Thursday, November 30, 2006

The issue is human dignity

"It's an issue of illegal immigrant people who have no right to be here in the first place." That's what Escondido, California Councilman Ed Gallo said upon learning of a recent federal judge's decision issuing a temporary restraining order blocking that city from implementing a housing ordinance it passed in October that penalizes landlords who rent to illegal immigrants.

No, that's not the issue, Mr. Gallo. The issue is how to humanely fix a dysfunctional immigration system.

Several cities across the country (including the Texas one I wrote about a few days ago whose ordinance is scheduled to go into effect on January 12 unless legally or otherwise thwarted) have passed similarly misguided regulations. They are misguided because if they're ever implemented they would create immensely larger problems for our society than the one their pushers claim they are addressing.

The first problem I have with the "illegal" immigrant debate is how can unauthorized migrants be considered "illegal" when we've invited them into our country? If I extend an invitation to you to come into my home, and you affirmatively act on that invite by stepping across my threshold, then you're obviously not in my house illegally. It's no different with respect to our country's borders. Our country has for all practical purposes invited unauthorized migration by offering up jobs--jobs that native-borns aren't falling all over themselves to become employed in. Every last one of us "legals" in this country, as well as our country itself, has benefited greatly from the labors of unauthorized migrants. With or without proper documentation, folks always have and always will emigrate to this country to make a better life for themselves and their families, and that means in almost every instance, better jobs than they might have held in the country of their birth. In turn, our society gets, to list but a few economic benefits, its homes built, its lawns and golf course fairways planted and manicured, its fruits and vegetables picked, and its dirty restaurant dishes, dirty institutional laundry, dirty cars, trucks and buses, dirty lodging accommodations, and dirty offices cleaned--almost entirely by folks who have accepted our job invitations and crossed our country's threshold without proper documentation.

And isn't it ironic that if the immigration restrictionists were to have their way with these ordinances, the very folks responsible for building our homes and apartments wouldn't be allowed to live in them.

As to the larger problems these ordinances would create, the first one is, how the hell does a landlord determine who is and who isn't someone authorized to be in this country? Employers large and small have been failing at this task for ever (some intentionally so), so what tools are these restrictionist cities giving landlords to make this determination? Umm, I'm waiting here.... Oh, I see, the pushers behind these odious ordinances haven't figured that one out--which means our courts will be burdened with illegal discrimination lawsuits filed by folks wrongly accused by their landlord for being a so-called illegal-alien.

Most problematic from a costs-to-taxpayers perspective, even assuming there was (and there isn't--yet) an accurate method available to untrained landlords to determine their tenant's or prospective tenants immigration status, what then? Surely landlords are not going to expose themselves to the ordinance's fines and they will, therefore, evict any renter suspected of being an unauthorized immigrant. Ok, let's see, with an estimated unauthorized immigrant population today in the U.S. of between 11- and 12-million, I don't think there are a sufficient number of park benches in our country that they and their family members can sleep under. So what happens then? Maybe these restrictionist cities just think the undocumented folks they evict will simply wander down the road to the next town and take up residence there (until some other narrow-minded authorities in that city passed a similar ordinance). And even if the displaced residents did take up residency in a new town, the original restrictionist cities would still welcome them back with open arms (and minimum wage cash) each morning to tend to their lawns, clean their filth, tend their farms, and build and repair their homes.

Aha, deportation is the ultimate goal the restrictionists say? Well, tell me, who's going to pay the costs (between $206 to $230 billion) related to deporting them? For a variety of reasons, economics not being the least, mass deportation of unauthorized immigrants isn't going to happen--ever.

The very most important issue, though, if these abhorrent ordinances are allowed to go into effect, is the massive human rights violations that would be inflicted upon these immigrants by forcing them from their homes. The Catholic Church has this principle exactly right:

[R]egardless of their legal status, migrants, like all persons, possess inherent human dignity which should be respected. Government policies that respect the basic human rights of the undocumented are necessary. (A Pastoral Letter Concerning Migration from the Catholic Bishops of Mexico and the United States)
The pushers of these anti-immigrant housing ordinances are morally bankrupt in not recognizing this infrangible higher law. And I simply don't understand why commonsense and right-thinking folks in those communities didn't arise to soundly defeat these proposals. There is no excuse to defeat these measures by use of the courts; a community not morally bankrupt would have stopped this craziness well before the litigation stage.

