Press Progress

Sen. Schumer: Vote no on GOP spending bill cloture

noreply@blogger.com (Press Progress) — Fri, 14 Mar 2025 05:07:00 +0000

Open Letter to Sen. Chuck Schumer,

Dear Sen. Schumer, I beg you to change your mind. I have never been as disappointed and angry with a Democratic Party leader as I am with you and your intention to vote in favor of the GOP spending bill. That’s saying a lot because I am 75 years old and have worked with the Party since 1966 as a teenager to register voters. I have marched, rallied, protested, testified, voted, phone banked, canvassed, and donated. I have done my job as a citizen. It’s time for you to do yours.

Your job in the Senate is to advance the Democratic Party’s values expressed in our platform, a grassroots-up document. We are FRUSTRATED that our elected officials do not seem to care that Trump, Musk and the GOP are ripping our country to shreds. All you do is ring your hands and whine. I see no evidence of a plan. Grow a spine! Be outraged! Care more for us than for re-election (of yourself and other Democrats.) Why is there no sense of urgency? Why do you not take every opportunity to counter what Trump is doing? Why are you not building on what is happening in the streets? Do you not understand that there will be no midterm elections if you don’t use every possible tool to fight back? From what I can tell, only Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, AOC and couple of others seem to understand that this is going to be over in 3-6 months.

Do you not understand that the GOP spending bill is the fuel to drive Project 2025? If you vote for this bill you are signing onto that project, those values. You will be helping to destroy the United States of America. That sir would make you a coward, and worse.

And a little child shall lead them

noreply@blogger.com (Press Progress) — Sun, 05 May 2024 18:39:00 +0000

With the stroke of a pen last week, a frazzled sense of decency and in the spirit of compromise, President Biden might have signed modern democracy’s death warrant. The bill that sent more military aid to Israel is a fuse likely to ignite a firestorm from the toxic atmosphere of incomprehensible violence and hate, greed and power that envelops the Earth.

It’s all horribly reminiscent of 1968, but with major, intensifying factors. Hundreds of millions more weapons of war are on the streets and mostly in the hands of those who support “military” solutions to America’s complex problems. A giant Far Right has conditioned them to believe that winning is everything. It excuses the most undemocratic, unpatriotic and abhorrent behavior. The leader of the Republican party has endorsed the most heinous acts using the language of thugs and mobsters.

We’ve shriveled the Constitution’s commitment to form a “more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, … secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity” into power grabs and infotainment. An impotent press and corporate interest-driven media leave us with the shallowest notion of truth. We have no common vision, experience or even facts.

The crux of the debate most visibly centered on college campuses is the eons long conflicts perpetrated by Arabs, Jews and Christians in modern day Israel and Palestine.

The current crisis began with a brutal, surprise attack by Hamas on Israel Oct. 7, 2023. Hamas killed 1,200 people and kidnapped another 250. In response, Israel launched a murderous air and land attack on Gaza and blocked humanitarian aid from reaching millions of civilians trapped there. So far 34,300 Gazans, 17,000 of them children, have died either from Israeli bombing, starvation or untreated medical issues. That’s out of a population of 2.1 million, mostly packed into an area about twice the size of D.C. Israel plans another attack on Gaza that targets Rafah, where the world has established a safe haven for more than a million refugee victims of the war. The United States has provided tens of billions of dollars in military aid to Israel since Oct. 7 as well as humanitarian aid. The civilian carnage continues with Israel holding up humanitarian assistance, even bombing international aid volunteers and failing to disclose plans to the U.S. of how they will protect civilians in Rafah.

The war in Gaza is but one of the divisive issues boiling in the U.S. The Old Left is miserable that the causes in which we invested our lives and freedom have evaporated: Fair elections, universal suffrage, multicultural civil rights, gender and LGBTQIA+ rights, economic equality, abortion rights, equal pay, environmental sanity, child safety, hunger, homelessness, corporate responsibility. Young Americans now face rebuilding all that while coping with new disasters: a pandemic that shattered their social and educational worlds, a world literally on fire and in flood at the same time, dilapidated and outdated infrastructure, mass shootings in their schools. The challenges go on and on.

1968 was a particularly chaotic year. We lost Dr. King and Robert Kennedy to assassins. With the draft to supply Vietnam War cannon fodder, young men got college acceptances or draft notices with their high school diplomas. Anti-war protests and riots broke out across the country in the early spring. More followed after Dr. King’s assassination in nearly 100 American cities. Police shot and killed three students and wounded 28 others in Orangeburg, S.C., during a peaceful civil rights demonstration in February. Peaceful protestors across the country were frustrated that their words were falling on deaf ears. So some began to raise their voices and fists.

LBJ, to his credit, saw the writing on the wall and stepped out of the race for a second full term. He bore the blame for ordering escalation of the war and he did not want to saddle Democrats with a compromised candidate at the top of the ticket. However, Democrats managed to compromise their ticket anyway by nominating Hubert Humphrey, who was less popular with younger Democrats then than Biden is today.

As they will this year, Democrats held their national convention in Chicago in 1968. Leaders on the Left brought masses of peace freaks, Yippies, Hippies, Black Panthers, SCLC, SNCC and other grassroots groups to Chicago to convince DNC delegates to nominate Sen. Eugene McCarthy as the standard bearer for a peace and civil rights platform. The DNC would not listen. Boss Mayor Richard Dailey turned city police, the Ohio National Guard and other forces on the demonstrators camping in the park.

The result was three days of what the National Commission on Causes and Prevention of Violence determined was a “police riot.” The nation was treated to television footage of tanks with barbed wire cages on front pushing demonstrators into the park. The scene was a near perfect replica of Russians advancing into Czechoslovakia at the same moment. Police in riot gear, wielding batons and tear gas, beat unarmed, peaceful kids in Grant Park who chanted, “The whole world’s watching! The whole world’s watching!”

Humphrey lost. Richard Nixon won. The Democratic Party was weakened for decades. Evil and violent forces got emboldened. The past 25 years they have organized, strengthened, waiting underground in noisome alliances. Above ground, they’ve gained near insurmountable power in key states. They tested the surface with the Tea Party and blowing up the Murrah Building, then found their leader in 2010 or so. Jan. 6, 2021, they learned that nearly half the country would abide any conduct to gain power. We don’t even have to guess what they’ll do if the GOP leader wins the next election. He’s already told us: Autocracy on Day 1, removing or murdering his rivals, replacing our mutual government with his personal staff, changing all the rules of the game.

Liberal and leftist young people are protesting because the country’s leaders are not listening to them. They are frustrated. They do not want any part of killing children across the globe. They’re tired of their Constitutional rights being shredded. Democrats must give them a candidate they are excited to vote for. Last Wednesday, President Biden said all Americans have the right to be heard, but not create chaos. I wonder what he has actually heard from them. He has a vested interest in truly listening as does the Democratic Party.

A big difference between 1968 student demonstrators and activists today is these folks have the VOTE. That’s three years’ more young voters than in 1968, when the voting age was 21, not 18. That’s tens of millions more young people with enfranchisement. Give them a reason to use it enthuisiastically. They will save us.

May 3, 2024

Dedicated to our sister Roxy N. Melody Dorsey.

Killer Ds Jr.

noreply@blogger.com (Press Progress) — Wed, 09 Jun 2021 22:54:00 +0000

Courage. Solidarity. Strategy. Tenacity. Patriotism. House Democrats forged those qualities into action Sunday night to kill giant voter suppression bill SB 7 in Texas’ 87th Legislature. But it was GOP hubris that held the door open for the Democrats’ walkout and the death of SB 7. The plan might be worth the title Killer Ds Jr., after a 2003 Democratic effort to stop a poor redistricting plan in its tracks earned that delegation the title “Killer Ds.” Republicans seemed giddy with power Sunday night, the last night of work scheduled for two years. They laughed and joked and paid little attention to serious discussions before them. Medicaid coverage for medically fragile children, fixing the electrical grid, responding to disasters and pandemics -- life-altering legislation got short shrift. House members talked on cell phones, played video games, chatted in little clusters, milled around the floor, took selfies. Speakers could barely be heard over the din.The GOP seemed confident its plan would work: Delay SB 7 late enough in the session to push Democrats backs against the wall and pass the bill in its most extreme form. Senators delivered a bill in the wee hours Sunday morning that would even allow an election to be overturned easily. As Sunday afternoon and evening wore on in the House chamber, Democrats lost request after request of the speaker. Republicans had delayed action on the bill so late in the session that Democrats faced stricter time limits on asking questions to learn what was in the bill. Speaker Dade Phelan granted GOP requests to suspend rules, to lay out previously unknown provisions and amendments after the deadline. The public and Democrats on committees in both the Senate and the House had no time or just a few hours to read new portions of bills. Hundreds of pages of rules and analysis, $36 million in new spending and the most sacred rights of our democracy were at stake in SB 7. All of this happened against a backdrop of racism. Rep. Nicole Collier, chair of the Texas Legislative Black Caucus, was the only black member of the SB 7 Conference Committee that comprised three Democrats and seven Republicans. But the committee never conferred, according to CC Chairman Sen. Brian Hughes. Didn’t meet once. Democrats on the conference committee had zero involvement in shaping the most significant election bill in modern history. Hughes never said who actually put the final product together or knew what it contained. House and Senate committees that considered either HB 6 or SB 7 heard hours and hours of testimony on how much harder the bills’ suppression effect would be on voters of color. House Elections Committee chair Briscoe Cain demeaned Collier, refusing to grant her common legislative courtesy during a public hearing on HB 6. Later, during a lull in debate on the House floor May 6, Cain strode to Collier’s desk and invaded her personal space, poking his finger toward her face. He then walked to Rep. Senfronia Thompson’s desk and flailed wildly at her. Testimony in both the House and Senate revealed that those who drafted the bills did not confer with civil rights organizations representing communities of color, even though they are more heavily affected by the bill by far. Democrats’ scheme by farto defeat the bill in the regular session began to unfold Saturday evening, just after 10 p.m. Working on the schedule that the House had to pass the final version of the bill by midnight, Republican House leadership seemed confident it could enforce time limits to easily make the deadline. Democrats kept to their usual practice of challenging the facts, logic and effectiveness of the bill and filed points of order. Casually dropping notes and surreptitiously signaling one another, Democrats strolled around the floor and left unnoticed through different exits. Wrapped up in assuring Democrats would get no quarter with their motions and points of order, Republicans were in a scrum around the speaker’s desk, paying little attention to the movement. The last sound from Democrats was Collier screaming at Repubican Rep. Matt Krause, who had been following Democrats around all day taking pictures, “Stop harassing me!” Denied a quorum, the Republican-led House could not continue with its business and SB 7 died on the floor. It might rise again in special session, but for now it’s only a bad memory for Democrats. Democrats can now hope that Texans’ refusal to buckle under huge GOP-leaning odds to crush democracy will put starch in the spines of their federal counterparts. We must do whatever we can and some things we may not to preserve our sacred right to vote. Make good trouble. -- By Kathy Williams © 6/2/1921Kathryn L. Williams

