Cry Me a River, Texas Democrats

Cry Me a River, Texas Democrats

Commentary by Sanford D. Horn

July 26, 2021

Choosing to flee their state, their jobs, and their constituents, Texas legislative Democrats, holed up in Washington, DC, are crying poverty and asking constituents, or anyone who gives a damn, to send these aging summer campers care packages.

These insubordinate privileged Texas Democrats, in a Tweet from @DallasDemocrats, wrote “Our Dems in DC said they’d appreciate care packages from home. Before 5 PM Tuesday, we’re collecting Dr. Pepper, salsa, hard candy, hair spray, travel toiletries, hand sanitizers, sewing kits, first aid and/or money to pay shipping. TY.” A mailing address followed, but these people do not need any further encouragement. It was bad enough that the runaway Texans were referred to as “freedom fighters.” What an affront to true freedom fighters like protesters in Cuba and Hong Kong.

Such unmitigated gaul to beg their friends, relatives, and constituents to finance their unapproved road trip to DC. They lacked the basic manners to even spell out “thank you.” They need more than a timeout, but they certainly don’t need other people to shell out their hard earned money to support these peevish, hypocritical malcontents.

Hypocritical because while they ran away (or flew away) from their jobs in Austin, demonstrating a real filibuster, once in Washington, they lobbied for the federal filibuster to be eliminated. They ran away like petulant three year olds in an effort to protest bills that support election integrity laws. And let the record show that 75 percent of voters, Democrat, Republican, and Independent support voter photo identification. US Rep. James Clyburn (D-SC) has said that Democrats are not opposed to voter ID, although he and many others in his party have called the requirement racist and disenfranchising. For more on the specifics: https://sanfordspeaksout.blogspot.com/2021/07/tx-dems-need-lesson-in-real-sacrifice.html

After repeated requests, even Joe Biden has not met with these wayward Texas Democrats. And it has ruffled the feathers of one specific State Representative - Richard Pena Raymond, who expressed his aggravation to Texas Congressman Lloyd Doggett via the Austin Statesman. “He won’t meet with us on Zoom like this, and I’m trying to be tactful, but I don’t know how else to say it, man. I’m just pissed off at this point. He doesn’t give us the respect the way you have,” Raymond said to Doggett. Perhaps these Texas Democrats have not earned any respect for their churlish behavior.

Proving the adage attributed to American showman P.T. Barnum, “there’s a sucker born every minute,” Robert Francis “Beto” O’ Rourke has given his fellow Democrats $600,000 and blames Biden for not doing what is “required,” knowing the “threat they are under in Texas.” That, plus the obdurate Democrats are still being remunerated their $221 per diem and $600 monthly salary, so they have nothing about which to complain.

Having lived in Alexandria, VA for a number of years, I can attest that Giant, Safeway, Harris Teeter, WalMart, Target, CVS, Walgreens, and various dollar stores carry all of the above requested items for the defiant Democrats’ care packages. So the Texas Democrats can buy their own crap, cut the crap, get back to Texas and actually do their jobs - jobs they wanted by running for office.

Sanford D. Horn is a writer and educator living in Westfield, IN.

TX Dems Need Lesson in Real Sacrifice
Commentary by Sanford D. Horn
July 19, 2021

I recently penned a column denouncing the calling of the wayward Texas Democrats “brave, courageous and making sacrifices.” They are and have done none of those things in abandoning their sworn duties as well as the constituents they are duty bound to represent.

These indolent Texas Democrats have made unconscionable claims that the bill to protect the rights of voters is racist, an attack on democracy, and even a return to the days of Jim Crow prior to the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act. Those claims, many made  by Joe Biden and Kamala Harris should be viewed as an affront to all those men, women, and children who endured true struggle, made enormous sacrifices, some even the ultimate sacrifice of life and limb. Texas SB-7 pertaining to election integrity and security makes it easier to vote and harder to cheat by streamlining several aspects of the state’s voting laws. 

In order to ensure election integrity, voters are required to provide photo identification, exhibit signature verification, a chain of custody and a paper receipt will be provided to voters, voter rolls will be updated prior to every election, and partisan witnesses from the several parties will observe the vote count. There is nothing racist, discriminatory, or disenfranchising about SB-7. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton made it perfectly clear that any Texas citizen of voting age would be given an ID - gratis - if unable to afford one.