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Wednesday, November 29, 2006

Peace Wreath Wins!!

The New York Times reported this morning that the threatened fines against the Pagosa Springs homeowner for displaying a peace symbol wreath has been dropped and that the three-member board of the over zealous homeowners association have also resigned from their posts. (My earlier post about this story is here.)

Peace now reigns in Pagosa Springs.

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Monday, November 27, 2006

Grinch who stole peace

You, know, some folks shouldn't be allowed to be in charge of anything. Like the jamoke who, as president of a homeowners association in Pagosa Springs, Colorado, fired all five members of the architectural control committee after they refused his order to require a homeowner to remove this holiday wreath from her home.

And that was after issuing this homeowner a letter threatening to fine her $25 a day for every day this peace wreath Satan wreath remains on her home!

I think this homeowners association president needs to get a life--and he can start by resigning his position.

(AP Photo/provided by Lisa Jensen)

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Thursday, November 23, 2006

Uncompensated care flood

In a "protect-our-way-of-life" letter to the editor that appeared in the Bryan-College Station Eagle on Tuesday of this week, the author stated, "[Illegal immigrants] flood our health care facilities, getting free health care - which has caused many hospitals and health centers in the Southwest to go bankrupt."

Not so.

There isn't any authoritative support for the oft-repeated accusation pushed by the anti-immigrant crowd that unauthorized immigration is bankrupting medical providers. Factors contributing to bankruptcies of for-profit hospitals and medical clinics include growth of managed care enrollment, mismanagement, debt levels, reductions of Medicare and Medicaid reimbursements, and uncompensated care costs incurred by providing medical care services to underinsured and uninsured folks.

A national disgrace, the United States is the only industrialized country in the world that does not offer its citizens guaranteed health care coverage. According to the Census Bureau, the number of adults in this country without health insurance in 2005 rose to nearly 47 million, 70% of whom are in families with one or more full-time workers. The Census Bureau also reported that over 8 million children in this country also do not have any health insurance coverage, and according to these findings nearly sixteen million adults were underinsured in 2003. (Looked at another way, there are more uninsured adults in America than the entire population of Canada -- or Spain, or Argentina, or South Africa.)

A significant percentage of unauthorized immigrants, however, do have health insurance, primarily through their employers. As reported last year by the Pew Hispanic Center (which does not engage in issue advocacy) in a
background briefing prepared for the Independent Task Force on Immigration and America’s Future, 41 percent of unauthorized adults, 47 percent of unauthorized children, and 75 percent of native-born children of unauthorized parents do have health insurance. Using this data, the Udall Center for Studies in Public Policy has calculated the number of uninsured unauthorized immigrants at approximately 7.2 million persons nationwide.

Do uninsured unauthorized immigrants contribute to uncompensated health care costs? Sure they do, but as evidenced in
a report issued in September of this year that examined the extent to which unauthorized immigrants are a burden to the U.S. health care system, the Udall Center concluded: "It is difficult to make the case that unauthorized immigrants, as a group, drive uncompensated care costs." In large part this is because "the number of native-born uninsured is larger than the number of uninsured immigrants" and "immigrant (authorized and unauthorized) usage of health care services is significantly lower than that of native-born people."

In fact, a Rand Corporation study, released on the very same day as the "protect our way of life" letter to the Eagle, concluded that because of their lower rates of use and less reliance on public sources, the per household tax to provide public medical care to unauthorized immigrants is about $11.00--a far cry from the wildly exaggerated and unsupported allegations by the anti-immigrant crowd.

The writer is correct that our health care providers are being flooded by folks getting "free" medical care, but he is mistaken in attributing that flood to unauthorized immigrants. As the evidence shows, the real flood is a native-born flood. If every unauthorized immigrant were to be magically whisked away at this very moment, we'd still have a colossal problem in this country with uncompensated medical care costs. The answer to uncompensated medical care costs is not elimination of unauthorized immigrants. The answer is elimination of our national disgrace.

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Monday, November 20, 2006

Hate "speech" damages homes??

This is so wrong--but I'm talking about this newspaper's headline (as well as the act).

