7 onsite RN services. 

To make sure the federal money is being spent appropriately, CMS will require states to collect and report on the percent of Medicaid payments that are spent on compensation for direct care workers, and support staff, delivering care in nursing facilities and intermediate care facilities, for individuals with intellectual disabilities. 

Big business is already pushing back claiming that nursing homes will close. It's a scare tactic and that's one of the areas where the new regulation requiring that the amount spent on nursing staff salaries be published on public facing websites will help as we'll all be able to see which nursing homes are sucking up profits at the expense of providing sufficient staffing.

There's also big news on about your internet connection and the access to all the services and websites you're interested in. Last month the Federal Communications Commission voted to "restore a national standard to ensure the internet is fast, open, and fair. The decision to reclassify broadband service as a Title II telecommunications service allows the FCC to protect consumers, defend national security, and advance public safety," according to a release from the FCC. This is known as Net Neutrality.

The change in rules enables the Commission to revoke the authorizations of foreign-owned entities who pose a threat to national security to operate broadband networks in the U.S. Any provider, such as four Chinese state owned providers, without section 214 authorization for voice services must now also cease any fixed or mobile broadband service operations in the United States.

This is the part of the new Net Neutrality rules that immediately is important to me as I am and have been a tele-worker for 20 years. The FCC will now monitor internet outages because when workers cannot tele-commute, students cannot study, or businesses cannot market their products because their internet service is out, our economy loses. The new rules mean that the FCC can now play an active role.

Of course, the big internet providers are fighting back with a range of spurious claims which are just fig leaves covering their desire to throttle speed for sites not part of their stable or willing to pay premium prices to get faster connections to their customers. The big providers want to either profit from their own services to the detriment of your ability to access other sites and/or charge you higher fees.

The Biden-Harris administration is working for all Americans, to ensure that the services we need are available and compensated fairly. Trump has made it very clear that fairness takes a back seat to profits especially for those who pay his legal fees. In November the choice is clear we can have safe, adequate care for our aging loved ones and wide access to the resources on the internet or we can let the wealthy vultures profit off our carcasses.

Published in the Seguin Gazette - May 22, 2024

Biden-Harris Improving Life for All Americans

 April was a big month for making life better for Americans. The Biden-Harris administration announced new rules on over-time pay, non-compete clauses, nursing home staffing, and Net Neutrality.

The US Department of Labor (DOL) updated the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA)'s overtime pay requirements. The rule increases the minimum salary threshold for businesses to avoid paying over-time to salaried workers to $43,888 on July 1, 2024, and then to $58,656 on January 1, 2025. Then starting in 2027, the threshold will automatically increase every three years to reflect changes in average earnings. Salaried workers who earn above the salary threshold may still be eligible for overtime pay if they do not primarily perform management-related duties as long as they earn less than about $151,000. As you might expect from a Republican in the pocket of big business Rep. Virginia Foxx of North Carolina claimed; "If the administration's goal with this rule is to improve the standard of living for workers, then it's failing miserably." Unions and worker advocacy groups praised the Biden administration for restoring overtime protections that it said had been "gutted" by the Trump administration.

The Labor Department estimates that 4 million lower-paid salary workers who are exempt under current regulations will become eligible for overtime protections in the first year under the new rule. An additional 292,900 higher-compensated workers are also expected to get overtime entitlements. That’s a lot of Americans who will either be paid more or will have more time to spend with their families.

On April 23 the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) issued a final rule banning non-compete clauses nationwide. Non-compete agreements restrict employees who leave a job from working in that field for a specific time period in a certain geographic area. The commission voted to approve the final rule 3-2. If you guessed that the 3 Democratic appointees were the ones who voted yes while the 2 Republican appointees voted no give yourself a cigar. The FTC determined that non-compete clauses violate Section 5 of the FTC Act, which prohibits “unfair or deceptive acts or practices in or affecting commerce.” The final rule is set to become effective in late August. The only exceptions are for senior executives defined as workers earning more than $151,164 annually and who are in policy-making positions. Senior executives comprise less than 0.75% of all workers.

