Texas maga Republicans and Governor Greg Abbott power grab rather than help grieving flood victims

Editorial Board echo published in the Texas Houston Chronicle:

#TexasDemocratsStrong❗

Texas maga Governor Greg Abbott could listen to the pleas for better flood warning alerts from Alicia Jeffrey Baker from Hunt, who had to wait nearly a week before she could identify her daughter’s body by her charm bracelet. 

Abbott could listen to the demands for better debris cleanup from Ashlee Willis, a Sandy Creek resident, who found body parts from flood victims on her property. He could marshal mental health resources to help people like Keli Rabon, whose 7-year-old climbed to the rafters of his cabin at a Hunt sleep-away camp to escape the flood and now wakes up with nightmares of his mattress submerged in water.

Instead, the governor has followed his orders from Washington and put a Republican power grab before communities devastated by Central Texas floods. With a stroke of his pen, Abbott could have moved hundreds of millions of dollars by executive fiat. He could have called a session with the sole objective of addressing the still-unfolding crisis in the Hill Country.

But the lives of Texans come second to the desires of Donald Trump and his loyalists. When Trump utters the words “very simple redrawing,” Abbott asks, how many seats do you want? And we end up with a Congressional map that puts Democrats on the endangered species list.

So House Democrats played the only card left in their hand. On Sunday, they fled the state for Illinois, breaking quorum to block the Republican-led Legislature from passing a map that carves up three of Texas’ bluest cities, including the 9th Congressional District in Houston represented by Al Green.

Yes, both parties have gerrymandered Texas when they’re in power. Democrats in Illinois play the game expertly too, normally done once per decade when new census figures come out and maps are adjusted to ensure each district has roughly the same number of people. 

But if the Legislature approves the proposed maps, Texas Democrats would safely hold only 21% of the state’s congressional districts. That’s a vote share on par with Wyoming — the reddest state in the nation — and looks nothing like a state where 46% of voters cast a ballots for Democrat Kamala Harris a year ago.

This attempt at an extreme, mid-decade gerrymander is already triggering a race to the bottom. Governor Gavin Newsom threatened his own moves in California, where an independent commission draws a map that prioritizes compactness and keeping communities of interest together instead of partisan advantage. 

None of this would be necessary if Congress had passed the 2022, Freedom to Vote Act or some other federal prohibition on this sort of partisan gerrymandering. Republicans and Democrats could call a truce in this undemocratic unraveling of fair representation and ensure voters have real ability to pick their politicians — rather than the other way around.

Until then, the Democrats have resorted to a tried-and-true political move designed to make Abbott’s capitulation to Trump on redistricting a national story. 

Democrats did it four years ago to stall Republicans’ attempts to restrict Texans’ voting rights. It’s not even the first time Texas Dems have bounced because of mid-decade redistricting. In 2003, House Democrats hopped a bus to Ardmore, Oklahoma to delay gerrymandered maps proposed by then-House Majority Leader Tom DeLay.

“We will not be complicit in the destruction of our own communities,” said Gene Wu, a Houston Democrat and the House Democratic Caucus Chair at a press conference in Chicago. “We're not here to play political games, we're here to demand an end to this corrupt process."

It's a bold strategy, but likely a losing one. We all know how this high-stakes poker game ends. Abbott will call special session after special session until the House Democrats fold. He’ll bet that enough will grow tired of the Windy City and yearn to get back to their families.

This time, though, Abbott is upping the ante. Not only has he threatened to remove the quorum breakers from their seats, in a statement on Sunday night, the governor threatened to charge them all with felonies if they raise money to pay for their Chicago excursion.

In normal times, such preposterous threats might be waved off as bluster from a state leader who has completely lost the moral high ground and perhaps his grasp on reality. But things are a bit dicier these days with Trump back in office, effectively puppeteering Abbott from the White House. We wouldn’t put it past the president to drum up some bogus pretense for sending federal law enforcement to Chicago to collect the AWOL Dems.