Grayson County Burning

noreply@blogger.com (Press Progress) — Tue, 02 Jun 2020 22:59:00 +0000

Copyright May 1, 1990 (klw) The day Grayson County burned by Kathy Williams On May 9, 1930, an angry mob became the law in Sherman The corner of Mulberry and Branch streets is still ugly -- a profusion of railroad tracks, ramshackle buildings and ragweed. Sixty-five years ago the intersection was the scene of Sherman's most horrifying and shameful episode. There the body of George Hughes was sexually mutilated, hung on a tree and burned in a bonfire. Two days earlier Hughes, a 41-year-old black man, had confessed to raping a white woman. The tragedy of May 9, 1930 extended far beyond the initial crimes. The enraged mob destroyed the thriving three-block black business district. The fuel to fire Hughes' funeral pyre was gathered from the ruins. Sherman's black community has never regained the wherewithal to rebuild. Except for restaurants and clubs, beauty shops and janitorial services, there are few black-owned businesses in Sherman today. Lawyer Charles Chatman is Sherman's only black professional in private practice. Dr. Wayne Bell, who works for Wilson N. Jones Hospital, is the only black physician. The Sherman Daily Democrat's 1930 account said, "Short work was made of the furnishings of the drug store and the kindling wood into which they were reduced was used for starting and keeping aglow the fire which mutely but forcefully evidenced the penalty the inexorable law of racial separation exacts on its violators." White residents also sustained heavy losses. Rioters burned and dynamited the Grayson County Court House. County officials and workers risked their lives to stave off the crowd. Gov. Dan Moody declared martial law. The Texas Rangers and the National Guard moved in to protect the city from looters and further mob violence. Even the London Times reported the horror in Sherman. The incident itself was not unusual. In May of 1930, three black men in North Texas and southern Oklahoma, charged with similar crimes, were killed by raving mobs. In each case, riotous whites whipped themselves into frenzies of destruction. They all inflicted post-mortem mayhem on their victims. What was different about the Sherman events was the quality of life the city's black community had built for itself. In 1930, most black businesses here were located in the two-story, brick Andrews Building in the 200 block of East Mulberry. The building was owned by a successful black farmer from Bells. A.J. Lawrence owned a grocery store. E.M. Barrier was a shoemaker. N.S. Everett & Brother was a transfer company. The Andrews Theater was next door to Walker & Tellie and J.A. Sims, tailors. Mrs. Hollie Robinson's Restaurant was down the way. Fraternal Funeral Home was in the Andrews Building as was a dance hall. J.D. Goodson had a drugstore downstairs from brother Samuel Goodson's doctor's office. Blanche Crowe put her dressmaker's shop next to R.L. Crowe's tailor shop. J.P. Hampton had his shoemaker shop in the same building as did J.E. Richardson. The Williams Hotel stood just across the street. Sherman's black community had its own Odd Fellows, Knights of Pythias and Masonic Lodge. Many black professionals made their ways to Sherman. Dr. R.L. Stinnet and another black dentist practiced here. A funeral home competed with Fraternal. Blacks practiced law and engineering in the town, There was also another black physician. Alexander Bate, a retired science teacher and coach, was 22 years old the night George Hughes body was dragged through East Sherman and burned. Bate and his wife Peaches live only three doors down from his family home on Montgomery Street. In 1930, he witnessed the tragedy from his roof top. The following is his account: "Oh yes, I saw it. They set that (Andrews Building) on fire. I got up on top of my house with a bucket of water. There were big old sparks raining down from the fire. Just about everybody in the 600 block of Montgomery left. They were just scared to death. "Now my mother had her leg amputated and she didn't have her wooden leg yet. We didn't have any transportation. My dad said, 'Son, we'll have to stay here.' He gave me the shotgun and I had only five shells for it. But he had a .32-20 pistol and a whole box of shells. "He walked from our house down to the Masonic Lodge and some old guys came out with 20 gallons of gas and were going to burn down Masonic Lodge. He drew down with that .32-20 and they got out of there so fast, I believe they broke just about every spring in that old car of theirs trying to get away from my papa. "Late that night, they were working on the Court House with dynamite, trying to get him (George Hughes) out of there. They drug him right down this street (Brockett.) It was the most disgusting thing I have ever seen. "There were two pregnant ladies, so big you'd have thought they were about to have those babies right then. They were right behind where they were dragging him. They were hopping up and down and squealing and laughing. The whole street was full of people. They all went down to the Union Station. "A lot of people kept hogs in town in those days and the black people went and hid in the hog pens for safety. The people were afraid. They went to stay with families in other towns and with the white people they worked for. I worked for the Marks brothers and they told me I could bring papa and mama out there to stay with them, but by then things were getting better so we stayed. "Then the governor, who was one of the most popular governors ever, sent in the troops and said don't shed no blood. They came and the rain came and everything cooled down." The crowd required a considerable amount of cooling down. Its temper had simmered for five days, fueled by newspaper accounts of the crimes. The event of Hughes' trial attracted a crowd of 5,000 people from all over North Texas and southern Oklahoma. Eventually Moody dispatched two Texas National Guard units and at least three Texas Rangers. Most people in the area learned of the crimes when they read their Sunday papers May 4, 1930. A banner headline said, "NEGRO HELD FOR ASSAULT NEAR LUELLA, White Woman Victim Alone in Farm Home, Bart Shipp Fired on Twice in Taking Negro." The story detailed the incident, including Hughes' apprehension. The newspaper erred in saying Hughes was under guard in the Grayson County Jail. That error drew the crowd that posted an increasingly rowdy vigil on the Court House lawn for five days. George Hughes was from Honey Grove in Fannin County. Before the assault, he had worked at several farms, including the place near Luella. The Sherman Daily Democrat, May 5, 1930, reported from the victim's statement, "(Hughes) had come to the house about 10 o'clock (a.m.) inquiring for her husband. He said he wanted to collect a sum of money he claimed to be owed him by her husband. Told that he was in Sherman, (Hughes) left. He returned shortly afterward with a double-barreled shotgun, finding the woman in the kitchen of the home. "Ordering her hands in the air (Hughes) forced her into a bedroom where the alleged assault occurred. Part of her clothing was torn off before she was overcome. Following the assault and with a piece of telephone or electric light cord, her hands were bound about her head and tied to a post of the bed. One foot also was tied to the post of the bed and the woman left in that position." Hughes fled the house, the account said. He went to a nearby barn to search for the woman's little boy who had run from the house shortly before Hughes entered. Two men neighbors walking along the road were alerted by the boy's and the woman's screams, the statement said. Hughes saw them coming and ran into a terraced field near Choctaw Creek. Hughes fired a shot at them, but missed. The woman succeeded in untying herself and ran to a neighbor's house. Hughes fired twice at Deputy Bart Shipp's car as he and another man chased the suspect across a field. The shot missed both men, but broke the windshield and sprayed the front seat between them. The suspect was disarmed and handcuffed without further problems. The next day's headlines promised swift justice. The complaint was filed Monday May 6 in a special session of the 15th state District Court. Four witnesses testified. The county attorney read the victim's statement and another from the suspect. The two accounts coincided. Hughes was charged with three counts of assault and two counts of attempted murder. The crowd outside the Court House grew. A white man who asked to remain anonymous described the scene on Friday morning May 9, 1930. "I was working in a drug store across the street from the Court House. Two Texas Rangers brought in a Negro. He had chains on his hands and legs. Both Rangers had rifles. They took him into the street and motioned him into the Court House. "He was to be tried that morning in the Court House on the southwest corner. There were so many people outside. Young people, 14, 15, 16. They came from Whitesboro, Gunter, Oklahoma, Whitewright, Pottsboro." The newspaper account said the trial began at 10 a.m., but only the first witness was able to testify. The crowd outside was more than noisy -- it was angry, violent and armed. "They started using dynamite," the drug store clerk said. "They came in to get something to drink like a soda water. They had a stick of dynamite in their hand. People I'd never seen before. Everything was going off, shotguns, dynamite, everything. They wanted to get this (black) fellow and hang him, that's what they wanted to do. "They (prosecutors) wanted to bring this woman in -- she was in the hospital -- that he had raped so she could identify him. They shouldn't have done that because that made everybody mad." The Sherman Daily Democrat said the woman did testify. She went to the Court House by ambulance and left the same way -- overcome by tear gas detonated by Texas Rangers to push back the now savage crowd. "The Court House had those big, open windows," The clerk said. "People would come in with these 10-gallon cans of gas and throw them into the window and onto the floor." Judge R.M. Carter, realizing the building was ablaze, ordered a change of venue "to prevent bloodshed." The judge, court officers, sheriff, deputies and Rangers found the stairway blocked by fire. Firefighters extended a ladder to the second floor and they escaped. Although accounts vary, Hughes evidently was offered the choice of staying in a sealed steel vault or climbing down the ladder to the waiting mob. He decided to stay and was locked in the room with a bucket of water. "That was about 5 p.m.," the drug store clerk said. "The wall had fallen down and had cooled off enough. A man came up with a welding truck and carried a torch up the ladder and cut down through the lock. We walked up there and said "Hey I got him!'" Some reports from the time say Hughes was alive when he was pulled from the vault. Others say he suffocated from the intense heat of the fireproof room. The most credible accounts said Hughes died when shrapnel from the dynamited vault struck him in the head. Judge R.C. Vaughan, retired from the 15th state District Court, was 14 and in the ninth grade in Denison at the time of the events. "A friend of mine and I actually slipped off in my parents' car to come to Sherman," Vaughan said. "The Court House was pretty much burned then. We managed to get even with the east entrance on Travis Street. The steel vault's shell was apparently intact. "Someone climbed up and put goggles on and torched the vault. Then an explosion blew a hole in something. The man on the ladder got this defendant's body out and threw it down the ladder. I could see movement in a group of men to the north and west. I was aware that a car was going east on Houston Street. I can't say I saw the body, but people were following the car. We followed the mob on Mulberry. They strung his body on a tree and lit a bonfire. I think I could feel heat and hear flesh sizzle. Someone hollered 'Police' and we broke and ran." Many of the people in that crowd were young boys. What seemed to horrify people all over the world who read accounts was that women, some pregnant, some holding small children, stood at the scene and urged the men on to greater violence. Most accounts say that no local people were involved. Of the 39 men eventually arrested for the riot, arson and attempted murder, 18 were from Sherman. Fourteen were indicted but newspapers of the time have been robbed of information about where those indicted lived. The only editions on file at the Sherman Democrat were mutilated long ago. William Hill also lived in Sherman at the time of the tragedy. "I don't know why we never built it (the black business district) back up," Hill said. "I kind of think some of the people never felt like putting their money back into it. I guess that they were scared that the climate was so bad and they could lose it all again. Andrews was probably the most qualified to rebuild, but he was killed two years before. His family just never seemed interested." Hill said the gap in services was filled by white practitioners. "Many went to the white doctors and dentists," Hill said. “You could shop in grocery stores and clothing stores as long as you had money. There never was any discrimination in spending money." An accomplishment in Sherman years later helped heal many wounds. Because of cooperation among white and black leaders, the city became integrated with few angry and no violent scenes. "I worked with a group to get job opportunities for black people in Sherman," said Bate. "The first group came from Austin College. Dr. Kline, Dr. Frank Edwards and his wife Melva, Dean Nusbaum. They organized a group at AC with me and my wife and William Hill, with Rev. McGruder and his wife and P.W. Neblett and his wife." The group met for covered dish dinners and would rotate as hosts. Later the city, under mayors Josh Stephens' and Herman Baker's leadership would form similar groups. They met with law enforcement officials. They were invited to morning coffee klatches with the white businessmen in "whites only" restaurants. Sherman lawyer David Brown set the pace for desegregating hiring practices and lunch bars in Sherman businesses. When Brown discovered Bates' Fred Douglass football team couldn't use the Bearcat Stadium field house and locker room, he ended the practice with one phone call. "But Charlie Spears (late president of Grayson County State Bank) made the giant step," Bate said. "We had never been in a position before to get the experience and qualifications we needed. He took a janitor and sent him to Grayson County College and made him a teller. We had never had the opportunity before. Whenever a teacher was in need of $75 or $100, he never turned them down, he just trusted us." In 1984, Sherman formed a chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. One of its goals now is to help the black community thrive. To move toward that goal, the organization awards scholarships to promising young students. It recognizes those who have made significant contributions. Bate, while talking of the 1930 tragedy, lamented the loss of the black business district. Sherman's black community, he said, was just never the same. However, he added, although blacks lost a lot at the hands of an angry white mob, many other whites extended their hands in genuine friendship.