The FTC estimated 30 million Americans, roughly 20% of workers, are bound by non-compete agreements. This is an important ruling as “Non-compete clauses keep wages low, suppress new ideas, and rob the American economy of dynamism, including from the more than 8,500 new startups that would be created a year once non-competes are banned,” according to FTC Chair Lina M. Khan in a press release. “The FTC’s final rule to ban non-competes will ensure Americans have the freedom to pursue a new job, start a new business, or bring a new idea to market.”

Of course the day after the announcement, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and several other business groups sued the FTC in Texas federal court in an attempt to block the rule. This is typical judge shopping where the lawyers suing look for a judge likely to take their side.

As you might expect if it is good for workers big business will push back and their Republican lap dogs will bark up a storm. Just don’t let anyone tell you that the Biden-Harris administration isn’t making things better for the average American. It’s the Trump cult Republicans who aren’t interested in making life better.

Published in the Seguin Gazette - May 8, 2024

Justice Alito Would Make Trump King

I have come to expect some outlandish ideas to come out of the mouths of Donald Trump, his lackeys/supporters like Rudy Giuliani, and appointees like former Chief of Staff Mark Meadows. I’m no longer surprised when conservatives who opposed Trump like Florida governor Ron DeSantis. Nevertheless last week I was stunned to learn the Supreme Court Associate Justice Samuel Alito thought it might be a good idea for presidents to have total immunity for any action taken while in office including private actions.

The Supreme Court held oral arguments for 2 and half hours last week regarding whether or not the case for attempting to overturn election results through fraud could go to trial.  Speaking to Michael Dreeben, an attorney representing special counsel Jack Smith, Alito began by stating: “I’m sure you would agree with me that a stable democratic society requires that a candidate who loses an election, even a close one, even a hotly contested one, leave office peacefully, if that candidate is the incumbent?” I think any reasonable person would agree so to that point but then Alito follow up with: “Now if an incumbent who loses a very close, hotly contested election knows that a real possibility after leaving office is not that the president is going to be able to go off into a peaceful retirement, but that the president may be criminally prosecuted by a bitter political opponent, will that not lead us into a cycle that destabilizes the functioning of our country as a democracy?”

The Supreme Court is known for looking deeply at the issues before it in regard to the meaning of the law, the applicability of various aspects of the constitution, and the potential future consequences of the decision they render, as well as precedent and history. If Justice Alito's concern about consequences were valid then shouldn't there be historical evidence to support it? In the nearly 250 years of our democracy, power has been transferred from a president to his successor post-election 40 times. On 11 of those occasions the challenger defeated an incumbent, a situation that is fraught with bitterness and the potential for messy post-election actions. Yet, there has been only one losing incumbent to have been further troubled by attempts to prosecute them and that ex-president is Donald J. Trump.

There's a reason Trump is being prosecuted in four separate courts, he's the only ex-president who tried to foment a coup against the United States of America and denying the rights of millions of voters by overturning a free and fair election. He's also the only ex-president to have claimed to have declassified sensitive national security documents in his head then kept them as souvenirs even after being asked to return them, denying that he had them, and then went out of his way to try to hide them.

Alito is often considered an originalist in that his interpretations of law are based on the original meaning of the words and phrases in the constitution as well as the perceived intent of the founding fathers. In this instance it’s pretty clear that’s all a crock because the nation’s founders were revolutionaries who made it quite clear that unlike a king no one in this land is above the law, not even ex-presidents.

Trump must be tried in order to insure that he remains the anomaly that he is today and future presidents think twice before attempting to remain in office after losing.