Published: October 23, 2006

Local News: Public Safety
Weekend hate speech damages two homes

By Chris Green
ROCKFORD REGISTER STAR

ROCKFORD — Racism reared its ugly head over the weekend, not once, but twice on the homes of residents on the city’s northeast side.

Dave and Deb Sandberg woke up Saturday morning to find the words “Sandnigger go home” spray painted in black on the garage door of their home in the Deer Point Estates subdivision. The message was accompanied by a large swastika.

Sandnigger is a racist term to describe Iraqis and more generally Arabs. The swastika is generally viewed by westerners as a sign of fascism, racism, and the Holocaust.
I know that strong winds can damage homes, but strong words?

A despicable racist act damaged those two homes, not "hate speech."

I don't know what the hell they were thinking of, but of all folks, a newspaper reporter and/or editor should be more careful about their article headline phrasing. In this country, and in and of itself, hate speech is legally-protected free speech. If they're ever apprehended, the individual or individuals responsible for this crime will be charged with criminal damage to property (as this fact is pointed out in the body of the report).

"The line between what is permissible and not subject to control and what may be made impermissible and subject to regulation is the line between ideas and overt acts." (Justice William O. Douglas, Concurring Opinion, Brandenburg v. Ohio.)
There is a significant difference between hate speech and hate acts and the folks who run that newspaper should well know better.

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Friday, November 17, 2006

Mas Musica...

Man, you just gotta love lyrics like this:

She said, go on get out
go on get outta here
I’m tired of you coming home
smelling like whiskey, smoke and beer
Man she got mad
she made me drop the joint I had
And I don’t see why life has gotta be
so hard and sad,
so sad
Those lyrics are from the McKay Brothers’ song, Bandera Style—and man, you gotta go listen to this music! (Yes, in the teaser snippet of this tune on their site they say “she made me drop the drink [not joint] I had,” but I have the record and the “joint” is in there twice—including once when “she” smoked it!)



I’m sure lots of folks from the San Antonio/Austin part of Texas well know the McKay Brothers’ music, but I just recently discovered them (thanks to those fine folks who’ve been playing it on my favorite radio station, KEOS).

Bandera Style is from their latest album, Cold Beer & Hot Tamales. I like all of the songs on that album, but Acompañeme and Texas Heart, Mexican Soul are a couple of my other favorites on it. And while you’re at their web site, please don’t miss listening to Silicone Baby from the same album; I’m still laughing hardily over the words to that song—and I betcha it at least brings a grin to your face, too.

(By the way, I found their web site a little shaky today and I had to refresh my browser window a couple of times to get things showing and working correctly while I was mucking about there, but it was well worth this wee bit of inconvenience.)

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Taking The Long Way

SonyMusicStore has got a nice deal on a CD/DVD expanded edition version of the Dixie Chicks' just released album, Taking The Long Way, which includes their hit single Not Ready To Make Nice. The bonus DVD includes an interview with the girls, producer Rick Rubin, live performance pieces, and a music video. It's $16.98 and you can find it here.



Terrific music by a terrific trio of stand-up human beings.

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Thursday, November 16, 2006

Farmers Branch

As reported today in the New York Times and elsewhere this week, these City Council members of Farmers Branch, Texas, a Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex bedroom community with an estimated 2005 population of 26,400—about a third of whom are Spanish/Hispanic/Latino—voted unanimously this past Monday in favor of an ordinance fining landlords who rent to “illegal” immigrants up to $500 per undocumented person, per day.

I guess that means any landlord who rented to this guy would be in violation of that resolution:



Fining landlords for renting to “illegal” immigrants is goofy. How the hell are landlords supposed to tell whether someone they rent to is in this country legally or not? As this Farmers Branch apartment manager put it:

''The last thing I want to be doing is asking, 'Where's your papers?' And how am I supposed to know if what they're giving me is real?"
Undoubtedly, this resolution was based on a similar measure passed in July of this year by the Hazleton, Pennsylvania city council. A federal judge, however, has issued a temporary restraining order prohibiting the city of Hazleton from enforcing its “Illegal Immigration Relief Act.”

