Trump Takes Overtime Away

This week 100,000 Americans lost the right to overtime pay and what’s worse is that they are just the tip of the iceberg. Monday’s Supreme Court decision in the case Encino Motorcars v. Navarro was all about whether or not service advisors at auto dealerships are exempt from overtime provisions in the Fair Labor Standards Act which was originally passed in the 1930’s. The result was disappointing though unsurprising as the Supreme Court had ruled much the same way two years ago when sending the same case back to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals with orders to rethink their prior decision in favor of the service advisors.

The five conservatives on the court claim that “if you ask the average customer who services his car, the primary, and perhaps only, person he is likely to identify is his service advisor.” The four liberals disagree, and I’ve got to say while I’ve never spoken to a mechanic at any dealer where I’ve had my car repaired I know darn well that the service advisor isn’t the one doing the work if for no other reason than they’re sitting in an air conditioned room talking to customers like the receptionist at the doctor’s office. I’ll bet you’re not fooled for a minute either.

While it’s frustrating that anyone loses their right to overtime pay you might think, “well it’s only service advisors at auto dealerships so this is a really limited issue”, but you’d be wrong. You see when Justice Clarence Thomas wrote the decision he made a point of also declaring that prior decisions which were based on narrow interpretations of exemptions to requirements of the Fair Labor Standards Act were also wrong. This means that a lot more people stand to lose not only overtime protections but any number of other protections of the law. Experts believe that we’ll be seeing new court cases over employers seeking to cut their employees pay, benefits, and other protections of the law for years to come.

When we elect a president we aren’t just getting that one person or just their ideas and actions, we’re getting a whole list of appointees both in the cabinet and in the courts. When we elect members of Congress we aren’t just getting one person to act on our behalf, we’re getting the entire party they belong to for good or ill. In this case Ted Cruz and John Cornyn are just as responsible for taking away overtime protection from the service advisors and others who will lose those and other benefits in the coming years as Donald Trump. They were active participants in stealing the Supreme Court seat that allowed Trump to appoint Neil Gorsuch when they withheld hearings on President Obama’s nominee claiming that a year was too close to an election to name a new Supreme Court Justice.

The next time a friend or family member tells you they aren’t political so they don’t vote or that it doesn’t matter who is elected, remind them that overtime, family leave, sick pay and any number of other benefits they take for granted can be taken away due to who gets elected. In November Texans have an opportunity to forcibly retire Ted Cruz by electing Beto O’Rourke to the United States Senate. That will go a long way toward stopping further Trump appointees who would stand for corporations and billionaires at the expense of every day working people like you and me.

I wonder how many service advisors are rethinking their vote for Trump now.

Published in the Seguin Gazette - May 6, 2018

Dark Money and Foreign Interference in Elections

In a decision made by the Supreme Court in 2010, Citizens United v. Federal Elections Commission, overturning campaign finance protections, they made it legal for Political Action Committees (PACs) which spend money on political advertising to hide the names of the donors who provided those funds. Since the public is therefore in the dark as to who is really paying for the political advertising the term dark money was coined. In many cases people donate funds to one organization which must provide the names of its donors then that organization donates the bulk of its funds to another organization that doesn’t have to reveal the names of its donors. If this sounds like money laundering that’s because after a fashion it is, though it’s legal.

When interpreting a message most of us will consider not only what is said but also who is saying it. If a known liar makes a bold claim the average listener will consider that claim with a large helping of salt. The same is true for political advertising most of us want to know who is making the claims in the ad in order to better judge whether or not to believe the claims.

The most recently appointed Supreme Court justice, Neil Gorsuch, was supported by $10 million of dark money pushing for him. Given that it is a lifetime appointment doesn’t is seem appropriate that the American public know who was promoting him and in order to provide guidance on how legitimate the claims made about him might be?

If China had donated $5 million to People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals or Iran had donated $3 million to an Islamic mosque in Houston which was then used that money to support Hillary Clinton’s run for the presidency I’m quite certain that Republicans in congress and everywhere else would have jumped all over it. The National Rifle Association spent $30 million in support of the Trump campaign. It has come to light that Russia may have donated millions of dollars to the National Rifle Association at that time. Hardly a word is being said about it by Republicans.

There are laws in place prohibiting foreign governments and their citizens from funding political advertising or campaigns but when “dark money” is allowed how do we truly know whether or not those laws are being followed.

Dark money isn’t just a problem in presidential campaigns, there aren’t any prohibitions on it in state campaigns either. Numerous state legislature races have been impacted by dark money in recent years. State Representative Charlie Geren twice filed bills that would have prohibited such anonymous funding of campaign advertising but Gov. Greg Abbott hasn’t gotten behind the bills so Texas legislature has failed to pass them. Isn’t it well past time that the public get the opportunity to judge political ad claims by who is paying the bills for those ads?

Published in the Seguin Gazette March 9, 2018

Trump's Host of Controversies

The controversy of the moment is the unacceptable and un-Christian action taken by Trump to stop Muslim refugees from seven countries from entering the United States. The problems with Trump’s order are several, it was sudden and to all appearances not based on any new intelligence or even the recommendation from his National Security team. The order appears to be unconstitutional at least to the eyes of the acting Attorney General, Sally Yates, who he fired for doing her job. I say, for doing her job, because her oath of office calls for her to defend the constitution and her job is to provide counsel to the president so he doesn’t violate it. Yates told him the order was wrong and told her staff not to defend the indefensible in court and she was fired for it. Had she done his bidding Yates would have been complicit in the crime just as the German soldiers were who claimed they were just following orders as they gassed Jews in places like Auschwitz.