No polling places are permitted in a tent or parking garage; drive-through voting is not curbside voting, which is allowed for those unable to enter their polling station. While curbside voting is limited ostensibly to the disabled, drive-through voting would require many more poll workers and poll watchers.

When requesting a ballot by mail, it must contain the voter’s signature and identification number. If the voter does not have a driver’s licence, the last four digits of the Social Security number will be just as acceptable. Mass mailing of ballots to entire populations is out - voters must request their own ballot. This absolutely will diminish fraudulent votes from being cast. Ballot harvesting is also not permitted and its ban will have similar results as individual ballot requests. It is also a felony to pay for votes.

Voting hours are expanded in the two week lead up to Election Day - mandated for 12 hours per day in counties with populations greater than 30,000 citizens, an improvement from those with more than 100,000 citizens. Polls can be open for any 12 consecutive hour period between 6 AM and 9 PM, and companies are required to allow workers early dismissal on Election Day. (Quite frankly, a uniform 6 AM to 8 PM for all polling locations should be the rule.)

Poll watchers cannot be kicked out of polling stations and poll workers must be able to see the actual vote counting. Cities with populations greater than 100,000 must provide live streaming of the vote counting in polling stations. Additionally, all votes must have a paper trail and an online tracker for mail-in ballots and applications. New machines with this capability will be installed by 2026.

Polling locales are based upon the numbers of registered voters in a given county. The counties set the locations, which are supposed to be convenient for the voters - such as on public transit routes and accessibility for the disabled. The Democrats complained about this particular item because they claim there are fewer polling stations in poor and minority communities. They should work harder to register more voters.

No legal voter is being denied their right to vote. No legal voter is being disenfranchised.

Did any of the runaway Democrats from Texas get their heads bashed in the way the late Georgia Congressman John Lewis was attacked? Or any other of the other hundreds of marchers on that “Bloody Sunday,” March 7, 1965 who were attacked, beaten, and imprisoned? They were marching and fighting for real, genuine voting rights, a bill that would be enacted later that year upon the signature of President Lyndon Johnson.

And how obtuse is Biden, making outlandish claims that voter ID laws in places like Texas and Georgia are “literally like the Civil War.” Really? The bloodiest war ever fought on American soil, seeing the deaths of greater than 600,000 Americans - that is not as bad as asking legally registered voters to show identification proving they are who they say they are? In fact, the most recent claims of voter intimidation were during the 2016 presidential election in Philadelphia when the New Black Panther Party attempted to frighten white voters away from their polling stations.

Andersonville, Antietam, Fort Sumter, Gettysburg, Vicksburg. Were those bloodiest of battles less destructive, less painful in terms of loss, than the content of the voter integrity bill in Texas? How about the sacrifice made by the 54th Massachusetts Infantry - an all Black regiment? Led by white commanders who lost their lives alongside their own troops, the 54th lost 281 of its 600 men in battle at Fort Wagner, SC. This spurred more than 100,000 Black men to volunteer with the Union Army. Was their sacrifice of lesser significance than the voting rights bills in Texas and Georgia? 

“We are facing the most significant test of our democracy since the Civil War. That’s not hyperbole,” Biden said during a speech on July 13 at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia. Has Biden forgotten about the assassinations of presidents Abraham Lincoln, James Garfield, William McKinley, and John Kennedy? How about the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941 or the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon on September 11, 2001? Does he even know the definition of hyperbole?

How Biden can have the unmitigated audacity to call the newly amended and improved voting laws in Texas and Georgia, “Jim Crow 2.0,” and “Jim Crow on steroids,” is the antithesis of sanity. He also said “The 21st Century Jim Crow assault is real,” at the same July 13 speech. Perhaps Biden, in his advancing senility, forgot what really occurred during the evil era of Jim Crow. Such as no Blacks voting in entire counties of the Deep South, or Blacks being given virtually impossible literacy tests - interpreting parts of a state’s constitution to the satisfaction of the county clerk or other official who denied those citizens their 15th Amendment right to vote on a racist whim; or being given the ridiculous task of counting the bubbles in a bar of soap or leaves on a tree. Not to mention the egregious poll taxes preventing Blacks from voting, which came to an end upon the ratification of the 24th Amendment on January 23, 1964. 