I don’t know how the Hazleton legal case will turn out, but I do know this: the narrow-mindedness responsible for this crude attempt to control undocumented immigration into this country forgot something: undocumented immigrants are human beings entitled to dignity, respect and every other human right. What is that city council going to do when this resolution goes into effect—immediately evict every apartment renter in their city whom they think is in this country illegally? What about someone who doesn’t look like a Mexican or South American? How would they know that a Caucasian-looking person isn’t an “illegal” immigrant from Ireland or Canada or Georgia (the Eastern Europe post-Soviet state, not the U.S. entity a few doors east of Texas)? And given that nothing I’ve read about this Farmers Branch resolution mentions it, I take it that it would be ok for a realtor in that city to sell a home to an undocumented immigrant.

Undocumented migration into this country is primarily an economic issue. Like my paternal grandparents who emigrated to this country from Poland 100 years ago, folks are going to migrate to improve their condition, that is, to secure a better life for themselves and their families. And no amount of xenophobic-driven regulation is going to stop that.

Why do I think these Farmers Branch resolutions are driven by xenophobia? For one, a few dozen communities nationwide have implemented, considered, or rejected similar decrees that make it illegal for landlords to rent to undocumented immigrants. And invariably accompanying those decrees, as is the case in Farmers Branch, is a second resolution calling for English to be that community’s “official language.” If the intent of the rental restrictions is, as purported by its pushers, to thwart illegal immigration, then I fail to see what the English-Only resolutions have to do with that. The coupling of these resolutions together is evidence of the nefarious and odious motives of these pushers.

As I indicate above, the Farmers Branch council members also voted in favor of this resolution requiring city officials to conduct nearly all official business in English.

Taking it on its own, it seems to me that the thinking behind such English-Only proposals is backwards. The constructive approach would be to improve upon the woefully inadequate English literacy adult educational resources available to immigrants. As this article points out, enrollment in adult English classes continues to boom, but funding is a bust. Immigrants want to learn English, but English-Only laws in no way help them accomplish that.

Limiting government services to English-Only is, as Senator Daniel Akaka has stated, a disservice to us all. Indisputable and significant social and economic benefits to individuals and to our society come with improved English language literacy; why some folks work against that is beyond me.

Another thing I don’t understand about the Farmers Branch city council’s action is that the council member who pushed these resolutions, Tim O’Hare, withdrew another one that would have penalized businesses that hire undocumented workers. Something fishy is going on there; does the city council think it’s ok for, say, a city-licensed landscaping contractor to hire undocumented workers—who in turn tend the lawns of those council members—but not ok for another city-licensed business to rent an apartment to them? Why was that resolution withdrawn? Surely O’Hare isn’t going to say “because laws are already on the books that cover that.” He can’t say that because that would be an admission that current federal regulations governing that matter are working—and that would take away another argument advanced by these pushers that local folks have to do something because the feds and state government aren’t.

In addition, as the mayor of Farmers Branch has acknowledged, these resolutions, which are not scheduled to go into effect until January, have already resulted in an economic disservice to that city and its residents because an agricultural products company has put off plans to relocate there as a result of the controversy. That’s too bad for this community, but I suspect that’s not going to be the only economic repercussion Farmers Branch will experience as a result of these resolutions.

Intolerance and xenophobia are the principle driving forces behind these divisive and non-constructive resolutions. Kicking a renter out of or preventing a renter from living in a residence because they don’t have proper documentation is not a family value that I’m aware of. And passing English-Only rules hasn’t anything at all to do with undocumented immigration.

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Monday, November 13, 2006

Phony Property Rights Logic

I just got off the phone with an aide in Senator John Cornyn’s DC office. I called Cornyn (202-224-2934), and Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison as well (202-224-5922), about two issues: S. 1915 (the Virgie S. Arden American Horse Slaughter Prevention Act) and S. 3931 (the Terrorist Surveillance Act of 2006). The purpose of my calling them was to urge them both to vote against S. 3931 and to vote in favor of S. 1915.

With respect to the Virgie S. Arden American Horse Slaughter Prevention Act (S. 1915), the aide I spoke with in Senator Hutchison’s office told me that Hutchison didn’t as yet have a position (at least not a public one) on that bill. I guess there may be some hope, then, that Senator Hutchison may yet be persuaded to vote in favor of this bill. I’d encourage folks to please take the time to call and/or write Senator Hutchison urging her to support S. 1915. (Her mailing address is: The Honorable Kay Bailey Hutchison, 284 Russell Senate Office Building, Washington, DC 20510.)