Make no mistake: Removing the Democratic representatives would be an attack on democracy itself. The nation treads a precarious path — one we’re increasingly concerned our democratic republic cannot survive unharmed.

Meanwhile, the real losers in this political tit-for-tat are the flood victims who will have to wait even longer for disaster recovery funds that Abbott could’ve authorized the day after the floodwaters receded. Instead, he used flood recovery as a bargaining chip for Democrats: first, swallow a redistricting map that further plunges your party into irrelevance, and eventually we’ll toss a lifeline to Central Texas.

None of this was necessary. Abbott could’ve just made the special session all about flooding. Heck, lawmakers probably could’ve gotten a recovery package passed with plenty of time left over to sift through Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick’s buffet of red-meat priorities. 

Instead, the well-being of Texans has, sadly, once again come second to flagrant backroom partisan power-plays.

Donald Trump and the Republicans owe the truth to Americans instead Trump invents one crises after another

Echo opinion letter published in The News-Gazette an Illinois newspaper: "distractions and distortions" and now we can add the unprovoked attack in Iran to this dangerously growing category. 

Question❓  Are Americans any safer today because of what Donald Trump and the Republicans are doing to destroy our democracy❓

Answer- Of course not. Americans are all less safe, regardless of where we are in the world, even while living in our own nation as legal citizens.

Trump's misuse of troops is just a ploy: What Donald Trump is busy creating in Los Angeles was so predictable. In fact, Kamila Harris predicted it during her 2024 campaign. 

Trump is aving a terrible time. A former ally (Elon Musk) attacked him and his policies, a loud clamor for the release of the Epstein files was heard, a bad series of economic reports was not released, Republican senators balked at his “big, beautiful bill,” and the Ukrainians kept fighting on.

Meanwhile, Donald Trump played the proverbial big guy card by calling on the U.S military to launch a devastating bombing on the soverign nation of Iran, without provocation to cause this aggressive attack. 

Faced with all these negative events, the Trump playbook calls for one approach — go on the offensive with distraction and distortion. In spite of the fact that the Los Angeles police thanked protesters for practicing their First Amendment rights in an overall orderly and peaceful manner, and Governor Gavin Newsom saw no pressing need to take additional steps, Trump decided to send in the National Guar

What better way to distract people from all the negative stories Trump doesn’t want the voters to focus on. It’s too bad he didn’t make the unilateral decision to send in the National Guard on January 6, when a truly violent protest took place at our nation's Capitol.

From Scott Davis in Champaign Illinois

Donald Trump is failing the U.S. Military: Using them for his own selfish political purposes

Donald Trump is wasting tax monty with his wrongminded mis-use of the military- National Guard and Marines.

Trump getting booed in lego: A Tump pin featuring Donald Trump getting booed by the crowd in Lego format

Echo opinion letter published in the Philadelphia Inquirer,

It is hard to reconcile Donald Trump’s recent actions and words concerning our military. At the 250th anniversary army parade, he  gave the false impression that the armed forces support him personally, and, therefore, he is using them in ways that threaten our domestic freedoms.

Recently, Donald Trump spoke before troops at Fort Benning in Georgia, some on stage reportedly preselected for Trump loyalty and their appearance. Launching into rally-style attacks on California's brave Governor Gavin Newsom and defending the activation of the National Guard and Marines, these soldiers of our United States Army laughed, jeered, and booed as Trump surely anticipated. Some will casually take that scene as evidence that the army is behind him, and the hideous imagry cannot be unseen.

Similarly, combat-equipped U.S. Marines and California National Guard in the streets of Los Angeles, day after day, for no reason, reinforces the message that this is somehow normal, acceptable, and inevitable. As a veteran, I will always be proud of the Army and my service. I am sad and embarrassed that the Army, through a complicit secretary of defense, is allowing itself to be used by Trump as a prop to advance the most sinister threat to our democracy since the Civil War.