Some who don’t understand the history of the United States consider this country to be evil because change was not revolutionary, but instead evolutionary, and label the United States as perpetually and systemically racist. A systemically racist country does not elect and reelect a Black president, elect a woman of color vice president, have many Black men and women appointed to high governmental positions by white presidents both Democrat and Republican, and have Black athletes and entertainers revered by millions of white fans.

If anyone is attempting to dismantle the voting processes and system it is Biden, Harris, and their ilk in attempting to federalize all elections - a clear violation of the 10th Amendment to the United States Constitution. 

By tightening some of the previously loose policies, less voter fraud should occur, it should be easier to vote, and harder to cheat. The Democrat legislators fleeing Texas and their elected responsibilities are not brave in the least. They are afraid they will lose power with better, more streamlined voting policies. This is not a GOP power grab as they are already in the majority in Texas. The Democrats are hypocrites for wanting to end the filibuster on the federal level, but on the state level they want to avoid their responsibilities while still being remunerated as they hide out in Washington, DC.

According to the Dallas Morning News of July 14, Texas legislators are paid $7,200 per year ($600 per month) as well as a per diem of $221 for each of the 140 days of the legislative session, held every other year, for a total of $38,140. The runaway Democrats should be required to return their salary and per diem for every day they remain absent from the ongoing legislative session. This most assuredly is not sacrifice. Genuine sacrifice was made by Black soldiers fighting one war overseas, then returning to fight another war at home. Real sacrifice was made by Martin Luther King, Jr., John Lewis, Thurgood Marshall, Rosa Parks, Jackie Robinson, and Clarence Thomas. As for the Texas Democrats, theirs is the act of spoiled obsequious weasels, cowards, and malcontents. The voters of Texas best remember this come next Election Day and send those Democrats packing for a permanent vacation away from Austin.

Sanford D. Horn is a writer and educator living in Westfield, IN.

Bona Fide Bravery
Commentary by Sanford D. Horn
July 15, 2021

While Joe Biden, Chuck Schumer (D-NY), and especially Kamala Harris are engaging in a drool-fest over the “bravery” of the Texas Democrats who fled both their state and their responsibilities, devaluing the meaning of that word, real bravery is being exhibited from Havana to Hong Kong and parts in between.

Bravery is thousands upon thousands of Cuban nationals taking to the streets to protest the totalitarian Marxist-Communist government that has been torturing and murdering its own citizens for 62 years. These brave men and women are under threat of arrest, imprisonment, or worse, but their quest for real, genuine freedom, dignity, and human rights heretofore not experienced in more than three generations has superseded the potential punitive actions the Miguel Diaz-Canal regime could mete out against its own people.

While far too many so-called Americans are busy disrespecting,  spitting on, turning their backs on, trampling on, and even burning the American flag, thousands of Cubans can be seen marching with American flags. The same is true in Hong Kong, where their rights and freedoms are being subjugated by the Chinese Communist Party, and thousands of Hong Kongers are also witnessed marching with American flags. Brave men like entrepreneur Jimmy Lai, 72, founder of Apple Daily, a popular newspaper forced into closure by the CCP, have been imprisoned along with members of the paper’s staff simply for attempting to communicate the truth to the people. 

These brave men and women are fighting for the right to communicate freely and openly, being denied in both Hong Kong and Cuba. The governments of both locales dictate the when and how often access to the outside world via the internet is granted while Americans take these inherent freedoms for granted. Havana and Beijing can flip a switch putting their own people in a technological black hole. Worse still, is the growing amount of censorship, at first creeping into our own American society, now blatantly being thrust upon us, being accepted by a press and media who should be fighting for every word to be printed, spoken, or recorded, whether or not they agree with those words.

“I don’t agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” This quote has been incorrectly attributed to Voltaire for more than a century, but actually came from Evelyn Beatrice Hall in her 1906 biography about Voltaire, in her summary of his thoughts on free speech. 

Free speech, sadly, is at a premium in the United States - the last best beacon of hope for freedom on this planet. Between the political correctness, cancel culture, and wokeness denying free speech and calling anyone who dares to speak freely a racist, sexist, bigot, homophobe, xenophobe, anti-Muslim, and anti-Asian, most Americans fear for their basic employment and/or place in American society. People supporting capitalism are also being lambasted for denying equity in today’s America where equality is now ancient history, and skin color is the rule of the day. We are surrendering rights brave men and women outside of these United States are willing to die to acquire. We should be ashamed of ourselves.