Senator Cornyn, on the other hand, has an absolute terrible position on S. 1915: he’s not in favor of it because it would interfere with an individual’s private property rights to dispose of their property any way they wish to.

Ah, pardon me, but that’s nothing but horseshit, Senator Cornyn. We have any number of laws in this country that regulate how we may or may not dispose of our “private property”--like these two laws in Tyler, Texas:

UNLAWFUL DISPOSAL OF USED TIRES
It is illegal to dispose of used automobile or tractor tires in any location that is not with a tire distributor or Solid Waste facility.

The penalty range depends on the volume. Fines are from $50 to $1,000 and 6 months in jail for the first offense and up to $10,000 fine and 2 years in jail for subsequent offenses

UNLAWFUL DISPOSAL OF USED CAR (LEAD ACID) BATTERIES
It is illegal to discard used car batteries at any location that is not an approved recycling center for used batteries. This includes but is not limited to batteries left on ground, placed within household trash or placed in dumpsters.

The penalty is up to a $2,000 fine for first offense and up to $4,000 fine and one year in jail for second offense.
Given Cornyn’s silly view of our “right to dispose of our private property as we wish,” we could just all go to Cornyn’s home and dump our old batteries and tires on his front lawn. Is that a correct interpretation, Senator?

Or how about the over 3 billion syringes used each year outside health care facilities that are disposed of in the general waste stream in the United States? Can the owner of that private property just dispose of it without regard to the health and welfare of everyone? Of course not. And the reason is that various regulations, like these in the Seattle area, regulate the disposal of that private property.

Another hole in Cornyn’s silly logic is that horse slaughtering provides a certain and quick way for horse thieves to dispose of private property stolen from someone else. Data gathered by Stolen Horse International, the largest organization that assists owners in the recovery of stolen horses, shows that approximately 60% of horses stolen are killed at slaughter plants. (The total number of horses stolen each year are difficult to come by, apparently because most states, like Texas, do not specify the species on official reports of livestock thefts. Some estimates, however, are that 40,000 to 55,000 horses are stolen each year in this country and slaughter is an easy way for a horse thief to make a quick $300-700 on a stolen horse--and the evidence is destroyed at the slaughter house.)

According to the USDA, more than 94,000 horses were slaughtered in 2005. (This does not include the thousands of horses that are exported to Mexico to be slaughtered each year, or the thousands exported to Canada.) While it is illegal to sell horsemeat in this country, it is not illegal (except in the state of California) to slaughter horses and ship the meat abroad. Horse slaughter exists in the United States for one reason and one reason only: for the sole purpose of providing horsemeat for human consumption in foreign markets.

A free society’s culture determines its laws. Americans very clearly prefer that our society not slaughter or eat animals that we have domesticated, such as dogs, cats, and horses. If another society wants to eat horses, that’s their call, but this country shouldn’t have a damn thing to do with providing horses to them for that purpose.

Please contact your two senators and urge them to vote IN FAVOR of the Virgie S. Arden American Horse Slaughter Prevention Act, S. 1915.

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Friday, November 10, 2006

Roaming free

If it wasn’t for the dirty deeds of this GOPer (Guileful Old Pendejo)…



then these mustang horses…



would still be roaming free as they should, instead of being sold for slaughter—including to these two horse slaughtering plants in Texas: Dallas Crown Packaging in Kaufman (slaughters horses for Belgium, Italy, Japan, and France) and Bel-Tex Corporation in Ft. Worth (exports horsemeat to France and other European countries).

I’m glad that sneaky three-term pendejo senator from Montana was another one of the nasty and deserving GOPers who had the keys to the people’s house in DC yanked from his hands. But I’m even happier that in September of this year, after 5 years of being blocked and stalled in Committees, the US House of Representatives finally voted on the American Horse Slaughter Prevention Act (HR 503). It passed by an overwhelming majority of 263 to 146. (I’m sorry to say, though, that the congressional representative for my district, Chet Edwards, D-TX-17, voted against this bill.)

The battle to right this wrong is now in the Senate. Please, contact your senators and urge them to support Senate Bill 1915, which will prohibit the shipping, transporting, moving, delivering, receiving, possessing, purchasing, selling, or donation of horses and other equines to be slaughtered for human consumption, and for other purposes.