Trump’s action on refugees is far from the only issue worthy of protest. Hearings are still going on for his often incompetent, occasionally dangerous, possibly criminal, and sometimes unethical nominees for cabinet posts as well as a terrible nominee for Supreme Court justice.

So we have a C student from Texas A&M nominated to head the Department of Energy which among other vital tasks is responsible for the safety and maintenance of our nuclear arsenal. Yes, it’s former Governor Rick Perry, the same incompetent dullard who ran for president and wanted to eliminate the Department of Energy entirely except he couldn’t remember its name during the debate. Now he says he hadn’t realized how important the agency is. Don’t you think the responsible thing to do before you suggest eliminating something is to find out what it does?

Then there’s Betsy “Billionaire” DeVos who never saw a public school she didn’t want to dismantle to feed her investment portfolio and has been nominated for Secretary of Education. Senator Al Franken asked DeVos for her views on the controversy over mastery versus improvement for judging student achievement and teacher competence. Sadly DeVos is so incompetent she didn’t even understand the question let alone have a coherent response. For someone who claims to be informed about education in general and public schools in particular Betsy “Billionaire” seems mighty ignorant.

Trump’s dangerous nominee for the job of among other things defending civil rights is a man with a history of using his position to prevent minorities from exercising those civil rights. The nominee is Jeff Sessions who was previously denied a federal judgeship by a Republican controlled Senate due to his racist actions in attempting to prosecute African American voter registration volunteers for doing their best to turn out voters to the polls. Sessions also took credit for prosecutions while a US Attorney for which he didn’t even exercise oversight let alone actively participate.

For a potentially criminal and certainly unethical nominee there’s Tom Price who is Trump’s nominee for Secretary of Health and Human Services. He’s been proven to have invested in medical product companies then used his position as chair of the committee overseeing them to improve their profits thus fattening his own wallet.

Finally, there’s Neil Gorsuch, Trump’s nominee for justice on the Supreme Court. Gorsuch decided the Hobby Lobby case which defying all logic allows a business to claim it has religious rights just like a natural person. He opposes regulation of businesses, so it’s OK if the coal mine poisons the water for everyone downstream.

Trump Delivering on Promises is Double Edged Sword

Trump is delivering on or at least signing documents that appear to deliver on many of his campaign promises. He made promises to the evangelical Christians and ultra-conservatives which he’s delivering on with his nomination of Judge Neil Gorsuch to be a justice on the Supreme Court. Not only is Gorsuch a man in the mold of Antonin Scalia which Trump promised his nominee would be, he’s also the mind behind the Hobby Lobby v. Burwell decision with gave corporations the right to be exempt from laws that offend their shareholders. Frankly I’ll believe that a corporation has religious rights when I meet one in church.

One of the defining reasons to incorporate your business is to protect yourself from legal responsibility for actions and liabilities of the business. If you incorporate your business you have created a legal entity with the rights and responsibilities to engage in business and if the entity is sued the owners are not a party to the lawsuit in most cases. Gorsuch’s decision bridges the gap between the owner and the corporation enabling the owner to claim that the business shares their religious convictions and therefore should be exempt from providing insurance coverage the provides contraception. In my view bridging that gap pierces the “corporate veil” which protects shareholders and may one day come back to haunt businesses due to the loss of protection offered by it.

Trump also recently announced that his administration would “totally destroy” the Johnson Amendment, which prohibits churches from engaging in political activity at the risk of losing their tax-exempt status. Such a repeal of the law would require approval by Congress. Currently certain tax-exempt organizations — in this case, churches — are not allowed to openly endorse or campaign for political candidates. If they do, under existing law, they risk losing the benefits of their tax-exempt status. Should Trump get his way he’ll be able to honestly say he’s delivered on another campaign promise to evangelicals who have chafed under this restriction for quite some time. There are even organizations of lawyers who among other issues have repeatedly attempted to get this restriction overturned so his success would be met with great joy in some circles. I have to wonder though if it isn’t a double edged sword in the sense that it will also embolden and empower churches which take opposing views on many issues dear to the hearts of the evangelicals Trump seeks to reward for their support during the election. How will they feel when an Imam at a nearby mosque calls for followers to vote for a candidate opposed by their church?

Nominating Betsy DeVos to be Secretary of Education is an indirect reward to the evangelicals who supported Trump in that she’s a strong supporter of school vouchers which she and others want to allow parents to use in order to fund their child’s tuition to private religious schools. This is a very contentious issue since having the government directly fund religious education seems to violate the First Amendment by favoring religion with our tax dollars. I know a lot of very religious folks feel strongly in favor of this because it would either save them a lot of money they’re currently spending or would enable them to send their children to such a school. I have to wonder if even more voters won’t be up in arms when they learn that those funds must also be provided to members of other faiths and they see a news story about a taxpayer funded madrassa right here in the United States just like in Afghanistan.