Consider Iranian-American journalist Masih Alinejad. Under a constant threat of death, a recent plot to kidnap her from her Brooklyn home, send her to Venezuela en route to Iran, was thwarted. At-large and wanted by the FBI are Iranians Alireza Shahvaroghi Farahani, Mahmoud Khazein, Omid Noori, and Kiya Sadeghi. Alinejad is an outspoken journalist who wrote The Wind in My Hair: My Fight for Freedom in Modern Iran. This is a tale of a brave woman fighting the antiquated system in her native Iran calling for girls and women to unburden themselves of their veils and hijabs as is the law in the Muslim nation. She is currently leading this online movement in exile, while her own brother is serving eight years in an Iranian prison. Iran denies all of this.

Not far from Iran, there are a large number of Afghani interpreters who bravely risked their lives aiding Americans against the very powerful Taliban. That is the epitome of bravery, which is actually being rewarded by the Biden administration via Operation Allies Refuge. Beginning the end of July, under special immigrant visas, many of these interpreters will be airlifted out of Afghanistan to the United States. Also brave, are the girls and women of Afghanistan who, in the past, and no doubt in the future once American troops are evacuated and the Taliban terrorists retake the country, will be subjected to unspeakable acts against them.

These brave people are fighting for true, bona fide freedom, at the risk of their own lives, while many Americans are taking their own freedom for granted unnecessarily worrying about their ridiculous pronouns.

But, for all the bravery exhibited by these Afghanis, Cubans, Hong Kongers, and a specific lone Irani-American, it is these cowardly Texas Democrat state legislators who are being praised for their so-called bravery. Harris, since the Texas Democrats ran away from Texas, has commended their pusillanimous behavior as “bold, courageous action,” and acts of “bravery and patriotism,” making “great sacrifices” akin to the Civil Rights era. Harris compared the Texas Democrats to those who marched, in great peril for their lives, across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, AL in 1965 in what was known as “Bloody Sunday.” No blood has been shed from a single Texas Democrat legislator.

Harris continued praising these Texas Democrats comparing their quest with that of the women suffragettes who marched down Pennsylvania Avenue in 1913 in Washington, DC fighting for voting rights for women. Harris should be ashamed of herself for tarnishing those most significant historic events while politically posturing over a voting rights bill that is not the least bit racist or controversial.
Texas SB-7 pertaining to election integrity and security makes it easier to vote and harder to cheat in streamlining several aspects of the state’s voting laws. 

No polling places are permitted in a tent or parking garage. When requesting a ballot by mail, it must contain the voter’s signature and identification number. If the voter does not have a driver’s licence, the last four digits of the Social Security number will be just as acceptable. Mass mailing of ballots to entire populations is out - voters must request their own ballot. 

Voting hours are expanded in the two week lead up to Election Day. Poll watchers cannot be kicked out of polling stations and poll workers must be able to see the actual vote counting. All votes must have a paper trail and an online tracker for mail in ballots and applications. New machines with this capability will be installed by 2026. Polling locales are based upon the numbers of registered voters in a given county. 

No legal voter is denied their right to vote. No legal voter is disenfranchised. By tightening some of the previously loose policies, less voter fraud should occur, it should be easier to vote, and harder to cheat. The Democrat legislators fleeing Texas and their elected responsibilities are not brave in the least. The Democrats are hypocrites for wanting to end the filibuster on the federal level, but on the state level they want to avoid their responsibilities while still being remunerated as they hide out in Washington, DC.

This is not bravery; this is the act of spoiled obsequious weasels and the voters of Texas best remember this come next Election Day. Bravery, unfortunately, is being defined in the current climate as those Americans willing to speak out against the Marxist BLM and racist Critical Race Theory. Unfortunate, because to speak ill of those entities finds one on the short end of American society, when to be critical of BLM and CRT makes the most logical sense as any American or any clear thinking, freedom loving individual. True bravery is defined by the bona fide champions of freedom described above. May their examples teach us all the serious lessons we must learn before the grand American Experiment in plunged into perpetual darkness.

Sanford D. Horn is a writer and educator living in Westfield, IN.