Who Put Trump in the White House?

Kim Moody, a co-founder of Labor Notes and author of “In Solidarity: Working-Class Organization and Strategy in the United States,” published a tough critique of Democratic mistakes and misguided strategy, beginning long before 2016, in a Jacobi Magazine article, "Who Put Trump in the White House? The Democratic Party has been collapsing for years, but no one noticed before Trump came along."

“While there was a swing among white, blue-collar and union household voters to Trump, it was significantly smaller than the overall drop in Democratic voters,” writes Moody.  Moody blames a reduction in direct door-to-door human contact campaigning with lower-income voters in favor of purchased media forms of campaigning, including TV ads, for falling turnout for Democrats.

Democrats purport to be the party that champions improved living standards for working people, but they have been unable to deliver in recent years, owing increasingly to the Republican’s strategy of all-out obstruction. Moody explains “centrist liberalism” is a doomed philosophical foundation for Democrats because it is associated with the Party’s failure to produce needed economic reforms.

Many in the Democratic Party are coming to grips with the reality that voters increasingly reject centrist public policies Democrats have been promoting, legislating, and campaign on for two decades.

Democrats lost another net 43 seats in legislatures across the country in 2016, after previously losing 910 seats during Obama's administration. Republicans added to their historic 2014 gains in the nation’s state legislatures with the addition of five state House chambers and two state Senate chambers in 2016.

Republicans are now in control of a record 67 (68 percent) of the 98 partisan state legislative chambers in the nation, more than twice the number (31) in which Democrats have a majority, according to the bipartisan National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL). Republicans hold more total state legislative seats in the nation, well over 4,100 of the 7,383, than they have since 1920. Democrats now have total control of just 13 state legislatures.

Republicans gained 2 more states' governor-ships in 2016, after already gaining 12 over the last 8 years, increasing its total to 33, a record high last seen in 1922. Democrats had also lost 69 US House seats and 13 US Senate seats since 2009 and barely managed to stem further losses in 2016.

Moody concludes, "Democrats are going to need a much bolder economic strategy that acknowledges the failures of the past and points the way to a more robust advocacy of the kind of economic agenda that empowered the campaign of Sen. Bernie Sanders. Democrats should not allow the Trump Administration to claim ownership of a massive investment in infrastructure upgrades and twist it into another corporate raid on the federal treasury. Instead, revitalizing America’s crumbling infrastructure should be the signature project of the Democratic party, and protecting the integrity of it, is the central challenge of the next few years."

Read the full article at Jacobin

BlogTalkUSA: Eyes Wide Open DemBlogTalk - 01/24/2017

Listen to BlogTalkUSA.com "Eyes Wide Open DemBlogTalk" talk radio program cohost Rheana Nevitt Piegols and special guest cohost for the evening Texas Young Democrat Michael Messer discuss standardized testing in Texas public schools, charter school vouchers and much more... Program recorded live on Tuesday January 24th, at 8:30 PM CST.

• Standardized Testing Overwhelming Texas Public Schools
• Text of House Bill 1335 "Transparency in Testing" written by Michael Messer

Standardized Testing Overwhelming Texas Public Schools

A standardized test is a test that is administered and scored in a consistent, or "standard", manner. Standardized - one size fits all - tests are theoretically designed in such a way that the questions, conditions for administering, scoring procedures, and interpretations are consistent and are administered and scored in a predetermined, standard manner.

The chief indicator by which most public schools and educators are judged today is student performance on standardized tests. If a school's standardized test scores are low, the school's teachers and staff are judged to be ineffective.

Standardized test scores are what state legislators who allocate public school funding today rely on to evaluate public school performance levels. Test scores determine not just how much funding public school districts and individual schools within districts get, but which public schools are allowed to stay open and which are closed and then turned over to charter school corporations to operate.

• Private School Vouchers and Charter Schools Rob Public Schools

Test scores are also used to hire, fire, and compensate teachers. Today, 35 states require teacher evaluations to include these scores as a factor—and many states have introduced new tests just for this purpose. Test scores are also used to determine whether students can move on to middle and high school, be admitted to Honors and AP programs, and graduate from high school.

Republicans Plot Deep Cuts To Seniors' Social Security Retirement Checks

Republican Rep. Sam Johnson (R Tx.), the chairman of the Ways and Means Social Security subcommittee announced in December his "plan to permanently cut save Social Security."

Johnson's Social Security Reform Act of 2016 (H.R. 6489) includes cuts Republicans have been impatient to enact for decades. Johnson bill violates candidate Donald Trump's firm promise to protect the program.  But members of President Trump's new administration are not only on board with the Republican plan to cut Social Security benefit checks, they strongly favor privatizing Social Security.

Johnson has led Republicans on the Social Security subcommittee for a decade, so it’s not surprising that the bill is made up of a lot of ideas they have supported in the past. Johnson's Reform Act proposes 15 changes. Of those, 10 have impacts under 0.10 percent of funding. Many are considered "negligible." The big cuts come in three provisions of Johnson's bill:

1. Raise the retirement age from 67 to 69 for Americans who are currently 49 or younger
2. Change the Primary Insurance Amount (PIA) benefit formula that determines the size of a retiree’s initial payments
3. Change the method for calculating inflation so the program's cost of living adjustments rise according to chained CPI, a far less generous metric than the current law’s inflation index. 

Other cuts come in the form of means-testing requirements, or on limits on what spouses or other auxiliary beneficiaries can receive.

