Gulf Stream Collapse Catastrophic

Last week climate scientists reported that the Gulf Stream has become unstable and is nearly total collapse. You might remember that the Gulf Stream is the ocean current that sends warm water from the Gulf of Mexico north up the east coast and across the northern Atlantic to western Europe which moderates the winters there. The Gulf Stream is a part of what scientists call the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) and it also sends cold but less salty water southward deep in the ocean. If this circulation of warm and cold water should fail as it appears ready to do it could threaten our entire civilization.

The AMOC affects the climate of the east coast of North America as well the coasts of northwestern Africa and Western Europe. Its failure would cause rising sea levels on the U.S. Atlantic coast, threatening numerous cities. That failure could also wreak havoc on the world’s food supply, due to its effect on rainfall from South America to India and West Africa. Just as concerning, would be the effect on the Antarctic ice sheets and the Amazon rainforest which are already in trouble.

Climate scientists aren’t ready to predict when such a catastrophe will occur just that we’re approaching a tipping point and they don’t know how much more it will take to get there.  Given the unknowns the only thing to do is keep CO2 emissions as low as possible in order to minimize overall climate change. Every little bit of CO2 added to the atmosphere further increases the likelihood of this extremely high-impact event occurring.

More than 30% of jobs in El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras are in agriculture; the way of life of these works revolves around fairly stable climate systems doing what they’re expected to do most of the time. Climate change tossing that out the window by amplifying existing weather patterns of dry spells, then heavy rainfall, then dry spells. Rainfall is becoming either increasingly abundant or in desperately short supply, relative to longtime averages. It’s a classic case of feast or famine and right now, rural farming families across Central America are starving. Some are even taking their families and leaving their homes. Not because they want to but because they have to in order to survive.

If you think immigration is a problem now, wait until severe drought conditions go on for decades in Central and South America as has happened in millennia past and brought down civilizations like the Maya and Aztecs. More than 140 million people across three regions of the world; Sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, and Latin America, could be displaced by 2050 due to foreseeable climate impacts like sea-level rise, extreme heat, drought, and crop failures caused by changing farming conditions. That’s not counting those displaced by hurricanes and flooding.

One of the most important reasons I wanted to see Democrats return to the White House and control of Congress was the difference in climate policy between the two parties. I was thrilled when President Biden returned the U.S. to the Paris Climate Accord though I’m frustrated that congress still hasn’t enacted legislation and budgets to actually get moving on our commitments. The longer we wait the higher and steeper a hill we’ll have to climb to get the world out of trouble. It’s past time to act decisively.

Published in the Seguin Gazette - August 11, 2021

Anti-Vaxxers Threaten All

My 91 year old mother lived in a time when Diptheria and Pertussis were serious threats to the lives of children and upwards of 35% of children didn’t live to adulthood. When I was 5 years old, in 1964-65, a wave of Rubella swept the United States causing 11,000 babies to be born deaf, 3,500 born blind, and 1,800 born intellectually disabled along with 2,100 neonatal deaths. Texas public schools require that students are vaccinated at appropriate ages for Diptheria, Pertussis, Measles, Mumps, Rubella, Polio, Hepatitis A and B among other diseases. Today we rarely hear of children dying of any of these diseases and that is only because of vaccines.

Last week the San Antonio Express News reported that Bexar 55.53% of residents ages 12 and up had been vaccinated while the rate in Comal is 53.49%, Kendall is 55.73%, and sadly Guadalupe is only 47.6%. In Bexar County the positivity rate, meaning the number of people testing positive out of all COVID tests has doubled since the end of June and was 13.5% at the time the article was published. Hospitalization and ICU admissions are also increasing. 97% of people hospitalized for COVID-19 in the U.S. are unvaccinated, according to NPR. Numerous hospitals across the country have gone back to delaying elective procedures as they need the beds to treat COVID-19 patients.

COVID-19 is once again a major public health threat as hospitalizations rise and 83% of new cases are the highly contagious Delta variant yet our governor has stated he will not order a mask mandate. There is plenty of vaccine available and numerous convenient locations to get it as most local pharmacies are offering it but too many people reject the opportunity claiming they know better than the overwhelming majority of medical professionals. These are the same folks who refused to wear masks and claim that the 610,000+ deaths from COVID-19 are overstated.

I’ve lost patience with them, after all they’re mostly people who voted for Trump and continue to believe the election was stolen regardless of the lack of evidence. Early this year when we were under a mask mandate many of these irresponsible people refused to wear a mask or used material so thin that it was of no value and claimed that those who feared contracting the virus should just stay home. I take the opposite view, if they don’t want to wear a mask in public then they should be the ones who stay home and let the responsible folks take care of business in a safe, healthy environment.

