Vote Like Your Life Depends On It

With 7 days left before election day, the popular vote loser in the White House claims COVID-19 is going away. Hospitals are once again reporting a surge in patients with COVID-19 all across the country, including in San Antonio. We’re into the third surge in infections while Republican elected officials continue their push to re-open everything and even relax mask requirements. Over 18,000 Texans have died of COVID-19 so far that’s 61 deaths per 100,00 residents giving Texas the 18^th highest rate of deaths in the country well ahead of Republican’s favorite punching bag California which has had 44 deaths per 100,000.

The U.S. death toll stood at 225,000 as of this weekend, that’s the ninth highest rate per hundred 100,000 worldwide. Sunday, contrary to the president’s remarks his own Chief of Staff, Mark Meadows, said “We’re not going to control the pandemic”. That’s pathetic considering that so many other nations with much less to work with have done so much better at caring for their people.

Last week I listened to an interview with former National Security Advisor John Bolton in which he tore into the administration’s pandemic response. Bolton told the interviewer that the Obama administration developed a complete playbook on how to handle a pandemic and that document was left for future administrations to use, in addition the current administration had run its own exercise and developed its own playbook in 2019 yet the president didn’t bother to use either one. In the interview, Bolton referred to the president as “the empty chair behind the Resolute desk”; a reference to the desk nearly every president since 1880 has used which is made from the oak timbers of the British ship H.M.S. Resolute and presented as a gift to President Rutherford B. Hayes from Queen Victoria.

After his tantrum shortened interview with 60 Minutes correspondent Lesley Stahl, the president’s staff provided Stahl a thick binder which they claimed held the present’s health care plan. When Stahl reviewed the binder, all it contained were copies of his executive orders and existing legislation. The president has been claiming to have a plan since he was running for president the first time in 2016 and still there is nothing. Republicans in Congress like John Cornyn have been talking about Repeal and Replace for years and still have not produced a replacement plan either.

In the midst of a worsening pandemic, Republican leaders have no plan to protect the health of the American public. Those same Republican leaders are suing to kill the Affordable Care Act which will cause 28 million Americans to lose their health insurance at a time when a million Americans have been hospitalized due to the pandemic. Even with insurance many of those who have been hospitalized have been left with large medical bills and men like John Cornyn and the president want to destroy what little protection many of us have from bankruptcy or death. Back in May, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick told Fox News “Those of us who are 70 plus, we’ll take care of ourselves. But don’t sacrifice the country”. The only people sacrificing the country are Republican senators who refuse to hold a vote on the HEROES Act that would provide aid to states, cities, and individuals during the economic downturn caused by the pandemic.

There are 6 days left until election day, and the race has tightened here in Texas. Your vote could be the deciding factor in throwing out John Cornyn in favor of MJ Hegar so make a plan to vote and then go VOTE.

Your Health Insurance At Risk

Today, around 28 million Americans have health insurance they would not otherwise have had because of the benefits of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). In Texas alone nearly one million more would have those same benefits if Gov. Abbott accepted federal money to expand Medicaid like many other states did. Considering that the state would only have to contribute $1 for every $9 provided by the feds and even that $1 would be largely or totally recovered from taxes on additional spending by the medical community there’s no financial or economic reason for that refusal.

It’s that same petulance that has made the popular vote loser in the White House work to reverse everything done by his immediate predecessor. It is the same petulance that has infected the entire Republican Party since the passage of the Affordable Care Act in March of 2010 and given rise to their slogan Repeal and Replace. They had a full two years at the beginning of the president’s term when they controlled all the levers of power and couldn’t pass a bill to either repeal or replace, not once did they offer a replacement plan. The president claims to have finally offered a plan a few weeks ago but it is so lacking in detail that it doesn’t even appear on his campaign website. His fig leaf of an executive order on pre-existing conditions is meaningless to private insurers as executive orders are nothing more than directions to federal agencies and the only one that actually insures people is Medicare which has always covered pre-existing conditions.

Senator John Cornyn has been at the forefront of the movement to kill the Affordable Care Act and take away health insurance from 28 million Americans who are only covered because of it. Killing the Affordable Care Act will also remove the requirements that insurers covered annual wellness checkups and mental health as well as pre-existing conditions. Killing the ACA will also mean that insurance companies can go back to charging different rates for men and women, as well as eliminating the requirement that they spend at least 90% of premiums on health care instead of executive salaries and advertising.

Texas is at the forefront of the effort to kill the ACA another way, the state is a plaintiff in a case before the Supreme Court that seeks to invalidate the law. John Cornyn’s willingness to steal a Supreme Court seat from President Obama in 2016 and his advocacy for swift consent on the nomination of Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the court weeks before the presidential election is just another way to influence the result of the case. If Republicans get their way and the Supreme Court does overturn the ACA there will be many consequences unforeseen by the public and I expect you’ll see Republican elected officials distance themselves and blame those consequences on the court.