From Joseph B. Baker, West Chester, Pennsylvania

Trump opens his mouth and lies spew out like uncapped geizeer! What helicopter?

Echo report published in The New York Times, by Heather Knight and Shawn Hubler,

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/08/us/politics/trump-helicopter-willie-brown.html

Former guy Donald J. Trump told a jaw-dropping story during a press conference in Mar-A-Lago, on Thursday August 7th, where he lied about nearly dying in a helicopter ride with Willie Brown, the former California politician and ex-boyfriend of his rival, Vice President Kamala Harris.

There was only one problem with the story. Or maybe two. Or maybe three.

It wasn’t the famous former San Francisco mayor on the helicopter flight at all. Trump was obviously confused. Rather, the person was really Gov. Jerry Brown, the former governor of California, who bears little resemblance to Willie Brown.

There was also no emergency landing, and the helicopter’s passengers were never in any danger at all, according to Gov. Gavin Newsom, who was also on the flight.

Jerry Brown, who left office in January 2019, said through a spokesman, “There was no emergency landing and no discussion of Kamala Harris.”

In November 2018, President Donald J. Trump and Gov. Jerry Brown of California visiting a neighborhood destroyed by a wildfire in Paradise, Calif. Mr. Trump and Mr. Brown also viewed the damage by helicopter.Credit...(Tom Brenner for The New York Times)

“I call it complete B.S.,” Mr. Newsom said, laughing out loud.

Trump’s errant account, delivered during a news conference at his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida, came in response to a reporter who asked a leading question about Ms. Harris’s past relationship with Willie Brown, and whether Mr. Trump thought it might have had something to do with her career trajectory.

The two dated in 1994 and 1995, while she was a prosecutor in Alameda County, which includes Oakland, and he was the speaker of the California State Assembly, and he appointed her to two state boards. He was — and still is — married to Blanche Brown, but they have long lived separate lives.

“Well, I know Willie Brown very well,” Trump responded. “In fact, I went down in a helicopter with him.”

He went on to tell a cinematic tale of a close call with death — and of politically advantageous gossip on death’s door:

“We thought maybe this was the end,” Trump said. “We were in a helicopter, going to a certain location together, and there was an emergency landing. This was not a pleasant landing.

“And Willie was — he was a little concerned,” Trump continued. “So I know him, but I know him pretty well. I mean, I haven’t seen him in years. But he told me terrible things about her. But this is what you’re telling me, anyway, I guess. But he had a big part in what happened with Kamala. But he — he, I don’t know, maybe he’s changed his tune. But he — he was not a fan of hers very much, at that point.”

Reached on his cellphone just after Trump’s news conference — at his regular lunch spot at Sam’s Grill in downtown San Francisco — Mr. Brown, 90, said the whole story was false. He had never ridden in a helicopter with Trump, he said. He had never nearly perished in any helicopter ride. And he remained an avid supporter of Ms. Harris’s.

Mr. Brown, who loves regaling anybody who will listen with stories and who penned a weekly column in The San Francisco Chronicle until 2021, added, laughing: “You know me well enough to know that if I almost went down in a helicopter with anybody, you would have heard about it!”  Ms. Harris ended their relationship nearly three decades ago, but Mr. Brown said he had always been a big fan and supporter of hers. “No hard feelings,” he said.

The helicopter ride that Trump took in 2018, with Gov. Jerry Brown, 86, and with Mr. Newsom, then the governor-elect of California, was to survey damage wrought by the deadly Camp Fire in the town of Paradise, in the Sierra Nevada foothills north of Sacramento.

Mr. Newsom’s recollection of the occasion was vivid.

“I was on a helicopter with Jerry Brown and Trump, and it didn’t go down,” Mr. Newsom, 56, said in an interview. He said that Trump had, however, repeatedly brought up the possibility of crashing.

