Joe Biden Says Look At My Record

Recently a young woman asked Joe Biden how young people can trust he'll fight for us when he's opened the door  to Super PACs, which would allow any amount of dark fossil fuel money to support his campaign. His response was condescending “Look at my record, child" and at the same time tells all what we should do when investigating any candidate. So let’s look and Biden’s record and see what it tells us about him on any number of issues.

Before we do that though remember what a Super PAC is and why the young woman’s question is relevant. Super PACs can take virtually unlimited amounts of money from a variety of different sources, and they’ve found loopholes that enable them to dodge disclosure requirements. Those donations made by undisclosed sources are called Dark Money. As a result, we the voters might not even know who is paying for advertising promoting the candidate during the primaries. What promises the candidate make in order to encourage a donor to provide tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars to a Super PAC? We'll never know and because we don't know who donated those funds we don't even know what to look out for.

Now on to Biden’s record, do you remember the 1991 confirmation hearings for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas? You remember the controversy over Anita Hill’s testimony that Thomas sexually harassed her? Joe Biden was the Chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee at that time and in a deal with Republicans he blocked four other women from testifying in support of Hill’s claims. This is sadly illustrative of both Biden’s treatment of women and the way he works cooperatively with Republicans, which he claims is one of his strengths.

Then there’s Biden’s support for credit card companies over working Americans when he voted for the 2005 Bankruptcy Bill. The bill, championed by credit card companies and many major retailers, made it harder for individuals to file for bankruptcy and get out of debt. The bill passed the Senate with a large majority including Biden, but most Democratic senators voted no. Biden was widely considered one of the bill’s major Democratic champions. Elizabeth Warren was a strong opponent of the Bankruptcy Bill from the outset based on research she published in 2000. She explained to journalist David Cay Johnston that “Many people in bankruptcy were solid bill payers until something knocked their legs out from under them. For two-thirds of these people, it was loss of a job, for 40 percent it was a serious medical problem and for 20 percent it was the economic fallout of divorce.”

Lest we forget Biden voted “Yes” to give George W. Bush the authority to start the Iraq War. On the day the war broke out, Biden stated to the press, “We voted to give him the authority to wage that war. We should step back and be supportive.” In fact Biden didn't just vote for the war the record shows he was a leading Democratic voice in its favor. Biden played an important role in persuading the public of its necessity and laid the groundwork for Bush's invasion. At the time Biden stood as a leading Democratic voice on foreign policy since he chaired the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. While President Bush attempted to peddle the war to the American public, Biden became one of the administration’s strongets allies in this cause. Biden backed claims regarding the threat posed by Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein and the necessity of removing him from power.

So yes Joe, let’s look at your record.

Published in the Seguin Gazette - November 6, 2019

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

Weiner resigned now it's time for Clarence Thomas to go also

The media went crazy for weeks over naughty pictures Rep. Antony Weiner (D-NY) sent via twitter and now he has resigned. Why hasn’t the bigger scandal of Justice Clarence Thomas’ unethical and illegal behavior had as much or more attention given the power he has as one of only nine Supreme Court Justices?

52 years ago Justice Abe Fortas resigned in disgrace for accepting gifts from wealthy patrons who had interest in cases heard before the Supreme Court. Thomas has taken gifts valued in the tens of thousands of dollars from Harlen Crow and the American Enterprise Institute just to name a few. Since presenting its gift the American Enterprise Institute has filed three briefs in cases before the Supreme Court and Thomas has ruled in their favor every time. Whether or not it was quid pro quo the appearance of a conflict should have been enough for Thomas to recuse himself but he didn’t.

Clarence Thomas also lied when he repeatedly failed to disclose his wife’s hundreds of thousands of dollars in earnings from her job at the Heritage Foundation as he is legally required to do. So why is it that the media in this country is far more interested in satisfying our prurient interests than it is in doing its job as America’s watch dog?

Now that you know about Justice Thomas’ lies, unethical and illegal behavior will you call for him to resign like Anthony Weiner and Abe Fortas before him?