These magnificent creatures are depending on us…

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Bernie

Out of all of the good news that came out of our mid-term election, the best is that 65% of Vermont voters elected to send their self-described socialist and eight-term congressman, Bernie Sanders, to the U.S. Senate. That’s absolutely terrific news because middle-middle class and lower-middle class folks all across the country will have in him the best possible advocate for their issues—like making college education more affordable, protecting Social Security, expanding access to lower-cost prescription drugs, labor law reform, raising the minimum wage, preventing pension abuse and promoting trade policies that protect rural and manufacturing jobs.



Here’s a snippet of what we can expect to
hear from Bernie on the senate floor:

"The time is long overdue for the United States Senate and House to start representing the working families of America and not just the rich and the powerful. The time is long overdue to end the national disgrace of childhood poverty while we give hundreds of billions in tax breaks to people who don't need it."

"And the time is long overdue for the United States of America to join the rest of the industrial world and provide health care to every many woman and child as a right of citizenship.”
And this:
"I am prepared to stand up to the big-money interests," he said, his voice rising and his signature New York accent growing more pronounced with every syllable. "I am prepared to talk about the growing gap between rich and poor. I'm prepared to talk about the fact that, in many ways, we are becoming an oligarchic society with a few people on top who have tremendous wealth while the middle class is shrinking, people are working very, very hard to keep their heads above water and poverty is increasing.”

"How many people do you know in the Senate who talk about that issue? Well, I will talk about that issue."
No matter his committee assignment, you can take it to the bank that he will unfailingly agitate for social, economic, and civil liberties justice for us all. I can hardly wait to hear and see him in action on the senate floor.

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Thursday, November 09, 2006

Common good

The principle basis of my resentment towards the Republicans is that for way too many years that I care to remember they have, by their way too numerous words and deeds, shown themselves to be a narrow-minded, mean-spirited and miserly lot incapable of thinking about, let alone working towards, a government for the common good of the people. Their steadfast insistence on promoting the non-environmental- and non-worker-friendly goals of corporate America, the filthy rich and the fringe elements in their party prevented them from ever considering that the essential role of our government is supposed to be that of sustaining and nurturing the general welfare and common good of its citizens and their communities.

The kind of government representation and ambition that comes closest to incorporating my views of the essential role of our government has been eloquently expressed by the presumptive next Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi:

In the first 100 hours of a Democratic Congress:

We will restore civility, integrity, and fiscal responsibility to the House of Representatives. We will start by cleaning up Congress, breaking the link between lobbyists and legislation and commit to pay-as-you-go, no new deficit spending.

We will make our nation safer and we will begin by implementing the recommendations of the independent, bipartisan 9/11 Commission.

We will make our economy fairer, and we will begin by raising the minimum wage. We will not pass a pay raise for Congress until there is an increase in the minimum wage.

We will make health care more affordable for all Americans, and we will begin by fixing the Medicare prescription drug program, putting seniors first by negotiating lower drug prices. We will also promote stem cell research to offer real hope to the millions of American families who suffer from devastating diseases.

We will broaden college opportunity, and we will begin by cutting interest rates for student loans in half.

We will energize America by achieving energy independence, and we will begin by rolling back the multi-billion dollar subsidies for Big Oil.

We will guarantee a dignified retirement, and we will begin by fighting any attempt to privatize Social Security.
And while I don’t at all know him, a fellow by the name of Todd Smyth also summed it up nicely:
Establishing justice means fair and equitable treatment for All of the people, not just a wealthy and privileged few.

Ensuring domestic tranquility includes a fair and level playing field and protection from abusive and negligent private industry.

Common defense means defending from attack but not waging wars of aggression.

Promoting the general welfare includes healthcare and education for everyone and the elimination of severe poverty.

Securing the blessings of liberty for our posterity includes balancing the budget, eliminating our debt and protecting our environment.
I damn sure hope the Democrats don’t blow this opportunity to do right for the abused and neglected general welfare and common good of the people and our communities. I know I’ll do what I can to help them fulfill this basic principle of our government.

