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