Published in the Seguin Gazette - May 1, 2024

Ukraine Aid Bill Passes No Thanks To Republicans

It’s a good thing Democrats are united on national security and the military threats to our allies from the likes of Russia, Iran, and China because Republicans certainly aren’t. This past Saturday, April 20th, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) brought H.R. 8035 the Ukraine Aid bill up for a vote. 210 Democrats voted for it including all Texas Democrats. Most Republicans, 112 out of 218, voted against it including Monica de la Cruz (CD-15) who represents most of Guadalupe County and southward and Chip Roy (CD- 21) representing Comal County and westward.

Republicans like Roy and de la Cruz argue that Ukraine should seek peace with Russia which will only happen if they give up the 18% of their territory currently under Russian occupation. That would be like the United States giving up Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and Louisiana to end a war with Mexico. I don’t see any American accepting that so why would anyone expect Ukraine to accept it. Texans certainly wouldn’t find that acceptable.

Speaker Johnson spoke out on the bill saying “I really do believe the intel and the briefings that we’ve gotten, I think that Vladimir Putin would continue to march through Europe if he were allowed. I think he might go to the Balkans next. I think he might have a showdown with Poland, or one of our NATO allies.” Johnson added “If so, we might find ourselves sending troops to defend allies from Putin later.”

The tanks, infantry fighting vehicles, and much of the other hardware we’ve previously sent to Ukraine are previous generation gear that has been sitting in storage for years. The same applies to some of the artillery shells and other munitions. Republicans as to be expected also argue about the cost of supporting a country that isn’t even a NATO member. Of course, that argument fails when you consider the cost of Ukraine’s defense collapsing and Russia’s Putin being emboldened to continue its conquest into the rest of Europe. Putin has made it very clear that he wants to restore Russia to the borders it had prior to the collapse of the Soviet Union. What message would it send to China’s leadership with regard to their desire to annex Taiwan, or Iran’s leaders or Donald Trump’s buddy Kim Jong Un in North Korea?

Aggressors cannot be allowed to win wars of conquest or others with similar ambitions will most assuredly feel freed to do the same. As it stands now Ukraine is providing the manpower and much of the materiel while the U.S. and other democracies provide tanks, artillery, planes, missiles, ammunition, and training as well as cash to pay for personnel and other needs. The Republican controlled Congress has withheld support for more than 5 months simply by denying an opportunity to vote on the bill. During that time the Biden administration used every bit of its authority to continue supplying vital materiel.

There was once a time when the Republican Party claimed to be the defenders of democracy and the world order. I would argue they weren’t alone as Democrats certainly have done their part; but in recent years, since Trump, Republicans have shown themselves to be fans of autocrats and tyrants.

Republicans must be held accountable in November and defeated in detail. Your vote, the votes of your family members, neighbors, and co-workers are important to defeating them. It isn’t too early to start talking to the people closest to you about voting for Democrats in November, the election is less than 7 months away.

Published in the Seguin Gazette - April 24, 2024

Economy Good Under Biden

There are plenty of social media meme’s being published right now asserting that things were better 4 years ago while Trump was in office. The reality is that while prices were lower for many things, that isn’t the whole picture. In fact some of the distortion comes from the collapse of the economy during the pandemic which caused many prices to go down due to lack of demand.

The United States added 303,000 jobs in March, the 39th straight month of growth. The unemployment rate fell to 3.8 percent. There are 2.6 million more Americans employed today than there were at the previous peak in February 2020, just before the pandemic set in.

Another economic indicator is GDP. To be fair, rather than compare numbers from 2020 when the pandemic depressed everything let’s use 2019 instead. The fourth quarter of 2019 gross domestic product (GDP) was $21.9 trillion, in the fourth quarter of 2023 it was $27.96 trillion or an increase of more than 27%.

Mortgage rates which seem high are below rates from 1980 to 2010. We’re just spoiled by the rates since the sub-prime mortgage crisis that wrecked banks from 2008 to 2010. I well remember as I re-financed my mortgage in 2010 and shortened the term from 30 years to 15 years while only paying an extra $100 a month.