noreply@blogger.com (Press Progress) — Mon, 30 Dec 2019 22:02:00 +0000

Open Letter to Sens. John Cornyn and Ted Cruz

Dec. 30, 2019

Dear Senators:

It’s time to stand up for America. It’s time to be a patriot. It’s time to do the job we elected you to do. It’s time to obey the oath you swore to the Constitution.

Only you and the other 98 members of the Senate can save this nation. It might well be the most perilous moment in our history. An amoral, and possibly insane, president has perverted our government. He has exhorted elements of our society to attend to their worst, most violent and self-interested instincts. Inept, and at times corrupt, elements of the media propelled him to power and continue false narratives to keep him there. Personal and corporate greed fueled his rise. They have installed all the elements needed for a totalitarian takeover of our democracy. Members of Congress including you, who value power of office and re-election above all else, have perverted our government. You have become a sycophant branch, parroting his every lie and minimizing his every traitorous act.

Some Senators, including you Sen. Cornyn, have said you don’t need to hear evidence from witnesses or see documents relevant to the articles of impeachment. We do. We deserve to know the full extent of what has been done in our name and with our treasure. Few Republican Senators have shown any indication they will obey the oath they must take to sit as jurors in the impeachment trial. Please do not perjure yourself. That betrays the Constitution and is a crime against the nation and our people.

There is time to save the United States of America. You have a chance to redeem yourself. New, incriminating facts come to light every day. Seize that as a reason to change your mind to allow a fair process in the president’s trial. Read Matthew 6:6 and do the right thing.

Your Constituent,

Kathy Williams

Leter to Rep. Michael McCaul on articles of impeachment 11.22.2019

noreply@blogger.com (Press Progress) — Fri, 22 Nov 2019 17:24:00 +0000

Note: This is a letter to my Congressional representative sent 11.22.2019, and not a traditional blog post.

Dear Rep.Michael McCaul:

I have watched every minute of the U. S. House impeachment investigation hearings, some of it several times. I have taken notes and compared earlier testimony and later testimony, one witness in context with another. I have listened to opening and closing statements by Committee Chairman Adam Schiff and Ranking Member Devin Nunes. I have listened carefully to each round of questioning. I considered all this information in the context of being equivalent to a grand jury investigation, not as a trial.

It is my fervent prayer that you have done the same. I believe that as ranking member of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs and representative of a large and varied district in Texas, that was your duty. I see in your biography that you are a parent, and I assume you are as I am, a grandparent. Your duty to their future is at least as great as your duty to your current constituents. Your duty to both of those and to your oath to faithfully defend the Constitution is far, FAR greater than to any political party.

My conclusion, after such extensive due diligence, is that there is more than enough evidence to charge the president with at least three high crimes and misdemeanors: Bribery (in the Constitutional sense), abuse of power in attempting to corrupt our election process with foreign interference; and obstruction or contempt of Congress. There also may be more charges arising from the other committees and from Robert Mueller’s investigation that should be included in the Articles of Impeachment. As your constituent, I ask you to vote in favor of adopting these Articles of Impeachment and send them to the Senate for trial.

What played out before the nation over the last two weeks concerns me greatly. The nastiness and casual regard for the truth displayed, particularly by representatives Nunes and Jordan, and at times my former representative John Ratcliffe, horrified me. While issues of Joe and Hunter Biden and Burisma might be legitimate fodder for further investigation, they have absolutely NOTHING to do with the president’s guilt or innocence of the charges I have stated. And any such investigation should be performed by the U.S. justice system, not a foreign country. Please show the sophistication of thought I believe you as a lawyer are capable and separate these red herrings from the very real Constitutional issues currently before the U.S. House of Representatives.

Respectfully,

Kathy Williams

Dear Democrats and other Thinking Americans

noreply@blogger.com (Press Progress) — Sun, 21 Feb 2016 22:57:00 +0000

Let's be crystal clear. Our collective future depends on an understanding of two concepts.
First: Two factors threaten our survival as a democratic nation. One, a movement now flourishes that calls itself “Christian” and wishes to establish a sharia-like law, based on corrupt interpretation of the Christian Bible. Two, an oligarchy supports the mission of these freaks of the far right because they serve as an effective distraction to the oligarchs' real purpose: To complete their full control over our economy and political process. Second: The only action that can prevent the subjugation of democracy to religious crazies and corporate control are to elect either Bernie Sanders or Hillary Clinton.

For all that you hold dear, please realize that the vital debate that must now happen to determine our presidential nominee must never devolve into ugliness, vitriol and name calling. This is just the distraction neo-Republicans need to hide the terrifying reality that all their candidates, even those whose smiles aren't creepy, are far to the right of 90-95 percent of us. Not one GOP candidate holds values common even among most Republicans. But if our political discourse becomes one, loud hate and fear filled shouting match, those really evil guys sound more mainstream. So tone it down. Employ the Golden Rule. Check out what you write before you post it.

This takeover of all that we hold dear has been happening for decades. But the process is intensifying and nearing completion. This fact puts us simultaneously in the most danger ever to lose our country to the forces of fear, hatred and corruption and in position to grab our greatest opportunity to reclaim it as a powerful tool to achieve common good and a bright future for us all.

In the past week, two events starkly demonstrate what is at stake. A strip mall preacher defined some of what “Christian” sharia law might include. The Southern Poverty Law Center did not declare the Republican Party a hate group as some media outlets have. However, it cited in its annual report “Year in Hate and Extremism” racist rants and hate speech aimed at inflaming violent extremists from every remaining Republican presidential candidate. That second point is the more important, but let's start with the the preacher because it demonstrates the set up that blocks us from seeing the stark, immoral behavior of the neo-GOP.

In Tempe, Arizona, Baptist preacher Steven L. Anderson declared from the pulpit, “What do you think they mean by women’s rights? You know what they mean? The right to divorce your husband is what they mean. ...The right to rebel and disobey your husband, the right to divorce him, the right to go out and get a job and make your own money, the right to tell him what to do, the right to go vote for our leaders as if women should have any say in how our country is run, when the Bible says that “I suffer not a woman to teach, not to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence”?

This same man has prayed for President Obama's assassination, for the death penalty for all gay people. He's pretty effective, it seems one of his congregation showed up at an Obama rally with an AR-15 and a handgun.

And of course it's not this one guy. In the same month, similar, softer expressions came from a female panelist on “The View”; a guy in England scheduled a series of events in America aimed at legalizing rape. So when we hear this din, we tend to be less shocked, less inclined to act against news like Gov. Abbott vowing to continue investigating Planned Parenthood. We might miss deeper assaults on access to birth control and health care; the right to vote; renewed attacks on the environments; ability to earn a fair and living wage. That's why we need to stop shouting at each other, so we can hear the deadly plotting whispers uttered daily.

That's also why the SPLC's condemnation of neo-GOP presidential contenders for their role in escalating violence becomes the most important news of the year. SPLC has, since 1971, studied, reported and fought against extremism and hatred. It worships no sacred cows and will call out any entity of any race or persuasion who threatens another with harm. They are brave, bold and largely unshockable. When SPLC says pay attention, that this is quantitatively and qualitatively different, we better pay attention.

After remarking on a year of extraordinary violence from domestic extremists and a 14-percent increase in radical, right-wing hate groups, SPLC wrote, “The armed violence was accompanied by rabid and often racist denunciations of Muslims, LGBT activists and others — incendiary rhetoric led by a number of mainstream political figures and amplified by a lowing herd of their enablers in the right-wing media.”

While the most odious culprit was, of course, Donald Trump, SPLC listed each current GOP candidate as either espousing violence and discrimination against ethnic, political or religious entities or promoting others within their own organizations who do so.

We are faced then with the scariest threats to the safe and peaceful conduct of our lives since at least 1968. And it is into this turmoil that the oligarchs advance to vanquish our remaining ability as a democracy to protect ourselves from their greed and power. Since the 1980s, Congress and presidents have removed almost every protection for individuals, as well as small and mediums sized businesses from corporate overreach. Those, in some cases, have been replaced with new, but much less potent laws (for example, Glass-Steagall with Dodd-Frank). The Supreme Court has defined corporations as persons and money as speech, perverting the basic documents of our democracy. Reaganomics has trickled down to drown our middle and lower income families in debt and poverty. NAFTA and CAFTA and other trade agreements have sent our jobs overseas and strengthened grinding poverty in third world countries leaving our desperately poor neighbors to cross our borders for survival funds. You know the litany.

The only solution, then, is to win this election. And to win it big. Up and down the ballot, as far as we can go. Every race from State Board of Education and district judges to the Texas Supreme Court, Railroad Commission and every single member of Congress we can eek out. Shock and awe at the ballot box.

For either Bernie or Hillary to be effective once in office will require us to create the political revolution that Bernie has been talking about since the beginning. WE are the people who still believe we, and not mega-wealthy private interests or corrupt clerics, should control our government and personal destinies. The political revolution means we show up at the polls in amazing numbers. It means we start being involved now with demanding (firmly but politely) the Democratic National Committee stop taking lobbyists' money, as President Obama asked. The political revolution means committing to finding the money to replace that (and volunteering lots and lots of time to make up for any shortfall.) More than all of that, it means saying to our elected officials at all levels, “Have spine. Have the courage of your convictions. Live up to your promises. Listen to me because my voice is what matters. Use my money to make a difference in people's lives; in my life. Invest in the American future.” Political revolution means holding our elected officials responsible every day and supporting them every day.