In some ways I hope Republicans finally succeed in overturning the Affordable Care Act so Joe Biden and the new Democratic Party majority in the senate are prompted to create a new more comprehensive plan with expanded coverage that leaves no one behind even in Texas. The only way to make sure that there are people in power who will work to mitigate the damage and make life better for all of us is to elect Joe Biden for president and MJ Hegar to the United States Senate. The polls are open, go vote. If you’ve received a mail-in-ballot, get it in the mail so you can be sure it gets to the elections office in time to be counted.

Published in the Seguin Gazette - October 21, 2020

Election More Than Federal Races

I’m fairly sure that most if not all of the news, noise, and campaign material you’ve probably seen has been for federal candidates Joe Biden, MJ Hegar, and Vicente González. There are 11 other races that also matter quite a bit and some of them matter in ways not everyone recognizes.

Even some Texans don’t realize that the Texas Railroad Commission doesn’t regulate railroads, it regulates the oil and gas industry and this election we have an opportunity to elect a highly qualified individual who recognizes that global climate change is an existential threat to the existence of our way of life. Her opponent operates oilfield waste disposal businesses and stands to make more money by keeping oil and gas industry regulation to a minimum. If you drive through west Texas at night you’ll seen dozens if not hundreds of fires roaring into the sky as oil wells flare off natural gas that they don’t want to bother with capturing and instead is allowed to be wasted on top of contaminating the environment with the CO2 and other damaging gases. Because the Railroad Commission rules state that all three commissioners have to agree to a permit to flare at a well if Chrysta Castañeda were elected she would have the power to stop the wasteful and environment damaging flaring.

The State Board of Education (SBOE) is another state agency with a role that many don’t know or understand. The SBOE has two main functions, oversee the investment of money from the proceeds from the sale and the mineral-related rental of many public lands in Texas which in turn funds textbooks for every public school student in the state and setting curriculum standards then reviewing and adopting instructional materials. Our representative on that board is up for election this year and the incumbent isn’t running. This is a golden opportunity to elect respected teacher and former Fulbright Scholar, Rebecca Bell-Metereau. I first met her about a decade ago and know her to be conscientious and deeply committed to raising the quality of education in our state. She will work to reduce the load of standardized tests our students are put through so that teachers aren’t force to teach to the test. Bell-Metereau has two daughters who graduated from Texas public schools and understands the limitations forced on both students and teachers by Texas’ many make or break tests.

If you’re among those who have requested a mail-in ballot I urge you to fill it out and mail it as soon as possible to avoid any chance that it will be delayed by the disruption of mail service caused by the recently appointed Postmaster General’s edicts eliminating overtime and shutdown of mail sorting equipment at many facilities. If your ballot doesn’t reach the elections office by Wednesday November 4 it will not be counted. In person early voting started yesterday so take advantage of the extra week and get it done early when crowds are light to help protect yourself from potential infection. The longer you wait the heavier the crowds are likely to be and the longer you’ll be stuck with a bunch of other people. This election is ours to lose and the way to do that is to not show up to make your voice heard. There are 14 Democratic candidates on the ballot in Guadalupe County, since we can no longer vote straight ticket be sure to mark all 14 of our candidates on your ballot.

Published in the Seguin Gazette - October 14, 2020

The President's Dereliction of Duty

 “It’s going to disappear. One day, it’s like a miracle—it will disappear”, so said the science denier-in-chief on February 27. The president repeated such claims for months. Now it’s the first week of October, he’s is in the hospital with a case of COVID-19. As of Sunday afternoon the smoke and mirrors put up by the White House has obscured just how sick the president is.

We do know that his symptoms are severe enough that his doctors have given him a three drug cocktail including an experimental drug and Dexamethasone, which is a steroid that the World Health Organization and the National Institutes of Health recommend be given only in severe cases. One in ten cases of COVID-19 requires hospitalization; less that two in a hundred require treatment in an intensive care unit (ICU). Being the president it’s likely that he is being monitored similarly to an ICU patient regardless of the severity of his condition but the drugs he’s being given suggest he is in bad shape and of those who have been ill enough to be treated in an ICU less than half survive. I’d like to point out that his doctors are not treating him with his fantasy drug of choice, hydroxychloroquine, which he touted repeatedly as a cure.