The subject of Ms. Harris, with whom Mr. Newsom had enjoyed a friendly rivalry, did not come up on the helicopter, he added. “We talked about everyone else, but not Kamala,” he said with a laugh.

Mr. Newsom called Trump’s news conference “an act of desperation” prompted by what he called Ms. Harris’s momentum.

Mr. Trump’s visit to the burned forest with then-Governor Brown and Mr. Newsom did generate headlines, but not because of anything that occurred on their helicopter ride. Rather, it was because, during a news conference after landing at the scene, Trump, 78, attributed the wildfire to too many fallen, dead tree branches and said the answer to solving California’s wildfire crisis was to rake the forest floors.

“It was back when we were making raking the forest great again,” Mr. Newsom said.

Leadership in health care policy - support a state Surgeon General

https://www.sacbee.com/opinion/op-ed/article224653765.html

How a Surgeon General could help improve health care in California

Buried in the flurry of recent policy and leadership ideas from our new governor was a proposal to create a surgeon general for the state of California.

As a health foundation executive committed to improving health and wellness for vulnerable communities, I think it’s a terrific idea. A state surgeon general could be more than another figurehead in the morass of state government, using the position to push for a system that promotes health instead of managing sickness.

California is a unique state, with the world’s fifth largest economy and a larger population than Canada. We are home to genius in tech innovation, creative brilliance in the cinematic arts and 144 billionaires live here, more than in any other state. However, we also have the highest poverty rate, according to the US Census. While some California counties have among the longest life expectancies in the US, others are equivalent to Ecuador in this regard.

A state surgeon general could help tailor local solutions to some of the U.S. health care system’s biggest quandaries. The first person to fill the role should start with three objectives.

First: Boost prevention. California has led the nation in crafting policies that encourage disease prevention, including comprehensive tobacco control, removing soda from schools and taxing it, improving student physical education and incorporating health in city and county general plans. But the health policy debate continues to be dominated by themes of costs and insurance coverage. We spend more than any other country in the world on health care yet we have poorer health outcomes.

The leading causes of death, disability and sickness -- including cancer, stroke, heart disease, diabetes and suicide -- are tied to environment and behavior. 

Treating these conditions costs hundreds of billions of dollars per year. Yet the data tell us that for every dollar spent on treatment, three cents or less is invested in community prevention.

We have proven we can’t spend our way to improved health. A California surgeon general could generate the drumbeat of prevention, refocusing health reform discussions around a longer-term vision.

Second: In addition to encouraging disease prevention, we should target community characteristics that contribute to poor health. When it comes to health, zip code matters more than genetic code. The quality of a neighborhood affects the quality of air, water and housing along with economic opportunity and the availability of healthy food and places to exercise.

Thanks to a Kaiser Permanente study more than a decade ago, we better understand the relationship between adversity in the lives of children and their health status decades later. The study found that the more emotional trauma a child sustains at a young age, the more likely he or she will be to smoke, abuse alcohol or drugs and be depressed or incarcerated years later.

Lifting up unhealthy neighborhoods and the children who live in them will require cooperation among leaders in education, business, criminal justice, land use and other sectors. A surgeon general could organize and align these efforts. 

Finally, a California surgeon general could promote health equity. California continues to be plagued by savage disparities in health status. Communities of color (including Native American communities), rural, and LGBTQ communities remain at higher risk for poorer health status, and our state needs a “people’s doctor” accountable to and wholly invested in shaping strategic approaches to improving health for all, by focusing on populations suffering the most.

We are Californians. We don’t follow, we lead. Kudos to Gov. Gavin Newsom for executing on the idea of a state surgeon general. Prevention must take center-stage in future health policy discussions, and our state needs a champion whose day job and leadership focuses on nothing but that.

Dr. Robert K. Ross is the president and CEO of The California Endowment, a private foundation that works to improve the state of health in California. He can be contacted at rkross@calendow.org.