Only two candidates can fend off the oligarchs in the short run and the racists, misogynists, hate mongers at our door today. However, only Bernie Sanders offers a way to a long-term solution, a more perfect democracy, because Secretary Clinton is too much a part of the system that holds the oligarchy, the corporatist world in place. If she is nominated, vote for Hillary as a place saver for someone who can truly bring about a political revolution in the years to come. I will advocate ceaselessly for polite and intelligent political dialogue in the nomination process. And I will work like a dog, a yellow dog, to get every Democratic candidate elected in 2016. Please join me.

An Open Letter to the U.S. Congress about gun-related deaths

noreply@blogger.com (Press Progress) — Wed, 07 Oct 2015 20:23:00 +0000

I'd like to say this is not about blame. But it is. And the vast portion of that blame lies with the United States Congress, the remainder goes to our state legislatures and the president. Job One is to make us feel secure in our daily lives. Remember the Constitution? Way, way before the Second Amendment, four years before it in the Preamble to be exact, we set out our intentions in creating these United States to “insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity.” At minimum, these promises should mean we can send our loved ones off to school or work, the front porch or their bedrooms confident that they are safer than if we sent them off to war. Congress talks a lot about national security, but the worst threat to our national security is not at the hands of jihadists, but in the hands of our neighbors, friends and relatives.

As horrifying and tragic as it is, I'd like to say it's just about the nine innocents who were shot and killed Thursday or the 20 sweet souls that were lost in Sandy Hook elementary school. Or the 135 school shootings since Sandy Hook, less than three years ago. But it's not. It's about the day-in, day-out carnage by firearms in America: 88 a day; 33,200 in 2013 in the “greatest country on earth.” Drive-by shootings, police shootings; police being shot, domestic violence shootings, crime-related shootings, suicides, accidental shootings. More Americans have died from firearms-related deaths since 1968 (1,516,863) than in all of the wars we have fought since the Revolution (1,396,773).

Why is that? What can we do about it? How do we staunch the epidemic of bloodletting? Is there a member of Congress (or state legislatures, county commissioners courts or city councils) out there willing to say, “America can't fix this.” or “We can fix this, but we won't.”? If not, there simply are no excuses. Fix it. Work hard. Do not commit another official act until you can promise yourself and us that protecting domestic tranquility is more important than getting re-elected. Do not adjourn until you at least gain a consensus that you have the will to commit your best thought, your best cooperation, your most altruistic, ethical, moral leadership, every resource at your disposal to making America safe from gun deaths.

How have we approached other threats to the life and safety of Americans?

In 2014, just eight days after the first of two Ebola deaths in the United States, the U.S Congress convened hearings on how everyone – from private health organizations, the Centers for Disease Control and others in U.S. Government – handled the case and a handful of subsequent cases. They called in experts: Medical doctors and other scientists; disease vector specialists; infection control experts. They looked at protocols that worked well. They held the feet of government agencies to the fire about how they had gone about doing their jobs. They held private companies and individuals accountable for their actions.

Everyone got the message: You are expected to rise to the challenge in whatever piece of the puzzle is yours to figure out. Because of that we have new protocols and resources, not just for handling Ebola, but a huge array of known and even unknown infectious diseases. Dallas is soon to complete both an adult and a pediatric unit capable of treating Ebola or pandemic flu victims without exposing health care workers or other patients to disease.

Because we took intelligent action, all of our communities are safer today.

So the question is, why don't we apply the same information-driven, problem-solving, responsibility- accepting approach to dramatically reducing firearms related deaths in this country? It is a much harder and more complicated issue and we are far advanced into the epidemic. Is our country so paralyzed by partisanship it can no longer solve complex problems?

If we are to prevent more than 32,000 senseless deaths a year, we have to stop being greedy, posturing, simplistic or nonsensical. To solve a problem, we must honestly assess what we know as fact. More people are killed by civilian owned firearms in the U.S. every year than in any other country in the world. In 2013, guns killed twice as many people in the U.S. than terrorists killed worldwide. The U.S. gun murder rate is 20 times the average of the other 31 developed countries of the world. The United States has lax laws governing gun ownership, possession and purchase, and no laws assigning financial responsibility for consequences of gun violence or requiring gun owner insurance to cover such death and mayhem. Although the U.S. crime rate is not much higher than that of other developed countries, the lethality of that crime is much higher. The U.S. system of health care delivery and access, particularly mental health, care lags behind that of most other developed nations.

Figures from gun control advocates and the NRA agree that there are upwards of 310 million civilian owned guns in the U.S., with about 10 million added per year. Thus, getting rid of all guns – whether you're in favor of it or fear it – is no more possible than deporting 11 million undocumented immigrants. But there is so much we can do to control what happens with those weapons and the ammunition that feeds them.

Proposals with merit on the gun control side including requiring titles or licenses, user safety training, inspections with periodic renewals, a level of health (criminal and mental health background checks) and liability insurance for each gun. Similar measures of background checks and proof of liability could be applied to ammunition. We should ban sales of handguns, semi-automatic assault weapons, large-capacity magazines, the latter two of which were banned between 1994 and 2004. Other countries require some or all of these measures. Add to that criminal and civil sanctions for giving a gun to someone who can't pass muster on the controls and for parents of minors who allow their children unsupervised access to guns. Repeal the Firearm Owners Protection Act of 1986, that created the gun show loophole in background checks and include all sales from any source, including online.

On the people side of the equation, we need community best practices in how to recognize and help those who show signs of psychological distress. We need states, counties and cities to invest in public mental health, mental health officers and mental health courts; community policing. We need to ensure information sharing among law enforcement on the local level and between federal, state and local agencies. Rather than schools teaching kids how to hide or teachers how to shoot, we can train older kids in peer counseling; how to safely get help for their troubled friends. We can improve options for those in danger of family violence. We can reach out to bullied, marginalized and lonely kids. We can invest in healthy families.

So Congress, get it together. Stop distracting with ridiculous stunts like shutting down the government, holding endless hearings on the deaths of four people in 2012 and votes to give Americans less health care. There are several private groups, like Everytown for Gun Safety and Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, that are developing reliable information and strategies. Start listening to them as representative of the vast majority of Americans who want sensible gun control. Stop listening to those who have a financial interest in keeping gun and ammo sales high. You are responsible. Stop the bloodshed now.

2012 elections, acting on political lessons

noreply@blogger.com (Press Progress) — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 19:17:00 +0000

I am surprised when I hear pundits express surprise about A: The absence of top GOP names like Jeb Bush and Chris Christie in the 2012 primary race; and B: The acute rancor of Republican candidates' attacks on one another.

The answer to both seems pretty obvious to me. Republicans are more interested in keeping and extending their power in Congress and weakening President Obama's influence over policy than in gaining the presidency. They've learned from George H.W. Bush's daunting task of economic recovery post Reaganomics and Barack Obama's unprecedented challenges in cleaning up George W. Bush's legacy of near total economic disaster. The cleaning crew that comes in after a parade of elephants gets little credit for holding down the stink. It doesn't matter whether the uniforms are red or blue.

One key to control of Congressional politics, particularly in the House, is to energize as many mini-constituencies as possible. That's more easily accomplished in a mid-term election with no presidential coattails involved for good or ill. In 2010, when Republicans took control of the House, they did so with two million fewer votes than Obama garnered to win the presidency in 2008. To sustain that success, the GOP needs to ensure the Tea Party as well "moderates" go back to the polls in November. Unified allegiance to a presidential candidate is not as likely to accomplish that as is the rough and tumble Republican candidates are now experiencing. None of this means their big money guns won't be trained on Obama or that the GOP wouldn't take a presidential victory, just that faced with a choice, they'll take Congressional might.

Many Democrats secretly breathed a sigh of relief when they lost the presidential race in 1988. Someone was going to have to take the fall for the costs of rescuing the economy from the S&L crisis and other "supply side" economic craziness. That someone was "Read My Lips" George H.W. Bush, who was forced to suck up the blame and approve new taxes to counter recession in the early 1990's.

The Democrats' 1988 primary field ranged from Klansman David Duke to solidly liberal Paul Simon and perennial Democratic nut-case candidate Lyndon Larouche with Michael Dukakis as the eventual nominee. Ted Kennedy and Mario Cuomo, (Sr.), who both gained considerable political coinage after their national convention speeches in 1984, sat out the '88 presidential primary. Notably, so did the party's rising star, Bill Clinton. Thus Clinton avoided a loss to the elder Bush that likely would have significantly weakened the Democrat's chances of claiming victory in 1992. With the fallout of economic decline solidly tagged to a Republican administration, Clinton was able to work with both Democratic and a Republican Congresses to craft an economic recovery complete with tax breaks and eventually, a budget surplus.

Democrats had taken back the Senate in 1986. They already had a significant majority in the House. With such as diverse field of candidates at the top of the ballot, they held, and made small gains in both houses in 1988. And with that power over George H.W. Bush's policy objectives, the Democratic Party was poised to take the whole ball game in 1992.
Defending against a takeover of the Senate and continued GOP power in the House in 2012 will require Democrats to mount a deep, broad and costly campaign in every state. With some of the shine off Obama's message, deserved or not, stimulating the kind of grass-roots, social-media movement for the Democratic message will be much more difficult this time around. Although drawing a well-financed liberal third party opponent could spell disaster for the president, an in-party leftward leaning challenger would help Obama articulate his message. Such a development also would invigorate the national debate over how to proceed with fixing the many things that ail us. Otherwise, we're stuck with a Republican dialog that ranges from radical right to reactionary right vs US.

So, for the time being, the likes of Jeb Bush and Chris Christie are keeping their powder dry, watching the melee, making safe choices and stockpiling their political capital for 2016.

Dear Legislature: Great care needed for budget

noreply@blogger.com (Press Progress) — Wed, 16 Feb 2011 03:37:00 +0000

Dear Texas Legislature,

As Texas music icon Stevie Ray Vaughan laid it out, "It's raining down in Texas and all the telephone lines are down." Heck, it's storming; a hurricane's hit; blizzards and ice storms are raging through. The bridges are down; cities and school districts are sinking. We are at the bottom of so many important indexes of civilized society and global competition we have to reach up to touch Mississippi and maybe even Guatemala. We're $16 billion to $27 billion off the budget mark for 2012-2013.

Even the disparity between those two numbers indicates real emergency. The first number maintains spending at the current level and the second maintains services at the current level. Neither includes about $3.3 billion shortfall in the current fiscal year, which must be addressed first, according to Center for Public Policy Priorities' senior fiscal analyst Dick Lavine. He added that the $16 million figure represents spending in 2010 and maintaining that level is just irrelevant in 2012-2013.

It's time to open up the Rainy Day Fund and it's time to raise taxes and fees in addition to making tough decisions on spending. It's time to seek the balanced approach that many organizations, including faith-based groups like Impact Texas and the broad-based coalition Texas Forward are advocating.

It's the economic policy equivalent of lambs lying with lions when F. Scott McCown of CPPP, Bill Hammond of the Texas Association of Business and State Sen. Florence Shapiro agree we need to open up the Rainy Day Fund. Trying to meet the state's constitutional mandate to balance its budget with cuts alone -- as Gov. Rick Perry and both your houses have proposed -- likely would collapse the economy. It certainly will cripple human services and education. And let us be clear, it is neither melodramatic nor alarmist to state that such severe cuts would cause great suffering and possibly deaths among the sick, children and the elderly.