March Then Act - Building Political Infrastructure To Win

Those who participate in protest marches must take the next steps to define actual demands and priorities for candidates to take to voters in 2018-20. They must work every day to help those candidates win their elections. It can be done. If you don't think it can, just remember the tea party did it during the last President's first mid-term in office.

But without a path from protest to power, the Women's March will end up like Occupy. It is exciting when a protest meme leaps from social networks to the streets, capturing the imagination of millions. But it is all too easy to succumb to the false hope that a big splashy protest march is a transformative tsunami that leads to ballot box victory on election day. A big splashy protest march is only the first step on the long and often difficult road to winning elections.

• The Guardian: Without A Path From Protest To Power
• The Women's Marches may have been the largest demonstration in US history

Democrats have about 90 weeks until early voting starts for the Nov 2018 election. Activists at the county and neighborhood levels must work every week to identify every Dem leaning voting age citizen, documenting their contact and demographic info. As Democratic leaning people are identified, county level organizations must plan and execute programs that build relationships with those people to make them an active part of the Democratic base.

Those programs must be designed to invite that disconnected part of the electorate to participate in regular conversations at house and town hall meetings, and on social media. Democrats must do old fashioned base building work, and learn how to combine Internet and mobile communication with those traditional community organizing activities to accomplish that mission.

In the realm of political plays, it does seem that the most important number for Democrats in the near term is Democrats need gain only 24 U.S. House seats to be the majority in that chamber.

As the majority party, Democrats can block legislation, conduct investigations, and more to limit the GOP agenda, and perhaps set the stage for bigger gains in 2020. It's do-able in a wave year - maybe a pro-women wave election year.

• Running For Elected Office In 2018

DNC Chair Candidate Forum Live Stream

When they meet on February 23–26, 2017, the 447 members of the Democratic National Committee will elect a new chair. They will signal whether or not the party will boldly begin to transform itself back into the party of New Deals and Great Societies sought by the new generation of Democrats. Those 400-plus voting members of the DNC must take stock of the need to strike a bold new direction to reverse the party's losses.

This group of DNC voting members is dominated by state party chairs and political appointees, and overlaps substantially with the super-delegates from the 2016 Democratic primary. Party insiders estimate that roughly two-thirds of the DNC members supported former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton over Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) during that race.

Democrats lost another net 43 seats in legislatures across the country in 2016, after previously losing 910 seats during Obama's administration. Republicans added to their historic 2014 gains in the nation’s state legislatures with the addition of five state House chambers and two state Senate chambers in 2016.

Republicans are now in control of a record 67 (68 percent) of the 98 partisan state legislative chambers in the nation, more than twice the number (31) in which Democrats have a majority, according to the bipartisan National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL). Republicans hold more total state legislative seats in the nation, well over 4,100 of the 7,383, than they have since 1920. Democrats now have total control of just 13 state legislatures.

Republicans gained 2 more states' governor-ships in 2016, after already gaining 12 over the last 8 years, increasing its total to 33, a record high last seen in 1922. Democrats had also lost 69 US House seats and 13 US Senate seats since 2009 and barely managed to stem further losses in 2016.

And Democrats face a more challenging election map in 2018 than they faced in 2016. Survival of the Democratic Party is literally on the line.

There are now seven declared candidates for the 2017 Democratic National Committee chairmanship election:

• Sally Boynton Brown, Executive Director of the Idaho Democratic Party
• Ray Buckley, Chair of the New Hampshire Democratic Party
• Pete Buttigieg, Mayor of South Bend, Indiana
• Keith Ellison, U.S. House of Representatives, Minnesota 5th District|
• Jehmu Greene, Political Analyst
• Jaime Harrison, Chair of the South Carolina Democratic Party
• Tom Perez, 26th United States Secretary of Labor

All seven DNC Chair candidates will participate in a panel discussion forum on the future of the Democratic Party on Monday, January 23 at 7 p.m. in Washington, DC at George Washington University, hosted by Democracy in Color. You can view the forum via live stream. (View Recorded Live Stream Video.)

Watch FB live stream video of the five candidates already running for DNC Chair address committee persons at the Texas State Democratic Executive Committee (SDEC) meeting on Saturday, December 17, 2016.

Click Here to watch Huffington Post's January 18th DNC candidate forum live stream video.

Guide to the Candidates (Information from candidates’ campaign websites.)

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BlogTalkUSA: Eyes Wide Open DemBlogTalk Inauguration Special

Join BlogTalkUSA.com "Eyes Wide Open DemBlogTalk" talk radio program cohosts, Rheana Nevitt Piegols and Michael Handley for an inauguration special program Friday evening at 9:00 PM CST. Together with Texas Young Democrats Kristi Lara and Kevin Numerick, Rheana and Michael will talk about Obama and Trump, Democrats going forward, and the GOP agenda to repeal Affordable Healthcare, gut Social Security, gut Medicare, gut Medicaid, scrap the Paris climate agreement, privatize public education, outlaw contraceptives, privatize our national parks and more...  We invite our listeners to call in and share their thoughts as we say goodbye to President Obama and look ahead to the GOP agenda.

Listen to BlogTalkUSA's special "Eyes Wide Open DemBlogTalk" program with Michael Handley and Rheana Nevitt Piegols at 9:00 PM CST, Friday, January 20th, by phone at (515) 605-9375. Press 1 to ask your question, make a comment, and share your thoughts!