I would accept their right to get very ill and perhaps die from a preventable illness  but the problem is having so many unvaccinated people in the community provides a pool for more variants to evolve in and threatens the lives of children under 12 who can’t yet be vaccinated and those with compromised immune systems like many cancer survivors. These folks are like Typhoid Mary and aren’t willing to accept their responsibility to the larger community in the name of some warped notion of personal freedom. To para-phrase an old quote: Your liberty to cough out a virus ends just where my nose begins.

Published in the Seguin Gazette - July 28, 2021

Fascism Comes to Texas

Merriam-Webster dictionary defines fascism as: a political philosophy, movement, or regime that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition. 77 years ago today American troops, perhaps your father or uncle, or grandfather among them, were fighting fascist forces not far from the Normandy beaches where they’d landed June 6^th. Today we’re still fighting against fascism.

One of the tactics of fascists the world over is claiming that something or someone is to blame and getting people angry about it, usually it’s a lie. Here in the US fascists are trying to persuade Americans to support them is through claiming that the 2020 election was fraught with massive voter fraud causing the 2 time popular vote loser and reality TV star to lose the election, it’s nothing more than “The Big Lie”. Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick offered a $1 million reward and they still can’t provide proof of fraud 8 months later. A.G. Ken Paxton spent $1 million on staff salaries investigating voter fraud in the last year alone yet no one has been jailed. Those failures aren’t stopping them from taking actions to suppress voting rights under the guise of preventing that non-existent fraud. It’s all just Jim Crow 2.0.

Saturday morning the legislature held committee hearings on SB 1 and HB 3, both are highly complex, 40+ page bills which were only filed Thursday with over 200 other bills. Republicans are trying to give partisan poll watchers access to disrupt voting despite their notorious track record of intimidating voters of color. They’re also spreading fear to voters, election officials, and good samaritans to discourage their participation by further criminalizing Texas’s electoral process, targeting election officials in particular for minor mistakes. Republicans are gutting the ability of election officials to communicate with Texans about voting by mail. They’re making it substantially harder for Texans to access vote by mail applications and add new requirements for voter ID on a Vote by Mail ballot. Targeting voters with disabilities and forces those voters to disclose private medical information about one’s disability to access vote by mail.

The Republican written bills also eliminate pro voter policies that made voting safe and secure during the pandemic such as extended voting hours for shift workers and drive thru voting. The bills also authorize new lawsuits that can be brought by disgruntled losing candidates, in which a voter could be forced to disclose who they voted for - violating the very basic right to a private and secret ballot.

While the Republican authors have dropped provisions from the regular session that eliminated access to Souls to the Polls by restricting Sunday voting hours to the afternoon, a direct attack on traditional GOTV efforts in Black communities, that doesn’t mean they won’t try to add it back in the dark of night.

The courageous men who stormed the beaches at Normandy, fought through the bitter winter at the Battle of the Bulge, and marched into Germany and Italy to put an end to the fascist aggressors would be deeply disappointed if we roll over and let fascism take over the United States without even putting up a fight. Call Representative John Kuempel’s office, at 512-463-0602, and let him know what you think of these voter suppression bills HB 3 and SB 1.

Published in the Seguin Gazette - July 14, 2021

Texas' Senators Should Be Ashamed

Our two United States senators, John Cornyn and Ted Cruz, shamed themselves last week by voting against even discussing S1, known as the “For the People Act”. The legislation would insure that all states offer early voting for at least 15 consecutive days of early voting for federal elections. The bill also requires that early voting locations be near public transportation, in rural areas and open for at least 10 hours per day. In other words our senators voted against requiring other states to offer similar voting opportunities to what Texas offers.

S1 also requires states to permit voters to register on the day of a federal election, including during early voting, something Texas doesn’t offer but is available in 18 other states plus Washington, D.C. States that allow citizens to register to vote closer to Election Day have higher participation rates. In Texas, at 30 days before election day; we have one of the earliest deadlines in the country, that's the earliest allowed by the National Voter Registration Act.

The “For the People Act” declares the right of citizens to vote in federal elections will not be denied because of a criminal conviction unless a citizen is serving a felony sentence in a correctional facility. The bill requires states and the federal government to notify individuals convicted of state or federal felonies, respectively, of the restoration of their voting rights. Texas offers a variation of this but voting rights aren’t restored until probation etc. is completed. Florida didn’t even offer that until recently when a citizen initiative passed overwhelmingly to restore voting rights then Republicans in the state legislature over-ruled the vote of the people to make it much harder for former convicts to again be able to vote.

S1 requires states to use individual, durable, voter-verified paper ballots and that those ballots are counted by hand or an optical character recognition device. Texas has no standard requirements on recording votes so Guadalupe and Kerr counties purchased machines that comply with this standard but neighboring Comal County spent millions of dollars on machines that don’t use voter-verified paper ballots. Republicans often talk big on election integrity but don’t walk the walk.