State government and public education employees make some of the better middle class salaries in the state. Balancing the budget by cuts alone, what the Legislative Budget Board has planned in both houses' preliminary budgets, means lopping off about 25 percent of spending. To cut that much could mean a loss of nearly 9,000 state workers' jobs and nearly 100,000 public education jobs.

When economic development corporations and other entities project the benefit from creating a job, they attach a "multiplier" to each salary dollar. The estimate takes into account taxes paid, meals bought, housing purchased, all the things a person with a job buys. Multipliers range from about 1.5 to 7.

Any economic evaluation includes the point of diminishing return: That point at which cost begins to exceed benefit. What is the point of diminishing return of cutting 109,000 well-paid jobs with great benefits?

Recently Politifact, a non-partisan, economic-policy agnostic, fact-checking arm of the St. Petersburg Times evaluated Gov. Perry's statement that Texas created more jobs last year than all the other 49 states together. They looked at Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison's claim that we lost 300,000 more jobs than we created last year. Both claims rang solid green "true" on Politifact's Truthometer.

Texas also is number one among the states in creating minimum wage jobs and 31st in offering jobs requiring bachelor's degrees. So what are the chances that the jobs we created paid salaries better than the ones we lost?

So please, dear legislators, think twice or 10 times before letting go of all those jobs. If Sherman's economic development guidelines were applied, creators of those 109,000 jobs would qualify for about $436 million in local incentives. Of course, Texas' economic development law doesn't allow investment in many 21st century jobs. We're still betting on 20th century manufacturing jobs and "call centers" (strong lobby?) and that's something you could change. If you truly believe that the private sector can handle all the health, education and human services responsibilities of our communities, then let us local folks decide whether to use our sales tax dollars to entice those jobs.

Hammond, although stating a belief that this budget can be balanced without raising taxes and fees, urges you not to be "penny wise and pound foolish."

Texas economist Ray Perryman, the man on whose opinion most Texas cities relied in getting local voters to pass sales taxes, has even stronger words for the legislators of the 82nd Session. He warned you in the Waco Tribune Monday, "Don't eat your seed corn foolishly." He said his firm has studied both Medicaid and the Children's Health Insurance Program, mental health and substance abuse services several times.

"Findings from these analyses have consistently shown that adequate funding can yield savings that are multiples of the state's investment," Perryman wrote.

"For Medicaid and CHIP, we found that cuts to the programs were a very inefficient way to achieve fiscal balance. Such reductions lead to loss of federal funds, higher costs to those who purchase insurance, more uncompensated care for hospitals and clinics, and reduced business activity."

In the past two sessions, you've produced all the "blue smoke and mirrors" budget razzle dazzle possible. And in so doing, you've created what Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst and others have called a structural deficit. You created most of the structural deficit when you swapped new business franchise tax dollars for property tax dollars in school funding to make good on your promise to lower property taxes by a third. The franchise tax brings in about $5 billion a year less than property taxes did.

You inappropriately appropriated $14.4 billion in federal stimulus money and about $8.2 billion more of stimulus money has come into the state coffers. Most of this you used to disguise the state's budget deficits in 2009, 2010 and 2011 rather than to stimulate the economy as intended.

Not one Texas Republican in Congress voted for the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Yet Republicans skated on that far-smoother budget picture into total control of Texas governance. Texas is at your mercy. I'm begging you: Please raise my taxes, open up my Rainy Day Fund and cut services and jobs with great care.

KATHY WILLIAMS is co-city editor of the Herald Democrat. E-mail: kwilliams@heralddemocrat.com.

No more pork calling

noreply@blogger.com (Press Progress) — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 20:22:00 +0000

OK, I've had it up to here (hand extended over head.) No more calling, "Pork!" No more simple-minded characterizations of what various economic recovery proposals will and won't do. No more false distinctions between “jobs” and “work.” If it pays a salary, it’s work. We are way past that now; way, way over the cliff. We're at the point where the balloon above the coyote says, "Uh Oh!" And we all know that's just seconds before a long plunge toward a barely visible point of dirt below. Unlike Wiley, of course, we will not be OK in the next frame, dusting ourselves off and looking for new boxes marked "Acme Economic Disaster Preventer."
It's time to admit A. No one knows exactly what to do or exactly how bad it is or will become. B. Almost any spending has the potential to create jobs in the short run and that's we need: Jobs. C. Delay means disaster. D. There are no good solutions, so anyone who sits back, throws stones and says no, eventually be able to say, "I told you so." We need jobs and guts and patriotism. We need leaders with enough gumption to serve one term and get fileted by the other side for the effort.
No matter what caused it: "It was the derivatives; it was the housing market; it was greed; it was de-regulation," we need jobs. And while all the criticisms of how we got here probably hold some truth, we will have decades to unravel that. But we have days, seriously, days, to begin to dig out of this hole. We have an economy based on consumerism. Jobs, preferably jobs that pay a living wage, but jobs are what we need. People who have jobs buy things. And for there to be things for people to buy, there have to be people working to make things. And, because so many people have lost their jobs, 4 million in a year, we need to help them before we work on all the other stuff so they can afford to stay in their homes, buy food, buy clothes, be consumers. In essence, we need to help those who have most recently lost jobs because they are yet to lose their entire life's provision. We need to help them so we can avoid the enormous costs of rebuilding lives from the ground up. It just costs us less collectively, in money and in pain.
I'm weary of the GOP party line about spending. Why are "Democratic Party Wish List" spending items not stimulative? Building solar batteries is one often cited. What could be a better kind of spending? It would create jobs up and down the educational line. We need some brainiacs to invent and perfect their design. We need even brainier folks to take those ideas and designs and turn them into plans and working models and others, with technical skills to translate the models into actual products. We need people to make all the little parts and put all those together into the finished product. We need people to make the equipment to make the parts and we need people to clean up the shop. All of those people will be making money. They will need to order parts from other people who will then have jobs. See how it works? Jobs are jobs, even government jobs, which actually are a little better because they pay a little better, so they bring about recovery faster.
Take the argument about Pell Grants, if I had a day or two, I could get you precise figures on this one, but we don't have the time to get these precise figures. Austin College is a big employer in a small city. Its payroll "rolls over" in the economy to produce a dollar benefit to other businesses much greater than the size of that payroll. Professors, clerks, janitors, professional staff members, adjuncts, all must buy food, and gasoline and clothes, etc., etc. Some go out to eat; some have pets. All this means dollars helping keep grocery stores, department stores, pet stores, restuarants, etc., in business. Those businesses in turn will be able to keep their doors open and employ people who buy food and clothes and television services. This keeps other people in business and it keeps sales tax dollars flowing to keep city and state services going.
This year, Austin College experienced a shortage of new students and failed to retain as many upperclassmen as it had hoped. Why? I don't know for sure, but part of that has to be that Pell grants top out at a figure much lower than AC's tuition and student loan aid has all but dried up. This year, AC has frozen hiring, cut some jobs and lowered or cut raises. If there's not some serious relief in the form of more Pell Grant money and unfrozen credit, what will get cut next? And how many other Sherman and Grayson County jobs will that affect. Just as the roll over of jobs created at AC is a plus, so the roll back when they lose jobs is a minus.
Ditto the argument about the "socialism" involved in giving income tax money to "those people who don't make enough to pay taxes." I'm betting that those 4 million people who have lost their jobs and the other millions who have either given up, taken low paying jobs, or work part time because of the economy, aren't going to make enough to pay taxes. I'm also betting that any money given to them will be used to buy things, and yes, to pay mortgages and bills. So some of it might not be as stimulative as say a grant to create a solar panel construction business, but it certainly helps.
The upshot of all this is we should not care whether the plan contains pet projects, or "madeup work," what we should care about is that it creates jobs, and by the way, it must create a lot of government jobs, an ahem, bureaucracy, to make sure that we know where every dime goes, and wherever that is, it is used properly. Otherwise it could evaporate as the $350 billion bailout during president #43, the Freddie Mac and Fannin Mae funds, the Iraq war money, the Iraq reconstruction funding has.
What we need are leaders with the intestinal fortitude to take a leap of faith to avoid falling off the cliff.

For the first time, Pride

noreply@blogger.com (Press Progress) — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 14:25:00 +0000

Pride. I'm beginning to understand what it means to be truly proud of my nation. Michelle Obama drew the wrath of million when she said — at the time when historic numbers of voters turned out to send the momentum of the presidential election in her husband Barack's direction — for the first time in her life she was really proud of her country.

I defended her at the time because, I thought I understood, that it's hard when you live in a nation that is really two nations, that people of her background have fewer opportunities. I empathized with the notion that too few people exercise their rights and responsibilities to fully realize the vigorous ideal and in peril of Lincoln's warning, "that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."

But there's more to the realization of a full measure of pride in my country. To perfect our union we must work consistently toward the notion that all human beings are created equal. This is larger and grander than the simple fact that today a man of African American descent takes the oath of office. Barack Obama is, after all, exactly as much white Kansan as he is black African. His life past birth place and genetics has gathered knowledge and sensitivities of cultures distant and exotic from most of ours.

Since Nov. 4, I've noticed that I can take a deeper patriotic and human breath. Suddenly I can dare to believe that my children and grandchildren can inherit a world community that has evolved spiritually. In the past few years we've heard over and over that this might be the first generation of Americans that won't hand a better world to their children. Mostly that is meant in the material sense. And that might be the case. But, for the first time in decades I believe that we will be able to pass to them a better world: One in which we believe we share a destiny with other lands; one in which we believe all of our fates are intertwined; one in which we believe that democracy will not continue to exist without each of us working to perfect our union.

What Michelle was expressing, as I understand it now, is that up until this moment, every hope of African Americans had an asterisk by it. Either ascendancy to an office or activity or recognition happened because they were black or didn't happen because they were black. African Americans have lived in a kind of suspension: Their responsibility was to chip away at barriers of thought and spirit: Next time, be patient, work hard, work harder. Today Obama raises his hand, and the asterisk is gone.

I am so proud of this nation. Not because we have conquered racism or partisanship in any sense. (We have yet to elect a woman or a non-Christian.) I'm proud because people of every color, age, creed, party identity, gender, gender identity, religion and philosophy came together under Barack Obama's banner. We each worked hard, then harder. We each invested according to what we had to make this moment possible: Talent and time, money, even begrudging respect. In the end it had less to do with race and party than it did to intelligence, ideas and inspiration.

I am so proud of this nation because what is taking place at this moment in Washington, D.C.: A peaceful transfer of power, the nature of which proves that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s dream was aspiration not fantasy.

My post on Change.gov

noreply@blogger.com (Press Progress) — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 19:46:00 +0000

I have yet to see articulated the notion that developing, updating and improving alternative transportation modes are essential to energy independence, slowing global climate change, reinvigorating the economy and enhancing independence for elders.