On April 1 of 2024 the national average for a gallon of gas was just under $3.64 and no one likes that. We must remember the price of anything is a result of the tension between supply and demand. The U.S. is both the number one producer and consumer of oil. Unlike most nations we produce more than we use. The price of gasoline is up because demand around the world is up and some of our oil is being sold to other countries. After adjusting for inflation gas was almost $4 a gallon back in 2007. Don’t let anyone tell you that the high price of gas is Joe Biden’s fault.

For those invested in the stock market, the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the Standard and Poor’s 500 indexes are both now at historic highs due to record profits. As a reminder those profits are a significant cause of the inflation mentioned earlier. Let’s call it greed-flation.

If you’re going to complain about the high price of groceries and gas you should also complain about the fact that minimum wage is still $7.25 an hour and many better paying jobs haven’t seen pay increases even as businesses see record profits. While it’s true that over the last 12 months wages have risen nearly 2% more than inflation each month, over the previous 2 years inflation was higher than wage increases so we have some catching up to do. Now remember who controls the state government in Texas, its Republicans, and they have zero interest in raising minimum wage regardless of how high prices rise. Republicans also control the House in our federal legislature and those folks also refuse to raise the minimum wage.

If you want to place blame for high prices, put that blame where it belongs, greedy businesses raising prices to increase profits while not raising wages to keep up and Republican politicians who think the same minimum wage from 2009 is appropriate today even though total inflation since then has been over 43%.

You have an opportunity to fix the imbalance between corporate profits and wages by electing Democrats to all levels of government this November.

Published in the Seguin Gazette - April 10, 2024

Inflation as a Political Weapon

 Inflation has emerged as a significant issue affecting not only the economy but also current political landscape especially the presidential election. One of the main factors contributing to this inflation is corporate greed, which has far-reaching implications on political dynamics and policy responses.

Corporate greed, profit-maximizing behavior at the expense of societal well-being and ethical considerations, should be a key point in your political discussions regarding inflation. Corporate actions, including price gouging, market manipulation, and prioritizing shareholder returns over long-term economic stability, have fueled rising prices in food, fuel, building materials, and many other sectors of the economy.

The intersection of corporate greed and inflation has significant implications for current politics, influencing public perceptions, policy priorities, and political discourse. Inflation caused by corporate greed affects politics in numerous ways.

As consumers face higher prices for essential goods and services, there is growing public anger and dissatisfaction with political leaders perceived as failing to address the root causes of inflation. This discontent fuels anti-establishment sentiments and has led to increased distrust in government policies.

Inflation caused by corporate greed has become a political weapon, with Republicans pointing fingers at Democrats for failing to rein in price increases, thus capitalizing on public frustration by blaming President Biden for economic mismanagement. Of course, those same Republicans do all they can to prevent Biden policies from increasing competition or at least maintaining the competition that currently exists by preventing inappropriate mergers.

Inflation caused by corporate greed can also have implications for international relations and trade dynamics. Rising prices may lead to trade disputes, currency fluctuations, and tensions between countries over economic policies aimed at addressing inflationary pressures.

The role of the Federal Reserve in managing inflation is under scrutiny, with debates over the appropriate balance between central bank independence and political oversight. Questions arise about whether the Federal Reserve has the tools and autonomy to effectively combat inflation.

Inflation caused by corporate greed is likely to feature prominently in this election cycle, with Republicans blaming Biden for mismanagement while Biden reminds voters what he has already done and offers further proposals to hold corporations accountable. Campaign promises related to job creation, affordability, and reining in corporate power will be key points in the drive to attract voters to each party.

Inflation driven by corporate greed is shaping current political landscapes, sparking debates, policy reforms, and public scrutiny of government responses. The intersection of economic forces and political dynamics underscores the complexity of addressing inflationary pressures while promoting sustainable economic development and social equity. It is incumbent on President Biden that he makes the case for including robust antitrust enforcement, consumer protection measures, responsible corporate governance, and policies that prioritize sustainable economic growth over short-term profit maximization. By addressing corporate greed, Biden and Democrats can mitigate inflationary risks and promote a fair and balanced economic environment for all Americans. We who understand the issues have a key role in spreading the word and explaining to our family and friends so that enough voters understand the problem and the solutions proposed.