S1 prohibits a state from imposing restrictions on an individual’s ability to vote by mail. Texas already restricts vote by mail to voters over 65 and the disabled, in the last legislative session they tried to add a requirement that mail ballot voters provide proof of disability such as a doctor’s note and they’ll probably try again next week when the special session starts as voter suppression is one of the topics Gov. Abbott has called the session to address. 7 states, including heavily Republican Utah, offer all mail voting and people really like it. California also offers it as an option and last year over 85% of presidential election voters there used mail ballots.

S1 ensures equitable and efficient operation of polling places, reducing long lines and wait times for voters. In many areas of the country Republican election officials cause long lines and multi-hour wait times in minority voting precincts by providing too few voting machines while having an abundance in largely white precincts. Cornyn and Cruz voted against addressing this problem.

Our form of government works best when more people participate and feel like their voices are heard. Republicans apparently prefer low voter turnout believing that increases their chances of winning. The shameful behavior of senators Cornyn and Cruz is in line with Republicans across the south and especially here in Texas. They don’t care if government works as long as they retain power.

Published in the Seguin Gazette - June 30, 2021

Abbott Fails the People of Texas

Last week Gov. Greg Abbott proved once and for all what a petty, mean-spirited, little man he is by essentially giving notice to several hundred state employees that they’re fired as of September 1^st by vetoing Article X of the budget bill passed by both houses of the state legislature. Abbott announced he would do it in a fit of pique days after House Democrats walked out late on the last day of the session, breaking quorum over the voter suppression bill known as SB7. By vetoing that line item in the budget he is making the workers who clean the capitol, operate the cafeteria, run the parking garage suffer. The veto will hardly be noticeable to the elected members of the state legislature as they only get $500 a month and they all have full time jobs elsewhere. The folks that will hurt the most are the ones that had nothing to do with the politics of the session, they take care of the building and the people, they’re just like you and me.

Abbott also signed two bills into law aimed at strengthening the electric grid and reforming the agencies that regulate it. The bills were a response to a massive winter storm that broke the state’s electric grid, which according to a Buzzfeed investigation, killed as many as 700 Texans. Prior signing the bills, Abbott confidently declared that “everything that needed to be done was done to fix the power grid in Texas.” Last week we learned there are more problems with the grid when statewide notice was sent out requesting that all electricity users take steps to conserve because several generation plants were down with unscheduled repair issues. Nothing in the bills Abbott was so proud of addresses these issues and summer has just begun.

One of the electricity grid bills Abbott signed is SB3 which power generators and transmission line operators to weatherize their facilities. That’s great but the big problem during Snowpocalypse was that natural gas supply disruptions, the law requires only gas facilities deemed to be “critical” to weatherize. The agency responsible for making the determination of what’s critical is the industry-friendly Railroad Commission so we have no reason to be hopeful that they’ll actually select all the necessary infrastructure.

SB3 will take effect in six months so the regulatory agencies have time to work out the details. The catch is that the legislature failed to set a deadline for when regulators must begin actually enforcing the law. House Democrats attempted to remedy that with an amendment to establish a six-month deadline for enforcement after the regulatory agencies create their weatherization rules. The bill’s main author, Representative Chris Paddie, opposed the idea citing “financial and operational concerns,” the amendment was voted down along with another to make penalties mandatory also failed. Does anyone actually believe this legislation will do anything to insure that our electric grid will be better prepared for the next winter storm or hurricane, or extreme high temperatures?

Abbott recently announced that he’s picking up Trump’s ball on the border wall and will use $250 million in state funds to build some of it. He says he’s going to work with the Biden administration to have the previously purchased land returned to the original landowners then negotiate with them to have the state buy that land so he can build his wall.

Greg Abbott has shown he doesn’t care about regular folks, little people, he’s just worried about re-election and his action putting state employees out of work to spite House Democrats last week shows why he must not be.

Published in the Seguin Gazette - June 23, 2021

Our Unjust Tax Code

Bill and Ted both make $100,000 a year, each have a wife who isn’t working so they can stay home with their one year old child. Bill works for a big company and handles their computers and network, sometimes he works 60 hours a week. Ted’s income comes from his stock portfolio. Since they make the same amount of money each year and have the same number of dependents you’d think they would pay the same amount of federal income tax, but you’d be wrong. Ted’s income is taxed at a lower percentage because the federal tax code privileges capital gains with a lower rate. While this has been a problem for decades the Trump tax “reform” of 2017 made it worse. 