If we are working on the puzzle of energy independence in transportation focusing on more fuel efficient or alternative fuel passenger and freight vehicles, then we're merely postponing real change. Moving people and goods around in individual pods, even big ones, perpetuates poor practices and planning. It continues the need for ever more miles and lanes of concrete. That requires huge amounts of polluting manufacturing, eats land that could revive the environment and only shifts the discussion of sustainability. It also concentrates economic recovery in one industry, making prospects for sustainable recovery unnecessarily narrow.

The Obama Administration is proposing a huge investment in putting people back to work, establishing energy independence, creating jobs, healing the environment. I believe that those tremendous goals, plus creating more livable communities, can be achieved through investing in building high speed passenger and freight rail. We must build new lines, increase capacity and separate rail and passenger lines for safety and efficiency. We have a 19^th century rail system and a 20^th century highway system. We should think differently and holistically about this. Highly urbanized cities in the north and east have some, antiquated rail systems and some southern cities like Dallas have limited light rail. We should keep, improve and expand what is working. We should create new solutions to what is not working.

I have a parallel but almost reverse suggestion for alternative energy. Although we, of course, need an updated electrical grid and renewable source generating plants, (not including poisonous and wildly expensive nuclear power) we also must help individual power users and small groups be able to afford home and neighborhood power creation. And we should help more individuals with energy efficiencies and savings. This means direct subsidies or tax credits that don't require income tax itemization, so they are available to those at the bottom end of the income scale. Again, reliance on huge systems that only get larger brings a wealth of problems. It also increases the incidence of unintended consequences. For example, T. Boone Pickens wind energy farms make a lot of sense, but the other side of that: Converting freight vehicle fleets to natural gas use brings some major problems.

To develop the huge natural gas fields in the Burnet Shale in Texas, which I believe is what he has in mind, requires fracturing. Fracturing uses huge quantities of water, which he most likely plans to get from the Trinity and Woodbine aquifers. Many North Texas communities depend on the aquifers for drinking water. So we will, at some point, suffer unreasonably high water prices. To save water in the fracturing process, the water is mixed with chemicals to bulk it up. This polluted water must then be stored in underground spaces that keep them separate from other ground water.

Thank you for your time in considering these suggestion. I am hopeful of a reply.

Sincerely, Kathy Williams

Musings on economic philosophy

noreply@blogger.com (Press Progress) — Sun, 26 Oct 2008 17:20:00 +0000

This piece is in response to a friend's sending me an e-mail discussion among her family members. I will not mention who that is because I haven't asked her permission to do so. I must say the back in forth was vigorous, but respectful. Would it were so that all families and communities could have such debate. As a reader you will be at a disadvantage from not having read the earlier opinions and definitions set out, but I think you can get the gist off it.

This is my reply to her:

If I were responding to your family members, I would say that the U.S. economy does not conform to the definition of capitalism, and has not for at least since the Reagan era. What we have is more of a global oligarchy, or what I would call corporatism or corporate socialism. In the examples of the businesses of human services you cite, a free market because cannot exist because there is no free choice. The buyer cannot beware, for the reasons you cited and because government has established rules for conduct in those markets that preclude competition. Obama is not in philosophy a socialist, however he has been branded. Reading his book, "Audacity of Hope" brings one a much clearer idea of just how much of a free market person he is. Even his health care proposals are market based. As a person who could most accurately described as a Democratic Socialist, I find Obama to the right of my beliefs. He espouses the notion corporations should be allowed profit, but that the value of those on the factory floor should be compensated a little closer (than 1:286) to what those in the board room earn. Such was a proposal in AT&T's stockholder meeting several years ago. The problem is that the way corporations work, and the amazingly entertwined nature of corpoarte boards and officers, preclude sanity and morality arising from individual stockholders. Ever more concentrated ownership of corporations globally move capital and labor in ways that no mere mortals can grasp. Witness the recent $700 billion bailout of an industry with up to $57 trillion in exposure. To the vast majority of us, saying those numbers is like a 3-year-old saying 40-11, nonsensical. Even Greenspan admits to being clueless. Profit in a truly free-market economy rewards risk. Salaries and bonuses reward competence and success. What we have done more and more since the mid-1980s is socialize risk and reward. Now they are both meaningless. We keep hearing that such and such a business is too big to fail. I wonder if they are not too big to succeed. The labor side of the free market equation has held up its side of the bargain: productivity has increased steadily as corporations and other economic entities have become more profitable. However, labor has not shared in this benefit. The disparity between the median salary in corporations and executive compensation has grown, literally, exponentially. Because of the global nature of the economy, we have our best educated workers losing engineering and technology jobs to overseas workers and reduced to selling pizzas or finding telemarketing jobs. To replace the high salaries in fueling the ecomonic engine, we loosened credit, over and over. We produced "commodities" out of air, then traded that air, combined it with other air, and traded that. We know now what happens when that house of cards collapses. We are engaged in the first set of wars, ever, in which we did not raise taxes to pay for our defense. Even in the conduct of this war, we are stoking the coffers of global corporations, paying private contractors' employees 10 times more than our soldiers in combat. Instead of hiring out of work Iraqis or U.S. citizens, those contractors are bringing in workers from Sri Lanka, Nepal, the Phillipines. Lots of government money, our money, goes out to benefit no one here but those who fill the corporate boardrooms. During World War II, Frank Sinatra paid 90 percent of his salary in taxes. He thrived financially, and talked with pride about his support of the war effort (Paying taxes is patriotic.) And I believe he thrived opulently in the years after the war. Because of the corporate and governmental excess and waist, stupidity and greed, failure to refree the game, particularly in the past eight years, we face the future with almost no resources, unthinkable debt and foreign challenges. Why anyone would even want to be president to inherit this mess is beyond me. In probably too simplistic terms: We face a future of either tax and spend or borrow and spend. So when we start tossing around philosophical tags like "socialism" and "capitalism" we need to decide if those are concepts that even apply to today's world. We must figure out how we can capture our brightest minds to invest whatever resources remain to produce a future for ourselves and our children. Who offers that kind of hope?

My Sunday column, extension of Palin blog

noreply@blogger.com (Press Progress) — Sun, 05 Oct 2008 15:59:00 +0000

What did Sarah Palin accomplish in VP debate

Exceeded expectations. Really?

Exactly whose expectations for what did Sarah Palin exceed in Thursday night's vice presidential debate?

"She stanched the bleeding of the McCain-Palin ticket," GOP spin meisters said. "She has re-energized the base."

Liberal pundits said she made no huge gaffes, and neither did Joe Biden and gave the win to Biden.

Associated Press presidential campaign correspondent Liz Sidoti wrote in vapid analysis after the debate: "Joe Biden's job was to attack. Sarah Palin's job was to attack, connect and stick to her folksy script.

"While both vice presidential candidates succeeded in their only debate of the campaign Thursday night, the stakes were much higher and the bar was much lower for Palin. So, in the contest of low expectations, Palin won."

Really?

Let me get this straight: We are in the middle of a recession, which could turn into a full-blown depression. We just spent $700 billion as a down payment on who knows how much to keep the economy from totally imploding. We are fighting two active wars and are in precarious relationships with Iran, North Korea and Pakistan. We have a nearly $11 trillion national debt.

We face a global hunger crisis; genocidal campaigns in Sudan; insecure relationships with Western Hemisphere democracies many Americans don't like; global climate change; recovery from massive flooding along the Mississippi and three hurricanes; 45 million Americans without health care insurance; no consensus on immigration issues or border control; crumbling and inadequate infrastructure; an energy crises. Need I go on?

Given that five of the last 12 presidents first served as vice president and this will be the only time we see these two candidates together before one becomes a heartbeat away from the presidency, I think the American people had the right to expect more than "a contest of low expectations."

What I saw Palin demonstrate was that she could be on a stage without swooning or throwing up, she can read note cards, memorize some lines and cute (if fakey,) folksy lines, and deliver a stinging, rehearsed jab. And "ya betcha" she can smile, flash her dimples, bat her eyes and wink at every cute line as if it's an inside joke between her and the audience. I guess that is a step up from not knowing the titles of magazines or newspapers she reads or knowing what the Bush Doctrine entails. It beats having to come back later with an answer. But she did not debate.

She learned the tactic from her debate coaches of taking any question she didn't like and turning it to a quote from an earlier sound bite about energy independence or tax cuts. But she couldn't think on her feet, at all. She charged that Obama voted against funding for the troops and that was un-American. Biden came back with his charge that John McCain had voted against $1.6 billion in funding for up-armoring vehicles for the soldiers because McCain said the bill involved a timeline. Perhaps there was an explanation of why McCain voted against troop funding, but she didn't give it.

In his strongest moment of the debate, Biden refuted her charge that for a "change" ticket Obama-Biden certainly looked to the past a lot, talking about the failures of the Bush Administration. "Past is prologue," Biden said, and launched into a series of requests to learn of any plans McCain and she had advanced that differed from the Bush-Cheney line, "I haven't heard anything yet," he said. She flashed that deer-in-the headlights look, paused a long time and waited for Ifill to change the subject.

That brings up another point of reduced expectations for this debate. The trend over the past 12 years has been for more and more scripted debates, with more restricted formats every election cycle. Two days before the debate, McCain charged that Ifill was biased because she has just written a book about Obama. Perhaps she should have recused herself. She had a perfect out because she fell and broke her ankle a day or so before the event. Instead Ifill seemed to bend over backward not to confront Palin on failing to answer questions.

In fact, Palin looked directly into the camera and said that she might not answer questions like the moderator and her opponent wanted, but she would speak directly to the people -- an obvious tactic.

The McCain team has so "worked the refs" during this campaign that they have produced the most insipid and opaque vice presidential run in recent history. First they refuse to allow the press access to her. Then they negotiated the "scripted press conference" style for the vice presidential debate. Then they grant recorded, private interviews with selected commentators.

Fortunately for America, Katie Couric stood her ground and although she was polite and asked questions that any relatively bright high school graduate could have answered, she stumped Palin again and again. Will we ever see an actual press conference in public? We deserve to.

Biden's coaches, too afraid he would offend supporters of the gun-totin', wolf-shootin', Cutie Pie of the North, bound him to smile knowingly when he could have pressed points on which he had an obvious advantage, like how the economy works or the stakes of international diplomacy.

I think their job was to tell us how they would run the country and to explain to us how they would solve our real problems. Silly me, I expected substance.

KATHY WILLIAMS is assistant city editor of the Herald Democrat.