Click this link to listen:
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/blogtalkusa/2017/01/21/eyes-wide-open-demblogtalk-inauguration-special

Download/subscribe to podcasts of our weekly "Eyes Wide Open - DemBlogTalk" program at iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/blogtalkusa/id968994409

Listen to BlogTalkUSA "Eyes Wide Open DemBlogTalk" with Michael Handley and Rheana Nevitt Piegols every Tuesday evening at 8:30 PM CST by phone at (515) 605-9375. Press 1 to ask your question, make a comment, and share your thoughts! Use this link to listen online: BlogTalkUSA.com.

Economics of the Affordable Care Act

Any effort to replace the Affordable Care Act will be confronted by the same structural imbalances in the health care economy that the legislation’s authors faced.

The Affordable Care Act (ACA), which President-elect Donald Trump and the Republican-controlled Congress have vowed to repeal, was crafted to overcome two basic problems in the provision of health care in the United States. First, the costs are incredibly skewed, with just 10 percent of patients accounting for almost two thirds of the nation’s healthcare spending. The other problem is asymmetric information: Patients have far more knowledge about the state of their own health than insurers do. This means that the people with the largest costs are the ones most likely to sign up for insurance. These two problems make it impossible to get to universal coverage under a purely market-based system.

The problem with the skewing of health care costs is that while most people’s health spending is relatively limited, it remains very expensive to provide care for the costliest 10 percent. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services projects that per capita spending on health care in the US will average $10,800 in 2017. But the cost for the most expensive 10 percent of patients will average $54,000 per person, compared to an average of just $6,000 for everyone else. The cost for the healthiest 50 percent of patients averages under $700 per person.

Covering the least costly 90 percent of patients is manageable, but the cost of covering the least healthy 10 percent is exorbitant. Very few people could afford to pay $54,000 a year for an individual insurance policy. Furthermore, if insurers were to set their premiums in accordance with overall averages, they could anticipate a skewed patient pool. The more healthy half of the population, with average costs of less than $700 a year, would either limit their insurance to catastrophic plans that only cover very expensive medical care, or go without insurance altogether.

Click here to read the rest of the story:

Majority Support Paris Climate Agreement

A Washington Post-ABC News poll found Americans, by a 56-31 margin, want the U.S. to stay in the pollution-cutting pact. Another poll found 61 percent, counter to Trump, want the EPA's powers strengthened or preserved.

Donald Trump prepares to take office this week with an overwhelming majority of Americans saying in a new poll they don’t want him to carry out his campaign pledge to “withdraw” the U.S. from the international Paris Climate Agreement.

Fifty-six percent oppose withdrawal from the agreement, which was endorsed by 195 nations in 2015 and aims to shift humanity’s production of energy sharply away from fossil fuels, according to the Washington Post-ABC News poll, published today.

Even Most Republican Voters Say Government Has Responsibility For Healthcare

For Democrats, public policy for using the federal government to make affordable health care available to American workers is an election winner! More than eight-in-ten Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents (85%) say the federal government should be responsible for health care coverage, compared with just 32% of Republicans and Republican leaners.

Democrats can win by promising American workers a Medicare-for-all "public option" health care coverage. As the debate continues over repeal of the Affordable Care Act and what might replace it, a growing share of Americans believe the federal government has a responsibility to make sure Americans have health care coverage, according to a new Pew Research Center survey.

AARP: GOP Plan To Convert Medicare From “Defined Benefit” To “Defined Contribution” Program

As news of Republican Speaker of the House Paul Ryan’s proposed conversion of Medicare from a “Defined Benefit” to a “Defined Contribution” program spreads, it is stirring fears among the 57 million beneficiaries who rely on it to cover prescription drugs, doctor visits and hospitalizations. Democrats and consumer groups, including AARP, have pledged their opposition Ryan's plan.

Ironically, Ryan is proposing to convert Medicare into the very system he is rushing to repeal — the Affordable Care Act (“ACA” or “Obamacare”) — but without its protections, such as the requirement that private insurers cover those with pre-existing conditions.

Ryan claims that the ACA must be killed quickly because “we have to bring relief as fast as possible to people who are struggling under Obamacare.” Out of one side of his mouth, he asserts that young, healthy Americans are struggling to buy private health insurance, even though the government provides them with subsidies to help with the cost and requires that they can’t be turned down because of pre-existing conditions. Out of the other side of his mouth, Ryan claims that seniors and people with disabilities will be just fine with a government provided subsidy in the form of a voucher, and no other protection!

In a special report, AARP details what the state of Medicare is today and provides what you need to know about the upcoming debate in Washington over the nation’s most important health care program:

A Battle Looms by Bill Walsh

Republicans Plan To Destroy Social Security and Medicare

Republicans are desperate to destroy Social Security and Medicare. These two programs demonstrate government at its best. The federal government runs these two extremely popular programs more efficiently, universally, securely, and effectively than the private sector does with its alternatives — or indeed could, no matter how well those private sector programs were designed. This is in direct conflict with their fanatically-held beliefs that the private sector should run everything.

Republicans will do whatever they can, quietly, secretly, to destroy Social Security and Medicare. Republicans want to avoid political accountability by destroying Social Security and Medicare without leaving clear fingerprints.

• Read more at Huffington Post: Republican Obsession With Dismantling Social Security And Medicare

When Republicans Repeal Affordable Healthcare

What happens when the Republican Party repeals the Affordable Care Act without enacting any kind of replacement? According to the Congressional Budget Office, the Republican-backed Restoring Americans’ Healthcare Freedom Reconciliation Act of 2015 — which passed a Senate vote in late 2015 but died due to President Obama’s veto — would drastically slash the number of Americans who have health insurance, while at the same time ensuring higher premiums and chaos in the insurance market.