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Wednesday, November 08, 2006

Bad and Good…

Some of my feelings concerning the results of our mid-term election:

BAD:

With respect to the mid-term election, I’m pretty happy with most of the results, especially on the national level. Here at home, however, I am greatly disappointed that Maggie Charleton didn’t win her bid for the Texas State Board of Education (SBOE) District 9 seat. Maggie is eminently qualified for the position and she campaigned her heart out, but the Texas election system deck of cards was stacked against her from the get-go. The deck was stacked against her because under screwy Texas law this is a partisan position. What the hell does a person’s political ideology honestly have to do with the process of ensuring the accuracy of text books?

The nincompoop who got re-elected to that position, Don McLeroy, didn’t win because he is the best person suited for the job, he won because too damn many people voted a straight Republican Party ticket.

Because too many people vote a straight party ticket, that means the odds nearly insurmountably favor whichever political party garners the most vote.

State Board of Education positions, like judges, shouldn’t be partisan positions. Candidates should be voted into office based on their qualifications, not their political affiliation.

Maggie’s belief is that the SBOE should review textbooks to see whether they meet the standards set by experts, not for a particular view of the world. Unfortunately, the candidate with screwy world views won, but it wasn’t at all because folks thoughtfully determined he was the most qualified person to serve.

GOOD:

Minimum Wage Ballot Measures

Some of the best news from yesterday’s election is that in each of the six states (Arizona, Colorado, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, and Ohio) that had ballot measures calling for an increase in their state’s minimum wage, voters resoundingly voted to do so. The strongest vote in favor was in Missouri, where that state’s ballot initiative garnered 76% of the votes. Montanans voted 73% in favor; Nevadans 69%; Arizonans 66%; Ohioans 56%; and Coloradoans 53%.

And now that the Puppets-For-The-Rich Republicans had the keys to the front doors of the house and senate chambers taken away from them, I’m certain we’ll see an increase in the federal minimum wage, too—and I don’t think our most disingenuous, duplicitous and dangerous-to-democracy president ever will dare veto it.

BAD:

My prediction that the commonsense voters in Idaho’s 1st Congressional District wouldn’t elect Bill Sali, but would, instead, vote for Larry Grant, missed by a couple of percentage points. With 96% of the precincts reporting, Sali has 50% of the vote to Grant’s 45%. Three other folks in the race divvied up the remainder. I hope Larry Grant will hang in there and decide to run in the next go round; I think he’d be very good for his district and for the country.

GOOD:

Pennsylvania incumbent Senator Rick “Intelligent-Design-Should-Be-Taught-In-Schools” Santorum, the third-ranking Senate Republican, got tossed out on his ear by the commonsense voters in that state. They replaced him with state treasurer Bob Casey. Casey is opposed to abortion rights and gun control, but is in favor of increasing the minimum wage and providing health insurance to our millions of uninsured children.

GOOD:

Commonsense voters in South Dakota rejected the draconian referendum to ban all abortions in that state (except to save the lives of pregnant women) by a 56% vote, and commonsense voters in Oregon and California rejected initiatives in their states that called for parental notification for teenagers to receive abortions.

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Tuesday, November 07, 2006

A Good Sign…

While doing some promotion on behalf of my choice for state board of education outside my polling place this morning, my Republican counterpart twice in short succession dropped the “VanTaylor for Congress” placard he was holding up for viewing by folks coming to vote. I chuckled smugly at his clumsiness and thought it a good sign. A good sign to be lying on the ground, subject to being walked all over, and a good sign in the sense that it presaged VanTaylor going down in defeat.

Admittedly, that ain’t much to hang a hat on, but I’m sticking to that prophecy.

I’m also predicting a win for Maggie Charleton over Don “There-Ain’t-No-Such-Thing-As-Biological-Evolution” McLeroy.

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Saturday, November 04, 2006

Common sense in Idaho



1. Sure hope Larry Grant wins.
2. Sure wish he were running in my district.
3. Sure is the most positive campaign ad I've seen so far this year.
4. Sure would like all politicians to take some lessons from this guy.

Grant's Republican opponent in Idaho's 1st Congressional District race is Bill Sali, the detestable right-wing nut job who continuously asserts that there's a link between abortion and breast cancer. Sali would rather scare women than believe reputable studies (like this one by Oxford researchers) that have concluded there is no data to support claims from anti-choice activists that abortion causes breast cancer. The Oxford study bolsters the arguments from the American Cancer Institute, the Mayo Clinic, a US Congressional report and others that say there is conclusive evidence that there is no link between abortion and breast cancer.