We know the president tested positive on Wednesday so he was infected already when he appeared at the debate and made fun of Joe Biden for always wearing a mask. Perhaps if he had shown the leadership that Americans expect of a president he would have been wearing a mask since March and would have encouraged his followers to do so as well instead of advocating against them. Had he done so, his aide Hope Hicks and three Republican senators might not have also tested positive for COVID-19 last week. This nation might also not have suffered at least some of the 210,000 deaths attributed to COVID-19 so far if he’d actually taken the leadership role expected of a president.

This president’s failure to act according to expert advice from the medical community has put public health at risk. That failure has left us with the ninth highest rate of deaths per capita in the entire world. We’re in company with such third world nations as Peru, Bolivia, Chile and Ecuador. This isn’t just incompetence; as Professor Allan Lichtman, a historian at American University for 50 years, put it “This is the greatest dereliction of duty in the history of the U.S. presidency.”

Typically a COVID-19 hospital stay is one to two weeks while those who are treated in an intensive care unit and survive typically exit the hospital in two to four weeks. So if the president recovers he’ll likely have just three weeks left to campaign and possibly much less. I wonder how his supporters will spin his hospitalization. How will they react if he actually dies of COVID-19 in the coming weeks? Will they shrug it off? Will they claim some sort of liberal or deep state conspiracy is responsible? More important, how will the 4% of likely voters who are undecided see this failure to even protect himself?

Republicans from the president on down to the state legislature have failed to take action to minimize the spread of a deadly contagion and they deserve to be voted out. In Guadalupe County there are fourteen races with Democrats running and this is the first election since straight ticket voting was eliminated. Be sure to pick all fourteen Democrats when you go to the polls or fill out your mail in ballot.

Published in the Seguin Gazette - October 7, 2020

SCOTUS Nominee Unfit

The popular vote loser in the White House has named an exceedingly controversial nominee to replace esteemed Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Aside from the fact that it turns out that our senators, John Cornyn and Ted Cruz, along with every other Republican in the senate lied to us in 2016 regarding the reason to deny then President Obama his constitutional right to name a Supreme Court justice and thus steal a seat, this nominee doesn’t deserve confirmation simply because she doesn’t believe in the actual constitution or at least the parts she doesn’t like.

She, along with numerous far right “thinkers”, claim that the fourteenth amendment is illegitimate. The Fox News crowd suggest that birthright citizenship clause was only intended to help those who had been directly enslaved, and is not applicable to future generations. Some go so far as the claim that since southern senators weren’t seated at the time due to the aftermath of the Civil War both the fourteenth and fifteenth amendments are null and void.

Sen. Jacob Howard (R-MI), the Senate sponsor of the 14^th Amendment, explained that Section One incorporates:

“The personal rights guaranteed and secured by the first eight amendments of the Constitution; such as the freedom of speech and of the press; the right of the people peaceably to assemble and petition the Government for a redress of grievances, a right appertaining to each and all the people; the right to keep and bear arms; the right to be exempted from the quartering of soldiers in a house without the consent of the owner; the right to be exempt from unreasonable searches and seizures, and from any search or seizure except by virtue of a warrant issued upon a formal oath or affidavit; the right of an accused person to be informed of the nature of the accusation against him, and his right to be tried by an impartial jury of the vicinage; and also the right to be secure against excessive bail and against cruel and unusual punishments. . . .

The last two clauses of the first section of the amendment disable a state from depriving not merely a citizen of the United States, but any person, whoever he may be, of life, liberty, or property without due process of law, or from denying to him the equal protection of the laws of the state.  This abolishes all class legislation and does away with the injustice of subjecting one caste of persons to a code not applicable to another.”

Now let’s consider what it means if Justice Barrett got her way and voided the 14^th Amendment. State and local governments could take away your guns, they could infringe on your right to freely associate with others of like mind, states and counties could impose teaching whatever religion those in power decided. Those in power at state or local levels could shutter press outlets that disagreed with them. The governor or mayor could have you arrested for protesting against local government policies. There would be nothing to stop state or local governments from denying women equal rights.

If your ancestors were not recognized as citizens at the time of the revolution or naturalized citizens afterward you would lose your citizenship and therefore your right to vote or even be present in the United States. Justice Barrett has no business getting anywhere near the constitution and I urge you to tell that to John Cornyn and Ted Cruz.

Published in the Seguin Gazette - September 30, 2020

Justice and Elections

 I had planned to write about the courts this week as a reminder that Texas is among the minority of states in that we elect our judges including at the appellate level. We therefore have both the opportunity and responsibility to determine who will make the final decisions in a wide range of legal cases, setting precedent and providing guidance to lower courts throughout the state. The death last week of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg brings that point home in ways that my words never could. It isn’t enough to just vote for Joe Biden and leave the rest of the ballot untouched. It’s important to vote in every race at every level.