Here are the CBO’s five biggest reasons the GOP’s repeal plan is a disaster for American health care:

1. 18 million Americans would lose their insurance in the span of a year. Under the bill passed by Republicans — which would keep insurance market reforms in place but would gut both the Medicaid expansion and subsidies for people to buy private insurance — an estimated 18 million people would lose their health insurance within just one year.
2. An additional 9 million would lose their insurance shortly after the first year of repeal. Once the elimination of both subsidies and expanded Medicaid happen, the number of people who lose their insurance thanks to the legislation will total 27 million. Over the long run, the CBO projects that the number of uninsured in the U.S. would increase by 32 million by 2026 over what it would have been without repealing the ACA.
3. Premiums on the individual market would skyrocket by 20% to 25% relative to where they’d be without repeal within a year. In part because the GOP plan still bars insurers from discriminating against people with preexisting conditions, insurance premiums on the individual market would increase by as much as 25% within a year of Obamacare repeal, as insurers would scramble to raise prices to cover the costs of insuring more sick people.
4. Premiums would then go up by 50% after the GOP eliminates the Medicaid expansion and private insurance subsidies. Once people who buy insurance individually lose access to subsidies to help them offset the costs, insurers will raise prices even higher — in fact, the CBO estimates that “premiums would about double by 2026” under the GOP’s bill.
5. Half the country would be stuck in an area where no insurers would offer them non-group coverage. As if the projected price increases for individual market buyers weren’t bad enough, the CBO also says that many insurers will simply pull out of individual markets in many places, as “about half of the nation’s population lives in areas that would have no insurer participating in the nongroup market in the first year after the repeal of the marketplace subsidies took place.”

Repealing Obamacare is a huge tax cut for the rich. This did not play a major overt public role in the 2009-’10 debate about the law, but the Affordable Care Act’s financing rests on a remarkably progressive base. That means, as the Tax Policy Center has shown, repealing it would shower money on a remarkably small number of remarkably wealthy Americans. Read more about the GOP's tax cut for the wealthiest 1 percent:

• Repealing Obamacare is a huge tax cut for the rich
• What Working Class Americans Lose When Trump Scraps Obamacare

Democratic Party Base Is Cell Phone Only

The most recent numbers on US wireless (cell phone) only households released in December show the inexorable rise of households without any landline telephone. The new report discloses that as of the first half of 2016, 49.3 percent of all U.S. households have no landline phone, an increase of 2 percent over the previous year, which is a statistically significant difference within this very large study. At 59.2 percent in 2015, the latest year individual state statistics are available, Texas has the highest cell phone only adoption rate of all 50 states.

Further, among households with both landline and cellular telephones, 16.3 percent received all or almost all calls on wireless telephones. Combined, 65.9 percent of American households are only or almost only reachable by calling a household member using their mobile cell phone number. At 75.8 percent, Texas has the highest prevalence of adults in wireless-only (59.2%) and wireless-mostly (16.6%) homes.

The Fight For DNC Chair

When they meet in late February, the 400-plus members of the Democratic National Committee will elect a new chair. They will signal whether or not the party will boldly begin to transform itself back into the party of New Deals and Great Societies sought by the new generation of Democrats. Those 400-plus voting members of the DNC must take stock of the need to strike a bold new direction to reverse the party's losses.

Democrats lost another net 43 seats in legislatures across the country in 2016, after previously losing 910 seats during Obama's administration. Republicans added to their historic 2014 gains in the nation’s state legislatures with the addition of five state House chambers and two state Senate chambers in 2016.

Republicans are now in control of a record 67 (68 percent) of the 98 partisan state legislative chambers in the nation, more than twice the number (31) in which Democrats have a majority, according to the bipartisan National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL). Republicans hold more total state legislative seats in the nation, well over 4,100 of the 7,383, than they have since 1920. Democrats now have total control of just 13 state legislatures.

Republicans gained 2 more states' governorships in 2016, after already gaining 12 over the last 8 years, increasing its total to 33, a record high last seen in 1922. Democrats had also lost 69 US House seats and 13 US Senate seats since 2009 and barely managed to stem further losses in 2016.

All that after Democrats had a 58-seat majority in the Senate, a 256 seat majority in the House, and held 28 governorships when Barack Obama took office in 2009. And Democrats face a more challenging election map in 2018 than they faced in 2016. Survival of the Democratic Party is literally on the line.

But the race for DNC chair has become a power struggle between Centrist and Progressive factions of the Democratic Party.

Climate Deniers In Control Of U.S. Government

2016 will officially be the hottest year on the books in more than 120 years of record keeping by U.S. agencies. It will be the third straight record-setting year — and of the 17 hottest years, 16 have been this century — a clear sign of the human-caused rise in global temperatures caused by the buildup of heat-trapping greenhouse gases over the past century.

From January to December, 2016 was marked by record-breaking high temperatures worldwide. Countries like Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, Botswana, India, Niger and Iraq experienced their hottest temperatures ever recorded. And heat waves, many of them deadly, charred parts of Britain, France, South Africa, the U.S. and regions like Southeast Asia.

• 2016 in Texas: 3rd warmest year, a slew of weather and climate disasters

The poles were not spared from the heat. In November, for instance, sea ice extent in the Arctic and Antarctic reached record lows. Scientists called it an “almost unprecedented” event at the time.

In the U.S., high temperatures were a feature throughout the year. Every month in 2016 had significantly more record high temperatures than record lows, according to a Climate Central report this week.