Lame, lame, lame

noreply@blogger.com (Press Progress) — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 04:49:00 +0000

I am totally frustrated with the high-sounding analysis of this ridiculous debate. I say ridiculous because it was engineered into pablum by the format and, as was the case with last week's debate, the weak moderators. I really like both Jim Lehrer and Gwen Ifill, but they seem to have been completely restrained. I don't know if Ifill got threatened because of the way the spin teams struck an offensive blow over a possible conflict of interest with her book, but jeeze, nobody got called on anything.
Why did Ifill not stand up for her questions?
And the talking heads, for the most part actually gave Palin points. With so much on the line with this election — so much that I can't believe anyone really wants to win it — we have a debate between the two seconds that probably drew the largest audience in history — and the big deal among so called journalists (including the AP's presidential campaign reporter Liz Sidoti) is that Palin won or at least didn't lose because she did not fall on her face or cry. Sidoti actually used the phrases "defended McCain's policy" or "drove a wedge between Obama and Biden." That assumes that she was successful. Evidently, it makes no difference that she had no argument, either logical or factual. Others have said that she did what she had to do; she staunched the bleeding; she reassured the right wing of the party. How is this not just the most embarassing prospect that this is the best candidate the Republicans could come up with.
Biden was terrific I thought, if perhaps too laid back. But I thought he gave enough detail to be credible but didn't sound too professorial. I wish there had been someone on the stage with him that he could have laid into a bit.
How has it come to pass that we accept as debate that someone says something; not that they prove it, or present a case for it, just say the words. Incredible. Literally incredible.
This is what I tried to post on Newsvine in response to AP's Liz Sidoti's analysis, but for some reason couldn't get the post buttons to work:
This article purports to be analysis, but there seems to be little understanding of the issues involved. Sarah Palin might have attempted to defend McCain, but she had no facts at her command in order to successfully defend his record. Palin seems to subscribe to the disturbing recent trend among Republican candidates that people should believe what they say just because they say it.
There not only were no details from Palin on any plans that her ticket has to fix any one of the many, complex and horrifying problems the nation faces, she was unable to articulate the issues. She demonstrated a veneer of talking points that obviously had been drilled into her.
This is far too important a moment, this one debate between the vice presidential candidates, to slough off her complete lack of comprehension. She didn't answer questions she didn't want to. She directed everything back to the sound bites and cute, folksy flotsam her trainers have filled her head with. If that didn't work, she bullied the moderator and Biden. They shouldn't have let her, but that was their coaching too, I believe.
I thought Biden, while perhaps not as peppy as Palin, seriously has considered the nightmare that faces whoever wins this election. I do not find it comforting that the person who covers the presidential campaign for the Associated Press, thus most of the newspapers in the United States, has presented us with such a vapid, shallow analysis of this debate. His job was to attack? Her job was to attack, connect and stick to her folksy script? Really?
I think their job was to tell us how they would run the country and to explain to us how they would solve these real problems. Silly me, I expect substance out of the vice presidential candidates and the Associated Press.

Debate the debate

noreply@blogger.com (Press Progress) — Sat, 27 Sep 2008 00:18:00 +0000

You are invited to a moderated chat forum on the first presidential debate at www.heralddemocrat.com

A little patriotism please

noreply@blogger.com (Press Progress) — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 15:17:00 +0000

I just watched John McCain talking before an Irish group in Scranton, Pa., and it occurs to me how transparent is his unseemly use of this crisis for political gain. He should be following Barack Obama's tone in this and supporting a unified solution to this absolutely terrifying economic situation. As Congress is meeting to consider the president's proposal, the four top candidates need to be supplying as much light and as little heat as possible. As the nation's leaders have proven over and over again that they cannot deal with our most difficult problems in sane ways, this moment is essential to come together wisely and not produce the economic equivalent of the Patriot Act.
The bailout brings the possibility of helping the economy or ruining it. It also brings the possibility of creating a monolithic role for the secretary of the treasury with no oversight and no transparency. And there's the little matter of impoverishing 99 percent of the country while enriching the 1 percent that put us in this situation in the first place.
Barack has spoken his mind about how to protect the American pocketbook as much as he can and supported the process of considering how to fix this situation without adding too much heat. That looks pretty presidential to me, and I mean that in the good sense of responding calmly, seeking information and considering a range of ideas before arriving at a solution.
Even a war hero should understand that the highest expression of patriotism is to put your country first, whether it's in economic or foreign policy, and no matter how bad you want to be president.

Pig in a poke

noreply@blogger.com (Press Progress) — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 14:58:00 +0000

My grandmother used to say, "I ain't buying no pig in a poke." She had a lot of other colorful expressions that got much more colorful the older she got. The license of age. This one puzzled me because I didn't know what a poke was.

I don't remember who explained to me that a poke is a sack, in this case a burlap bag. You wouldn't want to buy it because you couldn't really tell what you were buying. You could see if it were shaped like a pig and how big it was, but beyond that, your imagination had to fill in the details. I guess you might buy it if you really, really trusted the seller. But in any economy a whole hog has been an expensive investment.

Now, I'm not calling Sarah Palin a pig, but it surely looks like Karl Rove, and the rest of the rogues' gallery that's run the government for the past eight years, are the ones holding the poke. They're keeping that string drawn taut. They've tied all kinds of pretty bows on it and built some really lovely pedestals to set the poke on. They're traveling the country showing off the package. But there's a velvet rope they're calling a media blackout around the pedestal and they aren't letting anyone in to peek at the contents. They aren't even letting anyone but the shills on the payroll ask questions about what's in there.

They've made movies reportedly outlining what's in the poke. They change the ribbons and bows and paint a face on her every day. They put a mike up next to the whole package and it sounds like whatever is inside is speaking. But who can tell?

We can, however, look at where that package has been and what it left in its wake. With Palin, the wake is weak and what is there doesn't look very good and it doesn't match at all the picture that's being painted on the outside of that poke. I hope people in this nation who cast ballots in this race have the good common sense my Nanny had and demand that McCain and crew open up that poke or move on to Barack Obama, the man standing out in the sunshine, dodging the rocks and explaining his plan for the country.

Palin nominated for worst mom

noreply@blogger.com (Press Progress) — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 14:43:00 +0000

With all the power vested in me as a political blogger and mother who raised two smart, kind, involved, beautiful daughters in the Great State, the Lone Star State, the Friendship State, the Longhorn or Armadillo State, I do hereby nominate Sarah Palin the worst mother of the latter half of 2008. I would have picked her for the whole year, but there's that mom who microwaved her infant and even Palin isn't THAT bad: She only threw her teen into a whirlwind and under the campaign bus with the whole world watching.

I think, and have lived my whole life with this credo, that women who have children should be with those children, as much and as long as she can. She should be close enough to feed them problems to solve as they gain the skills and information to solve them. For example, at 2, they should be able to choose between two outfits and whether it's OK to wear them inside out. They learn from consequences if they scream and lay on the floor at pre-K because they don't want to wear their coats outside, they get cold on the playground. They learn the stove is hot by a little touch on the outside of the oven. They don't learn to dress warmly by running naked in a blizzard or that fire burns by sticking their hands in the fireplace.

When they mess up, say, get a grasp on the physical principle of gravity by jumping off the porch and spraining an ankle, a mom should be close enough to dry their tears and apply ice and hugs. When they start taking on the bumps and bashes of social interaction, get snubbed by the popular kids or pinched or punched by a bully; when they just give up on ever learning algebra; when she starts her period and needs a change of clothes; when that first crush breaks his heart, Mom needs to be there to listen to those huge problems. And they are huge. They are earth-shattering, because that's all the world they know and that's how they learn to cope with life. That's the second wave of their core concepts of whether the world is a basically good place they can trust or whether life is hard and punishing and its them alone against it all.

All of us mothers in the latter part of the 20th century and the first part of the 21st understand the reality that we must work and we are going to miss many of those moments in our children's lives. We have to deal with them when we get home from work. And in this horrible economic time, more and more women are forced into the workplace who would choose to be at home with their kids, a choice less advantaged women have never had.

There are so many wonderful fathers out there; single fathers, we can just plug into those lines above as Dad in place of Mom; so many terrific guys who are choosing to be the primary caregiver to his children to allow his families needs to be met immediately with Mom coming in to reinforce that as soon as she in from work. We have Joe Biden as a role model of how a loving, nurturing father can go to work in a powerful office, with the support of family members and great caregivers, and come home every night and listen to their stories and problems. Biden, however, did not seek the vice presidency, the heart-beat away position, when he was performing the vital role of Mr. Mom.

BUT, Sarah Palin's story is vastly different from any of that. She has five children, one going off to war, a young teenager, one who looks about 8, a special needs infant and a teenager who is about to become a mother herself. I don't know much about Mr. Palin, but he doesn't appear to be much of a Mr. Mom. I don't think he stayed home from his commercial fishing business to take care of the newborn baby with Down Syndrome when Sarah Palin went back to work three days after the baby's birth. And in the tragic case that she does become president, she could be locked in a war room for days at a time; in her office conferring with economic advisors past their bedtime and too late for talking for weeks at a time.

So here are the wherefores I would attach to my nomination:

-- Whereas Sarah Palin knowingly brought her daughter and her daughter's baby daddy into a political maelstrom at the most painful, scary and stressful time of their lives;

-- Whereas Bristol and Levi, living in that fishbowl, must make decisions that they and their baby will have to live with the rest of their lives;

-- Whereas she has three other children who, if she should get her wish to be vice president and becomes president, will know for the remainder of the next four years that they come second to every other person in America;

--- Whereas they will have no Mom there -- to dry their eyes, dream of their futures, put it all in perspective, tell them to get over it, look at their great art and put it on the refrigerator, help them to learn from their mistakes without being crushed -- until after all the people's work is done in war and in peace;

-- Whereas Bristol will pretty much be on her own to plan her wedding, learn how to be a Mother and wife and deal with the public stress (oh, Bristol, here carry Trig in front of your belly and spread the blanket out so no one can see that pooch you got going. Stop whining, that baby's going to be the first grandbaby of the first Republican woman nominated vice president)

-- Whereas Mr. Palin is not Michelle Obama, who is willing and able to be the primary parent 25 hours a day;

-- And Whereas Sarah Palin will be spending much of her first year in office learning to define the borders of Afghanistan, Iran and Iraq (special tutors must be employed because her boss doesn't know it) and studying what this economics thing is about in a country that is not oil rich and has more than 600,000 people within its borders;

I do hereby nominate Sarah Palin the worst mother of the last half of 2008 and, in an unimaginable nightmare, the next four years.

You can cast your vote here or e-mail me at kismetacres@hotmail.com

The tardy blogger

noreply@blogger.com (Press Progress) — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 15:31:00 +0000

OK, It's been more than a month since I've filled this space. But when the juiciest stuff happens to detail here, the workload at the HD escalates as well. And to get anything in for the general public, I have to cover it, which leaves me with little time to blog.

Obama's speech was magnificent. I can't remember a better political and cultural speech, and I saw Dr. King speak in person in 1967. So that's quite an endorsement.

Case in point of the speeded up nature of life, I just learned we are opening the comfort station for hurricane evacuees today and not tomorrow and we are opening the shelter today and not Wednesday or Thursday. We already have 25 people who need shelter in Whitewright.

So, off I go to find people to do activities with the kids and sign poles for directions to lead people to the shelters and respite care.

One parting shot at all of our "good friend." McCain, you have watched "Gypsy" far too many times. Remember the scene where the strippers are giving Momma advice? "You Gotta have a Gimmick" is the song. Well, that seems to be advice that Rove and the rat f^*&^* Republican machine evidently gave McCain. Palin is a gimmick, looks like family values on the outside. I'm betting she's all Alaskan hillbilly on the inside. Oh, and did anyone catch that they're crediting her with something like 15 years political experience. That would seem to count her PTA creds. If that's experience that qualifies for the highest office in the land, my Mom could be Empress of the Milky Way. She has five kids and about 20 years in PTA.