Published in the Seguin Gazette - March 20, 2024

Christian Nationalism Threatens Democracy

According to a study released last month by the Public Religion Research Institute; more than a third of Texans agree with the following five statements: The U.S. government should declare America a Christian nation. U.S. laws should be based on Christian values. If the U.S. moves away from our Christian foundations, we will not have a country anymore. Being Christian is an important part of being truly American.

God has called Christians to exercise dominion over all areas of American society. Such agreement indicates what is known as Christian nationalism. Worse yet Texas is only slightly above the national average. In Louisiana 46% agree with those statements while in Mississippi 50% agree.

Americans under 50 years of age or who have earned a bachelors degree or higher are far less likely to be Christian nationalists. Gender isn’t an indicator, as men and women are equally likely to be Christian nationalists. The percentage of Christian nationalists among Whites, Hispanics, and Blacks are nearly the same. The big indicator is the variant of Christianity someone belongs to, two thirds of members of evangelical Protestant congregations are Christian nationalists as opposed to about a third for Catholic and mainline Protestant congregations. The biggest concentration of Christian nationalists is among the followers of prosperity gospel purveyors such as Joel Osteen, Creflo Dollar, Joyce Meyer, John Hagee, T. D. Jakes, and Paula White.

The higher the percentage of Christian nationalists in a given state the more likely that state is to vote Republican and the more likely the voters there are to support Trump. That’s bad enough, what’s worse is more than a third of those folks also believe political violence may be justified. That means that should Trump lose in November, as I believe is likely, 1 in 10 Texans may very well support a violent attempt to over turn the election.

Aside from the threat of political violence perpetrated by Christian nationalists the other thing the rest of us need to worry about is their desire to base U.S. law on their distorted interpretation of the bible. They’ve already succeeded in denying many women bodily autonomy. They’re working on denying rights to the LGBTQ members of our society. The Republican candidate for governor of North Carolina, Mark Robinson, wants to go back to the days when women were denied the right to vote. Where will they stop?

As an excuse to eliminate public agencies like the Department of Education, Republicans often claim that if it isn’t in the constitution then the federal government isn’t allowed to do it. At the same time nothing in the constitution says the country is a Christian nation and in fact the reverse is true, in Article VI it says: “but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.” Then to make it even more clear the First Amendment says: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” Either Republicans and Christian nationalists haven’t read the Constitution or they don’t understand it.

In November it is important that everyone votes to reject Christian nationalism which means voting against Republicans from top to bottom.

Published in the Seguin Gazette - March 13, 2024

Fix Immigration Now

 Republicans hyperventilate over the number of immigrants requesting asylum their solution are rejection, building Trump’s wall, or Gov. Abbott’s barbed wire in the Rio Grande. Trump and his sycophants demonize people who are poor and have darker skin than themselves. You can be sure they’re hypocrites because those same Republicans are falling all over themselves to protect a German family who came here a decade ago and over-stayed their 90 day visa. The Romeike family claims they suffered religious persecution and their evidence is that Germany doesn’t allow home-schooling so every child must attend a public or approved private school. The Romeike’s are evangelical Christians and claim that the public school system might have an impact on the children’s family values.

Citizens of Germany, New Zealand, Hungary, Iceland, and Estonia to name just a few, all have a straightforward and legal entry path into the United States but that program specifically excludes majority non-white nations such as Mexico, China, India, and the Philippines. The Romeike’s chose not to apply for legal immigration they broke the law and flaunt it.

Those same Republicans defending the Romeike’s make so much noise about the purported open borders that the media in many Central and South American countries repeat it creating a self-fulfilling prophecy that our border with Mexico is swamped with immigrants. Republicans in Congress are unwilling to add funding to address the need for more immigration judges and staff. 