“The blistering pace of record-high temperatures across the country is the clearest sign of 2016’s extreme heat. Record-daily highs outpaced record-daily lows by 5.7-to-1 in 2016,” the nonprofit news organization wrote, citing preliminary data from the National Centers for Environmental Information. “That’s the largest ratio in 95 years of record keeping. Put another way, 85 percent of extreme temperature records set in 2016 were of the hot variety.”

The world is already more than halfway down the road to surpassing the Paris climate pact goal to limit warming to less than 2°C (3.6°F) by 2100

For the year-to-date, 2016 is 1.69°F (0.94°C) above the 20th century average, according to NOAA, and 1.84°F (1.02°C) above the 1951-1980 average according to NASA. Averaging NASA and NOAA’s data, 2016’s temperature through November is 1.23°C (2.21°F) above the average from 1881-1910. (One reason NOAA’s global temperature for November may have been lower than NASA’s is that it doesn’t incorporate Arctic temperatures.)

One major area of warmth during both November and the year as a whole was the Arctic. During November, the Arctic saw an almost unprecedented sea ice retreat, capping off a year that has shocked even seasoned Arctic researchers.

The winter sea ice peak was the lowest on record (beating out 2015) and the summer minimum was the second lowest. Air temperatures in the region have continually been above average by double digits. Another hotspot for November was North America; the contiguous U.S. is poised to have its second-hottest year on record.

These milestones have climate scientists and policymakers concerned as President-elect Trump fills his cabinet with policy makers who reject the established science of climate change. Only one major political party in the world denies climate change, and it's now in total control of the most important political body in the world, the US federal government.

What Working Class Americans Lose When Trump Scraps Obamacare

Republicans spent the last six years trying to repeal the Affordable Care Act (ACA), better known as Obamacare. Republicans have passed over 50 bills to repeal the ACA, since gaining control of the House in November 2010, but with Obama in the White House, those Republican Bills were nothing more than campaign rhetoric.

Republicans have warned their voters about the evils of Obamacare for years, calling it a job killer, and claiming it pushes health insurance premium costs sky high for everyone, among other evils. They promised to repeal it immediately if only their voters would vote to give them complete control of the federal government.

Republicans and Donald Trump promised voters their life would immediately improve once the healthcare law is repealed. Now they not only control the House and Senate, President-elect Donald Trump is set to take office, and the GOP may finally get its wish to repeal Obamacare.

Sarah Silverman Post-Election Interview With Bernie Sanders

Comedian Sarah Silverman talks with former Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders on the state of the union after November’s election results. The nearly hour-long conversation touched on a number of contentious topics as the Vermont senator tried to inspire activism and hope.

“You have the right to demand a lot of the world in which you live in,” Sanders told the audience. “Unless you stand up and make those demands, nobody hears you.” 

Watch the unusual but candid conversation between Sarah Silverman and Bernie Sanders on Trump, Standing Rock,  how powerful people control politics and much more.

Texas Democratic Party Refocusing For Party Building

By Michael McPhail, SDEC Committeeman - reposted from FaceBook

I attended the final quarterly meeting of the Texas Democratic Party’s State Democratic Executive Committee Saturday, December 17, 2016. In contrast to our last meeting, which had no committee sessions and no real work done, we had a full and robust committee schedule and an active general session.

BlogTalkUSA: Eyes Wide Open DemBlogTalk Post-Election '16

Three post-election editions of the BlogTalkUSA "Eyes Wide Open DemBlogTalk" talk radio program with cohosts Michael Handley and Rheana Nevitt Piegols worth a listen. First, we talk with Texas Young Democrats President Celia Morgan and other young Democrats leaders. Second, we talk with long time political activist from Fort Worth and 2014 Democratic candidate for the U.S. House, 12th Congressional District of Texas Mark Greene. Third, we talk with Chairman John Richie who chairs the Association of Texas Democratic Party County Chairs, and he is a Committeeman on the State Democratic Party Executive Committee. John is also the Wichita Falls Democratic Party County Chairman. In the three programs we discuss how the Texas Democratic Party moves forward from 2016 to prepare for the 2018 election cycle.

Running For Elected Office In 2018

The Tuesday, March 6th, 2018 Texas primary election to nominate candidates for the Tuesday, November 6th, 2018 general election is quickly approaching. All Republican and Democratic primary candidates must file an application with their respective party's county or state chairperson to have their name placed on the party's primary ballot.

The 2018 primary election filing period runs from Saturday, November 11, 2017 through the filing deadline date of Monday, December 11, 2017 at 6:00 PM. An application for the office of precinct chair may be filed from the 90th day before the date of the regular filing deadline - Tuesday, September 12, 2017. (Texas election code Sec. 172.023.)

It's My Earned Benefit, Not My "Entitlement"

By Rob Tornoe - You can find more of his work here.

Remember, not only did you contribute to Social Security but your employer did too. It totaled a percentage of your income before taxes. If you averaged only 30K over your 49 year working life, that’s close to $220,500.

If you calculate the future value of $4,500 per year (yours & your employer’s contribution) at a simple 5% (less than what the govt. pays on the money that it borrows), after 49 years of working you’d have $892,919.98.

If you took out only 3% per year, you would receive $26,787.60 per year and it would last better than 30 years, and that’s with no interest paid on that final amount on deposit! If you bought an annuity and it paid 4% per year, you’d have a lifetime income of $2,976.40 per month.

Who Will Chair The Democratic National Committee?

Democrats will elect a new Democratic National Committee Chairperson in 2017. The choice is to triple down on strategies of the past 25 years, verses a bold new vision for the future, as advocated by DNC chair candidate Rep. Keith Ellison.