Of course much of the rhetoric surrounding work and taxes claims that poor people don’t pay enough taxes and those who get jobless benefits are the problem when in reality it is the very wealthiest among us who not only don’t pay their fair share they use their wealth to actively push to increase the differential. The very wealthy make campaign donations for the maximum allowed by law, then they setup dark money groups to donate more and run their own ads pushing their chosen candidates. The only things the wealthy ask in return for their largesse is that their privileged tax rate continue and the Internal Revenue Service be underfunded so it doesn’t have the staff to audit them and take them to court.

People like you and me, who work hard all day to actually earn our money, pay more in taxes than people who just sit back and collect a check.

Republicans campaigning for midterm elections in 2022 are claiming that the Trump tax cut in 2017 was a great success. They claim wages went up and unemployment went down because the corporate tax cut created a demand for labor that helped disadvantaged groups. The truth is that the unemployment rate has been going down from 2010 to the beginning of the pandemic 10 years later. Nothing remarkable happened in 2017, 2018, or 2019 other than continuing the trend that had been going on for years. 

The 2017 tax law also includes incentives for investing in plants and facilities outside of the United States. Didn’t Republicans claim they were all about “America First”? Those incentives are in the tax code because Republican donors told them to include it. Republicans are not about “America First”, they are about campaign donors first. The only people the Trump tax plan was good for were the small number who fund the political campaigns of the people who voted for it. When pushing the tax bill Republicans claimed that companies that are actually overseas and happen to do incidental business in the United States shouldn’t have to pay taxes. The defined the tax code based such that the higher the percentage of physical stuff a company has outside of the United States the lower taxes they have to pay. That gave every company an incentive to move as much physical plant and equipment overseas as possible.

ProPublica, the non-profit public interest journalism organization, recently published a number of articles on how our tax code and the Internal Revenue Service have been undermined. While Trumps big tax bill was the latest injury Republicans aren’t the only ones who have favored their big campaign donors with tax breaks. On the positive side Joe Biden is pushing to raise taxes on capital gains and revitalize the IRS so that it can audit more of the wealthy people who are not paying their taxes.

Published in the Seguin Gazette - June 16, 2021

Voter Fraud Investigation is a Fraud

As reported in the Houston Chronicle; Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s “office spent nearly twice as much time working on voter fraud cases this year as it did in 2018 — logging more than 22,000 staff hours — yet resolved just 16 prosecutions, half as many as two years ago.” That’s according to records obtained from the agency by nonprofit government watchdog American Oversight.

Everyone prosecuted were Harris County residents who supplied false addresses when they registered to vote. Not a single one served even a day in jail. There were over 11 million votes cast in the presidential election here in Texas so Paxton’s teams found that .00000145% of them were cast by voters registered at the wrong address. If shoplifting and speeding had rates that low we’d hardly ever assign officers to those crimes.

Paxton considers the voter fraud a top priority of his office. Between January and October of 2020 assigned eight additional law enforcement sergeants in addition to the nine already assigned to the election integrity unit and doubled the number of prosecutors to four. Given the pay rates of the attorneys and experienced investigators assigned a conservative estimate is that Paxton spent $750,000 to investigate and prosecute a bunch of nobodies for very minor violations of election law.  That’s like the city assigning a sizable fraction of police officers to catch people speeding less than 5 miles an hour over the posted limit. There is plenty of more important work to be done with that kind of expenditure of Texas taxpayer money.

Like the previous occupant of the White House, Paxton and Gov. Abbott continue to claim that organized voter fraud is rampant and even with massive expenditures of investigative resources they’re unable to provide any proof. Even if Paxton is honest and competent, and I’d argue he’s neither, numerous academic studies and journalistic reviews have also failed to find evidence of widespread voter fraud. Even a wide-ranging investigation of election fraud conducted by the U.S. Justice Department under former Attorney General William Barr in the 2020 elections found no evidence of such fraud. Prior to his resignation Barr publicly admitted that investigators had “not seen fraud on a scale that could have effected a different outcome in the election.”

So to be clear, even the Republican attorney general who protected the former president from the Mueller investigation couldn’t gin up a shred of evidence for the big lie his boss and nearly every Republican in office today, except Liz Cheney and a handful of others, continue to extol and use as the excuse for making it harder for people to register to vote and cast their ballot.

If there is no organized voter fraud and elections aren’t being won with fraudulent votes then why is Gov. Abbott so upset that SB7, the omnibus election bill, failed to pass last month? He’s so upset he has threatened to veto the budget line that pays the salaries for the thousand staffers who work full time for our senators and representatives. Making government employees suffer because you don’t like the outcome of the legislative process is a whole new level of childish temper tantrum.

The real reason that Republican leaders like the former president, Gov. Abbott, Paxton and others claim widespread voter fraud is that it provides a fig leaf for their efforts to prevent the voters most likely to vote for Democrats from voting. They know that their policies aren’t popular and that they can’t win when more people vote so their strategy is simply don’t let them vote.

Published in the Seguin Gazette June 9, 2021