A U.S. State Department travel advisory reads: “Do not travel to Haiti due to kidnapping, crime, civil unrest, and poor healthcare infrastructure.” Yet this past August, 60 refugees fleeing for their lives were forced back to Haiti. I wonder if they'd still be here if they were white and fleeing the horrors of a public school system they didn’t like.

 I’ve been unimpressed with Democrats’ discussion of immigration as well because they fail to discuss or do anything about the reasons that those seeking asylum want to come here so desperately that they’ll give up their homes and family ties then make a dangerous 1500 to 3000 mile journey just to request asylum here. Unlike the Romeike’s the folks streaming to our border with Mexico are actually trying to escape violence in the form of cartels and trans-national gangs.

This country bares some responsibility for the instability of so many Central and South American countries since we have interfered with their governments including sponsoring the overthrow of left wing governments in at least a dozen of them. Some such as Cuba and Nicaragua then revolted and were taken over by outright communists and are now dictatorships much like the old Soviet Union. We also provide the profits of their narcotics gangs with our failed “war on drugs” which just leads to corruption in government and violence in the community.

We should be supporting the people in their home countries with funding for education and health care. We should encourage exports and manufacturing through our trade policies. We must take the profits out of drug production and smuggling by decriminalizing most drugs so that funding for gangs dries up and they can no longer corrupt local governments.

There are millions of undocumented immigrants already here, quite a few came as young children and have grown up, gotten jobs, married and had children of their own yet we still deport them even though they often don’t speak the language of their country of origin and have no ties to it. This nation needs to provide a quick path to citizenship for all those currently here and create a system that is fair to all immigrants. 

Published in the Seguin Gazette - February 21, 2024

Independents Uninformed but Key to Victory in November

Political researchers have found that independents and soft partisans (voters who lean Democrat or Republican) are woefully under-informed regarding Donald Trump’s criminal indictments and trials. They’ve also found that once those voters learn of the charges behind those trials they are much less likely to support his re-election. Worse in some ways, these voters don’t see Trump’s actions including those on January 6 as an attack on our democracy. In fact, those voters aren’t even clear on what a democracy is.

When doing market or political campaign research organizations use polling to learn how people feel or what they believe about a topic. In order to get a better understanding of why they feel or believe as they do they’ll hold what are called “focus groups”. In a focus group just as in polling the organization tries to select participants that fit their needs. In political polling that is usually registered voters or when an election is close what are defined as likely voters, often those who vote nearly every election. Polling organizations usually try to find a mix of genders, ages, and economic groups that is also representative of the overall population of the area they’re researching, congressional district or state for example. For a focus group the organization may choose from a narrower group in order to better understand how that group thinks and why they might vote a particular way.

In focus groups organized for Navigator Research in three swing states, Georgia, Wisconsin, and Nevada, voters who lean Republican or consider themselves independent generally were very disturbed to learn that Trump had been indicted on 91 charges over 4 criminal trials. Participants were also concerned with Trump’s claims of immunity for anything done by the president including the use of the military to murder opponents.

Even some voters who lean Republican cited Fox News as part of the problem regarding the political divide in the country, misinformation, and distrust of media. Unfortunately that has caused many voters to distrust main stream media entirely rather than find more reliable sources. It’s also frightening that the voters participating in the focus groups didn’t have a common understanding of political violence or recognize it beyond the insurrection on January 6, 2021.

The only positive point I see is that for the most part participants in the focus group and hopefully others like them were less likely to support Trump upon learning more about the indictments and criminal trials as well as his claims of total immunity.

It is important to remember that Trump lost the popular vote in both 2016 and 2020. He only won in 2016 because of a relatively small number of votes in a handful of swing states giving him the edge in the electoral college. It will only take a small number of independents and soft Republicans voting for Biden to insure that Trump never again has political power in the United States.

As a Democrat and believer in the peaceful transfer of power through free and fair elections I hold out hope that readers of this column and others will reach out to family and friends to insure that they are informed about they recognize the dangers of re-electing Trump.

Published in the Seguin Gazette February 7, 2024