The centrist 3rd way vision of the Democratic National Committee's past leadership, encapsulated by the tenure of Rep. Debbie Wasserman Shultz (D-Fla.) as DNC chair, led to Republicans gaining control of 71 of the nation’s 99 state legislative chambers and 14 governors' offices from the time Pres Obama took office through the 2016 election.

Democrats lost another net 43 seats in legislatures across the country in 2016, after previously loosing 910 seats during Obama's administration. Democrats now hold majorities in only 29 state legislative chambers. Republicans gained 2 more states' governorships in 2016, after already gaining 12 over the last 8 years, increasing its total to 33, a record high last seen in 1922.

Democrats had also lost 69 US House seats and 13 US Senate seats and barely managed to stem further losses in 2016. And now Democrats face a more challenging election map in 2018 than they faced in 2016. All that after Democrats had a 58-seat majority in the Senate, 256 seats in the House, and held 28 governorships when Barack Obama took office in 2009.

DMN Endorses Democratic Presidential Nominee, For The First Time Since WWII

In an editorial published today, the DMN Editorial Board said: "We recommend Hillary Clinton for president -- There is only one serious candidate on the presidential ballot in November. We recommend Hillary Clinton."

The editorial board had endorsed the Republican nominee in every presidential election dating back to World War II, except for the 1964 election when it remained neutral between Democratic President Texan native Lyndon B. Johnson and Republican challenger Barry Goldwater. While acknowledging its past issues with Clinton's handling of "certain issues," the editorial board contrasted her "experience in actual governance" to Trump. "Resume vs. resume, judgment vs. judgment, this election is no contest," the op-ed continued, making note of the host of Republican hands backing Clinton, including Jim Glassman, the founding director of the George W. Bush Institute in Dallas.

DMN: "We don't come to this decision easily. This newspaper has not recommended a Democrat for the nation's highest office since before World War II — if you're counting, that's more than 75 years and nearly 20 elections. The party's over-reliance on government and regulation to remedy the country's ills is at odds with our belief in private-sector ingenuity and innovation. Our values are more about individual liberty, free markets and a strong national defense."

Pronouncing Trump's values as "hostile to conservatism," the newspaper wrote that the Republican nominee "plays on fear — exploiting base instincts of xenophobia, racism and misogyny — to bring out the worst in all of us, rather than the best." In a separate editorial the DMN editorial board pronounced, "Donald Trump is not qualified to serve as president and does not deserve your vote."

"Hillary Clinton has spent years in the trenches doing the hard work needed to prepare herself to lead our nation," the editorial board concludes. "In this race, at this time, she deserves your vote."

Next President Will Define U.S. Supreme Court to 2040

Supreme Court justices, federal court of appeals judges, and federal district court judges are nominated by the President and confirmed by the United States Senate, as required in the U.S. Constitution. The next president we elect could very well appoint four to five Supreme Court Justices and many dozens of federal court judges.

SCOTUS Says No To Targeted Regulation of Abortion Providers (TRAP) Laws

In a 5-3 ruling on Whole Woman's Health v. Hellerstedt, the Supreme Court strikes down Texas' House Bill 2 (HB2) abortion regulation law, finding it places an "undue burden" on women's constitution right to make their own reproductive health care decisions.

This case challenged the constitutionality of two provisions of the HB2 law regulating abortion in Texas. One provision requires doctors who perform abortions to have privileges to admit patients to a local hospital; the other requires abortion clinics to have facilities that are comparable to outpatient surgical centers. Inside the courtroom, lawyers for the state of Texas' tell the judges HB2 provisions are constitutional because they are intended to protect women’s health. Outside the courtroom, state leaders like Texas Governor Greg Abbott have admitted that the law is intended to limit abortion as much as possible.

BlogTalkUSA: The Next Generation of Texas Voters

On our Tuesday evening BlogTalkUSA.com program "Eyes Wide Open - Dem Blog Talk," this week, my co-host Rheana Nevitt Piegols and I talked with Celia Morgan, President of the Texas Young Democrats organization and Vice-Chair of the Young Democrats of America Labor Caucus.

We talked with Celia about the Texas Young Democrats caucus at the Texas State Democratic Convention last week, the growing Texas Young Democrats engagement in the political process, and Celia's election to be a delegate for Bernie Sanders at Democratic National Convention.

Click to listen to our podcast:


Listen or download - MP3

Discriminatory Texas Photo Voter ID Law Remains In Effect

Updated March 9, 2016

The full U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals agreed to take up the Texas voter ID case Wednesday, further drawing out the law’s years long review by the federal court system on whether it violates the rights of certain voters. Multiple federal courts have already ruled the law has the intent and effect of violating voters' rights, but it remains alive under repeated appeals by the state of Texas.

The 5th Circuit's decision to hear the case, Veasey v. Abbott, en banc comes more than six months after Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton asked the full court to review a 5th circuit three-judge panel's ruling that the law has a “discriminatory effect” that violates the Voting Rights Act. Many believe the 5th Circuit, which has the most conservative judges of any US circuit court, will reverse the ruling of its three judge panel. Either way, the en banc decision will be appealed to SCOTUS. It's my opinion the appeals process will continue well beyond the November election this year, which means the ID law will remain in effect for the presidential general election. For the history of the law's journey through the federal court system, follow the link.

Publish Date September 24, 2015

Despite being found discriminatory and unconstitutional three times by three federal courts, Texas' SB14 photo voter ID law remains in effect, pending ongoing appeals by the state of Texas.