The Court of Criminal Appeals is Texas highest court on criminal matters and has been dysfunctional for a decade. As examples please consider that a justice there once refused to consider a last minute death penalty appeal because the filing was delayed past office hours due to a printer breaking while it was being printed. Worse the same court has been slapped down by the Supreme Court of the United States twice on the same case for failing to do its job of reviewing the law regarding whether an intellectually disabled person should be executed. Judge Elizabeth Davis Frizell, Judge Tina Yoo Clinton, and Judge Brandon Birmingham are running to replace these lazy and apparently incompetent clods. All three are committed and experienced, with strong records of acting in the best interests of their respective communities. They deserve your support on election day.

In early 2016 when Justice Antonin Scalia suddenly died more than eight months before the election and President Obama had the responsibility to nominate a successor; our senator, John Cornyn, repeatedly stated that the next president should choose that nominee because it was an election year. Cornyn is quoted in numerous media sources and his own website saying: “It's not about the personality, it's about the principle ... that it's up to the American people in this next election, no matter who they choose, to make the nomination for this important seat on the Supreme Court.” “My view is that this is not about the potential nominee; it's about who chooses. And I believe strongly this should be a referendum on who chooses in November.” “I believe the American people deserve to have a voice in the selection of the next Supreme Court Justice, and the best way to ensure that happens is to have the Senate consider a nomination made by the next President." Now, when early voting has already begun in some states and election day is less than seven weeks away; he has changed his tune retweeting Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s statement: "President Trump’s nominee will receive a vote on the floor of the United States Senate."

If John Cornyn has a shred of integrity he’ll rethink that and be guided by his own 2016 statements to allow the winner of the election to choose the next Supreme Court justice. You have the responsibility of reminding him of that by calling his office either in San Antonio at 210-224-7485 or in Washington, D.C. at 202-224-2934. Another way to put the fear of God in him would be to make a donation to his Democratic opponent, MJ Hegar, at https://mjfortexas.com/ .

Published in the Seguin Gazette - September 23, 2020

Rigth-wing Partisanship Deadly Dangerous

Partisanship in the 21^st century can be deadly dangerous, let me give you a few examples. Republican led Texas continues to rise on the list of states by proportion of COVID-19 deaths as compared to population, now standing at number 17 with more than 30% greater proportional death toll than California, the state Texas Republicans like to bash most. According to a recently published study by Elisa F. Long, M. Keith Chen, and Ryne Rohla at the Anderson School of Management, University of California Los Angeles, Republicans were more than 10% more likely Democrats to disregard local orders to evacuate their coastal residences in the hours before a hurricane struck the area. The Department of Homeland Security now run by illegally appointed Chad Wolf has been downplaying and shelving reports on the threat of white nationalist terrorism according to a whistleblower complaint by intelligence-division chief Brian Murphy, he was told it was blocked because of the way it might “reflect upon President Trump.”

It’s been pretty clear for a while now that COVID-19 is deadly and while not a Black Plague level catastrophe, it has now killed nearly 200,000 Americans making it the third leading cause of death in the U.S behind cancer and heart disease. COVID-19 has proven to be more than three times as deadly as the flu and the year isn’t over yet. With more than three months left to 2020 the death toll is likely to approach four times the worst flu rate in decades. The U.S. has the tenth highest proportion of deaths to population in the world. Much of the death toll could have been prevented if the president had taken the measures that other countries such as South Korea and Germany did. Even if you’re inclined to discount the recording of Trump telling journalist Bob Woodward that he was downplaying the danger of COVID-19 to avoid a panic it is clear that the president failed to take appropriate measures in a timely manner and continued to discount the danger in public. His supporters in government and those in the public at large have followed his rhetoric with dangerous actions, some have paid the ultimate price by dying from the disease they didn’t believe was deadly.

In the days before hurricane Irma struck Florida in 2017, right wing blowhards Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter used their media platforms to downplay the seriousness of the hurricane claiming it was a liberal hoax. Evacuation patterns show that a significant fraction of Republican voters fell for their spiel and risked their lives as a Category 5 hurricane made landfall nearby.

While the popular vote loser occupying the White House continues to spout claims of the dangers of antifa and Black Lives Matter, he and his appointees are misleading both the public and state and local law enforcement agencies with distorted reports downplaying white nationalist groups like “Boogaloo Boys” and others while at the same time falsely claiming liberal groups are the real danger. Since these reports are coming from federal agencies that have been respected for providing factual information in the past state and local law enforcement act on that information and thus improperly allocate resources and endanger the public.

The final run-up and aftermath of the November election likely will see all of this get worse as Republican voters fall for the president’s claims of voter fraud and election results are delayed by the need to unusually high numbers of mail in ballots. Remember that when asked if he would leave the White House if he lost the election he said “We’ll see”.