Case in point with this post. I began it Sunday and now I'm posting it on Wednesday. Many people helped by our Disaster Relief Group.

T. Boone Pickens and the Barnett Shale

noreply@blogger.com (Press Progress) — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 18:44:00 +0000

Well dog my cat. There he was: T. Boone Pickens, legendary oil man robber baron, right there on the television, telling us the current gasoline crisis is not something we can drill our way out of. Not only was he saying something that might seem contrary to his personal interest, he reportedly was spending $10 million on the advertisements encouraging U.S. policymakers and general folks to invest in wind and solar.

Can an old cur really learn such new, forward-thinking and selfless tricks? Polyanna that I am, I was ready to believe it. Now I knew Pickens had been building some of the biggest wind farms on the planet in West Texas and that some arm of the Texas government had just agreed to wire that farm into the ERCOT, Texas' independent energy grid. That can only be a good thing, right? I mean, how can a green hearted, left slanted person such as myself dis a broad advance in renewable energy?

Mind you, I've been just vaguely watching this, letting it creep into my consciousness as I spend professional time examining school funding and tax rollback elections, the city of Sherman's dismantling its day care program and privately working on shoring up North Texas Youth Connections push toward providing transitional living programs for youth aging out of CPS. But somewhere last week, I saw a headline questioning T. Boone's motives, with a subhead about water. I mentally filed that brief. Then I saw another Pickens' ad showing solar panels, more good news; broader approach to renewables. That matches my thinking pretty well. And then I saw another on the use of natural gas in vehicles, an early 1990s solution championed by then Texas Land Commissioner Garry Mauro. The trend died down.

Saturday, I caught part of a rerun of Pickens' testimony Tuesday before the U.S. Senate's Energy Committee. He was fleshing out his proposal on renewable energy. Replace 22 percent of the nation's natural gas-fired electricity with power produced from solar and wind. (Note to check Pickens' investments in solar tech). Then, accelerate the production of natural gas powered heavy duty trucks and other vehicles.

Wouldn't that raise the price of natural gas, queried Sen. Pete Dominici. Why yes of course, Pickens replied. The market is the market. But, we reached the half-way mark in the planets two trillion barrel supply of oil a couple of years ago, no matter how you go about separating it from the earth. Now natural gas is a different story altogether. It's a domestic product and, because of new natural gas extraction methods, we can cheaply produce as much of that product as we need, here in the United States. There are fields all over the place, a huge one called Barnett Shale.

Comes the dawn! That's Pickens' angle. Given, in my Polyanna way, that I believe he could still have some positive motives in turning the nation's attention toward renewables, I nonetheless see great danger in his proposal. I haven't done the research yet, but I'd bet my bottom dollar that T. Boone owns a hefty chunk of Barnett and the other East Texas shale fields. Not only that, but I bet his fingerprints are all over the legislation and regulatory paper that is forcing groundwater rules and regulation, because that's what he meant by the technology to extract gas from shale. You fracture shale with water; unthinkably massive amounts of water.

In Texas, for the past at least 40 years, we've talked about water being the next "gold". Some areas, like the Hill Country, already highly regulate groundwater, both that in aquifers and that in other sub-surface structures. The Legislature is forcing counties into groundwater districts. Grayson, Fannin and Cooke counties are fighting now to keep from being lumped in with larger counties to the south, in groundwater districts. Guess where Barnett Shale is? You got it: Tarrant, Parker, Denton, Wise and about seven other counties to the south and west of us. And, it also lines up neatly with the Woodbine and Trinity aquifers, subject of said groundwater districts. We've been building surface water sources to keep from draining the groundwater sources, but most small towns in this area and most rural areas rely on wells for drinking water and irrigation for agriculture.

Here's where my pinko background comes into the picture. Do you remember Barry Commoner? He's 90 something now and can rightly be called the founding father or the environmental movement. A cellular biologist, he gets his reasoning from the bottom up. Commoner ran for president in 1980 on the Citizen's Party ticket. He's written several books "The Poverty of Power" being the one that originally caught my attention. I would like to apply several of Commoner's key concepts to this discussion.

"The first law of ecology is that everything is related to everything else." "No action is without its side effects." and "Nothing ever goes away."

Take, for example, the beating plowshares into gasoline philosophy of ethanol, brought to you by Big Corn, also known as Archer-Daniels-Midland and other agri-giants. Grand idea, use a renewable product to
replace oil and boost the humble farmers income at the same time. After giving ADM and other giant, global corporations billions in subsidies, we've learned that it takes more energy to produce it than it delivers; it corrodes auto parts; and poor people in Central and South America no longer can afford to eat tortillas, their dietary staple. Right wing governments with whom we have "free trade agreements" are pushing poor people off land to grow more corn and are creating ever more poor people who cannot sustain their own lives because of the monoculture. The need to produce huge amounts of corn is bringing about ever more genetically engineered corn, which has infected domestic food crops and makes growing traditional, nutritional corn more challenging if not impossible. And, genetically engineered crops are one of the suspects in the disappearance of bees, a trend that endangers the entire world food supply.

Commoner's basic tenet is that the only way to control technology is at its source, to control the way it is produced. His credo is that the lowest technology is the best technology. The poverty of power comes from the nation's policy of investing in giving private corporations the opportunity to produce ever more profit from every unit of energy. The solution lies not in finding the best two or three big technologies that a handful of companies can replicate in scattered giant sites that make power and transmit it over huge distances to a multitude of customers. The answers lie in creating individual and small group generators that use a wide variety of sources. This would mean investing in tax credits or grants for neighborhoods to put arrays of solar panels or shingles on their rooftops and a windmill or two, to generate power for themselves, and the ability to feed the excess on the big grid to share with other neighborhoods. It means helping small communities in West Texas harness the power of cow manure. It means co-generatios among closely situated industries. It means communities getting together to use the methane their landfills and water treatment plans produce.

So T. Boone Pickens, thanks for the push toward renewables. It's certainly a direction we need to be looking. But Congress, recognize the self interest that lies behind that testimony and look for the lower technology, the greater good of common interest because "everything is related to everything else."

Texas looks at expanding disastrous TIERS program

noreply@blogger.com (Press Progress) — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 15:23:00 +0000

This is a response to an Austin American-Statesman article Tuesday on the state administrator of the TIERS system to expand its used. TIERS (the automated registrations system for food stamps and other public assistance and health care) has not worked, suffers from being able to attract and train workers and from bugs in its programing. I posted this response to the AAS Web site:

Many of us in Texas believe that our tax dollars should be used as a collective expression of our values. Ever more often that means ensuring that all Texans have access to adequate food, shelter and health care. TIERS is an effort by the Republican Legislature and administration of the state to reduce the care we offer to individuals so they can continue their personal slush funds to deliver cash to private entities, foreign and domestic (economic development incentives, privatization and toll road contracts to name three vehicles). In the name of updating our technology and being more efficient, we have created the TIERS system to frustrate those applying for help so that more and more just give up or do without for months. How much money has the state "saved" and then delivered to private contractors hands in the name of this efficiency and how many Texans have suffered? To expand this program before the bugs are worked out simply extends the cold shoulder we started in 2003 giving Texans who need help with drastic budget cuts. It is unconscionable to expand implementation of this system before we can make it work for those it should serve.

What's up with this Barack?

noreply@blogger.com (Press Progress) — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 14:06:00 +0000

Last night I sent a request to the Obama campaign for an interview to ask the senator about his change from vowing to filibuster against new FISA legislation to voting in favor of it Wednesday.

Some of his strongest supporters during the nomination campaign are dismayed about this vote, not just that it prevents us from having a day in court to challenge the erosion of our Constitutional rights. So far many of us are not satisfied with his statements and assurances. From what I understand at this point, the legislation was not necessary for national security reasons. We have operated without it for many years before the attack on 911 and for several years after it. A lack of the kind of information that can be obtained under the FISA law was not the reason the Bush Administration was caught unaware on 911. And the new law will give the government the right to listen or look in on any communication I might have with my children who travel widely around the world or that I might have with people here in the U.S when I travel outside the country and what previously has been confidential correspondence I might have had as a journalist with sources I have developed in other countries.

Last night Sen. Russ Feingold, who led the fight against the bill, said that although he was not happy with the result, it will not be so bad when Obama is president because he can lead the fight to change it. Well, what happens if Obama loses? Then we have a senile old guy, probably with an enthusiastic, far more conservative younger guy with all the tools he needs to complete the work begun during the Reagan era to establish an unstoppable, all powerful executive. And with the corrupting power of power, there certainly are no guarantees that Obama won't be seduced himself.

This simply is not acceptable and I hope Sen. Obama can offer a more satisfactory explanation of his change in policy. It's too late to change back on this issue, but some concrete assurances that his change philosophy has not been absorbed into the Beltway Borg are necessary for him to keep the kind of enthusiastic support he has enjoyed for more than a year.

The biggest flip flop

noreply@blogger.com (Press Progress) — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 12:59:00 +0000

After building its third cycle case for continuing the war in Iraq on the premise of democracy building and nurturing the spirit of Iraq' sovereignty, the Bush Administration and its heir apparent in the Republican Party, John McCain, now are pooh-poohing Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki statement that there needs to be a time table for withdrawing foreign troops. The matter came up as Maliki was working with U.S. to decide the rules of how the two countries will divide power there once the U.N. resolution that currently (ostensibly) governs the relationship ends Dec. 31.

The New York Times carried a report from the pool reporter of McCain's response to Maliqi's statement, "Mr. McCain said it was the same as when Iraqi officials said recently that they doubted an agreement with the United States could be struck over the status of American forces. “Prime Minister Malki, is, has got his, he is a leader of a country,’’ Mr. McCain said, according to a pool report. “And I am confident that he will act, as the president and foreign minister have both told me in the last several days, that it will be directly related to the situation on the ground, just as they have always said. And since we are succeeding and then I am convinced, as I have said before, we can withdraw and withdraw with honor, not according to a set timetable. And I’m confident that is what Prime Minister Maliki is talking about since he has told me that for the many meetings we have had.”

What an outrageous comment to continue to trumpet his experience over Obama in visiting with the Iraq leaders, and then whittling statements to peg them into his stance. McCain faces the prospect of flipping for a third or forth time on why we are in Iraq and why he supports a war against the Iraqi people or flopping over his insistence that he will react to the "situation on the ground." That by the way is my favorite silly expression that has come out of the war debate "Troops on the ground; commanders on the ground; conditions on the ground." Where else would they be?

The scariest part of this most recent exchange is that McCain once again, even as he is twisting agonizingly in the air, is promising by his actions to be another leader who cannot bring himself to say that he makes mistakes or finds new facts to change his view.

This reluctance is partially our fault in the media because we are so punishing when we discover someone has changed his or her mind. And we do not discriminate between changing a stance based on new evidence or reformed thinking versus shifting and flipping for political expediency.

Voters and the media that serve them must all do a better job of educating ourselves on the difference between rethinking or better explaining old positions in the face of new information and morphing ever more often to capture a few extra votes.