On Wednesday August 5, 2015, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans unanimously agreed with U.S. Southern District Court Judge Nelva Gonzales Ramos' October 2014 finding that Texas’ SB14 photo voter ID law has a discriminatory effect on black and Latino voters, and therefore violates section 2 of the 1965 Voting Rights Act.

Judge Ramos struck down Texas' voter photo I.D. law with a 147-page finding issued on October 9, 2014, but the ruling was stayed pending state of Texas' appeal to the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. A Fifth Circuit three-judge panel heard the appeal on April 28, 2015.

In its decision on August 5th,  the three-judge Fifth Circuit panel remanded the case back to the U.S. Southern District Court ordering Judge Ramos to fashion a specific legal remedy that recognizes legislators declared interest to prevent voter fraud in passing the SB14 law.

In other words, rather than just throw out the entire SB14 law, the Fifth Circuit told Judge Ramos to amend the language of the SB14 law to remedy its discriminatory effect.  Such a remedy, for example, could be to reinstate the acceptance at the polls of certain additional forms of identification, such as the Voter Registration Card, that is issued to every registered voter.

Supreme Court To Hear Texas Abortion Case

Updated Monday, February 29, 2016 @ 8:00 PM

The Supreme Court this week will hear arguments in the Whole Women’s Health v. Hellerstedt case, which challenges the 2013 House Bill 2 Texas law threatening to close 13 of the 20 women's health care clinics that remain open in Texas. In addition to other reproductive health care services, those clinics provide abortions in the state.

This case challenges the constitutionality of two provisions of the HB2 law regulating abortion in Texas. One provision requires doctors who perform abortions to have privileges to admit patients to a local hospital; the other requires abortion clinics to have facilities that are comparable to outpatient surgical centers. Inside the courtroom, lawyers for the state of Texas' tell the judges HB2 provisions are constitutional because they are intended to protect women’s health. Outside the courtroom, state leaders like Texas Governor Greg Abbott have admitted that the law is intended to limit abortion as much as possible.

Last June, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit overturned a federal district judge's October 2013 ruling that HB2 violates the constitutional rights of women who seek an abortion as one of their reproductive health care options. The Fifth Circuit's ruling would have allowed the state to immediately enforce all provisions of HB2.

Immediately following that Fifth Circuit ruling, the Supreme Court granted plaintiff's petition asking the high court to temporarily blocked that appellate court's ruling, and Texas' enforcement of the HB2 law, pending appeal.  The plaintiffs argue the law offers little to no medical benefits to women and that the real intent of the law is to close clinics and limit women’s access to abortions.

The Fifth Circuit gave a sweeping 56 page endorsement of Targeted Regulation of Abortion Providers (TRAP) law legislation anti-abortion lawmakers in Texas and other states have adopted in recent years to make abortion unavailable.

Original Post Date June 29, 2015

In a 5-4 order, the Supreme Court today temporarily blocked a ruling from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit that was set to close all but nine abortion clinics in Texas by July 1. All 20 abortion clinics open in Texas today will be able to remain open as a result of this temporary order. The Chief Justice, Justice Scalia, Justice Thomas, and Justice Alito opposed the application, according to the Supreme Court's order about the case, Whole Woman's Health, et al. v. Cole, Comm'r, TX DHS, et al.

Collin County 2016 Primary Early Voting Turnout

A total of 74,502 Dem and Rep primary ballots were cast early in Collin Co. through Friday, Feb 26th. Voter traffic on Friday was the heaviest to date with 22,334 ballots cast at early voting centers across the county. The ratio of Early to Election Day turnout will likely be about 50/50, so we will likely see about 75k total votes cast in Collin Co. Texas on Super Tuesday, for a grand total of 150,000 Dem and Rep primary ballots cast. That is well above the official turnout planning estimate of 100,000.

The 2016 cumulative early voting total of 74,502 in-person ballots cast through Friday compares to prior primary year full 11 day early voting totals of:

• 2014 R+D = 30,263
• 2012 R+D = 28,288
• 2008 R+D = 59,033 (Rep: 23,368 - Dem: 35,665)

Of the 74,502 2016 primary in-person votes cast, 16,578 (22.4%) were Democratic Party ballots, and 57,471 (77.6%) were Republican ballots.

Age Group	VAP	Reg Voters	% VAP  Reg	Total Voted	Voted Dem	% Dem	Voted Rep	% Rep
18-19	25,548	15,453	60%	1,133	464	0.62%	669	0.90%
20-24	50,490	37,243	74%	1,831	860	1.16%	971	1.31%
25-29	48,949	33,748	69%	1,646	698	0.94%	948	1.27%
30-34	65,262	37,971	58%	2,592	912	1.23%	1,680	2.26%
35-39	74,045	45,119	61%	3,468	1,073	1.44%	2,395	3.22%
40-44	80,977	54,029	67%	5,202	1,362	1.83%	3,840	5.16%
45-49	72,580	57,287	79%	6,897	1,554	2.09%	5,343	7.18%
50-54	67,865	54,993	81%	8,615	1,733	2.33%	6,882	9.25%
55-59	53,330	47,295	89%	9,050	1,853	2.49%	7,197	9.67%
60-64	40,856	36,857	90%	9,331	1,966	2.64%	7,365	9.90%
65-69	33,312	31,193	94%	9,602	1,844	2.48%	7,758	10.43%
70-74	21,918	21,392	98%	7,454	1,190	1.60%	6,264	8.42%
75-79	13,834	12,976	94%	4,344	602	0.81%	3,742	5.03%
80-84	8,743	7,694	88%	2,089	265	0.36%	1,824	2.45%
85+	8,341	6,981	84%	1,137	157	0.21%	980	1.32%
All	666,050	500,231	75%	74,391	16,533	22.22%	57,858	77.78%

Out of 500k currently registered voters, 47,907 have voted only in a prior Democratic Party primary, and 79,185 have voted in a prior Republican primary.