Sali's such a wacko that
the Republican speaker of the Idaho House, Bruce Newcomb, said of him: "That idiot is just an absolute idiot. He doesn’t have one ounce of empathy in his whole fricking body. And you can put that in the paper."

I ain't believing that Idaho folks will choose Sali over Grant; that seat is going to the Dems.

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Friday, November 03, 2006

Horse Killing Indictment

The two college students arrested on October 19 and accused of killing a horse were indicted yesterday by the Brazos County grand jury on one count each of cruelty to animals and criminal mischief. (I have an earlier post about this matter here.)

According to today’s report in The Bryan-College Station Eagle, each charge “is a state jail felony punishable by up to two years of incarceration.”

I am today mailing a letter to the Brazos County district attorney to thank him for bringing these charges and for securing the indictment in this senseless and sickening act of animal cruelty. Given the horribleness of this crime, I am also asking him to seek the maximum fine and jail time if these two individuals are convicted.

There’s another critical component, however, that should be a part of the penalty for this crime: psychological counseling, including anger management.

A majority of the states today provide for the court to order those convicted of cruelty to animals to undergo psychological counseling, and at least 30 states use a psychological intervention program for animal abusers over the age of 17 called the AniCare Model of Treatment for Animal Abuse.

Texas law, however, only mandates psychological counseling in animal abuse cases for minors. Given the clearly established correlation between animal abuse and family and other forms of community violence, Texas needs to mandate such counseling for everyone, not just minors, convicted of crimes against animals.

Despite no legal requirement in this case to do so, I am also asking the district attorney to push for psychological counseling as a part of the penalty in this matter.

Please join with me in urging the district attorney to push for these measures. He can be contacted as follows (sorry, but there isn’t any web site for his office):

The Honorable Bill Turner
Brazos County District Attorney
300 E. 26th Street, Suite 310
Bryan, Texas 77803
Phone: 979-361-4320

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Not in one breath I can't...

Can you read through the list of “law and order” Republicans under criminal investigation or already convicted in one breath?

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Thursday, November 02, 2006

School bus driver fired for flipping off president

Fired for giving the finger to our most duplicitous, disingenuous, and dangerous-to-democracy Prez? Seems to me that a supportable, more appropriate action by the school district that canned her would be to require the driver to write a 500-word essay on why the president deserved her one-finger salute--and then be required to read it in front of all of the school’s students over the age of 13.

As a former worker advocate who represented many unjustly terminated and otherwise disciplined workers, I’d put my money on the termination not being sustained. That depends in great part, however, on the driver’s work record, length of service, whether her action was actually observed by any of the students, the age of the students, how management handled similar infractions in the past, and other factors.

But for sure, at her termination hearing I’d also enter the following two photos of President Bush providing the American public with the fine example that this driver was merely emulating:




I don't understand; how the hell can someone be fired in this country for following the lead of their president?

Hey, I’m just asking a question here.

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Wednesday, November 01, 2006

TX State Board of Ed

Don McLeroy’s regressive political agenda clearly disqualifies him from serving on the Texas State Board of Education.

At least as it applies to humans, McLeroy unabashedly refuses to accept the abundant and consistent scientific evidence for biological evolution (here, here & here) from astronomists, physicists, biochemists, geochronologists, geologists, biologists, anthropologists, geneticists, and other scientific disciplines.

McLeroy refuses scientific evidence for biological evolution because he thinks it is incompatible with the tenets and political goals of his religion. He believes that humans were created in the exact form as we exist today and his admitted political goal is to eradicate all mention of scientific evidence for human biological evolution from Texas text books and to replace it with his particular brand of religious conviction.

McLeroy is entitled to shrug off sound scientific evidence for the theories of gravity, round earth, as well as for human evolution. He is also entitled to his religious beliefs about creation. But as a member of a state agency that is responsible for ensuring state text books are free of factual errors, he is not entitled to censure what school children learn about accurate science. Nor is he entitled to turn Texas text books into creationist propaganda mills.

We have, of course, an inviolable obligation to our children to facilitate their access to modern scientific and technical knowledge. Don McLeroy’s presence on the State Board of Education would unquestionably interfere with that obligation.

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