This year, 6,859 first time primary voters voted in the Democratic primary and 18,813 first time primary voters voted in the Republican primary.

Of the 47,907 who have voted only in a prior Democratic primary, 7,977 voted early in the 2016 primary. Of the 79,185 who have voted only in a prior Republican primary, 31,795 turned out early in 2016.

Crossover party voting was minimal with 484 prior Republican only voters voting in the Democratic primary, and 2,535 Democrats only voting in the Republican primary.

Of the 11,943 prior swing party primary voters, 4,712 voted Republican and 1,213 voted Democratic Party ballots this year.

Collin County 2016 primary turnout at early voting locations through Friday Feb 26th.

SITE	Total	Dem	% Dem	Rep	% Rep
Allen Municipal Complex EV501	7,571	1,587	21%	5,984	79%
Carpenter Park Recreation Ctr EV601	4,789	1,330	28%	3,459	72%
Maribelle M. Davis Library EV200	3,931	1,157	29%	2,774	71%
John & Judy Gay Library EV212	6,081	1,141	19%	4,940	81%
Renner-Frankford Library EV074	4,136	1,118	27%	3,018	73%
Haggard Library EV164	3,367	946	28%	2,421	72%
CC Preston Ridge Campus EV117	4,129	942	23%	3,187	77%
CC Spring Creek Campus EV050	2,282	931	41%	1,351	59%
Harrington Library EV602	3,145	903	29%	2,242	71%
PISD Admin Blvd. EV603	3,599	758	21%	2,841	79%
Rita & Truett Smith Library EV222	3,637	705	19%	2,932	81%
Collin County Elections EV504	3,771	670	18%	3,101	82%
Christ UMC EV211	3,143	655	21%	2,488	79%
Murphy Community Ctr. EV252	2,595	634	24%	1,961	76%
Parr Library EV109	3,221	615	19%	2,606	81%
CC McKinney Campus EV043	1,647	381	23%	1,266	77%
Fire Station #7 EV172	1,920	351	18%	1,569	82%
Methodist Richardson Med. EV251	1,212	335	28%	877	72%
Frisco Senior Center EV194	1,424	306	21%	1,118	79%
Collin Center Higher Edu. EV202	1,142	219	19%	923	81%
Lovejoy ISD-Spurgin Admin EV174	1,483	167	11%	1,316	89%
Texas Star Bank EV165	1,076	161	15%	915	85%
Prosper Municipal Chambers EV215	1,289	119	9%	1,170	91%
Princeton City Hall EV214	831	98	12%	733	88%
Parker City Hall EV176	670	92	14%	578	86%
Lavon City Hall EV213	621	83	13%	538	87%
Old Settlers Rec. Center EV516	341	81	24%	260	76%
Celina ISD Admin Building EV721	772	67	9%	705	91%
Lucas Community Ctr. EV041	656	56	9%	600	91%
Farmersville City Hall EV011	224	26	12%	198	88%
Total	74,049	16,578	22%	57,471	78%

Early primary turnout on Friday 2/26 for the top few EV voting centers:

SITE	Total	Dem	Dem %	Rep	Rep %
Allen Municipal Complex EV501	2,037	413	20%	1,624	80%
Carpenter Park Recreation Ctr EV601	1,413	363	26%	1,050	74%
Renner-Frankford Library EV074	1,089	299	27%	790	73%
John & Judy Gay Library EV212	1,697	276	16%	1,421	84%
Maribelle M. Davis Library EV200	1,132	272	24%	860	76%
CC Spring Creek Campus EV050	691	266	38%	425	62%
Murphy Community Ctr. EV252	922	259	28%	663	72%
PISD Admin Blvd. EV603	1,152	251	22%	901	78%
Harrington Library EV602	837	251	30%	586	70%
Haggard Library EV164	835	227	27%	608	73%
CC Preston Ridge Campus EV117	1,117	221	20%	896	80%
Rita & Truett Smith Library EV222	1,093	202	18%	891	82%
Parr Library EV109	1,069	187	17%	882	83%
Christ UMC EV211	1,091	172	16%	919	84%
Collin County Elections EV504	889	151	17%	738	83%
Fire Station #7 EV172	661	135	20%	526	80%
Frisco Senior Center EV194	559	121	22%	438	78%
Methodist Richardson Med. EV251	397	113	28%	284	72%
CC McKinney Campus EV043	522	96	18%	426	82%
Collin Center Higher Edu. EV202	378	65	17%	313	83%
Texas Star Bank EV165	366	60	16%	306	84%
Lovejoy ISD-Spurgin Admin EV174	499	56	11%	443	89%
Prosper Municipal Chambers EV215	472	38	8%	434	92%
Princeton City Hall EV214	286	31	11%	255	89%
Parker City Hall EV176	235	31	13%	204	87%
Old Settlers Rec. Center EV516	121	28	23%	93	77%
Lucas Community Ctr. EV041	323	24	7%	299	93%
Lavon City Hall EV213	206	23	11%	183	89%
Celina ISD Admin Building EV721	255	13	5%	242	95%
Total	22,021	4,620	21%	17,401	79%